Oracle

by Jackie French

  Nikko sat on the bed, his eyes on his hands. His useless hands, that could neither comfort her nor protect her. There was nothing to say, he thought. No words to make it better. No matter what his life had been at least he had always known who he was, and Thetis had known herself too.

  Nor had he anything to offer her. He accepted that now. The Moon was a maiden, who had never known a man. Even if Euridice wanted him, anything between them was forbidden. If he touched her even once as a lover, she could never be a moon maid. All she had ever wanted would be lost.

  I didn’t realise till now, he thought, how much I hoped Euridice might stay, might change her vows to fit the life of Mycenae. He felt like someone had ripped away his shadow, leaving him bare of what he hadn’t ever known he wanted until now.

  He felt her looking at him. Did she feel anything for him? If so, he knew she’d never say it. Euridice was the Mother’s. Never his.

  ‘Wait till summer,’ he said at last. He could at least offer her this. ‘I’ll help in any way I can.’ And if I’m sure Thetis won’t be harmed by it, he added to himself.

  He stood up. It was too hard to be so near her, to see her chained like this. ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘you may find the Mother helps you too. Perhaps she will send you a sign—’

  He hadn’t meant it. But she looked up at him with a sudden flash of hope as he trod back across the tiles to the door. ‘You are right. A sign will come. I have waited all my life. I can wait now. Thank you, Nikko,’ she added quietly.

  Nikko nodded. ‘Sleep well,’ he said softly. ‘May your dreams be quiet.’

  He slid out the terrace door, the arrowhead still in his hands. His heart felt like it had been sliced by swords.

  CHAPTER 30

  For days the chariots had been arriving, carrying petty kings and lords, their favourite grooms and girls, their guards in burnished kilts, wearing bright, sharp swords. The chariots were housed in the sheds by the horse pens, for the streets of Mycenae were too narrow for them, and the swords were left at the guardhouse at the Ram Gate, for no guest would bring a sword into the presence of the High King. It was even an insult to infer that they might be needed, to suggest that the High King, his army, and the fortress walls of Mycenae might not have strength enough to face down any enemy.

  The palace and the walls and terraces of Mycenae were crowded with guests. Servants had trudged to and fro through the Lion Gate for weeks, with firewood on their backs, or sacks of charcoal to cook the feasts and keep the guest rooms warm. The Chamberlain had teams of horses waiting to fetch fresh fish, octopus and lobsters from the coast each day.

  Many of the palace residents had been shifted into quarters outside the gates so guests could be housed with honour, with their servants nearby. But to Nikko’s relief his little family was left where it was. Perhaps the High King wanted his Butterfly close by…or perhaps the rumours of a strange act with a wild horse girl had intrigued him.

  There was no hiding the building of a giant horse outside the gates. Most of it was made of leather, not of wood—a few weeks weren’t time enough to carve a horse of solid wood. But when Nikko saw it in Sostosis’s workshop he gasped.

  It was the size of an enormous stallion, its legs rising into the air. Sostosis had stretched the leather over a wooden framework, bound as tight as skin, then polished it with oil and wax till it shone like the coat of a great horse. Even the nostrils seemed to breathe.

  The horse was hollow: a couple of servants could fit inside it and manoeuvre it into the feasting room, as though the horse moved by itself.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ he said to Euridice later. ‘Beautiful. You’d expect it to gallop out of the workshop.’

  ‘Except it won’t,’ said Euridice flatly. It was practice time, so she was unchained. She stepped over to the terrace and gazed out over the great Mycenaean plain, then up to the mountains. The guards at the ends of the terrace stood up, their javelins crossed against the opening, in case she made a dart for freedom.

  Nikko crossed the terrace to join her. ‘Are you homesick?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘No. Sick for freedom. Sick of being told what to do by men. Back home women have more freedom than here—’

  ‘Even if they are promised away by their fathers…’ Nikko stopped, ashamed.

  Euridice turned. ‘Even then.’ Her expression cleared. ‘When will I be able to practise on the horse?’

  ‘The Chamberlain has refused permission for you to go to the workshop.’

  Euridice grinned, showing her white teeth. ‘He has some sense.’

  ‘So they’ll bring it here, to our rooms, late at night and covered with a cloth.’

  ‘A horse,’ said Euridice softly. ‘The feel of being one with another creature…You know, Nikko, I think that is what I miss most of all.’

  CHAPTER 31

  Smoke hung over Mycenae, fragrant with the scents of cooking: great roasts of mutton, deer and bear had already been carried around the feasting room for the guests to cut the portions they wanted with their knives. Skewers of quail, pigeon and forest mushrooms had been carried around too, with breads taken from under the stones as soon as they were cooked and placed in great rush baskets under linen covered with woollen cloth then hurried to the feasting hall, still steaming as the cloth was lifted.

  The massive hall was lit by torchlight, even though it was still afternoon. The tiles were freshly rubbed with beeswax, the paint fresh too on the ramparts and the huge pillars that supported the ceiling. Outside, the terrace was garlanded with flowers and greenery and urns of scented water.

  Nikko peered around the door to the hall, wrapped in his cloak, with Orkestres, Dora and Thetis behind him. Thetis wore a woollen shift over her thin costume, while Dora carried her folded wings. The High King wore a gold sword today, with purple gems—gold and purple for royalty, as gold was too soft to make a weapon. Next to him a boy of about fourteen tried to keep his pride and excitement from his face. He, too, carried a weapon—a ceremonial dagger, strapped across his chest. This must be the High King’s favourite son, Agamemnon, thought Nikko. This would be his first official appearance since the High King had Xurtis name him heir, a cub for the Lion Throne. Two other men sat at the table. Nikko recognised them from their robes: the High King of Thebes and Menestheus, King of Athens.

  A pair of flute girls were playing for the guests now, wearing short thin tunics and autumn leaves in their hair, weaving a dance between the tables as they played, their skirts fluttering. As he looked a visiting king sitting to the right of the High King laughed, and made some remark.

  The High King smiled. As the song ended he beckoned the two girls over.

  Nikko couldn’t hear the words, but he knew what they were. The two girls were being given to the visiting king. Nikko hoped he was a kind man, who would use the girls well, and give them maid’s work around the palace as they grew older instead of selling them on. But they were his now, to do with as he liked.

  Every king at this feast would be presented with a guest gift, grand enough so they’d forget the years of tribute. A horse, a brooch of sky iron, a chariot, a golden belt, a pair of flute girls…

  The crowd was noisy again now; the men were laughing, drinking, their fingers and lips greasy from the meal. Xurtis would not be visiting her brother here today, thought Nikko. A feast like this was no place for any woman gently born. The young Agamemnon lifted his chalice, his eyes bright with wine and music.

  Nikko’s heart began to thud. It was time for Euridice’s performance now. Two guards led the way down the corridor, followed by something large covered with a plain woollen cloth, with more guards following behind, holding the chained Euridice between them.

  Nikko waved to the harpist, then stepped back with the others to let Euridice go by. He wished he could speak to her, wish her luck again. But she would be concentrating on her act. He knew as well as anyone how distracting even kind words could be when you were trying to focus on what was to come.

 
Dora and Orkestres lifted the cloth from the horse. Euridice nodded her thanks without meeting their eyes. The guards unwrapped the chains from her arms. She absently rubbed the bruises, her eyes focussed ahead.

  The harper began to play. Nikko had chosen the tune, one the blind harper had taught him years before. The ‘horse song’ he had called it, and when he had first listened to it, even in his palace room, Nikko had thought he’d heard a mob of horses gallop across the grasslands as the harper played.

  Two more musicians began to pound their tambours. The sounds were like a horse’s hoofs.

  The crowd quietened, unsure. This wasn’t the usual music of a feast.

  And then the horse reared through the door, leaping its way into the middle of the room.

  At least, thought Nikko, that was what it looked like to the audience. In reality the horse was moving only because the three slaves inside pushed it the number of steps they’d been rehearsed. But with the flickering torchlight—and the surprise—it must have looked as though the leather horse really pranced on its hind legs before the High King’s throne.

  The tambours were silenced. The harpist’s melody grew more strident. And Euridice ran into the room.

  The music stopped.

  Her hair was bound in one long plait. Her thin blouse and trousers were made of the fine leather from an unborn lamb, burnished till it was the same colour as the horse. Dora had polished Euridice’s skin too with a coloured oil. A dagger and short spear hung from her belt. Both were made of coloured straw, but from a distance they looked real. She looked wild, unstoppable—and when she leaped onto the horse’s back it was as though they were one, girl and horse, indistinguishable from each other.

  The great room was so silent you could hear the palace doves above, cooing, and the distant howl of a dog.

  Euridice rose, standing on the sloping back of the horse now, then tumbling over, onto her hands, somersaulting back and forth, on the horse’s wooden saddle.

  All at once the music began again. Once more the hoof beats thundered across the room. Euridice sat on the wooden saddle now, her body moving as though the giant horse truly galloped through the flickering torchlight. She raised her spear, as though to cast it at some creature, fleeing in front of her.

  The room was silent, apart from the music and the girl. Even Nikko, who had seen this rehearsed a hundred times, felt he could see both the hunted and the huntress.

  Euridice rose up as though to cast her spear. Her arm moved.

  But instead of throwing the spear she threw herself, down in front of the horse, running in one spot as though she was the hunter’s prey—a deer, by the shapes she made—struck by the spear, tumbling and crying soundlessly as it pierced her breast, then falling onto the floor.

  The music changed. It was a lament now, the sad sweet music seeping across the silent feasters. Euridice lay huddled on the tiles, as still as death. Then she rose.

  The music stopped, and she flung herself into a series of back somersaults, landing after the last tumble face down before the King, her head touching the floor.

  It was as though the hall began to breathe again. The crowd cheered, rising in their seats. Even the High King rose, and touched Euridice’s head to tell her to rise, while his son beat the table with his fists to show approval.

  Beside Nikko, Orkestres sighed. ‘She is a performer,’ he said simply. ‘You were right about her, son. It’s not the tricks. It’s the illusion, the power to make the audience want to believe.’

  Nikko nodded, too moved to speak. They weren’t great acrobatics, he thought. The somersaults, the back flips—they were all standard tumblers’ trade. But the combined beauty of girl and horse, the poise and pride of the young huntress and the terror of the hunted—that made the performance greater than any the visiting kings had seen.

  Until we dance for them, Thetis and I, he thought. Suddenly he felt Thetis’s small hand in his. She looked up at him and and grinned. He grinned back exultantly, already feeling the power of their dance take over.

  How could Euridice not feel the joy in this?

  Now it was their turn. And even the High King had never seen anything like the dance Thetis had planned for this feast. For the first time Thetis had sketched out her choreography to Orkestres, almost as though practising with Euridice had made her question her own work, and try to make it greater.

  And this will be great, thought Nikko, elated, a performance that all here this afternoon would talk about forever.

  Euridice rode the horse again now, sitting in the saddle as the slaves pushed it out. Nikko looked up as she passed, expecting to share her smile of triumph. But instead she looked straight ahead, her face like a rock, the tears trickling down her oiled cheeks.

  And suddenly he realised why she’d never share his joy. A wooden horse was nothing like a real one, except to those drunk on feasting and power as well as wine.

  Now she would be taken back to her chamber, with the soft furs on the bed and murals on the walls, and chains for her ankles.

  The feast moved out onto the terrace. The sun was setting behind the mountains: the sky red as blood and pink as wild anemones. Servants brought olives, pomegranates, figs, grapes, almonds and pistachios, honey cake, spices and cheeses, carrying them on platters as the guests lounged on cushions instead of the benches of the tables in the Great Hall.

  The High King and his throne were carried out and placed underneath the overhang, held up by grand red columns. He too seemed to glow in the sunset. His son sat on a gold stool beside him.

  It was time for their own performance. Nikko felt his heart begin to race. He breathed shallowly to calm it and steady his hands. You needed excitement to power your act; you needed stability to control it too.

  The harpist began to play. Nikko checked his leather wristbands—they helped strengthen his hands—and that his plaits were firmly tied.

  Beside him Thetis wore a new robe, gold in front, almost like a priestess’s apron, with streaks of green and gold and red about her wings and her thin trousers. Her hair was loose, as she mostly wore it these days, but held back from her face with a gold circlet so it didn’t blind her during the dance. Dora had gilded around her eyes as well as the tips of her fingers and her toes.

  She looked serious, almost unearthly, until she smiled at him again, and was his sister once more.

  The music grew more insistent. Nikko took a breath, then threw himself into somersaults, one after another, until he stood in front of the King. He put his fist to his forehead in reverence, then lifted his arms. Thetis danced into the room and leaped onto his shoulders.

  This was how they always started.

  Thetis waved her wings back and forth so they seemed to dance above the High King’s head. And then she jumped again, somersaulting in backflips over and over in one great blur of movement, landing at the top of the steps from the terrace down to the courtyard.

  Thetis lifted her wings and dived, in a flying swoop down the giant staircase toward the ground.

  There were some, years later, who still swore they saw the Butterfly really fly that afternoon, right down the staircase till she stood, suddenly still and straight, on the ground, her arms and wings outstretched, her silk fluttering in the breeze, the only thing that moved in the spell-bound crowd. Only Nikko, Orkestres and Dora knew how carefully it had been planned and timed. Something extraordinary was needed for this feast.

  Orkestres and Dora and two old performers they trusted, both retired now but still strong, stood at the edges of the staircase and, as Thetis ‘flew’, they caught her, each hidden in her long silk wings, and flung her along to the next catcher.

  The crowd screamed, scrambling over the parapet and staring down the steps. Only the High King on his dais could see over their heads. It might not have been the best view of the day, but it was the most important. The High King had more need to see his guests amazed, bewildered and cheering the wonders of Mycenae, than he had to see his Butterfly perform tonigh
t.

  Down on the ground, Thetis bowed. Then she began to dance again, a twirling dance, slowly making her way back up the staircase, while her catchers stood immobile and unnoticed.

  The visitors moved back onto their cushions as she danced her way through the crowd. Nikko kneeled as she jumped up onto his back. He knew by now that she would be tired, and might miscalculate any strenuous manoeuvres. He stood, lifting her too, as she balanced on his shoulders with her wings stretched out.

  This should have been the final moment in the dance. Nikko waited for her to leap down and prostrate herself before the throne, so he could follow.

  Instead she froze. Her wings dropped to her sides.

  Nikko stood rigid. What was happening? This wasn’t part of the dance. She seemed to be listening. Suddenly she turned around, and jumped off his shoulders and then up on to the parapet walls, and gazed out across the city and the Mycenaean plain.

  She had turned her back on the High King.

  The crowd began to mutter.

  Nikko’s heart froze. What was she doing? She wasn’t going to jump from the walls, was she? Surely Thetis couldn’t think she really was a butterfly, able to swoop to the ground again, this time without her catchers?

  And then she turned, no longer a dancer, the palace’s Butterfly, but a young girl, running toward the High King. She grabbed his hands, and pulled him from the throne.

  He moved with her, too startled to protest. How long has it been since anyone laid hands on the High King without permission? thought Nikko dazedly.

  Further out onto the terrace, away from his throne, out from under the overhang, into the mob of guests. They parted, too stunned to speak, as Thetis tugged the King, like a child pulling a toy chariot. The startled guards began to move now, toward their master—the King’s son opened his mouth to yell an order. And the earth groaned.

  It sounds like a woman in labour, thought Nikko, as though some giant was trying to wrest its way out of the earth’s belly. The palace began to shake. Plaster and tiles crashed from the ceiling. The red pillar toppled, crushing the High King’s throne. Without thinking Nikko stepped back, his arms up before his face to shield himself from the debris, then tried to shoulder his way through the yelling crowd over to his sister and the King. Vaguely he could hear a woman scream from the staircase. Was it Dora? Distant shrieks punctured the air.