Chapter 7

The morning of the Autumn Bacchanal dawned bright and clear--thanks to the intervention of the Pantheon. In New York, the leaves were only just beginning to turn, and the sun was still high enough in the sky to make the afternoons warm and pleasant. Zeus All-Father had promised good weather for the festival, and a strong, warm wind from the Gulf of Mexico was moving out the crisp autumn air before the sun had risen an hour above the horizon.

The practicing that had gone on in thousands of homes throughout the city was at an end. The Autumn Bacchanal was here at last, and the Beginning Service, which had started in the little Temple-on-the-Green right at dawn, when the sun’s rays had first touched the tops of New York’s towers, was approaching its end. The people clustered in the building, and the incomparably greater number scattered outside it, were feeling the first itch of restlessness.

Soon the Grand Procession would begin, starting as always from the Temple-on-the-Green and wending its slow way northward to the upper end of Central Park at 110th Street. Then the string of worshippers would turn and head back for the Temple at the lower end of the Park, with fanfare and pageantry on a scale calculated to do honor to the God of the festival, to outshine not only every other festival, but every past year of the Autumn Bacchanal itself.

The Autumn Bacchanal was devoted to the celebration of the harvest, and more specifically the harvest and processing of the grape. All the wineries for hundreds of miles around had shipped hogshead after hogshead and barrel after barrel of fine wine--red, white, rose, still, or sparkling--as joyous sacrifice to Dionysus/Bacchus, and in thanks that the fertility rites of the Vernal Bacchanal had brought them good crops. Wine flowed from everywhere into the city, and now the immense reserves were stacked away, awaiting the revels. Even the brewers and distillers had sent along their wares, from the mildest beer to vodka of 120 proof, joining unselfishly in the celebration even though, technically, they were not under Dionysian protection at all, but were the wards of Ceres, the Goddess of grain.

Celebrants, liquors, chants, preparations, balloons, confetti, edibles and all the other appurtenances of the festival spiraled dizzyingly upward, reaching proportions unheard of throughout history. And, in a back room at the Temple-on-the-Green, the late William Forrester sat, trying to forget all about them, and suffering from a continuous case of nerves.

Diana marched up and down in front of him, smacking her left fist into her calloused little right palm. “Now listen,” she said crisply. “I know you’re all hot and bothered, kid, but there’s no reason to be. You’re doing fine. They love you out there.”

“Sure I am,” Forrester said, unconvinced.

“Well, you are,” Diana said. “You just got to have confidence, that’s all. Keep your spirits up. Tried singing?”

“Singing?”

“Singing, kid. Raises the spirits.”

Forrester blinked. “Really?”

“Take it from me,” Diana said. “How about Tenting Tonight?”

“How about what?”

“Tenting Tonight,” Diana said. “You know.”

“I--guess I do.” Forrester wished that Diana would do more than treat him like a pal. She was a remarkably beautiful woman, if you liked the type, and Forrester liked virtually any type.

Now, success appeared to be within his grasp. But it did seem an odd time to bring the subject up. Oh, well, he thought, maybe she was just trying to cheer him up and had picked this way of doing it.

It worked, too, he told himself happily.

He cleared his throat. “Where?”

Diana stared. “Where?”

“That’s right,” Forrester said. Something was going wrong but he couldn’t discover what it was. “The tenting.”

“Oh,” Diana said. “Right here. Now. Raises the spirits.”

“I should say it does!” Forrester agreed enthusiastically. “But after all--right here--”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Nobody will hear you.”

“Hear me?”

“Anyway, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of people do it when they feel low.”

“I’ll bet they do,” Forrester said. “But it’s different with you and me.”

“Me?” Diana said. “What do I have to do with it? I just told you--”

“Well, sure. And here and now is as good a time and place as any.”

Diana stepped back a pace. “Okay, let’s hear it. Sing!”

“Sing? You mean I have to sing for my--”

“I’ll join you,” Diana said.

Forrester nodded. He was beginning to get confused. “You’d better,” he said.

“Tenting tonight on the old camp grounds,” she sang. “Now come on.”

Forrester coughed. “Oh,” he said. “Sing.”

“Sure,” Diana said, and they went through the song together. “How about another chorus?” she asked.

“It’s all right, Diana,” Forrester said, knowing she preferred the name to her Greek one of Artemis. “I feel fine now.”

“Well,” Diana said in a disappointed voice, “all right.”

What surprised Forrester most was that he did feel fine. All the Gods had helped him in the past several months, but Diana had been especially helpful. As a forest Goddess, and as Protectress of the Night, she’d been able to tell him a lot about how an orgy was arranged. He had often wished that she would teach by example, but now, he discovered, it was too late for wishing.

She was, he told himself with only faint regret, just like a sister to him. Or even a brother.

“I guess everything will be okay,” he said. “Won’t it?”

Diana clapped him on the back. “You’re going to be great. Just go out there and show ‘em what kind of a God you are.”

“But what kind of a God am I?”

“Just keep cool, kid. You won’t fail me--I know it.”

“I’ll try,” Forrester said. “Only I’m getting nervous just sitting around here. I wish we could go out and stroll around; we’ve got plenty of time, anyhow.”

Diana nodded. “It’s ten minutes yet before the Procession starts. I suppose we might as well take a look around, kid, if it makes you feel better.”

“It might.”

“Fine, then. But how do you want to go?”

Forrester blinked. “How?”

“Invisibility,” Diana said, “or incognito?”

“Oh,” Forrester said. Then he added: “You’re asking me?”

“Of course I am, kid. Now, look: this is your celebration, remember? You’re Dionysus. Got it? Even in my presence, you act the part now. You ought to know that.”

“Well, sure, but--”

“Keep this in mind. These people haven’t had a Sabbatical Bacchanal in seven years. Every seven years they get to see their God--and this year you’re it. Right?”