Delilah: A Novel (23 page)

Aylah knew she was expected to ask; she obeyed the silent command. “He claims me, High Priestess?”

To her surprise, Derceto shook her head. “No. And before I speak another word, you must swear you will not reveal what I now will tell you.”

Aylah nodded; her skin grew cold, as if snow fell upon it. Even before Derceto spoke again, Aylah knew what would be said.

“He demands Delilah,” the High Priestess said.

No. Oh, no
. For once, Aylah’s bone-deep control deserted her. “You cannot,” she said, forgetting she addressed the High Priestess. “You cannot. It would—it would destroy Delilah.”

Delilah’s heart and mind were given entirely to Bright Atargatis and Her Temple; the Lady’s Dance created Delilah’s life. Aylah thought of Delilah stripped of her dancer’s bells, her priestess’s girdle, bound to one man only—
She who is Atargatis Herself when she dances, who will joyously give the goddess’s pleasure to those who seek its comfort. No. No, I cannot let Derceto do this
.

“He has completed the Three Tasks,” Derceto said in a low voice. “What else can I do, but honor the Temple’s word?”

So that is it
. And although the trap lay in plain sight, Aylah knew she would step into it, allow its jaws to spring shut upon her. “Give him another,” she said. “Give him me. I ask it as my reward for leading the First Dance and the Last.”

She sat there at Derceto’s feet, hoping she would not be sick, as the High Priestess smiled, radiant now. Derceto laid her hands upon Aylah’s smooth pale hair; Aylah remained still as stone. “I thank you, Aylah—as both High Priestess and a woman who is to you as a mother, I thank you. I had thought of this, but hardly dared ask it—”

Which of course is why you sent for me and told me all this
, Aylah thought. But she said only “Better me than Delilah, for both Delilah and Our Lady’s House. I will not disgrace the Temple, High Priestess. I will be a good wife to Samson. But I do not know how to say all this to Delilah, and it will hurt my heart to leave her forever.”

There, Derceto. Now what will you say?

“Oh, I do not think you will be leaving her for so long as that,” Derceto said. “Now listen to me, Aylah, and listen well, as if I were Atargatis Herself. There is a task She wishes done, and only you can do what is needful.”

Silent, Aylah listened as the High Priestess instructed her in what she must do.
So I am to kill to please you? I wonder what Delilah would say, could she hear her revered High Priestess breaking a sacred vow, betraying her promised word, plotting murder?
Aylah knew she would say nothing to Delilah; to learn what Aylah now knew would only hurt Delilah and do no good. Nor would Aylah blindly obey Derceto’s orders.

Marry Samson in Delilah’s place, yes. Murder him, no.
This is my
chance. At last. A chance to live my own life. A good life. If only Samson will listen to me, once he unveils the cheat, all will be well. I will make him a better wife than Delilah would
. Samson was a man, after all, albeit one from a rough, uncouth tribe. But Aylah had been schooled in the Lady’s Arts; Samson might beat her at first, if he were a hard man, but once she set her lips and hands upon him, he surely would accept her in his house and bed, even if he did not forget Delilah. Aylah smiled, knowing Derceto would take that as a sign she acquiesced, would do as commanded.

Only one thing troubled Aylah: leaving Delilah. But despite her heart-sister’s belief that Aylah outshone her, was more favored by the Temple, Aylah knew better. In her heart, Aylah was no priestess. She could sing every prayer, perform every ritual perfectly, dance every step precisely. But Aylah could not give herself utterly, as Delilah did.
So I will go, as the High Priestess commands, and you will remain
.

At least within the high thick walls of the Temple, Delilah’s intensity was contained, her ardent passions confined to the Lady’s dances.

Within the walls of Atargatis’s Temple, Delilah would be safe.

That the barbarian Samson wished to claim a priestess for his wife could not be kept secret. The tasks he must undertake to win his prize were open for all to witness. But the name of the priestess Samson had chosen—that, the High Priestess kept close. She gathered all the priestesses—New Moons, Rising Moons, Full Moons, Dark Moons—and all the Temple servants, too—in the huge public courtyard, and there told us that she saw no reason to name the priestess until Samson fulfilled the Three Tasks. And as there was little chance he could succeed, Derceto did not wish to trouble anyone’s mind. Why fear a fate that might never come to pass?

But I knew; I remembered Aylah’s face as she looked down at Samson, and his as he looked up. That he desired Aylah did not surprise me; doubtless he had forgotten me the moment he set eyes upon her as she followed me in the Dance. But Aylah did not desire him, had turned to ice and stone under his gaze.

I vowed that he would never take Aylah from me. And I had no reason to think Samson could plow and sow and reap what he had been given. The day the High Priestess stood before the high altar and said in a clear cold voice that Samson had won his wager—and his priestess
to wife—shock chained me; I could not seem to move, even to reach out to Aylah.

When Derceto ordered that Aylah and I come with her to the Court of Peace, only Aylah’s firm grasp upon my hand, tugging me to follow her, enabled me to obey the High Priestess’s order.

Past the Ivory Gate, in the Court of Peace, Seer-Priestess Uliliu waited by the pool. High Priestess Derceto led Aylah and me over, waited as we bowed before Uliliu and before the Seven Fish.

Then Derceto said, “There is no kind way to tell you this, so I will speak plain truth. Samson has won his wife. I must keep my word, and bestow upon Samson the priestess I promised him. I grieve that you must lose your heart-sister, Delilah, but—”

“No,” I said, not even caring that I interrupted the High Priestess.

Derceto sighed and held up her hand. “I know what you would say, Delilah, but this is not in my power to mend. The man is favored by Our Lady—or his god is greater than She in this matter.” Derceto reached out and touched my forehead, softly, as a mother might. “But to ease your heart as much as I can, I call upon the Seven to reaffirm Our Lady’s will in this.”

Unable to speak, I bowed my head. To call upon the Seven Fish merely to try to comfort me—that was kind.

So Seer-Priestess Uliliu tossed different grains and seeds into the pool, studied the fish as they swam and squabbled over the food. As had happened when the oracle was being taken for my future in the Temple, the sun-gold Utu claimed what he wished, snatching it from the others and swirling off.

At last the Seer-Priestess lowered her arms. “The omens are plain. Sun calls to sun. Aylah will wed Samson. It is done.”

I expected some sign from Aylah, but she neither moved nor spoke.
If she will not speak, I will
, I thought—but as I opened my lips to protest, Aylah squeezed my hand. When I glanced sidelong at her, she shook her head.

Silenced, I stared down into the sacred pool. The Seven Fish curved
through their clear, placid world, their wide tails spread. Endlessly circling, their scales bright against the cool tiled bottom of the pool, the fish ignored us now that Uliliu had lowered her hands.

Defeated, I went quietly away from the Court of Peace, Aylah’s hand holding mine to guide me. Neither of us spoke until we reached our own room. There I stepped back from my heart-sister so that I might see her face as I spoke.

“Aylah, why did you—”

“Stop you from speaking?” Aylah twined a lock of her hair about her fingers, and I knew she was about to tell me less than pure truth. Aylah would not lie to me, but she would withhold knowledge, if she thought it best. Now she stared at the pale bright hair tangled about her fingers and said, “What good would come of your words, Delilah, once the fish have foretold my future? Surely they cannot be wrong.”

“I could ask your freedom as my reward for leading the Dances,” I said, but Aylah only shook her head.

“Not when Our Lady Herself promised one of her priestesses to Samson. Let it be, Delilah. Please.”

For a heartbeat I wanted to yank her hair away from her hands, force her to reveal what she truly felt. Then my anger passed as swiftly as it had grasped me.
She thinks it hopeless, and does not wish to make matters worse by showing her misery
.

I spent all the night praying to Atargatis for a way out of this snare. At last, as the darkness lifted to silver dawn, I abandoned the effort.
I am not a goddess, to change the future, or even a seer, to know what will be—

My breath caught; I knew I had been answered. I shook Aylah’s shoulder, awaking her. “Come and dress,” I said. “We must speak to the High Priestess. I have had a—a Sign from Our Lady.”

“Oh, Delilah, don’t—” Aylah began, but I pulled until she rose. Then I badgered our servants until we were dressed and painted, fit to approach the High Priestess. I would tell Aylah my plan when I unfolded it before Derceto.

I was certain in my heart that I had been granted the blade to slice through this knot of wicked blasphemy. My plan would save both Aylah’s shining future and the Temple’s purity. When I revealed Our Lady’s wisdom before the High Priestess, surely Derceto and Aylah would rejoice as I did.

“If my lady Moondancer does not remain still instead of darting about like a weasel, she will bow before the High Priestess with a face spotted blue and green. Is that your wish, Dance Priestess?” This reproof from my serving-maid Briesisat drew giggles from the other maidservants, and even a smile from Aylah.

I forced myself to cool the joy that heated my blood like new wine’s fire; to smooth my face into a priestess’s mask and bind my body to stillness.

I would be able to dance my delight soon enough.

To Aylah’s astonishment—though not to mine, for had not Atargatis Herself guided me here?—when we stood before the High Priestess’s gate and asked admittance, it was granted. We did not even need to wait for the Gatekeeper to go and ask whether we might enter, another sign to me that I had been led here by Our Lady’s design.

That was the only part of the pattern that went as my mind had laid my dream-plan out before me.

The High Priestess did not receive Aylah and me in her inner throne room, but out in her garden court. Nor had Derceto garbed herself in formal seven-tiered skirt and gilded corset, nor painted her face and breasts, nor bound her hair with scarlet in the Goddess’s Knot. Although Aylah and I had spent half the morning preparing ourselves to bow before the High Priestess, Derceto wore what any highborn lady might in her own garden.

A skirt of saffron-dyed linen over a longer skirt of green fringed with yellow tassels that brushed her ankles, a girdle with shell and silver luck-charms braided into the dull crimson wool. Her hair, sleek and brown as bay wood, lay down her back in a loose thick braid. A necklace
of amber and ebony beads hung low between her ungilded breasts. She was cutting poppies with a silver sickle; when she saw us, she set aside blade and blossoms on the stone bench and smiled. “Welcome, my daughters. Come and tell me what troubles you, that I may remedy what I can and ease what I cannot.”

For the first time, I felt that the High Priestess truly stood in place of my mother, that she was a woman with a woman’s heart as well as a pure vessel of her goddess. She seemed human, caring, rather than a brilliant jewel one might admire but never love.

Derceto’s smile gave me even more courage than my dream had done. Now, as she sat down upon the stone bench, the High Priestess beckoned us forward. When we knelt at her feet, she looked intently into our faces.

“You are not uneasy in your heart,” she said after she had gazed into Aylah’s eyes.

“No, High Priestess.” Aylah spoke so softly I could barely hear her, although I knelt so close to her that our thighs touched.

Derceto then turned to me. “So it is you, our Moondancer, who needs our care. Speak freely, that I may aid you.”

I sat back upon my heels and began, telling the High Priestess of my wretchedness and misery now that I was to lose my heart-sister. I could not understand how the Temple could bestow one of its priestesses upon a foreigner, a barbarian who slew men at his whim and led our people’s enemies against us.
A man who makes heat dance under my skin whenever I set eyes upon him
—but that fiery truth I did not say to Derceto.

“Atargatis’s will is not ours; She sees into time that will be as we cannot. Do you doubt this, Delilah?” Derceto’s voice soothed, comforted. Encouraged.

I felt Aylah’s foot press against mine but ignored the warning nudge. “No, High Priestess. I do not doubt Our Lady’s love and wisdom. But I have had a sign from Her—”

I had a sign from Aylah, too; she swayed, seemingly losing her balance upon her knees. Her elbow tapped my side, a pressure barely felt as
my leather girdle guarded my body from hip to breasts. Again I ignored my heart-sister’s signal. I thought only of myself, of my own desires. My goddess had revealed a path to me, and my High Priestess smiled upon me and urged me to speak.

And I did.

“My lady Derceto, I stayed awake all this past night praying for guidance from Our Lady Atargatis. Surely She cannot wish one of her priestesses given to a stranger. Oh, I know Seer-Priestess Uliliu consulted the Seven Fish, but as night ended and dawn drew near, I heard . . . something. As if a veil were drawn away from my eyes, I saw that there are greater seers than the Seven. There is She Who Sees at En-dor. It is at En-dor that we must ask the fate of this man Samson, who demands what belongs to the Goddess Herself.”

Silence. I could only hope my fervor had touched the High Priestess’s heart.

“So you wish to go on a pilgrimage to En-dor? Our Lady Atargatis has demanded this?” Derceto regarded me coolly, plainly unpersuaded.

I drew in a deep breath. “Yes.” My voice rang with certainty; by now I had convinced myself that I had heard our goddess’s voice, rather than my own thoughts, revealing Her wish. “We are to go to the Seer at En-dor, my heart-sister and I. It is she who will unveil Samson’s fate.”
And Aylah’s—and mine
.