Oracle

by Jackie French

  CHAPTER 25

  He couldn’t sleep. The girl’s face watched him, her eyes not pleading, but not accepting her fate either.

  He had to help her.

  He didn’t know why. She was no beauty, and he had grown used to beauty in his years at the palace. He supposed he had the right to ask for a woman of his own, either as slave or wife, but he could hardly see the horse girl in either role. She’d likely kill him to escape.

  But there was no way he could forget her. Perhaps it was her terror, or her pride. Something, somehow, bound them together.

  How could he help her then?

  Even if he helped her escape the city walls she would be dragged back. He would be thrashed, if his part in it were known, perhaps even Thetis would be punished. How much would the High King forgive his favourites?

  Impulsively he slipped from his bed and threw on a thin wool robe, then trod quietly down the terrace to Thetis’s room, and in the door.

  The bed was empty.

  He smiled. He knew his sister too well to worry these days. The moon was nearly full. There’d be light enough for a curious girl to slip through the shadows of the city.

  The moon had ridden halfway up the sky when another shadow slipped across the terrace. She paused as she saw him waiting in her room, tilting her head as though to ask a question.

  ‘I need your help,’ he said.

  She raised her eyebrows at that. She stepped over to the water bowl and washed her feet, then sat on the bed beside him, leaning back against the pillows. They were silk, like her butterfly wings, but plain and smooth so embroidery wouldn’t rub against her face as she slept.

  So he told her. Told her about the girl, the bonds, the ride, the courage in the girl’s eyes, her likely fate and how she would now be in one of the dungeons below the palace.

  Where there are rats, he thought. Did they even bother to feed her and give her water?

  ‘Well?’

  She shook her head, to show that she was thinking. And then she smiled.

  ‘You mean you have an answer?’

  The smile said, Of course.

  ‘What is it then?’ he asked, exasperated for the first time by her inability—or was it still refusal?—to talk.

  She paused, then pointed to him, then to the sky, and then the palace.

  ‘In the morning I go to the palace?’

  She nodded, then pointed down.

  ‘And ask to see the girl?’

  Thetis nodded.

  ‘But why should they let me? What can I tell her?’

  The smile grew wider, a little like the smile of the High King’s latest lion cub when it was fed a dish of cheese. She flung herself off the bed, leaped onto her hands, her legs high in the air, did a back flip, then another somersault onto the bed again.

  For a moment he didn’t understand. And then it was as though her smile had lit his own. He hugged her, feeling her slightness and her strength.

  ‘I convince her to be an acrobat? But she doesn’t have the training—’ He stopped. They’d said she was a horse dancer. That must mean both skill and strength. Thetis was right. The girl could do it.

  He looked back at his sister eagerly. ‘I tell her what a good life it is, for we who serve the High King. How she’ll be free as us if she pleases him.’

  For a moment Thetis stared at him in silence. She smiled again. But this time there were shadows in her smile, and something Nikko didn’t understand.

  What isn’t she telling me? he thought. What can’t she tell me? He almost thought she was going to shake her head, that he had got it wrong, didn’t understand. But then she nodded again, just once, and made a sign to usher him away.

  She had to rest.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘Best of sisters, most wonderful of girls.’

  Her smile grew wider. She wrinkled her nose at him, then lay down to sleep.

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  Orkestres peeled a pistachio thoughtfully. He wore a red skirt with silver flounces, silver necklaces and bracelets, and full eye make-up, even though he had only planned a morning yarning with his cronies. Orkestres was a man of importance now, and he didn’t let anyone forget it. ‘I think you should go down to the wool sheds and choose a girl who’ll be less trouble. Or stick to bedding bored ladies from the palace.’

  Nikko stared. ‘That isn’t it. It’s not like that at all.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No! She’s a performer…like us. You’ve said yourself that performers are a brotherhood. They help each other.’

  ‘When we’re not trying to upstage each other. But yes. I see your point.’ He took another pistachio and crunched it. ‘All right. I’ll help with her training, if that’s what you want. If you can convince the Chamberlain to let her go.’

  Nikko hesitated. ‘You won’t go to him?’

  Orkestres laughed, and patted Nikko’s cheek. ‘You want the girl, you get her. Besides,’ his voice was serious now, ‘don’t underestimate your power, my son. The Chamberlain likes you. He likes the way you please the King even more. He is more likely to grant you favours than he is me.’

  Nikko nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  He left Orkestres to the rest of his breakfast. It was only as he ran down the stairs that led to the palace storerooms, where the Chamberlain was likely to be counting the tributes at this time of the year, that he realised Orkestres had called him ‘my son’.

  That feels right, he thought. Nikko, son of Orkestres, acrobat to the High King.

  The Chamberlain had little time to bother with requests, even from one of the High King’s favourites: this was the busiest time of his year. He listened, still making notes on his clay tablet, then nodded without even looking up.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’ Nikko could hardly believe it. He’d had to dredge his courage up from his ankle rings to make a request of the second-most powerful man in Mycenae.

  Nikko placed his fist against his forehead as he bowed. ‘Thank you, my lord—’

  The Chamberlain looked up at that. His small eyes glittered in the dimness of the storeroom. ‘There are,’ he interrupted, ‘a few conditions.’

  The dungeon door clanged behind him. Nikko could hear the scratch of wood as the guard drew the bolt. Cold seeped from the walls, which were so thickly coated with slime it was impossible to see whether the dungeon was made of single rocks worked together or simply carved into solid stone. The scraps of straw on the floor were mostly slime as well.

  The girl sat in the middle of the room, her hands in her lap, either from pride, refusing to huddle in a corner, thought Nikko, or more likely because of the scuttles in the darkness. She looked up at him, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge his presence.

  There were rats down here.

  Someone screamed in a dungeon even deeper below the earth. The sound went on and on, then stopped abruptly. A bat flittered past and vanished up into the darkness near the ceiling, the breath of its wings like the restless souls of all who had died down here.

  Nikko crouched down beside her and held out a loaf of bread stuffed with venison, and a flask of water. She grabbed the water and drank it thirstily, gasping with pleasure as though she had tasted sunlight itself. She wiped her mouth and handed him back the flask, looking at him warily.

  He held out the bread and meat. ‘Take it. It’s good.’

  She considered for a moment, then reached out a hand. Her nails were shapely, although the hand had a rider’s and a hunter’s calluses across the palm and fingers. This girl had never dug the ground to plant barley then, or spent hours grinding grain.

  He watched her eat, trying not to tear at the food. She must have been starved on the way, and here as well. At last she finished it.

  ‘Would you like more? I can ask the guard.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Thank you, Nikko.’

  He flushed in sudden pleasure that she remembered his name.

  �
��Are you all right?’

  She laughed, though there was more bitterness than joy in the sound. Her teeth were strong and white. ‘I am trapped with the rats in the darkness.’ She looked at him for a moment. ‘Why are you here? Just to bring me food. I thank you.’ Her voice was formally polite. This is no peasant girl, he thought.

  ‘I’ve come to make you an offer—’

  ‘To be your concubine?’ She spat at him, just like she had before. ‘I would bite you like a wolf if you tried.’

  ‘No!’ Suddenly he felt like laughing too. He was Nikko, the favourite of the King. He had no need to ask favours from a dirty girl. But there was no way he could tell her that.

  ‘I have come with an offer to train you as an acrobat,’ he said steadily instead.

  ‘An acrobat?’

  ‘A performer, to please the High King. To dance, somersault—’

  ‘I know what an acrobat is.’ She pronounced the word differently, but it was understandable. ‘I am a horse dancer.’

  ‘They wouldn’t give you a horse. You might escape.’

  ‘I would escape. Not might. Why should I want to tumble for some king?’ She pushed her lank hair away from her face.

  ‘Euridice.’ He tasted her name again. ‘It’s a good life,’ he said gently. ‘Trust me. I was brought to Mycenae from my village too.’ He didn’t add that he hadn’t come bound and gagged. ‘I didn’t want to come here either. But there’s no way I’d go back to my old life now.’

  He touched the heavy gold necklace on his chest. He had dressed carefully before he came here, his best red and yellow kilt, his anklets and jewelled bracelets. His chest was freshly oiled; he had softened the hairs with perfumed oil then shaved them off with the sharp blade of the bronze knife he usually wore strapped to his leg.

  But he had left the knife at home.

  She looked up at him, through her hair. It was even more tangled now.

  ‘Who would teach me to be an acrobat?

  ‘I would. And my sister and Dora and Orkestres. They are the ones who taught us. They are good people. Kind.’ He smiled. ‘Like parents, but better.’

  ‘If I am an acrobat…would I be free?’

  He bit his lip. He had argued with the Chamberlain, but the man had refused to drop this conditions. ‘You would be free to practise in our rooms, to perform in the feasting chamber. Even to eat at the High King’s table, if he invites you.’

  ‘But after that?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. You’d have to be chained in your room. A bronze chain that you can’t cut through. But…it will be a good room, a comfortable one, next to ours. There’ll be servants to bring you anything you need, the best of food, the most beautiful clothes. We’ll keep you company. And it’s not forever,’ he added urgently, seing the expression in her eyes. ‘As soon as they trust you, as soon as they know you won’t run away, I’m sure they’ll let you—’

  ‘They should not trust me. No one should trust me. Because I will run as soon as I can.’ She looked up at him defiantly. ‘And if I have to kill to do it, I will.’

  ‘Why? I don’t know where you came from, but it can be nothing like here. We have luxuries you’ll never have heard of—water inside, hot water to bathe in, even channels to take away the night soil, so it doesn’t smell. Life here can be fascinating—there are always new people, new discussions—and it’s better than risking death!’

  ‘I am promised to the Mother.’ Her voice was clipped and hoarse. ‘The Moon Maiden, not the Earth Goddess or the Harvest Mother.’

  ‘You can pay service to her here!’ Nikko shook his head, frustrated. Why was she so stubborn? ‘The King’s sister is High Priestess. I am sure she would let you join the sacrifices, tend the…’ He hesitated, for much of the Mother’s worship was withheld from men. ‘Whatever the priestesses tend. My sister serves the Mother too.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact now, not fierce. ‘My parents promised I would serve the Mother’s temple—her main temple, up north, a month’s travel from my people. I must serve there till I die.’

  ‘As a horse dancer?’

  ‘In whichever way the Mother wishes. Everything I have learned, all my life, is to be dedicated there. All this—’ she gestured, not at the filthy walls, the dank straw on the floor, but at the glory of Mycenae outside ‘—means nothing. No matter what I want, I am bound to the temple.’

  ‘I see.’ He didn’t, but it was all he could say. Religion in Mycenae was…comfortable. The priestesses sacrificed the grain, or an ox or goat, and did the rites; the Mother gave the harvests in exchange. And if some people had to be sacrificed as well, they were never anyone he’d known. No one he’d met had ever offered himself for sacrifice. It was a punishment, or a fate for slaves.

  He looked at the girl’s dirty, scratched face, strangely calm in the dimness. He was wrong, he realised suddenly. She was beautiful; it was a beauty of strength and intelligence he had never seen before, except perhaps in his sister.

  ‘Very well then. You’re vowed to the Mother’s temple. You feel you have to escape. But you can’t escape if you’re sent to serve the rowers on a sailing ship, or you’re sacrificed in spring to stop a quake from shaking down the palace.’

  She was looking at him thoughtfully now. At least, he thought, she’s listening. ‘I know you can’t escape if you are chained in a luxurious room either, with lynx fur on the bed. But why not choose the prison that’s most comfortable?’

  She was silent for so long the rats began to squeak again in the corner of the dungeon. Even in the dimness he could see the honesty in her eyes.

  ‘I won’t lie to you,’ she said at last. ‘If I agree it will be because I will have a greater chance to escape up in the daylight, with horses and swords…’

  ‘They will kill you if you try.’

  ‘Then I will have died doing my duty.’ Her voice was flat, emotionless.

  He didn’t understand. There was no joy in her voice when she spoke of serving the Mother, just pride and conviction.

  He stood up. ‘Can I tell the Chamberlain you have agreed? You’ll pretend to be tamed? At least for a while?’

  ‘Tamed?’ She laughed. It was proper laughter this time. He liked it. ‘If you wish. But tell me.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Why are you helping me? You may be punished when I escape—and I will, sometime, somehow. Perhaps this sister you speak of might be punished too, and the couple you say are like your parents.’

  He hesitated, then answered as truthfully as she had. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, then went to call the guard to unlock the door to let him out, so he could find the Chamberlain again.

  CHAPTER 27

  It was Dora who fetched Euridice from the dungeons, bound in chains again, with guards attending, and took her to their rooms. She insisted that the others stay away till Euridice had washed, and donned clean clothes. Nikko was impatient, but knew the older woman was right. Euridice had been humiliated enough, with more humiliation to come when she was chained again. Let her at least have the dignity of meeting the others properly dressed, and clean and fed.

  Now, in the room Nikko used to occupy, she sat on her new bed, which was covered with a spread of red-dyed sheepskin. Her skin was smooth and clean, still tanned from the life she’d lived before. Her black hair was bound up in Mycenaean fashion, twisted up on her head, pinned with two of Dora’s gold combs. Her trousers and jacket were soft cream wool, with a pattern in red and yellow at the hem. The acrobat family had gathered in the room with her. She looked at them all steadily, one after another, waiting for them to speak first.

  Thetis perched on a bench by the door to the terrace. For a few moments the two girls stared at each other across the room. But it was the smaller and younger who smiled first.

  Nikko felt the tight band around his heart let go. Thetis put her fist to her brow and then her heart, the act of homage to the Mother or her priestess.

  Euridice shook her head. ‘I am d
edicated to the Mother. I am not her servant yet.’ Her voice was gruff and accented as before. Outside the practice chamber guards stood at the door with swords and javelins and knives.

  They were not for him, or Thetis. They were free. Nikko wondered why he still felt like running, scrambling up the cliff behind the city, taking Dapples and galloping toward the mountains, to…

  To where? This was his home, and these his people. He turned his attention to the girls again, watching Orkestres and Dora assess Euridice. He knew they were wondering what skills she might have already, what would be the best to teach her.

  But Euridice still stared at Thetis. ‘Is it true that you can’t speak?’

  Thetis nodded, then shook her head.

  ‘I don’t understand…you mean you won’t speak?’

  ‘It was a vow,’ said Nikko roughly. How dare she question his sister? ‘You understand vows.’

  Euridice ignored him, still watching Thetis. Her brows drew together. ‘Did you make a vow to the Mother?’

  Thetis smiled again. She shook her head.

  ‘Then who did—’

  ‘That is not your business,’ said Nikko sharply.

  Thetis exchanged a glance with Euridice. She slid to her feet and trod softly across the tiles, and held her hand briefly to Nikko’s lips.

  ‘I think your sister wants to speak for herself,’ said Euridice.

  ‘But she can’t speak!’

  Thetis raised her eyebrows. Dora laughed. ‘You speak to the whole palace, don’t you, my lamb? Just not with a voice. Sit down, Nikko, and stop being a ram trying to protect your herd.’

  Euridice smiled. For the first time since he met her she seemed relaxed, suddenly happy. Nikko relaxed too, despite the sense of being laughed at. This was going to work.

  Euridice leaned forward. She spoke to Dora now. ‘Tell me what you want me to do. This acrobatic stuff.’

  ‘It’s easier to show you.’ Orkestres gestured to Nikko and Thetis.

  Nikko exchanged a glance with Thetis. He positioned himself for their favourite practice jump, holding his shoulders still as Thetis leaped up onto him from across the room. He steadied her ankles until she somersaulted to land with her hands on his shoulders, her legs held straight in the air. He readied himself for her backward somersault onto the ground.