* * *
The storm had long since fled and the sun was sleepily resting on the western hills when Treston and Ishtar finally reached their destination some miles from the road. “There! Over there somewhere…” Treston shouted. “I remember the lay of the land. It’s over there.”
Ishtar had bruised her foot on a sharp stone, forcing the two to walk at a slow pace. Treston started telling the girl what they were looking for. “What you did affected the governor so much, he had me bring you to his private estate to be buried in the family cemetery. I figured after all this time there’d be nothing left to find here. I didn’t think it was important enough to bother you with it before. But after seeing the things in the museum, I felt you needed to know.”
“Know what?” Ishtar quizzed, curious.
“Know what happened after you died.” Treston replied. “Lowenah must want you to know. At least I think that’s why we’re here.”
Treston went on to fill Ishtar in about her after-days. “The governor rarely returned to the arena after your death. Only for special occasions would he go there, and then he would feign some excuse to leave before most of the circus events started. It wasn’t long until he claimed that, for health reasons, he was retiring to his estate.” Treston waved his arm in a sweeping arc. “There were no olive trees here at the time, only rich fields of grain and grasses.”
Picking up the story, he went on. “Merna’s boys had no close relatives. So my wife and I - we had no living children, my only daughter having died of the fever years before - we took in her boys, Jessie and Dilean, and raised ‘em up. They were good boys, good men. I loved ‘em like my own sons.”
He turned and shook a finger. “I didn’t keep any secrets from ‘em. They knew all about what happened and what I did. They still loved me. Yes, they did.” Sadness overtook him as Ishtar watched the man wipe a hand across his face. “My wife passed away a little over a year after we took in the boys. She was almost thirty-five. I guess she had lived a long, happy life for the women of the day, but I missed her…still do. After she passed, the governor asked me if I’d manage his mountain estate. I worked for him until he died and then for his sons. They took good care of me and let me live there, even when I was too old to be of any value.” He grinned. “They called me ‘old man Pops’ and I et many a meal at their table.”
Leaving off relating his account, he shared something with Ishtar. “The governor told me about you saying his city home was going to be destroyed. He feared it so, not seein’ it again and all. Finally he decided to make a journey back. The night before he was to leave, he died in his sleep. They said he was found clutching some childhood toy, with a smile on his face.” He looked Ishtar in the eye. “Herculaneum disappeared in smoke the next year, just like you said it would.”
Ishtar caught her breath. She vaguely remembered some pronouncement or other, but it was foggy in her mind, her face reflecting her feelings. “I really said that?”
Treston nodded. “And lots of other things... The governor even said you - or a voice speaking from inside you - talked to someone called the ‘Lord of the Flies’. He believed it to be one of the other gods or demons hiding in him that you chased away when you touched him. He told me that for the first time in his life, he felt clean – washed up - if you know what I mean, like he was free of some evil monster in his head.”
They began walking again. Ishtar pondered what she had been told, finally asking, “What of the boys - Jessie and Dilean, I mean? What happened to them?”
Treston grinned. “Well, let’s see... Jessie went north with John, never to return. I heard he married up with one of Phillip’s granddaughters. Dilean stayed around here and took up with a local girl. Last I knew, he was a smithy in a little village about four leagues east of here. Had a couple children, too...”
Treston reflected, “Yep, the governor and his boys turned out to be good men, mighty good men. They’d allow me to have all kinds of visitors. Even when times weren’t always so good - you know what I mean - my new friends, Apollonius, John and others, they’d come and stay for a day or week…whatever. The governor never said a word. He even asked me questions about things every now and then.”
“So why couldn’t you have told me these things when we were back in Ephesus?” Ishtar asked, pulling the blanket off her shoulders and folding it over her arm.
Treston allowed his eyes to wander down the girl’s body, taking in her feminine features. Never before had he seen such magnificence and beauty. In his eyes, all the women of the First Realm paled in comparison to this goddess walking beside him. How privileged and honored he felt to be allowed in the presence of this woman.
Treston looked toward the distant hill, answering, “My dear, you asked me who you should hate. I want you to see whom you need to love. Good men often do evil things. Should we hate the men?” He turned to address Ishtar. “If acts and deeds were all that God used to judge us by, what man or woman could survive the scrutiny?”
He again turned to watch the path they were taking. “I believe there are secrets of hidden knowledge waiting in these hills. Lowenah has brought us into this place for a purpose - a purpose, I feel, that may change how we understand our fellow man. We are being drawn to the house of the dead so that the experience may somehow affect the living. In exactly what way, I’m not sure, but it calls to me and I obey.”
In short order, the two had trudged across the field and ascended the long, gentle slope of the rise. Treston paused to get his bearings as he scanned the valley on the other side. A toothy smile stretched across his face and he pointed, “Over there, about three furlongs, that’s what we’ve come for. Let’s go! It’s getting late.”
Ishtar grinned and grabbed hold of Treston’s hand. Soon, one could only see two distant figures hurrying away down the hill, bobbing through the tall summer grasses.