Chapter 14 #2
“What would happen if she died before a successor is chosen?” asked Danae.
Dimitra shrugged. Even Olympia didn’t have an answer.
The girls lapsed into silence, and for a while Danae watched the open plains and patches of forest roll past. Soon tiredness weighed heavily on her.
She tried to stay awake but, lulled by the rocking motion of the carriage and the soft embrace of the pillows, her eyelids drooped, and she joined her companions in sleep.
Danae woke to the jolting motion of the carriage coming to a halt.
The light was fading. She must have been asleep for hours.
She looked out of the nearest window and saw rugged hills sloping away from the road.
The terrain was even sparser than before, with only the occasional tree appearing between tufts of rough grass and cracked, dusty earth.
There was a knock on the carriage door, then it creaked open. A guard leaned in and placed a tray of food onto the cushions between them, followed by a jug and four cups.
Danae stared. The tray was laden with figs, a bowl of honey, cured meats, cheeses and sweet cakes.
It took all her restraint not to shovel everything into her mouth at once.
Instead, she forced herself to mirror her companions and pick daintily at the meal.
Days of hunger roared inside her, nearly drowning out the taste of the first few bites.
She dunked a fig into a pot of honey, then groaned with pleasure as the sweetness burst over her tongue.
Dimitra laughed and passed her a cup of water. She drained it in one.
“You look familiar.” Lyssa was staring at Danae. “Have we met before?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied in what she hoped was a nonchalant tone.
Lyssa shrugged. “Maybe you’ve just got one of those faces.”
“Well, common people do all have a look,” said Olympia.
Danae fantasized about grabbing Olympia’s blond hair, dragging her out of the carriage and rubbing her face into the dirt.
“I think it’s a good thing Carissa’s here,” said Lyssa. “The new Pythia should be chosen on talent, not birth.”
Olympia snorted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Next, you’ll be saying we should choose our kings. Ridiculous.”
“Why not? Father says Theseus is running Athens into the ground.”
“Careful,” Dimitra placed a hand on Lyssa’s arm and glanced at the door. “You shouldn’t repeat things like that, ever. You could get your father in trouble.”
There was another knock. Lyssa twitched and looked worriedly at Dimitra who squeezed her hand.
The guard opened the door. “I’ve been instructed to escort you to the, ah—” he cleared his throat “—toilet facility.”
One by one they stepped down from the carriage. Their procession had pulled in off the road for the night. The other carriage was ahead of theirs, and the three wagons stood behind them.
“What are the wagons for?” asked Danae.
Olympia laughed. “Gold of course, for the treasure house.”
“All three of them?” Her mind crumbled as she tried to envisage how many villages three wagons’ worth of riches could feed.
Olympia stared at her incredulously as though she’d just asked what the sun was. “Where did you say you were from again?”
They were interrupted by their guard calling for them to follow him. Danae turned away from the others and pulled her cloak tighter around her. She must stop asking foolish questions.
A couple of tents had been erected beside the vehicles, presumably for the guards to sleep in as they didn’t have a wagon of their own. The girls trailed past them to an area where a sheet had been stretched between two trees, masking a shallow, freshly dug ditch.
“I’m not going behind there.” Olympia’s face contorted in disgust.
“You’re welcome to find somewhere else,” said the guard.
Olympia looked around at the scrubland’s evident lack of shelter and pursed her lips.
The guard and the novices waited on the other side of the makeshift divide while Danae relieved herself.
As she emerged, she heard someone whimper.
She glanced around and saw Phaedra, arms pinned to her sides by another guard, as she was bundled back into her carriage.
For a moment the queen’s face lingered at her window after the door was slammed behind her.
Their eyes met. A shiver trickled down Danae’s spine.
His task complete, the queen’s guard walked over to theirs.
“What’s happened now?” asked the novices’ guard.
“She’s mad,” the other muttered. “Just tried to grab my weapon. She was trying to...” He made a slicing motion across his throat.
The novices’ guard shook his head. “Don’t envy you.”
Lyssa, the last to relieve herself, emerged from behind the sheet.
“Right, I’d better get this lot inside,” said the novices’ guard. “Come on girls, back we go.” He nodded to the other. “Good luck.”
The man grunted. “I’m going for a piss.” He disappeared behind the curtain.
As they walked back, Danae’s eyes lingered on the queen’s window, but Phaedra had retreated into the darkness of her carriage.
By noon the following day the trees had thickened out and rolled over the undulating landscape in a blanket of green.
As they began the ascent into the mountains, other travelers joined them on the road, and soon they were part of a steady stream of wagons and carriages, and the occasional rider on horseback.
“I can see it!” Lyssa squealed.
They all rushed to the window, just as the carriage curved around the sloping peak of Mount Parnassus. Tumbling down the mountainside, bathed in shafts of sunlight, was the holy city of Delphi.
It wasn’t nearly as large as Athens, but it was majestic.
A stone statue of Athena, arms open wide to welcome pilgrims, presided over the city gates.
Due to the steep incline of the land, Danae could see inside the walls.
The sanctuary of Apollo, which housed the oracle, was nestled in the center.
She could tell this was the temple by the giant likeness of the God of the Sun standing above it, cast in gold, his shining curls crowned with laurel leaves.
Further up the mountain, carved into the sloping rock, was the theater and gymnasium.
A procession of pilgrims flowed through the city, treading the road all must take, the sacred way that led to the oracle.
As they drew closer to the gates, Danae’s fingers went again to Alea’s brooch. She held the weight of it in her hand and remembered her father pressing it into her palm. It was not much of an offering compared to the wealth around her, but she hoped it would be enough.
Maroon-cloaked guards flanked the entrance gates, their shining bronze armor dazzling in the sunlight. She stared out of the window, eyes flitting over the many pilgrims on foot, until Olympia pulled the curtains closed.
“It isn’t proper for the commoners to see us.”
Danae was tempted to rip them back open, but she forced herself to sit back and wait. Soon she would be with the oracle, that was all that mattered.
The road tilted beneath the carriage, and with the incline Danae’s pulse gathered speed. She was almost there.
Suddenly, the carriage came to a standstill, and she heard the clink of armor.
Their guard opened the door. “By the command of Apollo, all must walk the sacred way.”
The chatter of the crowd was drowned by the blood pounding in her ears as Danae stepped down from the carriage and huddled together with the other candidates.
She looked about for Phaedra, but a group of maroon-cloaked guards clustered around them, forming a human shield between the novices and the pilgrims. Her senses were smothered by bronze armor, musty cloaks and cries of “Make way!” as they climbed, hurrying to keep pace with the guards.
Her fingers brushed Dimitra’s, and the girl grasped her hand. She was glad of it.
Her breath came sharp and fast by the time the guards stopped walking. They peeled away to reveal the sloping entrance to the Temple of Apollo and formed a line behind the girls, pushing the pilgrims back.
The sanctuary of Apollo was fashioned in a similar design to the Temple of Athena in Athens, with towering columns crowned by a slanting roof and painted friezes detailed with gold leaf.
A woman emerged from the shadow of the pillars. She seemed to float as she descended, her deep crimson robe rippling over the stone. It was clinched at the waist with bronze brooches of laurel leaves, her head covered by a translucent veil of the same color crowned with a headdress of golden coins.
“The Pythia has requested the novices enter one at a time. Who will be the first?”
Danae expected Olympia to jump at the chance of being first to be presented to the Pythia, but now the moment came, nobody moved.
“I’ll go,” she said quickly, the thought of returning home a shining beacon in her mind.
“Good luck, Carissa,” whispered Dimitra and gave her hand a final squeeze.
Danae glanced behind at the guards holding back the crowd of pilgrims. Her stomach twisted as she looked at the sea of desperate faces beyond the armored men. If she’d come on foot, it would have taken an age to get through all those people.
Her heartbeat reached a crescendo as she turned back to the priestess and walked up the stone ramp toward the temple entrance.
Even though they were hidden, she could feel the woman’s eyes boring into her.
She tugged the pale blue cloak tighter around her ragged tunic.
Another priestess emerged from the darkness within, and wordlessly the women beckoned her into the gloom, flanking her as she stepped out of the sunlight into the cool shade of the sanctuary.