“Let us enter the grove,” said Kysanias, turning around and leading the way. We followed in single file down the gravel path. No instructions were given; everyone seemed naturally to fall into place. The king went first, with the members of his retinue following, except for the bodyguards, who stayed behind. Then came the Megabyzoi and the Magi, except for Zeuxidemus, who stayed back to usher we so-called witnesses before him. Damianus led Gnossipus by the hand. I followed, with Zeuxidemus behind me.
I glanced back at him. His eyes glittered with excitement. “Have courage!” he whispered.
Yet at that moment, walking toward the black circle of towering trees, my courage reached its lowest ebb. My knees wobbled. My mouth turned dry. The earth tilted beneath me. What madness had possessed me, that I had abandoned the safety of the eunuchs’ house outside Alexandria to come to this godsforsaken spot?
I reached to my breast and clutched the lion’s tooth hanging there. “Cheelba, give me strength!” I dared to whisper.
When I had first looked at the circle of cypress trees, I had seen no place to enter, but there was such a place, a sort of tunnel that had been cut in the dense foliage, just high enough and wide enough for a man to step through. The king had to lower his head, and the light-bearers had to stoop low and carry their torches with outthrust arms. Bastarna the giant had to stoop very low, yanking the Roman general behind him. Except for Zeuxidemus, I entered last of all.
The circle inside the cypress trees was larger than I had expected. It seemed almost as if we had stepped through a magical barrier, that so much space should exist inside a circle that looked so much smaller from the outside. The diameter of the circle was perhaps equal to the height of the surrounding trees. In such a space, there might have been room for a small temple, but there was none. Nor did I see any sort of shrine or any statue or image of the Furies. There was only a large altar in the very center of the space, which appeared to be crafted from a single piece of dark red marble. We did not encircle the altar, but gathered before it, so that our party filled less than half the circle.
The night before, Kysanias had described the space to us and we had worked out how and where each of us should stand. I went to one side of the altar, along with Gnossipus and Damianus. Kysanias went to the other side of the altar, with the Grand Magus next to him. The others gathered at the foot of the altar, with the king and queen foremost. Behind the royal couple stood their retinue, including Antipater and Rutilius, the Magi and Megabyzoi, Ptolemy and Bastarna and the rest.
I gazed up at the circle of starry, moonless sky beyond the treetops. It seemed to me that the circle of trees formed a vertical tunnel, a portal between the night sky and the underworld. What might emerge from such a opening?
Stands for holding torches were set to either side of the altar, near the head, so that one of these stands was not far behind me, and another not far behind Kysanias. All of the dozen or so torches were set into these stands.
The sacred space seemed somehow to enfeeble the torches. They had burned brightly outside the grove, but now began to flicker, providing a fitful, unsatisfactory light.
“We could have done with a few more torches!” muttered the squinting Grand Magus.
It was no accident that only a dozen of the Megabyzoi and Magi carried torches. There should have been twice as many. Kysanias had taken charge of this detail, deliberately limiting the number of torches so we that might have the advantage of semidarkness from the start. The torches were also smaller and more short-lived than the more long-lasting torches normally used for a nocturnal ritual.
When everyone else was assembled, the sacrifice was brought in.
It was just as I had seen in my dream: Freny was naked, with her arms bound to her sides and her mouth gagged, carried by six men. The bearers laid her on the altar and then quickly withdrew. Freny writhed in terror and looked up at the faces around her. When her eyes met mine, she furrowed her brow, at first confused, and then, for one brief instant, hopeful. Then the Grand Magus and Great Megabyzus began reciting an incantation in unison, and I saw the hope die in her eyes. She shut them tightly, like a child refusing to acknowledge the unbearable reality of what was about to happen.
XXXII
“Alecto, we dare to speak your name!” said Kysanias.
“Your name means ‘never-ending, unceasing,’” said the Grand Magus.
“Megaera, we dare to speak your name!”
“Your name means ‘bitter, grudging.’”
“Tisiphone, we dare to speak your name!”
“Your name means ‘vengeful, violent.’”
While the priest and the wise man recited their litany, Freny writhed on the altar. Mithridates stared at her intently, gritting his teeth. Next to him, Monime gazed at Freny’s helpless suffering with a smile of smug satisfaction.
“We call on you, we name the unnameable, we say aloud your names!” said Kysanias. “You were born from the blood that gushed from the wound that unmanned Uranus-Uranus who was made seedless by the child of his seed, Kronos-Kronos who set in motion the passage of time-time which puts an end to all things save the gods-”
Standing at the altar next to Damianus and Gnossipus, across from Kysanias and the Grand Magus, I grew more and more light-headed. The Grove of the Furies began to seem unreal. Surely no such place existed, and the moments I was experiencing were outside of time, a weird and frightful illusion. I felt oddly detached, yet at the same time on the verge of panic. I tried to breathe deeply, but couldn’t seem to catch a breath. It was as if my body had forgotten how to breathe.
The air around me was as thick as water. Objects seen at a distance seemed horribly close, as if just beyond my nose-the iron collar worn by Quintus Oppius, the ruby eyes of the cobra in Prince Ptolemy’s crown, the gold knob atop the royal staff held by Monime’s father. At the same time, the people surrounding the altar seemed very distant, no taller than a finger seen at arm’s length.
I would never be able to do what had been asked of me. It would not be possible. I would not be able to move, much less-
“You dwell among the dead in Tartarus,” Kysanias was saying, “but we call you forth from your home to receive this sacrifice. Hear the prayer of this mighty king-this king whose coming was foretold by dreams, visions and oracles-portents and prophecies that seek fulfillment-fulfillment that may only come with the wrath of the Furies-”
That was my cue.
* * *
When I was a boy, and Antipater was my occasional tutor, he and my father decided that it would be a good thing for me to speak in public, reciting some bit of poetry I had learned before an audience of other boys and their fathers.
The prospect terrified me.
I had never done such a thing before. Nor had I any desire to do so. Was it not enough that I should learn the words of Ennius, or Homer, or Hesiod, or Sappho? Why must I speak them aloud, by memory, in front of other people?
Because, my father said, oratory was the birthright of every Roman. The Republic had been born from the spoken word, for action was always preceded by will, and will was shaped by the spoken word. The better a man could speak, and the larger his audience, the greater his chance to shape the world around him, rather than helplessly be shaped by the world.
But why recite the words of some dead man? Because, Antipater said, it was from the poets, especially the Greek poets, that we learned that speech could be not only persuasive, but also sublime, achieving a beauty and perfection approaching the divine.
For a month, every day Antipater drilled me, and every day I dreaded the coming of that occasion.
I was not the only boy to speak that day. Others came before me. While I awaited my turn, I became light-headed and hardly able to breathe. Objects near at hand seemed far away, and distant objects attained a horrible nearness. I knew that I would never be able to do what was required of me. I would stand babbling and stuttering before my audience, unable to speak, and I would melt, like a wax table in the hot sun, while my father and Antipater and the others looked on, aghast.