Bring Down the Sun by Judith Tarr

He’s even taught them to speak Greek.”
    â€œHas he taught them to bathe?” the second woman inquired.
    â€œI was downwind of them,” said the first, “and they weren’t any worse than anyone else. He’s a good-looking man, is Philip.”
    The second sniffed. “I suppose so, if you like big and brawny. I lean more toward a smooth young thing, myself.”
    â€œAnd that’s why your husband is a hairy old goat,” said the third.
    That won a screech and a leap and a scuffle that ended in scratches and pulled hair and sullen silence. Polyxena was careful not to let them see her smile—or they would have turned on her.
    Fortunately she had a pretext for turning away: Troas called her to lend a hand with the evening’s tasks, setting up the beds and fetching the ration of bread and oil and sour wine that was all any of them was to dine on. Some of the more toplofty pilgrims objected, but the pirate queen took her share with good humor and ate it without complaint.
    The bread was hard and full of grit, and the wine was almost vinegar. Polyxena chose to follow the pirate queen’s example. As wretched as it was, it tasted better than it looked—and that maybe was a lesson.
    As she sat cross-legged on her pallet and ate her dinner, she filled herself with this crowd of humanity as she had with earth and sea and sky. Women of every rank and station were gathered here, eating as she ate and waiting as she did for the great rite and the Mystery. There were slaves in sackcloth and fisherwomen knotting nets to keep their fingers busy, veiled citizens’ wives from Athens passing round a jar of smuggled wine so strong the scent of it had made Polyxena dizzy when she passed by, and brawny warrior women from Sparta who looked as if they had left their armor just outside the door.
    Polyxena listened shamelessly to the babble of voices. Some she could barely understand, so thick was their accent; others were not speaking any language she recognized. She had thought she knew how wide the world was from seeing the pilgrims at Dodona, but here they were all piled together, high and low, rich and poor, from the sun-shot cities of the south to the chilly sheepfolds of the north.
    They were all here for the same reason. Tomorrow, at the dark of the moon, the Mysteries would begin. None of them professed to know what would happen, although there was speculation enough.
    The air crackled with excitement, anticipation, and no little apprehension. This Mystery was twofold, said those who seemed to know the most. The first was simple enough, and one might stop there and present one’s respects and go away initiate. But if one truly wished to gain what one sought, one would stay and suffer the second—and that was a deeper, darker, stronger thing.
    Polyxena was not here to sing a song and wear a garland and pour a cup of wine on the ground. Whatever she was meant to do, the Mother had brought her here to discover it. She would stay for all of it, no matter what it cost her.
    *   *   *
    In the morning the priest and priestess in white came to guide them all through the city and out past the walls to the holy place. The excitement of the night before had given way to a spreading silence. Even the children were quiet, clinging big-eyed to the hands of mothers or nurses.
    The men had come out from another door and fallen into the column beside them. Polyxena could see only those who were closest. There was nothing remarkable there, though a few had handsome faces. Children walked with them, too: boys and young men, too manly to cling to anyone, though some of their elders walked arm in arm as lovers might.
    They passed in procession through streets that had seen a thousand years of their like. Polyxena smelled baking bread, spilled wine, a waft of perfume.
    Faces peered over walls and out of doorways. Had any of these people gone to the Mysteries? Or were they like the