Dionysia
I don’t remember much of the journey back to Delphi. I went to a place I hadn’t been for a long time, a place inside myself that was like a nest in a tree or on a cliff, high above everything and everyone. Down in the real world, I put on and took off disguises, I talked to sea captains and innkeepers and other spies in Delphi’s network, made excuses for why Phemonoe wasn’t with me, ate, slept. I drank wine, more than I probably should have. I even slept with someone at the inn in Thermopylae: at least, I woke up with a body under the blanket in the bed beside me. I didn’t stay long enough to figure out who it was or what had happened between us. It was like I was watching myself do all of this from high above myself: I could see it happening, but I couldn’t feel anything. It was like watching someone else.
But when I got to Delphi, everything became clear, honed to an arrow’s point. I went straight to the Pythia and told her that Phemonoe had betrayed Apollo, that she had gone over to this cult of Christians of her own will and would not leave them. The Pythia was as shocked as I had been. At first, of course, she refused to accept it. I had just misunderstood: surely, Phemonoe was infiltrating the Christians to destroy them from the inside. Any day she would send a secret message through our network…. But the days came and went with no word, and summer wore on.
The other Hosioi, I could tell, initially distrusted my news as much as the Pythia had. Rhea, always the closest to Phemonoe among them, called me a liar to my face one night in a drunken tantrum at the fire, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. But their confidence waned as the weeks went by and Phemonoe did not return. The Pythia refused to name another captain, so Discipline eroded. Melissa played dirges on her harp and drank. Rhea just drank. I don’t know where Iris got to. I couldn’t get anyone but Nyx to go and work out at the gymnasium with me, and I pretty quickly stopped asking her because she would just beat the shit out of me. Gemma made earnest attempts to get everyone to play games in the atrium or sing songs, but everyone ignored her. It was a mercy from Apollo, I thought, that we had a lull in missions during this season because I couldn’t imagine we would have managed even to bring a stray donkey home if we were tasked with it.
When I attended the Pythia in Phemonoe’s place on her day of consultation at the end of the summer, I took advantage of a moment alone with her in the adyton, as I helped her down from the tripod after the last petitioner had left and the prophetae with them. She leaned on me heavily, woozy and tired from her long day in the god’s thrall.
“My lady,” I said. “It has been two full moons with no word from Phemonoe. The Hosioi are in disarray. Worse, I dread that Phemonoe may be giving out cult secrets to the Christians. They are growing in number everywhere rapidly, even in Athens. I have heard that in some cities they add as many as 3,000 to their cult in a day. They are drawing worshippers away from the righteous cults, even from our lord Apollo. You know as well as I do that our votive offerings are dwindling. If it goes on in this way, I fear the Romans will come and raid the oracle again as they did in Sulla’s time.” The Pythia said nothing, but she sighed, and I felt her trembling a little as I wrapped her in her tablos. I dared to let one of my arms linger around her shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze. “I love Phemonoe more than anyone but you,” I whispered in her ear. “But I think we both know what must be done. For the good of the oracle.”
There was a long pause. The Pythia stiffened under my arm. My heart thudded in my ear. I wondered if I had gone too far, if the next thing the oracle would pronounce would be my death sentence. But then I felt her nod. I stepped back and went down on one knee before her.
“Akoúo kai ypakoúo.” I paused. “But, my lady, for a lowly Hosios such as me to carry out such a weighty and dreadful mission…. I fear the other Hosioi will revolt against it, and against you, unless….”
The Pythia sighed once more, heavily, a sigh as dark and cold as the gasses welling up from the cleft below us, where the dead Python lay. “I hereby appoint you captain of the Hosioi, Dionysia. Go, do as you must do.” She held out a trembling hand to me. “But first help me back to my couch, child. I am more weary and sorrowful than a pilgrim to Hades’s kingdom.”
I didn’t take any of the Hosioi with me to hunt Phemonoe down; I didn’t even tell them of the Pythia’s secret command. I just told them she had sent me on a mission to Thermopylae and I would be back before winter. In the meantime, I sent word and a purse of gold to Dodona. Lycas and another Pelios I hadn’t met before, a swarthy, short Etruscan named Calu, met me at Thermopylae a week later. It didn’t take too long asking around at the docks and in the canteens, buying mugs of wine for captains just in port from the northern coasts, to learn that the Christian heretic Paulos had made it as far as Thessaly with his heathen band, spreading chaos like a plague everywhere they went. We set sail the next morning for Thessalonika.
On board, I couldn’t sleep. Everytime I tried to close my eyes, I had a dream about Noe. They were either memories–of her standing over me with that bloody votive statue, or of her laughing and tousling my hair in the gymnasium–or they were visions of her walking ahead of me in a autumn vineyard, her unruly hair a golden cloud around her head. As our sea journey went on, I became exhausted, nearly delirious. I snapped at Lycas and spent my hours, day and night, at the railing staring at the heaving blue-black water, as if at any moment it might toss up an answer, a solution, a way out of this trap I had wandered into. That I had set for myself. But the only thing that arrived were the hills of Thessaly, swimming up white out of the sea. And then there was no choice left to me but to go ashore, find my best friend in the whole world, and put a dagger in her heart.
The Rookery 