The door snapped back on its leather hinges. Simeon was beside her, soldiers milled about. She heard the other priestesses wailing on the stairs. Simeon put a cloak around her.
“Is she the Oracle?” he asked.
“No, but she was his lover,” Miriam replied. “And tonight’s business isn’t finished. I was foolish to come up here alone. Very, very foolish.”
Simeon led her downstairs. He wanted to take her into the kitchen but Miriam glimpsed the white faces and staring eyes of the other priestesses.
“Not here!” she urged.
They went out of the house and across the yard into the olive grove. An officer caught up with them. Miriam was aware of sitting down beside a camp fire. She laughed softly when honey cakes were passed to her followed by a deep bowl of watered wine. She couldn’t eat the cakes, but she sipped at the wine. Simeon kept questioning her but it was hard to concentrate. At last the wine and the heat of the fire made her relax. Secretly she was glad that Antigone had taken that way out. It made things easier, both for her and for what was to happen in the citadel. She looked up through the branches. The night sky was showing the first pinpricks of light. The rain clouds had broken, though rain still dripped through the trees and the ground was damp.
“Simeon, send a message to the citadel! Tell Demetrius and the officers to assemble in the mess hall. This time I want a corps of guardsmen, in the tower and outside.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Please!” Miriam grasped his hand. “Just do as I ask.”
Two hours later, as the sky lightened, Miriam entered the Cadmea and made her way across to the mess hall. Patroclus, Demetrius, Melitus, and Cleon were present, sharing a jug of beer and a platter of oat cakes. Miriam sensed that they knew this was important; the one she suspected looked pale-faced and heavy-eyed, nervous and fidgety. Men from the guards regiment stood around the halclass="underline" grim, stark figures in their bronze armor, the great plumes on their helmets making them bigger, casting long shadows. Outside, in the courtyard and passageways, other guards stood in silent vigil as Cretan archers patrolled the ramparts. Miriam took her seat at the head of the table, Simeon sitting on her right; she joined her hands before her and stared at Demetrius.
“First, I’ve come to apologize. I understand that later today Alcibiades’ body will be burned?”
“As befitting a Macedonian hero.”
“Quite so,” Miriam replied. “And I myself will sprinkle incense on the pyre. Alcibiades was a good soldier, a loyal officer. He was foully murdered by the man we know as the Oracle. But,” she added quickly, “there is not one spy but two. The first,” she didn’t falter in her story, “is Antigone, a priestess at the shrine of Oedipus. She has been closely questioned by Hecaetus, and we know who her accomplice is.”
The one she suspected pushed back his stool slightly.
“No one can leave.” Miriam stared at a point on the far wall. “Anyone who attempts to do so will be arrested.”
“In which case,” Demetrius added dryly, “we had best wait and listen to your story, Israelite.”
“There are certain things I cannot tell you, though I’ll be as succinct and as clear as possible. Alcibiades was loyal and so was Lysander.” She waved her hand. “Forget this nonsense about the woman. The Oracle never met Thebans. Disguised as a woman, he met the priestess Antigone. So, if they were seen together in the olive grove, people would simply dismiss them as two priestesses taking a walk. Of course they would meet deep in the grove where no one was supposed to go.”
“Except Lysander,” Demetrius intervened.
“Lysander did go there, and he saw something untoward.” Miriam replied. “But he could make no sense of it. The man he glimpsed disguised as a woman did not have a reputation for such practices. Perhaps Lysander, as a good officer, discussed the matter with Memnon?”
“Yes, he would,” Melitus broke in.
“Memnon, however, had an answer,” Miriam declared. “You see, Antigone was a spy for the Persians. She had recruited an officer here in the citadel. They met secretly. Lysander had noticed this. He may, as I have said, discussed it with Memnon.” Miriam paused. “And this shows the cunning of our spy. Memnon probably told Lysander that the man he’d glimpsed was meeting a spy working for the Macedonians, possibly a priestess who could tell them what was happening in the city. Lysander would have accepted that. However, the Oracle could afford no mistakes. He was probably relieved and pleased that Lysander was later killed by the Thebans.”
“But you told us earlier that one of the Thebans may have betrayed something.”
“No, no.” Miriam shook her head. “I told you to ignore that. The Thebans wanted to kill both Lysander and Memnon so that the garrison here would surrender.” Miriam shrugged. “We all know what happened. Now the Oracle, once Lysander had been removed, tried to unsettle Memnon. First, there was the nonsense about the ghost of Oedipus. That would certainly cause a shiver, a sense of haunting, particularly on a commander who had just lost his loyal lieutenant, a commander who had received rumors that Alexander and the Macedonian army had been destroyed, a commander who was now besieged by Thebans.”
“But Memnon was as tough as a donkey,” Demetrius spoke up.
“Yes, yes he was, but he was also suspicious. He knew there was a spy in the citadel, and his confidant played on these fears, perhaps raising the specter that one of his officers, or all of them, could be involved in such treason.”
“Yes, that was true,” Demetrius said. “Memnon hardly met us.”
“Now the spy was very astute,” Miriam continued. “He offered to be Memnon’s man, to spy on his colleagues. Memnon accepted this. After all, the same man had braved his life in recruiting a so-called spy among the Thebans. Before the siege began, Memnon had allowed this man to disguise himself as a woman in the small garret above his chamber, well away from anyone else’s view.”
Miriam heard a sound outside and stopped. She hoped that Hecaetus had not arrived and, by his blundering, do more harm than good.
“This spy,” she continued, “persuaded Memnon that his officers were going to kill him on a particular night. They would assassinate him in his chamber and hand the citadel over to the Thebans.”
“What proof do you have of this?” Patroclus asked angrily.
“Oh, I have none,” Miriam countered. “But think of Memnon! Frightened about Alexander, grieving over Lysander, realizing he was in charge of a small Macedonian cohort besieged by a powerful city.”
“That was true,” Melitus intervened. “Especially the day before he died.”
“This spy mustn’t have thought much of us,” Patroclus declared languidly.