“Yes, that’s right, Hecaetus. Anyway Memnon pointed at that great bloody mastiff and said he would take care of any assassin.”
“What else do you know?”
Both boys shrugged.
Pollux looked toward the window, where the light was beginning to fade.
“We’ll be going now.”
“Where?” Miriam asked.
“Back to the camp; that’s where the best food and wine are kept.”
The pages pushed back the bench, grabbed the coins, and scampered out.
Miriam sat until she heard their voices fade. She sighed and, taking her writing satchel, walked out into the corridor. Now that darkness was falling, she realized what a gloomy, somber place the citadel was. She put her hand out and felt the cold granite walls. It wouldn’t remain long. When Alexander left, this place would be destroyed. She took a pitch torch from its bracket and climbed the steep, spiral staircase. The tower seemed deserted, a ghostly hollow place. She paused on the stairwell and peeked into the chambers. The doors were open, the rooms were ransacked. She went farther up. The door to Memnon’s chamber was ajar; she pushed it open and went in. The air smelled stale-of dog, oil lamp, sweat, and leather. She placed the torch in a holder, and groping in the darkness, found some oil lamps, which she lit.
The shutters were closed. Miriam went to open them but felt a cold draft seeping through the cracks and decided to leave it. She opened the satchel and took out Memnon’s papers; she undid the cord and laid them on the table. In the light of an oil lamp, she began to leaf through the greasy, well-thumbed pieces of papyrus. In her time she had helped Simeon with army records, and these were no different. Typical soldiers’ entries, the writing crude and large. Stores, provisions, arms, a rough drawing of the Cadmea, a votive prayer to Apollo, drafts of orders. She found a copy of a letter Memnon must have intended for his son. Apparently written during the early days of his command of the Cadmea, the letter depicted Memnon as a jovial, bluff man, proud of Alexander’s trust in him, full of advice on how his son was to act. The letter, however, had never been sent. The scribbles of graffiti on the bottom half of the page were interesting. Probably done during the last days of his life, Memnon had written out promises: he would travel to this shrine or that, make votive offerings to the gods if he was safely brought through the present dangers. One phrase, however, was repeated: the name Oedipus, or the literal translation of the ancient Theban king’s name, swollen foot. “I have seen him tonight,” Memnon had scrawled. “I have heard him on the stairs, his club rattling against the wall.”
Miriam went cold. What had Memnon been talking about? The ghost of Oedipus? The accursed king of Thebes dragging himself through this ancient citadel? She continued reading, the same entry was repeated time and again. She found another dirty piece of parchment with the same remarks beneath a crude drawing of Oedipus carrying his club. Miriam raised her head. The citadel was very quiet now. She stared round the chamber.
Was Memnon’s shade here, she wondered? Did the old captain stand in the shadows and peer out at her? Or had he gone to Hades? She grasped her torch and went out to the stairwell. She heard a door close and turned around but there was no other sound. She went up the steps and passed the small garret, its door flung back; she peered in: nothing but a dusty cubicle. She climbed on. The staircase became narrower and led to a wooden door. Miriam raised the latch, and a buffet of cold air made her torch splutter. She went out onto the top of the tower, her feet crunching on gravel deliberately strewn there so that no one could miss their footing. The wind was strong, and Miriam shielded her face. She walked to the edge and stood with one hand resting on the crenellations. She lifted the torch and gazed down. It was now pitch dark. Yet she was aware of the dizzying height. Fires still burned in the city, and beyond, she could see the lights of the Macedonian camp. Memnon must have stood here when he’d seen the fire arrow loosed into the night sky. She once again stared at the ruins of Thebes and repressed a shiver. This was truly a necropolis, a city of the dead. She heard a sound; a group of soldiers were leaving, their torches mere pinpricks of light. Behind her the door to the tower clattered and banged. Miriam went back and, carefully closing the door behind her, went down the steps. She reentered Memnon’s chamber, and her stomach pitched. Someone had been here. The oil lamps had been moved. Her hand went to her girdle and she realized she had brought no weapon. But surely the garrison? Men were still here? She hurried to the chest at the foot of the little truckle bed and opened it. It smelled of stale sweat. She fumbled through the contents and sighed with relief as her fingers clutched a dagger. She pulled this out, threw away the battered sheath, and went to the door.
“Who is there?” she called. Her own voice echoed down the stairwell. She heard a door opening and closing. “Castor, Pollux!”
Someone was coming up the stairs. Her blood chilled, yes she was sure, one foot dragging after the other; something smacked against the stone wall time and again as if a drum were being beaten.
“Who is there?” she called.
“I am the shade of hell!” A voice echoed, hollow, up the steps.
Miriam’s mouth went dry. What could she do? She felt the thickness of the door and stepped back into Memnon’s chamber. The key was gone but she drew the bolts across. Outside, though more faintly, she heard the sound of the intruder, lame foot dragging after him, as he climbed the stairs. The awful drumming against the wall grew louder. Miriam recalled the words about Oedipus, the swollen foot, ancient king of Thebes. And what had Alexander said? That Oedipus’s ghost had been seen in Thebes. The sounds grew nearer. Miriam drew in her breath, grasping the dagger more firmly. The door was tried. A loud rapping and then a crashing, as if someone were beating it with a club. Miriam stood transfixed, torch in one hand, dagger in the other. She heard her name being called but this came from the courtyard below. The crashing grew louder; the door was shaking.
“Who is it?” Miriam screamed. She hurried toward the shutters, pulled off the bar, and threw them open. The cold night air rushed in. Miriam was only aware of that terrible crashing against the door. She turned, dagger in hand, and then the knocking ceased.
CHAPTER 5
“Miriam! Miriam!” Simeon called. “What is the matter?”
She moved to the door. Was it Simeon? she thought. Or someone mimicking his voice?
“Go away,” she called.
“Miriam Bartimaeus, it’s your brother. I was concerned about you.”
She drew back the bolts. Simeon stood there on the stairwell; behind him she could make out the shadowy outlines of two soldiers.
“Miriam, what is the matter?”
She backed into the room, throwing the dagger onto the bed.
“There was someone else,” she declared, “someone with a lame foot. He came up the stairs. He was banging at the door.” She brushed by him; outside, the soldiers were smirking.
“It’s a mausoleum of ghosts,” one of them remarked. “Mistress, there’s no one here.”
“I know what I heard and saw,” Miriam retorted. She stared down the stairwell. Of course, it could have been a ghost. But, then again, if the intruder had heard her brother calling her name, he could have slipped down the stairs into another chamber and, when Simeon and the guards passed, slipped quietly out.
“How many are here?”
She went back into the room.
“Just the three of us. I was in the camp,” Simeon replied. “Alexander asked where you were? I realized the soldiers had come in from the citadel. I asked these two to follow me. We found the Cadmea deserted; we’d passed the last of the guards on the road. I saw the shutter open and glimpsed the light.”
Miriam closed the door and sat down on a stool.
“There was someone here,” she whispered, “and I don’t think they meant me well.” She then described what she had read in Memnon’s manuscript. Simeon whistled under his breath.
“The specter of Oedipus!” he joked. His face became serious; he stared owl-eyed at his twin sister. She was so different from him, tall and resolute. Simeon liked the comforts of life. He felt at home in the writing office, sifting through parchments, drafting letters, listening to the gossip, reveling in the excitement that always surrounded Alexander. Miriam, that determined look on her thin face, was always wandering off to places where she shouldn’t.
“Come on,” he urged. “You haven’t eaten. Let’s leave this benighted place. Alexander is holding a banquet.”