The whole impact of what she was thinking and saying to herself swept over her almost like a tidal wave in which she must drown because she had not the strength to swim against it.
Then she told herself that she would survive; bill first she must have the strength to refuse to do what everyone wanted, however hard they might try to over-rule her.
It was not going to be easy, Athena was well aware of that.
Her father was a very domineering man and she had always done as he wished ever since her childhood.
Her mother had died when she was ten, and although she remembered her tenderly she had never been an important influence in her life.
It was her grandmother to whom she had turned for affection, for understanding and for guidance.
And now she saw that her grandmother had been concerned less with her than with the Parnassus family.
In arranging this marriage Athena knew she had not thought of her granddaughter's feelings, but of the benefit her money would bring to the reigning Prince of the House of Parnassus.
"How could I have been so stupid, so foolish as not to understand what was happening before I left England?"
Athena knew that if she had been firm and had appealed to her father, who had never been particularly interested in her grandmother's enthusiasm for her native land, she could have prevailed upon him not to agree (o her leaving home.
But it was too late to think of that now.
What she had to do now was to extract herself one way or another from the trap into which she had fallen all too willingly, and too easily.
It was a trap—there was no other word for it—and her grandmother had baited it with the glory that had once been Greece, but was certainly not to be found in the Court of their Bavarian King, King Otho.
"I hate them all! I hate them !" Athena cried.
She felt as if they were all intriguing against her, encompassing her about with ropes of silk, which would incarcerate her in Greece with a man who was interested in another woman.
"And why not?" Athena enquired.
She did not blame the Prince.
Of course there were other women in his life. Doubtless there were women he wished to marry but could not afford to do so.
But being married to a rich Englishwoman would not prevent him from loving where he wished and doing what he wanted.
There would be nothing left for her but a cage of pomp and circumstance and a title in which she was not in the least interested.
"What shall I do?"
The question came again and she knew the answer.
She would go to Delphi and if she could not consult the Oracle at least she felt that somehow she would be near the gods who had once reigned in Greece—the gods whose Empire had not been over great tracts of land or a subject people.
In the person of Apollo the Greeks had conquered the world by the power of beauty.
He had no earthly resources, no Army, no Navy, no powerful Government, but he had captured men's minds, and in the silence Athena was still certain she would hear the voice of the god calling to her own heart to seek the light.
"I will go to Delphi."
Nothing, she told herself, was impossible!
At Delphi she would know what to do and she would no longer be afraid.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she moved across the bed -room and it seemed to her that in the past hour she had grown from a very young English girl into a woman.
She did not know how it had happened—she only knew that, as she had always known they would, the gods had helped her and were showing her the way.
Chapter Two
The caique with the wind in its sails rounded the tip of the promontory and Athena gave a sigh that was one of both relief and joy. She had done it! She had escaped!
Even now she could hardly believe she was free of the Palace and the ship was now out of sight of anyone who might be looking out at such an early hour.
She had made her plans very carefully and it had given her an excitement she had never known to arrange matters for herself. She had tried to think of every detail, not only of her requirements, but also of eventualities that might betray her at the last moment.
She had of course been unable to sleep, but she had lain on her bed after packing in the Greek bag which had been woven by native craftsmen the few necessities she thought she might need.
She had written a letter to her Aunt in which she had said that as she was tired of waiting for the Prince she had decided to stay for a night or perhaps two with friends who lived nearby.
She begged her Aunt not to worry and said that she would be perfectly safe and they would look after her.
She smiled as she wrote the pronoun, thinking her Aunt would not appreciate the fact that "they" as far as she was concerned were the gods who dwelt at Delphi.
She had drawn back the curtains from her window and from her bed she could watch the sky. Long before dawn, when she saw the stars beginning to fade, she had risen to dress herself.
This was quite a feat as she was used to having a maid or even two in attendance.
She had chosen her gown very carefully the night before.
All those in her trousseau were elaborate, their full skirts decorated with lace and frills.
But this one was comparatively simple with a plain skirt and for the tiny waist a blue sash which a child might have worn.
Athena chose her plainest bonnet to go with it, and thinking it might be cool in the ship she carried over her arm a warm shawl.
When she was dressed she knew the most difficult part of the whole adventure was to get out of the Palace without being seen.
But she had listened during the night to the movements of the night-watchmen walking around inside and the footsteps of the sentries pacing outside.
Methodically she had calculated the exact time when she could get down the stairs without being noticed and when she could cross the garden to reach the sanctuary of the bushes before the sentry turned and marched back in the direction from which he had come.
The actual exit from the Palace was easy, because she had found a door into the garden the previous day which she noted without realising it at the time was easy to open from the inside.
The top half of the door was of glass and she had thought that it seemed a vulnerable place to leave unguarded when the great door of the Palace itself had sentries on either side of it.
As she sped across the grass into the shade of the hibiscus bushes she thought that if a sentry saw her in her white gown he would think she was a ghost or some sprite from the underworld bemusing his senses and would not challenge her.
But actually the sentry was looking in the opposite direction and Athena climbed over the low wall which separated the Palace from the road which ran along the cliffs, and stood looking down at the sea beneath her.
The Palace had been built high up on the mountainside and the Harbour of Mikis at which she had arrived was on the west coast of the Gulf while beyond it was a small town of the same name.
She had realised when she arrived that from the harbour to the Palace on the twisting, turning road which made the climb easy for the horses was at least two miles.
But by going straight downhill Athena reckoned that the harbour in actual fact was not more than a quarter of that distance away.
It proved to be a little further than she had anticipated, but Athena was a country girl and used to walking and riding long distances. She reached the Harbour of Mikis without being unduly fatigued and in surprisingly quick time.
Now the sky had lightened perceptibly and all around was the translucent grey of the prelude to the rising of the sun.
It would have been impossible, Athena thought, to imagine there could be so many shades of that mysterious, elusive colour, ranging from the silver grey of the sea and the pigeon-feathered grey of the cliffs on the other side of the water, to the deep almost purple-grey of the mountains.
There wa
s, however, no time for day-dreaming or even for admiring the view.
She found as she had expected that the fishermen were already astir, carrying their yellow nets aboard their caiques, shouting cheerily to each other or singing a song as they got their boats ready for the sea.
She found an elderly man who seemed less busy than the others and told him what she required.
She spoke slowly in her perfect Greek and he understood her without difficulty.
"A ship to take you to Itea, lady?" he asked scratching his head. "They'll all be going fishing."
"I will make it worth their while," Athena promised. "I will pay for the journey there and for the return. It will doubtless come to more than they would earn by a day's fishing."
It took a little time and quite an amount of argument before the elderly man persuaded the crew of one of the caiques to accept the large sum of money which Athena offered in return for their services.
Finally with a great many smiles and good-humoured chaffing they agreed to abandon their nets and the caique set off.
The dawn wind billowed out its sails, and when the twelve men dipped their oars into the waves the water fell from them like glittering diamonds.
As they moved Athena kept looking apprehensively over her shoulder at the Palace high above them.
She was quite certain that no-one would be watching the Harbour at this hour of the morning, and yet at the same time she was thankful now finally they were out of sight and round into the Gulf of Krisa.
Now the mountains rose high on each side of the gulf and as the first rays of the sun came up over the horizon their tops were turned to gold and every other colour of the rainbow filtered across them.
It was so lovely that Athena felt as if the time she was at sea sped past and she could hardly believe they had been travelling for some hours when at last they reached the Port of Itea.
There were several anchored merchant vessels with their high sail-less masts swaying on the waves, but there was not the galaxy of them that Lord Byron had seen.
She-found on arrival as she stepped out of the boat that there were a few gaily decorated horses and donkeys waiting to carry anyone who engaged them up the long steep climb to Delphi.
Athena, who had a good knowledge of horse-flesh, refused the donkeys which were pressed on her by their owners, and chose instead a young horse which she felt would carry her more swiftly.
She also liked the honest, good-humoured face of its owner.
All the animals soliciting the tourists had thick saddles made of sacking covered with a woollen rug on which the rider could sit sideways in comparative comfort.
It meant that no horsemanship was required because the owner of the animal led it up the hill, and Athena had a sudden longing to ride on her own without restrictions as she had once imagined she might ride with the Prince over his land.
But she was aware that the owner of the young horse was obviously both fond and proud of his possession and would not let the bridle out of his hands.
She was therefore prepared to be carried without any effort up the winding stony path which was so steep that she felt at times it was almost cruel to make her horse carry any weight on its back even someone as light as herself.
The countryside was extraordinally beautiful and Athena kept turning her head from side to side, afraid she might miss some exquisite piece of scenery simply because she was looking the other way.
At the bottom of the valley there was the River Pleistos and on either side of it rolled grove after grove of silvery olive trees, their ancient trunks and twisting olive branches seeming to Athena to be redolent with history.
They passed caves which she longed to explore and she remembered that Lord Byron had almost been lost in one.
But her goal was Delphi and she did not dare to linger on the way.
High above her she was vividly conscious of the great Shining Cliffs, the Phaedriades, which scintillated in the sunlight with a myriad points of multi-coloured reflected light.
She remarked how her grandmother had told her that when Apollo left the holy island of Delos to conquer Greece a dolphin had guided his ship through the Krisaean Gulf which lay beneath the Shining Cliffs.
"The young god," the Dowager Marchioness had said, "leapt from the sea disguised as a star at high noon. Flames soared from him and the flash of splendour lit the sky."
She paused dramatically, then she said softly:
"Then the star vanished and there was only a handsome young man armed with a bow and arrows." Athena had listened breathlessly.
"He marched up the steep road to the lair of the dragon," the Dowager Marchioness went on, "and when it was slain he announced in a clear ringing voice to the gods that he claimed possession of all the territory he could see from where he was standing."
"It was a lovely place," Athena had murmured.
"Apollo was amongst other things the god of good taste and he had chosen the most haunting and satisfying view in Greece," the Dowager Marchioness replied.
Half way up the steep ascent Athena looked back and knew that her grandmother had not exaggerated.
There was the blue of the sea in the distance, the valley of silver-grey olive trees below, the blue mountains curving away to the left and the right and the River Pleistos like a silver ribbon running through the centre of the valley.
She turned her head to look up. The Shining Cliffs rose ahead, grey and silver, they seemed to glitter in the sunshine and she had the feeling that the valley, the mountains and the sea were slowly revolving in front of them.
The man leading her horse brought her back to reality by telling her that there used to be wolves in the caves they had just passed but they had not been seen for some years.
Athena was not afraid of the wolves; what excited her far more than wild animals were the flowers.
Never had she imagined the grassland up which they were climbing could be so vivid with colour.
She recognised grape hyacinths, the star of Bethlehem, narcissus, anemones, poppies and of course the redolent thyme. There were also wild orchids and vividly blue blossoms to which she could not put a name besides the wild iris, the flower of the gods.
Higher and higher they climbed, even the young horse finding it hard going, until finally they had reached the narrow dusty road which had been the Sacred Way
and stood below the Shining Cliffs themselves.
Above her through the blossoming fruit trees Athena could see several broken pillars and the outline of what appeared to be a Temple and she knew that she had reached her goal.
It all lay to the right of a small, untidy village, many of the houses built precariously on the very edge of the cliff, the others lying haphazard among the ruins, children were sitting astride a great marble block and making mud-pies on the flat surface of another.
Athena dismounted, paid the man so generously that he was almost over-profuse in his thanks, then stood staring up at the cliffs above her.
She saw wheeling high against the sky a bird that she was sure was an eagle and remembered that Lord Byron had seen a flight of twelve which he had taken as a sign that Apollo and the Muses had accepted his offering of "Childe Harold".
Athena was certain that the eagle was a good omen for her too, and now because she was impatient to see what had brought her here she started to climb up the hillside.
She found steps among the grasses and occasionally exquisite pieces of carving that she felt should be taken away to safety rather than left uncared for and unattended.
She had known that little was left of the great Temple of Apollo except a few broken columns. But she was not primarily looking for remnants of the antiquities: she was really seeking to feel and understand what this sacred place had meant to the Ancient Greeks.
When she was a little higher up the mountainside the white stone gleamed like fire and she had a feeling of quietness and serenity and that the Shining Cliffs protected something very precious and sacred.
/>
Avoiding the village she climbed higher and higher still, finding the walking hard until finally she found what she knew must be the Stadium.
There were only what must have been the upper row of seats above the ground and the rest was overgrown with grasses and moss.
Athena tried to imagine the competitors with their perfect, athletic bodies competing amongst themselves.
She sai down to gel her breath and recited the ode written by Pindar in praise of the Aeginetan Aristomenes, who had won a wrestling match here at Delphi in 446 B.C.
"He who has won some new splendour Rides on the air
Borne upwards on the wings of his human vigour
In the fierce pride of hope, rejoicing
In no desire for wealth, enjoying
For a brief space the exaltation of glory."
All the Athletes competed naked, their slim, muscular bodies as perfect as those of the gods they worshipped.
Athena sat for a long time in the Stadium. Then slowly she began the descent back to the Temple of Apollo, then lower still, seeking to the left of it the ravine where the Oracle had been.
It was, however, difficult for her to know the exact spot where the prophecies had taken place.
Then because she remembered that her grandmother had spoken of the Temple of Athena below the Sacred Way
, she crossed the road and found hidden among the olive trees three perfect columns on a circular foundation which she knew had been dedicated to Athena.
They seemed to have a special light about them and the grasses which grew round the stones which had fallen from the Temple seemed to contain brighter and more brilliant flowers than any she had seen before.
Athena stared at them for a long time, and then because she was conscious that her legs were aching from the stiff climb up to the Stadium she sat down amongst the grasses and rested her back against a block of white marble.
She felt as if the faith of all those who had worshipped here so many centuries ago was still vibrant and alive, and she felt the prayers of those who had brought the Goddess Athena their petitions still lingered on the warm air.
A movement in the sky attracted her attention, Athena lifted her head and looked up.
Kiss the Moonlight Page 3
