Body dripping with sweat from the heat, I waited behind the door. Their voices came to me in a confused mumble as though they were arguing.
Finally the door creaked and Arsinoe appeared, crushing our sleeping boy to her. Her face was wet with tears.
“Turms,” she whispered in agony, “Dorieus is stark mad. He thinks that he is a god and that I am the sea goddess Thetis. I finally succeeded in putting him to sleep. He is snoring now, but as soon as he awakens he will kill both you and Tanakil.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “You are the one who is mad, Arsinoe. The heat has unbalanced your mind. What reason has he to kill me, even if he is tired of Tanakil?”
Arsinoe groaned and covered her eyes. “The fault is mine,” she confessed, “although I meant it for the best and didn’t think that he would go so far. You see, for one reason or another, Dorieus believes the boy to be his and because of that wants Tanakil and you out of the way so that he can marry me. But I never intended this. My plan was entirely different.”
I shook her arm. “What had you planned and whatever gave Dorieus the idea that our son is his?”
“Don’t shout,” begged Arsinoe. “It is just like you to seize on trivial details when your life is at stake. You know how stubborn Dorieus is when he gets an idea. He himself noticed that the boy supposedly resembles him, whereupon in jest I painted a mark on the boy’s thigh to resemble the birthmark which true descendants of Herakles are said to bear. But I didn’t think that Dorieus would turn against you. I did it only so that he would make the boy his heir.”
Seeing my face, she pulled herself free and said, “If you hit me I shall awaken Dorieus. I thought he had sense enough to conceal his feelings, but he covets me and hates you so since the birth of the boy that he no longer wants to breathe the same air with you.”
My thoughts were like a swarm of angry wasps. I should have guessed that behind her apparent docility Arsinoe had been scheming a more dangerous plot than one involving merely clothes and jewels. In my heart I knew that she spoke the truth and that Dorieus planned to kill me. A sudden chill came over me.
“I suppose you hope that I will slit his throat while he sleeps. But first tell me how you succeeded in quieting him.”
Arsinoe opened her eyes and said innocently, “I merely held his hand and assured him that he would meet the goddess in his dreams. What is it that you suspect, Turms?” Then she paled. “If you have ever doubted my love for you, you can do so no longer, for it would have been more advantageous for me to remain silent and let him kill you. But I could not bear to lose you. Neither do I want harm to come to Tanakil although she has so often hurt me.”
That last sentence she added presumably because she noticed Tanakil’s approach.
“I can thank you, Istafra, for my marriage but also for my misfortune. You have tried to bite off more than you can swallow, and I hope that you choke on it. I suspect also that you used your wiles at sea, for why else should Dorieus have begun to rave about that white-limbed Thetis?”
“Tanakil,” I warned her, “don’t talk nonsense even though you hate Arsinoe. During the voyage Arsinoe was sick and smelled vile, she was wet from the brine and unable to care for her beauty. She could have had nothing to do with Dorieus’ visions.”
My words wounded her vanity. “What do you know about the goddess’s miracles, Turms?” she demanded angrily. “Tanakil is much wiser. I assure you that everything happened as was meant, for the goddess has always yearned to assume a sea guise.”
Tanakil looked at me shrewdly and advised, “You would be wise to take that candlestick and smash Arsinoe’s head. Thereby you would spare yourself much grief. But it is useless for us to chatter. What do you intend to do, Turms?”
“Yes,” demanded Arsinoe, “what do you intend to do?”
I became even more confused. “Is it my duty to solve the problem that you have created? So be it. I will fetch my sword and run it through his throat, although not gladly, for he has been my friend.”
“Yes, do that,” urged Arsinoe eagerly, “and while you are about it, seize the dog crown, win the soldiers to your side, pacify the council of Carthage and make me the priestess of Eryx by peaceful means. I could not ask for more than that.”
Tanakil shook her head in pity. “It would not go well with you, Turms, if Dorieus were to be found with his throat slit. But have no fear. I have seen three husbands to the grave and I dare say I have the strength to bury yet a fourth. It is my duty to perform this last service for him before he takes my life and plunges all Eryx into disaster. Go your way, both of you, take the accursed bastard with you and pretend that you are aware of nothing.”
She sent us to our room, where we sat silently with folded hands. I stared at our son and tried to find something in his infant face that might have given Dorieus reason to believe the boy his. But look as I might, I could see only that his mouth was mine and his nose Arsinoe’s.
Suddenly the earth rumbled with a noise more terrifying than any I had ever heard. The ground beneath us shook, the floor cracked, and the sound of crumbling walls reached our ears. Arsinoe snatched the boy into her arms while I shielded her with my body as we rushed into the street through the twisted gate. Arsinoe’s cat swished by us in terror.
Again the ground shook and walls cracked. Then the sky darkened, the wind began to blow and the air suddenly cooled.
“Dorieus is dead,” I said slowly. “This land was his, and it quivered at his passing. Perhaps he really was descended from the gods, although it was difficult to believe that when he smelled of human sweat and shed human blood.”
“Dorieus is dead,” Arsinoe repeated, then asked quickly, “What will become of us now, Turms?”
Frightened people were carrying things out of their houses, while beasts of burden ran wildly through the streets. But as the wind blew the air freshened and it was as though I were once again free.
Tanakil came out of the king’s residence. She had torn her clothes as a sign of grief, and in her hair was some rubble from the housetop. Her sons followed her, arguing loudly as always.
Arsinoe and I went with them to Dorieus’ room where Mikon with his physician’s case was studying the body in amazement. Dorieus lay on the couch, his face black, tongue swollen and lips blistered.
Mikon said slowly, “If it were summer and the time for wasps I would swear that a wasp had bitten his tongue. That happens to a drunkard who falls asleep with his mouth open or to a child who crams a wasp into his mouth with berries. But whatever the reason, Dorieus’ tongue has swelled and choked him.”
Tanakil’s sons cried out with one voice, “This is fate and a singular coincidence! We remember well that our father died in almost exactly the same manner. His tongue also swelled and his face blackened.”
Tanakil stared at Dorieus’ blackened face and body that was divinely tall even in death. “Nothing matters to me any more, but don’t you dare touch Turms.” She turned her aged, sorrow-lined face toward Arsinoe. “Turms may leave in peace, but we will send that goddess’s harlot back to the temple to pay the penalty for her flight. She is a temple slave and her son also is a slave and as such the property of the temple. Let them castrate the boy and train him to be a priest or a dancer. But first they must punish the woman as befits an escaped slave.”
I looked at Tanakil standing there with dirt in her dyed and coronet-wound hair, her clothes torn and her ancient face set in fury. She seemed like the embodiment of an alien god.
She smiled grimly and flicked away the flies that were beginning to hover about Dorieus’ eyes and mouth. “I have already felt the goddess’s wrath through your presence. Having lost Dorieus, whom I loved most dearly of my husbands, I no longer fear anything, divine or mortal.”
Suddenly her restraint crumbled. She struck her mouth with her fist so that the ivory teeth broke and blood began to trickle from her thin lips. Digging her nails into her breasts, she wailed, “You don’t know how deeply an old woman can love! I wanted him dead rather than despising me.”