“Only one life?” I whispered. I was thinking of Freny, remembering her smile and her laughter, and also the look of terror on her face as she was taken from the house of Eutropius. “I still don’t understand. Who will disrupt the sacrifice, and how?”
“Who?” said Kysanias. “We must do it-the five of us in this room who will be there. As to how … that is what we must decide.”
“Can’t you simply refuse to conduct the sacrifice?” I asked.
Kysanias shook his head. “I’ve already postponed it as long as I could-too long, as it turns out, since now we’ve lost any chance to save the Romans beyond Ephesus. I can’t call off the sacrifice altogether.”
Antipater spoke up. “Your Eminence spoke of the ritual going awry. How might that happen?”
“A crack of lightning at the right moment would do the job,” said Kysanias. “But I don’t suppose we can manage that. Likewise, if certain birds were to be seen atop the tall cypress trees that encircle the sacred space around the altar; but that, too, is beyond our control. If the victim were discovered to be a hermaphrodite, or not a virgin-but the girl has already been examined.”
“Her virginity could be taken from her,” said Rutilius, raising an eyebrow.
“The man who did that would be flayed alive,” said Kysanias. “And such a rape would most certainly summon the wrath of the Furies.”
“I don’t suppose we could contrive to leave her alone with the king for an hour?” I asked. “I believe the only reason Freny was chosen was because the queen discovered the king’s desire for her. Now Freny has been put beyond his reach. He’ll never have the girl … and neither will anyone else.”
“That would be rich,” said Rutilius, “if we could trick Mithridates into taking the virginity of his own virgin sacrifice! But I don’t see how that could be accomplished.”
“I think we should return our thoughts to the ritual itself,” said Kysanias, “and the means at our disposal to disrupt it.”
“And somehow keep our heads, into the bargain!” said Antipater. “What about an uncanny voice?”
“A voice?” asked Kysanias.
“The way your voice changed just now, when you spoke to us so firmly, put me in mind of it. In my long lifetime I’ve heard of a number of sacrifices and other religious ceremonies being interrupted by uncanny voices-voices from the sky, or out of the earth, or from an animal’s mouth, that sort of thing.”
Rutilius nodded thoughtfully. “I, too, have heard of this phenomenon. An uncanny voice … but how might we achieve such an effect, and in such a way that the sacrifice would be spoiled? It’s too bad there’s not an actor among us, or a theatrical manager. Those people know all sorts of ways to fool the eye and ear.”
“In my experience,” I said, “the men who manage temples can also be rather skilled at creating illusions.” I looked at Kysanias, who looked back at me shrewdly. “And while we may not have an actor among us, we do have the world’s greatest living poet.”
We all looked at Antipater. He drew back his shoulders, like a man who had been issued a challenge. Once again he seemed to grow larger, and several years fell away from him.
“I have an idea,” I said.
* * *
It was almost dawn when I returned to my room. I crept into bed, thinking Bethesda was asleep. But an instant later she twined her arms and legs around me, pulling me tightly against her.
“I thought something terrible might have happened to you,” she murmured.
I was so weary, I thought I would fall asleep at once. My consciousness faded even as my body responded to her touch. Our lovemaking was ferocious and dreamlike. I fell asleep not knowing where my body ended and hers began.
At some point reality ended and dreams began, for the woman in my arms became, in some gradual, inexplicable way, not Bethesda but Amestris, though I could not have said in what way she changed. Indeed, when I pulled back for a moment and looked in her eyes, it seemed to me she was both women at once. The goddess Artemis spoke to me then, saying, “You have only ever coupled with one woman, and this is her in your arms.”
“Is she a goddess then, that she assumes so many different guises? Is she you, goddess?”
“She could never be me, because I am forever a virgin,” said Artemis. She laughed like a girl. I recognized that laugh-yes, it was Freny! Then Freny stopped laughing, drew her arms to her sides, and became as rigid as a statue. I saw that coils of rope held her arms to her sides. She struggled against them but couldn’t move. Then she was on her back, faceup, being carried by several men toward an altar already covered with blood. I saw that she was gagged and unable to speak, but she looked at me frantically, pleading with her eyes.
I woke with a start.
The sun was up. Bethesda sat in a chair across the room, dressed in the yellow tunic I had worn the day before. The color flattered her smooth, dark skin and long black hair. She was gnawing at a piece of bread.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “This morning they brought us food.” She gestured to the small table beside her, where a tray was heaped with bread, fruits, and nuts. “You’re not to leave the room. There’s a man outside to make sure you don’t. He says they’ll bring more food later, though it seems to me there’s plenty here already. Then, in the late afternoon, they’ll come for you. To take part in this ritual, I gather. They won’t let me go with you. I’ll have to stay here.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she put a finger to her lips, then gestured to the door, indicating that the guard might overhear. She rose from the chair and came to the bed, then put her ear to my lips.
In a whisper, I told her what had happened the night before, and what I hoped would happen that night. She didn’t interrupt me, but occasionally she pulled back and gave me a skeptical look, or made some scoffing noise. Were our plans really so full of holes that an Alexandrian slave girl could see through them? It occurred to me that the six of us crammed together in that stifling storage room had descended into a kind of mutual madness, and the scheme we had concocted was not just deranged but doomed.
By the harsh light of day, were the others all coming to the same conclusion? But there was no way we could meet again before the time for the sacrifice arrived. There could be no more revising or rehearsing. I saw no choice but to go through with what we had planned. Either that, or let the sacrifice take place as Mithridates intended, watch Freny die, and leave the Romans of Ephesus to their fate.
“Once it’s all over,” I whispered, “and as soon as it’s safe to do so, Samson will bring you to me.” That was the plan. But what if everything went wrong? “If that’s not possible … for some reason … then you’re to go with Samson anyway. He promises to keep you safe.”
“I’m to be his slave?” Her voice rose sharply. She caught herself, looked toward the door, and clamped her mouth shut.
“Absolutely not!” I whispered. The idea made my face hot. “But you may have to pretend to be his slave, or his wife, or whatever, in order to get away from Ephesus. Once you’re back in Alexandria, he’s to take you to Berynus and Kettel. They’ll know what to do.”
“Then I’m to be the slave of the two eunuchs?” Her voice rose again.
In fact, as I had told Berynus and Kettel before I set out, with the banker who handled my money and my mail I had left a document with instructions that Bethesda was to be manumitted after my death, and to inherit whatever money I had stored up. Could she make a life for herself as a free woman in Alexandria, without resorting to crime or prostitution? Perhaps, especially if she could find the right man to marry her. I didn’t like to think about that, and I saw no need for her to do so, either. I wasn’t going to die, was I?
I whispered the words aloud to her. “I’m not going to die, am I? So you need not worry about becoming someone else’s slave. I’m only saying that if … if Samson is not able to bring you to me … then you’re to go with him, and do as he says.”