Yes, Everard thought, / may have lucked out, just a little.
The temples of Melqart and Asherat confronted each other across a busy square near the middle of town. The former was the larger, but the latter was amply impressive. A porch of many columns, with elaborate capitals and gaudy paint, gave on a flagged courtyard wherein stood a great brass basin of water for ritual cleansing. The house rose along the farther side of the enclosure, its squareness relieved by stone facing, marble, granite, jasper. Two pillars flanked the doorway, overtopping the roof and shining. (In Solomon’s Temple, which copied Tyrian design, these would be named Jachin and Boaz.) Within, Everard knew, was a main chamber for worshippers, and beyond it the sanctuary.
Some of the forum crowd had spilled into the court and stood about in little groups. The men among them, he guessed, simply wanted a quiet place to discuss business or whatever. Women outnumbered them-housewives for the most part, often balancing loads on their scarved heads, taking a break from marketing to make a brief devotion and indulge in a bit of gossip. While the attendants of the goddess were male, here females were always welcome.
Stares followed Everard as Pum urged him toward the temple. He began to feel self-conscious, even abashed. A priest sat at a table, in the shade behind the open door. Except for a rainbow-colored robe and a phallic silver pendant, he looked no different from a layman, his hair and beard well-trimmed, his features aquiline and lively.
Pum halted before him and said importantly, “Greeting, holy one. My master and I wish to honor Our Lady of Nuptials.”
The priest signed a blessing. “Praises be. A foreigner confers double fortune.” Interest gleamed in his eyes. “Whence come you, worthy stranger?”
“From north across the waters,” Everard replied.
“Yes, yes, that’s clear, but it’s a vast and unknown territory. Might you be from a land of the Sea Peoples themselves?” The priest waved at a stool like that which he occupied. “Pray be seated, noble sir, take your ease for a while, let me pour you a cup of wine.”
Pum jittered about for several minutes in an agony of frustration, before he hunkered down under a column and sulked. Everard and the priest conversed for almost an hour. Others drifted up to listen and join in.
It could easily have lasted all day. Everard was finding out a lot. Probably none of it was germane to his mission, but you never knew, and anyway, he enjoyed the gab session. What brought him back to earth was mention of the sun. It had dropped below the porch roof. He remembered Yael Zorach’s warning, and cleared his throat.
“Och, how I regret it, my friends, but time passes and I must soon begone. If we are first to pay our respects -”
Pum brightened. The priest laughed. “Aye,” he said, “after so long a faring, the fire of Asherat must burn hotly. Well, now, the free-will donation is half a shekel of silver or its value in goods. Of course, men of wealth and rank are wont to give more.”
Everard paid over a generous chunk of metal. The priest repeated his blessing and gave him and Pum each a small ivory disc, rather explicitly engraved. “Go in, my sons, seek whom you will do good, cast these in their laps. Ah… you understand, do you not, great Eborix, that you are to take your chosen one off the sacred premises? Tomorrow she will return the token and receive the benison. If you have no place of your own nigh to here, then my kinsman Hanno rents clean rooms at a modest rate, in his inn just down the Street of the Date Sellers….”
Pum fairly zoomed inside. Everard followed with what he hoped was more dignity. His talkmates called raunchy good wishes. That was part of the ceremony, the magic.
The chamber was large, its gloom not much relieved by oil lamps. They picked out intricate murals, gold leaf, inset semiprecious stones. At the far end shimmered a gilt image of the goddess, arms held out in a compassion which somehow came through the rather primitive sculpturing. Everard sensed fragrances, myrrh and sandal-wood, and an irregular undertone of rustles and whispers.