Six
In the whorehouse where I hid, incense burned night and day to camouflage the piss splattered in the corridors and courtyard by drunk patrons. The women painted their faces at night and floated up and down the halls in transparent silks, like ghosts, ghosts who returned to their grave beds by day. Not that customers did not demand service in the hours of sunlight—even pious Jews felt safe, knowing none of their kind ever showed his face in a neighborhood that would leave him ritually unclean. Then a ghost would be summoned from her grave by the shriveled mistress and display herself at the door, pale and naked, her eyes glassy and ringed by shadow.
The life of the night suited me to a degree. Hooded and cloaked, I wandered freely through the black city and returned each dawn to pleasures of a new whore. But I was an officer, accustomed to showing off my physique, my badges, accustomed to dramatic displays of homage from miserable peons, accustomed to taking what I liked. My agitation became unbearable, as though I were subjected to a shrill, incessant flute. I considered escaping to Egypt or stowing away on a boat to Rome. But now I was a wanted man. News would reach Egypt and Rome before I was halfway to either place. In hiding or on the run, I could never live the life I deserved.
My thoughts wandered often to Tiresia’s proposal. One night, after working a whore to a sweat, I interrogated her about the seer.
“I know nothing about her, sir. She’s not one of us. We know all the competition.” The girl was 16 at most, but already possessed of the jaded, weary expression that marked all whores. She sat on the floor, her head resting in her arms on the foot of the cot, after performing her finale. Candlelight flickered on her alabaster back.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen the woman. Ethiopian or something. Black as the bottom of a cooking pot. She lives less than half a league from here.” I lay naked on the cot, my hands behind my head.
“I swear, sir.”
“What about the others? Surely they’ve seen her. Talked of her.”
“It’s possible, but they tell me nothing. I’m too new to be included.”
“Yes. I’ll bet they make piles of denarii on you.” I touched her cheek with the ball of my foot. “I want you to talk to them at any rate. Get the information from your mistress. Tell her there’s money in it for her.”
“Yes, sir.” The girl said it as though approaching her mistress meant abuse for her, regardless of profit to the proprietress.
The next night, I got an answer I hadn’t counted on—a contingent of Pilate’s crew bearing shackles for me. Incensed at my inquiries about what she believed must have been a rival brothel, the mistress had arranged for my arrest. Fortunately the girl whore had taken a perverted liking to me. She flung open my door just after midnight.
“They’re coming for you. Run, sir.” Her chest heaved. Horror widened her normally listless eyes. She disappeared across the courtyard, a whirl of white.
Grabbing my tunic and a sack of gear, I climbed out the window and hurdled a low gate. Drawn by a force as strong as lust, I sprinted through alleys and back streets to the seer’s house. This time I met no resistance to my entry.
“Welcome, Lieutenant.” Tiresia sat enthroned in her place before the mirror, her reflection glimmering softly in lamplight.
“Who are you?” I demanded, panting at the doorway of the shadowy chamber.
Tiresia laughed and stroked the colored beads in her hair. “Oh, Lieutenant. Your nature will serve you well on this side of the night.”
“Face me!” I flung down my bag and approached her, but thought better of clutching her after the hand-crushing I’d received before.
“You are prepared now to join the league of the night? You’ve destroyed hopes for success in a mortal life.”
“I’m here to hide, wench, and nothing more.” I sank onto a bench and wiped the sweat from my brow. A rat scurried along the wall and vanished behind broken furniture and piles of rags.
She raised her head and studied me from beneath her heavy eyelids. “When you emerge from this house, Lieutenant, you will never hide again. You’ve only tasted what I can give you. Wait until you feel the full pleasure of complete power over mortals, the ability to travel, to soar over continents at the speed of thought. Wait until you can crush whom you please with impunity, command anyone you will.”
“What about him? The one I have wanted to taste as I have wanted no other.”
“Why do you want him?” She seemed displeased.
“Why? If you know so much, you must know why.”
“I know all about him. But do you?”
“More riddles.” Impatient, I rose and peered down the corridor. Then I turned to her. “He’s told me I’ll never approach him. He’s told me you lie.”
“Of course. He wishes to keep you away.”
“But I desire him. I want him as my beloved. And he desires me in return. I know it.”
“Exactly, my dear Lieutenant. He sees you as a test of his faith.”
“Damn this god he imagines. A moment with me will turn him into an apostate.”
Tiresia smiled. She dropped the robe from her raven shoulders. Her breasts, nipples purple in the lamplight, rose and fell as she breathed, like floats on a calm sea. “Come to me.”
Heated by her charms, I stripped, spread my cloak over the cold earthen floor for her to lie on, and mounted her. Once again she turned her face to the shadows.
“Why me?” I asked in the midst of her moans. “Why not the others, the officers who’ve come for your potions?”
“Oh, my lieutenant.” She clutched my buttocks to drive me more deeply into her. “There were no others. The words … were planted in their minds.” Groaning with delight, she guided my lips to her breast. “Drink, my Victor. Drink.”
The warm blood oozed from her nipple. The sight of it maddened me. I lapped it up like a starving dog. I sucked long and hard, until my whole body became as engorged with blood as my cock. The sensation I’d felt before returned, the strange sense of euphoria mixed with acute vision and heightened power. I could have strangled a bull with my bare hands.
“Yes, Victor. Keep drinking. You mustn’t stop this time.”
I had pulled away from her to get my breath, as though we’d been locked in a kiss of passion. She pulled me back to the wet teat.
“Drink and live.”
Suddenly a pain shot through my skull and then concentrated in my eyes. They pounded. I thought they would explode in my head. But despite the torture, I clung to Tiresia’s supple body. My loins continued to hammer against hers at a furious pace. Then, like a fountain, the seer’s breast poured forth liquid that was no longer hot and salty, but cool and refreshing—blood still, but a chilled elixir that somehow dulled my pain.
My sense of strength redoubled. I felt like a man charged with superhuman energy in a time of disaster, mighty enough to lift a block of granite from a worker crushed beneath it. I soared as I had soared in our last encounter, above the tiled roofs, the palms and walls of Jerusalem. Higher and higher. Through clouds. Toward a sliver of moon. Toward blackness—not empty, but full of creatures, heads and hands and limbs. The beings peered at me from behind treelike shadows.
“You are approaching it, Victor.” Tiresia whispered into my ear. “Ah, yes. You’re almost there.”
But where? By the gods, where?
The sweat that had soaked me as our mad coupling began suddenly evaporated. My skin tingled, cool and taut. I was aware of every inch of my body and at the same time attuned to the darkness around me as I soared.
Tiresia laughed. “This is the beginning of time, Lieutenant. My time, my birth into the night. You are returning me here to reign. I have proven myself. It has taken centuries, since the time of the great Sphinx, but it is finished. Now I join the court of darkness.”
Lightning ripped through the night. I could see Tiresia distinctly next to me. Her garments fluttered in a whirlwind as she flew. Her beautiful face had become translucent. The beads in her hair shimmered like precious stones. Other figures, robed, crowned, surrounded her in the air. They caressed her face with long, tapered fingers. They deposited a crown upon her head and carried her away, fading into the blackness.
“Wait! Damn you, wait! What about me? What do I do?”
“Follow your instincts, Victor.” Her cry rolled out in her wake. “Follow your instincts. You will know.” The final word echoed through the dark vault, slowly fading.
Conscious of returning, in an instant, to Tiresia’s shop, I rolled off her motionless, cold body. I lowered the oil lamp to examine her face. The shriveled features and sunken cheeks of a hag glowed in the light—the hideous face she had hidden from me. Before my eyes, her luscious breasts dried up and disintegrated.
That is how it began.