Oracle

by Jackie French

  It never came. Instead Euridice leaped too. Suddenly there were two girls gripping his shoulders, face to face, their legs held straight above his head.

  He could feel them staring at each other, almost as though they could read each other’s minds. And then they leaped again, tumbling past each other, each landing feet first on the ground, Thetis behind Nikko and Euridice in front.

  ‘So…’ Orkestres’s voice held reluctant admiration. ‘You can leap.’

  ‘Yes.’ Euridice looked across the room, meeting his eyes. ‘And I can do that on horseback, too.’ Her chin lifted. ‘I am a horse leaper. The best there is.’

  The question, Orkestres said, was how to translate Euridice’s skills into something that the High King would admire. No matter how skilful she was on a horse—and after her performance that morning he was inclined to believe her boast—there was no question of bringing a horse or even a pony onto the High King’s terrace. And no one—certainly not the guards—was going to let her loose on a horse outside.

  Nor did Orkestres want her to join Thetis and Nikko. Thetis’s dance was more than an acrobatic performance and Nikko was her shadow, the rock from which she flew. Adding Euridice to their performance would make it more like a common tumbling show.

  Euridice shrugged, carefully avoiding Nikko and Thetis’s eyes. ‘I can perform by myself. Without a horse.’

  ‘Without a horse you’d be an ordinary tumbler.’ Good, but not unique enough to keep the High King’s attention long…and not safe to send out at tribute time, either. But Nikko kept that to himself.

  Suddenly Nikko was aware of Thetis looking at him in the patient way she had when she wanted his attention. She glanced at Euridice, winked at him—he had no idea, he told himself, what his sister meant by that—then went over to the table near the terrace.

  It was loaded with gifts from admirers—a treasury of tiny items, crafted in jewels and gold and precious woods, that no one would dare steal from the King’s favourites, here, in the stronghold of Mycenae.

  Thetis picked up two of them—a crystal bull from one of the Lords of Crete, and a carved ebony creature the giver had called an ‘elephant’, with ivory tusks like a boar’s. She brought them over, one on each hand, looked from Orkestres to Nikko.

  Nikko tried to understand. ‘You mean we give her a toy horse?’

  Thetis shook her head. She held her hand low, then higher, and higher still…

  Orkestres frowned. ‘A statue of a horse?’

  Thetis grinned.

  Nikko turned to Euridice. ‘Could you do your tricks on a statue of a horse?’

  ‘I can perform on anything!’

  Dora shook her head. ‘There’s no statue of a horse big enough in the palace.’

  ‘Then we’ll have one made.’

  ‘Look, my son,’ said Orkestres gently. ‘Do you know how long it takes to carve a statue from stone? And even longer to work with the clay and wax before you can make a bronze one. Any craftsman would demand a year or more.’

  ‘We don’t have a year—’ began Nikko desperately, just as Thetis held up the wooden elephant again. ‘Wood! A horse of wood!’ Nikko turned to Orkestres. ‘Could Sostosis Wood Turner make one?’

  ‘He can make anything,’ said Orkestres slowly. ‘A full-size horse. A leaping horse.’ He looked at Euridice speculatively.

  ‘Yes, a leaping horse.’ Dora had a fire with the idea now. She rubbed her hands. ‘It will be like nothing they have ever seen before. We will plan it for the Autumn Feast, when the kings and lords are here. She can perform before your dance, a taster before the feast.’

  Euridice lifted her chin. ‘I can jump higher than anyone. And turn more somersaults too.’

  Nikko wanted to laugh. But she had so little, this northern savage. Just her acrobatics, and her pride. ‘You haven’t seen my sister dance.’

  CHAPTER 28

  And so they practised, the three young ones limbering up together each morning. Orkestres helped stretch their legs before he corrected the curves of their tumbles and guided them through their work-out, and Dora mixed myrtle and lemon oil to rub into sore joints, and to keep them supple.

  That half-moon before the High King’s feast was the happiest time Nikko had ever known. After the exercises and the practice dances, they would sit together, the five of them, with sweet olive wood burning on the hearth, eating from the trays the servants had brought from the palace cooking courtyards—venison with almonds and figs, quails stuffed with grains and herbs, date breads and pomegranate pastries.

  For the first time Nikko talked of his childhood, how he had fetched his sister from the mountain, making them both outcast among their own people. To his surprise Orkestres spoke of his youth too. For some reason he had never thought of Orkestres as a boy. He had forgotten Orkestres was the son of a palace acrobat, and had trained with his father for years.

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Nikko.

  Dora reached over and held her husband’s hand. Her voice was soft. ‘He had a trick, leaping from one rope to another, high up under the ceiling. And then one day he fell.’

  ‘He…he died?’

  Orkestres face was as still as the statue of the lion in the main corridor. ‘No. His back was broken. He couldn’t stand, or move his legs. His Majesty said he had been perfection. He would do him the…honour…of leaving his memory perfect, not muddied by the sight of an old man hobbling on two sticks.’

  ‘You mean…’ Nikko swallowed what he was going to say.

  ‘He ordered him stabbed in the chest, there in the hall. There was a grand funeral. The pyre’s smoke reached to the clouds.

  ‘The next night the King called for me. I did my father’s tricks for him. But that was the last time.’ He shrugged, his voice still expressionless. ‘I was better as a twister than a rope swinger. I made the King laugh, rather than gaze up in awe. And then,’ he shrugged, ‘I was no longer as supple, and he stopped laughing, and I performed for him no more.’

  Thetis tapped Dora lightly on the cheek. The big woman laughed. ‘Me? I fell in love with this old fool here. I come from a village down the seaside, not far from here. I begged him to take me with him—’

  Orkestres laughed. ‘Nonsense. I begged you. The most beautiful girl I had seen in my life, peering with big eyes through the flames at the feast.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dora, touching her recently re-yellowed hair, bright as a calendula petal. ‘I was beautiful once.’

  ‘You still are.’ Orkestres picked up her hand, and kissed her wrist. Dora blushed, then clapped her hands. ‘You young ones, off to bed. It’s two nights to the feast now. If your timing is just a moment out…’

  She hesitated, as though the vision of Orkestres’s father had clouded her memory too, then clapped her hands again. ‘Bed—’ she began.

  And the pots and gifts on the tables began to shake. The earth gave a soft groan below them, then stilled.

  Nikko waited for the breath to seep back into his body. ‘The earthshaker,’ he said lightly. ‘Saying good night. You mustn’t worry about the tremors,’ he added to Euridice. ‘We get them often here. But the House of the Lion will stand forever.’

  Euridice shrugged. ‘We get earth tremors at my home too. They are sent by the Mother, as is everything we see. I have never heard of an earthshaker.’

  Thetis put her head on her side, and tapped Euridice’s wrist, asking her to continue.

  Euridice pretended not to notice. She stood up. ‘I’m tired. If the Earth Mother has said good night, we need to listen.’ She smiled wryly at Orkestres. ‘Will you call the guards to shackle me, or will I?’

  Nikko wandered along the terrace to his own rooms. Behind him he could hear the rattle of the guards’ swords against the chains.

  Surely it would be different once Euridice had performed for the High King. Once she had heard the sigh from an audience too spellbound even to cheer; had known the excitement of the servants pressing their fists to their foreheads as they
brought her gifts from kings and lords. Somehow he knew that whatever Euridice did, she’d do wholeheartedly. Any performance of hers would take the breath from the audience, and send it back to her as cheers and yells.

  She’d learn Mycenaean ways of serving the Mother, just as Thetis had.

  It was a grand life, here at the palace. Especially, said a whisper in his mind, as he unbuckled his belt for bed, now that Euridice was here.

  CHAPTER 29

  Nikko opened his eyes. The moon was a bright sickle through the open door. Someone was pulling his arm.

  ‘Thetis?’ She was wearing the soft wool shift in which she slept, and her hair was loose from its braids, in a cloud about her face. She gripped his hand to pull him out of bed.

  ‘What is it?’ She lifted her fingers to her lips, to indicate he must be quiet.

  Nikko grabbed his cloak, and wrapped himself in it. They crept along the terrace, two shadows against the wall, too silent for the guards in the outer room to hear. Suddenly she stopped, and gestured to her ear.

  Now he could hear it too. A scrape, scrape, scrape of metal on metal. It was coming from Euridice’s room, the room that had once been his, next to Thetis’s.

  It was a slight sound, too quiet for the guards to pick up yet. But they would, Nikko was sure. ‘Come on. We have to stop her.’

  Thetis grabbed his arm again. She shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  She looked exasperated, pushing him toward Euridice’s room with her hand.

  ‘Just me?’

  She smiled, put her hand on her heart in a good luck gesture, and slipped back into her room.

  Nikko stepped into Euridice’s room. At first she didn’t see him, being intent on rubbing at the chain with what looked like the sharpened edge of a bronze arrowhead. It was small enough to have been secreted under her jacket. He wondered where she’d picked it up. She must have been quick, for none of them, or the guards, to have noticed.

  Suddenly she saw him, motionless in the doorway. She went to put the arrowhead under the blankets, then stopped, realising how much he had seen.

  Nikko put his finger to his lips, and trod softly over to her bed. He held out his hand for the arrowhead.

  ‘Has the moon madness filled your head?’ he whispered. ‘They’ll beat you if they find it. Or worse.’

  She glared up at him, refusing to reply. She too wore a thin wool shift. He could see the shape of her breasts through it, and the pulse beating at her throat.

  ‘How far did you think you could get?’

  She shrugged, then reluctantly handed him the arrowhead.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, bending down to speak softly so the guards next door didn’t hear. ‘It’s autumn. Tribute time. And this year the kings and chiefs are bringing their tributes in person. You know what that means? Every road or mountain pass is full of kings and their retinues, coming to the feast at Mycenae.’ He could smell the faint perfume from the oil she used on her hair. Or perhaps it was the scent of Euridice herself. He shook his head to clear it. ‘There are guards everywhere in the palace. And soon winter will come, and snow will cut off the way north.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘You’re not afraid of performing at the feast?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then why not wait? Gain the High King’s confidence. Get rid of your chains. Perhaps even by summer…that’s the time to travel, anyway. Why make escape more dangerous by trying to get away now?’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  He sat back. ‘You’re right. I don’t.’

  She hugged her knees. The chain clanked slightly as she moved. Nikko froze. But the guards must have been used to the sound, he realised; the chains would make a similar noise every time she rolled over in bed.

  ‘I have to escape.’

  He shook his head. ‘The Mother will understand.’

  ‘It’s not the Mother,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s me.’

  The only light from was from the moon outside. The Mother in her moon form, thought Nikko, as Euridice told her tale. The moon was the Maiden, the earth the Mother, giving birth to everything that grew or moved; the hag was wisdom, the Mother who watched, and knew.

  Outside in the main chamber a guard coughed and muttered, then was silent again.

  ‘My village is a big one, north of the High King’s lands. My father is the headman. I’m his oldest child. My father hoped for a boy when I was born. All fathers hope for boys. Then there was me instead, and no more children for years…

  ‘My parents travelled for nearly a moon down to the shrine of the Mother. It is hidden in the heart of the mountains—not a little shrine, as they have in most towns or even in Mycenae. This shrine is the Heart of the Mother, a temple where priestesses live. My parents promised to dedicate their firstborn—me—if they had a son.

  ‘We are the centaurs, the horse people.’ She smiled in the moonlight. ‘The plains people say centaurs are born on horseback. It isn’t true. Our women give birth panting in their huts, like everywhere else. But I was riding by the time I was four years old, and hunting with a javelin by the time I was seven.’

  ‘The skills—the acrobatic tricks—do your people do them too?’

  She began to laugh, then stopped when she realised the guards might hear. ‘No. Just me. I wanted to show my father I was the best centaur on the mountains. Anything a boy could do, I could do better—standing in the saddle, somersaulting over the horse’s neck. It was fun too,’ she added wistfully. ‘No woman ever looked at me as a bride for her son, despite my father’s wealth. Who would marry a girl dedicated to the Mother’s Shrine? But they all looked at me when I danced on horseback.

  ‘My mother grew with child again when I was six summers old. It was a girl. And then another girl…

  ‘I have lived my whole life, knowing that I was destined for the shrine, even if I never knew when I was to go. Other girls might marry, have a family, a barley field. But no boy looked at me. The whole village knew that one day I would be gone.’

  Like us, thought Nikko. No mother ever looked at me or Thetis to marry her children either. But he said nothing as Euridice kept on speaking.

  ‘At last my mother’s hair grew streaks of grey. When her moon flow stopped she thought her childbearing days were gone. She cried. She said that we’d been cursed, a family of only girls. I thought I was released from the promise.’

  She looked up at Nikko, meeting his eyes, as no modest girl would ever do. Thetis was the only other girl Nikko knew who refused to look at the ground before a man.

  ‘I had a few months only to wonder what I might do, what sort of life I might have of my own. It wasn’t enough. I had known myself dedicated so long my mind felt like it was mired in mud, unable to look out of its puddle.

  ‘Other girls grew up knowing their fate was to be somebody’s wife. Wife of Diomedes, wife of Alexias. Other girls played house, marking out their pretend huts with stones, sweeping them with toy brooms. But never me. Did I want my life confined within the walls of a man’s house, looking after his children, grinding the barley for his bread?’

  Nikko kept his voice soft. ‘Well?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Euridice looked upward, as though seeing things far away. ‘And then my mother felt a quickening, and realised a child was growing. We waited. My father even trekked south to the shrine again, taking a baby goat to sacrifice.

  ‘He was back just two days before his son was born.’ Euridice pushed her hair back from her face. It was as long as Thetis’s hair, but thicker, wirier, bouncing in rough curls when not brushed back.

  ‘It was their promise, not yours!’ said Nikko fiercely.

  ‘A promise to the Mother is still a promise. My father took me down south to the shrine himself, to dedicate me.’ She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t let me take my bows and arrows, nor my knife. I was to be a priestess, he said, not a warrior. So when the bandits attacked us—’ Euridice paused, then lifted her chin. ‘I saw th
em first. I called a warning. If I’d had my bow I could have cut down two, or even three while we galloped off to freedom. My father slumped across his horse before he could even aim his spear. When I drew closer I saw the spear right through his chest. That was how they caught me. They would never have been able to outride me if I hadn’t stayed with him.’

  Tears ran unchecked down her face.

  ‘Did you hate him?’ asked Nikko quietly, remembering his own father.

  ‘Of course. But every day I grieve for him. Every night I still see his death.’ She looked up at him, her eyes red. She rubbed her wrist roughly to wipe her nose.

  ‘Nikko—they killed my horse. My beautiful horse. Her name was Cloud, because she was grey, and ran like a cloud in the wind. She reared up so they couldn’t grab me, so they slashed her throat with a sword. She died trying to save me, Nikko. She was my friend, my only friend. I can’t forget that, either.’

  ‘Euridice…’ He tried to find the words. He wished he could put his arms around her, but until she asked him to, he’d as soon have tried to hug the High King’s lion. ‘You’re here now. Safe. That’s all that matters. The rest is in the past. You can forget about your father’s vow. Think of what life can be like here, instead.’

  ‘No!’ Euridice’s voice was almost a cry. ‘You don’t understand, Nikko,’ she added more quietly, as they heard the guards mutter outside the door.

  ‘Then make me see!’ He tried to keep his voice a whisper, to remind her to keep her voice down too.

  ‘I want to go! That is the truth of it. All my life I have been waiting for my real life—my life as a priestess of the Mother. Even here—it isn’t real. It’s only until I can get away. And when I reach the shrine,’ said Euridice softly, ‘then finally I will be myself, my own person. I will know who I am, forever.’