“Barely a scratch, from the look of it.”
“Your father instructed me to protect you,” I said firmly. “He is not your enemy.”
Alexandros turned away from me and resumed his walk up the sloping street. “Perhaps you are right, Orion,” he said, so low that I barely heard him. “I hope so.”
We stayed in Athens only a few days longer. The news from the Assembly was not good. The Athenians had decided to send delegations to Thebes and several other cities to arrange an alliance against Philip. Aristotle was especially downcast.
“This will mean war,” he told me as we packed his ever-growing collection. “Real war. Not the marching and petty skirmishes and sham sieges of the past few years.”
I had taken part in one of those petty skirmishes. The men who had been killed were just as dead as heroes of a great battle.
The night before we were to leave I had another dream—if it was a dream.
I was at the Acropolis once more. This time by myself. It was the closest I could be to the goddess I loved, to my past lives, to the memories that had somehow been locked away from me. The night was black and windswept, the stars blotted out by roiling clouds that seemed so low they nearly touched the upraised spear of the giant statue of Athena.
I walked through the warm wind to the gigantic statue. Lightning flashed and briefly lit her face, but it remained coldly indifferent ivory, not flesh. Rain began to pelt down, stinging cold hard drops, almost sleet. I rushed up the steps and into the shelter of the magnificent Parthenon.
The gold-clad statue stared at me with painted eyes.
“I will find you,” I said aloud, amidst peals of thunder. “Wherever you are, whenever you are, I will find you.”
And the statue stirred. The stiff gold-leafed robe softened. The eyes warmed. Her face smiled sadly at me. Twice life-size, standing on a pedestal of marble, my goddess breathed into life.
“Orion? Orion, is it you?”
“Yes!” I shouted over the earthshaking thunder. “I am here!”
“Orion, I want to be with you. Always and forever. But it cannot be.”
“Where are you? Why can’t we be together?”
“They decided… the forces…”
Her voice grew faint. Lightning flickered through the sky, throwing blue-white strobes of light through the temple. Thunder roared and boomed like the voices of the gods railing against us.
Still I shouted, “Where are you? Tell me and I’ll find you!”
“No,” she said, her voice fading, fading, “Not yet. The time is not right.”
“Why am I here?” I begged. “Why have they put me here?”
I thought she did not hear me. I thought she had left me. The lightning stopped and suddenly the temple was in utter darkness. I could not see her statue, could not sense her presence.
“Why am I here?” I repeated, almost sobbing.
No reply. Only black silence.
“What do they expect of me?” I shouted.
“Obedience,” said another voice. A woman’s voice. Hera’s.
“I expect you to obey me, Orion,” her voice slashed coldly through my mind. “And obey me you shall.”
CHAPTER 11
I returned to Pella unwillingly, filled with dread and the inner emptiness of a hopeless longing. The trip north was cold and miserable: rain in the hills, driving snow in the mountain passes. With each step along the way I felt the power of Olympias returning, settling over me like a sickness, sapping my strength and my will. In my dreams she was Hera, the haughty and demanding goddess. In my waking hours she was Philip’s queen, the witch who had cast her spell upon me, the woman I was powerless to resist.
On the day we returned to Pella the king summoned me to his presence. I reported on the assassination attempt.
He scowled darkly. “What fool tried that?”
We were alone in his small work room. The afternoon sunlight slanted through the one window, but the air was cold. Philip sat next to the meager fire, a dark woolen cloak over his shoulders, his aching leg propped on a stool, his black beard bristling, his one good eye piercing like a hawk’s.