“Apollo said that he loved me,” she repeated. “He said it. And he laughed at me because I wanted him to slay me.”
What would the priests think of this message of the god? Nikander hardly dared hope that they would put upon it the interpretation which he so desired. No pythia had ever been freed from priesthood. Indeed, if he told the vision, must it not bring them to a knowledge of her false oracle, the punishment of which would be death? His face grew set with thought. But yes, he would risk even that fate in the hope of what the god’s message might do for her. He kissed his child and hurried out to find Timon and the other priests.
How changed already were the streets, empty of folk. The houses closed and locked or left open in the haste of flight, showing the vacant rooms.
He found Timon in the Precinct. But Timon was wholly indifferent to Theria’s part of the god’s message. It was the hurtling shaft of Phœbus which interested him. “It was shot toward Parnassos, you say? That is a good omen,” he asserted. Nikander could not be sure. But he soon saw that the priests were too beset now with their fears and instant business to consider Theria’s status as priestess—the matter so dear to his heart.
“A party of Phokian peasants,” said Timon, “came into town this morning, fleeing from the Persians. Their tidings are horrible. The armies have overrun all the land of Phokis. They are killing men, outraging women, burning towns. Drymos is burned. Charadra, Amphikaia, Neon, Elateia, and many more. They have burnt the temple of Apollo at Abai. Do you not think, Nikander, that that may mean perhaps that they are headed the other way toward Athens and will pass us by?”
For Abai was on the eastern road.
“I do not,” said Nikander. “If they burnt the god’s temple at Abai, they will not spare his temple at Delphi. The Persian prisoners are telling that Xerxes the king knows more exactly what is treasured in our temples than he knows the treasures in his own palace. He will not spare Delphi.”
“I have sent my wife, daughters, and slaves to Achaia,” said Timon. “If I am killed and you spared, Nikander, you will send them word?”
Something in Nikander’s face stopped him.
“I am sorry,” he added, “that you may not send Theria away. No priest would allow it. The Oracle without a pythia at such a time as this!”