Oracle (7 page)

It was late when Orkestres returned. There had been singing, and people playing the lute and pipes, and a great fire in the middle of the town, with a whole roast ox turning on a spit, and townsfolk scrambling to get a slice of meat. Nikko supposed Orkestres had performed, because when he finally pushed past the curtain into their room, even the glowing coals were enough to show his face was white with pain. He lay down without bothering to wash off the paint. Nikko heard a small moan as he rolled over on the hard bed platform.

Nikko closed his eyes again. Tomorrow they would set off again. Three more days to Mycenae. What would it be like? It felt strange to be so cut off from his past, but not to know his future either, almost like he and Thetis were hanging in midair.

He tried to think of good things. A grand palace, like this but twice as long. A High King who looked like Orkestres but with a gold beard, who smiled at them and cheered…

When he opened his eyes, Orkestres was washing his face in a bowl of water, and there were honey cakes on the table. One of the serving girls must have come in when he was still asleep.

Thetis was awake already. She kneeled on the bed platform, staring out the window.

‘What is it?’ Nikko rubbed the sleep from his eyes and perched beside her.

Thetis pointed.

Down in the courtyard, men washed their faces in the tubs the cattle drank from, and women baked bread under the bread stones outside their houses, poking twigs into the flames so the bread cooked faster. The sky was streaked a pale white and grey.

Nikko shook his head. ‘What’s so special?’

Thetis bit her lip. She pointed again, here…there…then shook her head.

‘You mean, you’re showing me what’s
not
there?’

Thetis nodded. Her small face looked intent, and worried.

‘Hurry up.’ Orkestres sounded impatient. He was wearing his good wool cloak with the gold border, and his gold chain and bracelets again. ‘We don’t want to keep the others waiting. And in the names of the three faces of the Mother, pull a comb through your hair, both of you, before anyone sees you. You look like you’ve been pulled through a hedge backward. You may still dress like peasants, but at least your heads can look respectable.’

‘Sir, I think there’s something wrong. Thetis can see something…’

‘Then why can’t the child—’ Orkestres strode to the window.

It was that which saved them.

The earth groaned. When Nikko looked back on that morning he was sure the earth spoke first, a deep shriek as though the very rocks had pulled apart. It was low as a growl and high as a bird’s cry at the same time.

A beam rattled in the ceiling. And then the whole hall shivered. The floor began to heave. A beam fell, and then another; a wall began to crumple. The world was crunching walls and dust.

‘Jump!’ Even as he spoke, Orkestres dived out of the window, like a kestrel swooping down after a hare.

Nikko stared. Orkestres’s body rolled like a ball below him, tumbling over and over, then suddenly he flipped again, straightened, and landed, almost gently, feet first.

Another wall crumbled behind them. He could hear other walls falling, deep within the hall, a noise like floods battering rocks in a spring torrent.

They were going to die if they stayed here. They would die if they jumped from a height like this. He knew it even as he grasped Thetis’s hand and pulled her up onto the window ledge beside him. The ground was too far down. Every bone in their body would crumple as they hit the paving stones. They couldn’t tumble like Orkestres, breaking the momentum of their fall…

The earth still screamed around them. Or was it
people
screaming? He took a breath, perhaps to scream, perhaps to say goodbye.

He jumped.

Hands caught him, wrists grasping wrists, breaking his fall. Orkestres lowered him onto the ground. Nikko looked around frantically, hunting for Thetis. Surely she had jumped with him! The window was empty. As he looked in vain for his sister, the wall around their bedroom collapsed backward in a rolling thunder of sound and movement.

The ground still shook under his feet—then suddenly it stopped. But walls still fell, and rocks tumbled. Only the groaning of the earth itself had ceased. The room they had spent the last two days in was dust and rubble.

Nikko began to dive forward, intending to tear apart the ruins with his hands, when something rustled above him. He stopped and looked up.

Thetis hung from a tree branch by her hands, her bare feet still clean from her last bath. She peered down at him, half scared and half excited.

How had she leaped that far? Not only leaped, but grabbed the branch. Even as he watched she let one hand go and waved him to come over to her.

He stumbled to his feet, still unsteady. He held his hands up to catch her. But instead she swung herself back and forth to gain momentum, then let go and
flew
down, her slim bare feet landing on his shoulders. She dropped her hands to him, and he grabbed her wrists as she somersaulted through his arms and down.

Dimly he heard cheers that weren’t there. No one was
watching except Orkestres…who made the finger sign against evil. ‘She knew the earthquake was coming.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Is she a witch?’

He took a step back.

‘No!’ cried Nikko.

Thetis glanced up at him. Her hair was dusty from the rubble. She gestured to her ears, and then her eyes, and shook her head.

Orkestres looked wary. ‘What is she saying? Do you understand her?’

‘I think she is saying that there were things she didn’t hear, didn’t see.’ Nikko tried desperately to find the words to convince him. ‘She told me once she’d noticed that birds fly away before an earthquake. She must have seen them do that here.’

Orkestres stared at her. ‘A wise woman once told me that animals can sense an earthquake coming.’ He looked at Thetis sharply. ‘No magic?’

Thetis shook her head.

Orkestres’s face changed to relief too quickly. We are important to him, thought Nikko. Even if Thetis
was
a witch he’d find a way not to notice.

Orkestres laid a hand on Nikko’s head. ‘Men are twigs in the waves when the gods shake the earth. I’m glad the girl was watching.’ He looked around, trying to make sense of the chaos behind them. ‘I must see if I can help. People may be trapped. But you stay here. You belong to the High King now. You’re not bad for a beginner,’ he added to Nikko. ‘But that jump of your sister’s was inspired. Stay,’ he said again, then strode off into the ruins of the palace.

It was afternoon when they left the shattered village. The sun was shining through a red dust, and the soft coos of doves were singing over the sobs of those who had lost loved ones. Dead and living had been pulled from the rubble. There were enough left of their friends to tend them, and enough houses where nothing had fallen but thatch. The King’s men could do nothing more here except be a burden on the survivors.

The tribute train stretched out longer than the village now.

Pony after pony, weighed down with panniers of grain; packs of what Orkestres said was cloth; big pots stoppered with cork and leaves and filled with oil or wine; and King’s men herding the cattle and the goats, trying to stop them straying off the road and into the orchards or forest.

And this, it seemed, was only one of the High King’s tribute forays; he had sent his men into every corner of the kingdom.

Nikko walked next to Orkestres, holding Thetis’s hand so she didn’t get lost in the crowd of people and animals. But as the sun forged across the sky the procession began to straggle, and grew longer. They were no longer jostled on each side now. For a while Thetis skipped, and once turned a cartwheel, to the guards’ amusement. Finally she grew tired, and plodded beside Nikko. But her small face stayed curious, her gaze drinking in everything as they passed.

There were no more villages—or not on the path they took. No little village could feed all these men, and
have grass for all these animals, thought Nikko. Instead they stopped each afternoon, when the men’s shadows grew as long as their owners, the guards taking turns to collect wood, or keep the animals safe during the night.

A goat was killed for meat and basted on the fire; raisins and figs and hard dried bread were taken from the panniers. Each slept wrapped in his cloak, swords and spears at his side, except for Nikko, and Thetis, who had no cloaks, and were given cattle hides for the night.

The ground was colder than the bed platform at home, but Nikko was tired enough to sleep on anything, and so was Thetis. Orkestres though was haggard every morning, the shadows under his eyes dark as the thunder clouds behind the mountain back at home.

On the third day the country changed. Forest gave way to scattered trees, and open country where shepherds watched mobs of goats and cattle and new animals the colour of dust and rocks, smaller, rounder and hairier than goats.

‘Sheep,’ said Orkestres, when Nikko asked what they were. ‘One sheep gives as much thread for weaving as ten goats, and the meat is fattier, too…’ He grinned. ‘Your village is so high and rough only goats can live there.’

The hill in front of them was growing closer now. Something strange ran around the edge of it, like a thick yellow band of rock. ‘And that,’ said Orkestres, before Nikko could ask another question, ‘is a road. Roads are made wide and smooth enough for carts and chariots.’

‘What’s a cha—’ began Nikko.

Something was rumbling down the road. It looked like a box, but the biggest box Nikko had ever seen,
pulled by a giant ox, tethered to it in some way. Big round things rolled underneath.

‘A cart,’ said Orkestres. ‘Close your mouth before you swallow a fly. You’ll learn. But you don’t have to learn it all at once. I’m tired. At least your sister doesn’t ask questions all the time.’

Nikko looked over at Thetis, who was still studying the cart. I bet she thinks more questions than I speak, he thought. I bet she had worked out what that cart thing was before Orkestres told us.

It was easier going on the road. Nikko could walk without watching where his feet went, and the ponies trotted more happily now too, knowing perhaps the end of their journey was in front of them. Occasionally another cart passed them, piled with bales of wool and jars of wine or oil. There were almost no trees now, except a line of tall saplings that looked like they’d been planted two by two along the road. Their leaves hung low so late in the year, yellow as the soft autumn light.

Nikko sniffed. There was an odd smell, like old meat but sweeter. The ponies seemed nervous too, tossing their heads and trotting faster, despite their burdens.

The road curved around the hill. Suddenly the ponies stopped. A line of King’s men stood across the road, swords at their sides, javelins and shields in their hands.

‘Stop in the name of Atreus, High King of Mycenae, and lord of all lands!’

We’ve already stopped, thought Nikko. He glanced up at Orkestres. The acrobat’s face was white.

‘Don’t let your sister see,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Cover her eyes. And turn away yourself.’

Nikko reached up and put his hands over Thetis’s eyes. She let him—Nikko suspected Orkestres knew she would have nudged away if he had covered her eyes himself.

But Nikko couldn’t look away. What was happening here?

Two of the saplings had been bent over the road, each held down by one of the soldiers. As Nikko watched another soldier tied a young man’s feet to the top of one of the trees, and then tied his waist to the second tree as well.

The young man screamed. There were no words, just noise and pain and horror.

‘Shut your eyes!’ cried Orkestres. ‘Now!’

Nikko obeyed automatically. The scream grew more frantic. There was a word now. ‘No! No. Nooooooooo!’

Something ripped across the air, like an eagle swooping low. He felt warm drops on his face, something slimy on his hand…

He opened his eyes.

The saplings were upright again. Something red dangled from them: a leg, an arm…blood everywhere. Dripping from the two halves of the body, dripping from the trees. Nikko wiped his face automatically, then realised he was no longer covering Thetis’s eyes.

Her face was white, the lips pressed so hard together that they looked white as well. She stared at the trees, the head, then slowly gazed at the guards who’d travelled with them.

Some looked sickened, like Orkestres. Others laughed, or joked. The ponies jostled each other
nervously. Even when the guards pulled their tethers to steady them, the animals showed the whites of their eyes.

‘You can go now.’ The soldiers stood back to let them pass.

They guards pulled the ponies’ tethers. The tribute train began to move again, past the body.

‘Who was he?’ whispered Nikko.

Orkestres looked around to make sure none of the guards could hear him. ‘A thief. A murderer perhaps. Or maybe just someone who angered the High King.’

‘When will they let his family bury him?’ There had been no family to watch, thought Nikko. No one to cry, or grieve.

‘They won’t. He’ll hang there till the crows eat his flesh, till his bones fall for the wolves.’

‘But…but he can’t!’

The ghosts of unburied men roamed the world, wailing and calling out for vengeance.

‘You will see others like him,’ said Orkestres quietly. ‘Bones hanging from the trees. That’s why this line of trees is here, along the road to Mycenae, where any who might challenge the High King’s might can see them. The bodies are a warning—please the High King or die. But never mention them. Never.’ He shot them a glance. ‘Now do you see why you need to please the High King? All you have ever known is a village chief. But the High King rules by the favour of the Mother. He is all-powerful. Always. Everywhere.’ Orkestres touched the gold chain at his throat. ‘But if you do please him, life can be good.’

Thetis leaned over and vomited neatly onto the side of the road.

Orkestres waited till she had finished, and a mob of goats passed them, then pulled up a handful of grass and wiped her face. He picked her up and cradled her in his arms. To Nikko’s surprise she accepted it, snuggling down as if for comfort.

‘You said your knees hurt if you carry anything.’

‘Just for a while,’ said Orkestres softly. ‘Until we pass the trees. Some things are hard for little girls to see. Men can bear them better.’

They walked in silence around the hill. The autumn grass was pale, and drooped in small gold tufts as the sun shone through it. Small towers rose above them, each manned by a pair of guards gazing out across the hills and plains. Nikko kept his eyes carefully averted from the trees along the road. But still he felt he could hear screams whispering in the wind, and the muttering of ghosts with no earth strewn on their graves.

At one of the towers the men herding the goats turned off, and waved farewell to their comrades. The goats, it seemed, were to graze out here, and not go on to Mycenae. The rest of the tribute train kept walking. Nikko soon missed the bleating. It had sounded like home. His family’s betrayal was still raw: a knife wound that would reopen many times in the years ahead. But he did, nevertheless, miss what had been familiar.

The sun hung low and red, turning the road orange, when they turned the final corner. Nikko caught his breath. He felt Thetis shiver in front of him.

Walls, so vast they must have been built by giants. The palace rose above them all, turrets painted red, walls
white, columns striped in all colours, everything tinged gold by the sun.

Men stood on the walls, so far up they looked like children’s dolls. Their javelins seemed thin as threads of goat hair. Above it all sheer cliffs blazed back the sun, as though to yell, ‘Invade me if you dare!’

‘Mycenae. The House of the Lion,’ said Orkestres. ‘It will never fall while men remain.’

The road curved again. It was even wider now. Then suddenly it narrowed between stone walls. The road was no longer cobbles pressed into mud, but great square stones, so closely butted together it seemed like one long rock. Ahead of them a great gate loomed, high enough for a laden cart to pass through, narrow enough, thought Nikko, to stop an army. The great stone of the lintel was carved with two imposing mountain lions rearing against a pillar. The pillar was red. The lions shone golder than the sun.

The King’s men sounded cheery now. They’re home, thought Nikko, or nearly. He looked across at Orkestres. He too seemed to have relaxed, as though seeing a warm bath and a soft bed ahead of him.