Part 23 (1/2)

We never found him. I could tell the priests were nervous from the start. Whatever they planned to happen must have gone badly awry. Since they refused to admit what was normal procedure, we could only guess how.

Sure of a tragedy, I made it official straight away. I chivvied the priests and involved the elders of the town. We scoured Lebadeia itself. Then parties of men searched in all directions: along the main road to Chaironia, up a track that led over Mount Helike to Delphi by a wilder route, and also out along the famous road to Thebes. Riders and youths with dogs came out to look for him. We beat the rocks and dragged the river. He was nowhere.

When it grew dark, we had to abandon our efforts. The townspeople had done all I could expect. They had devoted a day to it. They wanted to exonerate their oracle, so they showed willing, even though we were foreigners and strangers. But when I gave up and returned to my room that night I sat wearily with my head in my hands, and knew they would do no more. We had all failed. By then I was sure we would never see Statia.n.u.s alive again - and we might never even know if he was dead.

At that point, Helena was not with me. When I stumbled back to our hired room, I failed to find her and a.s.sumed she had gone to eat without me. I was surprised. Soon, anxiety took me in search of the poet. Lampon said she had gone back to the sanctuary; she had wanted to try to find out what really happened to questioners down in the chamber. She was sure the oracle worked by some trick.

That had been this afternoon.

I crossed the river and raced to the oracle. Lampon came with me, guilty that he had not told me earlier. I wished he had gone with Helena, but I knew her independence and could not blame him for it.

The grove was dimly lit with tiny lamps. The mound was more brightly illuminated, as if somebody might be consulting the oracle that night. But n.o.body much was there, just two boys in matching long white tunics, aged about thirteen. They were hanging about playing knucklebones and hoping for excitement. One saw me coming, took fright at my grim face, and decided he had to go home to his mother. The other either had a f.e.c.kless mother who would never miss him, or else he just could not bear to miss anything. Lampon and I accosted him. I a.s.sured him he was not in any trouble, then slowly extracted news.

Helena Justina had come to the oracle, and had found these same boys. She sat down and made friends with them. She guessed they were the pair who took part in the ritual, leading questioners to the river for ceremonial was.h.i.+ng. Winningly, she asked whether they knew more about the oracle than that. Of course they did. They knew how the priests worked it.

I gazed at the lad who was telling me. Helena and I had already discussed this. We had heard numerous tales of temple 'magic' from Marinus and Indus. Egypt was particularly good at trickery, but delusion happened everywhere. Statues that eerily nodded or talked, for instance. Temple doors that swung open mysteriously, after priests lit fires on altars, activating buckets of water or mercury, hidden beneath, so they operated pulleys; doors that then miraculously closed when the altar fires were doused. Compared to these manoeuvres, it would be simplicity to bamboozle a man you had locked up in the dark underground - especially in a contraption built specifically for that purpose.

'I bet I know what Helena suggested. When the initiate is down there in the chamber, somebody else goes inside?' The boy seemed amazed I too had worked out this obvious ploy. 'Is there a secret pa.s.sage?'

With an eagerness that suggested he had a guilty conscience, the boy admitted it. He knew of the pa.s.sage for the simplest of reasons. 'When the doors shut and the questioners are in the dark, most of them s.h.i.+t themselves. I get paid a bonus to go in next day and clean up.'

Then to my horror, he confessed he and his friend had shown Helena where the secret pa.s.sage was. She had gone in. She was a long time there. They called, but she never came out. They knew Statia.n.u.s had vanished and were too scared to investigate. Frightened, the two boys had hung around outside, hoping somebody would come along and deal with the situation for them.

Like most boys in trouble, our informant had not confessed until he was asked. He was very relieved to be telling me at last. I myself was hysterical. I ordered him to show me the hidden entrance immediately. My urgency was a mistake. The lad leapt to his feet and fled.

L.

There was still a way in. Lampon and I took lights. With the poet trembling behind me, I strode to the top of the mound. He made a limp effort to help me, as I heaved up one of the bronze doors and flung it over on its hinge so the hole was accessible. We clung to the edge and peered down. I thought I could see a white figure lying about twenty feet below.

Statia.n.u.s had been put down there yesterday, using the shrine's famous narrow ladder. Ladders of that length are rarely stored far from their operation area. Lampon and I ran around the sanctuary like trapped rats until we found it.

'Don't fail me, Lampon. I need you, man. I'm going down, but you make sure you stay here holding the ladder steady. Then I may need you to fetch help.'

The dark shaft was horribly like a well-head I once had to be lowered into. Still, I scrambled over and I went down that ladder almost without touching its rungs. I was holding a lamp; scalding oil splashed my hand. I found myself entering a conical cave, fas.h.i.+oned like a kiln or bread oven. The walls were about ten feet apart, the depth twice that. Foul, musty air chilled me.

When my feet hit the rough earthen floor, I looked up. A pallid semicircle showed where the entrance door was open. Lampon's head was outlined dimly against a far-off starlit sky. I yelled up to him not to shut down the trapdoor whatever happened.

Now there was no time for panic. I dropped to my knees beside the motionless figure. It was Helena - thankfully warm and still breathing. As soon as I touched her, sliding my hands along her arms to rub life back into her, she groaned and struggled.

'I'm here. I've got you. Relief and joy swamped me as I held her in my arms. On principle, I found a few words of admonishment. Now I know why the Greeks lock up their women indoors...' But I also knew why she had done it. She remembered how many fearsome wells, tombs, and underground shrines I had had to endure; she had wanted to spare me yet another dose of terror in a dark confined s.p.a.ce. In the end I just clasped her tightly, forgetting her folly and thanking that wonderful idiot for her bravery and love.

Then we heard angry voices above us. Sanctuary guards were accosting Lampon. He protested with vigour, but we heard him being dragged away. Somebody pulled up the ladder and, despite my shouts, they banged the door shut. My lamp went out.

'Oh thank you, G.o.ds!'

'No, Marcus; that was men - men protecting their mysteries.'

'We must stop getting ourselves entombed in dank places. Don't panic.'

'I am perfectly calm, darling - Marcus, Marcus, I have to tell you. I know how they do it. Someone hits them on the head!'

'Someone hit you too!'

'Not hard.'

My palm went to her scalp, feeling for damage. She squeaked. I pulled in a long, ferocious breath. Any man who attacked Helena Justina was as good as dead. But I had to get us out of here and find him first.

To keep her still as she thrashed about trying to talk to me, I went along with the revelations. Right! The poor fools with questions are brought here, weak from fasting. They have been drenched with cold water, inside and out, so their brains are frozen. Disorientated by fear, they fail to notice when somebody slides out of the cleft they themselves have to wriggle into. 'Where was it, incidentally?

'No, I don't think anyone waits in here, or crawls in either. They would be noticed. My theory is, they lie in wait outside in the secret pa.s.sage. They pull the victim feet first through the cleft - then bop them and push them back in here. The questioners have been told to hold barley cakes soaked in honey in both hands - so they can't defend themselves,' Helena burbled. 'And they have been told they will experience being dragged helplessly into the cleft as if pulled by the force of a river. She was shaking with cold, after lying here all afternoon. I had to take her out of this filthy cave, and quickly.

'Tell me later, sweetheart. You came through this secret pa.s.sageway - now where is it?'

Then Helena helped me feel at floor level for the hole where the questioners inserted themselves. Through this crack 'supernatural forces' sucked them and then - if they were lucky - the so-called G.o.ds later spat them out back into the chamber. The cleft was about two feet long and one foot high; a chubby gourmet would get stuck.

Oh pig's p.i.s.s. It was too small. Hot waves of primeval fear swept over me. This was my worst nightmare. Before I came down here, I had told myself there must be a nicely hewn corridor. Even if the secret tunnel had been made for boys and dwarves, I had imagined it as walkable - perhaps with a decent door into this chamber...

No chance. Bad luck had caught me out again. We had to lie down and squeeze out feet first through the sacred pothole.

No force of nature or divinity seized us. We lay down, used our own strength to push our feet through the gap, then wriggled our bodies after them. Helena went first, before I could stop her - but she had come in this way, so she was more confident. I felt her slip away from me, then heard m.u.f.fled shouts of encouragement. I followed Helena and squeezed through into another dark cavity where it was possible only to crouch half upright. Feeling the wall on our left hand, she then pulled me for some distance along a back-breaking tunnel, to a door which led outside. With huge relief we emerged into the moonlit grove.

We straightened up and breathed the cool night air.

'Well, that's drastic - but effective! A sanctuary attendant creeps inside with a mallet. Some questioners are so badly concussed they never get over it. Dear G.o.ds, love, that could have been you.'

Helena hugged me to comfort me. 'It may not have been the priests. In fact, that is rather unlikely. Someone may have overheard me talking to the boys and followed me in there. When I had scrambled into the main chamber I could see nothing in the dark, so I started wriggling back to the tunnel. I heard someone there. I backed into the main chamber again but he followed. I gave his hair a good pull and poked him in the eye, I think. His blow glanced off, but I groaned very loudly and pretended to be done for.'

'You pa.s.sed right out. Don't pretend otherwise.'

'Just play-acting, Marcus.'

'Cobnuts. I found you, remember. Helena Justina, you will promise me now - you will never, ever do anything that ridiculous again.'

'I promise,' she said quickly. It had all the weight of a market-trader telling me her eggs were fresh. 'They will never admit how they cheat, Marcus.'

'No, not even with your evidence.'

'The boys who showed me the way told me everyone at the shrine thinks a stranger got in yesterday and stole away Statia.n.u.s. Whatever happened to him was quite unplanned by the authorities.'

'So the priests don't believe the G.o.ds took him?' I asked drily.

'They had seen someone, lurking in the grove.'

'Description?'