Then she dropped the axe, buried her face in her blood-red hands, and wept.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What happens to the bear?” Thea asked the next day.
“The bear goes wherever Ophelia goes,” Diotima said, and Gaïs nodded. She understood. For the first time ever, the two of them had agreed on something.
“Ophelia can’t take a bear home with her!” Sabina objected. “What would her father say?”
“She isn’t going home. She’s staying here,” Gaïs said. “No, let me rephrase that. Ophelia’s already home. She’s priestess-born; it’s obvious.” Unlike you, Sabina, were the words Gaïs didn’t say, but we all heard.
“You don’t rule here,” Sabina snapped at Gaïs.
“Oh yes, that’s right,” Thea said. “Let me fix that. Gaïs, kneel.”
“What?” Gaïs said, perplexed.
“I said kneel before me, girl. The games are over for you. It’s time to do some real work.”
Gaïs stammered. “High Priestess … no. You can’t do this … I can’t do this …”
Thea said, “We all saw, when the crisis was upon us, how you commanded and everyone else obeyed.”
“I only said what had to be done,” Gaïs protested. “And I only said it because no one was doing it.”
“Welcome to management,” Thea said to her.
Gaïs slowly went down on her knees.
Thea placed her hands on Gaïs’s head. “By the power given me by the Goddess, I name you, Gaïs, the High Priestess of Artemis Brauronia. May the Goddess ease your path, because the girls certainly won’t.”
Thea removed her hands. Gaïs, still kneeling, looked up at her.
“That’s it?” Gaïs said. “That’s the entire ritual? You’re completely altering my life with thirty words?”
“I’m making this up as I go, child. Which pretty much sums up how I’ve ruled here for the last twenty years. If there’s a special ritual for this, I don’t know it. I got the job myself by default. The old High Priestess never had a chance to pass on a thing to me. Compared to mine, girl, your handover is a luxury.”
“Shouldn’t we be doing this in the temple, in the presence of Artemis?” Gaïs said.
“There’s the bear,” Diotima pointed out, and everyone turned to look at Rollo, who stared back in calm equanimity. If Artemis did inhabit the body of the bear-and all the legends said it could be true-then the Goddess clearly didn’t object to Gaïs as her new High Priestess.
Gaïs said, “High Priestess … Thea … I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll have Doris to help you with the day-to-day running. She’s been doing most of the work for years now anyway.” Thea added, gently, “And if I read the signs right, you’ll have Ophelia to support you in the years to come. I can’t begin to tell you, dear, how important it is, to have someone there for you.”
“You’ll be here, won’t you?”
“You don’t need your predecessor looking over your shoulder. I’m retiring. You’ll need a new maintenance man. Zeke’s retiring too.”
Well, that surprised no one.
“Away from here?” Gaïs asked.
“Yes.”
“Stay with us, Thea,” Gaïs said.
“No.”
Gaïs said, “Doris should be High Priestess.”
Doris laughed and shook her head.
“She’s not a leader,” Thea said. “Doris knows this about herself, child. At Delphi they have a saying inscribed in the stone: Know thyself. You’ve never been to Delphi, have you? You’d better go before you get too settled in here. The Pythoness at Delphi is your peer now. It’s always good to know your professional colleagues. You won’t be alone, Gaïs. Doris will be here to help you for as long as you need it, which I suspect won’t be long.”
I nodded at that, and so did Diotima. Knowing Gaïs as we now did, even though she couldn’t read, we knew she’d memorize every part of the running of Brauron before the month was out. In two months she’d be making changes to protect the sanctuary as she thought best.
But still Gaïs tried to avert her fate. She said, “Thea, I’m not worthy.”
“In the attack, your first thought was to protect the sanctuary, not yourself,” Thea said.
“Of course it was.”
“You’re worthy.”
Sabina said, “High Priestess, you can’t mean this. The girl’s ignorant.”
Thea grinned. “Oh, but I do, Sabina. I know what you’re thinking, that you were next in line. But there’s no line here; there’s only excellence, or the lack of it.”
Sabina turned on her heel and walked out, without another word.
“It’s unworthy of me, but I confess I enjoyed that,” Thea remarked.
Gaïs said, “Sabina wants the job. She’ll cause trouble.”
“Sabina whines a lot. Deal with it,” Thea said without a trace of sympathy. “Anyway, she’s bound to die eventually, and then you’ll have some peace. In the meantime she’s an honest treasurer, which is more than you can say for most types like her. Trust me, child, once Sabina realizes she has no hope, she’ll fall into line.”
I knew something Thea didn’t, and this was the time to deal with it. Diotima and I left Thea’s office, which was also her bedroom, and would soon be the bedroom of Gaïs. We left the old High Priestess and the new with their lieutenant Doris as they talked in animated fashion about sanctuary administration.
We went in search of Sabina and found her by the edge of the Sacred Spring. She stood there, staring into the waters.
“It was all for nothing, Sabina,” I said.
She looked up, startled. Her eyes were red. “What? Oh, it’s you.”
“What did those young people do that they deserved to die? Why, Sabina?” Diotima said.
“Glaucon killed them.”
“Glaucon killed Allike,” I said. “But it was you who made it possible. Out of all the children in this place, how did Glaucon know which two had found the scrolls? Your note didn’t give their names, Sabina, and even if it had, how would he recognize two girls among many? Someone must have pointed out the victims. That person was you.”
“You’re guessing-”
“Almost the first thing you said to us, as soon as we met, was that you’re a trusted assistant of the Basileus. I thought it was a boastful claim at the time-I still do. I’ve since met the man and I know he’d never trust a woman with money-but you’ve been sending reports to his office, haven’t you? The assistant who received them at the other end was Glaucon, and he, no doubt, sent you back instructions. Of course you knew each other. You’re even both treasurer types. You’re probably the only person here at Brauron that Glaucon knew.”
“Proves nothing,” Sabina said shortly. “It’s not a crime to know a killer.”
“But it’s a crime to be a killer. Glaucon can’t have killed Melo, Sabina. He was in Athens then. I know it because I saw him there. But we know Glaucon murdered Allike, and we know Melo’s death was related, and we know it was someone at the sanctuary who did it.
“You killed Melo, Sabina. You met him by this spring, maybe exactly where we stand now. Maybe you crept up behind him. You hit him on the head then pushed him in, where he drowned.”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because he found Ophelia, and he was unlucky enough to tell you about it. You’re always patrolling the grounds, aren’t you? You caught Diotima and me holding hands quickly enough. Melo ran into you first. Melo told you where to find Ophelia, then you got rid of him. You didn’t dare let anyone find Ophelia before you did. She might have told them what she knew. So you murdered Melo, and I’m guessing then you went to that abandoned farmhouse.”
I searched her face for confirmation, and I saw it.
“Why didn’t you go in and attack Ophelia?” I asked.
“The bear,” she said. “I didn’t think the sightings were true until I saw it for myself. It was protecting her. I couldn’t see a way around the bear.” Sabina looked back into the running waters of the spring. “All I ever wanted was to be High Priestess of this place,” she said.