Delilah: A Novel (4 page)

As in any great queen’s palace, the House of Atargatis required artists and clothiers, gem-carvers and idol-makers, bakers and cooks and
sweet-makers; hairdressers, perfumers, and jewelers; seal-makers and scribes. Each task required someone to fulfill its demands: honey for the sweet-maker meant beekeepers to tend hives. Offerings to the Temple required scribes to set down what had been given, and by whom—which meant clerks must cut reeds into pens, ensure that precious papyrus was not wasted, and that still others must prepare small clay tablets upon which yet another clerk would impress the name of the gift and the giver, and the Temple seal. Then the kiln-workers would dry the tablets, and finally a messenger would deliver this enduring record to the one who had given the offering. Two generations ago, she who had then been High Priestess had decreed that each offering, no matter how small, must be acknowledged. Now the scribes and messengers and clay-workers occupied an entire building that had been erected outside the Temple to house them; the Temple wall had been opened and extended to enclose the new building.

That had happened long before Derceto had been given to the Temple—
And I am no longer young
—but the Court of Scribes was still called “the new court.”

And all the skills that the priestesses were taught required those who could teach them. Dancing and singing were only two of the talents a priestess needed. The womanly arts any girl must know, such as spinning, weaving, and sewing, must be learned as well. So there must be those who could teach such tasks.

As a priestess passed through the gates from one court to the next, she gained not only knowledge but tangible marks of Our Lady’s favor. A fully initiated priestess wore her hair knotted up with scarlet ribbons; from the sacred knot, symbol of the Bright Goddess, long curls fell down her back. The sea’s blue and green glittered upon her eyelids; the crimson of blood gleamed upon her lips and cheeks. A wide belt of red leather girdled her waist above a seven-tiered skirt whose colors proclaimed her precise rank and function. Golden doves rested upon her breasts, and golden bees hung from her ears; golden snakes circled her arms. The tips of her breasts, too, glittered gold.

The work of a dozen men and women produced the image worshippers saw when they gazed upon a Full Moon of Atargatis.

Such a priestess wore gold and gems, but her most precious adornment was the tattooed serpents that coiled from her elbows to her wrists, slid in blue midnight shadows under her skin. The bracelets of gold might be set aside. The serpents that dwelt beneath her skin remained with her forever.

So in addition to all else, the Temple required artists who could incise images into the skin, as well as apprentices to grind paints and hone needles to the sharpness of a bee’s sting.

And within the innermost court lay the sacred pool in which seven fish-oracles swam in lazy, well-fed circles, awaiting petitioners who would see the future. Their names were Utu, Nanna, Enki, Inanna, Gugalanna, Enlil, and Ninurtu. Temple tales claimed the names, and the fish, had been brought from a land far to the east. The fish gleamed bright as gems; Utu, whose scales glowed like polished gold, was the largest and the most important. Each fish had its own servant, who fed it and who cleaned the turquoise tiles that lined the pool.

In the Temple kitchens, there was a cook whose only task was to grind and mix the special food that the seven servants scattered over the placid, clear water of the sacred pool so that the Seven Fish might eat of it, if they chose.

Sometimes I wish I were one of those fish. To have nothing to do but eat and sleep, to swim endlessly in pretty circles—

“My lady Derceto?”

The Master of the Temple’s eunuchs had come in soft-footed as a cat; he knelt before her and lifted the fringed hem of her skirt to his lips. High Priestess Derceto gazed down at the Master of Eunuchs, seeing only his bowed head as he awaited her permission to rise. He would kneel there for hours if she chose to remain silent.

She made him wait just long enough to trouble his mind, set him searching his memory for anything within his purview that might have offended her, before she bade him stand.
Power still tastes sweet
. She smiled,
and saw the Master’s face smooth, his mind eased by the mere curve of her lips. And as she listened to the Master of Eunuchs, Derceto forgot her fleeting wish that Bright Atargatis transform her into a fish.

A girl had been purchased in the slave-market, the Master of Eunuchs told Derceto—she could not imagine why this should interest her, until she learned that one of the Prince of the City’s servants had been staring at the creature, as if tempted to purchase her. That interest had been sign enough for the High Priestess’s servant instantly to bargain for the dirty child. He’d paid far too much, simply to keep the Prince’s servant from gaining even the smallest of victories over the Temple.

He’d been appalled, too, at the child’s condition. The seller was a fool, and how much a fool had become apparent only after the girl had been cleaned and combed and fed. The grime had sluiced away, unveiling a golden pearl—a pearl his action had gained for the Temple.

Derceto gazed unblinking upon her Master of Eunuchs.
Yet another tangle. Did it not occur to my most loyal and most foolish servant that Sandarin might have set this strange girl in his path as a snare?

At last Derceto sighed, and said, “Bring the girl to me. I wish to look upon her.” And then, “No. I shall go to the Court of the New Moons and see her there.”

Derceto knew one simple way to end any uneasiness over the girl’s true origin. As the Temple had bought her, so too could the Temple sell her—possibly even to the Prince of the City himself. That would be amusing, especially if Sandarin had intended the girl to act as a spy within the Temple.

But her visit only added to Derceto’s endless worries. After the next morning’s ritual, she had gone in all her finery to the Court of the New Moons, and there endured wide-eyed stares from twice a dozen small girls, and wails from two of the youngest, who were startled by the sight of her elaborate headdress.

And when she looked upon the new girl—a girl who glowed like a sea-pearl—Derceto knew she had come too late. For the golden stranger
stood with her fingers entwined with those of one of the Temple’s true treasures, the girl called Night-Hair.

Already it was clear that Delilah—a girl whose family had paid handsomely to gain her a place as one of Atargatis’s Daughters, and for whom the Mistress of the Dance had great hopes—loved the new girl, Aylah, dearly. Selling Aylah would distress Delilah, and it would be foolish for the Temple to give Delilah any cause for grief. Those who taught and tended the New Moons swore Delilah would one day earn great wealth for the Temple.

More important, the Seven Fish foretold that Delilah would become the greatest priestess the Temple would ever know.
“A fire undying.”

Still, oracles could be overturned, by a greater fate or by a more powerful passion. Therefore Delilah’s love for the Temple must not be allowed to lessen, to falter.

So Derceto had merely smiled upon the awed children and gone away again, knowing she would lose too much sleep as she tried to decide whether the man who sold Aylah had been a mere fool or Sandarin’s clever agent. Could any man be so stupid that he sold a child such as Aylah in so neglected a state she brought little profit? Had Sandarin deliberately placed Aylah in the way of Derceto’s servant, knowing he would bid against the Prince’s man? Was Aylah simply a silent, docile girl, or a well-tutored tool of the Prince of the City?

Another night I shall not sleep unless I drink poppy syrup
. Derceto rubbed her temples with the henna-red tips of her fingers. Poppy syrup and valerian, to grant her sleep without true rest.
I wish the Prince of the City may sleep as well as I do this night!

Mortal consort of an undying goddess. Lord to Our Lady. As a beloved to his beloved—so was the Prince of the City to the High Priestess of the Great House of Atargatis.

Sandarin listened as the Chief of the palace eunuchs oozed flattery, waiting for the bitter news hidden within all this sickly sweetness. For no one knew better than those who served in the City Palace how ill-suited were the Lord and Lady who ruled over Ascalon the Beautiful.
In the City’s name, why can no one ever speak plainly, and to the point?

Save for his brother Aulykaran, who never flattered, Sandarin knew himself hemmed in by sycophants.
Those who supposedly serve me would tell me black was white and snow, fire if they thought such nonsense would please me. How am I to choose aright, to decide what is best, if I cannot trust my advisers to give me truth?

“O Beloved of Lady Ascalon the Beautiful, Lord of the City Walls, Keeper of—”

Sandarin lifted his hand; rings heavy-set with emeralds, the gem best loved by Atargatis, flashed green fire. “Jaleel, there is no need to drone through each of my titles. We both know them. Now tell me plainly what brought you here—without veiling the matter in endless layers of useless words.”

“O Lord of the City, I but thought to ease what you must hear.”

“O Lord of the Palace Eunuchs, I think perhaps another, who reveals what I must hear, should replace a servant so fearful.”

Sandarin threatened this at least once each moon—but this time Jaleel did not retaliate with his usual complaint that he was an old, old man, and that if his hard work no longer pleased the Prince of the City, perhaps Jaleel should leave Palace service. Instead, Jaleel hesitated, and never before had Sandarin seen the Chief Eunuch fumbling for words.

At last Jaleel said, “O Prince, I have failed you.”

Sandarin sighed. “How have you failed me, O best of servants?”

Jaleel bowed his head. “The man I sent to the market to purchase new slaves acted unwisely. When he returned, he told me there was a child offered up in the marketplace—a girl. The seller seemed a fool—the girl had been brought from a faraway land, and had she been cleaned and well-tended, would have commanded as much as a necklace of matched sea-pearls. But she was nothing but dirt and bruises.”

Why are you telling me this?
Sandarin did not voice this thought; he nodded, indicating Jaleel should continue.

“The City’s servant would have passed her by, save for the fact that the Master Eunuch who dwells in the Great House of Atargatis seemed intrigued by her. Lest the Temple gain her, your servant offered a high price for the girl—only to have the Temple bid higher. At last your servant saw it was useless, for clearly the Temple meant to possess the girl no matter her price, so he hastened back to tell me what had occurred. And now I lay this knowledge in your hands, my prince.” Jaleel bowed and drew back, to stand with folded hands, waiting.

You mean well, but why, Blessed Atargatis, must I be served by well-meaning fools?
Sandarin forced himself to smile. “My thanks for your news, Chief Eunuch. I trust you to convey my gratitude to the servant who acted so on behalf of the City Palace, and reward him as you deem fit.”

There; a safe enough command, one that would ensure Sandarin need not face the man who had nearly purchased disaster.

Does it occur to no one but me that the Temple may have placed that girl in the path
of my servants? That she may have been a lure, a spy to dwell beneath my roof, to lie with me in my bed? Well, you have failed this time, Derceto
. Sandarin thought of the High Priestess’s fury when she discovered that the Temple had paid overwell for the privilege of acquiring its own trap.
I wish I had been there to look upon her face at that moment. I wonder what she will do with the girl now?

Never in all her life had she been so clean—not even before raiders had stolen her from her tribe and she had started upon the long road that had led her here. It had taken long hours for those who now owned her to free her from the filth that shielded her, hid her true coloring. She had hoped, at first, that the stern-faced woman who commanded those who bathed her would cut off the long tangles of her dirt-dull hair. With her hair shorn, her worth diminished.

But the night-dark girl into whose charge she had been given refused to be defeated by knots and grime. The dark girl had labored long, and with great care, until at last she had triumphed. And then she had stared, as Aylah had known she would, as all stared when they saw Aylah’s hair gleaming smooth and bright as gold.

Those who had tended her fell silent; one of the maidservants reached out as if to touch that shining fall of hair. Aylah wished, now, that she had fought these women, scratched and bitten them until they abandoned their efforts, as those who had sold her to them had. But she was tired of that endless struggle—and she had been oddly unwilling to scratch and bite the dark girl, who tried so hard to be kind.

I will wait. I will eat, and gain strength, and then I will escape from this strange place
.
Aylah instinctively recognized a cage, however opulent and comfortable it might be. And this was a lavish cage indeed.

That night Aylah lay beside her new sister in a clean soft bed that only the two of them shared. Delilah slept easily, her breath gentle sighs upon the soft air. Aylah remained awake, savoring the odd sensation of comfort.
I am not hungry. I am not cold. I am not tired
.

She slid her fingers through her silk-smooth hair.
I am not dirty. My skin does not itch
.

Sleeping, Delilah flung out her hand; her fingers touched Aylah’s, as if they wove a pattern through Aylah’s pale hair.
And Delilah likes me
. Already Aylah knew that Delilah’s fondness for her ensured safety, at least for a time. Aylah had learned to read men’s and women’s thoughts from the lightest shadow upon their lips, the smallest flicker of their eyes.

The High Priestess does not like me. She would have sold me again, had I not been with Delilah
. Aylah smiled in the darkness, and curled her fingers around Delilah’s.
I did not choose this temple, but here they will feed me and clothe me. So I will not run away from this place. Not yet. I will wait. And I will make Delilah love me, and she will make the others treat me kindly and well
.