CHAPTER XVIII
GATHERING MORE THREADS
The next morning Nikander returned to his home. He retired at once to rest after his journey. Theria met him as he came forth again from his room in the late afternoon. It was plain that no sleep had been his. He was haggard. There was something in his face which cut Theria to the heart. She put herself directly in his path.
“Father,” she said, “I know your trouble. Do not hide it from me. You think I cannot help you, but, oh, let me try.”
The love outgoing from her face and from the little trembling gesture of her hand—these he could not choose but see.
“You say a great deal when you say that you know all about my trouble,” he smiled.
“Don’t laugh at me, please. I am a grown woman. I am sixteen years old.”
“What is it you want to know, child?”
“About the Persians,” she said breathlessly. She was daring the question now. What a fool she felt herself to be! “If they’re really coming against only Athens and Sparta couldn’t the other states stand aside—and keep out of it—wouldn’t it be best?”
His face went black.
“Theria, who has been talking to you?” he demanded.
“Nobody, Father. We hear things in the house. We can’t help hearing them. I heard, too, that Argos has Medized. I wanted to tell you that. The Pythia’s answer had nothing to do with it. They Medized long before. They are in actual league with the Persian!”
Nikander looked as if she had dashed water in his face.
“By the thundering Zeus, how did you know that? The priests only made certain of it last night.”
“It’s because I want so much to know, Father, that I learn. And I know that you are in bitter danger from Kobon. Are you sure”—she caught her breath before the plunge—“are you sure you are right? Are you sure that all the states should fight the Persian? Wouldn’t it be better to treat with the Persian just as the Oracle bids us do?”
This time his eyes flashed with anger. “Am I to hear myself flouted,” he said, “by the very women of my household?”
She suddenly threw both arms about his neck in a passion of tears.
“No—no—no—I am not flouting you! Kobon! He may kill you. Any day he may kill you.”
“That side of the question is not to be dwelt upon,” he said severely. He put his arm about her, but his face was like a mask.
“Come with me,” he said.
He led her into his room and shut the door. She could not tell whether he would punish her or not.
“Do you know what is meant by ‘treating with the Persian’?” he demanded.
“No.”
“It means to be his slave, to submit to his rule in ways that would ruin the freedom of Greece. We Greeks could meet in our Councils—oh, yes, we could meet! But the Councils would count for naught. The Great King’s word would be law. It would mean that we would be called out to fight the King’s battles, not our own—that he would take our young men to his court and make eunuchs of them, take our young girls for his concubines. Don’t you think that any state of Greece should prefer death to such a fate?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered with wide eyes. At last she was to know the truth.
“Yet this is the fate you tell me Argos prefers. I suppose,” he added whimsically, “you know all about the Council at the Isthmos of Corinth, from which I have just come.”
“No, nothing of that.”
“Then I will tell you. Athens, Sparta, and all the lesser states who want to defend our Hellas have sent representatives to this congress. They are making our plan of defence. They have sent envoys to all the doubtful states of Greece, begging them to join in the fight. Now, here, my child, is my grief and should be yours—these states, Argos, Crete, and others sent at once to our Pythia to ask whether or not they should enter the war. And in every case the oracles have been negative. It has been so when there was no need.
“You know, my child, that oracles are not always clear! Just as prayers to the gods are not always answered. And when the oracles are not clear, surely it is because the Son of Leto wishes us to use our own wisdom in the interpretation thereof.
“These oracles to Argos and Crete came forth in confused utterance and could have been interpreted into splendid words of courage to those states. We could have forced them to join the League.”
Nikander’s voice began to ring with his message. He forgot it was only to his daughter, Theria, that he was speaking. She meanwhile thrilled and quivered with the sudden enlightenment. Yesterday she had been for the moment persuaded by Lycophron. But this from her father was the truth, so clear that she ought to have known it without any telling.
Nikander went on:
“But all the priests were for bending the oracles the other way. They fashioned them into drivelling nonsense, only adding enough of sense to warn the states away, to make them afraid to fight.
“Oh, that our Delphi should come to this.
“The priests themselves are scared. Many of them have visited Persia and remember its vast power. I, too, have visited it. What of it? Cannot they see that in a pass like this the gods will fight on our side?
“But among all the priests, only Timon and I are for the nobler part. I am not accustomed to failure. I do not know how to bear it.”
His head bowed, but it lifted again quickly.
“But we have not failed yet, Timon and I. There are yet Athens and Sparta for us to help.”
Suddenly he seemed aware of his daughter. He took her hand.
“Athens and Sparta prefer death to the Persian rule. They are going to fight the Persian though he be twenty times their number. Do you see nothing fine in that, my child?”
Her wide-open eyes answered him.
“Up till now the Oracle has disheartened them both. It shall not dishearten them again. Athens and Sparta will certainly visit the Oracle once more. If I have to die in giving them the message of the god, that is a small matter. The message shall be given.”
Theria moved toward him in awed, shining acquiescence.
“Father,” she said clearly, “if you have to die that way, I will not cry out any more.”
Nikander framed her white face in his two hands.
“My darling child!” he said in a kind of amazement. “How strangely you understand.”
She felt his hands tremble; then he smiled almost merrily.
“But I do not intend to die, Theria. I intend to win!”
Her trust in him now was too complete for her even to urge her own help upon him.
“I will not ask you again, Father, to make me Pythia, but if I can help you that way or any way, you will let me—you will let me?”
“Persistent Theria! You cannot help me by being Pythia. How many times must I tell you that the Pythia is the empty mouthpiece of the god.”
“Yes, Father,” she consented.
“You can help me,” he said, “by keeping up the courage of the household. Do not let the slaves talk. Don’t let your mother cringe and worry. Most of all, do not be surprised at anything. I’ll tell you now the fullness of it. The Persians will come to Delphi. No amount of treating will keep their greedy hands off this rich spoil. Our streets will know their footsteps, our temples and households their desecration.
“They are a great horde. All the armies of the past taken together will not make the sum of them. Yet we must fight them. There is no other choice, my child. Can you keep a brave heart and stiff will?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes.”
She went back to her room exalted and actually refreshed. The danger was so great, so certain, that it bred not fear but only a deep solemnity.
Nikander, however, walking out into the street, was not encouraged by this conversation, but miserably cast down.
He had received sympathy; but not from his sons had he received it. The fullness of Theria’s understanding but made him feel the more keenly their aloofness. This poor child, a daughter! wanted to help him by becoming the Pythia—futile effort! Yet the only one open to her. His sons, had they desired, might have been already in the priesthood, fighting by his side for this—the greatest cause the Oracle had ever known.
Meanwhile, he must fight alone. In bitterness of heart he made his way through the midsummer heat up toward the Council House.