An advance scouting party from the Spartan army found the wagon. The officer looked inside, then backed away swiftly.
‘The plague,’ he whispered to his aide.
‘Help me!’ croaked Horas, struggling to climb from the wagon. ‘My wife and children are sick.’
‘Stay where you are,’ shouted the officer, signalling a bowman forward. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Thebes. But we’re not traitors, sir. We are sick. Help us - please!’
The officer gave a signal to the bowman, who shot an arrow through Horas’ heart. The physician fell back into the wagon.
‘Burn it,’ the leader ordered.
‘But he said there was a woman and children inside,’ argued his aide.
The officer rounded on the man. ‘Then you climb in and put them out of their misery!’
The soldiers gathered brushwood and piled it around the wagon. Within moments the dry wood roared into flame and, as the screams were beginning, the soldiers marched back to report the encounter to Agisaleus.
The plague started in the poorest quarter of the city, but spread swiftly. Fearing the army would become affected, the councillors ordered the city gates to be shut and barred. No one was allowed out - or into the city. A mob attacked the guards at Electra’s Gates, but was turned back by bowmen on the walls commanded by the old warrior, Menidis.
Within a week, more than a fifth of Thebes’ 30,000 population endured the symptoms of glandular swelling and ugly, inflamed red swirls which appeared on face and arms. The death toll rose, and scores of carts were pulled through the city streets every night to collect the dead whose bodies had been placed in alleys beyond house gates.
Mothac succumbed to the sickness on the ninth day, and Parmenion helped him to his room before running to the house of Argonas. The physician was not there - his servants told Parmenion he was visiting the sick in the north of the city. The Spartan left a message for him and returned home. Food was now scarce, but he bought some dried meat and stale bread in the market-place for a sum four times its worth and prepared a broth for Mothac.
Argonas arrived at dusk. The flesh of his face was sagging and his eyes were dark-rimmed. He examined Mothac, then took Parmenion aside.
‘The fever will burn strongly for two days. It is important to take the heat from the skin. Bathe him hourly in warm water, but do not dry him. Allow the heat of his body to evaporate the water; this will cool him. He will then suffer intense cold, and he must be wrapped in warm blankets until the fever rises once more. Then repeat the procedure. Make sure he drinks plenty of water. Add a little salt - not too much, or he will vomit. If the swellings begin, wait until they split and weep, then apply honey.’
‘Is that all that can be done?’
‘Yes. I ran out of herbs four days ago.’
‘Sit down and have some wine,’ invited Parmenion, moving to the jug on the kitchen shelf.
‘I have no time,’ Argonas replied, heaving himself to his feet.
Parmenion took him by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me, man. If you go on in this way you will collapse - then you will achieve nothing. Sit down.’
Argonas sank back to the chair. ‘Most of the physicians got out before the gates were shut,’ he said. ‘They recognized the symptoms early. There are too few of us now.’
‘Why did you not leave with them?’
Argonas smiled. ‘That’s what everyone would expect. Fat Argonas, who lives for money: look at him run! Well, I do like money, Parmenion. I enjoy a life of pleasure and gluttony. I was born poor, a peasant in a foreign land. And I decided a long time ago that I would taste the good things and revel in luxury. But that does not make me less of a physician. You understand?’
‘Drink the wine, my friend, and revel in a little cheap broth.’
‘Not cheap any more,’ said Argonas. Trices are rising very fast.’
‘How bad is the plague?’ Parmenion asked, ladling broth into a deep bowl and placing it before the fat man.
‘Not as bad as the one that struck Athens. There are probably 8,000 people in Thebes who have the symptoms, but curiously many of them stop short of developing the plague. It is deadly in children and the old, but the young and strong seem able to fight it off. Much depends on the swellings. Armpits only and there is a chance; if it spreads to the groin, death soon follows.’ Argonas spooned the broth into his cavernous mouth, then rose. ‘Time to go. I will call on Mothac tomorrow evening.’
Parmenion saw him to the gate and watched the fat man make his way down the narrow alley, stepping over the bodies laid out in rows.
Mothac was sweating heavily when Parmenion returned, but his lips were cracked and dry. Lifting the Theban’s head, he forced cool water between his lips and then bathed him as Argonas had directed. For two days Mothac scarcely moved. In his delirium he called out for Elea, and wept. On the third day large swellings appeared in his armpits, and he lapsed into a near coma. Parmenion was exhausted, but still he stayed by day and night at Mothac’s bedside. The swelling under the left arm turned purple and, as Argonas had warned, it split, oozing watery pus. Parmenion smeared honey on the wound and covered Mothac with fresh blankets.
The following morning, as he slept in a chair beside the bed, he heard a rattling at his gate. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Parmenion stumbled to the courtyard to see the servant girl, Cleo.
‘It is my mistress,’ cried Cleo. ‘She is dying.’
Parmenion took the girl to Mothac and ordered her to sit by him, instructing Cleo on how to bathe the sleeping man. Then he took his cloak, armed himself with sword and dagger, and carefully made his way to the house of Thetis. Corpses lay everywhere and the market-place was deserted.
Thetis was lying on her bed, lost in a fever sleep. Pulling back the sheets, Parmenion examined the woman’s naked body. There were swellings under both armpits and in the groin. Wrapping her in a blanket, he lifted her into his arms and began the slow walk back to his own house.
On the way two men who were pulling a cart piled high with bodies called out to him: ‘We’ll take her.’ He shook his head and staggered on. His muscles were burning with fatigue as he carried her into his courtyard and through to the andron, where he laid her on a couch. Together he and Cleo manhandled his bed down the stairs and into the room alongside Mothac. ‘It will be easier to look after them both in the same room,’ Parmenion told Cleo. ‘Now go back to the house and gather what food there is, and bring it here.’
With the girl gone Parmenion bathed Thetis, applying honey to a seeping sore under her right arm. He felt her pulse, which was fluttering and weak, then sat beside her holding her hand. After a while her eyes opened.
‘Damon?’ she whispered through dry lips.
‘No, it is Parmenion.’
‘Why did you leave me, Damon? Why did you die?’
‘It was my time,’ he told her, his voice gentle and his hand squeezing hers. ‘Rest now. Gather your strength - and live.’
‘Why?’ came the question, and it cut into him like a jagged blade.
‘Because I ask you to,’ he told her. ‘Because... I want you to be happy. I want to hear you laugh again.’
But she was asleep once more. Soon she began to shiver and Parmenion wrapped her in a warm blanket and hugged her frail body, rubbing her arms and shoulders, willing heat into her.
‘I love you, Damon,’ she said, her voice suddenly clear. Parmenion wanted to lie, as once she had lied for him. But he could not.
‘If you love me, then live,’ he said. ‘You hear me? Live!’
Time passed swiftly for Derae. Every day she learned new skills, healing the sick of the surrounding villages who were carried into the temple on makeshift stretchers. She mended the broken leg of a fanner, stroked away the weeping, cancerous sore on a child’s neck, and gave sight to a blind adolescent girl who had travelled with her father from the city of Tyre. Word spread throughout the Greek cities of Asia that a new healer had come among them, and day by day the
queues lengthened outside the temple.
Tamis had been gone for several months, but she returned late one evening to find Derae sitting in the garden, enjoying the cool of the night air. Already there were people sleeping in the fields beyond, waiting for their chance to see the Healer.
‘Welcome home,’ greeted the younger woman.
‘They will be a never-ending source of exhaustion for you,’ said Tamis, gesturing to the fields. ‘They will come from all over the empire, from Babylon and India, from Egypt and Cappadocia. You will never heal them all.’
‘A blind child asked me why I did not heal myself.’
‘And what did you tell her?’ asked Tamis.
‘I told her that I did not need healing. It was true; it surprised me. You look weary, Tamis.’
‘I am old,’ snapped Tamis. ‘One expects to feel weary. But there is something I must do before I leave again. Have you seen Parmenion while I have been away?’
Derae blushed. ‘I like to watch him. Is that wrong?’
‘Not at all. But as yet you have seen no futures. However, now is the time to walk the many paths. Take my hand.’
Their souls linked, the two women sped to the city of Thebes and the house of Parmenion. It was shrouded in darkness, and the sound of wailing came from the streets around the dwelling.
‘What is happening?’ Derae asked.
‘The plague has come to the city,’ answered Tamis. ‘Now watch!’
Time froze, the air shimmered. Derae saw Parmenion staggering out into the courtyard, his face mottled and red, his throat swollen. He collapsed and she tried to go to him, but Tamis held her. ‘You cannot interfere here,’ she said, ‘for this is the future. It has not yet occurred. Just as we cannot change the past, neither can we work in the days yet to be. Keep watching!’ The scene blurred, re-forming to show Parmenion dying in his bed, dying in the street, dying at the home of Calepios, dying on a hillside. Finally Tamis returned them both to the temple, groaning as she re-entered her body to find her neck stiff and aching.
‘What can we do?’ asked Derae.
‘I can do nothing at the moment. I am too tired,’ said Tamis. ‘But tell me, do you feel strong enough to use your power at such a distance?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. But first let me ask you this: How would you react to Parmenion taking a wife?’
‘A wife? I... I don’t know. It hurts me to think of it, but then why should he not? He thinks me dead - as indeed I am. Why do you ask?’
‘It is not important. Go to him. Save him if you can. If you cannot deal with the plague, return for me. I will rest now and gather my strength.’
Derae lay back and loosed her soul.
Thebes glistened below her. She flew to Parmenion’s home, but he was not there. Mothac lay sick, a young girl beside his bed wiping the sweat from his face with a damp cloth. Derae rose high above the house, her eyes scanning the deserted streets. Then she saw him, staggering under the weight of the woman he carried.
She recognized the whore, Thetis, and watched as Parmenion brought her home and tended her, listened as the woman spoke of her love in a fever sleep. Derae floated close to Parmenion, laying -her hands within his head, his thoughts flowing into her mind. He was willing the woman to live. Derae relaxed her mind, merging with Parmenion, flowing with his blood through veins and arteries.
The plague was within him, tiny and weak, but growing even as she observed it. Focusing her concentration, she hunted the pockets of corruption, destroying them until, at last satisfied, she pulled back from him. The woman was dying, huge swellings under her jaws, in her armpits and her groin.
But Parmenion was safe. Derae soared into the night sky - and hovered there, confused and uncertain. Parmenion wanted the woman to live. Did he love her? No, his thoughts were not of love, but of debts unrepaid. Yet if Derae saved her he might grow to love her, and she would lose him a second time.
It is not as if I am killing her, Derae rationalized. She is dying anyway. I am not to blame. She wanted to fly back to the temple - but could not. Instead she returned to the bedroom and merged with Thetis.
The hunt was monumentally more difficult. The plague was everywhere, rampant and deadly. Three times Thetis’ heart shuddered and almost failed. Derae revitalized exhausted glands, feeding energy to the woman, then continued her work, battling the disease. For a long time the plague had the better of her, multiplying faster than she could destroy it. She drew back to the heart, cleaning the blood as it pumped through, filling it with power. The danger area, she realized, was in the groin, where the swellings had burst and were oozing poison-filled pus. Here she accelerated the healing powers of the tissue. Hours fled past. Derae was faint with exhaustion as she finally rose from the body.
She began her journey back to the temple, but her mind was groggy and she found herself floating over an unknown palace in which a woman was screaming. Derae tried to concentrate.
‘He is born!’ someone cried, and a great cheer went up from the army of men outside the palace.
A dark cloud swept up towards her, opening like a colossal mouth. She saw fangs the length of a tall man, and a purple tongue, forked and swollen. She was powerless to resist.
A spear of lightning slashed into the mouth - just as it loomed beneath her.
‘Take my hand!’ cried Tamis.
But Derae lost consciousness.
She awoke in her own room at the temple, sensing Tamis beside her. ‘What was it?’ she asked.
‘You were lost in the future. You saw the Dark Birth.’
‘I am tired, Tamis. So... tired.’
‘Then sleep, my child. I will protect you for a little while yet.’
Cleo returned with enough provisions for three frugal days and, combined with the food Parmenion had stored, there was sufficient for a week.
The days dragged by. Argonas no longer called and Parmenion learned from a collector of the dead that the fat man had suffered the fate of thousands - his body consumed by the plague. Mothac grew stronger, the red swirls disappearing, the swellings abating; but he was weak, needing to sleep often. Cleo worked tirelessly, bathing her mistress, changing soiled sheets, cooking and cleaning. Parmenion scoured the city for food, but even the horses and dogs had long since been slaughtered.
Then, like a spent storm, the plague began to wither away. Fewer and fewer bodies were left for the collectors, and the gates were opened to allow a convoy of food wagons to enter the blighted city. Parmenion fought his way through the mob that surrounded the convoy, and emerged with a haunch of beef and a sack of dried cereal.
At home Cleo cooked some of the meat and spoon-fed it to Thetis, who was now more lucid. The two men carried her bed upstairs to Parmenion’s room, to give her more privacy, while Cleo slept on a couch in the andron.
By the end of summer the city had almost returned to normal. More than 4,000 people had perished in the plague but, as Calepios pointed out, this was a fraction of those who would have died or been enslaved had the Spartan army sacked the city. Fearing the plague, the Spartans had marched from Boeotia without a battle, and allied troops had now secured the passes over Mount Cithaeron against them. News also came from Tegyra that Pelopidas and the Sacred Band had routed a Spartan division which outnumbered them two to one, and had killed Phoebidas, the Spartan responsible for the taking of the Cadmea four years earlier. The defeated soldiers were not Spartan regulars but mercenaries from the city of Orchomenus, yet even so a day of celebration was declared in Thebes and the sounds of laughter and song drifted to the room where Thetis lay. She was still very weak, her heartbeat ragged and irregular, but the distant laughter cheered her.
Parmenion entered, bearing a tray of food and drink. Setting it down, he sat beside her. ‘You have more colour today,’ he said. ‘Mothac managed to find some fresh honeycakes. An old friend of mine swore they gave strength to the weary.’
Her green eyes rested on his face, but she said nothing. Instead she reached ou
t and took his hand, tears falling to her cheeks.
‘What is wrong?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
‘Then why are you weeping?’
‘Why did you do this for me?’ she countered. ‘Why did you not let me die?’
‘Sometimes there are no answers,’ he told her, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her palm. ‘You are not Derae, as I am not Damon. But our lives have crossed, the lines of our destinies are now entwined. I no longer have great faith in distant gods, but I believe in the Fates. I believe we were meant to be together.’
‘I do not love you,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
‘Nor I you. But I care for you. You have been on my mind constantly since I discovered the truth about the night you brought me back. Stay with me, Thetis. I cannot promise to make you happy, but I will try.’
‘I will not marry you, Parmenion, but I will stay. And if we are happy, so be it, we will remain together. But know this, one day you may awake to find me gone. If that happens, promise me you will never try to find me.’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘Now eat, and regain your strength.’
The man stood in the moonlight at the gates of Parmenion’s house. There was no one in sight as carefully he slid his knife into the crack at the centre of the gates, easing up the wooden bar beyond. The gate opened, the bar sliding at an angle towards the ground, but before it could thud against the stone he rammed his knife-blade into the wood, jamming it in place until he could slip through and lower it carefully to the courtyard. Returning the knife to its sheath, he walked towards the closed door of the andron.
Something cold touched his neck and a hand clamped to his shoulder. ‘Were I you, I would stand very still,’ warned a voice by his ear.
‘I have a message for Parmenion,’ whispered the man.
‘The knife at your throat is very sharp. Put your hands behind you.’
The man obeyed, standing quietly as his wrists were lashed together. Then he was led into the darkened andron and watched as his red-bearded captor lit three lanterns. ‘You would be Mothac?’