* * *
Antipater wanted to see the ziggurat. Darius, eager to get away from the haunted temple, offered to show it to him, and I followed along. The visit took up much of the day. Antipater needed to rest before ascending to each successive tier, and without an astrologer to accompany us, we had to wait in line a long time to reach the uppermost platform.
From time to time, as we walked alongside the massive, crumbling walls, I surreptiously pulled out the little tile I had taken from Mushezib’s hat. I was curious to see from what section of the ziggurat he had taken it. But though there were a number of places where bits of glazed tile remained, I could see no tiles that seemed to match exactly the deep, midnight-blue shade of the specimen I held in the palm of my hand.
An idea began to form in my mind, and other ideas began to revolve around it—rather as the stars revolve around the earth, I thought, and appropriately so, for at the center of these conjectures was Mushezib the astrologer and his fate.
As we toured the city that day, I followed my companions in such a cloud that Antipater asked if I was still dazed by the blow to my head. I told him not to worry, and explained that I was merely thinking.
“Daydreaming about that priestess of Ishtar, I’ll wager!” said Darius with a laugh.
“As a matter of a fact, I may need to see her again,” I said thoughtfully.
“Indeed!” Darius gave me a leer, then offered to show us the sacred precinct where the priestess resided. I took careful note of the location, so that I could find my way back.
We did not return to the inn until dusk. I wanted to have another look at the ruined temple, despite the priestess’s warning, but I feared to go there after nightfall. Besides, I doubted that I could find what I was looking for in darkness.
The next morning, I woke early. While Antipater still snored, I slipped into my clothes and crept quietly down the stairs. I passed the open door to the kitchen next to the common room and saw, with some relief, that the innkeeper and his wife were already at work preparing breakfast.
Without a sound, I left the inn and hurried up the street. The gate was again securely locked, but I found the place where I had scaled the wall before. I climbed to the top, hesitated for just a moment, then scrambled over and dropped to the courtyard.
The dim morning light cast long shadows. I felt a quiver of dread. Every now and then, amid the shadows, I imagined I saw a movement, and gave a start. But I was determined to do what I had come to do. My heart pounding, I walked all over the courtyard, paying special attention to the wall of the vacant tavern and also to the ground along the river wall, looking for any place where the earth might have been disturbed recently. It was not long before I found such a spot.
I knelt amid the uprooted weeds and began to dig.
* * *
The sun had risen considerably before I returned to the inn.
“Gordianus! Where in Hades have you been?” cried Antipater. The other guests had all gone out for the day. Only Antipater and Darius were in the common room. “I’ve been terribly worried about you—”
He fell silent when he saw the company of armed men who entered the inn behind me, followed by the priestess of Ishtar.
Alarmed by the rumble of stamping feet, the innkeeper rushed into the room. His face turned pale. “What’s this?” he cried.
Moving quickly, some of the men surrounded the innkeeper and seized his brawny arms. Others stormed the kitchen. A moment later they dragged the innkeeper’s wife into the room, shrieking and cursing in Egyptian.
I sighed with relief. Until that moment, I had not been entirely certain of the accusation I had made against the innkeeper and his wife, but the looks on their faces assured me of their guilt.
The rest of the armed company dispersed to search the premises, beginning with the innkeeper’s private quarters. Within moments, one of the men returned with a small but ornately decorated wooden box, which he opened for the inspection of the priestess. I peered over the man’s shoulder. The box was filled with cosmetics and compounds and unguents, but the colors and textures were not of any common sort; this was the kit of someone who practiced disguise as a profession—an actor or street mime.
The most famous mime troupes, as even a Roman knew, came from Alexandria—as did the innkeeper’s wife.
“Take your hands off that, you swine!” she cried, breaking free of the guard who held her and rushing at the man who held the box. He blanched at the sight of her and started back. So did I, for even without the horrifying makeup, the face of the hideous lemur I had seen in the courtyard of the temple was suddenly before me, and I heard again the shriek that had made my blood run cold.
Like a charging aurochs, she rushed headlong at the priestess, who stood her ground. I braced myself for the spectacle of the impact—then watched as the priestess raised her ceremonial goad, backhanded, and swung it with all her might, striking the innkeeper’s wife squarely across the face. With a squeal that stabbed at my eardrums, the innkeeper’s wife flailed and tumbled to one side, upsetting a great many small tables and chairs.
The guards swarmed over her and, after a considerable struggle, restrained her.
One of the men who had been searching the premises entered the room. He stepped past the commotion to show something to the priestess. In his hand he held a lovely specimen of a glazed tile. Its color was midnight blue.
Gazing at the shambles of the common room, Antipater turned to me and blinked. “Gordianus—please explain!”
* * *
Much later that day, in the tavern of another establishment—for the inn where we had been staying was no longer open for business—Antipater, Darius, and I raised three cups brimming with Babylonian beer and drank a toast to the departed Mushezib.
“Explain it all to me again,” said Darius. He seemed unable to grasp that the lemur that had haunted the old temple had never been a lemur at all, so strong was his superstitious dread of the place.
I lubricated my throat with another swallow of beer, then proceeded. “At some point—we don’t know exactly how or when, but not too long ago—the innkeeper or his wife went digging around the ruined temple grounds. Literally digging, I mean. And what should they discover but a previously unknown cache of ancient glazed bricks, undoubtedly from the long-demolished wall of Nebuchadnezzar that used to run along the riverfront, where a newer, plainer wall now stands. They knew at once that those bricks must be worth a fortune. But their discovery was located in an old temple precinct; the land itself is common property and not for sale, and any artifacts or treasure found there would almost certainly belong to the priesthood of Ishtar.
“The innkeeper clearly had no right to the bricks, but he intended to get his hands on them nonetheless. The best way to do that, he decided, was to purchase the derelict property adjacent to the temple, from which he and his wife could gain access to the courtyard and the buried bricks without being observed. But negotiating to buy that property was taking time, and the innkeeper was fearful that someone else might go nosing about and find those buried bricks. The old tales about the place being haunted gave him a perfect way to frighten others away.
“The innkeeper’s wife played the lemur. As we now know, she was part of an Egyptian mime troupe in her younger days. She’s an intimidating woman to start with; with the right makeup, and calling on her skills as an actress, she could be truly terrifying, as I experienced for myself. But the lemur didn’t frighten everyone away; at least one man must have dared to enter the courtyard a few nights ago, perhaps out of simple curiosity, and he was the first to die.”