Bring Down the Sun Read online

  “That’s a pirate queen,” one of the young mothers said while a fat infant sucked at one ample breast and an equally fat girlchild of some three or four years took her turn at the other. “They say her husband is a eunuch—and she’s praying the Great Gods to give her a son.”

  “She’d do better to pray to the nearest pirate,” said her neighbor, grinning.

  “I daresay she has—but as far as her husband will know, when the baby comes, its father is a god.”

  They all nodded at that, down the row of cots and pallets. Not, thought Polyxena, that any of them looked as if she needed to feign a miracle. Maybe they had come to ask the gods to shut the door on their manifest fertility.

  “There’s a real king here, too,” said a woman farther up the hall. “The King of Macedon has come with his Companions to worship the Great Gods.”

  “Ah,” said her companion. “That’s not much better than a pirate. They’re all raised in a barn up there.”

  “It’s not so bad now,” a third said. “He’s been pulling them out of the cow-byres, they say, and turning them into an army. He’s even taught them to speak Greek.”

  “Has he taught them to bathe?” the second woman inquired.

  “I was downwind of them,” said the first, “and they weren’t any worse than anyone else. He’s a good-looking man, is Philip.”

  The second sniffed. “I suppose so, if you like big and brawny. I lean more toward a smooth young thing, myself.”

  “And that’s why your husband is a hairy old goat,” said the third.

  That won a screech and a leap and a scuffle that ended in scratches and pulled hair and sullen silence. Polyxena was careful not to let them see her smile—or they would have turned on her.

  Fortunately she had a pretext for turning away: Troas called her to lend a hand with the evening’s tasks, setting up the beds and fetching the ration of bread and oil and sour wine that was all any of them was to dine on. Some of the more toplofty pilgrims objected, but the pirate queen took her share with good humor and ate it without complaint.

  The bread was hard and full of grit, and the wine was almost vinegar. Polyxena chose to follow the pirate queen’s example. As wretched as it was, it tasted better than it looked—and that maybe was a lesson.

  As she sat cross-legged on her pallet and ate her dinner, she filled herself with this crowd of humanity as she had with earth and sea and sky. Women of every rank and station were gathered here, eating as she ate and waiting as she did for the great rite and the Mystery. There were slaves in sackcloth and fisherwomen knotting nets to keep their fingers busy, veiled citizens’ wives from Athens passing round a jar of smuggled wine so strong the scent of it had made Polyxena dizzy when she passed by, and brawny warrior women from Sparta who looked as if they had left their armor just outside the door.

  Polyxena listened shamelessly to the babble of voices. Some she could barely understand, so thick was their accent; others were not speaking any language she recognized. She had thought she knew how wide the world was from seeing the pilgrims at Dodona, but here they were all piled together, high and low, rich and poor, from the sun-shot cities of the south to the chilly sheepfolds of the north.

  They were all here for the same reason. Tomorrow, at the dark of the moon, the Mysteries would begin. None of them professed to know what would happen, although there was speculation enough.

  The air crackled with excitement, anticipation, and no little apprehension. This Mystery was twofold, said those who seemed to know the most. The first was simple enough, and one might stop there and present one’s respects and go away initiate. But if one truly wished to gain what one sought, one would stay and suffer the second—and that was a deeper, darker, stronger thing.

  Polyxena was not here to sing a song and wear a garland and pour a cup of wine on the ground. Whatever she was meant to do, the Mother had brought her here to discover it. She would stay for all of it, no matter what it cost her.

  * * *

  In the morning the priest and priestess in white came to guide them all through the city and out past the walls to the holy place. The excitement of the night before had given way to a spreading silence. Even the children were quiet, clinging big-eyed to the hands of mothers or nurses.

  The men had come out from another door and fallen into the column beside them. Polyxena could see only those who were closest. There was nothing remarkable there, though a few had handsome faces. Children walked with them, too: boys and young men, too manly to cling to anyone, though some of their elders walked arm in arm as lovers might.

  They passed in procession through streets that had seen a thousand years of their like. Polyxena smelled baking bread, spilled wine, a waft of perfume.

  Faces peered over walls and out of doorways. Had any of these people gone to the Mysteries? Or were they like the people in Dodona, too familiar with their miracle to find it interesting?

  Her stomach growled. They had been given nothing to eat this morning, and only water to drink.

  She had fasted often enough in her training, but the first day was never easy. She swallowed the hunger and dedicated it to the Mother. It still gnawed at her, but the sense of virtue softened the pain a little.

  The place of the Mysteries lay just beyond the westward wall. There the mountain descended in three narrow terraces, each divided from the other by the steep banks of a swift river. It was a wild place despite its closeness to the town, a place of rock and water and swift-scudding cloud, bounded by the mountain and the sea.

  As Polyxena crossed the worn stone bridge onto the first terrace, she nearly fell to her knees. For all the crowd of people around her and the weight of the town behind her, she felt as if the Mother’s eye had fixed on her and her alone.

  She glanced to either side. No one else seemed unduly disturbed. Some were frowning, some smiling; many looked about, wide-eyed with curiosity.

  Polyxena shut her eyes and let the current of the crowd carry her onward. The scent of thyme was everywhere, green and strong, and the humming of bees, and far away the roaring of waves. The wind was cool on her cheeks; the warmth of bodies surrounded her, keeping her safe. She was as well warded here as she had ever been in Dodona—and that was a thought she needed to ponder, later, after this was over.

  She passed over the river onto the first of the terraces, treading a path that feet had trod for time out of mind. The memory of those older pilgrims was all around her. If she sharpened her senses, she could see and feel and smell them, and hear their voices speaking, echoing down through the years.

  They had all come for the Mother, because She had called them or because they had need of Her. Polyxena would have liked to kneel on the Mother’s own earth and dig her fingers into it, but the current of people was too strong.

  It surged like water onto the first terrace and spread toward and around a hollow paved with hewn stones. In the center stood an altar. Men and women in white waited there, with their heads covered and their faces veiled.

  The altar was banked with garlands of flowers and greenery, piled high on the stone table and tumbling over the sides to the pavement. Acolytes in short tunics gathered them up and passed them to the pilgrims.

  The one that came to Polyxena was of myrtle, deep green leaves potent with fragrance. She breathed it in. It was sacred to Aphrodite, who was one of the many faces of the Mother.

  The priests at the altar raised up a milk-white lamb and a night-black kid. Neither struggled: they rested at ease in the priests’ hands. Their blood sprang across the pale stone of the altar and stained with vivid red the last of the garlands.

  As the smoke of the sacrifice rose up to heaven, a priestess with a deep pure voice began to chant a hymn to the Mother. It celebrated Her as ruler of the wild places, mountain goddess, Lady of lions. Then it shifted, turning to a wilder mode, to sing the praises of Her son who was also Her lover, god of wine and laughter, brother of panthers.

  There was a strong rhythm in the chant,
the beating of the heart and the heat of the body as it moved to match the pulse of the ancient words. This rite worshiped Her with dance, and its words and music were meant to stir the blood.

  Already among the crowd, people were moving in time with the chant. Polyxena’s feet had found the rhythm; her body swayed of its own accord. The scent of the myrtle wrapped her about, drowning the smell of mingled humanity.

  As she danced, faces whirled past her, crowned with garlands: male and female, old and young, beautiful and ugly and everywhere between. Dancers came together in circles and skeins, although a few went on dancing alone as Polyxena did.

  Troas and her women spun in a circle, linked hand to hand. Polyxena’s demure sister had let her hair fall out of its tight braids; it streamed behind her. Polyxena had not known she had such wildness in her.

  A line of men danced and stamped beyond the queen and her maids. They were big men, liberally ornamented with scars; their hands looked oddly empty, as if they should be carrying weapons or shields.

  Polyxena’s eyes found the man in their center, stopped and stayed. He was not the tallest of them, but he was one of the broadest. His hair was thick and black; his beard was cut close. It was vigorous, though not quite as black as his hair: in the fitful sunlight it had a reddish cast.

  His face behind the beard was blunt but well-cut, solid and strong. It matched the shape of him, his wide shoulders and muscled thighs. She would not have called him handsome, but he was all of a piece, with a compact, powerful grace.

  Now that, she thought, was a man. Her first thought was of a bull, but lion fit him better. A young one, a little short of his prime, with his black mane still growing in and his body showing the last faint hint of youngling awkwardness.

  He paused in his dance. His eyes lifted to hers. She had expected them to be dark; it was a shock to see that they were blue—as blue as the sky overhead, bright with a fierce intelligence.

  They widened as he took in the sight of her. She had heard from the queen’s women that a man’s regard could make a woman feel beautiful. Under that hot blue stare, she understood how deeply true it was.

  She was too wise to smile and too proud to look away. She held her head high under its crown of myrtle and deliberately, slowly, danced for him.

  Eight

  Even in her dance, Polyxena held to awareness of the world around her. It was a useful skill. Priestesses cultivated it.

  She saw how the priests left the altar with the dance still whirling, and how a company of white-robed acolytes moved among the dancers. Those nearest the far side of the circle were led or herded one by one into a low stone temple.

  She, near the midpoint of the crowd, had a while to wait, but her feet were light and her body tireless. The Mother was in her, filling her with strength.

  The dark man had stopped his own dance to watch her. When the crowd moved, emptying toward the temple, he stayed level with her.

  She let the dance slip into stillness, but kept the memory of it as she followed the flow of pilgrims. That was enough to keep his eyes on her. She was careful not to stare at him, though she was aware in her skin of his every move.

  So intent was she on the dark man that the door of the Mystery took her by surprise. Troas and her maids had already vanished inside. The narrowing of the stream of pilgrims had shifted the dark man some distance behind her, but she could feel his eyes on her back.

  She drew a steadying breath and stepped forward into darkness.

  * * *

  Slowly her sight came back. The space she stood in was old—as old as Dodona, and as holy. The walls around her had not stood so long, but they were built on ancient foundations.

  Hands reached out of the dimness. She could just see the bodies beyond, dressed in white. They tugged at her clothes. She willed herself to stand at ease.

  They stripped her with deft dispatch, poured gaspingly cold water over her and sealed her brow with blood from a much-stained bowl. While she stood with chattering teeth, the unseen servants covered her with a thin white robe that clung to her damp skin.

  Polyxena was glad then that she had yielded to impulse and left the hatchling in the pilgrims’ lodging, safe and warm in its pouch. When it was grown it would be a sacred snake, the Mother’s beloved, but it was too young and fragile for this.

  The hands led her across the ill-lit space. Shapes loomed in it, standing in ranks along the wall. They were carved of stone, squat and overwhelmingly old.

  Half of them were female, each with pendulous breasts and pregnant belly and deep slit of the vulva. The rest were male, thick and bandy-legged, flaunting the rampant phallus. They were ugly and crude and irresistibly powerful.

  “Here is the Mystery,” said a veiled priestess, taking shape beside her.

  “Here is the truth,” said a priest who had not been there a moment before.

  “Female and male, woman and man. The Mother made them both.” Their voices mingled, echoing in Polyxena’s skull. “One cannot be without the other. They are all one.”

  The priest slid something cold and strange onto Polyxena’s finger. It was a ring, and it made her skin prickle. She stiffened against the urge to fling it off.

  It was a thing of power. Once she had accepted that, it was easier to bear.

  The priestess knelt and bound a long belt of linen about her waist. Its color was too dark to discern, but in sunlight she thought it might be crimson.

  “Ring and girdle will guard you,” the priestess said as she rose. “Keep them close and tend them well.”

  “Now you are initiate,” said the priest. “Praise to the Mother and the Son, the Great Gods and the Sacred Brothers.”

  “Praise be,” the priestess said, half-chanting.

  While they spoke, they led Polyxena through the temple. Just before they thrust her through the door, she dug in her heels. “I’m not done. There’s a second rite, isn’t there? I want that—I want more. Tell me how to get it.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” the priestess said.

  And the priest said, “Do you know what you ask?”

  “I know what I must do,” said Polyxena.

  The priestess stood perfectly still. “You would pass the gates of death and face what lies beyond?”

  “Whatever it is,” Polyxena said steadily, “I am meant for it.”

  It was impossible to tell behind the veils, but she suspected that her guides exchanged glances. If so, there was no telling what those glances meant.

  “Come with us,” the priestess said after a pause.

  Polyxena’s hands were icy, but the chill of fear only made her the more determined. She had come here for the Mysteries. She would stay for all of them.

  Her guides turned aside from the door that must lead back to the terrace. Instead they sought one lower, smaller, and darker, that led down by rough-carved steps into the darkness.

  The air that wafted up had a cold smell, like damp earth and old graves. Past the first handful of steps there was no light at all. Polyxena could not stop or turn: the priestess ahead and the priest behind kept her moving down into the darkness.

  After what seemed a long while, the steps ended. She stood on what felt like packed earth, in a space that might have been as wide as a cavern or as narrow as a grave. When she stretched out her hands, they found only air.

  Her guides had vanished. So, when she stepped back, then searched frantically with groping hands, had the stair. She was alone in the dark.

  With a strong effort of will she slowed her breathing and quieted her heart’s pounding. Maybe she should have explored her prison, but she judged it best to stay where she was and wait. She sank down on the hard earth, drew up her knees and clasped them and rested her forehead on them.

  Time stretched until there was nothing left of it at all. The Mystery she had been shown ran through her mind again and again. It was the truth she had been looking for—though in accepting it, she had set herself against everything she had been rais
ed to be.

  She had already done that when she left the temple in Dodona. She sighed and closed her eyes—as little difference as that made in this place.

  She let memory take her, as vivid as a dream. It gave her bright sunlight and fierce blue eyes and a strong-boned, broad-cheeked face.

  Warmth flooded through her; her breath caught. Then darkness did not matter at all, nor was she lonely or afraid. He was with her as surely as if he had been there in the flesh.

  * * *

  She was almost sorry when a hand fell on her shoulder and a voice said, “Rise; follow.” Polyxena raised her head and opened her eyes, blinking in blinding light.

  It was a lamp, flickering in a woman’s hand. The priestess was veiled in white, faceless and all but formless. Polyxena rose stiffly, stumbling until she had her feet under her.

  She had no sense of where she was or where she went. The light illuminated nothing beyond the priestess’ body. The path on which she guided Polyxena went straight ahead and then sloped sharply upward.

  Then at last Polyxena had the sense of walls: they closed in all around her, so that she had to stoop and crouch, then crawl on hands and knees. The taste of earth was in her mouth. Roots brushed her cheeks.

  The priestess’ light led her onward, but she could no longer see the woman who carried it. The tunnel narrowed until she wriggled on her belly like one of the Mother’s snakes.

  She began to wonder if she would be trapped here; if the Mystery was slow and suffocating death in the deeps of the earth. She was not afraid of death, though the pain of it might give her pause.

  She pressed on as she did everything in this life, with all the strength she had. She clawed through roots and burrowed in earth.

  She burst into light: moonlight, firelight, and the low hum of voices chanting. The mountain’s shadow rose above her. The sea glimmered below. Robed figures surrounded her.