The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome) by Steven Saylor

thanksgiving, and another sacrifice to ask the goddess to bless your travels, and then I shall see about booking passage for you and Gordianus to sail to your next destination.”
    *   *   *
    We all retired to our separate rooms for the night.
    I was unable to sleep. The room was too bright. I drew the heavy drapes to shut out the moonlight and went back to bed. I tossed and turned. I stared at the ceiling. I buried my face in my pillow and tried to think of anything except Amestris.
    I heard the door open quietly, then click shut. Soft footsteps crossed the room.
    I looked up from the pillow. All was dark until she drew back the drapes and I saw her naked silhouette framed by moonlight. Before I could say her name, she was beside me in the bed.
    I ran my hands over her naked body and held her close. “Blessed Artemis!” I whispered.
    “Artemis has nothing to do with this,” said Amestris, with a soft laugh and a touch that sent a quiver of anticipation through me. “Tonight, we worship Venus.”
    *   *   *
    And so, in the city most famously devoted to the virgin goddess of the hunt, I killed my first man, and I knew my first woman.
    After our visit to the temple the next morning, Antipater and I set sail. Amestris stood with the others on the wharf. We waved farewell. Gazing at her beauty, remembering her touch, I felt a stab of longing and wondered if I would ever see her again.
    As I watched the city recede, I made a silent vow. Never in my travels would I pass a temple of Artemis without going inside to light a bit of incense and utter a prayer, asking the goddess to bestow her blessings upon Amestris.
    “Gordianus—what is that strange tune you’re humming?” said Antipater.
    “Don’t you recognize it? It’s the melody Amestris played on the Pan pipes.”
    It haunts me still.

 
    III
    THE WIDOWS OF HALICARNASSUS
    (The Mausoleum)
    The rugged coast of Asia is a jumble of promontories and inlets and scattered islands. Some of the islands are mere fingers of stone, barely rising above the waves; others are like mountains erupting from the sea. More mountains loom along the inland horizon, green and gold under the noonday sun, hazy and purple at twilight. In the month of Aprilis, the color of the water changes from moment to moment, depending on the sunlight, from a harsh lapis blue to the iridescent green of a butterfly’s wing. Sometimes, at dawn or dusk, the calm sea takes on a metallic luster, like a sheet of bronze beaten perfectly flat.
    Amid this profusion of natural splendors, tucked away behind concealing islands and peninsulas, lies the city of Halicarnassus. The south-facing harbor is protected both from storms and from sight. Traveling aboard ship, one might never know the city was there, until the ship sails past a rocky cliff, and suddenly one sees in the distance, set in a semicircular bowl of land that tilts gently to the sea, a walled city with a harbor full of ships. Rising impossibly high above the skyline of Halicarnassus, so madly out of scale that it seems unreal, is the great Mausoleum.
    I had never seen a building so tall. Until that moment, I had not imagined a building could be so tall. How could something made of stone rise so high into the air without crumbling under its own weight? How could mere mortals construct such a thing? The Mausoleum was universally acclaimed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and now I saw why.
    Imagine a solid rectangular podium made of dazzling white marble, rising higher than the pediment of most temples and decorated all around its upper edge with huge statues, like a vast crowd of giants standing in a continuous row along all four sides. Atop that base, slightly stepped back, rises another podium of stone, topped by more statues, and then yet another layer, as tall as the other two combined, with a decorative frieze running around the top, vividly colored in shades of vermillion, yellow, and blue. Atop these three massive layers,