“And will Straton simply take your word for that?”

Bitto narrowed her eyes. “Do you doubt my powers of persuasion, Gordianus?”

I nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard of such people—born in the image of the god Hermaphroditus, having parts of both sexes—but I’ve never encountered such a person before.”

“I have,” said Bitto, “but only in certain temples on certain sacred occasions. Many believe that such individuals possess magical powers, and their peculiarity is a mark of divine favor that especially suits them to serve in certain sacred capacities—as the mouthpiece for an oracle, for example. When Tryphosa gave birth and saw the child’s dual sex, she might have proclaimed the truth instead of hiding it.”

I shook my head. “I suggested something like that to her myself. ‘And have my child be raised as a holy freak?’—those were her exact words. Apparently, when the child was born, there was some indication of dual gender, but the male aspect appeared to predominate, and the midwife told them that the female cavity might eventually close up altogether, so Tryphosa and her husband decided to name the child Timon and raise it as a boy. Then her husband died, and Tryphosa had sole responsibility for the boy’s upbringing. But beginning with puberty, the ‘boy’ increasingly took on feminine characteristics—not just physically, as when her breasts began to bud, but in her personality, as well. The child began to think of herself as a girl, and wanted to dress and behave as one. Mother and child experienced a great deal of confusion and indecision, but ultimately, together, they concocted a scheme to go off on a journey and return with a bride—the bride being Timon himself, or herself, now renamed Corinna.”

“So bride and groom were one and the same!” said Bitto. “Did no one ever see the two of them together at the same time?”

“From what Tryphosa told me, there were a handful of occasions, as when they first returned to Halicarnassus, when the bride and groom were seen in public together—but the bride was played by one of their slaves, who wore a veil so that no one could see her face.”

“And the ‘death’ of Timon—how was that managed?”

“They waited until they could acquire a recently deceased body, reasonably similar in age and appearance to Timon, then hastily held a private funeral ceremony and burned the corpse. I suspect they had to pay a few bribes along the way, but ‘Timon’ was dead and his body reduced to ashes before any outsiders had a chance to pose awkward questions. From that time on, the child lived exclusively as Corinna, the widow of her former self.”

“But how can Corinna hope to maintain this pretense? If she ever tries to marry—or ‘remarry,’ I suppose—her husband will see her for what she is on their wedding night.”

I shrugged. I was learning that the world was not a simple place, and the people in it were full of surprises. “However Corinna plans to deal with her future, she’s determined to do so as a woman. That is her choice, and her mother has done everything possible to help her realize her transition from boy to girl. That’s why they attended the ritual at the spring of Salmacis the other night.”

“I didn’t see Corinna there.”

“I thought I did, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t mention it at the time. After everyone else left, a few people, under priestly supervision, were allowed to enter the pool. Corinna drank from the pool and stayed in the water a long time, hoping to eradicate the vestiges of her masculinity. Alas! Having seen her naked, I must conclude that the gods did not see fit to grant her wish.”

“Poor girl!”

I nodded. “So you can see, Bitto, why it would be such an injustice for those two to be persecuted by Straton or by anyone else. In a way, they did ‘murder’ Timon, but his disappearance harmed no one. I believe mother and child should be left alone, each free to pursue her destiny as she chooses, don’t you? You might even consider befriending them, Bitto. They are your neighbors, after all.”

She pursed her lips. “I suppose I could invite them over to dinner sometime.”

“Corinna is shy, but she’s a lovely girl. As for her mother—what is it about Halicarnassus that breeds such strong widows? Tryphosa struck me as a very forceful woman, intelligent and resourceful and fiercely independent. She reminded me of you, in fact.”

Bitto smiled at this compliment. There on her balcony, beneath a sky full of stars, she rewarded me with a tender kiss.

*   *   *

Spring turned to summer. The month of Sextilis arrived, and if Antipater and I were to attend the Games at Olympia—and see the Temple of Zeus with its colossal statue of the god—it was time to board a ship and set sail.

Bitto had warned me that no man could possess her, including myself. When she saw us off at the wharf, she waved until she dwindled from sight, but I saw no tears in her eyes. It was I who felt a pang of loss at our parting. I blinked and bowed my head.

“What’s the matter, Gordianus?” asked Antipater.

“Just a bit of sea spray. It stings a little,” I said, wiping my eyes.

The last I saw of Halicarnassus was the Mausoleum, its massive tiers rising to a templelike facade of huge columns and gigantic statues, and the step-pyramid roof with its quadriga of glittering gold surmounting all—the widow Artemisia’s everlasting mark on the landscape. But it was another widow of Halicarnassus who left an everlasting mark upon my life.

IV

O TEMPORA! O MORES! OLYMPIAD!

(The Statue of Zeus at Olympia)

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Antipater. “Have you ever imagined such a spectacle?”

I had not. Romans love a festival; a play or two put on in a makeshift theater, an open-air feast, chariot races in the Circus Maximus—all these things I had seen many times in my eighteen years. But no celebration in Rome could compare with the free-spirited chaos, or the sheer magnitude, of the Olympiad.

Greeks love an athletic competition. One could almost say they live for these events, where naked young men show off their manly prowess in fierce competitions. Several cities in Greece host such contests, but the Games at Olympia, held every four years, are the grandest and most well attended. They are also the oldest. Antipater and I had arrived for the 172nd Olympiad. Multiplying that number by four, I realized that the Games at Olympia had been going on for nearly seven hundred years. When the first Olympiad was held, Romulus and Remus were mere infants suckling at the she-wolf’s teats, and Rome did not yet exist.

This would be the third Olympiad Antipater had attended in the span of his long life. It was to be my first.

Simply to reach Olympia proved to be an ordeal. From Ellis, the city that administered the Games, the journey took two days. The road was jammed with wagons and pedestrians. Antipater and I rode in a hired mule-cart along with several other travelers, proceeding on the crowded road at a pace that bored even the lazy mules. Food and wine, sold at roadside stands or from moving carts, were plentiful but expensive. Water was harder to come by. After a long, hot summer, the river that ran alongside the road was nearly dry. Local landowners with access to a spring charged exorbitant fees for drinking water. Bathing was out of the question.

On the first night out we slept on the ground, for the rooms at every inn were already taken, with some guests sleeping on the rooftops. Many travelers brought their own tents. Some of the richer visitors, accompanied by entourages and slaves, brought entire pavilions. Competition for flat, smooth patches of ground amid the rocky terrain was fierce.

“Where will we sleep when we reach Olympia?” I asked.

“About that, Gordianus, you need not worry,” said Antipater, and I did not ask again. On our journey to see the Seven Wonders, I was learning to trust my old tutor about our travel arrangements and not to question him too closely.