Apollo's Arrow - By Warren Weisman
Apollo's Arrow - Excerpt
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Chapter 1

In the beginning the gods were men. The gods did not dwell in the sky or beneath the sea, and the treacherous climb and biting cold kept them from the snowy peaks of Mount Olympus. They were not feared; they inspired courage. They did not demand obedience; they called for freedom. They were not revered for their greatness; they were humble. All people were equal in their eyes, for they hated gold, and it made them faultless in their judgment. This story is told of them, for the gods are a vanishing people and they should not be forgotten.

Know, O Muses, that this is the tale of the great arrow that shines in the night sky and the power of a weapon that cannot miss. For it was to our beloved isle of Calydon there came an unmanly thief of lives and a warning of what all manner of iniquity and unrighteousness to come after the gods are no more. Yet as these things came to pass, the gods had become few but they were not gone. Our king, Alexandros, son of Alius, was of their race. With wisdom from a time before humans came into the world, he lay dying on the battlefield and brought back from the land of the dead the knowledge to keep murderers from being born.

The scribe Timokrates had no reason to write those words yet as he struggled to steady himself in the horse-drawn chariot as it climbed the steep, winding staircase-like road from the harbor city of Calydon and dashed into the dense black oak forests of the high country of the island of Calydon. The steep roads that climbed into the highlands provided a natural, open-air amphitheater from which to view the drama being played out across the western sky of the fiery Mediterranean sun being quenched in the sea.

At sunset the sun hovered for a suspenseful moment, struggling to keep from being banished behind the golden gates that the God of the Sea had put up to keep day apart from night. At last the gates would open with a majestic flash, and as the last rays of light shimmered across the wine-dark sea like hammered bronze, night would be borne out on the cool, stiffening breeze that escaped.

Clinging desperately to the handrail of the chariot, Timokrates was constantly steadying himself on the driver's shoulder to avoid being pitched out of the open back into the clouds of dust rising behind them. The team of galloping horses was utterly oblivious to the dim twilight giving way to moonless darkness that hid the dangerous mountain roads. The two white stallions raced one another in the harness, pulling the lightweight chariot skipping and bounding along behind them.

In places the road was little more than a widened path cut through the cliff-side forests of olive trees and black oaks by migrating flocks and herds. At times it could scarcely fit the width of the chariot's axle, and everywhere the cliffs were absolutely unforgiving of any misstep by the horses or misdirection from the driver. To one side the dark mountains loomed above the road, and over the other side awaited the thundering abyss of the sea.

The rattling of the wheels and the clatter of hooves were too intense for Timokrates. He was caught off-guard by every bump and sweeping turn, making it far harder on his legs than on those of the stately lords who were accomplished charioteers; he much preferred to walk. In a breathtaking short time they had traveled deep into the wild countryside.

The chariot rounded a steep, climbing corner and the driver leapt into action, gathered up the reins and began to fight the team to slow down. The sound of the wheels softly drumming over the dirt turned into an intense, harsh rattling as they rolled onto one of the stone streets of the hillside village of Hyksos. The driver continued to lean hard on the reins as he skillfully threaded the horses between the doorsteps that intruded onto the narrow street from the adjacent houses. Timokrates leaned heavily on the handrail, exhausted.

The houses on both sides of the street were two-story villas with whitewashed walls that shone in the darkness. Occasionally separated by alleys and covered courts, the houses were decorated with hanging plants and wandering vines. A few had awnings made from woven branches on timber posts to block out the intense heat of the day, which created sinister shadows at night. Wooden shutters had been thrown wide open throughout the village to circulate the cool evening air. Timokrates could see a few lamps flickering through the open windows, and he could sense people hiding at the sides of the windows, watching the arrival of the chariot.

As the chariot wheeled into the central marketplace, Timokrates was awed by the view from the village square. The night sky appeared to be both above and below the wall that separated the village from the open sea, so far below that the cresting waves appeared thin as threads in the dim moonlight. It was as if they had traveled up into the heavens.

Mesmerized by the splendid view, he was surprised by dozens of people gathered near the fountain. The basin was empty; the water that normally flowed into it from a large, sculptured lion's-head fountain was being fed into an aqueduct of clay pipes while people formed a chain, as if to put out a house fire—only they were pouring the water over the wall. They paused in their work to watch the chariot enter the square.

“Their well has been poisoned,” the driver said.

Timokrates looked around at the unfamiliar village and saw the darkened pit of broad, shallow steps that formed an amphitheater below the ground where public performances were given at the bottom, below any interfering noise. As the driver reined the animals to a stop, they were set upon by a group of men who had gathered in the square carrying lit torches that dripped flaming bitumen onto the inlaid stones. Timokrates could not tell if they were attempting to catch the harnesses of the horses to help or waited in ambush.

The driver did not wait to find out. He shoved Timokrates aside in the close confines of the chariot, putting himself between his passenger and the menacing torchbearers. He took up the loose ends of the reins to use as a knotted whip to fend off anyone who came near enough.

“Stand back!” the driver thundered. “This man is the royal scribe and advisor to the house of Alexandros! Raise your hand against him, and it is the same as raising your hand to the king! Stand back or I'll run you down like mutts!”

The king's name, together with the imminent threat of the chariot horses— trained since birth to trample, bite and kick—drove the men with the torches back to a safe distance. Silence rang in the vast, open air of the marketplace. Faintly audible, rising from one of the houses that faced the square, was the sound of women chanting. A slow, sad funeral song, sung to the accompaniment of a stringed lyre and a slow, deep and hollow drum. The chariot horses snorted and pranced anxiously in the harness, irritated at being interrupted from their running and picking up the scent of something disagreeable in the cool night air.

“Temple soldiers.” The driver pointed out a dozen men-at-arms in dark red and black cloaks over highly polished bronze armor, wearing helmets that hid their faces and carrying long spears. “There are priests here. There is danger here.”

“Look there,” Timokrates said as he pointed out another chariot in the square. Unlike any other on the island, the chariot had four wheels, like those used in Mesopotamia, and was drawn by four stout horses. “The chariot of Lord Pileus. No dozen men are a threat to Pileus.”

The driver nodded and reluctantly released his hold on Timokrates' sleeve, allowing him to step down from the chariot into the gathered crowd.

Straightening his robe and outer cloak, he moved into the crowd of native Pelegasian tribesmen, easily distinguished by their custom of wearing raw animal skins instead of woven clothing. They did not appear either angry or friendly, only a collection of slow expressions on unbarbered faces. Timokrates could see a variety of stone and copper weapons among them, but none were drawn. One man carried what looked like a horse's jawbone as a club in his waistband. The stiff evening breeze eerily whipped the flames of the torches.

A team of yoked oxen in the plaza, placidly chewing their cud, was hitched to a cart with solid wooden wheels that had been decorated with laurel wreaths to make it into a funeral cart.

Avoiding the gauntlet of eyes that followed him, he tried to maintain an even, dignified pace. At the last minute, he became so intent on reaching the security of the door to the house that he nearly collided with a hanging herb plant in the entranceway. Pulling the heavy wooden door open by its ring, without looking to see if the men behind him had filled in the path they had made for him, he slipped inside.

Once the door was closed behind him the chanting became clearer, but not louder. The typical Achaean-style interior of the house was a welcome relief from the strangeness of the countryside. The chanting carried softly through the large house that was subdivided by pillars and heavy, highly polished wood partition doors. Closing and opening the doors changed the floor plan of the house. The floor was inlaid with different colored tiles that created a repeating, geometric design. The house was lit by flaming braziers at the ends of bronze chains hanging from the thick timbers that supported the second story. Timokrates could smell the heavy aroma of burning hyssop and cedar covering up a far less pleasant odor¾one that smelled something like meat that had been left out to spoil in the sun.

“Ah, the wise Timokrates,” the scribe was greeted by a young priest wearing a deep purple tunic and a robe decorated with gold and ivory. The priest said with exaggerated cordiality, “What a perfect choice to send to resolve this unfortunate situation.”

“Good evening, Timon,” Timokrates said evenly. “What is the meaning of all this?”

Timon checked behind him to see that they were alone. “As you know, the High Priest of Argos has chosen to attend the Harvest Festival on our island this year.” He added, as if to impress the importance on Timokrates, “Forsaking even the grand festival in Argos and all the other islands.”

The priest continued, “His Exalted Holiness learned of the death of this Pelegasian girl while we were in the city and he felt he would come out here to the wild countryside and extend her family the honor of presiding over her funeral rites himself”

Timon then took a second look around to be sure he was not overheard. He added tightly, “Only Lord Pileus will not release her body to us.”

“The Pelegasians have their own rituals,” Timokrates said, looking in the direction from which the chanting was emanating. “Pileus is the lord of Hyksos. The king would not countermand his orders if he were here himself.”

“But this girl, I am told, is from Joppa,” Timon countered. “Those men outside are here to carry her home. Idas is the lord over Joppa and we have his full cooperation in this matter.”

“Am I interrupting?” A very old priest entered, wearing a fabulously elaborate robe, stooped over a jeweled rod bearing the bronze aegis of Apollo at the top.

“Of course not, Your Eminence.” Timon bowed reverently. “This is Timokrates, chief advisor to the house of Alexandros.”

The elder priest offered his hand for Timokrates to kiss.

“His Exalted Holiness is the highest-ranking official of the Temple of Apollo in the entire Achaean world,” Timon said. He then added tightly, “You will lower yourself to the ground and kiss his hand as a sign of piety.”

“I apologize if you are offended,” Timokrates said, without making any attempt to lower himself. “On Calydon we do not render obedience to another man, regardless of his office. Our own king tells us not to bow to him.”

His Exalted Holiness placed a hand on the younger priest's chest to calm him. “Yes, of course. King Alexandros, the famous son of Alius. A son of Argos as well. Your king once lowered himself before the Temple of Apollo.”

“That was long ago,” Timokrates said. “Alexandros renounced his citizenship of Argos and he renounced the worship of the Temple of Apollo. The monument to him that stood outside the military barracks was taken down. Calydon is his home.”

The old priest stood suddenly to his full height and looked down his long, crooked nose at Timokrates. “Alexandros is a child of Argos, the same as Calydon itself. A settlement will never be free of the home city that founded it, the birthplace of the sacred fire carried by the first colonists any more than a child can stop being the son of the parents that raised him.”

Timokrates said, “They can when their parents have become so disgraceful with corruption and hypocrisy that they are no longer worthy of respect.”

The High Priest bristled noticeably.

“Timokrates,” Timon hissed. “I beg you to choose your words more carefully. Disrespect to the High Priest of Argos is the highest sacrilege, punishable by death by burning.”

“Calm yourself, good Timon. There is no need for such rigid formality out here on these untamed islands.” The priest looked at Timokrates carefully. “No doubt Timokrates is simply repeating what has been said within the crumbling ruins that are called a palace on this island. This is not the first time the name of Alexandros has come to my attention.” He leaned heavily on the bejeweled staff. “This fearless warrior turned gardener. A man who twenty times suffered wounds severe enough to have killed any other man. So many times that the impressionable peasants of this island believe that he cannot be killed. That he is immortal.”

“What about you, Timokrates?” he asked the scribe. “Do you believe Alexandros to be as immortal as the gods?”

Timokrates studied the older man, attempting to decipher the cryptic tone in his voice.

“You choose to visit us on the anniversary of twenty years of uninterrupted peace on this island,” Timokrates said pointedly. “Alexandros has no servants and tends his own garden and fetches his own water. Noblemen and men of great wealth and little character despise him, and small children adore him. Simple peasants may call him a god, others may say he possesses divine qualities for a man. It makes no difference to me.”

“Timokrates,” Timon interrupted. “This girl's family will receive a great blessing. His Excellency has been kind enough to offer to personally preside over her ritual and escort the body to Joppa where the proper ceremonies can be performed and a proper grave made for her.”

“I do not have the authority to order such a thing,” Timokrates said. “Our king commands that the dead go to their families. Families send them on the journey upon the funeral pyre, according to their way.”

“How very quaint that your king commands the loyalty of children,” the priest said. “Others, perhaps more worldly men, might say that a military commander with such a gift for the battlefield who has turned to gardening has lost his nerve.” The priest inclined the staff towards Timokrates. "And that a king who despises gold and places the word of an ignorant peasant above the wishes of a well-born man from a noble family has gone mad.”

The High Priest then turned to Timon and took a folded garment from the younger priest and placed it in Timokrates’ hands. Unfolding it, the scribe could see it was a black wool dress with a many-tiered, bell-shaped skirt. Each tier was ringed with tiny silver ornaments in the shape of butterflies, cuttlefish and starfish. The dress would reach to the ground and then up to just above a woman's ribs, leaving her breasts exposed. It was the type of ceremonial dress worn by the Korybantes dancers of the Cult of the Mistress of Animals.

“Or possibly under the spell of a witch,” the old priest said as Timokrates turned the dress over in his hands. “A seductress so beautiful that sea traders obsess about her years after they have returned from sea, and women in far-off cities paint their faces with cosmetics to make themselves resemble her. A woman who blinds men with her beauty so that they do not see that she is also the high priestess of an outlawed cult that practices witchcraft and human sacrifice.”

Timokrates could only continue to stare at the dress in his hands.

“I do not know what devilry this poor girl suffered down in the Black Oak Grotto,” the High Priest said. “But you will invoke your king's name and order Lord Pileus to release her body to us so that she may be given the proper rituals and burial, so that her soul does not continue to be tortured as well. I have no desire to have this poor fool killed over such a small matter. I am not unaware that giants are often slow of wit. Many of them are sent to the temple as orphans that parents have no desire for.”

“Pileus is not slow.” Timokrates looked in the direction of the hallway. “His Lordship suffered a mace wound in war that has left him beyond reason at times.”

“I can overlook many transgressions in the interest of the greater good during my visit here, Timokrates,” the High Priest explained. “But in my position I am burdened with awful responsibilities. Awful expectations that I am bound to fulfill, regardless of my own personal feelings in the matter. I cannot allow the body of this girl to be burned like a heathen while I am here. What would the faithful think of me if I was unable—unwilling—to use force to save this innocent savage from an eternity in restless limbo? I believe her to be the victim of a human sacrifice. I will not have her corpse burned in a pagan ritual as well.”

He looked down the bridge of his long, hooked nose at the scribe and told him decisively, “My men will come in here and get her, regardless of Lord Pileus. You have been summoned here to save the life of this poor brute.”

Timokrates said reluctantly, “I will speak with him.”

Lord Pileus, the giant, was at the end of the long hallway, peering into a large room at the end. Pileus squatted on his haunches to keep from needing to bend his neck to avoid roof timbers—which were laid up nine feet above the floor. Unlike many giants, Pileus had an enormous, muscular build that gave him the weight of three ordinary men. His broad back was covered with purple half-moon-shaped puckers, the scars of dozens of arrows that had pierced his skin with kisses of death.

The scribe nervously cleared his throat as he moved along the hallway toward the warrior. Even among all the Achaean lords—decidedly violent and dangerous men—Pileus was renowned for his furious temper. The giant was naked except for a cloth twisted around his thickly muscled waist to form a loincloth and a pair of leather sandals that had been flattened under the powerfully built man's weight. Wildly unkempt hair flowed out from beneath a helmet made of overlapping pieces of boar’s tusks, hinged together to form a flexible cap. Moving to see what was holding Pileus' attention in the large room, Timokrates turned himself sideways to fit past the giant lord's elbow without touching him. The quizzical grin on his face suddenly dropped, and he drew an airless gasp.

Between the columns of the open room, several old women wearing black shawls were moving in a carefully choreographed ceremony around a low, thick wooden plank table. A woman in one corner plucked a lyre on her knee, and next to her another slowly let her hands fall onto a drum. The chanting women moved around the table with the same pausing, slow swaying rhythm of the music. Timokrates understood many different languages, but the words of this chant were completely unfamiliar to him.

One of the old women, in time with her chanted cue, tilted a large water jar to fill a wooden bowl, as another wrung out a rag in the water. Timokrates could see that what was twisted out of the rag by the woman’s quaking old hands was unmistakably blood.

On the table were the mutilated remains of what had once been a human being. Only a pair of long, slender legs, relaxed on the tabletop in the crushed repose of death, was still recognizable. Bloodless and pale, so that the blue veins shone just beneath the skin, the legs were those of a young woman. The upper part of the body, starting at the thighs, had been completely obliterated into a tangle of twisted, blackened anatomy. The open ribcage glared up into the room off the table like long, skeletal fingers. Where there had once been a human face, there was only a hollow, darkened cavity surrounded by a mangle of hair; hair that was petrified into the shape it had been in when it was soaked and dried in the girl's own blood.

The woman kneeling over the table with her back to Timokrates turned and accepted one of the rags that had just been rinsed. She used it to tenderly wipe the body's shoulder, smearing away clots of hardened blood.

“Mother to all,” Timokrates stammered. He watched how the bare foot of the corpse moved as it was cleaned with the rag, utterly repulsed, but unable to turn away. “What happened?”

Pileus lowered his head on his great, bull neck and turned to the scribe in the hallway. As he did, he abruptly unfolded his arms in surprise and stood as much as he could beneath the confines of the roof timbers. He looked behind Timokrates, as if expecting someone else. He shouted loudly enough to be easily heard over a troop of conversing men a hundred feet away , in a voice so deep it sounded as if his lungs were caverns. “Ah, little potter! What brings you out here at such an hour?”

Timokrates cringed at the sudden sound of Pileus’ voice.

“I am not the potter, Lord Pileus. I am Timokrates, the scribe.” He looked at the man's fierce face for signs of recognition. “The queen has sent me.”

“Come, potter, do not take me for a fool.” Pileus glared hard at Timokrates. “You are not the queen.”

“Those priests sent a messenger to the palace,” the scribe explained patiently. “The queen asked me to come here.”

Pileus looked behind the scribe once again, unable to believe it was not some sort of joke. Without regard for the reverent ceremony taking place, he shouted again, “Where is Eumeaus?”

“Eumeaus has been gone for weeks,” Timokrates replied heatedly, impatiently urging Pileus to lower his voice. “He chose to sail with the king this year.”

Timokrates could not tell if his words had any affect on the giant.

“They were seen off Rhodes four days past,” he explained. “The trader who saw them said he hailed them, and everyone was well and the ship was in good order. They could be here with the morning tide.”

Pileus’ attention had already wandered back into the large room and Timokrates looked around the room for anything to further identify the woman being ritually cleansed. “Who is this dead woman?”

“It is her, potter,” Pileus said strangely, his voice as deep as a leopard’s cough. “The Pelegasian girl from Joppa. Her blood flowed from the mouth of the lion's head fountain of Hyksos.”

Timokrates looked toward the front of the house where he had seen the men cleaning the fountain in the square. “Pileus, this girl is from Joppa. Why not release her to the priests and have them take her back there?”

Pileus temper flared in his eyes, and he set his jaw tight enough to risk crushing his own teeth. He charged through the hallway to where the priests were waiting, grabbing Timon and tossed him out the door. The priest tumbled outside into the waiting crowd of Pelegasians in a flurry of robes.

He then whirled on the older priest. His cavernous lungs making his voice reverberate over the high cliffs occupied by Hyksos. “All of you, out! Out, you vultures! You will not extort these people's land and crops for your useless rituals!”

“Pileus!” Timokrates was stunned. He moved to grab the giant's arm, but then thought better of it.

“Do not force me to call in my men, you savage!” The older priest recoiled from the giant, slinking backward through the entryway and out into the square.

“You call your men, you squirrel!” Pileus shouted violently. “You send every one you got! There is no one more cowardly than a man with soft hands who leads from the rear! I will break all their necks like chicken peeps.”

“How dare you!” Timon climbed quickly to his feet and flung himself between Pileus and the High Priest of Argos.

Pileus snarled, “How dare you send men to their death for your vanity, you peacock.”

Timokrates’ eyes caught the bronze helmets of the spearmen glittering in the torchlight and he saw the great surge of the Pelegasians. The man with the jawbone in his waistband wrestled it out of his belt. The night threatened to erupt into violence.

“Stand where you are!” the older priest shouted to the temple soldiers.

Pileus went after the High Priest again and Timokrates, struggling with all of his might, kept the giant from getting hold of the priest. The High Priest tripped over the step into the square and fell to the ground, his staff clattered away on the inlaid stones. He scrambled out of Pileus’ reach on his hands and knees.

Timokrates, still with the dress in his hands, rushed to help the old man to his feet. “I apologize for Pileus.”

“Twenty years,” the older priest seethed at his climbed to his feet. He pulled his arm from Timokrates’ grasp and began to straighten his robes. He made no attempt to hide the venom in his tone as he seethed, “Perhaps the time has come to find out just how immortal this king of yours truly is?”

Pileus rested his arms on the roof timbers and looked down at Timokrates. “You are very wise for a potter, but the girl is going home to her family. We must be very careful what we do at times such as this.”

“Times such as this?”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Pileus asked. “This is the Pelegasian girl from Joppa. Did you not feel it in the night coming out here? Can you not feel it in your bones?”

Timokrates listened to the drumming and the lyre accompaniment in the other room. He could hear the whispering of the bitumen burning on the torches. He looked up at Pileus. “Feel what?”

“We are no longer living in ordinary times,” Pileus said. He leaned his gigantic head with its boar's tusk helmet slightly in the direction of the dark sky above the central ridge that ran like a craggy spine the length of the island. Taking one hand from the roof timber he placed it very carefully on the dress in Timokrates’ hands. “These are events of prophecy."

The priests moved off toward the chariot, leaving Timokrates alone in the torchlight of the Pelegasians. He angrily hurried back inside the house and grabbed the giant’s forearm. “Pileus...”

“Do not nag me, potter,” Pileus roared. “I hate nagging.”

“Pileus, that old man is the most powerful priest in the world,” Timokrates said angrily. “He has the obedience of kings and powerful men and they do not take insults lightly. They will not stop until the house of Alexandros is brought down and they hunt down all the women in the Cult to the Mistress of Animals as witches and burn down the Black Oak Grotto.”

“Let them come,” Pileus said. “They can fertilize our fields. Twenty times Alexandros has been killed in battle and twenty times he lived. He did not suffer so much to cower before soft-handed weaklings like that.”

“Nobles and priests hate him more than they love life itself,” Timokrates argued. “Nothing is more loathsome to them than a king who has sworn himself to poverty. The gold they live and breathe for, that runs through their blood like quicksilver and rules every moment of their lives, means nothing to him. These are proud men and he shames them.”

“That gold buys armies,” the scribe continued, more calmly. “You will fight better, but they will only send more. This is not a fight that he can win. You have seen what happens in other places when gods are made to do something that they cannot, and the people can no longer put their faith in them. When that time comes for us, it should be important enough to lose him forever over.”