Oracle (15 page)

Nikko looked down at the girl again. She met his glance, black hatred in her eyes.

‘Ah well,’ said Nikko peaceably, ‘perhaps she’ll calm down when she’s been given a bath and—’

There was a sudden scream as the guard on the girl’s pony was thrown onto the ground by a swift backward butt of the captive’s head. Suddenly her pony was galloping back the way they had come. The other ponies stirred and whinnied. Dapples tossed her head, and pawed the ground.

Nikko stared. How did she not only guide the pony with just her legs, but stay on, bound and unbalanced by the ropes? Centaur, he thought, half horse half human. Though she had looked girl enough.

‘Catch her!’

‘What?’

The captain gestured at him impatiently. ‘Our ponies can’t reach her now, not laden like this. But your horse is twice the size of that pony, and fresher to boot!’

‘But I’m…’
I’m an acrobat, not a soldier,
Nikko had been going to say. It wasn’t his job to go catching wild horse-girls. But he had to make some show of trying, or there’d be mutterings that he had let the High King’s property get away.

He pushed his knees into Dapples’s sides, and she wheeled around, keen to chase the galloping pony.

Down the road, horse and pony hoofs thudding in the dust; workers gathering olives under the trees staring; far-off yelling from the men at the tannery, who’d glimpsed the race. The big horse was gaining on the pony now.

Nikko found himself laughing with the sheer joy of the chase. Even Dapples seemed excited, her head down as he crouched along her neck.

Suddenly the pony swerved away from the road, through the lines of olive trees. The girl lurched, but miraculously stayed on.

Was she guiding the horse or was it racing out of control? Did she hope to lose him among the trees? Nikko grinned. An acrobat could dodge and weave. And so could Dapples.

Dapples had turned before Nikko’s nudge. The silver-green of olive branches brushed him on either side. These were young trees, not yet bearing. Ahead were the giant trees, their branches gnarled and trunks as thick as a man.

He was almost on her now. But how could he stop her? Keep going till either horse or pony flagged from exhaustion? Somehow he knew both animals would obey until their hearts and legs failed.

Jump from Dapples onto the pony? He could manage it. He could also kill them both, if the pony collapsed under his extra weight.

And then he had it. He would have laughed aloud, if he’d had the breath. He nudged Dapples to one side, to the avenue of trees next to the one the pony was galloping through. Faster, and faster still. Now he was ahead of the pony, could hear its breath labouring, a choked mutter from the girl behind her gag, urging the pony on…

He almost had her now! He nudged Dapples again, till he was a javelin’s throw ahead of the girl.

The big trees were above them now. He reached up, and grabbed a branch with his left hand, as Dapples cantered off without him.

It was too late for the pony to stop. It galloped underneath, and he reached down with his right hand and grabbed the bonds that held the girl.

He had her! For a moment he thought his arm would be wrenched off. His shoulder shrieked with pain—dimly he thought about cold water, and about changing the dance routine to favour the other arm. And then he dropped onto the leaf-strewn ground, the girl below him.

He gave a cry of triumph, then strengthened his hold on the girl’s ropes. She struggled, trying to kick. She’d bite me, if she wasn’t gagged, thought Nikko, half in pain and half in admiration. But he was larger than her, and
heavier. He managed to stand, still grasping her bonds, and dragged her over to a tree. One of the strands of rope had come loose. He used it to tie her to the trunk, then stood back, panting, and checking his shoulder to see how badly he’d been hurt. At least it still seemed the right shape.

He looked at her now closely for the first time as he caught his breath…and his triumph fled. She looked like he had felt in his nightmares, when he first came to Mycenae: as though all security had vanished. The world was her enemy. Even he had hunted her down.

All at once he felt ashamed. But he had done his duty to the King. He could have done no less.

The girl stared at him over her gag.

‘Are you hurt?’

She glared, neither nodding nor shaking her head.

‘Do you understand my words?’ Sometimes slaves from far away had their own barbarian speech. People from the palace used more words than in the villages, too. It had taken him months to get used to them all.

This time she hesitated, then nodded.

He thought of the fall, his weight bearing her down onto the ground. She must be bruised, her bones possibly broken. He tried to speak reassuringly. ‘If I untie your gag, will you scream or try to bite me?’

She seemed to be thinking, watching him with those dark eyes. The lashes were thick as a sparrow’s feather. She shook her head.

He reached behind her, and worked on the knot. It was tight, but his fingers were strong. He had expected her hair to feel coarse, like horse’s hair, but instead it felt
soft as a lynx’s pelt. He finally managed to ease the gag open.

She drew air deep into her lungs, over and over, as though she had been half starved of it. Now he was closer he could see a bruise on one cheek, and the eye above it was bruised as well. How many times, he thought, has she fought the guards to get away?

Behind him Dapples had turned and was plodding back, cropping the grass under the tree as she came. The pony too had halted. It peered at them through its shaggy mane, as though trying to work out what the humans wanted it to do now.

Nikko waited till the girl’s breathing was calmer.

‘I am Nikko.’ It didn’t seem enough, but he wasn’t the son of Giannis now. He added, ‘Acrobat to the High King.’

She spat, but not at him.

‘Did I hurt you? I’ll make sure they carry you carefully if you’re injured—’

‘I am not hurt.’ Her accent was strange, the words hesitant, but he could understand them. Her voice was low and husky.

‘Are you—’ He stopped as the captain rode up to them.

‘You caught her!’ The captain rubbed his hands. ‘Little hell-cat. We’ll tie her face down till we get her to the palace.’

He gestured to the men behind him. They pulled the girl up roughly, hoisting her between them.

He wanted to cry, ‘Stop.’ But the girl was a slave, a prisoner. Even if he’d let her go, the King’s men would
have hunted her down. A runaway slave would be an insult to be avenged.

Like an acrobat who deserted, he thought, then thrust the image away. ‘Don’t throw her around like that!’

The captain stared at him.

He added. ‘She’s the High King’s property. The Chamberlain won’t thank you if she’s damaged.’

The Captain looked at him assessingly, then nodded. He obviously knew Nikko’s reputation. One of the High King’s favourites would have influence with the Chamberlain, even with the King himself. ‘All right, men. Gentle as you can. But make sure she’s trussed secure.’

The men had caught the pony, which had been grazing quietly during this exchange. One of them led it up.

Nikko watched as one guard took the girl’s feet, while the another took her shoulders. They stared to throw her across the pony’s back, then caught Nikko’s eye and draped her instead.

‘What will happen to her?’ She was not struggling now, but was limp, her face turned to watch them, to listen perhaps to the captain’s answer.

The captain shrugged. ‘None of my affair, thank the Mother. Not much that can be done with a wildcat. Can’t risk putting her on a horse to perform, that’s for sure. She might even attack the High King.’

He checked the girl’s bonds, then stepped back. ‘We’ll take her to the dungeons for the time being. It’s up to the Chamberlain after that. Maybe sell her to a sea captain for a ship’s whore. She can’t ride away on the ocean. Or keep her for an earth sacrifice in spring. There’s spirit
enough in that one to keep the earthshaker from trembling the palace for a score of years.’

The girl must have understood. But her face was expressionless and she refused to meet his eye.

He bit his lip. He longed to help her, to at least give her the dignity of sitting upright as she was carried to her fate. But the captain would never agree. And he’d be right. The girl would try to escape again, might even kill one of them to do it.

One of the soldiers began to lead the girl’s pony. Behind him he could hear Dapples, treading back toward him. He caught her reins and ran forward a few steps. ‘What’s your name?’

At least let the girl not go nameless to her death, he thought, or to whatever fate the Chamberlain decides.

For a moment he thought she wouldn’t speak. And then at last he caught the whisper:

‘Euridice.’

He couldn’t sleep. The girl’s face watched him, her eyes not pleading, but not accepting her fate either.

He had to help her.

He didn’t know why. She was no beauty, and he had grown used to beauty in his years at the palace. He supposed he had the right to ask for a woman of his own, either as slave or wife, but he could hardly see the horse girl in either role. She’d likely kill him to escape.

But there was no way he could forget her. Perhaps it was her terror, or her pride. Something, somehow, bound them together.

How could he help her then?

Even if he helped her escape the city walls she would be dragged back. He would be thrashed, if his part in it were known, perhaps even Thetis would be punished. How much would the High King forgive his favourites?

Impulsively he slipped from his bed and threw on a thin wool robe, then trod quietly down the terrace to Thetis’s room, and in the door.

The bed was empty.

He smiled. He knew his sister too well to worry these days. The moon was nearly full. There’d be light enough for a curious girl to slip through the shadows of the city.

The moon had ridden halfway up the sky when another shadow slipped across the terrace. She paused as she saw him waiting in her room, tilting her head as though to ask a question.

‘I need your help,’ he said.

She raised her eyebrows at that. She stepped over to the water bowl and washed her feet, then sat on the bed beside him, leaning back against the pillows. They were silk, like her butterfly wings, but plain and smooth so embroidery wouldn’t rub against her face as she slept.

So he told her. Told her about the girl, the bonds, the ride, the courage in the girl’s eyes, her likely fate and how she would now be in one of the dungeons below the palace.

Where there are rats, he thought. Did they even bother to feed her and give her water?

‘Well?’

She shook her head, to show that she was thinking. And then she smiled.

‘You mean you have an answer?’

The smile said,
Of course.

‘What is it then?’ he asked, exasperated for the first time by her inability—or was it still refusal?—to talk.

She paused, then pointed to him, then to the sky, and then the palace.

‘In the morning I go to the palace?’

She nodded, then pointed down.

‘And ask to see the girl?’

Thetis nodded.

‘But why should they let me? What can I tell her?’

The smile grew wider, a little like the smile of the High King’s latest lion cub when it was fed a dish of
cheese. She flung herself off the bed, leaped onto her hands, her legs high in the air, did a back flip, then another somersault onto the bed again.

For a moment he didn’t understand. And then it was as though her smile had lit his own. He hugged her, feeling her slightness and her strength.

‘I convince her to be an acrobat? But she doesn’t have the training—’ He stopped. They’d said she was a horse dancer. That must mean both skill and strength. Thetis was right. The girl could do it.

He looked back at his sister eagerly. ‘I tell her what a good life it is, for we who serve the High King. How she’ll be free as us if she pleases him.’

For a moment Thetis stared at him in silence. She smiled again. But this time there were shadows in her smile, and something Nikko didn’t understand.

What isn’t she telling me? he thought. What can’t she tell me? He almost thought she was going to shake her head, that he had got it wrong, didn’t understand. But then she nodded again, just once, and made a sign to usher him away.

She had to rest.

‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘Best of sisters, most wonderful of girls.’

Her smile grew wider. She wrinkled her nose at him, then lay down to sleep.

‘Well, what do you think?’

Orkestres peeled a pistachio thoughtfully. He wore a red skirt with silver flounces, silver necklaces and bracelets, and full eye make-up, even though he had only planned a morning yarning with his cronies. Orkestres was a man of importance now, and he didn’t let anyone forget it. ‘I think you should go down to the wool sheds and choose a girl who’ll be less trouble. Or stick to bedding bored ladies from the palace.’

Nikko stared. ‘That isn’t it. It’s not like that at all.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No! She’s a performer…like us. You’ve said yourself that performers are a brotherhood. They help each other.’

‘When we’re not trying to upstage each other. But yes. I see your point.’ He took another pistachio and crunched it. ‘All right. I’ll help with her training, if that’s what you want. If you can convince the Chamberlain to let her go.’

Nikko hesitated. ‘You won’t go to him?’

Orkestres laughed, and patted Nikko’s cheek. ‘You want the girl, you get her. Besides,’ his voice was serious now, ‘don’t underestimate your power, my son. The
Chamberlain likes you. He likes the way you please the King even more. He is more likely to grant you favours than he is me.’

Nikko nodded. ‘Thank you.’

He left Orkestres to the rest of his breakfast. It was only as he ran down the stairs that led to the palace storerooms, where the Chamberlain was likely to be counting the tributes at this time of the year, that he realised Orkestres had called him ‘my son’.

That feels right, he thought. Nikko, son of Orkestres, acrobat to the High King.

The Chamberlain had little time to bother with requests, even from one of the High King’s favourites: this was the busiest time of his year. He listened, still making notes on his clay tablet, then nodded without even looking up.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’ Nikko could hardly believe it. He’d had to dredge his courage up from his ankle rings to make a request of the second-most powerful man in Mycenae.

Nikko placed his fist against his forehead as he bowed. ‘Thank you, my lord—’

The Chamberlain looked up at that. His small eyes glittered in the dimness of the storeroom. ‘There are,’ he interrupted, ‘a few conditions.’

The dungeon door clanged behind him. Nikko could hear the scratch of wood as the guard drew the bolt. Cold seeped from the walls, which were so thickly coated with slime it was impossible to see whether the dungeon was
made of single rocks worked together or simply carved into solid stone. The scraps of straw on the floor were mostly slime as well.

The girl sat in the middle of the room, her hands in her lap, either from pride, refusing to huddle in a corner, thought Nikko, or more likely because of the scuttles in the darkness. She looked up at him, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge his presence.

There were rats down here.

Someone screamed in a dungeon even deeper below the earth. The sound went on and on, then stopped abruptly. A bat flittered past and vanished up into the darkness near the ceiling, the breath of its wings like the restless souls of all who had died down here.

Nikko crouched down beside her and held out a loaf of bread stuffed with venison, and a flask of water. She grabbed the water and drank it thirstily, gasping with pleasure as though she had tasted sunlight itself. She wiped her mouth and handed him back the flask, looking at him warily.

He held out the bread and meat. ‘Take it. It’s good.’

She considered for a moment, then reached out a hand. Her nails were shapely, although the hand had a rider’s and a hunter’s calluses across the palm and fingers. This girl had never dug the ground to plant barley then, or spent hours grinding grain.

He watched her eat, trying not to tear at the food. She must have been starved on the way, and here as well. At last she finished it.

‘Would you like more? I can ask the guard.’

She shook her head. ‘No. Thank you, Nikko.’

He flushed in sudden pleasure that she remembered his name.

‘Are you all right?’

She laughed, though there was more bitterness than joy in the sound. Her teeth were strong and white. ‘I am trapped with the rats in the darkness.’ She looked at him for a moment. ‘Why are you here? Just to bring me food. I thank you.’ Her voice was formally polite. This is no peasant girl, he thought.

‘I’ve come to make you an offer—’

‘To be your concubine?’ She spat at him, just like she had before. ‘I would bite you like a wolf if you tried.’

‘No!’ Suddenly he felt like laughing too. He was Nikko, the favourite of the King. He had no need to ask favours from a dirty girl. But there was no way he could tell her that.

‘I have come with an offer to train you as an acrobat,’ he said steadily instead.

‘An acrobat?’

‘A performer, to please the High King. To dance, somersault—’

‘I know what an acrobat is.’ She pronounced the word differently, but it was understandable. ‘I am a horse dancer.’

‘They wouldn’t give you a horse. You might escape.’

‘I would escape. Not might. Why should I want to tumble for some king?’ She pushed her lank hair away from her face.

‘Euridice.’ He tasted her name again. ‘It’s a good life,’ he said gently. ‘Trust me. I was brought to Mycenae from my village too.’ He didn’t add that he hadn’t come bound
and gagged. ‘I didn’t want to come here either. But there’s no way I’d go back to my old life now.’

He touched the heavy gold necklace on his chest. He had dressed carefully before he came here, his best red and yellow kilt, his anklets and jewelled bracelets. His chest was freshly oiled; he had softened the hairs with perfumed oil then shaved them off with the sharp blade of the bronze knife he usually wore strapped to his leg.

But he had left the knife at home.

She looked up at him, through her hair. It was even more tangled now.

‘Who would teach me to be an acrobat?

‘I would. And my sister and Dora and Orkestres. They are the ones who taught us. They are good people. Kind.’ He smiled. ‘Like parents, but better.’

‘If I am an acrobat…would I be free?’

He bit his lip. He had argued with the Chamberlain, but the man had refused to drop this conditions. ‘You would be free to practise in our rooms, to perform in the feasting chamber. Even to eat at the High King’s table, if he invites you.’

‘But after that?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. You’d have to be chained in your room. A bronze chain that you can’t cut through. But…it will be a good room, a comfortable one, next to ours. There’ll be servants to bring you anything you need, the best of food, the most beautiful clothes. We’ll keep you company. And it’s not forever,’ he added urgently, seing the expression in her eyes. ‘As soon as they trust you, as soon as they know you won’t run away, I’m sure they’ll let you—’

‘They should not trust me. No one should trust me. Because I will run as soon as I can.’ She looked up at him defiantly. ‘And if I have to kill to do it, I will.’

‘Why? I don’t know where you came from, but it can be nothing like here. We have luxuries you’ll never have heard of—water inside, hot water to bathe in, even channels to take away the night soil, so it doesn’t smell. Life here can be fascinating—there are always new people, new discussions—and it’s better than risking death!’

‘I am promised to the Mother.’ Her voice was clipped and hoarse. ‘The Moon Maiden, not the Earth Goddess or the Harvest Mother.’

‘You can pay service to her here!’ Nikko shook his head, frustrated. Why was she so stubborn? ‘The King’s sister is High Priestess. I am sure she would let you join the sacrifices, tend the…’ He hesitated, for much of the Mother’s worship was withheld from men. ‘Whatever the priestesses tend. My sister serves the Mother too.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact now, not fierce. ‘My parents promised I would serve the Mother’s temple—her main temple, up north, a month’s travel from my people. I must serve there till I die.’

‘As a horse dancer?’

‘In whichever way the Mother wishes. Everything I have learned, all my life, is to be dedicated there. All this—’ she gestured, not at the filthy walls, the dank straw on the floor, but at the glory of Mycenae outside ‘—means nothing. No matter what I want, I am bound to the temple.’

‘I see.’ He didn’t, but it was all he could say. Religion in Mycenae was…comfortable. The priestesses sacrificed
the grain, or an ox or goat, and did the rites; the Mother gave the harvests in exchange. And if some people had to be sacrificed as well, they were never anyone he’d known. No one he’d met had ever offered himself for sacrifice. It was a punishment, or a fate for slaves.

He looked at the girl’s dirty, scratched face, strangely calm in the dimness. He was wrong, he realised suddenly. She
was
beautiful; it was a beauty of strength and intelligence he had never seen before, except perhaps in his sister.

‘Very well then. You’re vowed to the Mother’s temple. You feel you have to escape. But you can’t escape if you’re sent to serve the rowers on a sailing ship, or you’re sacrificed in spring to stop a quake from shaking down the palace.’

She was looking at him thoughtfully now. At least, he thought, she’s listening. ‘I know you can’t escape if you are chained in a luxurious room either, with lynx fur on the bed. But why not choose the prison that’s most comfortable?’

She was silent for so long the rats began to squeak again in the corner of the dungeon. Even in the dimness he could see the honesty in her eyes.

‘I won’t lie to you,’ she said at last. ‘If I agree it will be because I will have a greater chance to escape up in the daylight, with horses and swords…’

‘They will kill you if you try.’

‘Then I will have died doing my duty.’ Her voice was flat, emotionless.

He didn’t understand. There was no joy in her voice when she spoke of serving the Mother, just pride and conviction.

He stood up. ‘Can I tell the Chamberlain you have agreed? You’ll pretend to be tamed? At least for a while?’

‘Tamed?’ She laughed. It was proper laughter this time. He liked it. ‘If you wish. But tell me.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Why are you helping me? You may be punished when I escape—and I will, sometime, somehow. Perhaps this sister you speak of might be punished too, and the couple you say are like your parents.’

He hesitated, then answered as truthfully as she had. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, then went to call the guard to unlock the door to let him out, so he could find the Chamberlain again.