Oracle's War

by Oracle's War (retail) (epub)

  ‘Would that be enough to cause Maeus to act so far against his nature as to commit rape?’

  ‘It could,’ Bria admits. ‘But the specifics are known only to the person who created them.’ She grimaces and adds, ‘It’s barely evidence. Achaean law forbids sorcery, but doesn’t define it.’

  She’s right. But it’s at least a doubt I can raise, something to keep Maeus from being hurled from the cliffs. Hurriedly we search the rest of the room, but there’s nothing. I carefully wrap the dead bird in cloth. It’s not much, but it could cause Laertes to hesitate.

  Will he even let me speak of sorcery in public court?

  ‘But what about the drug?’ I ask.

  Bria pulls a face. ‘Perhaps one of your Hermes priests is not as pure in purpose as you suppose? Or they were bribed – or bewitched – into administering it? It wouldn’t have been hard to do.’

  Another thought comes to me, one that has me reeling. ‘Is Ctimene safe from these spells?’

  I grab Bria’s arm and together we head for the women’s quarters, where I have to trust Bria to go in. She returns with a puzzled look on her face. ‘Your sister’s room was bare of any physical clues, but there’s a perfume in the air. Not hers, something too expensive for this barren rock… I’ve smelt it before.’

  ‘Where?’ Could this give us a tangible link to one of the guests?

  She bites her lip, vexed. ‘I don’t know.’

  We return to my suite in silence while Bria berates herself over her inability to remember. As we enter, I notice that the guards are gone from the main room. The door to my spare room is shut and still bolted from the inside when I try to open it. That’s not so surprising, given that I’ve asked Eurybates to do just that.

  But there’s no answer when I call his name and ask to be let in. I gather my theios strength and hammer into it, roaring in anguish as I splinter the door frame and burst the portal open.

  Eurybates lolls, asleep or unconscious, on the chair in the corner – but Maeus is hanging from the ceiling, his hands fighting to keep a noose from throttling him as he dangles, legs thrashing and face turning purple.

  2 – The Wedding

  ‘Come now, oh heavenly constellation of night, invoked by my sacred rites, assuming thy most menacing countenance, threatening in every aspect.’

  —Seneca, Medea

  Ithaca

  I leap underneath Maeus and take his weight on my shoulders, lifting with all my might and giving him the chance to wrench the noose from his neck. But he’s too far gone already, and I’m shouting for help. I can’t save him on my own.

  Then a small hand pulls out my xiphos, Bria climbs my body and slashes with a strength that belies her slight frame. The rope parts in one blow. Maeus sags and I lower him to the bed as Bria leaps off me and tears at the noose, her girl-sized fingers labouring. I take over, pulling the knot apart so the young man is able to swallow some air.

  It takes a few moments, but finally his face fades from puce to pallor, and then he’s shaking in my arms again, while I wonder just what we’re up against. It feels like a siege. And where in Hades are Nelomon’s men?

  I go to Eurybates, but he’s still sleeping, red-faced, swollen-lipped and utterly oblivious to what’s happening. There’s a spilled cup of spiced wine on the floor. I crouch down to sniff it, sensing traces of some other, bitter-smelling drug. Poppy, perhaps. The drug they extract from poppies is well known as a formidable sleep draught.

  Bria darts under the bed but there are no further ill wishes or inexplicable objects, just the dust and detritus one would expect. But she breathes deep through her nose and I do too… There is an aroma hanging about us, a subtle blend of rose and cassia. Bria swears it’s the same scent she detected in Ctimene’s room.

  I’ve smelt it before too, during the banquet this evening, but not strongly, not on anyone I got close to. But my mind keeps coming back to one man above others, a tall and urbane man with a smooth, effeminate face…

  ‘There was a man with Tycho, Eurylochus’s father, at the banquet – his name was Ophion. I want him found,’ I tell Bria.

  Then we hear boots pounding, and Nelomon charges in, his face anxious. I rise and grip his tunic. ‘Where were your men?’ I roar, and despite our relative size, he’s cowed by my anger.

  ‘My Prince, they should have been here! I found them milling about in the back courtyard and I thought…’ His frank and open face isn’t capable of dissembling: he didn’t know about this. ‘What happened?’

  Yes, I think: what did happen?

  ‘Maeus tried to hang himself,’ Bria puts in, in a frightened, young girl voice.

  Nelomon is startled to see Hebea. ‘What’s that little brat doing here?’ he asks.

  ‘She heard Maeus’s struggles. And I don’t think he did this to himself: someone – not Maeus – has drugged Eurybates.’

  Nelomon is wide-eyed – this is his watch, and everything is falling apart. ‘An assassin is among us!’ he exclaims. ‘I must see to the king.’ He pulls from my grip and runs for Laertes’s suite, shouting for more men.

  It’s past the middle of the night, but the whole of our modest palace is roused now. Laertes returns with Nelomon, who looks distraught – all this reflects badly on him. He’s been questioning the guards, and hauls one before us. I share a look with Bria, who quietly slips from the room, then turn to face the three men.

  ‘Tell the king and Prince Odysseus what you saw,’ Nelomon growls at the frightened soldier.

  The guard, Pollo, has been taking part in my military drills. He’s portly and a little older than the rest, and he likes me – he’s grateful that I encourage instead of belittle him. So he speaks up willingly. ‘A man came. He told us that we were summoned by the king.’

  Laertes looks mystified. ‘I summoned no one,’ he says.

  ‘What man?’ Nelomon demands.

  ‘I didn’t… er… I didn’t recognize him,’ Pollo confesses miserably.

  Laertes and Nelomon both bunch their fists. ‘You abandoned your post on a stranger’s say-so?’ says Nelomon.

  ‘Why did you obey, Pollo?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he groans. ‘He was just so… persuasive.’

  Sorcery.

  We try for a description, but Pollo can’t seem to pull the memory from his head. I can see Laertes and Nelomon getting exasperated, and I have to defend the confused guard from punishment. It’s some time before I’ve calmed them enough to be sure no one is going to be punished for dereliction of duty. Then Bria reappears, slipping into the room discreetly. Laertes gives her a sniffy look when I go to her, servants being beneath his dignity.

  She has more strange news. ‘I found the room of that man Ophion, Prince,’ she says, playing the part of the obedient but mystified servant. ‘The one you asked me to find, sir. The other guests think he’s Theban.’

  That agrees with what Eury has already told me. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replies, frowning. ‘When I knocked on the door, a woman opened it, nothing like your description of Ophion, sir. She’s an aunt of Lord Tycho’s or so she said, and from Arcadia. She claimed that Ophion had headed down to the port after the ceremony, and she’d been given the room instead, Tycho’s house being already too full with other guests.’

  We send runners to find him, fretting at the delays and no closer to answers. I feel like we’re chasing shadows.

  * * *

  Dawn comes, but the situation is no clearer. No ships have left the port since the feast last night, with or without Ophion, and there’s no sign of him in the town. But we’ve no grounds to detain him even if he were found. I speak to the grey-haired woman Bria found in Ophion’s room. Her name is Aiopia – a squat woman, but handsome in her way. She repeats that she moved in after the Theban left, and doesn’t know him. Her musky perfume masks whatever other scent might have been left in the room. I’m uneasy about her; she has a preening manner that grates on me but she seems genuine. When
I question Tycho, he vouches for ‘Aunt Aiopia’ from Arcadia, and there’s nothing more I can do.

  I take Laertes aside privately and show him the strangled blackbird, the narcotic-smelling vomit-rag and the poppy-scented dregs in Eurybates’s wine cup.

  He doesn’t want to see or hear any of this, standing with his back to me, looking out the window, while I’m recounting what I’ve found, running his fingers through his long grey hair. ‘I can’t accept any of this in court,’ he grumbles when I’m done.

  ‘I know, but behind the scenes…?’

  ‘I’ll give you what’s “behind the scenes”: the three richest men in Cephalonia have removed their backing from this marriage; they now refuse to support Maeus’s claim to Syros. Tycho says he knows someone who will attest in court, swearing the most sacred oaths, that he saw the body of the real Eumaeus when his father was deposed and murdered. He says our Maeus is an imposter. I’m under huge pressure to cancel this wedding.’

  ‘Then his secret witness is lying! Someone used sorcery,’ I hiss. ‘Even you can’t deny this evidence.’

  He flares at my words. ‘“Even you”,’ he echoes angrily. ‘I know you think I walk around blind to what’s going on, but I was an Argonaut and I knew full well what some of those “god-touched” men could do. But listen: if I display those tokens you’ve shown me, I’ll break the unspoken code of silence about theioi. Furthermore, it could be argued that Maeus is the sorcerer, and that he won Ctimene’s heart with black magic.’

  I stare. ‘That’s ludicrous!’

  ‘How else could a slave beguile a princess?’ he rasps.

  ‘By being her best friend for most of her life,’ I retort angrily, even though he’s just giving me a taste of what any opposing counsel would say in court. ‘By loving her and caring for her and making her the centre of his world. By showing respect and winning it. By being worthy.’

  ‘But he’s not worthy!’ Laertes barks. ‘That’s what they’ll say! And now he’s tried to rape my daughter, I’m inclined to agree with them. He’s disgraced himself so publicly that I’m almost obliged to execute him. I can do no more than commute the death penalty, and his punishment will have to be very harsh indeed.’

  I spin away, too angry to speak – not with Father, because he’s absolutely right: I’m furious at life, and mostly at whichever double-dealing bastard has landed Maeus in this position. ‘Some proktos is meddling in your kingdom, Father,’ I snarl.

  He grabs my arm. ‘Aye, someone is. If you’re so damn right about this, go and catch the arsehole.’ I wait for him to add ‘and don’t come back if you can’t’. He doesn’t… But is he thinking it? ‘And deal with him the hard way if you have to,’ he continues instead.

  That’s Laertes through and through: solve a problem with force when you can’t wash it away – spears for the former and beers for the latter. But he knows – as I am forced to admit, despite my almost crippling anger – that I can’t stand up in a royal court and babble about sorcery. If Eumaeus is to survive the next few hours, it’ll be on Father’s mercy.

  ‘This will break Ctimene’s heart,’ I groan.

  ‘Hearts mend,’ he growls – though his hasn’t. ‘Listen, I won’t have my control of the Cephalonian Confederacy undermined. Maeus was my protégé long before all this business about Syros came up. I raised him to be your steward and his disgrace is my profound embarrassment. My authority in the other islands is down to goodwill and old treaties, not manpower. I need to shore up my support quickly.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ I demand, suddenly realizing just how swiftly Maeus’s enemies – our enemies – are moving.

  ‘Tycho’s Samian faction are demanding the boy is hurled from the cliffs. And they’re also pointing out that with the wedding feast preparations so advanced, and so many important foreign guests here, I should arrange for another man to marry Ctimene, here and now.’

  ‘Not fucking Eurylochus?’ I snap, aghast. ‘His pornos of a father is probably behind this whole business!’

  ‘Careful,’ he warns. ‘Tycho’s got almost as many solders as we have, Odysseus. You mightn’t like it, but he’s someone I need to work with – and you’ll need to work with his son in future. Right now the whole town is awake, and telling each other that if it weren’t for Lochus, your sister would have been raped in the temple of Artemis and all Ithaca would be under a curse. To them, Lochus is the true hero of this night!’

  ‘Lochus is probably the instigator—’

  Laertes’s eyes bulge. ‘Keep your unprovable suppositions to yourself,’ he thunders. ‘I cannot – will not – give a judgement based on allegations of sorcery. Quite apart from the whole theios business, I’d have anyone with a grudge invoking sorcery over every petty backyard dispute. I must limit my judgements to facts, and the fact is that Maeus tried to attack my daughter!’

  He’s right, damn him… damn them all. And continuing this shouting match isn’t going to help Maeus or Ctimene. All I can do now is limit the damage, and my absolute priority is to save Maeus from execution. ‘Father, do you privately acknowledge Maeus might have been manipulated by sorcery?’

  He throws his head back, eyes closed. When he opens them again, I see more than a hint of the same frustration that is choking me. ‘Yes, of course. It bloody stinks of it.’ He turns to face me fully for the first time. ‘And they’re doing it in my kingdom – in my house! Find who did this, boy. Prove you’re as clever as you damn well think you are.’

  ‘I will.’ We share a hot, intent look, and I realize that, for all that I’m a bastard and not his true son, we still have some kind of familial bond. ‘And Maeus?’ I ask. ‘Please, show clemency.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he mutters. For a brief moment, his face betrays how much this is hurting him. ‘But you know how the law is. I can probably get away with enslaving him again – not as a palace servant, mind. He’ll have to do something menial, something dirty and difficult enough to show justice has been done. And I’ll need to send him away – he will never see my daughter again.’

  ‘That’s worse than a death sentence,’ I groan.

  ‘I doubt that,’ Laertes growls. Then comes the inevitable conclusion. ‘I’ve a fortune in food and wine that will spoil if I cancel the wedding day. I can’t afford to let it go to waste. There will be a wedding: Ctimene shall marry Lochus, and you’ll accept that with good grace.’

  Family life.

  * * *

  The next few days are akin to a punishment from Hades: like pushing a boulder endlessly uphill, or having your liver torn out repeatedly. A crowing Lochus is installed as the husband-to-be, and even Ctimene’s distress – her wailing and screaming is plain to hear from within the Artemis shrine – is to no avail. Mother is furious, but with her own position with Laertes precarious, she doesn’t dare raise her voice against her husband. She knows as well as I that Laertes could just as easily have had Maeus executed – the calls for that have been loud and insistent.

  Maeus is once more a slave and he’s condemned to the pigsties Father keeps at the furthest end of Ithaca. Maeus forced his way into Artemis’s shrine smeared in pig shit. If this is Laertes’s idea of a joke, it’s a pretty tasteless one.

  Ophion has completely vanished – of course – and Tycho’s equally mysterious Aunt Aiopia also departs, claiming a pressing need to return to Arcadia, despite the imminence of her great nephew’s wedding. Her sister is dying, and there is no one else to care for her, she claims. How convenient. No one at the Hermes sanctuary can help me with my questions, despite the many hours I spend with them. Bria has also departed Hebea’s body, to where I don’t know.

  I had intended some sort of meeting with Diomedes, the towering young prince from Argos, but I’m too busy and too preoccupied. With the palace in a turmoil, we would have little privacy, in any case, to discuss his theios nature or his putative allegiance to Athena. I feel guilty – a good host should care for his guests – but he solves the problem for me by accepting an inv
itation to go hunting on Cephalonia.

  There are no further disturbances – if you don’t count Ctimene’s grief – although I do find a noose of strangely braided string hanging above the midden behind the guest wing.

  It was Ophion… or Aiopia… or both of them working together. I’m sure of it, but it’s impossible to prove. We’ve been hoodwinked in our own home, and surely the main beneficiaries – Tycho and Lochus – are in it up to their necks. But what can I do? Father has ordered me to seek out the culprits, but while I truly believe two of them are right here under my nose, I can’t think how I can possibly expose them.

  All I can do is watch them like a hawk.

  The day of the wedding is awful: Lochus triumphant, the guests vocally pleased that the ‘right’ outcome has been attained, despite Ctimene sobbing through the entire ceremony. At last the saffron-coloured veil is removed from her head, the ritual lock of hair snipped off and the whole ghastly travesty completed. Laertes and Anticleia are barely speaking; I’m guessing my mother has shifted much of the blame onto Laertes, who is undoubtedly too proud to discuss it with her, and perhaps too sick at heart over his daughter’s misery to talk to anyone. Eurybates – himself under a cloud over being tricked into taking poppy juice – has to somehow keep the peace, and I spend most of the time brooding on all manner of revenge.

  During the banquet, I make sure I follow Lochus to the pissing barrel, just before he’s due to take Ctimene upstairs. I let him finish, and then I take him by the scruff and plant my face firmly in his.

  ‘If you take her unwilling, I’ll throttle you,’ I tell his smirking face.

  He cowers from my fist. He’s a cunning sod but he’s always been gutless. ‘You can’t hit me on my wedding night,’ he pants.