Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

by Jane Yolen

  Phreneus rubbed a finger along the side of his nose. “What a story then. An epic!” He laughed out loud.

  Evenor laughed with him. “Epic he may be. But he’s our salvation for sure.” He signaled Atalanta and Phreneus to join the villagers, and they pushed their way into the crowd.

  “See here,” Orion was saying, lifting up the dead bull’s flank. “It’s been stung. Scorpion’s my guess. The pain of that sting would drive any creature wild before the poison kills it.”

  The crowd gazed down at the mark on the bull’s flank, but Atalanta gaped at the man. He looks like a god, she thought. Then remembering Pan, added, Or how a god should look.

  “Whatever it was that drove it to destruction makes no difference now,” Labrius said in a voice pitched so that everyone could hear. “We will feast well tonight, my friends.” He turned to the crowd and spread his arms wide. “A feast to celebrate the strength and courage of our guest, Orion—the greatest hunter in all the world!”

  A huge cheer went up, and Atalanta found herself cheering as well.

  The feast was held that night in the village square, on the very spot where the bull had been stopped. Kraters of wine and platters of roast meat were passed around. The women of Mylonas had baked fresh bread and there were pots of boiled onions and beans. Little honey cakes were served at the meal’s end, when the storytellers—dark-haired twins from Salonika—told the tale of Orion and the Maddened Bull, a story which only grew in its telling.

  “I said it would be an epic.” Phreneus’ nose was bright red with all the drinking, and he laughed too loudly, snorting as he did so.

  Atalanta cringed at the sound. She was seated between Evenor and Phreneus. Along with Labrius and the other village leaders, they shared a table with Orion. Atalanta had been included because Evenor had insisted. Otherwise she would have been relegated to serving the food and wine, with the other young women.

  Behind them, all around the table, stood the rest of the villagers, lips smeared with greasy meat. They all seemed drunk, not so much on wine as on Orion’s presence.

  The hero’s two great hunting spears lay on the ground at his side. Each of them was longer than he was tall, and capped with a gleaming bronze point.

  Orion’s voice boomed out over the crowd, yet he didn’t seem to be straining to be heard. “A messenger from your king Iasus reached me in Elis, to the north,” he explained between draughts of wine. “A savage beast, ’twas said, is ravaging your fair land. The king offered me any reward I asked for if I would come to Arcadia and kill it.”

  This news traveled a second time through the crowd, as if repeating it made it even more true.

  Labrius beamed and lifted his cup. “May the gods praise Iasus for bringing you here.”

  All through the crowd cups were lifted.

  Labrius added, “We are mostly farmers here, Orion. We haven’t the skill to hunt down this monstrous creature on our own.”

  Grinning, Orion put down his cup and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So what is this creature? Bear? Rabid wolf? An old lion taking placid cows and toddlers who have wandered off down the path?”

  Labrius put his cup down as well and spread his hands helplessly. “We don’t know. All we know is that it kills without mercy.”

  Orion laughed, throwing his head back. Then he looked at Labrius. “All beasts kill without mercy,” he said. “Mercy is a human failing. Never think of an animal as you would a person, otherwise you’ll misjudge it and make an error that could cost you your life.” He picked up a steak bone and began gnawing on it.

  The others nodded as if this were the greatest wisdom. But Atalanta had heard something like it before, from her father.

  “Atalanta has seen it,” piped up Phreneus, putting his hand on her head, as if by touching her he shared in her feat. “The girl,” he added unnecessarily.

  Orion set down the bone and stared at her.

  “She says—” Phreneus continued before Orion silenced him with a raised hand.

  “Unless she’s lost her tongue to this beast, she can speak her own words better than you can,” he said. He kept his eyes fixed on her, his gaze mesmerizing.

  Atalanta took a moment before saying anything. She wanted it clear that she was speaking hunter to hunter, not as a bidden child. At last she said, “It was very quick. I saw only a mane, claws, fangs hanging down thus”—she made her fingers into teeth—“serpent’s tail.” She took a big breath. “And a pair of wings.”

  “Were the wings feathered?”

  She stared blankly at him.

  “Were they the wings of a bird,” Orion prompted her, “or those of a bat or an insect?”

  Atalanta nodded. No one had thought to ask such a thing before. She closed her eyes for a moment and saw the beast again. Opening her eyes she said, “Bird wings. Feathered. Set high on the shoulders.”

  There was silence in the inner circle and—except for a child crying beyond the nimbus of the central fire—the crowd was silent, too.

  Orion continued to stare at Atalanta for a moment more, stroking his chin as if in thought. Then he picked up the steak bone again. “She sees true,” he said, gesturing with the bone. “Like the hawk and the wolf. I like that.”

  Atalanta blushed under his praise.

  “Then what manner of creature is it?” Labrius asked, almost in a whisper.

  Atalanta and the others leaned forward to hear Orion’s answer.

  “What manner of creature?” He leaned back casually. “It wasn’t spawned in Arcadia, though you have your share of strange animals here. If you know where to look for them.” He grinned, as if to say he alone knew such things.

  “Then where…” Atalanta asked, trying to hurry him along.

  But he would not be hurried. Storytelling, it seemed, was part of his greatness and the folk of Mylonas drank it in.

  “From Sparta?” called out someone from the crowd.

  “The Long Island?” cried another.

  “The land of the Keshites?” asked a third.

  It had become a guessing game and Orion let it go on for some time. Then, suddenly bored, he waved his hand to cut them off.

  “No,” he said, “from the girl’s description, I’d say this creature is kin to the sphinx, the chimera, and the manticore. If it’s what I think it is, it dwells in the scorching deserts of the East where it’s called a layish, or in our tongue, a mantiger.” He pronounced it with a drawl: man’-ta-jur.

  Evenor leaned forward over the table as if to challenge Orion. “If it lives so far away, what is it doing here?”

  Orion narrowed his eyes but didn’t otherwise show he felt challenged at all. “Perhaps drought has driven it out, or it’s a young male without its own territory. Or…” He looked carefully around the table, including those who stood as well as those who sat, then said in a hushed voice, “Perhaps it has been lured here.”

  “Lured?” Labrius asked. “By whom?”

  But Atlanta had already guessed. “By the gods,” she whispered.

  Orion heard her. “Always a possibility,” he said. “But whatever has brought the mantiger to Arcadia, it will soon be sorry it has crossed paths with Orion.” He slapped himself on the chest, a blow that would have broken the bones of any other man.

  The crowd laughed and roared its approval.

  Atalanta stirred uneasily in her chair. She was not certain what to make of Orion. He was big, yes, and certainly brave. Everyone said what a fine hunter he was. But she was uncomfortable when he began to boast. Her father had always said, “Do not praise yourself while there are others around who can sing your praises for you.” She bit her lip, then asked, “Are you going to hunt by yourself, then?”

  He smiled at her condescendingly. “A beast that roams this far and wide and seems to have no fixed lair? I may be a hero, but I’m no fool, girl. It will take a hunting party to encircle it, to pen it in.”

  Encircle a flying beast? she thought, but didn’t say it aloud.

&
nbsp; “Of course,” Orion continued, “I’ll want the best hunters I can find to accompany me.”

  “I’ll come,” Evenor volunteered.

  Orion eyed Evenor shrewdly, taking in his lean frame, his sharp, intelligent face, and the scar that ran the length of his arm. “A boar,” he said, recognizing at once the nature of the wound. “Took it for dead, did you?

  Evenor nodded.

  “How many boar have you killed since?”

  “Seven,” Evenor replied.

  Orion looked away from him and spoke to the crowd. “A man who’s never taken a wound is too cautious to be of any use to me. A man who fears to close for the kill because of his wound is likewise of no use.” He turned back to Evenor and nodded approvingly. “You’ll do.”

  “What about Herma and the children?” Phreneus objected.

  “You tell them, my friend. They’ll understand,” said Evenor. “Until this beast is killed, none of us will be safe. I must do my part, for everyone’s sake.”

  “I’m coming, too,” said Atalanta flatly.

  Orion raised an amused eyebrow. “This is man’s work.”

  Atalanta stood. “What does being a man have to do with finding and killing the beast? I’m the only one who’s seen it and lived to tell the tale.”

  “So you are,” Orion agreed. “Therefore you shouldn’t tempt the Fates a second time.”

  “I thought you said a hunter made cautious by his wound was of no use to you. I haven’t been made cautious,” she said quickly.

  “You weren’t wounded,” he pointed out, then smiled. A titter ran around the crowd.

  “That beast killed my father,” Atalanta replied hotly. “And that’s a wound deeper than one to my own flesh. Besides, there’s no better tracker in these woods than me.” She thought briefly: Now I’m boasting as much as Orion.

  “She’s right,” Evenor conceded. “She’s the best I’ve ever known.” Turning to Atalanta, he asked urgently, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “It doesn’t matter what she wants,” Orion cut him off curtly. “This hunt is mine.”

  “I thought it was the king’s hunt,” Atalanta said.

  “Mind your tongue, girl,” Labrius warned her.

  Atalanta was about to snap back at him, but Evenor shook his head, effectively silencing her. He turned to address Orion. “No one knows the forest or the ways of the local animals like Atalanta. She would be a great help to the hunt.”

  “I can see there’s something of the wild about her,” said Orion, smiling again to take the sting from his words. “But she’ll simply slow us down. In this hunt, speed is of the essence.”

  “Give me a chance and I’ll win a place in your hunt,” said Atalanta.

  “Win it? How?” He seemed amused.

  Without thinking, she blurted out, “By…by defeating you in a footrace.”

  Orion let out a huge laugh that was: soon taken up by the others, all except Evenor.

  Atalanta waited for the noise to subside. “I hear you’re so fast you can run over the surface of the sea,” she said. “So if I beat you, will you let me join your hunt?”

  “Girl, you could no more beat me than you could outrun the wind,” Orion said mockingly.

  “I can run as fast as a bear,” Atalanta answered him. It was no boast, but the simple truth.

  Orion took a thoughtful sip from his wine cup. All eyes were on him now. Would he accept the challenge or dismiss it? Atalanta was gambling that he couldn’t afford to lose face in front of all these men.

  “Very well,” Orion agreed at last. “We’ll race in the morning.”

  Atlanta grinned and raised her own wine cup, but she didn’t drink further. She would need a clear head as well as strong legs to win that race.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TWO NATURES

  ORION ENTERTAINED THE COMPANY late into the night with tales of his adventures, but Atalanta quickly heard enough about his strength, courage, and cleverness, all delivered in a lazy drawl. She stood and glanced about.

  Labrius called her over. “One of our people can find you a pallet in his cottage for the night,” he offered. Then with a twinkle, he added, “You’ll need a good night’s rest if you’re to beat Orion tomorrow.”

  Everyone at the table laughed loudly at the joke.

  “She’ll need a hundred nights’ rest to do that!” his handsome son called, and the laughter redoubled.

  “I don’t need a roof over my head,” Atalanta said sharply. “I’ll sleep under the stars.”

  “Surely not,” said Labrius. “What about the mantiger?”

  “I’ll shelter high in a tree,” she replied. “The thing may have wings, but it’s too heavy to roost.” What she didn’t say was that she hoped that Urso had found her trail. But if he had, she knew he’d never come openly into a place like Mylonas.

  Snatching up her bow, arrows, and spear, she stomped off into the nearby woods. There she found an oak high enough to keep her from the ground animals but with a canopy deep enough to discourage the mantiger’s attention should it still be close.

  Climbing the tree easily, she settled down in a crotch, making certain that her quiver of arrows was slung on a branch within easy reach, and that both bow and spear were at hand. But it was hard getting to sleep with so much loud singing and laughing going on back at the village. The people of Mylonas were celebrating as heartily as if Orion had already slain the beast and taken its hide as a trophy. But at last she drifted off, only to be awakened by a soft whistle.

  At first she thought it must be a breeze blowing through the trees. Then she realized the air was still; what she heard was a pipe tune.

  Tucking her knife into her belt, and taking her spear in hand, she shimmied down the tree, following the sound.

  Suddenly a familiar musk invaded her nostrils.

  “Urso,” she called as her feet touched the ground. She turned, and in the dim light of the shrouded moon, she saw him.

  He wasn’t alone. Curled up on the ground under an ash tree, he had rested his head in the lap of a figure she recognized. For a moment jealousy pierced her like a poisoned dart.

  When he saw Atalanta, Pan lowered the pipes. “Ah, the little huntress,” he said in that low, musical voice. “I wondered when you’d show up.”

  “You again!”

  “You could at least try to sound pleased to see me,” Pan said. “Why, the nymphs and shepherds throughout Arcadia rejoice at the very sight of me.”

  “Well, I am neither nymph nor shepherd, and I can do without the sight of you,” Atalanta said.

  Pan smiled. He didn’t have good teeth. “Is that so?” He scratched Urso behind the ear and the bear made a deep-throated noise that was almost a purr. “You can do without me but obviously not without your fellow humans. I said that would happen, remember? The lure of one’s own kind is hard to resist. Are you enjoying their company?”

  “Enjoying isn’t the word I would use,” Atalanta said. “But at least we are all after the same thing—the beast that slew my father.” She set the butt of the spear into the ground and leaned on it.

  “Very high-minded I’m sure,” said Pan. He patted the top of the bear’s head. “But what do you think that great bully Orion would do if he found Urso here?”

  “I’ll see to it he doesn’t find Urso,” Atalanta said. Then watching the bear rub his muzzle up against Pan’s cheek, she said softly, “Urso seems very comfortable with you.”

  “We’re old friends. Do you object?”

  “He can do what he likes,” Atalanta declared with a shrug, though she knew she did care, desperately. “He doesn’t need my permission.” She suddenly found herself irked with the forest god. “Or yours.”

  “It’s not a matter of permission,” said Pan. “It’s a matter of nature. You have been fighting human nature trying to live like a beast in the forest. Now Urso is fighting his animal nature in order to be close to you. His very blood tells him to return to the deep forest to begin
the cycle of life afresh. But he also knows that you need him, that without his help you may die on this hunt.”

  Urso got up and padded over to Atalanta, nuzzling her with his big wet nose.

  Pan stood as well. On his bowed goat’s legs he was the same size as Orion, towering over her.

  Atalanta looked up at him. Suddenly something became clear to her. “You know this beast, this mantiger, don’t you?”

  The woodland god wrinkled his long nose and stuck out his tongue in distaste. “That creature doesn’t belong in my Arcadia. It carries the stink of the eastern deserts. If you can rid the woodlands of it, you’ll have my blessings.”

  “So it is from far away,” Atalanta mused aloud.

  Pan nodded.

  “Is it possible the gods brought it here then?”

  Pan spat to one side, and where it landed a yellow flower popped up. “If it’s oracles you want, go to that boaster Apollo. Or if it’s wisdom you’re looking for, badger that know-it-all-tell-it-ever Athena. I’m only here for good times and fun.”

  Atalanta was surprised at his anger toward his fellow gods. But she thought it best not to mention that. Instead she said, “You seem to know a lot about what Urso needs.”

  “Of course. That’s because we are brothers.”

  “You’re not a bear,” Atalanta pointed out. “And I was the one raised in the same litter with him.”

  “Nevertheless, this is the last journey he can make with you,” Pan said. His face was suddenly sad, pulled down like a beeswax candle melted in the heat.

  “But we’ll still see each other, won’t we?” asked Atalanta. “He’ll still come to visit me?” She clutched the spear so hard it made a print in her palm.

  “No, child,” said Pan gravely. “After this hunt, the cords of Fate that bind you together will be severed forever. He must go and start a family of his own, while you must find the family that you lost.”

  His words made the hairs on the back of Atalanta’s neck stand up. She looked left, then right, as if a predator were nearing.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her mouth suddenly dry. “What family?”

  By way of reply, Pan lifted the reed pipe back to his mouth and blew a long, low note that washed over her like a soft mist. It muddled her mind and she felt herself sinking to the ground, eyes closing.