From the place where Drakaina had taken my arm, I could see the old goddess walking the valley, a woman taller than women, at once darker and brighter than the tree tops touched by dawn. She stopped at the grave, I think, for after a time she vanished from sight and I heard her weeping.

When I had passed the split hill, I cast aside my weapon and hurried through the dew-decked fields to this camp on the bank of the Eurotas, where now I write these words in the morning sunlight. Io met me. After I had told her something of what had happened that night and she had salved my bruises and mourned with many head shakings the blow that had struck me down, she took me proudly to see Cerdon, whom she had hidden among the hay that fed our pack mules; but Cerdon had died while she slept, and already his limbs were cold and stiff.

CHAPTER XXXII-Here in Rope

Strangers viewed with the greatest suspicion. This morning Drakaina, Io, and I went to see the famous temple of Orthia. Its enclosure on the riverbank must once have been separated from the city, but now the Rope Makers have built their houses right up to the boundaries of the sacred ground. Drakaina said, "In the Empire, we wall our cities properly. When you're on one side of the wall, you're in the city; on the other, you're in the country. With all these straggling hamlets, who knows? Thought was almost as bad, but at least they had guard posts on the roads."

"The Great King tore down your walls," Io reminded her. "That's what the regent said."

Drakaina nodded. "The People from Parsa have a sense of fitness. Its walls symbolize a city, and pulling them down is the destruction of the city. Rope's been destroyed already-or let's say that it's never existed. This is just four villages; no wonder they call it scattered."

Slaves turned their faces to one side when we passed, and even the Neighbors we saw did not wish to speak with us. Rope Makers stopped us and questioned us, women as well as men, and many told us we were unwelcome. We soon learned to reply that we would gladly go elsewhere if only their regent would permit it, which silenced them quite effectively.

Drakaina shook her lovely head after one such encounter. "There's no place in the world where men are less free than they are here, and none where women are freer-save perhaps in the country of the Amazons, the women who live without men."

"Are they real?" Io asked. "Once Basias said I'd be a strategist among them."

"Of course they are." Drakaina slipped her arm through mine. "But you'll have to go far to the north and east-much farther east than my own city. And you'll have to leave Latro here with me. The Amazons don't care for foreigners any more than these Rope Makers, and they consider all men spies."

I said, "There can be no such race; they'd die out in a generation."

"They lie with the young men of the Sons of Scoloti. If they bear a girl afterward, they sear her left breast so she can use the bow. Boys buy them the favor of their goddess, or so I've heard. I admit I've never seen one of these women warriors myself."

I thought of the dream I had last night when she said that; perhaps later I will write of it here.

"There it is!" Io exclaimed, and pointed.

"About what I expected. They don't know what a real temple looks like here. Nobody could who hasn't traveled in the east, though some of these are at least beautiful. This isn't even that. In fact, if this whole city were destroyed, no one would ever guess from looking at the ruins that half the world had trembled at its name."

The temple was indeed small and very simple, its pillars mere wooden posts painted white. I took off my sword and fastened the belt around one.

Io said, "We're supposed to make an offering. See the bowl? Master, do you have any money?"

Drakaina told her, "I'll take care of it," and tossed one of the iron coins of the Rope Makers so that it rang against the bronze rim.

As we went from the brilliant sunlight of the portico into the shadowy interior, Io asked, "Where did you get that?"

"Hush!"

It was the age of the temple that impressed me most, I think, and perhaps it would be just to say that its age was the only impressive thing about it; but that made it truly a sacred place, the home built for a god when the world was young and men had not yet forgotten that when the gods are mocked they punish us by leaving us.

A priestess, white-haired but as tall as I and as straight as any spear, glided from some recess. "Welcome," she said, "to this house in the name of the Huntress, and to this land in the name of the House of Heracles."

"It's true," I admitted, "that we're all foreigners here, madame. But we've come to Rope at the order of your regent, the great Prince Pausanias, who does not permit us to leave."

Drakaina quickly added, "We have the freedom of the city, however, and I am a priestess of your goddess."

The white-haired woman made the slightest of bows. "As such, you may sacrifice here whenever you wish. No one will prevent you. Should anyone question you, tell them you have my permission. I am Gorgo, daughter of Cleomenes, mother of Pleistarchos, and widow of Leonidas."

Drakaina began, "Then the regent is-"

"My cousin and my nephew. Would you care to see the image of the goddess?" She led us to a wooden figure, cracked and blackened by time. "She is called Orthia because she was found standing upright, just where you see her now, in the days when our forefathers conquered this land."

The bulging eyes of the statue gave it the look of a madwoman. In either hand it grasped a snake.

"The wood is cypress, which is sacred to her. The snake in her right hand is the empyreal serpent, the one in her left the chthonic serpent. She holds both and stands between them, the only god who unites heaven to earth and the lower world. When she appears here, it is most often as a snake."

Io asked, "Could she help my master? He's been cursed by the Grain Goddess."

Drakaina added, "I've already offered sacrifices to our threefold goddess on his behalf. Do you remember Basias, Io? He promised to carry a message to her." She turned back to the priestess. "And Latro is much better. His memory was taken from him, and he still can't remember; but now he acts almost as though he could."

I said, "The goddess is angry."

"Why?" Gorgo's eyes were large and cool, the rare blue eyes that shine like ice.

"I don't know. But can't you see the way she looks at Drakaina?"

Io's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a shout of nervous laughter.

"No," the priestess told me softly. "I cannot see that. But you do. What has this woman done?"

"I don't know."

Even in the dimness of the temple, I could see how white Drakaina's face was. She said, "He is mad, most reverend Queen. Pasicrates and I, and the little girl, care for him."

"Pasicrates is a fine young man, and a faithful servant of the goddess."

"As I am. If I have displeased her-"

"You will be punished."

When Gorgo said that, there was a silence that stretched so long that it became unbearable. At last Io asked, "Is this where the boys get whipped?"

"Yes, child." One corner of the priestess's mouth lifted by the width of a grain of wheat. "In this city, we girls receive much the same education as the boys, but we are spared that. Here food is placed upon the altar, and the older men stand where you are standing, and on the portico outside, and as far as the sacred precinct of the temple reaches. The boys must dash past them and take the food, then dash past again; they are beaten as they run. See the stains their blood has left on our floor? Thus they learn what women already know: that without women there is no food for men. Because they are beaten that day, they can never forget. There is a statue of the goddess at Ephesos with a hundred breasts. The lesson is the same."