A Murder in Thebes (Alexander the Great 2) Read Online Free Page B

age. The
     body was sinewy, that of a soldier—one hand holding a club, the other a shield. His bandaged eyes gazed toward the bronze
     doors that shielded the shrine. Jocasta stared up at the face. Was this really the likeness of Oedipus? The fleshy cheeks,
     the jutting lips, and prominent nose? Was this the man-god who had married his mother and killed his father, and yet, if Sophocles
     was to be believed, still had the courage and favor of the gods to confront such sins?
    Jocasta, followed by the other priestesses, moved across the dark vestibule to the small shrine of Apollo, the hunter. The
     high priestess gazed up. The god’s features were smooth, girlish, the hair neatly massed, falling down around his brow and
     ears. The sculptor had dressed Apollo in a simplechiffon and hunting boots, a girdle slung round the slim waist. In one hand a bow, in the other an arrow. Jocasta’s eyes filled
     with tears. A true god’s face! She had been brought here by her own mother, and though she had never confessed it, had fallen
     in love with this statue. It represented the brother she had always wanted, the husband she so vainly pined for, and the son
     she . . . Jocasta clutched her stomach. Her womb was shriveled, her breasts merely dry sacks of skin. She watched the oil
     lamps in the niches dance from the draft that seeped through the open door.
    “We must lock it,” she declared.
    The two priestesses hurried off. The door was closed. Jocasta inserted the key and turned the lock, which had been intricately
     and cunningly wrought by a locksmith hired by the temple. The priestesses then made themselves ready and moved toward the
     inner shrine. The bronze doors were unlocked and opened. The priestesses stood on the threshold behind Jocasta and gazed into
     the sacred place of their city. All was in order. The black marble floor glinted in the light from the alabaster oil lamps
     located in niches around the white marble walls. Jocasta bowed her head. She intoned: “How great are you, oh Lord Apollo!”
     / Mighty in war, mighty in peace! / And you, Oedipus, true son of Thebes! / Be with us at this dangerous hour!”
    As if in answer to her prayer, the sun, which had slipped behind the clouds, now moved out, and its rays came through the
     narrow window, bathing the shrine in light. Jocasta moved slowly forward, eyes fixed on the white pillar at the far end of
     the room. On its sharpened end was the Crown of Oedipus, the sacred relic of Thebes. The Crown was of gray iron, small in
     circumference but broad-rimmed. In the center a blood-red ruby glowed. It was fixed to the post with iron clasps. Jocasta
     smiled and touched the sacred pectoral around her neck. Only she, the chief priestess, knewhow these clasps could be removed. She stared at the charcoal pit that glowed behind the black iron curtain bar; a sea of
     fire, it gave a blast of heat stirred up by the drafts blowing in from under the door. Beyond that was a small rim of marble,
     spiked, as if dozens of spears jutted up from under the floor; behind these, around the pillar that bore the Crown, the snake
     pit, which teemed with venomous vipers specially collected from the hills around Thebes. The snakes could curl in the darkness
     and slither away beneath the floor but they never left the pit.
    The priestesses knelt on the dark brocaded cushions specially laid out. Jocasta gazed at the Crown. This was a symbol of Theban
     might. A sacred place where the generals and leaders of the council took their oaths to defend the city. Only a few weeks
     ago this shrine had been thronged as the leaders of the revolt, hands outstretched, swore the most binding oaths to free themselves
     from Macedonian tyranny. Jocasta had been their witness, even though she quietly despaired at their male arrogance; such hubris
     would surely bring down the anger of the gods. She had not believed the rumors; she believed that Alexander had the makings
     of greatness. She had quietly