“So it’s the work of the Oracle? This master spy here in the citadel who passed secrets to the Thebans?”
Miriam scratched the side of her head. “I think so. But there’s the rub. There’s no secret entrance or passageway here. The citadel is built on a rock. It would be a hard nut to crack. I suspect Alexander will have some trouble destroying it.” She held out her hands. “On the one hand, we have Memnon babbling about the shade of Oedipus within the citadel. On the other, we have two of his officers claiming they saw the same specter beyond the walls. The obvious conclusion, the force of logic, as Aristotle would put it, indicates this must be a ghost. How else can he move through thick brick walls and heavily guarded gates? Or wander around the camp at the dead of night and kill Macedonian veterans?”
“But you don’t believe in ghosts?” Simeon grinned.
“No, I don’t. I would like to know why the same specter trapped me in this chamber last night? Above all, I would like to know why dear old Memnon, who had about as much imagination as his dog and twice as much courage, should dress in full battle gear, clasp his sword around him, and throw himself out of this tower at the dead of night. Just think, Simeon.” She pointed to the door. “No one could come through there.” She banged her foot on the hard ground. “Or through the floor, or the roof, the walls while the window, well, we’ve reflected on that.” She glanced at Simeon. “Old Memnon would have drawn his sword. Hercules would have launched an attack. They would have heard the outcry in Thebes. I wish Aristotle were here,” she added. She got to her feet and raised her hand languidly.
“My dear,” she mimicked the foppish but brilliant philosopher, “it’s all a matter of logic.” She minced up and down, one hand on her hip. Simeon laughed.
“Don’t laugh, Simeon. You only show your stupidity! This is the problem. You can’t find a solution,” her voice became even more languid, “because you are looking at it, my dear boy, the wrong way.” Miriam relaxed and clapped her hands together.
“And then there’s the Crown,” Simeon said impishly. “All the camp knows about Alexander’s outburst last night. How he nearly pinned Niarchos with a spear, how you intervened and said there was a way.” He rubbed his stomach. “Is there one, dear sister? Alexander was bleary-eyed this morning, but he was all full of it: ‘Miriam will have an answer,’ he declared.”
“And I can imagine what his companions said.”
“Oh yes, they all began to chant: ‘Miriam will have an answer! Miriam will have an answer!’ Niarchos has already laid a wager with Perdiccas that you have got nothing of the sort; Perdiccas has accepted it.”
Miriam went and looked out the window. Two soldiers were emptying the stores and placing them on a cart. She could hear their laughter on the breeze. She recalled the shrine of Oedipus, the Iron Crown resting in the clasps on the stone pillar, the bed of fiery charcoal, the spikes, and the dark shadowy pit where serpents writhed.
“Do you have any ideas, brother? You are always the more practical one?”
“There must be a way. The high priestess removes the Crown at certain times. We could bribe her?”
“Not someone like Jocasta,” Miriam declared. “She’s the sort who would rather die than give up her secrets. She is full of the mysteries, proud of what she guards.”
“What about a long pole?” Simeon offered.
“It would have to be a very long one,” Miriam countered, “but go on.”
“You’d stretch it across, knock down the iron clasps, loop the Crown and pull it up toward you.”
“It would have to be a very long pole,” Miriam repeated. “And I don’t think it could be done. I can’t see how the clasps are pulled loose.”
“Well, it might be possible. Why don’t we try?” Simeon asked. “And what about those grappling hooks?” he added. “You know, the sort sailors use when they try to come to grips with an enemy ship?”
“No. It would be like taking a hammer to smash a nut. Go down to the stores, Simeon. See if you can find one of those long sarissas the phalanx men carry. Let us visit our reverend Jocasta.”
Miriam found it strange to leave the destruction of Thebes and enter the cool olive grove around the shrine. The sweet scent of leaves, the bittersweet tang of their fruit brought back memories of the groves around Pella, the Macedonian capital. The shrine itself was deserted. Three soldiers and their officer were squatting on the steps. The officer rose as Miriam and Simeon approached; he watched in amusement Simeon’s difficulty with carrying the long spear.
“It takes years of practice,” he declared, coming down the steps. “Put it down, man, you’ll do someone an injury.”
Simeon dropped it gratefully on the white chalk path. The soldier loosened his neck cloth and wiped the sweat off this throat.
“Before you begin mistress, I know who you are.” He gestured toward the door and tapped the great bronze key that hung on his belt. “You can’t go in.”
“On the king’s orders?”
“Mistress, the king’s orders are quite explicit. I am to allow no one in unless they are accompanied by the priestess. I and three lads are on guard outside; the other two are in the shrine itself. We take turns.” He hawked and spat. “I’m glad to be out here. Have you heard the stories?”
“We’ve heard them,” Miriam declared. “What do you mean about two being inside?”
“Well, we are here,” the officer explained. “I have the key to the vestibule. Beyond the bronze doors are two of my lads; they have locked themselves in the shrine. I did the dawn watch this morning. It’s a sinister, eerie place, that charcoal glowing in the middle of the floor, the spikes like dragons’ teeth coming to bloom. I thought the snakes were simply a bluff but I saw three, long and slimy, slithering out.”
“And the priestess Jocasta?” Miriam asked.
“She comes down here as do the others, with faces painted, eyes darkened.”
“Where do they live?” Miriam asked.
The captain pointed to his left. “The grove runs deep; follow the path round. They have a house there.”
Miriam thanked him and followed his directions. The path snaked between the trees and brought them into a large glade or clearing. At the far end was a typical family house: red-tiled roof, white walls with a small courtyard in front, bound by a wooden palisade. The gate was open. Miriam glimpsed chickens and a goat tethered to a post. The courtyard was empty as she entered. In the middle was a shrine to some unknown god and beneath it a large tank to collect and store rainwater. The small porter lodge was empty, but smoke curled up from a hole in the roof at the back. Miriam smelled cooking odors, cheese and spices that made her mouth water. She looked around.
“Not even a guard dog,” she muttered.
Jocasta appeared in the doorway. The old priestess’s face was clean of paint and she had hurriedly pulled a hood across her balding head. She glanced at the sarissa or lance that Simeon carried, and her age-seamed face crinkled into a smile.
“I can guess why you are here,” she called out. “Do come over. You, young man, I think you had better leave the lance outside; you might do yourself or someone else a damage.”
She led them into the main room of the house. The floor was tiled in black and white, a small brazier had been lit; there were tables, a couch, chairs, and some Samian earthenware pots along the wall.
“My sisters are in the kitchen or in their chambers above.” She saw that Miriam was distracted by the beautiful piece of linen pinned to the wall just inside the door: hoplites surrounded a king in his chariot who was talking to a dark-haired man whose right foot was bandaged and whose left hand held a club.
“That’s Oedipus,” she explained, “meeting his father, Laius-a simple accident that led to murder.”
Miriam stared at the painting. The Oedipus depicted here was not frightening: a young man, his black hair curled and oiled.
“I did that,” Jocasta spoke up, “when I was young, but now my eyes fade. I cannot execute the stitches as well as I should. Sit down! Sit down!”