In Salonika he withdrew the cloud of darkness into a large bladder and corked it so that it would be ready if he wanted to use it again. Then he went to the central agora and inquired for the washerwoman on the Main Baths. A fish merchant pointed the way. Zeus went past the ruined coliseum and the decayed horseracing ground, and there she was — a careworn old lady with her large tortoise shell that washerwomen used for wash buckets.
The pythoness had to take a disguise and do her prophesying in secret because the Church didn't allow pythonesses to continue in their familiar trade. Even owning a constrictor-type snake was against the law as "tending toward forbidden magical practices in the old outlawed style." But this pythoness still did private readings for friends and certain disaffected aristocrats.
Zeus went to her well wrapped in a cloak, but she recognized him at once.
"I need a reading," he told her.
"Oh, this is the finest day in my life," the pythoness said. "To think that I would ever meet one of the old gods face to face… Oh, just tell me what I can do for you."
"I want you to go into your trance and find out where I can get an army."
"Yes, sir. But since your son Phoebus is the god of prophecy, why don't you just ask him yourself?"
"I don't want to ask Phoebus or anybody like that," Zeus said. "I don't trust them. Surely there are other gods you ask questions of, not just us Olympians? What about that Jewish fellow who was around when I was?"
"Jehovah has gone through some interesting changes. But he's not available for prophesy. He left strict orders not to be disturbed."
"There are others, aren't there?"
"There are, of course, but I don't know if it's a good idea to bother them with questions. They're not like you, Zeus, a god anyone can talk with. They're mean and they're strange."
"I don't care," Zeus said. "Ask them. If a god can't ask another god for a little advice, I don't know what the universe is coming to."
The pythoness took Kim to her chamber, lit the sacred laurel leaves, and piled on the sacred hemp. She took a few other sacred things and strewed them about, got her snake out of its wicker basket and wrapped it around her shoulders, and went into her trance.
Her eyes soon rolled back into her head, and she said, in a voice Zeus could not recognize but which set the hair on the back of his neck to rise, "O Zeus, go check out the Mongol peoples."
"Is there anything else?" Zeus asked.
The pythoness said, "End of message." And then she fainted.
After she had recovered, Zeus asked her, "I thought oracular answers were usually couched in strange and ambiguous terms. This one just came out and said what I was to do in a flat and straightforward manner. Has there been some change in operating procedure?"
"I believe," the pythoness said, "there's a general dissatisfaction in high circles with ambiguity. It wasn't getting anyone anywhere."
Zeus left Salonika wrapped again in his cloud of darkness, and turned to the northeast.
Chapter 5
Zeus visited the Mongols, who had recently conquered the southern Chinese empire. Viewing themselves as invincible, they were ripe to listen when Zeus came riding in.
Zeus found the Mongol chief at his headquarters.
"You and your men have done a fine thing, conquering this vast country, but now you lie around doing nothing. You are a people in search of a purpose, and I am a god in search of a people. What if we put our needs together and come up with something that will be good for us both?"
"You may be a god," Jagotai said, "but you're not our god. Why should I listen to you?"
"Because I'm offering to become your god," Zeus said. "I've about had it with the Greeks. An interesting and inventive people, but disappointing to a god who was only trying to bring them good things."
"What do you offer us?"
It soon came to pass that Mongol outriders, holding high their yak-tail banners, came riding hard through the Carpathian passes onto the flat plains of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and riding through time into the sixteenth century. Zeus had to use all his powers to pull it off. It would have been easy to time-and-place-transport them directly, but it would have spooked the horses.
Whole families took themselves to horse, or to donkeys, or to oxcarts. The vast majority put what they could carry on their shoulders and streamed out in search of a place of refuge far from their pursuers, the flat-faced fiends with narrow black mustaches. Some people in their flight went to Milan, some to Ravenna. But for the most part, the refugees made for Venice, a city believed to be secure from invasion behind its marshes and lagoons.
Chapter 6
The Mongols were coming, and extraordinary measures were decreed to protect Venice. The Doge called a special session of the Council and laid certain proposals before it. It was agreed that the main bridges into the city proper should be cut; after that, the Venetians would raid the shores that surrounded them, confiscating all boats in the vicinity capable of carrying ten or more soldiers. These boats were to be taken up to the city itself, or sunk if they proved too heavy to carry away.
The problems of defense were rendered all the more complicated by a serious shortage of provisions.
Normally, a constant stream of foodstuffs arrived daily on ships sailing from ports all over southeastern Europe and the Near East. But the recent storms had whipped the Mediterranean into a frenzy and put a halt to seaborne commerce. The city was already on short rations, and conditions promised to get worse.
The Venetians also faced a threat of widespread fires. People were trying to keep dry and warm, and they were often careless while lighting their stoves; the number of destructive fires in the city was greater than anyone had ever known before. Inevitably, there was talk that some had been set purposely, by agents of Venice's enemies; citizens were ordered to keep a close watch on strangers and to suspect the presence of spies in their midst at all times.
The rain came down in an incessant chatter that was like moist wind gods talking to each other with loose windows for tongues. Droplets dribbled off mantels and cornices and anything else that ended in a point.
The wind drove the rain and broke big drops into little drops.
The water level rose steadily throughout Venice. Water overflowed the canals and flooded out into the squares and piazzas. It filled San Marco's Square to a depth of three feet, and it continued to rise. It was not the first time Venice had been bothered by rain and floods, but this was by far the worst anyone had seen.
Strong winds out of the northeast, laden with Arctic frost, blew steadily for days, and showed no signs of letting up. The republic's chief weather forecaster resigned his well-paid hereditary post, so distasteful had his work of predicting disaster become to him. People were praying to saints, devils, effigies, whatever they could think of, hoping to get some relief. Just to make matters worse, plague had been reported in some parts. And there were claims that Mongol outriders had been seen just a day's ride away, and there was no telling how quickly they were advancing.
The Venetians were exhausted by their constant worries, frightened by the huge forces shaping up outside of the republic, and suspicious even of each other. The usual ceremonies in honor of certain saints had fallen into abeyance. Churches were taken up day and night with prayers for the salvation of the city, and with anathemas delivered against the Mongols. Church bells tolled incessantly. This in turn spurred an air of desperate gaiety.
It was a brilliant season of parties, masked balls, and fetes. Carnival reigned constantly, and never had Venice shown herself to greater advantage. Despite the storms, candles gleamed brightly in the mansions of the rich, and music could be heard up and down the canals. People hurried through the rainswept streets in cloak and half mask, on their way from one parry to the next. It was as if one last fling was all that remained for the proud old city.