“What’s that for?” I asked.
“This is the temple where, at the end of their year, girls perform their coming-of-age rite,” Diotima said.
“So?”
“So a girl wants to look her best. She stops here to adjust her clothing and fix her hair before she walks into the temple proper.” Diotima brushed away a tear. “I stopped at this very spot, Nico, on my own initiation. Doris held my hand. I remember I watched in the mirror while she threaded the flowers in my hair. My parents waited inside, to watch me perform the dedication.”
“And then she cheated,” a voice said from behind.
I whirled round to see Gaïs standing there. She’d been listening in.
“What do you mean?” I said. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t cheat a ceremony.”
Gaïs tilted back her head. She pointed at Diotima with her chin. “Ask her.”
Diotima said, “Go away, Gaïs.”
The tension between the two women was thick enough to cut with a blade. It made me wonder if the history between these two was more complex than Diotima had let on. After all, they’d been children here together.
I said, “Tell me Gaïs, what was Ophelia like?”
“Ophelia’s pretty,” Gaïs said softly and wistfully.
“She’s also betrothed to Melo,” Diotima said.
Gaïs said angrily, “Don’t you think I know that?” She turned and walked out.
“What is it between you and Gaïs?” I asked my own betrothed.
“Don’t ask, Nico,” Diotima said, in a tone that told me I shouldn’t ask.
Instead I peered into the next room, to make sure no one else was listening in. No one was.
“Did you notice something, Nico?” Diotima said. “Something about Gaïs?”
“I certainly did,” I told her. “I always do with women. The curve of her upper thighs is excellent-”
My betrothed hit me. “Did you pay the slightest attention to what she said?”
“Of course!”
“So you noticed her tense.”
“Um …”
“That’s what I thought. Nico, she said Ophelia’s pretty.”
“Well?”
“Gaïs is the only person in the whole sanctuary who talks about Ophelia in the present. Everyone else talks of her in the past tense, like she’s dead.”
“Maybe the wacky, naked priestess who talks in riddles is an optimist.”
We passed through to the main room of the temple. The cult statue of Artemis stood at the end. Ancient temples almost always house an ancient statue, but to my surprise, this one was new, made in bronze, painted in brilliant colors, and a thing of beauty. Artemis stood tall and proud, a young woman in her prime. The Goddess was attended by a bear, her traditional servant. The bear crouched beside her, on all fours-not in repose, but ready to protect his divine mistress.
“The old statue was destroyed when the Persians sacked the sanctuary,” Diotima explained. “I heard it was made of wood and it went in the fire.”
“The sacking was that bad?” I asked.
“Everything you see here is new. The whole place had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Of course, you and I weren’t even born when it happened. I can only tell you what the priestesses say.”
On the wall behind the Goddess were hung row upon row of dedications. It’s the norm in any temple for people to give to the gods that which they value most. A man will leave his spear and shield in the temple of his choice when he’s no longer strong enough to hold them. But what I saw here was nothing I’d ever seen before on any temple wall. There were skipping ropes, and leather balls attached by straps, and tiny wooden pet animals that ran on wheels, and dresses that were too small to fit any person. Beautifully carved dolls hung from hooks; they sagged like sad little wooden corpses.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, those are the toys,” Diotima said. “The girls dedicate their toys when they become women.”
“Like a warrior who dedicates his arms when he’s too old to fight?”
“I suppose, except in this case the girl dedicates what was most important in her childhood. She walks in with her child’s toys and walks out without them, a woman.”
We stepped out into the day, and both of us had to blink away the sunlight when we emerged from the darkness. It brought us face to face with one of the girls. A scrawny thing, which seemed to be the fashion at the sanctuary. I wondered whether all teenage girls were this thin.
“You’re the investigators, aren’t you?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I wanted to see what you looked like. They say you two have sex without being married.”
“Who says that?” I demanded.
“Oh, everyone,” she said vaguely. “My father would beat me if I did that. How come your father doesn’t beat you?” she asked Diotima.
“My birth father’s dead,” Diotima said.
“Oh,” the teenager said.
“Is my private life all that anyone talks about around here?” Diotima said.
“I guess. Everyone talks about you because you’re so famous. They say you tore your clothes off in a courtroom full of men.”
“No, that was my mother.”
I could see that in the back of her head the teenager was wishing she had parents like Diotima’s. Diotima’s mother, Euterpe, had indeed made a display of herself, but that was before she’d married Pythax.
“I suppose you knew Allike and Ophelia,” I said to the girl. “Do you miss them?”
“Not much.” Then, realizing that didn’t sound good, she added defensively, “We were in different groups of friends.”
“What group was Allike in?”
“Allike was one of the smart ones,” the girl said. “She could read anything.”
“Can’t you all?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They make us learn that stuff, but everyone knows it doesn’t matter. Your husband can read anything you really need.”
Diotima grimaced. “You have an opportunity most girls would kill for. Don’t you care?”
The girl waved her arm with the airy, all-knowing nonchalance of a teenager. “Everyone knows the important thing’s to get a good husband. Men don’t care if a girl can read. You should know how it works; after all, you’re old,” she said to my twenty-year-old fiancée. “Men judge women by other standards.” She puffed out her near-nonexistent chest. “I’m working on it.”
“What about Ophelia?” I asked, before Diotima could explode. “Was Ophelia one of the smart ones too?”
“Oh, no! She was normal.”
Diotima’s skin turned an unhealthy purple color.
“But they were friends?” I persisted.
“I guess. Not everyone can be in the popular group.”
“What did they do together, Allike and Ophelia?”
“I dunno.” She glanced about for something more entertaining. We’d become bores. “Allike and Ophelia spent a lot of time walking about.”
Diotima and I followed their good example. We walked away.
“Was it like this when you were here?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Diotima shortly. “That’s why I have no friends. Except for you.” She reached out to hold my hand.
Sabina walked past us, going the other way. She looked down to see our hands linked. Without breaking step she glared and ordered, “No immorality in front of the girls!”
We let go sheepishly, and she disappeared around the corner.
At the rear of the temple gurgled the Sacred Spring. Water bubbled in nonstop from some place deep underground. The source of the flow was probably the massive rock outcrop immediately south of the temple, an outcrop so large you could have built a small fort upon it. The water in the Sacred Spring overflowed into a runnel that went to the river that passed by the sanctuary-the river over which we’d passed when we arrived. In reality it was not much more than a large stream. I’d seen real rivers, such as the Meander when we visited Ionia, and the Erasinos River at Brauron didn’t even begin to compete.