Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

Death at Delphi by Marilyn Todd

Copyright © 2007 by Marilyn Todd

Most readers know Marilyn Todd as the author of a series of mysteries set in ancient Rome, starring female wine merchant Claudia Seferius. But she’s always been fascinated by the Delphic Oracle, so this time she decided to change her setting to ancient Greece and write a mystery surrounding the oracle. Her latest novel is Sour Grapes (Seven House/’06).

Smoke, grey and nauseous, swirled round the temple. Laertes recognized bay, hemp, and barley grains among the ingredients, but there were others, rich and exotic, that were foreign to him. The heat of the charcoals on which they smouldered fused with the heat of high summer.

Still breathless from the tortuous climb, Laertes bowed be-fore the priest.

“I—”

What should he say? I have an appointment? It made him sound as though he were a common civil servant, not head of an army, and besides, the priest already knew why he was here. Laertes had registered his petition, paid his (truly exorbitant) fee, and purified himself at the Castalian Spring, all of which was noted in the oracular records. As indeed was the gold statuette, which had propelled him to the front of the queue.

“I have sacrificed a white goat,” he told the priest. “Its entrails—”

“Suggested favourable omens. I know.” The priest smiled as he bade him lay his armour aside. “Come,” he said. “Come with me, and together we will summon the spirit of Apollo, that He may answer the question you lay before Him.”

Ushered deep into the building, Laertes felt the world he knew slipping away. Gone were the crickets that rasped in the scrub, the butterflies that flittered over the cushions of wild thyme on the hillsides. Gone were the jangle of harnesses, the scrape of boots on the march. Even the sunshine was no more, for in the world of the Oracle, oil lamps flickered and strange odours danced. Music came from everywhere and nowhere. Not the music of clashing swords that Laertes was used to, nor the blare of battle trumpets. This was a soft, haunting tune made by lyres and flutes, that spoke of death, and of life, and of dreams…

From the shadows, two acolytes stepped forward in well-rehearsed unison. Boys of twelve, maybe thirteen, dressed in the same long, flowing robes as the priest.

“Drink,” the priest said, but when Laertes turned, the man was gone. In the distance, he could see small chinks of daylight. They seemed far, so far, away.

The first acolyte handed him a goblet on which the word “Forget” was engraved. The drink was wine, and Laertes drank. Then the second youth passed him a goblet on which the word “Remember” was etched. To Laertes’ mind, it tasted the same. With spirals of smoke coiling round his head one second, his feet the next, they steered him towards what looked like a gaping hole in the floor. Squinting cautiously, he could see nothing but darkness below. The acolytes motioned for him to sit, then retreated in silence, taking their torches with them. Even as he’d prepared to face battle, Laertes had never known his heart beat so fast.

How long did he sit there, dangling his feet in the Stygian blackness? A minute? An hour? Time had no meaning in the world of the gods. For was this not the site where Apollo slew the dragon snake that had raped his mother when she was pregnant with him and his twin sister, Artemis? Alone in the timeless void, Laertes set to wondering for the millionth time how best to phrase his question.

Then he was falling.

Tumbling through nothingness, with his arms flailing wildly, since the smooth stone denied him a grip. Down, down he spiralled, funnelling into the blackness. In his struggle, his forehead made contact with rock, then he found flagstones cushioned with reeds. Dusting himself down, his soldier’s eyes searched for the hands that had tugged at his ankles. It took only seconds to realise that his only companion was a statue of Apollo—

“Welcome,” a voice echoed. It was thin and crackled with age. “Welcome to the world of answers and truth.”

Making the sign of the horns, Laertes traced the sound to a narrow entrance over which “None May Enter” was written in gold lettering. From the doorway, he peered into a small inner sanctum lit by the dim flame from a tripod. Its flickering light revealed a solitary female, veiled and seated upon a stool.

“Welcome to the point where heaven and earth and east and west meet. The navel of the world, that is home to the Oracle.”

What had he been expecting? An old woman, to be sure. Wisdom went hand in hand with age and prophesy, and he remembered now that the previous sibyl’s trance had turned her into a wild animal, thrashing and groaning as she frothed on the floor, to die only a few hours later. Would that happen now? Listening to drumbeats and doves cooing curiously close-by, Laertes was transfixed by the frail figure bent over her tripod, still dressed in the wedding robes of her marriage long ago to long-haired Apollo. To his shame, his strong limbs were trembling.

“Dost thou wish to enquire of the Lord of Light and Prophesy, whose arrows of knowledge shine into the future?” she quavered.

“I do.”

“Art thou pure of body and heart?”

“I am.”

“Then Apollo will speak to thee through the vessel of my body. What is it thou wish to know?”

“My question…” He cleared his throat. He was a general, after all. A commander of men. “My question is this.”

His mouth was dry. Was it the smoke, the vile smell, or the fact that this was the first time he had voiced his intentions so bluntly?

“The king who rules the city-state from which I come is a weak man. He puts the good of himself before the good of his people, and I want to know if… if…” The words did not come easily. “…I move to unseat him—”

“Whether thy campaign will succeed?”

He didn’t feel better, now it was out in the open. His heart still pounded harder than a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil. “Yes,” he said eventually.

“Then shall ye know.”

With a twirl of her wrist, an explosion erupted from the tripod, a flurry of sparks flew into the air. Then she hugged her arms tight to her chest and began rocking back and forth, keening softly. Swaying himself in the abominable heat of this underground tomb, Laertes watched the flames from her fire reflect in the Pool of Prophesy at her feet and sensed the past and the future fusing together. It wasn’t only the crack on his head, he thought, that was making it throb.

Time passed. The Oracle rocked, wailed, muttered, and reeled. The flames in her tripod guttered and died. In their place, smoke, white and sweet, welled from the walls, from the floor, from the ceiling. Laertes’ tunic clung, sodden, against his skin.

“When a guest of wood doth pass through thy portals…” When she spoke this time, it was not in a voice tremulous with old age. This voice was low, deep, and even. “…then must thou build a city of metal walls and woollen roofs, and set it beside the dancing pebbles.”

The sweat on his back turned inexplicably cold.

“Sacrifice in this place a creature that makes both music and food, and I, Apollo of the Lyre, will surely march at thy side.”

With a jerk, she slumped forward. The drumbeats fell silent. The cooing of doves ceased at once.

“Leave me,” the old woman quavered, and her voice was so weak he had to strain to hear it. “Leave me, for I am spent.”

Perhaps he should have thanked her, but she seemed barely conscious, so he turned, and the last sight was of her thin breast rising and falling with unnatural rapidity. He did not understand the riddle, but as he clambered up the rope ladder that had been lowered through the hole he knew there was a priest in the temple, a seer called Periander, who would help him unravel the mystery. With the seer’s help, and with Apollo’s, there was no doubt in his mind that his revolt would succeed.

Tumbling back into the real world, Laertes was positively breathless with relief.

Below, in the underground sanctum, the Oracle threw off the veil that filtered the fumes and stretched her slender arms high.

“How many more?” she asked the wall.

The wall parted, spilling a thin finger of light into the cavern. “Five,” the young man said, consulting his scroll by the glow of his candle. “Though none of the other petitioners require such elaborate theatre.”

“Good. I was half-choked with that smoke.”

“You were?” The young man laid his drums aside and squeezed through the gap in the false wall. “When you tossed those herbs into the tripod and set off that explosion, I had to pinch my nose to stop myself sneezing.”

Cassandra smiled with him. “Next time, I’ll stow a smaller bunch of borage up my sleeve, but at least Laertes should have no trouble interpreting the riddle.” She pulled off her old woman’s mask and blotted the sweat off her face with her sleeve. “I made it simple enough, I thought.”

When a guest of wood doth pass through thy portals — in other words, when a ship enters harbour — that’s the time to build a city of metal walls and woollen roofs — i.e., set up camp, since soldiers use spears to support their blankets. And if this didn’t make it plain that this undertaking should be conducted in the spring, when the seas opened once more for trade, beside the dancing pebbles, she had added firmly. It wouldn’t take much working out on Laertes’ part to understand that this meant when the first snowmelts cascade down the mountains, and as for sacrificing a creature that makes both music and food — well, what other animal’s flesh is succulent when roasted and shell makes the perfect soundbox for a lyre but a tortoise?

“Laertes is a soldier, not a politician, my love.” Jason began to knead the muscles in her neck that tightened from hours bent over the tripod. “Men like him think in straight lines. Not too rough?”

“No, that’s lovely,” she purred.

“I’ll bet you a chalkoi to an obol that Laertes heads straight for Periander.” He moved down to massage the knots in her shoulders. “He’s the very sort who needs a seer to solve the puzzle for him — and ho, ho, talk of the devil.”

An older man in ankle-length robes, whose craggy face was softened by a beard, shinned down the ladder with the skill of a ship’s rat.

“Father!” Cassandra embraced him warmly. “What a delightful surprise!”

She hadn’t seen much of him over the past six months, and he had never, in her recollection, come down here to see her. Was this because she was too engrossed in her new appointment, she wondered? Or because the memories that this sanctum held were too painful for him?

“Did you solve the riddle for our rebellious general? Because all in all, I thought it went rather well,” she decided.

The admission fee, the costs of purification, one gold statuette, plus, what? a silver wine cup, perhaps, for the seer’s deciphering. Traitor or not, the Delphic Treasury would welcome Laertes back anytime.

“I suppose, Cassandra, that depends how one defines the word ‘well.’ ” Periander’s eyes were grave, but then they always were. “Laertes collapsed at my feet.”

“And?” she cried.

“And he’s dead,” her father said quietly.

Ever so softly, Night threw her cloak over the mount of Parnassus. Flexing the stiffness out of her legs, Cassandra paced the portico as, one by one, the priests and attendants made their way home to their wives and their supper and bed. The last of the petitioners was long gone, the temple swept with purifying hyssop in readiness for tomorrow, and the only sound that broke the silence was the grinding of bolts as the sanctuary was locked up against thieves. She paced and paced until only the creatures of darkness prowled the Sacred Way that zigzagged its way up to the shrine. Fox, jackal, hedgehog, and caracal. They moved from shadow to shadow.

Dead? How could Laertes be dead?

In the Pool of Purification, she saw a young woman with hair blacker than a raven’s wing and eyes darker than an adulterous liaison. Plunging her hands into the cool, clear water, Cassandra splashed her face with her own reflection.

With the temple physician laid up in splints after a fall, there was no one to confirm or refute the cursory diagnosis that cause of death was a weak heart. Several witnesses testified to the chills and sweats that Laertes experienced beforehand, but then most supplicants suffered similar effects at the prospect of coming face-to-face with the gods. As for being breathless after his consultation, there was nothing unusual about that, either. The higher a petitioner’s status, the harder the temple worked at disorientating him, because farmers, for instance, eager to know the most auspicious time to plant their beans or bring in their harvest, were far less worldly than kings or insurgent generals. Deeply religious, highly superstitious, the peasant folk believed with all their hearts that Apollo’s spirit spoke to them straight through the mouth of the Oracle. They didn’t need further convincing.

But a crown is not held in place by thin air. Kingship requires plotting and scheming, travel and trade, just as it requires war and diplomacy. Such sophisticates are not easily fooled and are even less likely to trust. Hence, the magic that is brought into play.

Senses manipulated by darkness, by narcotic fumes, by strange, haunting music. Rituals take on even greater importance. The petitioners are passed from one priest to another before they are able to take stock of their surroundings. They’re given goblets of wine that will supposedly make them forget everything except the focus of their question yet remember clearly the Oracle’s prediction. Then they are left alone to commune with the gods, and who would imagine that an old woman’s hands could grip their ankles and drag them into the void? Disorientated by their fall every bit as much as the blackness, they do not see the old woman hurry back to her stool. But—! (And it was always possible.) One of these days, this chicanery might just bounce off their defences. In which case, keeping the petitioner outside the inner sanctum, where there was no possibility of him seeing that the face was a mask, was essential.

As indeed was the Oracle’s constant monitoring of the supplicant’s body language and expression from beneath her veil…

High overhead, Hercules wielded his olive-wood club and the moon rose full and white through the pines. Cassandra sat on the steps of the temple and buried her head in her hands. Weak heart be damned. While she was teasing Laertes with her riddles, what she had mistaken for nervousness and disorientation were, in fact, the symptoms of a man who was dying. Dying in front of her eyes.

And manifesting all the symptoms of poison.

“Jason.” She had to shake him twice to rouse him. “Jason, wake up.”

When he saw her, fully dressed and her hair still pinned up, he was on his feet in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

“Laertes was murdered,” she explained, while he pulled on a tunic. In the lamplight, his skin shone like bronze. “I need you to go down to the temple mortuary.”

She did not need to elaborate. Women, even the most important woman in Delphi, were forbidden to set foot inside.

“Examine his body, check his eyes, his skin colour, look in his mouth, his ears, under his nails, then report back to me on your findings.”

She was pretty certain she knew what had killed him, having ruled out corn cockle, since Laertes had suffered no abdominal cramps, while aconite would have had him throwing up, and with hellebore he’d have been salivating like a rabid dog. Other poisons were either too slow or too fast and so, given the time frame in which he died, Cassandra concluded that only belladonna could have taken his life. But confirmation would not go amiss.

“I love you, I adore you, I would give my life for you,” Jason said, combing his tousled hair with his hands. “But frankly, my darling, I’d rather face the Minotaur in Hades than ask the Keepers of the Vigil to stand aside while I poke and prod their dead charge at this ungodly hour of the night. What excuse am I supposed to give them?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “But you did so well today, with the drumbeats and doves, that I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

The invisible doves of prophesy were Cassandra’s idea, but the drums and the white smoke had been Jason’s. All it needed, he’d insisted, was a bowl of hot water and some terracotta pipes to filter the steam. Delphi, after all, was founded on the principle that the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.

“Ah, the birds.” He clucked his tongue. “I wasn’t sure it would work,” he admitted. “I feared blocking the light from my one tiny flame would make no difference when I threw the sheet over their cage, but bless you, my love, you were right. They stopped talking at once.”

“I wish you would,” she said. “We have so little time.”

“Why the hurry?”

She pressed her lover’s hand in urgency. “I’ll explain later,” she said. There wasn’t time now to go into why she needed to unmask Laertes’ killer during her first trance of the morning.

“For you, O Prophetic One—” He kissed her lightly on the nose — “I will borrow Hermes’ winged sandals and fly like Pegasus himself.”

Watching him sprint across the courtyard, she thought it wouldn’t be the first time that the Oracle had delivered a prophesy only for it not to come true. Accuracy wasn’t essential. Had Laertes died trying to overthrow his sovereign, it would only prove that, although Apollo had been with him, Zeus or Poseidon had sided with his opponent. When it comes to gods battling it out, no one argues.

In addition, many riddles were deliberately open to misinterpretation. Some for political reasons. Some because bribes had been passed (the Treasury was no slouch when it came to filling its storehouses). And some because, quite simply, Cassandra had no idea how to answer. Thanks to the meticulously maintained library of files at Delphi, she knew who the supplicants were, where they came from, the political background. But there was never any advance notice of their question.

And today the Oracle had quite clearly foretold that Laertes would set up camp beside the river next spring.

The Oracle could not afford to be that wrong.

Outside, Selene’s silver light spilled over the rooftops, bathing the theatre, the shrines, the fountains in silver as bats squeaked on the wing. With a thousand city-states constantly at war with one another, Delphi remained spectacularly neutral. In fact, it thrived on optimism, Cassandra decided as she waited for Jason to return. And it was her job to keep it that way. Without optimism, one tiny shrine could not have grown into the most prestigious religious centre in the world, bursting with treasuries, overflowing with marble, and where eight hundred statues stared out to sea. Thanks to its oracles, a federation of small (and otherwise insigificant) city-states had grown to become the most powerful council in the Greek world. Today, it was not so much a case of consulting the Oracle as obtaining sanction. Kings would not make war without it.

But Cassandra was only one link in the chain and, incredible as it may seem, not even the most important.

If anything happened to her — and the sibyls had a curious habit of dying in agony — there were other girls trained to step into her bridal robes and take that famous seat over the tripod. Girls like her cousin Hermione, for example, who’d been primed to take over, had it not been for Cassandra’s outstanding aptitude for deception. She smiled in recollection. The Governing Council, always eager to stock a new treasury, revelled in the fact that each new generation brought fresh ideas to the role. Cassandra’s proposal to enclose her lover, Jason, behind a partition to add to the drama cast poor Hermione into oblivion.

“Great Zeus, what are you doing out alone this time of night?”

She spun round. “Father! You frightened the life out of me!”

Grey eyes stared solemnly at her in the moonlight. She tried to remember the last time he’d smiled, but could not. “Can’t you sleep, child?”

“Can’t you?” she retorted. Like her, he was still in his day robes.

“The death of those carried young to the Elysian Fields is tragedy beyond measure,” he said sadly. “To have them die before one’s eyes is a burden greater than Atlas, who holds the whole world on his shoulders.”

Periander wrapped one arm round her shoulder and squeezed. Together father and daughter watched the moon dance on the sea.

“We old folk find consolation in the knowledge and wisdom that comes from maturity, but it is always the young that we envy, Cassandra.” He sighed heavily. “You have so much to give.” He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “So much to lose.”

She watched him walk away, stroking his beard in thought, though it was only later, much later, that she realised he wasn’t talking about a young general collapsing dead at his feet.

He had been talking about Cassandra’s mother.

What befell Periander’s wife befell most of the Delphic prophetesses. One day the Oracle was sitting in her sanctum, dispensing riddles as usual. The next, she was a gibbering wreck. Drooling, moaning, writhing, screaming. She saw visions — terrible, marvellous, hideous visions — but these were the visions that killed her. Slowly and painfully, they would torture her to death while she frothed at the mouth, suffered spasms, amnesia, until the final convulsion came as a blessing.

Cassandra was just a baby when her mother had died. She only ever knew her through her father’s memories, but from what he told her, she would have loved her. They shared the same dark hair and eyes, he said, the same sense of joy and laughter.

“Ah, but she was a wonderful actress,” Periander would remind her. “The minute she donned those robes and mask, she became Apollo’s virgin bride, waiting for her adoring bridegroom.”

Then he would explain how it wasn’t that the Oracle was a fraud. Just that Mighty Apollo couldn’t sit there, day in and day out, with nothing else to do but assure this merchant that his investment was sound or that poet that his next work would be a masterpiece. When the gods spoke, mortals knew it, Periander reminded her solemnly, and when Apollo did speak through the mouth of the Oracle, then the poor creature was doomed. But by maintaining the pretence, such was Delphi’s standing in the Greek world that men came from all over to receive the god’s approbation, undergoing various rituals to win Him over. It was vital their trust in Him was upheld.

Backed by a massive administration ranging from the Governing Council to the countless scribes that toiled to keep the mountain of files up-to-date, the Oracle hosted Games to rival Olympia and held musical competitions that would turn Orpheus himself green with envy. And thus, for the thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the shrine hoping to have a curse lifted or find love, found a new colony overseas or sue for peace with their neighbours, the Oracle represented stability in a changing and unsettled world.

“You, child, are even better than your mother,” Periander would tell her, and for her part, Cassandra was proud to contribute to the miracle that was Delphi. Rich or poor, every petitioner went home reassured that, if he sacrificed here or did penance there, Apollo would surely be with him. The emancipation of slaves was particularly rewarding for her. You couldn’t ask for more than to give a man happiness.

And so, watching her father prostrate himself before the shrine of Zeus, the moonlight turning the lines in his face into chasms, her heart ached for the man whose wife had died after hearing Apollo’s voice, and who had never got over the loss. And now, to add to the tragedy, his daughter’s prophesies had been brutally sabotaged…

As he rose and poured a libation to the King of the Immortals, God of Vengeance and Justice and Honour, she realised with a start that her mother would have been the same age Cassandra was now. In her twenty-fifth summer.

Despite the throbbing heat of the night, the Oracle shivered. And wished Jason would hurry.

Zeus is the first, Zeus is the last, Zeus is the god with the divine thunderbolt.

The hymn kept going round in her mind.

Zeus is the head, Zeus is the middle, of Zeus all things have their end.

As she gazed down over the hillside, across the building works in various stages of construction, at the statues that lined the Sacred Way, Cassandra knew that she would remember this night for the rest of her life.

It was the night she walked into womanhood.

Behind her, the Shining Cliffs lived up to their name, glistening white in the moonlight. Riddled with caves and rich with fountains and springs, they were the playground of Pan, home to the Muses, and the stairway to the pinnacle from which those convicted of sacrilege against the gods were flung to their deaths. From the grove of holm oaks, an owl hooted softly.

Not a seer like her father, or a prophetess as was made out, Cassandra nevertheless saw the picture clear in her mind.

The king who rules the city-state from which I come is a weak man. Laertes’ words floated back to her. He puts the good of himself before the good of his people.

The files had backed up this assessment, but weak and self-serving doesn’t mean stupid. One by one, as Hercules tramped round the heavens, the pieces fell into place.

Laertes’ king hadn’t trusted his general an inch, and when Laertes set off on that long trek to Delphi, the king knew there could be only one question which needed an answer. Not about to give up his dynasty, he duly despatched his own man, an assassin, to ensure Laertes would not return.

Leaning her back against a pillar, Cassandra realised she’d never know for certain. Had the assassin travelled a different route, which took longer? Had he been caught in a storm out at sea? Taken ill? Who knows, but whatever happened, he must have arrived in Delphi well after Laertes had registered his petition and paid his admission fee. Prowling round on padded feet, enquiring in whispers, the assassin would have noted the power that one gold statuette held, shooting Laertes up the queue of merchants and military men, athletes and musicians, much less the scores of humble smallholders. And the assassin would have quickly realised that, if the Treasury could be bought, so could individuals. It was his nature to probe and investigate. To determine which priest drank from gold goblets at home. Which acolyte kept an expensive mistress. Whether the Guardian of the Keys had run up debts.

From the moment Laertes set foot outside his own country, he was a dead man. It had only been a question of timing. Cassandra understood. This was the way of the world. It was the next part she had trouble comprehending. The fact that the murder had not only happened in her world, but that the killer specifically intended to discredit the Oracle.

And she did not mean the assassin.

His job was over once he’d established who could be bribed, and for how much. Even the method of execution was out of his hands.

Poison…

Extracted from the deadly nightshade, whose juice induces dry mouth, impaired speech — all the things, in fact, that she had witnessed from inside her sanctum, before Laertes’ eyesight failed and he’d found difficulty breathing, prior to lapsing into unconsciousness and finally death. The heat from the column diffused into her backbone. It all came back to that tiny phial of liquid that had been fed to him inside the temple, she reflected, and that was the sad part. Inside the temple. For in this killing, timing was crucial. And, standing beneath the stars and the moon that saw everything, Cassandra knew that the hand that had delivered that fatal dose of belladonna belonged to someone not only familiar with the temple, but who knew the sanctum inside out. Who understood not only the mind of the petitioner, but also the intricacies of the disorientation process — and was in a position to play on both. Manipulating the timing of the drug, so that Laertes wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, whilst ensuring that the Oracle’s suspicions would not be aroused, either. Someone, in short, who knew she would set the supplicant a riddle. And be discredited when Laertes collapsed of natural causes…

It was not coincidence, she realised with a chill, that the temple physician was laid up with a broken leg. His fall from the Shining Cliffs was a nudge, not a stumble, and her stomach churned as she remembered who it was who’d raced down the cliffs to sound the alarm—

“So that’s where you’re hiding!”

His voice broke the silence now, and as she turned, Cassandra’s limbs were shaking.

Ah, but she was a wonderful actress, her father said of her mother. But you. You are even better.

This was true. Her smile was wide as she greeted him brightly.

“Jason!” She injected relief into her voice. “I thought you’d gone back to bed! So now tell me. What symptoms did you find on Laertes’ body?”

“That’s what took me so long,” he said, and when he moved towards her, she backed away. “No matter how hard I pleaded, no matter what tricks I pulled, the Guardians of the Vigil would not let me near him.”

Cassandra wished she could have sounded surprised.

In the darkness of the inner sanctum, music that was a combination of Persian and Egyptian, Phoenician and Arabic filtered down from the temple. Behind the partition painted to resemble the rockface, the doves of prophesy cooed, and in the tripod, sweet-smelling herbs emitted their scents. Lemon balm, oregano, and mint.

She was a wonderful actress, but you, child, you are better.

In the past, whenever a sibyl had heard the true voice of Apollo, she had complained of smoke rising from a fissure in the floor that gave off a light, scented odour. The breath of the god. After which she fell into that fateful, delirious trance—

Wailing and thrashing in her created odour, Cassandra quickly attracted the attention of the priests and acolytes above. Jason burst through the false wall in alarm.

“What is it, my love? What’s the matter?”

When she didn’t respond, he called for “Water! Light! Give her air!” And when he tried to lift her off the stool, he found that he could not. A crowd gathered round, her father among them, his face a picture of agony.

I’m sorry, so sorry, she wanted to tell him. I know this is how you found my mother so long ago, but truly I know no other way…

The Oracle could not — must not — be discredited.

Even at the expense of her own father’s pain.

Soon the Council came running, the heavyweights who ran the administration, and the aristocrats who governed it. Through her twitching and groaning, Cassandra saw the face of her cousin, Hermione, at the edge of the crush. Familial concern tinged with more than just a little hopefulness, she noticed through her jibbering. Poor, sweet Hermione. Fated to be disappointed again.

“I see death which is not a death,” she howled, and there was no need to disguise her voice. This was Apollo speaking through Cassandra’s own voice, just as he had through previous sibyls’.

“Laertes,” someone hissed in translation. “She means it was murder.”

Her arms flailed. “From fruit which is not a fruit.”

“Poison,” whispered somebody else.

“I see the shadow of the Ferryman inside this chamber.”

Beside her, Jason’s frame had gone unaccountably still and, as her frenzy caused her to toss more herbs of prophesy into the eternal flame, she reflected again on how handsome he was. How funny. How virile. How cunning.

“Who?” one of the priests asked. “Who killed Laertes?”

But the Oracle was passing into convulsions, and as she thrashed, Cassandra noticed her father slip away from the sanctum, tears streaming down his bearded cheeks. She ached to go with him, hug him tight to her breast, show him that his daughter was not dying. But the Oracle could not leave. Rooted to her stool — to her destiny — Cassandra tore at her hair in grief and despair.

You are better than your mother…

She was not, she was not, this anguish was real. Here, before the Governing Council and the enterprise that was Delphi, she was betraying the only man she’d ever loved.

“Can you see in your flames the face of the murderer?” one of the elders asked. “Do you see the face of the man who sought to bring disgrace on this place?”

Not in the flames, she wanted to scream. I see his face here, in my heart.

“Zeus is the foundation of the earth and the sky.” She was supposed to be rambling. She might as well ramble from the hymn that had kept her awake all through the night. And the images that had tormented her with it. “Zeus is the breath of all things.”

“She means divine retribution will befall him,” someone interpreted.

“I see two heads in a womb and two quivers of arrows. And the bear will ride on the back of the dolphin and smite the beast that tried to kill him.”

“Twins!” an acolyte shouted. “She means twins,” and suddenly all the priests were chorusing at once.

“The dolphin is Apollo—”

“—his arrows are rays of light!”

It must be the shock of the Oracle’s trance, she decided. Otherwise they’d have realised instantly that the dolphin was Apollo’s sacred emblem, just as the bear was his sister’s.

“Apollo is telling us that sacrilege has been perpetrated against him, but that Artemis, the huntress, will strike down the assassin on behalf of her brother.”

Mutterings ran round the sanctum.

“The killer has already left Delphi—”

“—but we need take no action ourselves—”

“—because Apollo will have his revenge through his sister!”

“Justice is served,” someone pronounced.

But what was justice, if not a matter of perspective? From the corner of her eye, she glanced at Jason. His face might as well have been carved of stone. Tasked with ensuring Laertes’ death, the assassin had been true to his mission, and in so doing he had saved a crown and a dynasty. To his king, crushing rebellion was righteous. The assassin would be a hero when he returned — but what justice for the man who fed Laertes the poison?

With a final shriek, Cassandra threw her arms into the air, then collapsed onto the floor. This was the sign that the Oracle had stopped prophesying. Visions were only possible when seated upon her sacred stool. The crowd gasped.

“It’s a miracle!”

“The trance hasn’t claimed her life after all.”

Even Hermione appeared relieved.

“Apollo has spoken without killing his mouthpiece—”

“—he wants us to know that this sacrilege will be avenged.”

As they trickled out — the Council, the priests, even Jason, who she noticed was shaking — four words echoed inside her head. Sacrilege will be avenged. Yes, it would, she thought dully. Sacrilege would be avenged, but not in the way they imagined.

Only she, Cassandra, had the power to do that…

Alone in her sanctum, the Oracle wept.

“I’m so sorry, Cassandra.” The priests bade the stretcher-bearers lay down their burden. “You have our deepest sympathy.”

The body was covered by linen, but the red stains told their own story. She stared with a heart that was broken.

“It was the will of the gods, Cassandra. Apollo needed a sacrifice, and since he spared your life, he took the life of someone you loved.”

Not Apollo, she thought heavily. He took his own life…

“We found him lying at the foot of the pinnacle.” The priests shuffled awkwardly. “There was… nothing anybody could do.”

Knowing sympathy was inadequate, they retreated, leaving her alone with the body. How long, though — an hour? — before they trooped back? Not long, that’s for sure, since it was essential that the obsequies commenced as quickly as possible, and since women were not allowed inside the temple mortuary, this was her only — and last — time alone with him. She wished she could make peace with him, too.

We named you Cassandra, your mother and I, because during the time of the Trojan War, Cassandra’s curse was to prophesy but not be believed. Her father’s words echoed in the stillness. We thought, no we hoped, it would spare you the fate of the previous sibyls. But you, child — he had smiled — you were always so headstrong.

“The name Jason means healing,” a voice rasped at her shoulder. “Which I will, if you will allow me.”

She looked up at him, blond and bronzed, and thought her heart would break in two. He knew. He knew the minute he’d tried to inspect Laertes’ corpse that something wasn’t right…

“I prised it out of the Keepers of the Vigil in the end,” he had told her. “No one was allowed near the body. Only someone in authority could have issued that command. I made them divulge who, then I knocked up the temple physician.”

That’s why he was gone so long, he explained.

“The physician said that Periander had been acting oddly for a few days, and that he’d been worried.”

It was why the physician agreed to go for a walk above the Shining Cliffs with him, and why he’d accepted it had been Periander’s clumsiness, not malice, that had caused him to fall and break his ankle.

Jason stared at the bloodied sheet on the bier stained by one tear, then another, then another. “Your father was not a bad man,” he whispered.

“With so many choices open to him, so many different paths he could have taken,” she sobbed, “why did he choose to become a cold-blooded killer?”

“Because, darling, he loved you.”

Anger replaced grief. “It was not for him to decide Laertes’ fate,” Cassandra spat. “Between us we could have used the Oracle to divert Laertes from his murderous intentions, and at least warn him of the assassin at his back. After that, it would be up to him how he proceeded, not for my father to decide.”

Jason watched her tears darken the shroud.

“Laertes came to Delphi to receive sanction for the rebellion he was planning. The king’s assassin followed,” he said. “By listening and observing, he found a willing implement in, yes, this temple’s seer of all people, but don’t be too harsh on your father, my love. We all have something we want desperately, and we all have something to trade. Your father simply wanted to save his daughter’s life.”

Old sequences replayed in her head. Periander grief-stricken when his beloved wife fell ill to the noxious vapours inside the sanctum. But not half so pained as the day his only child announced that she was following the same career path as her mother.

“To spare you the agony of dying young, your father became the assassin’s instrument, feeding Laertes belladonna in the belief that, whatever happened, Laertes was a dead man, but this way he could at least save his daughter.”

If only it were that simple, Cassandra thought. He reasoned that if he discredited the Oracle and another prophetess took her place, what did principle matter, provided his daughter was safe? But did he not realise that she not only understood but accepted, when she donned the bridal robes, that the deadly vapours that rose from the rock would probably kill her? Weighed against the balance of life, the opportunity to become the holy Oracle at Delphi was still the most exciting, the most challenging, the most invigorating role any woman could hope to take on.

“To live a few years fully is better than to live many years badly,” she said, hugging her arms to her breast.

Once again, the decision was not her father’s to make, but the tragedy was that with Jason’s assistance she had arranged that circus this morning specifically to convince Periander that his daughter had breathed the vapours of death and that there was nothing for him to live for. Sacrilege in Apollo’s shrine had indeed been punished. But at what price, she wondered—

“Come,” Jason said. “The priests are returning. Let’s go back to the sanctum.” He kissed her tear-stained cheeks. “There’s a fissure I want to block up.”

Healing, he said. The name Jason means healing, and maybe, just maybe, Cassandra would grow to love him as much as he adored her.

Right now, though, she doubted it.

How could she love him, if she hated herself?