whether that woman even wants to follow you?”
“She doesn’t,” I admitted cheerfully. “But this is a question of my will, not hers or yours.”
I raised my hand to rub my tired eyes but he misunderstood the gesture and retreated with upraised hands.
“Don’t,” he pleaded once again. “Permit me to think.” Then he said in despair, “She is an exceptional woman. There are not many like her and she is worth more than her weight in gold.”
“I know that.” The memory of Arsinoe sent tremors through my body. “After all, I have embraced her.”
“Her body answers the requirements of the goddess and that is not unusual. She has been trained in the skills of the goddess and they can be learned. But the mobility of her face is a wonder. She is whatever I want and however I want it for any purpose whatsoever. Nor is she a stupid woman. That is the greatest wonder of all.”
“I care little about her intelligence,” I said, not realizing what I was saying. “But everything else is true enough. She is the equal of her goddess.”
The priest extended his veined hands pleadingly to me. “In the temple of Eryx she serves the entire western sea, Carthage, Sicily, the Tyrrhenians, the Greeks. Through her body peace is built upon conflicting interests. There is not a councilor or tyrant whom she cannot persuade to believe the goddess.”
I gritted my teeth in thinking of the men who had believed themselves to be meeting the goddess while in Arsinoe’s arms.
“Enough,” I said. “I don’t intend to remember her past but will accept her as she is. I have even given her a new name.”
The old man began tearing at his beard, then opened his mouth to cry out.
“Stop!” I ordered him. “What do you think the guard could do to me? And don’t anger me.”
His mouth remained open, his tongue twitched but not a sound came nor could he close his mouth. I stared at him in bewilderment until I realized that my power had affected him just as his disciplined power had enslaved me earlier. I laughed once more.
“You may close your mouth,” I said, “and let your power of speech return.”
He closed his jaws with a snap and wet his lips. “If I permit you to take her with you, I myself will suffer,” he declared stubbornly. “No matter what tale I devise, it will not be believed. After all, we are living in civilized times and among priests the goddess no longer manifests her will but rather it is manifested in her behalf by the priests.”
He deliberated for a time and then a sly expression came over his face. “The only way is for you to abduct her and take her with you as naked as when she was born into this world. She must not have with her a single object belonging to the goddess. I will close my eyes while you seize her and only after several days have elapsed will I reveal her disappearance. No one need even know who has abducted her, although naturally all strangers will be suspected. When she returns she may defend herself by saying that you stole her by force.”
“She will not return,” I said firmly.
“When she returns,” he continued with equal firmness, “she may once again don the goddess’s jewels, and with greater wisdom than before. Perhaps that was precisely the goddess’s purpose. Why else would you have come here?”
A look of malicious delight came over his face. “But you,” he said, “you will not have a peaceful day the rest of your life. I don’t mean merely that you will be pursued by Carthage and all the native cities of Sicily. No, I mean that she herself will be a thorn in your flesh. Even if vou are not a mortal, you still have a body and she will be its greatest affliction.” He stroked his beard and Uttered maliciously. “Truly, you don’t know what you are asking. The goddess has bound you in her skein and the threads will scorch your flesh unto your heart until you wish that you were dead.”
But his words only excited me and once again I felt the glorious sting of the goddess’s threads and was filled with impatience.
“Arsinoe,” I whispered. “Arsinoe.”
“Her name is Istafra,” said the old man petulantly. “Why shouldn’t you know that also? I must die either now or later and I would rather do so later. That is really the only problem. But some day I must die anyway, and compared to that, what happens to her or you is unimportant. I wasted my powers in vain, and in vain rose from my soft bed. Do what you will, it does not concern me.”
We quarreled no more. He took the lamp and led me behind the empty pedestal of the goddess, opened a narrow door and descended before me down stone steps into the earth. The passage was so narrow that I had to turn my shoulders sideways. He led me past the treasure chamber of the goddess into Arsinoe’s room and awakened her.
Arsinoe had been sleeping with only a thin woolen cover over her, the new parasol in her hand. But when she awakened and saw us she flew into a rage.
“How have you been reared, Turms, that you don’t allow a woman to sleep in peace? You must be mad to force yourself into the goddess’s secret chambers in search of me.”
Angry, naked, and with the parasol in her hand she was so enchanting that I was overcome by an irresistible desire to push the priest out of the room and take her in my arms. But since I knew that it would have lasted until morning I controlled my impatience.
“Arsinoe,” I said, “rejoice. The goddess is giving you to me but we must leave immediately and in all secrecy and you must go as you are.”
The priest nodded. “That is so, Istafra. The power of this stranger is greater than mine, therefore it is best that you leave with him. When you are rid of him you can return and I will testify that he abducted you by force. But before that, to please me, make his life as difficult as you can and let him suffer the results of his madness.”
Arsinoe protested sleepily, “I don’t want to go with him and have never promised that I would. Besides, I don’t even know what to wear.”
Impatiently I told her that she had to come as she was because of my promise that we would take nothing belonging to the goddess. I did not wish to rob the goddess, I said, and for my part Arsinoe’s white skin was her most beautiful garment until such a time as I could buy her new clothes.
My words seemed to appease her and she said that she would at least take the parasol since it was my gift to her. But under no circumstances did she intend to follow me and throw herself like some stupid girl at the first stranger.
“So be it,” I said in fury. “I shall hit you over the head and carry you over my shoulder if you prefer that, although I may injure your lovely skin.”
She grew calmer at that and turned her back on us as though in contemplation.
The priest extended a round bowl and a stone knife to me and said, “Now consecrate yourself.”
“Consecrate,” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Bind yourself eternally to Aphrodite. It is the least I can expect of you whether you are mortal or not.”
When I remained silent he thought that I hesitated for lack of knowledge. Irritably he explained, “Scratch a wound in your thigh with the goddess’s knife, which is as old as the goddess’s fountain. Shed your blood into the bowl which is made of the goddess’s wood. Drop by drop repeat after me the words of consecration. That is all.”
“Nay,” I protested, “I have not the slightest intention of consecrating myself to Aphrodite. I am what I am. Let that suffice for the goddess from whom I accept this woman as a gift.”
The priest stared at me, not believing his ears. Then his temples and lips swelled with anger, words failed him and he fell to the floor, the goddess’s bowl and knife rolling from his hand. I feared that he had suffered a stroke, but there was no time to revive him.
Arsinoe watched, her lips tightly closed, as I felt her hair to make certain that she had nothing belonging to the goddess. Then I seized her hand, flung my mantle over her and led her out of the chamber. She followed me submissively up to the temple without saying a word.
We crossed the dark courtyard, stumbling over storm-torn branches, and climbed the wall where I had come down. I descended ahead of her, placing her foot on each tent peg so that she was able to reach the ground with but a few scratches. Then I climbed up again and removed the pegs so that no one would know how I had entered the temple. I put my arm around Arsinoe and with pounding heart led her to the inn. Still she had not said a word.
