Bring Down the Sun by Judith Tarr

any longer, although as they turned toward Nikandra, they sparked with recognition. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t go after her.”
    Nikandra frowned. “What—”
    â€œDon’t pursue her. She’ll only be more determined to thwart you.
    There was no need to ask whom Promeneia meant. Everything came back to Polyxena, Myrtale, whoever and whatever she was.
    â€œWhere is she?” Nikandra asked as gently as she could manage. “What has she done?”
    â€œLet her be,” said Promeneia.
    Nikandra clasped the cold, gaunt hands. “Please, lady. Tell me what you see.”
    â€œOpen your eyes,” Promeneia said, “and see.”
    â€œLady, I can’t—”
    â€œTurn and look ahead,” said Promeneia. “The old days are gone. The Mother gives us these to make of as we will. That child knows. She was born knowing. You have much to learn from her.”
    â€œLady—”
    â€œOpen your eyes,” Promeneia said.
    The breath was leaving her. Her hands were deathly cold. Nikandra cried out to her, as if any mortal voice could stop her.
    She had let go, upright as she was. The earth sighed at her leaving. Outside in the grove, the Mother’s tree sang her dirge with a hundred tongues of bronze.
    It was not Myrtale’s fault. There was no reason for the anger that rose in Nikandra, swelling over her and breaking like a wave.
    With great care she lowered the lifeless body to the bed. The two attendants looked on in shock. She who was nearer threw back her head and keened, the long wailing sound that sent a soul on its way to the Mother.
    It emptied Nikandra’s mind of words or thoughts or sense. There was a moment when she could have stopped it, could have brought back all the troubles that had weighed her down.
    The moment passed. She gave herself up to the purity of grief.
    *   *   *
    In the face of death, time’s passing had no meaning. The sun passed the zenith and set; the stars followed, and the moon on its changeful track. There were duties in the midst of it, inextricably woven with it.
    For a while Nikandra forgot her troublesome niece. With Timarete she saw the rites performed and the body entrusted to the earth within the grove. There was no pyre to turn flesh and bones to ash; they buried Promeneia as she was, wrapped in a linen shroud.
    No stone marked the grave. Those who attended her took care not to remember under which tree she lay. She belonged to the Mother now; her name passed to her who was now the eldest, and that name to the youngest, who had been Nikandra and was now Timarete.
    There was, for now, no new Nikandra. Attalos who had served loyally since spring was male and could not take that place. Somewhere in the city or the kingdom there must be a young woman who could serve the Mother as priestesses had served Her for time out of mind.
    It would not be Polyxena. She was gone, swallowed up in the woman called Myrtale, whose whole hope and ambition was to be a king’s wife; and that, however it galled her aunt, was a better prospect by far than what else she might have aimed for. The new Timarete might dream of winning her back, but in the hard light of day she knew those dreams were false.
    It seemed a part of those dreams, or nightmares if she would see them so, that she made her way to the Mother’s tree the morning after Promeneia was laid in the earth, to find the king’s messenger waiting. “Lady,” the man said, “have you seen the Lady Myrtale?”
    His voice tried to be empty of emotion, but Timarete’s hackles rose. “How long?” she asked. “When did she go?”
    The messenger looked a little startled, but then he settled: remembering what she was, no doubt. “We think six days, lady. Before the games ended, and before the Lady died.”
    The apprehension that Timarete had been denying uncoiled now and raised its head. Surely her