She looked at me with a curious frown, and then took a step across the threshold and looked over towards the Sierra. She squinted a couple of times, and then stepped back into the house. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”
“You’re sure about that?”
She nodded, uncomprehending.
“Yeah, all right, thanks,” I said, and turned to go.
I followed this routine for a couple more houses, each time doing the best I could to make sure that the driver of the red Sierra could see me pointing at him. Of course, I could not be sure that he could see me — I could not see his face for the bright reflection on his windscreen — but it was not difficult to imagine him getting angrier with each door that I knocked on.
Ten minutes later I was almost at the end of the street and he had still not emerged from the car. It was clear that I had not connected with his target. I was beginning to think that I had misjudged the situation when I saw a woman in her late twenties pushing through the last gate in the street. She was not striking, small with mud-coloured hair, but she did look familiar. I was sure that I had seen her before, but not enough for her to have made a lasting impression. Thinking that she could be the last chance, I raised a hand and called out.
“You mind if I have a word…?”
She gave me a flutter of a smile and shuffled further up the path. I noticed a little scar on the tip of her chin.
I took another step closer, and then hooked a thumb behind me. “I don’t suppose you know if the man in the…” I stopped as I saw her pupils flare to black, an injection of fear. She was not looking at me but at a point in the closing distance. I turned to follow her line of sight and saw the driver of the red Sierra bearing down on us. On his feet he looked far different than he had sitting in the car, more menacing, bulkier, darker.
“John, no,” the woman cried, backing further up the path. “You know you’re not supposed to come this close…”
I stepped to one side, unsure of what to do. I did not want to get stuck in the middle of a domestic, but then I was not so sure that I could just stand aside and see the woman get hurt.
But it was not her that he was after.
“You little piece of shit,” he snarled, and punched me in the stomach through a weak shield of fingers. I felt a cold bomb erupt inside me, and when he hit me again I glimpsed the flash of steel in his hand. The third blow caught me in the ribs, and when he withdrew the knife his hand was covered in blood up to the wrist. I was too numb to feel the fourth blow as more than a weak pat on the stomach, and I did not feel the fifth blow at all.
I have enough personal space now. There is no chance that someone else will get too close. Until our coffins rot and the movement of worms through the earth shifts the bones of the person buried beside me up close to mine. To share a final resting place with the bones of someone else. That must be the definition of hell.
“I wish you wouldn’t go through my pockets, Darlene.”
Death at Delphi
by Marilyn Todd
Copyright © 2007 by Marilyn Todd
Most readers know Marilyn Todd as the author of a series of mysteries set in ancient Rome, starring female wine merchant Claudia Seferius. But she’s always been fascinated by the Delphic Oracle, so this time she decided to change her setting to ancient Greece and write a mystery surrounding the oracle. Her latest novel is Sour Grapes (Seven House/’06).
Smoke, grey and nauseous, swirled round the temple. Laertes recognized bay, hemp, and barley grains among the ingredients, but there were others, rich and exotic, that were foreign to him. The heat of the charcoals on which they smouldered fused with the heat of high summer.
Still breathless from the tortuous climb, Laertes bowed be-fore the priest.
“I—”
What should he say? I have an appointment? It made him sound as though he were a common civil servant, not head of an army, and besides, the priest already knew why he was here. Laertes had registered his petition, paid his (truly exorbitant) fee, and purified himself at the Castalian Spring, all of which was noted in the oracular records. As indeed was the gold statuette, which had propelled him to the front of the queue.
“I have sacrificed a white goat,” he told the priest. “Its entrails—”
“Suggested favourable omens. I know.” The priest smiled as he bade him lay his armour aside. “Come,” he said. “Come with me, and together we will summon the spirit of Apollo, that He may answer the question you lay before Him.”
Ushered deep into the building, Laertes felt the world he knew slipping away. Gone were the crickets that rasped in the scrub, the butterflies that flittered over the cushions of wild thyme on the hillsides. Gone were the jangle of harnesses, the scrape of boots on the march. Even the sunshine was no more, for in the world of the Oracle, oil lamps flickered and strange odours danced. Music came from everywhere and nowhere. Not the music of clashing swords that Laertes was used to, nor the blare of battle trumpets. This was a soft, haunting tune made by lyres and flutes, that spoke of death, and of life, and of dreams…
From the shadows, two acolytes stepped forward in well-rehearsed unison. Boys of twelve, maybe thirteen, dressed in the same long, flowing robes as the priest.
“Drink,” the priest said, but when Laertes turned, the man was gone. In the distance, he could see small chinks of daylight. They seemed far, so far, away.
The first acolyte handed him a goblet on which the word “Forget” was engraved. The drink was wine, and Laertes drank. Then the second youth passed him a goblet on which the word “Remember” was etched. To Laertes’ mind, it tasted the same. With spirals of smoke coiling round his head one second, his feet the next, they steered him towards what looked like a gaping hole in the floor. Squinting cautiously, he could see nothing but darkness below. The acolytes motioned for him to sit, then retreated in silence, taking their torches with them. Even as he’d prepared to face battle, Laertes had never known his heart beat so fast.
How long did he sit there, dangling his feet in the Stygian blackness? A minute? An hour? Time had no meaning in the world of the gods. For was this not the site where Apollo slew the dragon snake that had raped his mother when she was pregnant with him and his twin sister, Artemis? Alone in the timeless void, Laertes set to wondering for the millionth time how best to phrase his question.
Then he was falling.
Tumbling through nothingness, with his arms flailing wildly, since the smooth stone denied him a grip. Down, down he spiralled, funnelling into the blackness. In his struggle, his forehead made contact with rock, then he found flagstones cushioned with reeds. Dusting himself down, his soldier’s eyes searched for the hands that had tugged at his ankles. It took only seconds to realise that his only companion was a statue of Apollo—
“Welcome,” a voice echoed. It was thin and crackled with age. “Welcome to the world of answers and truth.”
Making the sign of the horns, Laertes traced the sound to a narrow entrance over which “None May Enter” was written in gold lettering. From the doorway, he peered into a small inner sanctum lit by the dim flame from a tripod. Its flickering light revealed a solitary female, veiled and seated upon a stool.
“Welcome to the point where heaven and earth and east and west meet. The navel of the world, that is home to the Oracle.”