The day of oracle came around again. Aristonikè was too ill for the tripod. Theria must serve again.
Of course she would not deceive again. Indeed she had no knowledge with which to deceive. Besides, she had determined that she would never again speak upon the tripod. She wanted to cry out against it, to tell the world what a mummery it was. Yet in spite of all this she was compelled to undergo the preparatory rites. She had to fast, chew the laurel, pass through the smoke. When she did not go into the trance, they tried her over and over again until she was well-nigh dead.
“I knew she could not do it,” she heard old Tuchè saying in the court. “What ’mazes me is that she went under the first time. She’s not the kind for a pythoness.”
Well, then, they would cast her aside, and for Theria they could not do so too soon. Then her life would be spent in the Pythia House. She thought of her lover and of the rich life that might have been hers, even of the “glorious children” that her father had spoken of. But now she would be but a useless vessel, cast aside. Theria had no joy in her helpful Athenian oracle. Her whole world was overshadowed because her god was gone.
One evening she was sitting in her room, “gazing into space” as Tuchè had described it, when the old slave who had tried to wait on her that first day brought her her supper. Now Theria had never received this woman. Tuchè had been obliged to send her a young girl whom finally, because Theria needed such service, she accepted. Now why did the old slave come again? Doubtless Tuchè had sent her merely as an annoyance. Tuchè disliked the new Pythoness.
“How dare you come here again?” Theria said to the old slave. “I will not see you; I——” She rose to her feet.
But the old slave, trembling much, set aside the supper tray and threw off her cloak.
“Baltè!” Theria cried, and with outstretched arms ran to Baltè’s bosom.
“Be quiet! There, there, my darlin’, don’t cry so, blessèd, blessèd—my little bird!” whispered Baltè, stroking the dark hair.
And Theria gradually brought herself into control, but her heart seemed breaking with joy.