But I can never stand to leave anything up in the air. I lie on my pallet on the floor, listening to the two of them talking quietly until they drop into sleep and my mother's breathing falls into rhythm with Konnidas's light snore.
I try not to think of the possibility that my mother has forgotten exactly which stone my father showed her and just pointed at the first one she came to after she grew tired of walking. This part of the seaward path is littered with rocks, thanks to the frequent shakings by Poseidon. I could never push over each one of them. No, I have to figure out a way to move only this one boulder, and if there's nothing under it, I'll know that her story was just that: a story. It sounds like one of the tales she used to tell me when I was little.
If my mother didn't just point out some random rock, and if the man who was my father intended me to be able to move it (two big ifs), then there has to be a way that someone who is not a giant and not a god can find what is lying under it. My father was not a god (this much is clear now), and if he had been a giant, my mother would have mentioned the fact. Yet he managed to move the rock, if she is to be believed. It's not impossible; after all, the temple in town is made of stones much larger than the one on the path, and they had to have gotten there somehow.
I squeeze my eyes shut and remember the scene. The path is steep, and the rock lies at the bottom of an incline. Maybe he placed whatever he meant me to find on the ground, then climbed up on a ledge above it and pushed the rock on top of it. That would be difficult, but not impossible.
Even if true, though, that theory won't help me. The boulder now sits firmly on the flat ground. Unless...
I have a plan.
Chapter 8
I AM UP and out of the house before Konnidas finds me a chore that will keep me from my task. The air is still chilly, especially as I draw close to the sea and the winds pick up, bringing a briny smell and the sounds of far-off gulls. Under a gray sky that is starting to turn pink, I test several flat rocks before finding one suited to my purposes, and then I set to work.
The sun is high when I sit back and survey my efforts. I've dug a deep trench along the downhill edge of the boulder. My hands sting; they're already pretty well calloused, but even so, I've sprung a few new blisters with the unaccustomed work.
If someone indeed tipped the huge rock off the ledge above me, surely not much of it is buried in the sandy ground. This means that with some effort I can, in turn, topple it over into the trench I've dug.
I straighten my stiff legs and poke through the shrubbery until I find a long, stout branch. I plant myself on the uphill side of the boulder and work the end of the stick under it. I push down. Nothing. I press harder, finally leaning so much of my weight on the branch that I'm standing on tiptoe. The branch snaps and I fall backwards, my tunic flying up around my waist. I lie there to catch my breath, and suddenly I hear a giggle. I sit up hastily and pull my clothing down.
Three girls are standing on the path. I know all of them, and I also know that I'm in for an uncomfortable time. For tormenting, girls are even worse than boys. I'd rather be punched in the face by the biggest of my enemies than have to listen to the taunts that girls seem capable of throwing from the moment they learn to speak.
"What is he doing?" asks the smallest of them, a pale-faced little thing who I think is distantly related to me. My mother has so many brothers and sisters that I don't try to keep track of who is a cousin, who is married to a cousin, who lives with a cousin's family but isn't related, and all the rest of it.
"Looking for buried treasure," offers an older girl, whose face is heavily marked with smallpox scars. She would be pretty but for that, with a graceful shape, large, dark eyes, and shiny black hair that hangs in braids almost to her waist.
The third, a thick girl with a round face, snickers. "Going to dig himself a hole and hide in it. Then he won't have to worry about Arkas beating him up again." When she laughs, she looks like the Gorgon mask that hangs over the entrance to the temple in town, snaggleteeth and all.
The other girls laugh with her. I stand, resigned to their torment. I'm gratified to see that they shrink back as I rise to my feet, but then, to show that they aren't afraid of me, the two bigger ones straighten. I pretend not to notice them as I search in the brush for a stouter stick.
I find a likely looking pine branch and swing it experimentally over my head. Now the girls scatter, skimming down the path and out of sight. I hear the rattle of loose gravel, then a thud, then an "Ow!" One of them must have fallen. Since they will never know that I took notice of them, I allow myself a grin of satisfaction.
I don't dare to deepen my trench. If I dig too deep, the rock might tip over while I'm in front of it, landing on top of me. Nobody would find me for hours, and when they did, they wouldn't be able to move the boulder any more than I can now. If I survived the impact, that is. Instead, I concentrate on working the end of the long stick under the uphill edge. Once it's in as far as I can push it in the hard ground, I prop a smaller rock under it and then lean on it.
At first, I think nothing will happen, but then the boulder shifts. Not much, but enough to allow me to push my stick a bit farther in, and then farther, and then I hold my breath and heave with all my might. The rock hangs suspended for an instant before crashing over. At the same time, the branch flies out of my hands and whacks me on the right cheekbone. I fall to my hands and knees, dazed and with black mist swirling in front of me. I shake my head to clear it, but that makes me want to vomit, so I stop. I feel something sharp on my tongue and spit out a molar. It lies in a puddle of blood and drool. That's my offering to whatever god looks after those who seek what is lost, I think. I blink the tears out of my eyes. Manly tears are nothing to be ashamed of, as when a comrade falls in battle or at news of the death of a great king, but tears of pain and frustration show weakness. I won't allow them, even if no one can see.
When my vision clears, I carefully push myself to my feet. The rock hasn't tumbled all the way over but lies at an angle, leaving a space of the span of two or three hands between its bottom and the ground. It partially reveals a patch of earth that is roughly square, each side about as long as my arm. I survey the damp sand and dirt. Snakes sometimes hide under rocks, and I'm not about to risk being bitten. I bend over, but that makes my mouth throb, so I squat and poke my stick around in the darkness and finally put a tentative hand into the shadow.
Nothing strikes, so I kneel down and reach farther, patting the ground. I hope I'm not supposed to dig; it would be hard to work even a small stone, much less a spade, into the tight area. I wish I knew what I was looking for. I pat the cool earth and dig my fingers into it. I brush aside grubs and many-legged cold things that scurry away from the dim light under the boulder.
It would make a better story if I said that a god appeared and told me where to look, or even that I had almost given up when I was dazzled by a light that broke out in the narrow space under the boulder, but after only a few minutes I feel something that is clearly not rock or dirt, not plant or animal bones. Somehow I know it's what I'm looking for. I tug at the edge of what feels like a piece of leather barely under the surface. It comes away easily. I sit back on my heels and pull it out into the light.
It's a pouch, perhaps a saddlebag, and something heavy in it shifts as I pick it up. I tuck it under one arm and pat around a little longer, prying clods out of the hard-packed sandy earth. There appears to be nothing else.
Before I have a chance to inspect my find, I hear voices. I hold my breath, listening hard, not even daring to spit out the blood that is pooling in my mouth. If it's the girls again, I have nothing to worry about.
I recognize a harsh guffaw as being in Arkas's tones and, before I've considered what to do, I've scrambled to my feet and am pelting toward home. I should feel disgraced at running rather than staying and fighting, but while I'm defending myself from one of them, the others will surely grab my leather pouch. I'm not about to risk that.
So I run,
each step jolting the hollow place in my jaw.
"I found it!"
Konnidas looks up from the patch he's tilling. He's breaking up clods and mixing the leaves from last year's vines into the earth to make it fertile for the spring planting. It's hard work, and boring, but he doesn't act resentful that I've left him to do it alone.
He eyes the pouch in my hands and turns back to his work. "What's in it?" His voice is careful, like he's trying not to show any emotion.
"Don't know yet." I decide not to tell him about fleeing from the boys. Let him think I ran home out of excitement. "Where's Mother?"
"Resting." Konnidas must mean "pouting." I know what will bring her out, though. She's as curious as a mouse. I go to the house and stand in the doorway. I dangle the pouch from my hand. I feel something shift inside again.
"Mother?" No answer, so I say more loudly, pretending to address my stepfather, "Must be asleep. No matter, I'll show her my find after she wakes up."
"I'm not asleep." Her bedclothes rustle, and then there she is, her light brown hair mussed, her cheek creased where it rested on a fold of blanket. The dog at her side shows the pink interior of its mouth in a yawn. "I was waiting for you to come back." My mother eyes the leather pouch. I move aside to let her out, and then both of us sit on the bench.
Konnidas comes up, still holding his spade. He drops it and smacks his hands on his thighs to knock off the worst of the dirt. He looks at my face, appears to be about to say something (I'm sure my cheek is swollen and purple by now), but doesn't. "Show us," he says.
And although I have worked so hard to find this, and although I know—or at least hope—that it will provide me with a way out of Troizena, where everybody knows me as Theseus the Bastard, Theseus the "son" of Poseidon, still I hesitate. My life isn't so bad, I think. Maybe I don't need to change it.
But then I remember Arkas and his thugs, and the teasing girls. I fumble with the knots holding the pouch closed. I finally break the rotten strings and reach inside, to find two hard packets wrapped in what feels like oiled cloth. One is squarish and light in weight, and the other is long and heavier. I pull them both out and lay them on top of the open pouch. With both my mother and stepfather looking on, I unwrap the smaller packet. I stare at its contents, unbelieving.
"What is this?" My voice sounds harsh as I swallow blood, but I don't try to soften it. "Is this a joke?"
Chapter 9
WELL, DARLING," my mother says, anxious, as always, to avoid discord. "Well, they're very nice sandals."
I hold one up by its strap. This is a mistake, as the strip of leather has rotted through and the sandal falls to the ground. I pick up the other by its sole and inspect it. Perhaps at one time they were nice, but that time is long past, and lying squashed under a boulder hasn't helped them stay at their best. Still, the buckles are large and solid, and the leather was once thick and must have been stout. Not inexpensive, certainly, but not what I've been hoping for.
"Why would he leave me sandals? He must have known that they wouldn't last until I was grown. And how did he know they would even fit me?" I realize I'm whining.
"Open the other one," Konnidas urges. "Maybe there's something more practical in it."
I'm not hoping for something practical. I'm hoping for something valuable—gold or jewels or at least a silver ingot. What I find in the other packet, though, is a long dagger or a short sword, and whatever it's made of has corroded until it's covered with greenish crust. I'm not familiar with metals (anything that rare and expensive seldom comes as far as Troizena), but this must be bronze. I feel a little glimmer of hope. If it is bronze, then it's certainly worth something.
Konnidas reaches for it. "May I?" I nod and pass it to him. He holds the hilt in one hand and rests the blade in the other. "A good weight." I'm surprised; I didn't know my stepfather had knowledge of metalwork. With a thumbnail, he scrapes at the crust on the blade, and as it flakes away, a dull yellow gleam leaps out. Konnidas raises his brows and places the sword back on the oiled cloth. "Be worth cleaning." He picks up his spade again and returns to his vines.
I spend the rest of the day rubbing the blade. Konnidas leaves me to it, even though I could be useful in the garden, and I'm grateful to him.
By the time my stepfather heads into the house to prepare our meal, I'm ready to show him and my mother what I've uncovered. I sit at a stool, the sword on my lap. My mother sets a bowl at each place. The fish stew that my stepfather ladles into them smells savory. My hard work with the boulder has made me hungry, and Konnidas, too, seems to have a good appetite. We eat without speaking, occasionally pulling a fish bone off our tongues and balancing it on the edge of the bowl. My mother merely picks at hers and lets the dog lick the broth off her fingers. Both seem to be avoiding my eye.
When I have sopped up the last of my soup with a crust of bread, I clear my throat and put the sword on the table. It looks out of place among the wooden bowls with fish bones perched on their rims.
Konnidas is the first to speak. "A fine blade." I'm still surprised that he knows about metal, and now it appears that he's familiar with weapons as well. I realize with a little jolt that I don't know much about him.
My mother runs a tentative fingertip along the bright figures inlaid in the blade. They appear to be of gold: an owl, with two sparkling dark red gems representing its eyes; a coiling snake whose scales have been picked out minutely by an engraver; and a shape that I don't recognize, a rectangle with one corner cut out of it.
"What does it mean?" I ask. Maybe Konnidas's knowledge will extend this far.
"It means," he says as he picks up the sword and examines its hilt, which I have yet to clean, "it means that our boy here is not only the grandson of a king. He is also the son of a king. The man who left this sword under the stone is—or was—the king of Athens. See, here is the snake. It represents Erechtheus, the first king of the Athenians, and their god. The owl stands for Athena, their patron goddess. This other mark"—his long index finger brushes against the strange shape—"stands for the throne. It means the man who owned this was the king. Those sandals..." He pauses.
"Well?" I try not to sound impatient.
"Well, obviously, he means that you are to go on a journey."
"What kind of journey?"
Konnidas looks at my mother, who suddenly becomes interested in feeding her pet. "A journey to find him," he says.
"Is this true?" I turn to my mother. She shrugs and offers a bit of cheese to the dog, who takes it delicately in her white teeth. "Mother! My father wants me to come to him and you never told me so? I could have found some way to move that rock long ago." I stand and pick up the bowls from the table. "I could have been out of here, out of this hole of a town, with a father who could teach me how to be a man..." I let my voice trail off when I see the hurt on Konnidas's gentle face. I long to tell him that wanting to know my real father doesn't mean that I esteem him less. I don't know how to say this, so I turn and put the bowls into the washbasin. I start to go fetch water when something Konnidas said makes me turn back.
"Erechtheus," I say, remembering tong-ago talk about Athens in the temple. "Isn't he also called Erechtheus Poseidon?" I look over at my mother, who drops her hands and her gaze to her lap. "Mother, did the man—did my father really say he was Poseidon? Or did he merely say something about Erechtheus Poseidon?"
"It's so long ago." I detect a tremble in her voice. "I don't remember what he—I don't remember exactly what he said."
"Oh, Mother." A red rage swells in my chest and blocks off my speech. I stalk out and stand in the yard, fuming.
I hear footsteps, but I don't turn around. It can't be my mother; she will take offense at my storming out and refuse to speak to me until I have apologized. When Konnidas clasps my shoulder, I close my eyes and feel my muscles unclench. Until then, I had not known that I had tightened them. He hands me a cloth that he has soaked in spring water, and I lay it against my face, which is hot and swollen.
"What do you mean, too small for me?" I rub my arms against a sudden chill.
My stepfather turns me around and looks into my eyes with his gray ones. I realize that I am almost as tall as he. Konnidas doesn't smile often, but he usually wears a pleasant expression. Now his solemn face strikes dread in my heart.
"What do you mean?" I repeat, and my tight throat makes the last word squeak.
He asks me a question himself. "Why do you think they hate you?"
I don't ask who. It seems that everybody in the village hates me. "Because of what she says," I answer. "Because she insists that my father is Poseidon. They think that I think I'm better than they are."
"Do you?"
"No!"
"Have you ever said that you were?"
"No, of course not." I'm indignant.
"Then why would they hate you for it?"
That brings me up short. I look at my stepfather in silence, confused.
"That's not why they hate you," he says. "They wouldn't hold you responsible for something she says. They know her—at least, their parents know her. She's never been—she's always been different."
"Then, what is it? If it's not what she says that makes them angry at me, what?"
It's you.
"And this is better—that they hate me for myself and not for my parentage?"
"Not better. They see something in you that frightens them."
"What do they see?"
"You're too—too big, too strong, for this place. Not"—he raises a hand as he sees me about to speak—"not your body, although that's bigger and stronger than I think you know. No, it's you, it's Theseus. Without knowing it, they see that you're greater than any of them, and they're frightened and jealous. So they attack you. It's like wolves—you've seen how the leader has to continually fight to maintain his position?" I nod. "It's the same thing."
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