Pindaros nodded. "And do you know how Advent got its name? Or why the mysteries are performed there?"

"I thought it had always been there."

"No, in ancient times Advent - which wasn't called Advent then - had a king named Celeos. His people lived by hunting and fishing, and gathering wild fruits. The Great Mother was looking for her daughter, who'd been carried away by the Receiver of Many. To shorten a long story, in her wanderings she came to Advent and taught Celeos to grow grain."

Hilaeira exclaimed, "I see!"

"Certainly, and I should have seen too, much sooner. The Grain Goddess is the Great Mother, and the Great Mother is the Earth Mother, who sends up our wheat and barley. Her greatest temple's at Advent, and it was near a temple of hers that Latro was wounded. The Shining God was telling Latro to go to Advent, and when I started to lead him in the wrong direction, he made sure we'd get to the right place after all. All I have to do now is take him there, which I can do this afternoon. Then I'll be free to return home."

"And will I find my friends?" I asked him. "Will I be cured then?"

"I don't know," Pindaros answered solemnly. "Certainly you will have taken the first step."

Chapter 18 Here in the Hall of the Great Mother

I sacrificed today. About midmorning, Pindaros, Hilaeira, Io, and I went to talk to a priest. He told us that his name was Polyhommes and that he was of the family of the Eumolpides. "The high priest is always chosen from our family," he said. "Thus many of us serve our turn, hoping for a smile from the goddess." He smiled himself, and broadly, for he was one of those happy and helpful fat men one sometimes meets in the service of gods and kings, though he smelled of blood, as I suppose all priests must.

"We are the children of Demophon, whom the goddess would have made immortal if she could. I grant it's not as good as being of the line of Heracles, who actually was made immortal, but it's the best we can manage. Now what can I do to help you, sir? This is your wife, I take it, and your little daughter.

And your son, who's been injured. A striking young man - what a pity someone struck him!" He chuckled. "This is not a shrine of healing, however, save for the spirit. I will be happy to direct you to one."

I said, "I hope it will be a shrine of healing for me," and Pindaros explained our actual relationships.

"Ah! Then we have here, in fact, two parties, though you have traveled together. Let's take the young woman first, for her case will be somewhat easier, I believe.

"You must understand, my daughter, that there are three classes of persons who cannot be admitted to the mysteries. These are murderers, magicians, and soothsayers. If you are admitted to the mysteries - or if you so much as begin the ceremonies for admission - and it is discovered that you belong to any of those three classes, the penalty is death. But at this moment there is no penalty; you need not even tell me, 'I have killed,' or, 'I am a magician.' All you have to do is leave this room and return to the city. Nothing will be said or done."

"Yes, my daughter?"

"Do you know how girls sometimes dip a mirror into a spring when the moon is full? When you look into it, in the moonlight ... "

"What do you see?"

"Your husband's face. The man who's going to be your husband. The Moon Virgin shows you, if you're a virgin yourself."

Polyhommes laughed. "Hopeless for me, I'm afraid. I've four children."

"I used to be good at it, or I thought I was, and I, uh, showed some other girls how. I don't do it any more."

"I see. Did you look into the mirror for them, or did you simply show them how to do it for themselves?"

"I showed them how," Hilaeira said. "You can't do it for somebody else. Each one has to do it for herself."

"And did they pay you for your help?"

Hilaeira shook her head.

"Then you're surely not a magician or a soothsayer, my daughter. May I take it you're not a murderess? In that case, you may attend the initial ceremony. That will be ... " He paused, counting on his fingers. "Just five days from now, in the evening. You're living in the city?"

"I'm staying with a friend."

"Then it would probably be best for you to return there. There are good inns here, but they're frightfully expensive, I'm told. On the fifth day you may come here just as you did today. We'll assemble at the stele at sunset."

Hilaeira cleared her throat, a sound like the peep of a little frog. "I said I was staying in Thought, Holiness. I'm not from Thought."

Polyhommes laughed again. "You're from Cowland, my daughter. You're all from Cowland, except for your young friend here, and I can't imagine where he's from. Can't you tell we speak differently here on the Long Coast? We don't double the 'fish' and the 'camel' the way you do, for one thing."

"That doesn't matter?"

Polyhommes shook his head. "I said there were three classes who were not admitted. Actually, there is a fourth - those who cannot understand our language well enough to comprehend the ceremonies. But even they are excluded only on practical grounds. If a barbarian learns our speech, he is welcomed."

"And will I have to make an offering when I come again in five days?"

He shook his head again. "Most do, but it isn't required. I take it you're not wealthy?"

"No."

"Then my advice is to make an offering, but a small one. Perhaps one drachma - or an obol, if that's all you can afford. That way you'll have something to put in the krater and need feel no embarrassment."

"May I ask one more question?"

"A hundred, my daughter, if they're all as sensible as those you've asked thus far."

"It isn't this way in our city, but here people tell me a woman isn't supposed to go out alone. Will anyone bother me when I try to come back? I don't think Pindaros will be here then, and Kalleos probably won't want Latro to come."

Polyhommes smiled. "You won't be alone, my child. Far from it. Recollect that every candidate for initiation this year will be on the Sacred Way with you. No one will molest you, I promise. Nor will the archers stop you and inquire why you've no escort. If you're nervous, you need only find some decent man and put yourself under his protection."

"Thank you," Hilaeira said. "Thank you very much, Holiness."

"And now, young man, to you. You're not a candidate?"

Pindaros said, "He merely wishes to present himself to the goddess."

"Purity is best, just the same. I take it he's no magician or soothsayer. Has he blood guilt?"

"He doesn't remember, as I told you."

I said, "I killed three slaves once, I think, though I didn't write it down. You said so later, Pindaros, and I read about it this morning while you and Hilaeira were still asleep."

"They were slaves of the Rope Makers," Pindaros explained, "serving as auxiliaries in their army.

Blood spilled in battle doesn't count, does it?"

Polyhommes shook his head. "There's no guilt. Have you an offering?"

Io whispered, "The Shining God gave me to him. He can't give me to the goddess, can he?"

"He may if he wishes," Polyhommes told her. "Do you, young man? This slave girl would make a fine offering."

"No. But I've nothing else."

"I can give him a little money," Pindaros put in.

"Good. Young man, I'd suggest you use what your friend gives you to purchase an animal for sacrifice. The town is full of people who sell them - you'll have no difficulty. If you're short of funds, a hen is acceptable."

Pindaros shuddered. "No. Not a hen."

"Fine. A more, ah, significant beast is, of course, a better sacrifice. Normally those who sacrifice here desire to improve the fertility of their fields, and a hen is often sufficient. A young pig is the most common gift."

Pindaros said, "Like Hilaeira, I have a final question. Are there caves here? I realize you can't reveal the mysteries, but caves connected with the worship of the goddess?"

Polyhommes nodded without speaking.

"Wonderful! Sir, Holiness, you've been very, very kind. We'll go and get the sacrificial animal now.

Meanwhile, perhaps a small gift for yourself ... ?"

"Would be most gratefully accepted." Polyhommes glanced at his palm and smiled. "Return at noon with your sacrifice, my son. I will be present to assist you with the liturgy."

When we were outside, Pindaros said, "I'm going to follow a hunch. Have you heard of the Lady of Cymbals?"

I shook my head; so did Hilaeira.

"That's the name under which the Great Mother's worshiped in the Tall Cap Country. Not by the sons of Perseus or Medea, but by their slaves - Lydia's people, and so on. They use the lion and the wolf as the Great Mother's badges more than we do. I know you don't remember that the oracle mentioned a wolf, Latro, unless you read that this morning too. But it did, and it said you had to cross the sea, which probably meant to the Tall Cap Country. After one's manhood, the sacrifice most acceptable to the Lady of Cymbals is a bullock."

Hilaeira asked, "Do you have enough money?"

"If we can find a cheap one. Kalleos advanced me a bit, and I won a bit more betting with Hypereides."

Most of the animal sellers had only the smaller ones. Shoats were the creatures most often sacrificed, as Polyhommes had told us, and fowls the cheapest; but there were sheep too, and eventually we came upon a yearling bull for sale.

Io said, "His horns have only just sprouted," and patted his muzzle.

"Very tender indeed, young lady," the farmer promised her. "You won't find better meat anyplace."

"That's right," Io said to Hilaeira. "We get to keep the meat, don't we? Will they cook it for us at the inn?"

Hilaeira nodded. "For a share of it. And they'll keep everything and give us something worse unless somebody watches them."

"I think he'd let me ride on his back, like Kalleos on the sail."

Pindaros bargained with the farmer and, after starting to walk away twice, bought the bullock for what he said was far too much money. "The people here laugh at us because we named our country after our cattle," he told me. "But we have some good stock, and I wouldn't trade them for all the ships on the Long Coast. You can't eat a ship, or plow anything but the sea."

There was a cord through the bullock's nose, and it followed us docilely enough while we bought a garland for its neck and chaplets of flowers for ourselves, though Pindaros refused to let Io mount.

Perhaps I should write here that the temple of the Grain Goddess is called the Royal House and that Pindaros said it was different from any other he had seen. Certainly it seems strange enough to me. It is large and square, and its interior is filled with pillars, so that one walks in it as in a forest of stone. They say the fire before the statue has been kept burning since the goddess wished to bathe the infant Demophon in its flames.

I will not give the words we spoke to the goddess before we sacrificed; I do not think it lawful. When all had been said, I put my hand on the bullock's head and begged the goddess to join my friends and me in our meal. Polyhommes poured milk in the bullock's ear, asking whether it wished to go to the goddess.

It nodded, and Polyhommes cut its throat with the holy knife, which is of bronze, not iron. We cast certain parts of the carcass into the flames, and everyone relaxed.

"A good sacrifice, wouldn't you say, Holiness?" Pindaros smiled and straightened his chaplet of blossoms.

"A most excellent sacrifice," Polyhommes assured him.

Hilaeira's eyes were bright with tears. "I feel I'm a friend of the goddess's already," she said. "Once I thought she smiled at me. I really did."

"She does have a kind face," Polyhommes said, smiling up at his goddess. "Severe, but - "

Io asked, "What's the matter?"

He did not answer. He had been ruddy, but his cheeks were as white as tallow now, and the hand that held the sacred blade shook so that I feared he would drop it. Pindaros took his arm. "Are you ill?"

"Let me sit," Polyhommes gasped, and Pindaros and I led him to the nearest bench. His forehead was beaded with sweat; when he was seated, he wiped it with a corner of his robe. "You wouldn't know," he said. "You're not familiar with her, as I am."

"What is it?" Pindaros asked. "My family always supplies the priests ... "

"You told us that."

"So we're always in and out of the Royal House, even when we're just children. I've seen the goddess ... I've seen her statue I suppose ten thousand times." We nodded.

"Now I want one of you - you, little girl - to describe it to me. I must know whether you see what I do."

Io asked, "Just talk about her? She's real big, bigger than any real woman. She wears her hair off her shoulders, I think probably in a knot at the back of her head. Should I go around and see?"

"No. Go on."

"And she's got a crown of poppies, and wheat - a sheaf of wheat, is that what they call it? - in her hand. Her other hand is pointing at the floor."

The fat priest let out his breath in a great whoosh. "I must see my uncle - get him to rule on this. All four of you remain here. Right here. It might be better if you didn't speak."

He hurried off, and we sat in silence. It seemed to me there should have been a feeling of peace then in the quiet temple, peace engendered by its sullen fire, its bars of sunshine and deep shadows; but there was none. Rather it seemed filled with soft yet heavy noises, as if some massive beast stirred and stamped where it could not be seen.

Polyhommes soon returned. "Our high priest has gone to the city; I'll have to decide this myself." He seemed calmer, and the heavy odor of wine was on his breath. "Very well. You must accept my statement that I have observed this statue many times, and that until today its left hand has always rested upon the head of the stone boar standing beside it."