and forth, retracing her faltering search for a way into the copse. I finally found it; a tangle of vines hung just so, obscuring the entrance completely unless one approached it from the correct angle.
'Bethesda!' I called, stepping into the copse.
The boys followed me and recommenced their bickering. 'I told you it was this way,' said Mopsus.
'No, you didn't! You said…' Androcles fell silent as the dappled shadows abruptly closed in around us. The boys sensed what I sensed: that we had entered a place that was not like other places. The gurgling of the river could be heard from nearby, along with the low buzzing of insects and the cries of birds in the treetops.
Ahead, through hanging vines, I glimpsed sunlight on stone. We came to a glade circled by vegetation but open to the sky. The little temple in its midst was lit by a shaft of sunlight; the shaft was so clouded with motes of dust that it seemed a solid thing, and I should not have been surprised to see dragonflies suspended motionless within its light, held fast like insects in amber. But the dragonflies hovered and flitted unimpeded, making way for Bethesda, who approached the temple, mounted the short flight of steps to the colonnaded porch, and disappeared inside.
The temple was of Egyptian design, with a flat roof, squat columns surmounted by capitals carved like lotus leaves, and worn hieroglyphs in riotous profusion on every surface. It betrayed no hint of Greek influence, and so almost certainly predated the conquest of Alexander and the reign of the Ptolemies. It was hundreds, possibly thousands of years old; older than Alexandria, older than Rome, perhaps as old as the Pyramids. Beside it, from a jumble of fern-covered stones, a spring trickled forth, forming a tiny pool.
The spring was life itself; the spring accounted for this lush oasis beside the variable banks of the Nile, and for the sacred spell exerted by the place, and for the temple erected beside it. I gazed at the hieroglyphs on the temple; I listened to the faint gurgle of the spring; I felt warm sunlight on my shoulders, but I shivered, for the place seemed uncannily familiar. I raised a finger to my lips, instructing the boys to maintain their silence, and walked across the clearing to the steps of the temple.
I smelled the perfume of burning myrrh. From within I heard the murmur of two voices. One of them belonged to Bethesda. The other voice might have been male or female; I could not tell. I mounted the steps to the porch, inclined my head toward the opening, and squinted at the gloom within. In brief, uncertain flashes, a flickering lamp illuminated brightly painted walls covered with strange images and glyphs. The grandest of these images was that of the god Osiris: the figure of a tall man swathed in white mummy wrapping, holding a flail and crook in his crossed arms and wearing on his head the atef crown, a tall white cone adorned with ostrich feathers on each side and with a small golden disk at the bulbous top.
I heard the voices from within more clearly, but the language they spoke was strange to me-not any version of Egyptian of which I had any knowledge. To hear Bethesda's voice uttering such alien sounds sent a shiver up my spine; it was as if some other being had claimed her voice, some creature foreign to me. I made no move to enter the temple, but stayed where I was on the threshold.
From inside, the priestess of the place-for little by little I had decided the voice must be that of a woman- took up a chant. The chant grew louder, until I knew the boys must be able to hear it as well. I looked behind me and saw them at the edge of the glade, rooted to the spot, their eyes trained on the opening of the temple, their mouths shut.
How long the chanting lasted I had no way of knowing, for it cast a spell on all of us. Time stopped; even the motes of dust in the air ceased their slow, swirling dance, and the dragonflies, afraid of its magic, dispersed. I closed my eyes and tried to discern whether the chanting carried some message of healing and hope, for had Bethesda not come here to find a cure for her malady? But the words were strange to me, and the feeling the chant inspired in me was not of hope but of resignation. Resignation to what? Not to the Fates or Fortune, but to something even older than those; to whatever unseen force metes out our measure of life beneath the sun.
The gods of Egypt are older than the gods of Rome. A Roman who comes to Egypt finds himself far away from the gods he knows, at the mercy of forces older than life itself, powers that have no names because they existed before men could give them names. I felt stripped of all pretensions to wisdom and worldliness; I was naked before the universe, and I trembled.
The chanting ceased. There was movement within the temple. A silhouette emerged from its uncertain light, and in the next moment Bethesda stood before me.
'It's time,' she said.
'Time?'
'For me to bathe in the Nile.'
'This temple-you've been here before?'
She nodded. 'I know this place.'
'But how?'
'Perhaps my mother brought me here once, when I was child. I'm not sure. Perhaps I've only seen it before in dreams. But it's just as I remember it-or dreamed it.'
'It seems to me that I must have been here before, too. But that's impossible.'
'Perhaps this is a place everyone sees in dreams, whether they remember those dreams or not.' Bethesda seemed satisfied with this explanation, for she smiled very faintly. 'I must bathe in the river now, Husband.'
I stepped aside to let her pass. 'I'll come with you,' I said.
'No. The wisewoman says that I should go alone.'
'The wisewoman?'
A figure stepped from the shadows from which Bethesda had emerged. It was an old woman wearing a simple linen gown with a ragged woolen mantle draped over her shoulders, despite the heat of the day. Her hair was white, pulled into a knot at the back of her head. Her skin was like ancient wood, burned dark by the sun and carved with deep wrinkles. She wore no jewelry. Her gnarled hands, clutching the woolen mantle, looked very small. So did her feet. Her sandals were ragged and worn. A cat, its sleek fur as black as night, followed the old woman out of the shadows and rubbed itself against her ankles.
'Did my wife make a sufficient offering?' I reached toward the coin purse in my pouch.
The woman held up her hand. 'The god requires no offering to satisfy your wife's request.'
'The god?'
'This place is sacred to Osiris. The spring is wedded to the Nile, and in this place the union of the waters is perpetually blessed by Osiris.'
I bowed my head, not understanding, but deferring to the woman's authority. Bethesda walked down the steps. I moved to follow, but she raised with her hand. 'No, Husband. Don't follow. What I have to do, I'll do alone.'
'Then at least take the boys with you, to stand by in case you need them. In case anyone else-'
'The place is sacred, Husband. No one will disturb me.'
I followed her as far as the little grotto formed by the spring. She stepped across the tiny pool and out of sight, following a narrow path that appeared to lead down to the river's edge.
I would have followed her, but some power stopped me. Instead, I found myself staring at the little pool formed by the seeping spring. Patches of sunlight glinted on the surface. Tiny, translucent creatures wriggled under the water.
I heard a loud sigh and looked back at the priestess. She was stooping down, laboriously lowering herself to sit on the temple steps. I hurried back to assist her, then sat down beside her.
The black cat, purring loudly, insinuated itself between us and lifted its chin, inviting the woman to stroke its throat with her gnarled fore-finger. Cats were a rarity in Rome and little liked, but in Egypt the creatures were considered divine; once in Alexandria I had witnessed a furious mob tear a man limb from limb for the crime of killing one. The cat looked up at me and mewed loudly, as if commanding me to give it pleasure. I obliged by stroking its back.
The woman nodded toward the far side of the glade. 'Those two must give you no end of trouble,' she said.
I followed her gaze and saw that Mopsus and Androcles had disappeared. I smiled and shrugged. 'They're no worse than other boys their age. Why, I remember when I first adopted Meto-' I caught myself, and fell silent.
'Your son's name causes you pain?' She shivered and pulled her cloak about her.
'I've sworn never to speak it again. Sometimes I forget.' I looked at the sun-dappled vines and listened to the chirping of birds. The magic of the place began to fade. The priestess was merely a frail, thin-blooded old woman,
