One by one the diminished roasts were carried back down, the fats congealed, the leftovers to be pulled off eagerly by the male servants, and the final scraps left for the female servants to eat.
Now the servers carried in ewers of perfumed water for the guests to wash their greasy hands and faces, and new garlands of gilded autumn leaves to match the true gold garlands of the High King and his son, wrought so perfectly they looked as though a magic wand had turned the leaves to metal. The winter wine was brought in—last year’s wine left for the cold to freeze out the water, leaving the rest strong enough to lift a lid from its pot, or turn men’s heads to laughter, loyalty or battle.
It was the first time Nikko had seen the strong winter wine served at any of the High King’s feasts. Usually small cups were shared with the High King’s closest comrades, and only on the coldest winter nights, when Mother Earth slept, leaving her subjects to cope with chill and darkness as best they could.
Minds and eyes will be fuddled soon, thought Nikko, ready for the Chamberlain’s illusion.
He slipped back to the corridor and down the stairs as the crowd moved out onto the terrace, the High King’s throne raised in its usual place beneath the quickly repaired blood-red pillar.
The horsemaster was waiting with Dapples in the street below the palace. He handed Nikko the reins, and winked. ‘Good luck.’
Nikko nodded. He led the big horse over to the entrance to the courtyard, which had been swept clean of leaves while the feasters ate; even the fountain and pool drifted up wafts of a mix of rose and myrtle perfume. The guards stood half hidden among the daphne bushes, javelins in hands, swords at their sides, leather helmets and leather shields on; they were almost like strange shrubs among the garden plants.
Up above the laurel trees, behind the sun-warmed parapet, the harper began to play; a different melody from any the feasters had heard; neither Euridice’s nor Thetis’s, but a hint of both. Nikko had worked long hours to get it right.
He could hear the crowd mutter on the terrace above. The excitement grew as thick as wine mixed with eggs and barley meal. Almost as one they appeared at the parapet and peered down.
Nikko let the horsemaster help him into the saddle. It was cumbersome, but he knew it would give him the extra stability he’d need. He nudged Dapples with his knees. The reins felt strangely heavy with their weight of gems. The big horse began to pace, slow and steady, into the courtyard, her head high as Nikko held the reins close, her hoofs clipping on the tiles.
Nikko kept Dapples to a walk and they circled the courtyard once, then round again, till up above Nikko could feel the bewilderment, hear the mutters.
What was the young man doing? No horses came through the Lion Gate of Mycenae. Why bother watching a horse walk around a courtyard, no matter how gorgeously it was arrayed?
Suddenly Nikko kneed her sharply. Dapples broke into a canter, and as she did Euridice ran out from the shadowed doorway, the butterfly wings streaming behind her in the late afternoon light. She leaped up above Dapples’s tail till she crouched behind Nikko, holding his waist to steady herself.
Vaguely Nikko was concious of gasps above him. He held his hands up high. Euridice grasped them, then leaped once more till she stood up on his shoulders. She held her arms out wide and high. The butterfly wings flew out behind them as Dapples cantered around the scented fountain. Under the wide trousers of her costume Nikko gasped Euridice’s ankles, keeping her steady.
‘Men of the kingdom, listen!’ It wasn’t Thetis’s voice. But who would remember a voice they had heard only once? thought Nikko. ‘I tell you: the House of the Lion will stand until—’
Suddenly Dapples stumbled, her head tossed back, her nostrils wide. Euridice’s voice choked for second. She swayed, trying to to keep her balance. Nikko edged his hands high up her legs to steady her.
He could feel the horse’s muscles tense under his calves; her flanks were growing slippery with sweat. What was wrong? An act like this was a lot to ask of even a horse like Dapples. But she seemed more frightened than uncertain. The hairs rose on his neck. Was the next quake coming so soon?
Above him Euridice took a deep breath, her wings still flapping behind them. ‘The House of the Lion will stand as long as men remember!’
It was enough, thought Nikko, as Euridice raised her arms again, the wing-like robes streaming gold and red behind her. Any more and the soberest might see beyond the costume to the girl.
They had planned for Euridice to somersault from his shoulders, then stand on her hands. But there was no sign that Euridice was going to try that now. She too had felt the change in the big horse.
Two more circuits of the courtyard, almost at a gallop, and they could go. Sweat was foaming visibly on Dapples’s neck, but at least she was following their orders. Nikko felt himself relax.
He caught a glimpse of the High King’s face, high above them, shining with mutton grease and pleasure. It was time to call in the flute girls. Tomorrow there would be gifts for both of them. A gold horse pendant for Euridice perhaps; a brooch and lynx-pelt cloak for him.
Once more around the courtyard now…
Dapples reared, screaming, her eyes as white as her teeth. Euridice staggered, dropping so she sat astride Nikko’s shoulders, then slid down further to sit behind him, grasping his waist. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ she hissed into his ear.
‘I don’t know.’ Nikko tugged at the reins, trying to steady the great animal. Her hoofs skittered sideways on the tiles. Then suddenly he knew. The earth shuddered. A shower of rocks fell from the parapet, almost slowly, as though they had wings letting them gently down. Rock doves cartwheeled screaming up into the sky.
Then silence. The ground rested. Dapples stood twitching and pawing the ground. Up on the parapet a man laughed. ‘So that was all the little prophetess was—’
The ground shrieked. The Earth Mother, as though she was rending her clothes, sent the buildings above her tumbling.
A wave passed over them, under them and through them…the city walls first, shaking and tumbling inward, the far buildings crumpling like they were made of bark, and then the palace, trembling as the earth still groaned below it, the ceiling crashing down.
Then all he could see was dust. Under him Dapples reared again, crying out in terror, so it was hard to tell whether the earth still moved or if it was just the horse. His knees grasped the mare’s flanks to stop her bolting with them into the chaos. Behind him her could feel Euridice using her knees and hands to try to calm the horse as well.
The earth still lurched. It was impossible to see what was happening or to decide where safety lay.
Screams came from broken buildings. Children cried for help, distant dogs howled, doves flapped above along with a cloud of bats disturbed from their dark places. Nikko glanced up at the King’s terrace, but all he could see was dust, and flashes of frightened faces, still red from drink and laughter.
Then all at once the ground stilled. For a few moments walls fell and stones toppled, then they too grew silent. But he could only see the dust, clinging to them, choking them, blinding them.
The world had changed. Yet even now the strongest scents were of roasting mutton and of burning pitch from the torches. If he shut his eyes he could see colours flying in front of him, like the skirts and jewels of the dancing girls.
Slowly Dapples grew calmer, though she still trembled; the dust was settling too. Nikko peered up at the palace terrace. It was tipped forward, loosed from its hold on the palace. It looked like a ship wrecked on rocks: torches leaned like drunken men; flagstones were ripped and jagged and littered with trampled flowers, harps and bloodstained cloaks; and over it all hung the stink of urine.
Somewhere further down the palace a fire burned where a torch must have fallen onto wood.
The earth was still. Those alive were almost motionless as well; in shock and waiting for another breath, expecting to close their eyes and find it was all as it had been, the High King on
his throne…
Fresh yells gathered force up on what had been the terrace. Someone stumbled over to the tilted shred of parapet and looked down. It was the Chamberlain. His tunic was torn, one half of it dark red. Was it his blood, or someone else’s? The man seemed to be gesturing, thought Nikko vaguely, as though to tell him to keep riding. But why would the Chamberlain want him to ride now?
Those other few still able to move on the buckled remnants of the terrace had huddled around something, but now all stumbled backward in horror. Their movement sent a statue’s head tumbling down the hill of wreckage into the courtyard below. A statue of the High King, thought Nikko. But why would any sculptor give the King such a look of terror, red paint like blood around his throat?
It was blood, not paint. The head stopped rolling almost at Dapples’s hoofs. The sightless eyes of Atreus, High King of Mycenae, Lord of the Lion House, Master of the World, stared upward.
‘Come on!’
Before he knew what was happening Euridice had slapped Dapples on the rump. The horse took off at a gallop, already terrified, through the courtyard and down the road toward the city gate and her stable.
‘What—’
‘You fool! Soft city boy!’ Her eyes were glowing, despite the devastaion around them. ‘This is our chance! The King is dead! No one will look for us, or even know we’ve gone. And if they do remember us, it will be because of Thetis’s prophecy. Who’ll get the blame, do you think?’
A wall had fallen over the road. Dapples leaped over the rubble, her hoofs landing neatly. They were nearly at the Lion Gate. The wooden doors hung open crookedly, as thought they too had drunk at the High King’s feast.
‘Duck!’ Her scream was louder than the yells of confusion and terror all around them. The low gate could knock them off the horse, Nikko realised. He bent low just as a guard staggered toward them, his sword raised. Behind him he felt Euridice swivel to kick the man in the face. And then they were through the gate, and onto the road beyond.
Suddenly everything seemed almost normal. For some reason the wooden sheds out here had suffered less than the stone buildings of the city. But people still staggered, bewildered. One man cried out to them: ‘What’s happened? The King? Is he safe?’
Nikko ignored him. He dug in his knees and tugged on the reins as Dapples turned instinctively toward her stable.
‘Which way?’ he gasped.
‘To the sea! If anyone misses us they’ll think we’ve headed to the mountains, where it’s easier to hide, or north, to my home. We can head north later, circle around…Slow her down!’ she added sharply. Even her yell was hard to hear over the sounds of Dapples’s hoofs on the hard ground and the screams behind them.
‘Why?’
‘You fool!’ she cried again. ‘Because we look like we’re escaping! And besides, she can’t run like this for long, not carrying both of us.’
Nikko pulled the horse back. Dapples slowed to a canter. She seemed reassured by the instructions, now the chaos of the city was behind them. Nikko patted her neck. Her trembling had stopped.
The road was empty. Of course, thought Nikko, any travellers would have gone to help those who might be trapped.
Guilt grabbed hold of him. Perhaps they should have stayed. And then he remembered Thetis…and what happened to people who could be held accountable for disaster.
They were well beyond the outbuildings now, into the farmland outside Mycenae. The sun was sinking into the horizon when Euridice reached past him and tapped Dapples’s neck. The big horse immediately swerved off the road, slowing down even further as she trod between the olive trees.
‘What are we doing?’
Euridice shook her hair out of its tangles. Nikko had never seen her like this. It was as though the shell of the captive girl had been left behind at Mycenae. ‘We need to let her rest, and get rid of these too.’ She gestured to the jewels on the reins and saddle.
‘I don’t have a knife.’ Nikko felt stupid as soon as he said the words. Of course he had no knife. There was no need for a knife in their performance.
She shot an impatient glance at him. ‘No. So we wait here until it’s dark. Dapples can follow the road by moonlight.’ She slid off the horse’s back, and stepped round to stroke the big dark nose. ‘Dapples is a stupid name. A soft city name. You’re Pegasus, aren’t you, darling? The horse of the wind.’
The big horse gave a whinny, and butted at Euridice’s hand. It’s almost, thought Nikko, as though she agrees.
He glanced at the trees around them, their leaves turning from silver to grey as the sun dropped below the sky. About half the fruit had been harvested. The rest gleamed blackly on the trees. But you couldn’t eat raw olives.
His stomach growled. If only they’d stopped among grape vines…but the vines would be too low to hide them.
‘How will darkness help us get a knife?’
She didn’t even bother looking at him. ‘We’ll steal it. And anything else we need.’
‘But—’
She touched one of the turquoises on the reins. ‘And leave one of these for payment. Trust me, city boy, any peasant will think the Mother has blessed them with riches like one of these.’
‘I’m no more a city boy than you are,’ said Nikko, finally stung by her contemptuous tone. ‘I was ten when they brought me to Mycenae.’
‘Six years and you never thought to escape?’
‘Why should we? Mycenae was our life.’
But their life in Mycenae had vanished, he realised. Even when they rebuilt it, even when he found Thetis, there was no way he could return. From the moment he had galloped through the gates of Mycenae he was an escapee, a thief who had stolen the new King’s property: himself, the horse, Euridice.
So what was left? A life as a tumbler, going from village to village to earn a crust of bread and a handful of olives? Or perhaps a lord would hire him as a guard…but not with Thetis to look after…
‘Well, you’ll have a good life now. With these,’ she added patiently, as he stared at her. ‘We have enough jewels here for you to claim as much land as you want, as long as it’s beyond the next High King’s reach. Find a good valley in the north. Hire men to build your house, with thick walls to keep out bandits. You have more gold at your throat than most kings keep in their treasury.’
He hadn’t thought—had never even realised the jewels’ and necklaces’ real worth. She’s right, he thought. Or almost right. Part of me is a city boy, soft with city living, where everything we want appears, because we pleased the King. There has been no real value to anything, these last years, except the smile of the King.
‘They’re your jewels too. Half the gold as well.’
She shrugged. ‘The Mother has jewels enough, deep within her. She has no need of these. We’ll go to the shrine together, all right? Then you can go on by yourself, find your sister. If you’ve any sense you’ll head even further north after that, where no one will ever associate you with Mycenae.’
‘We stay together now?’
She sighed again. ‘We have only one horse. You can take Pegasus after you leave me at the shrine. And it’s safer travelling together.’
‘Not safe at all, for a girl on her own.’
Euridice flushed suddenly. ‘I’ll find men’s clothes. They’ll take me for a boy, if I don’t speak. But yes.’ Her voice was almost a whisper. For the first time since they’d left Mycenae she dropped her eyes. ‘I would…rather…travel with you.’
Nikko felt something sweet seep through him. It was as though the grubby air he had breathed for so long was suddenly clean again. ‘I’m glad,’ he said simply.
He helped her take the saddle off. They sat side by side, as the shadows thickened into darkness, watching Dapples—no: Pegasus—graze between the trees.
CHAPTER 36
The moon was a pale goat’s cheese, flirting with the clouds, as Pegasus clopped slowly down the road, its dust yellow in the moonlight.
We must be nearl
y at the sea, thought Nikko. He could smell salt and the unmistakeable scent of rotting logs and seagulls, boats and smoke-dried fish. But despite the moonlight he could see only darkness ahead.
They had passed two villages, both with the gates of their wooden stockades closed against intruders. If Euridice hoped the village stockades might have fallen in the earthquake, he thought, she’s out of luck.
He had an itchy feeling she was going to propose he perform for some village tomorrow, turning cartwheels and doing backflips while she crept into someone’s house to steal the things they needed.
He had an even itchier feeling he was going to agree. Euridice was right—she knew more than he did about how to survive without servants and palace cooks.
She rode in front of him now, handling the reins. They had abandoned the saddle—it was just another weight for Pegasus to carry—leaving only the saddle cloth and blanket, bridle and reins. Luckily the gems on the saddle had been threaded on in haste, and had been easily pulled off. The reins still glittered with moonlit garnets.
‘Can you hear something?’ Euridice pulled the horse to a halt. Pegasus stopped, shaking her head then twitching her ears, as though she too listened.
‘No, I—’ Nikko stopped. He could hear something, or rather feel it: a rumble far away…
Another earthquake? At least they were in the open now.
The rumble became a roar, like all the flocks of swallows in the world rushing toward them.
‘Turn!’ Nikko reached around Euridice and tugged the reins before she could stop him. He kneed Pegasus’s flanks.
The big horse hadn’t needed his order. She was flying, almost like her namesake, her breath tearing as she galloped back the way they’d come.
‘Why?’
Euridice’s voice was a scream above the growling roar behind them. She didn’t try to stop us, thought Nikko in relief. She too was crouched low, to give Pegasus all the speed she could.
‘A thunder wave,’ he yelled, above the noise of horse and water. ‘They come after earthquakes sometimes. I may be a city boy,’ he added, ‘but I’ve heard harper’s tales in palaces.’
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