Read The Double Tongue for Free Online Page B

– and he gave a curious kind of wincing shrug – ‘a virgin. And you have … what you have. You are ignorant, and ignorance such as yours makes you look like a seer.’
    ‘But for what? For what?’
    ‘Look out there, all that. Achaia on one side of the gulf, Aetolia here. That was Sparta and Argos. Over there, shining Athens, Thebes, the Islands – so many names, so much history – but Athens is a village. She is full of fake men holding fake offices. Aetolia – a string of farms – and Delphi – Delphi to which kings sent their embassies, and Alexander begged to come – Socrates – oh, child! I will tell you! See, over there to our right, yes, is Sicily. But also, far nearer, is an awful future. There is a danger far deeper than anything that the King of Kings threatened.’
    ‘Why are you looking like that? It is hateful!’
    ‘Oh yes it is. They are. They are Romans.’
    The scarf had fallen from my head and lay loosely round my neck.
    ‘But what can I do? I know nothing of all this.’
    ‘You? You can help to rescue Hellas. Rescue Athens and bring back Delphi.’
    It was by the narrowest of margins that I escaped bursting into laughter. It would not have been a happy laugh. This strange man who was apparently now my guardian was becoming stranger and more unpredictable by the moment. He seemed to be stepping out of the straight, dull road of life in which generally the events of the morrow are easy to foresee from those of today. My mind dipped away towards a memory of a slave we had had, a house slave too, a slave mild even by the standards of our house, where life was more regular even than the ferry. But one day and inexplicably he had started to dance and laugh and would not stop so that at last he had to be restrained, and died so. Something, some thing indeed, had been able to get at him. After his death we had no end of trouble purifying the whole place, for that sort of thing is very disturbing. Now this distinguished and important man was bending towards me and using huge names – Hellas, Aetolia, Achaia – as if they had been pebbles to be tossed about in a game on the beach. He must have read something in my eyes, though I felt then as I have since that the capacity to read things, feelings, opinion, intentions in a face is exaggerated. Also, despite my inclination to laugh, I was afraid. That at least he was able to see, and drew back.
    ‘It is too soon. What would you know about these questions? Have you even heard of the Romans?’
    I thought back. My brother? He had talked in my presence about Rome and Carthage. There had been fighting in Sicily.
    ‘A very little, my brother –’
    ‘Demetrios.’
    ‘You knew him?’
    ‘I knew of him. That is not as surprising as you might think. Delphi knows most things, Young Lady. And there you can see some of the topmost buildings climbing up under the Shining Rocks.’
    Why describe Delphi? All the world knows how it hangs on the flank of Apollo’s mountain. We had reached very nearly to where the road opens up the valley and river below it. People talk about the air of Delphi. They seldom mention the fear that settles on you when you see it, fresh and beautiful and deadly. There are gods hiding everywhere but allowing themselves to be sensed, as if at any moment with a flash of light and a clap of thunder one would start into presence and purpose and power. I had seen Corinth across the water but never been there. So Delphi was my first city, a small and strange one. I tried to extinguish myself.
    ‘Leave your eyes uncovered, Arieka. You must get used to it.’
    There were crowds everywhere, and attracted by our soldiers they seemed to clot round our procession. Now the soldiers changed from their solemn walk, with spears lying over the shoulder, and used the butts. They beat the crowd back so that there was shouting and shoving and cursing. Men reached through and touched our brake. It seemed they thought it would bring them luck. A woman