At last a small path began to form through the pit, the soldiers banking up the charcoal on either side. Miriam ordered a shield placed on each side of the banked charcoal, another one in between. She walked tentatively across the makeshift bridge and felt the blast of heat. At last she reached the edge where the iron spikes jutted up from the marble floor. She quickly looked over. One glance was enough: a host of snakes writhed there! She hurriedly went back, climbing over the black guard pole.
“Full of snakes,” she declared.
“Then how was it done?” Alexander exclaimed. “What, it must be over two yards across the charcoal; the spikes and snake pit cover another four.
“How was it done?” he repeated.
Miriam was mystified. No one could have crossed those pits, not unless they had wings. Alexander crouched beside her, Olympias behind him, eager to catch every word. Simeon went out to help Perdiccas with the corpses on the temple steps.
“Here we have a shrine,” Alexander began. “Its walls and floor are of marble. The Crown could not be reached by any secret tunnel or passageway. There’s certainly no way to cross, what, about six yards of dangerous pit? And no one could stretch over it with a pole or a lance.”
“I thought of that myself,” Miriam murmured.
“No one could fashion a bridge,” Alexander continued. “But that’s only the beginning of the mystery. I have four of my best guards outside, their brains smashed in. They didn’t even have a chance to draw their swords or offer any resistance. Think of that, Miriam.”
Miriam closed her eyes. She thought of the soldiers squatting out on the steps. How could anyone approach and kill them in such a barbaric fashion without the alarm being raised?
“The officer carried a horn.”
Alexander nodded. “If any war party, anything strange occurred, he was under strict orders to sound the alarm, but he didn’t.”
“So they are killed,” Miriam continued. “We don’t know whether their attacker took the keys, but he opens the doors and enters the shrine. Inside, two more soldiers are waiting. They are veteran guardsmen. Yet they, too, die in the same barbaric way. The intruder, or intruders,” she added, “then manage to cross the charcoal and the serpent pit, release the clasps, take the Crown, and walk back through locked doors. . The beggar man claimed he saw Oedipus.”
“He must have,” Olympias whispered. “Oedipus has come back to his city!”
CHAPTER 8
“That is nonsense!” Alexander exclaimed. “Oedipus is dead!” He sighed. “But I agree, ‘I learn in sorrow upon my head the gods have rendered this terrible punishment they have struck me down and trod my gladness under foot.’”
“‘Such is the bitter affliction of mortal man.’” Olympias finished the quotation from Sophocles.
“It’s strange,” Miriam interrupted. Both the Queen and her son glanced at her.
“What is it?” Olympias snapped.
“Here we are, in a devastated Thebes,” Miriam continued. “And what is happening? Echoes of Sophocles’ play.”
“Explain,” Alexander insisted.
“Well, the city was founded by the hero Cadmus, whom misfortune had befallen even before the city was established: he was ravaged by a fierce dragon, which he killed. However, heaven was still against him and the dragon’s teeth were sown on the site of Thebes. From these sprang a tribe of giants. Now, Oedipus was one of Cadmus’s descendants.” Miriam stared at the empty pillar. “Oedipus solved the mystery posed by the Sphinx but ended up killing his father, Laius, and marrying his mother, Jocasta, bringing down the judgment of the gods.”
“And how does this apply to my son?” Olympias fumed.
“Well, Oedipus has returned. The city is devastated once more. Alexander, in a metaphorical way, has sown dragons’ teeth. The Sphinx is represented by the riddles surrounding Memnon’s death-the spy in the citadel, the dreadful murders, and the theft of the Crown.”
“And so what do you suggest?” Alexander asked quietly.
“That we act quickly,” Miriam replied. “Word of this will spread. It will be in Athens within a week. Alexander may have destroyed Thebes, but Thebes is destroying Alexander. His men are being mysteriously killed, the Crown wrenched from his grasp, the displeasure of the gods made manifest for all to see.”
Alexander now forgot the Crown as he realized the implications of such propaganda.
“So what do you suggest,” he teased, “woman of Israel?”
“All those who know about this,” Miriam declared, hoping she was saying the right thing, “should be sworn to secrecy: the guards, everyone. This temple should sealed, the dead quietly buried.”
“Continue,” Alexander demanded.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Miriam declared, but she looked at the corpses, the blood coursing along the floor, and she repressed a shiver. “That poor beggar man saw flesh and blood. If Oedipus had been sent by the gods, why should he kill the poor priestess? Or the soldiers? Why not do something more dreadful, like call fire from heaven? A true immortal,” she gibed, “could pass through marble walls and take the Crown.”
“You don’t take our legends seriously, do you?” Olympias, arms crossed, sauntered toward her. “You think they are children’s fables. My son called you a woman of Israel, you with your hidden God, whose name cannot be mentioned!”
Miriam looked over Olympias’s shoulder at Alexander, who had a warning look in his eyes. Olympias’s face was full of rage, not at Miriam but at being cheated of the Crown. And, as was her wont, Olympias vented her rage on anyone and everyone around her.
“Yes, I think your stories are legends and fables,” Miriam replied quickly, “but behind them are hidden truths; that is what we have here. Truth and lies. The truth is that Alexander conquered Thebes, which rose in rebellion.”
Olympias’s face softened. “And?”
“The lie is that someone wants to mock that victory. I don’t think it’s Oedipus’s wraith or specter but flesh and blood. He is here to weaken Alexander’s victory, to snatch a great prize from his hands. The theft and murders committed in the shrine are somehow connected to the death of Lysander and Memnon’s fall from the tower.”
“The Oracle?” Alexander asked.
“Yes, the Oracle. But I cannot see how he works. I discovered, my lord, that Memnon thought he had seen the shade of Oedipus in the citadel, yet two of his lieutenants saw him beyond the walls.”
“Treachery?” Olympias asked. “Hidden doors and passages?”
“No,” Miriam shook her head. “The citadel was well-fortified and guarded. Now this Oracle, dressed as Oedipus, terrorizes lonely sentries on the outskirts of the Macedonian camp. Tell me, my lord, imagine yourself as a sentry on the lonely heath land, a mile away from the camp. Someone approaches you.”
“I’d call out to him to stop.”
“But these don’t,” Miriam insisted.
“It could have been done by stealth.”
Perdiccas had come back into the temple, and was standing behind her.
“One sentry, perhaps,” Miriam replied. “Even two, but three or four? And the sentries here? If they’d seen someone approach they’d have issued a challenge. If the officer had thought it was threatening, he would have immediately raised the alarm, but that didn’t happen.”
“What are you implying?” Perdiccas snapped. “Some form of bribery and corruption among my men?”
“No, no, Perdiccas, don’t stand on your honor,” Alexander declared. “Miriam is trying to reach a conclusion.”
“It’s not much of one,” she confessed. “But the murderer of these soldiers came alone. They saw him as a friend; therefore, he must be a Macedonian.”
“Agreed.” Alexander kicked at a pile of cold charcoal ash. “But,” he continued, “let’s say a Macedonian did approach the temple steps. He’s welcomed by an officer and three guardsmen, the best my regiment can provide. What happens then? Does he start running about with a club? He may kill one but how can he slay three others and face no opposition?”