Pandora Read online

  “What name does he write on his victims?” I asked. “This blood drinker. Is it Isis?”

  “It’s meaningless, it’s forbidden, it’s old Egyptian. It is one of the names by which Isis was once called, but never by us.”

  “What is it?”

  None of them, including the silent one, answered me.

  In the silence, I thought of Lucius and I almost wept. Then hatred came over me, deep hatred, as it had in the Forum when I spoke with him, saw his cowardly rage. Betrayed the entire family. To be weak is a dangerous thing. Antony and my Father had been such strong men.

  “Lady Pandora,” said the Priest. “Tell us what you might know of this creature in Antioch. Have you dreamed of him?”

  I thought of the dreams. I tried to respond in depth to what these people in this Temple were telling me.

  The tall distant Roman spoke:

  “Lady Pandora knows nothing about this blood drinker. She is telling you the truth. She knows only the dreams and there have been no names spoken in her dreams. In her dreams she sees an earlier time of Egypt.”

  “Well, thank you, Gracious Lord!” I said furiously. “And just how have you arrived at that conclusion?”

  “By reading your thoughts!” the Roman said, quite unruffled. “The same as I have regarding those who would put you in danger here. I’ll protect you from your brother.”

  “Indeed. You had better leave that to me. It is I who will settle that score with him. Now, let us leave the question of my personal misfortune. And you explain to me, most clever one, why I am having these dreams! Fork up some useful magic from your mind reading. You know, a man with your gifts should post yourself at the courthouse, and determine cases for the judges if you can read minds. Why don’t you go to Rome and become the advisor to the Emperor Tiberius?”

  I could feel, positively feel, the little tumult in the heart of the distant concealed Roman. Again, there came that sense of something familiar about this creature. Of course I was no stranger to necromancers, astrologists or oracles. But this man had mentioned specific names—Antony, Lucius. He was an astounder.

  “Tell me, oh, mysterious one,” I said. “How dose do my dreams come to what you’ve read in the old writing? And this blood drinker, the one that’s roaming Antioch, is he a mortal man?”

  Silence.

  I strained to see the Roman more dearly but couldn’t. He had in fact receded somewhat into the darkness. My nerves were on the breaking point. I wanted to kill Lucius; in fact, I had no choice.

  The Roman said softly, “She knows nothing of this blood drinker in Antioch. Tell her what you know of him—for it may be he, this blood drinker, who is sending her the dreams.”

  I was confused. The woman’s voice had been so dear in my head earlier, It is I who summoned you.

  This was causing confusion in the Roman; I could feel it like a little turbulence in the air.

  “We’ve seen him,” said the Priest. “Indeed, we watch, in order to collect these poor drained corpses before anyone finds them and blames the deed on us. He is burned, burned all over his body, blackened. He cannot be a man. He is an old god, burnt black as if in an inferno.”

  “Amon Ra,” I said. “But why didn’t he die? In the dreams, I die.”

  “Oh, it is a horror to behold,” said the Priestess suddenly, as if she could contain herself no longer. “This thing cannot be human. Its bones show through its blackened skin. But it is weak and its victims are weak. It barely staggers, yet it can drain the blood from the poor maimed souls upon whom it feeds. It crawls away in the morning as if it hasn’t the strength to walk.”

  The Priest seemed impatient.

  “But he’s alive,” said the Priest. “Alive, god or demon or man, he lives. And each time he drinks blood from one of these weaklings, he grows a little stronger. And he is straight from the old legends, and you have dreamed of them. He wears his hair long in the old Egyptian style. He is in agony from his burns. He spits curses at the Temple.”

  “What kind of curses?”

  The Priestess interjected at once. “He seems to think that Queen Isis has betrayed him. He speaks in old Egyptian. We barely understand him. Our Roman friend here, our benefactor, has translated the words for us.”

  “Stop!” I demanded. “My head is reeling. Don’t say anymore. The man over there has told the truth. I know nothing of this bloody burnt creature. I don’t know why I have the dreams. I think a woman is sending the dreams to me. It may be the Queen I described to you, the Queen on the throne, in fetters, who weeps, I don’t know why!”

  “You have never seen this man?” asked the Priest.

  The Roman answered for me. “She has not.”

  “Oh, your marvelous talents as spokesman again!” I said to the Roman. “I am so delighted! Why are you hiding behind your toga? Why do you stand over there, so far away that I can’t see you? Have you seen this blood drinker?”

  “Be patient with me,” he said. It was spoken with such charm that I couldn’t bring myself to say more to him. I turned on the Priest and the Priestess.

  “Why don’t you lie in wait for this black burnt thing,” I said, “this weakling? I am hearing voices in my head. But it’s the words of a woman that come to me, warning me of danger. It’s a woman laughing. I want to leave now. I want to go home. I have something that must be done, and must be done cleverly. I need to go.”

  “I will protect you from your enemy,” said the Roman.

  “That’s charming,” I answered. “If you can protect me, if you know who my enemy is, then why can’t you lie in wait for this blood drinker? Catch him in a gladiator’s net. Sink five tridents into him. Five of you can hold him. All you have to do is hold him till the sun rises, the rays of Amon Ra will kill him. It may take two days, even three, but they’ll kill him. He’ll burn like I did in the dream. And you, mind reader, why don’t you help?”

  I broke off, shocked and disoriented. Why was I so certain of this. Why was I using the name Amon Ra so casually, as if I believed in the god? I scarcely knew his fables.

  “The creature knows when we are lying in wait,” said the Priest and Priestess. “He knows when the tall friend is here, and does not come. We are vigilant, we are patient, we think we will see no more of him, and then he comes. And now you have come with the dreams.”

  A vivid garish flash of the dream returned. I was a man. I argued and cursed. I refused to do something which I had been ordered to do. A woman was weeping. I fought off those who tried to stop me. But I had not foreseen that I would, as I ran away, come to a desert place where I could find no shelter.

  If the others spoke, I took no note of it. I heard the woman of the dream crying, the fettered Queen, and the woman was a blood drinker too. “You must drink from the Fount,” said the man in my dream. And he wasn’t a man. I wasn’t a man. We were gods. We were blood drinkers. That’s why the sun destroyed me. It was the force of a more powerful god. Layers upon layers of the dream lay below this polished bit of remembrance.

  I came to my senses, or back to an awareness of the others, when someone placed a cup of wine in my hands. I drank it. It was excellent wine, from Italy, and I felt refreshed, though at once tired. It would make the walk home much too tiring if I drank any more. I needed my strength.

  “Take this away,” I said. I looked at the Priestess. “In the dream, I told you, I was one of them. They wanted me to drink from the Queen. They called her ‘the Fount.’ They said she did not know how to rule. I told you.”

  The Priestess burst into tears and turned her back, hunching up her narrow shoulders.

  “I was one of the blood drinkers,” I said. “I was thirsty for blood. Listen, I am no lover of blood sacrifice. What do you know here? Does Queen Isis exist somewhere, within this Temple, bound in fetters—”

  “No!” cried the Priest. The Priestess turned around, echoing the same horrified denial.

  “All right, then, but you said there were legends that she did exist somewher
e in material form. Now, what do you think is happening? She has summoned me here to assist this one, this burnt-up weakling? Why me? How can I do it? I’m a mortal woman. Remembering dreams of a past life does not enhance my power. Listen! It was a woman’s voice, I told you, which spoke in my head to me, not an hour ago out there in the Forum, and she said ‘It is I who summoned you,’ I heard this, and she swore she would not have me stolen from her. Then up comes this mortal man who’s more of a threat to me than anything in my head. The voice in my head had warned me of him! I don’t want any of your mysterious Egyptian religion. I refuse to go mad. It is you, all of you—especially the talented mind reader—who must find this thing before he makes any more trouble. Allow me to go on.”

  I stood up and began to walk out of the chamber.

  The Roman spoke behind me, most gently, “Are you really going out into the night alone, knowing full well what awaits you—that you have an enemy who wants to kill you, and that you have in your dreams knowledge that may draw this blood drinker to you?”

  This was such a change of pace for me lofty mind reader, such a slip into semi-sarcastic vernacular, that I almost laughed.

  “I’m going home now!” I said firmly.

  They all pleaded, in different modes and tones. “Stay in the Temple.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “If the dreams return I’ll write them down for you.”

  “How can you be so foolish!” said the Roman with genteel impatience. You would have thought he was my brother!

  “That is an unforgivable impertinence,” I said. “Are not magicians and mind readers bound by manners?” I looked to the Priest and Priestess. “Who is this man?”

  I went out and they followed me. I hurried to the door.

  In the light I saw the Priestess’s face. “We know only that he’s our friend. Please listen to his advice. He has never done anything but good for the Temple. He comes to read the Egyptian books we have here. He buys them up from the shops as soon as the sea brings them to us. He is wise. He can read minds, as you see.”

  “You promised an escort of guards,” I said.

  And I will be with you. The voice came from the Roman, though I did not know where he was now at all. He was not in the great hall.

  “Come, live within the Temple of Isis, and nothing can harm you,” said the Priest.

  “I’m not quite the woman for living in the Temple Compound,” I said, trying to sound as humble and grateful as I could. “I’d drive you mad in a week. Please open the door.”

  I slipped out. I felt I had escaped from a dark corridor of spiderwebs, back into the Roman night, among Roman columns and Roman temples.

  I discovered Flavius pressed against the column beside me, staring down into the stairs. Our four torchbearers were gathered next to us, very much alarmed.

  There were men who were obviously Temple guards, but they stood cleaving to the doors, as did Flavius.

  “Madam, go back in!” whispered Flavius.

  At the foot of the stairs stood a group of helmeted Roman soldiers in full military dress with polished muscled breastplates and short red cloaks and tunics. They carried their deadly swords as if they were in battle. Their bronze helmets shone in the light of the Temple braziers.

  Battle dress within the city. Everything but shields. And who was the leader?

  Lucius, my brother, stood beside the leader. Lucius wore his battle tunic of red, but no breastplate or sword. His toga was doubled and redoubled over his left arm. He was clean, with shining hair, exuding money. A jeweled dagger was on his forearm; another dagger was in his belt.

  Trembling, he pointed at me.

  “There she is,” said Lucius. “Of the entire family, she escaped the order of Sejanus. It was a plot to kill Tiberius and somehow she bribed her way out of Rome!”

  I quickly sized up the soldiers. There were two young Asiatics but the others were old and Roman; six in number. Yea gods, they must have thought I was Circe!

  “Go back in,” said my beloved and loyal Flavius, “seek sanctuary.”

  “Be still,” I said. “There’s always time for that.”

  The leader, he was the key, and I saw that he was an older man, older than my brother Antony, yet not as old as my Father. He had thick gray eyebrows and was impeccably clean shaven.

  He wore battle scars proudly, one on his cheek, another on his thigh. He was exhausted. His eyes were red and he shook his head as if to clear his vision.

  This man’s arms were very tanned, yet he was well muscled. This meant war—lots and lots of war.

  Lucius declared, “The entire family stands condemned. She should be executed on the spot!”

  I decided my strategy as if I were Caesar himself. I spoke up at once, proceeding two steps down:

  “You are the Legate, are you not? How tired you must be!” I took his hand in both of mine. “Were you under the command of Germanicus?”

  He nodded.

  First blow struck!

  “My brothers fought with Germanicus in the North,” I said. “And Antony, the eldest, after the Triumphal March in Rome, lived long enough to tell us of the bones found in the Teutoburg Forest.”

  “Ah, Madam, to see that field of bones, an entire army ambushed and the bodies left to rot!”

  “Two of my brothers died in the battle. It was in a storm, in the North Sea.”

  “Madam, you never saw such a disaster, but do you think the Barbarian God, Thor, could frighten our Germanicus?”

  “Never. And you came here with the General?”

  “Went everywhere with him, from the banks of the Elbe in the North to the South end of the River Nile.”

  “How marvelous, and you are so tired, Tribune, look at you, you need sleep. Where is the famous Governor Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso? Why did it take him so long to quiet the city?”

  “Because he’s not here, Madam, and he doesn’t dare to come back. Some say he makes a mutiny in Greece, others that he flees for his life.”

  “Stop listening to her!” shouted Lucius.

  “He was never much loved in Rome, either,” I said. “It was Germanicus whom my brothers loved and my Father praised.”

  “Indeed, and if we had been given one more year—one more year, Madam—we could have extinguished the fire of that bloody upstart King Arminius forever! We didn’t even need that long! You spoke of the North Sea. We fought on all terrain.”

  “Oh, yes, in the thick of the forest, and tell me this, were you there, Sir, when they found the lost standard of General Varus’s legions? Is the story true!”

  “Ah, Madam, when that golden eagle was raised, you never heard such cries as from the soldiers.”

  “This woman is a liar and a traitor,” shouted Lucius.

  I turned on him. “Don’t push me too far! You’re past all patience now. Do you even know the numbers of the Legions of General Varus who were ambushed in the Teutoburg Forest? I thought not! They were the Seventh, the Eighth and the Ninth.”

  “Right, correct,” said the Legate. “And we could have wiped out those tribes completely The Empire would reach to the Elbe! But for some reason, and mine is not the place to question, our Emperor Tiberius called us back.”

  “Hmmm, and then condemns your beloved leader forgoing to Egypt.”

  “Madam, it was no trip to seize power, Germanicus’s trip to Egypt. It was because of a famine.”

  “Yes, and Germanicus had been declared Imperium Maius of all the Eastern provinces,” I said.

  “And there was so much trouble!” said the Legate. “You can not imagine the morale, the habits of the soldiers here, but our General never slept! He went directly when he heard of the famine.”

  “And you with him?”

  “All of us, his cohorts. In Egypt he delighted in seeing the old monuments. So did I.”

  “Ah, how marvelous for him. You must tell me about Egypt! You know that I, as a Senator’s daughter, cannot go to Egypt any more than can a Senator. I would so love—”
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  “Why is that, Madam?” asked the Legate.

  “She’s lying to you!” roared Lucius. “Her whole family was murdered.”

  “Very simple reason, Tribune,” I said to the Legate. “It’s no state secret. Rome is so dependent upon Egypt for corn that the Emperor wants to prevent the country from ever falling under the control of a powerful traitor. Surely you grew up as I did in dread of another Civil War.”

  “I put my faith in our Generals,” said the Legate.

  “You are right to do so. And you saw nothing from Germanicus but loyalty, is that not so?”

  “It is absolutely so. Ah, Egypt. We saw such Temples and statues!”

  “The singing statues,” I asked, “did you see them, the colossal man and woman who wail in the rising of the sun.”

  “Yes, I heard it, Madam,” he said, nodding furiously. “I heard the sound! It is magical. Egypt is full of magic!”

  “Hmmm.” A tremor ran through me. I banished it. In a flash I saw two images mixed: that of the tall Roman in his toga, and that of a burnt and cunning creature! Think straight, Pandora!

  “And in the Temple of Ramses the Great,” said the Legate, “one of the Priests read the writing on the walls. All about victory? All about battle? We laughed because nothing really changes, Madam.”

  “And Governor Piso, do you believe these rumors? Can we not speak safely of them, of rumors as if rumors were not things?”

  “Everyone here despises him!” said the Legate. “He was a bad soldier, plain and simple! And Agrippina the Elder, Germanicus’s beloved wife, is on her way to Rome now with the General’s ashes. She will officially accuse the Governor before the Senate!”

  “Yes, how courageous of her, and that is how it should be done. If families are judged without trial, then we have fallen into tyranny, haven’t we? Here, our friendly lunatic, don’t you agree to that?”

  Lucius was speechless. He turned red.

  “And in the Teutoburg Forest,” I said tenderly, “that gloomy arena for our doom, did you see all the bones of our lost legions, scattered about?”

  “Buried them, Madam, with these hands!” The Legate held up his weathered callused palms. “For who could tell what bones were ours and what bones were theirs? And Madam, the platform of that cowardly, sneaking King was still standing, from which the loathsome long-haired slob had ordered the sacrifice to his pagan gods of our men.”