Free The Double Tongue by William Golding Page B

he will have to face his fear – but not just yet.’
    *
    It was thus that life went on. The First Lady died, though according to Ionides it was difficult to tell. She had not lain on a bed for years but always sat upright on her chair, her bright unseeing eyes open, her skeleton’s hands folded in her lap. At the last she neither ate nor drank and one day an attendant brushed against her and she fell over sideways and – I am assured – more or less fell apart. But by the time the Second Lady who was now the First Lady had seen her body, as by custom she was bound to do, and after I, the Third Lady who was now the Second Lady had attended her to that gruesome ceremony, life went straight back to being what it was, except that I had even more splendid quarters, more servants and gifts for which I had done nothing.
    Ionides said I should accept them.
    ‘They commit you to nothing‚’ he said. ‘People are investing not in you but in the truth. The story of the half-cooked fish and the child who recovered at your touch have been inflated. You will be a rich woman in your own right, my dear. The oracle benefits. News of your suitability for mediating between the physical universe and the spiritual cosmos has brought it a shower of gifts from people who do not want to ask a question at the moment but feel they may do – kings, sitting as they always do on shaky thrones, rich businessmen, uneasy key men from caucuses, tyrants and terrorists. It is the future, and like the rest of us Greeks they are condemned to move backwards towards it, until the last bit when the Ferryman takes them backwards beyond all question.’
    ‘I wish –’
    ‘What? Come! It is unusual for our Second Lady to have a wish of her own.’
    ‘Never mind.’
    ‘I am still your guardian and I insist. Come, child, do you want to be disobedient for the first time?’
    ‘I was wishing I had a home. What I think of as a home. That place down there by the sea wasn’t a home for anyone. I must have been a changeling. There’s nothing of my father, my honoured father in me. A home. A place that welcomes you and people there who wait for your coming with – love. That’s what I want. A home.’
    ‘Does not the part you are to play in the story of the nations, of mankind – doesn’t that do instead?’
    ‘Of course not. To begin with, I don’t believe in it – don’t believe anything I can say will influence anybody.’
    ‘It will be your voice but the god’s words.’
    ‘Shall I tell you? I have prayed. Once, when I was in great shame and grief and sorrow, I prayed. I really did. You’ll remember the occasion so I won’t elaborate. But the gods deserted me. Or rather I saw them going away. They were there all right. But I among all people – they had turned their backs on me.’
    ‘Have you ever heard of Moses?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘A great Hebrew leader. He gave them law and worship and so on. Ritual too. He begged to see the god but his god wasn’t having any of it. He knew, you see, that Moses would simply die at the sight. A bit like Semele and Zeus. So he hid Moses in a crack in the rock, covered him with his hand and passed by and all Moses saw of his god was the back-parts. But he hadn’t deserted Moses. By no means.’
    ‘They turned their backs to me.’
    ‘So you saw their back-parts. Perhaps they’ll cover you with their hands and put you in the crack at the oracle and –’
    ‘Don’t say that!’
    ‘Arieka, I assure you, you are highly favoured among women. Why not, pray? You are the – or a – Pythia and I am the High Priest of Apollo. We can say what we like and if anyone complains we can say we are inspired.’
    I made the apotropaic sign. ‘God send the gods don’t hear you!’
    ‘At midday the gods are asleep if they have any sense. I can feel the spring, though. Another month and it’ll be time for the Questions. Though what sort of a noise that fat slug of a bitch will make, Apollo alone knows. She’s