Pyp gripped the searing stitch in his side and crumbled to the ground against a wide tree. His legs shook violently and his breath came out in wheezy pants. It materialized and disappeared before him like mist.
He had run and run until the cold morning had become a cool noon. No chase had come, and yet he had not stopped. He pretended he was the messenger from Marathon, running to give his fellow Athenian citizens news of the victory in the Battle of Marathon. “Nike!” the man had shouted. Pyp ignored that the messenger had died right after that final exclamation.
He had followed a hidden trail in the woods he had once explored with Maro. He wondered where Maro was now, just as he had wondered countless times in the gloom of imprisonment, and hoped to Diana that he was safe, just as he always did whenever he thought of his best friend.
The shadows of golden sunshine and winter’s shaky brown leaves played on his skin. He still had not found Nuala’s village or the seer’s either, although he remembered her stories well. His stomach grumbled fitfully; he had been counting on Nuala to provide him with cena. He told himself to be strong; he knew he could not stop in the woods for long, and he was certain that the oracle was near.
And so he walked. He walked into the afternoon; he walked into twilight. Finally, as night was beginning to fall he walked into a village. It was small and still wild. It had not been civilized by the Romans but left to its own Gallic devices. Pyp rather liked it.
“Pardon me,” Pyp asked politely in unsteady Gaulish of a woman carrying a child. “Do you—”
“Yes, lad?” the woman responded impatiently and shifted the crying babe in her arms. The child was wrapped in a yellow and red blanket of checked wool, the same fabric the woman had draped over her shoulders.
“Do you know where I can find the oracle, please?”
She looked him up and down, taking in the dirty tunic and his accent; his rough attempt at speaking Gaulish was tinged heavily by the Latin he was used to speaking. “You’re a Roman, ain’t you?”
“Erm, it’s a possibility,” Pyp responded nervously, recalling something his tutor had told him about natives savagely killing Romans whenever they could. “But the oracle…?”
She moved the babe to her left hip. “The seers? Over there,” she replied gesturing with her free hand.
Following her eye, Pyp caught sight of a rather unpromising domicile. As Pyp was walking away, the woman called out again. “Lad, where’s your family?”
Pyp shrugged.
The woman put her hand in the folds of her dress, and for several seconds Pyp was unreasonably afraid she was pulling out a knife. But with a sudden burst of kindness, the woman handed him bread. “You looked hungry,” she said by way of explanation.
“Thank you,” Pyp replied automatically, and crammed a piece of the bread in his mouth. His stomach grumbled for more. There were no currants in it but it tasted as fine as anything he had ever eaten. With a last smile at the kind woman, he walked towards the scruffy-looking temple. Hmm. Herbs hung outside, but otherwise it seemed frightfully normally. He had thought it would be a bit wild-looking, filled with…well, augured birds and fantastical potions brewing.
With only the slightest tremor, he knocked on the door.
“Come in,” responded a shaky voice.
Pyp entered a bright room. It was not built in the traditional Roman style. He was unsettled by the lack of familiar sights like a statue of Apollo and his basket of holy snakes. Instead, there stood altars, which reminded Pyp of one of the few lessons that had stuck in his mind: something his Greek tutor had had him read by Julius Caesar, the Gauls, and human sacrifice. He very nearly retreated out the door when a woman in white robes greeted Pyp. She had a ruddy complexion and wild hair the color of ebony, but against the sunlight it flamed like a red halo. “Well, what would you like young Master…?
“Pyp.”
The woman smiled serenely. “Of course. You are here to…” She peered at him carefully, and Pyp felt as if she was sorting through him and looking for what she needed. “Find out what your fate will be?”
Pyp nodded wordlessly. He was amazed at her perceptiveness.
“Well, maybe tomorrow.”
“Beg pardon?” Pyp asked nervously.
The woman pursed her lips. “I divined twice today, and communing with the fates is wearisome, my child. Perhaps tomorrow I will have the strength to divine for you. And if not tomorrow then the day after tomorrow certainly. But time is has no meaning when you can dip into it at will…”
Pyp took an impatient breath. Vaguely, he recalled another, a more successful visit to an oracle. This one had been visited when they were in Rome several years ago. He could not remember the details, but he had heard the story enough times. He had not been allowed in when the oracle had made her prediction but he did recall that she had not fed his father this waffle about weariness and time. “But when Father went to Tibur to consult with the sibyl there, Albunea, she was able to divine for us right then.”
The woman’s eyes flashed. “Well, I am not Albunea and we are not the great Tiburtine sibyls. Our art stems from different gods entirely. If you have not the patience to wait then perhaps I will not look into the future for you.”
Pyp studied her, this woman, and perhaps a few months before, when he had been a young boy of six, he would have taken her at her word. But he was seven now and after all that had happened, he had learned suspicion. Suddenly, he very much doubted that this woman was anything more than a fortune-teller, making her living off cheap guesses and probabilities, unblessed by Apollo’s gift. It was a despicable sham.
Tears welled up in his eyes however hard he tried to will them back. He had traveled all this long way for no reason. The escape…he would be awfully punished if he went back. He briefly considered not returning but he could not bear to leave without his mother. “I suppose I shall go then.” Pyp managed to sniffle.
Dark had already begun to fall. He wondered where he would sleep but decided he would worry about that when he became sleepy. He tightened his sandals and stepped outside. He shivered at the cold wind. Only a few hours until home he told himself.
“Boy!”
He turned around hopefully and saw the fortune-teller leaning against the doorway. She softened for a moment. “Don’t weep, my lad. You may sleep here tonight.” Her blue eyes shone with a faraway light. “Tomorrow, a merchants’ wagon will stop here for directions, and they will take you along the way.” She shook her head and the light faded. “And tonight, my sisters and I will feed you.”
Pyp was unsure how to respond. He was thankful for their hospitality; he was not inclined to want to spend the night outside, curled up against a fallen log for warmth and yet…And yet this oracle he had sought out with such high expectations was not what he had wanted at all. “Yes, thank you.”
The woman and her sisters fed him well; they stuffed him with tarts filled with fruits, chicken seasoned with nuts and several dishes that Pyp could not recognize. These were after all the wild provinces and they ate many oddities out here. He had not eaten so well since his birthday. He wished he could bring some food back to his mother.
The sisters laid out a bed of blankets for him before the hearth. With a full stomach and wrapped in warm quilts, Pyp fell asleep quickly although he started once or twice before he drifted off, certain he heard the footsteps of the sisters, intent on human sacrifice.