Oracle's War

by Oracle's War (retail) (epub)

  She looks up instantly, surprised rather than alarmed when she sees that I’m carrying a mere piece of fabric. ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘Lady Arnacia,’ I say quickly, handing her the piece of cloth. ‘My name is Eumaeus of Syros, and I bring you this.’

  Arnacia accepts the fragment, looking me up and down with those clear grey eyes of hers, before unrolling the cloth and examining it.

  A maid comes to the door and gazes at me curiously. ‘Milady?’ she asks, her accent clearly of Lacedaemon.

  ‘It’s all right, Actoris,’ Arnacia says, with the same lilt. ‘This man is a Caryatid. He means us no harm.’ She looks again at the embroidery and hands it back to me, before indicating a stool next to her. ‘It’s fine work, of an ancient design.’

  ‘It belongs to my family,’ I tell her as I sit, one ear cocked in case anyone comes to check upon her. ‘My kin were deposed as kings of Syros when I was a child. But we keep the faith.’

  Arnacia takes this in, her face cool and composed. ‘I remember a man from Syros who visited my father’s house when I was a child. Scolapis his name was. Is he a relative?’

  Some hidden subtlety in her manner suggests a test. Eurybates has always taught me to keep my lies simple; sometimes I even take his advice. ‘I know no Scolapis, Lady.’

  She relaxes slightly. ‘I’d be surprised if you did.’

  Because you just made him up. An old trick, but a good one. I’m more impressed by this quietly confident, swift-thinking young woman than I’d expected to be. She’s not just an empty vessel for the oracle to use. ‘High Priestess Sophronia gave me leave to speak with you when I arrived,’ I say. ‘I had heard that your secret words referred to myself and to my adopted family in Ithaca.’

  This is a leap, but something drew Tiresias to Ithaca, to prevent the marriage of Maeus to Ctimene. And even when that was done, the Theban seer took the extra, malicious step of leading Maeus into a suicide attempt. You don’t do that to nobodies. But Maeus was about to become somebody, the reinstated king of Syros, no less. What role does Tiresias see Syros playing, that he felt he had to destroy its future king?

  Arnacia lays her needlework aside. ‘I wasn’t told of anyone I needed to see.’

  I lean forward, giving her my most earnest look. ‘I don’t think she wished for the Easterners to know I’m speaking with you.’

  This is another leap, a complete improvisation, but I need to gain her trust further, otherwise she will tell me nothing. I’m staking a chance that Arnacia isn’t at all like the revellers outside. She’s courtly, she’s conservative, and she’s been sworn to Artemis from childhood.

  From my time in Lacedaemon, I know that the Artemis cult there is old fashioned, and its main focus is on raising young women in traditional values, delivering well-behaved virgins to their wedding day, well-versed in the womanly arts. It’s about channelling youthful urges into wholesome pastimes, a thousand miles away from the drunken capers of those hot-blooded maenads and their friends outside the sanctuary walls.

  My comment seems to have hit its target. ‘I’m so sorry, Eumaeus,’ Arnacia says, ‘that you’ve had to witness the… depravity of the last few days. It has nothing in common with the Artemis cult I know. I’m a Caryatid like you; we delight in the beauty of the mountains and forests, not in guzzled wine and mindless dancing. Last night there were even couples stealing into the shrine gardens to…’ She blushes, but I can sense her underlying anger. She’s not just being prissy; she’s genuinely concerned for the fate of her tradition-steeped cult and the integrity of the virgin goddess she has been raised to revere.

  ‘I quite agree,’ I tell her, trying not to think about how Kyshanda and I spent yesterday afternoon. ‘Lady, did the goddess mention Syros or Ithaca?’

  She hesitates, and I feel the silence draw closer around us, as if to listen. She parts her lips, draws breath as if to speak. My nerve ends are tingling – this is why we have come all this way. In a moment I will know the fate of all Achaea… but then we hear loud voices and heavy boots approach.

  I rise, inwardly cursing. I know one of the voices well; its owner is not going to be at all pleased to see me, especially after my Spartan adventures of last year. There’s really only one place I can hide from him. But what will Arnacia make of it?

  I put a finger to my lips and dart through the back door and into the nearest room, the one the maid Actoris is cleaning. Arnacia gives me a frankly suspicious look as I leave, and Actoris has her mouth open, presumably to remonstrate with me. But she clamps it shut again when we hear Icarius come storming around the side of the house, with what sounds like two other men in tow.

  ‘Arnacia!’ he bellows. ‘You’re coming with me. This island is no longer safe!’

  The maid Actoris has gone rigid, a fist clenched to her lips. I tiptoe to her side and we peer through the shutters of a small back window as the three men surround Arnacia, their faces determined. Arnacia’s father continues ranting about the various threats he thinks she faces by staying here, and the ineptitude of the people protecting her. The other two men stand listening: they’re both big-framed and richly dressed in purple cloth, surely father and son, though the father is putting on beef while his blond-haired son is lean and broad-shouldered, with the poise of a swordsman.

  ‘Her father’s not supposed to be here,’ Actoris murmurs in my ear. She seems more companion than servant, and that could be useful. ‘She came here to escape him,’ the girl continues.

  To escape Icarius? Interesting! I put my lips to the maid’s ear and murmur, ‘I’m here to help her.’

  Her mistress has already told her I’m to be trusted, so she nods, her wiry frame close to mine as she whispers urgently. ‘Her father wanted to marry her off, but she chose to dedicate herself further to Artemis to avoid the husband he had selected for her. That’s why we came here. That young man is Palamedes, her suitor, and the other is his father, Nauplius.’

  I’ve heard of this pair. Nauplius certainly isn’t a nobody: he’s a minor king with relatively few subjects but with a small, highly prosperous port south-east of Mycenae – more trader than warrior, he’s fabulously rich and greedy for more. True to his seafaring habits, he has small black tridents, the symbol of Poseidon, embroidered on his robes.

  ‘Do you think they’ll persuade Sophronia to give her up?’ Actoris murmurs.

  ‘Sophronia will never do that,’ I whisper back. ‘If your mistress has had a spontaneous prophecy, she’ll be this shrine’s greatest prize.’

  Outside, Arnacia is refusing to comply, and Icarius is getting angrier and angrier. I lean closer to hear his argument. ‘Daughter, you must obey your father,’ he blusters. ‘Master Nauplius has put forth a most worthy bride price for you. He is a wealthy and powerful man and his son Palamedes is destined for great things. This is a marriage that any young woman would dream of!’

  ‘Father, I have no desire but to serve Artemis.’

  Suddenly Icarius changes tactics. He drops to one knee and seizes her hand, a sly look flitting across his face, gone as soon as it appears. ‘Dearest daughter, think of your mother. She misses you desperately. Please, Arnacia, return to your true family.’

  ‘So that you can sell me to this man?’ Arnacia retorts. ‘And send me away with him? I wouldn’t marry Palamedes if he was the last man on this earth.’

  I like her spirit, her cool temper and her firmness under such pressure.

  ‘Please, my darling,’ Icarius pleads. ‘Your mother longs for grandchildren. Would you deny her that joy?’

  A flash of pain mars Arnacia’s composure, but she remains resolute. ‘Father, Artemis herself has called me. How could I ever turn away from her?’

  ‘There are many goddesses,’ Nauplius says, speaking for the first time. He has a resonant, persuasive voice, melodious… and more… My skin prickles in response. ‘There is One who has far greater gifts to offer than Artemis.’

  Then it’s the son’s turn. Palamedes steps forward as Icarius
slithers to one side, watching with a weird, queasy avarice on his face. I find myself staring just as avidly as I watch a master go to work. Because when Palamedes locks his eyes on Arnacia, the young girl can’t look away, and when he speaks, it’s like the music of honey and sunlight.

  ‘Dearest Arnacia, we’ve come all this way for you,’ he purrs, holding out his hands. I’m both horrified and fascinated to see her clasp them, as though in a trance. ‘I’ve crossed the sea to be with you,’ he continues, ‘through storm and darkness, rising tempest and the monstrous teeth and coiling tails of the Ketea just to behold your fair face and drown in your eyes. All our lives have been about this moment, this destined union. Can you not feel it, this rising tide that comes to sweep us away?’

  The words themselves are banal, cliché-ridden, the treacled cadences coated with false emotion. They should sound trite, empty. Instead they’re laden with seductive power.

  ‘I… you…’ she gasps.

  She might not be aware of it, but I am: this is sorcery, not poetry. Palamedes is god-touched, a theios in service to Aphrodite – only one of her servants could be so beguiling. Ye Gods, we’re only catching the edge of it, but my palms are sweating and my blood is pounding. I’m having to restrain Actoris from running outside, presumably to throw herself at the man’s feet. As for Arnacia, although she’s a theia, she seems unaware this is even being done to her. Only her sense of propriety is keeping her from swooning into his arms.

  There’s another door in the far wall of this room that must lead to the front of the house. I whisper urgently in the maid’s ear: ‘Go and fetch Lady Sophronia. Go now!’

  With a groan that sounds like longing, Actoris prises herself away from me. She almost goes out the back door, straight towards Palamedes, but I spin her and propel her towards the front. Somehow she regains control, hurrying out with enough sense not to slam the door.

  I turn back to the scene of seduction – for that’s what this has become.

  ‘Yield to me, Arnacia,’ Palamedes is saying now, one hand on the front of her dress and the other stroking her face, while she gazes up at him, enraptured. Her mouth drops open and he slides his left forefinger inside it, while his right hand deftly unknots the ties that hold the front of her bodice closed, and slides in to cup her bosom. She moans and presses against him. ‘Cleave to me, marry me, and I will be yours forever…’

  I’m appalled that her father is doing nothing but watch, as is Nauplius. They’re like two dirty old men spying on a whore. I’m aghast, unable to believe a man could watch his own daughter be undone this way, but then again he’s always been a creature of such crass venality that he likely doesn’t care: the bride price he’s been promised for his god-touched daughter is all he wants.

  If Palamedes deflowers her, she can’t serve Artemis as a fully inducted theia… She’ll be seduced body and soul – and dragged off into Aphrodite’s service.

  Athena despises Aphrodite… and I’m none too keen on the Clamshell either. And any chance we can discover what the prophecy said will be lost…

  Palamedes is kissing her now, stroking her side and bosom as he lowers her onto the table she’s been sitting beside, his free hand hoisting up her skirts, and she’s compliant now, willing when a moment ago she’d been resisting. I can’t let this scene go on any longer, whatever the cost to myself. I slip my hand inside my cloak to the hilt of my concealed knife…

  …when High Priestess Sophronia storms around the side of the building, flanked by Ophion – Tiresias – and the tall, imperiously beautiful woman I saw with him before, both clad in scarlet. I presume she’s Manto, his daughter. Actoris lurks behind them, her face tight with fear.

  ‘By all the gods, unhand her!’ the high priestess roars.

  It’s as if Arnacia has been slapped. Suddenly she’s herself again, caught in the most humiliatingly compromised position, half out of her clothing and in the arms of a man she clearly detested a moment ago. She wrenches herself from him with a wild cry, grabbing at her bodice to cover herself.

  ‘You dare seek to force her, in the Huntress’s holy sanctuary?’ Sophronia snarls. ‘For shame!’

  ‘Force her?’ Palamedes replies. ‘Oh, I think she is more than willing.’

  ‘You pig,’ Arnacia says through gritted teeth. ‘Stay away from me.’ She cracks her hand across Palamedes’s face with commendable force. The Aphrodite theios’s head rocks back, his cheek blazing with her handprint. She backs away, sustained by fury for now, but brittle and shaking.

  I wonder if any of them realize that more than a mere, common seduction has been in play here. Tiresias’s companion is clearly suspicious, sniffing the air and then looking very hard at Palamedes. ‘You’ve a nerve,’ she says, ‘trying something like this here, Clam-eater.’

  Clam-eater – I smile grimly at the insult, despite myself.

  Palamedes gives her an ironic bow. ‘Lady Manto, I’ve always wanted to make your acquaintance.’

  So it is Tiresias’s daughter. I’m fascinated, studying father and daughter avidly.

  ‘I see the singers praise your beauty too lightly,’ the Aphrodite theios continues. ‘You are the moon and the stars, second to only One and She is of divine blood.’

  ‘Very prettily said, Clam-eater,’ Manto acknowledges. ‘In payment, you can leave this place unharmed. But don’t ever come back.’

  She is indeed beautiful, with lush, dusky features, finely drawn but strong and well chiselled, the type of beauty that lasts a lifetime. But there’s a dark menace to her as well, like a pillar of storm cloud, glinting with lightning. ‘Go, now,’ she tells Palamedes and his companions.

  ‘I’d heed her, were I you,’ Tiresias adds coolly, in a voice that outmatches Palamedes’s honeyed tongue. ‘Because only our concern for the sanctity of this shrine is preventing us from doing something rather…’ – he licks his lips like a serpent – ‘…unholy.’

  As he speaks, his reptilian eyes flicker from his daughter to Palamedes, from Arnacia to Icarius, intense and hypnotic. I search his face for traces of Ophion or the ‘Arcadian aunt’ whom he became, back on Ithaca. There’s nothing of either in his smoothly effeminate visage, except perhaps for the eyes, but then, as Bria said, he is a shape-changer.

  A shiver runs up my back, right from my tailbone into the base of my skull. Compared to Tiresias, these other men are like yapping puppies.

  Nauplius and Palamedes aren’t stupid – they leave in a hurry, dragging Icarius with them.

  I shrink from the window and tiptoe back across the room towards the far door. Any moment now, Arnacia or Actoris might mention me, and then I’ll be in as much trouble as the fleeing servants of Aphrodite. I make it as far as the front door when the back door opens, and I spin, knife in hand…

  But it’s only Actoris, who shuts the door behind her and races to me, giving me only enough time to hide the knife again. ‘You saved her,’ she says, seizing my hand and gazing up at me, her face alight with gratitude.

  ‘No. You saved her, not me—’ I begin, but she smothers the rest of my words with a kiss.

  It seems I’m irresistible to Artemis worshippers. Or to this one, at least. ‘I, um, thanks,’ I pant, pulling my mouth clear. ‘But I have to go.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ she demands. ‘I’m usually off duty two hours after dusk. We could… mmm… share a cup of wine?’

  We could… though I’ll need to spend some time at least with Bria this evening, discussing today’s developments and planning our next move. And I’m still hoping – no, yearning – to see Kyshanda again.

  But Actoris is my one sure link to Arnacia. And there’s a slim chance she’s heard something of the prophecy from her mistress, though it’s unlikely if Arnacia has been sworn to secrecy. But who knows?

  I give her the name of the tavern we’ve found a room at – thanks to Bria paying the tavern keeper an obscene number of obols to have the previous occupants thrown out. And I let her kiss me again – it’s really not unpl
easant – before I make my escape.

  A few moments later I’m outside the walls, to find the Dionysian riot simmering down and the streets of Delos returning to something like calm.

  * * *

  ‘How did it go?’ Bria demands as soon as we’ve returned to our tavern, where we share a jug of thin, overpriced ale and a foul stew. The small taproom is packed, but thanks to Bria’s obols, we have a table in the corner. ‘Did you get to see the girl?’

  ‘I did, indeed,’ I tell her. I describe my conversation with Arnacia, her apparent willingness to tell me about the prophecy and the disgusting scene involving Icarius, Nauplius and Palamedes. I leave out Actoris’s sudden infatuation, because I really don’t need to be teased about that.

  Bria is as upset as I am over the interruption that curtailed my promising conversation with Arnacia, rattling off some fervent curses, then glaring at me as if it’s my fault. ‘So,’ she says, once she’s got that off her chest, ‘Tiresias and Manto are ever so cosy with Sophronia, are they? And we’ve also got Aphrodite’s people, Dionysus’s rabble and Apaliunas’s Trojans here too. This is all getting rather too busy – and I can’t see how we’re going to get back to Arnacia. It’s a shame you told her you’d spoken to Sophronia – she’ll ask about that.’

  ‘I needed to win her trust,’ I tell Bria. ‘Fast. It’s just wretched luck that her father turned up before she spoke.’

  ‘Do you think this maid might know anything about Arnacia’s prophecy?’

  ‘It’s not impossible,’ I reply. ‘They seem close.’

  We’re discussing timing and various options for contacting the maid when a shadow falls over our table. It’s Bria’s would-be paramour, Belados, and he’s brought three bruisers with him, burly young men with big jaws and fists – and small brains, judging from the over-narrow gap between their eyes. ‘Hey, Gala,’ he says – that’s the alias Bria’s using. ‘You said you’d come and find me tonight. Why are you with this runt?’