Read The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 8
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Gradually came the dawn, and with it wagons, horses, sheep, goats and the people driving them along the narrow roadway to Athens. Behind them in the distance, wisps of smoke trailed skyward. When the sun broke the horizon, they entered the outskirts of Athens, where they learned of the overnight evacuation of its citizens, who embarked to Troezen on the Peloponnese coast, and the islands Salamis and Aegina. Myrrhine knew that many slaves and men of great age would have to stay behind. All could not be saved. The howls of homeless dogs echoed the countryside.
They stopped momentarily at a small township Myrrhine recognized as Kolonus. Kimon departed from them, taking a road to the west, and the young man dismounted, racing inside a smithy from which issued a great clang of hammers. She saw a statue of a horseman and heard a nightingale trill a clear note over the green glade. Soon they were back on the road.
Kallias skirted Athens' city walls, then turned west along the Sacred Way, shouting and cracking his whip at those who failed to step aside. Foamy sweat laced the backs of the horses though they never slacked their pace. They swept past wagons piled high with household goods, prized rubble stacked in rickety hand-carts pulled by pitiful men and women, their poverty-gripped lives having been wrested from them. The rush of people to the sea became a flowing river of desperation.
Myrrhine realized that Athens was gone. She had a vision of great Ares, god of war, awakening from a ten-year slumber, rising above the landscape, irritable, bloodthirsty. She wondered about the strange occurrences during Melaina's initiation. If what Kallias said was right, Melaina's salvation had come in true Artemis fashion. The goddess had given her own priestess for Melaina. Perhaps a recent prophecy was also true. The oracle had come from the three priestesses at Dodona, who read the words of Zeus in the rustle of an old oak's leaves:
When all is lost and the smoke of great cities
darkens the bright passage of Helios' chariot
across the heavens so even those of great courage
whimper and cower in corners, the two
who are one will again take on mortal form
and walk among us. They will stand firm in the face
of great danger, against the barbarian's yoke.
They realized the "two who are one" must be Demeter and Kore, the two goddesses of the Mysteries. Still, during these restless times, prophecies swept through cities and villages like summer dust devils. One could pick and choose to suit the circumstance.
Myrrhine squeezed Melaina to her. She was so young, not yet fifteen. But in the time Melaina had been away, she'd changed, developed new confidence. Myrrhine now saw a hard look in her daughter's eyes, a loss of innocence. Oh, how she looked forward to hearing Melaina's voice echoing again in the halls of Eleusis.
Kallias' bare leg brushed against Myrrhine's arm, and she looked up at him. This was the closest she'd been to a man since her husband had died. This man's remoteness and countenance matched some dark place inside herself, where she'd put all her feelings toward men. With her daughter in her arms and a man so close, memories of her husband surfaced, and her body welcomed the opportunity to be its old self, hands tingling with the memory of sliding along a broad shoulder, down a hairy arm. She swallowed, realizing this man was her own age. Kynegeiros had been much older.
She'd heard sordid things about Kallias, that he'd taken his fortune from a Persian during the battle of Marathon. As the story went, the man mistook Kallias for a king because he dressed as the Dadouchos. The man had shown him the treasure to buy his life. They say Kallias killed him anyway to hide the source of his wealth. Myrrhine didn't believe it. Jealousy drove many to speak ill of the rich. Even though his family descended from Hermes, divine thief and murderer, she couldn't believe it of Kallias. She only knew he'd fought beside her beloved Kynegeiros and spoke nothing but praise of her husband's bravery. She felt a great kindness toward him because of it. And now he'd taken Kynegeiros' place and saved her daughter's life. She not only thought well of him; with his body so close, a woman's longing passed through her. But guilt came quickly, an old bitter companion. "Forgive me, Kynegeiros," she whispered.
As she held Melaina in her arms, she felt her daughter quake. Was this the return of an illness so frightening that years ago she'd not told even the Hierophant? She shielded her daughter's face with her own cape. Kallias mustn't see.
Melaina convulsed in Myrrhine's arms, limbs rigid, foam appearing in the corners of her mouth. Myrrhine shoved her fingers between Melaina's teeth to protect her tongue, ignoring the pain of her gnawing. Oh, divine Demeter! Not the falling sickness! Ten years before, when Melaina was first told of her father's death, Myrrhine found her little girl in the midst of a seizure on the ground before the Gates of Hades.