Halo

by Zizou Corder

  She felt stupid, and hungry, and her head ached. She raised her head – and as she did, she became aware of something behind her.

  She froze.

  Humans?

  No.

  But…

  Aware of her red face and puffy eyes, embarrassed, she turned her head slowly. What she saw, inches from her and looking at her with kindly intelligence, filled her with the greatest amazement of her young life.

  It was a face. A long, hairy, brown face with a white streak down its nose, big velvety lips and nostrils, huge brown eyes with eyelashes that stuck straight out sideways. Its nostrils were opening and closing, making snuffling noises. Its breath was warm and smelt of hay. It was attached to a great strong body with four legs and a full mane and a long swinging tail.

  It nudged her, gently, with its soft nose.

  She jumped to her feet, at which it took a step back in alarm.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ she said softly. She wasn’t scared either. She knew what this wonderful strange beast was. She had never seen one, but she knew. A horse! What a miracle. It was like magic to her.

  Smiling broadly, she looked the animal up and down and from side to side. It was just like a real Centaur! Only instead of the normal Centaur human torso, it had this beautiful, noble horse head, this strong fine neck with its elegant mane, and these funny velvety nibbling lips.

  ‘Do you talk?’ she asked eagerly. She thought it probably wouldn’t – as goats and birds and octopuses don’t talk – but you never know. Instinctively, she held her hand out flat to it.

  The horse didn’t talk. It whickered softly though, and it had a look in its eye, in the moment before it rubbed its forehead against her chest, that made her think it might understand.

  Just being understood was welcome. She rubbed the horse’s forehead, patted its silky neck, laid her cheek against it. What a beautiful warm thing it was. It smelt clean and lovely and – yes – a little like a Centaur. They stood there together in the evening sun and, for a while, Halo was happy again.

  Then the horse stirred, and shook its head, and turned, starting to amble across the plain. It was heading south – not the direction Halo wanted to take, but then neither did she want to part with this big friendly creature so soon. Soon it would be night. She wanted to sleep where it slept, to feel the great slow rise and fall of a horse’s sleepy breathing, to feel safe. So she followed it.

  It didn’t mind. They just strolled along at an easy pace together, sniffing the evening.

  After a while, Halo realized where they were heading. There was a big fig tree up ahead, and under it – she could almost make them out – yes. More horses. It was a small herd: a few mares, a stallion, a couple of young colts and fillies. It’s a family, she thought, and her heart lifted.

  The horses greeted them with a snicker, a little rustle of affection for her companion, a mild curiosity about her but nothing more. She stroked their noses, then they went back to picking in a leisurely way at the windfall figs. Halo was dreaming of barley soup, of yoghurt and honey, of grilled fish and salty cheese, but figs would do nicely – so she shinned up the tree and, while she was up there, threw down an extra supply for the horses to snuffle up.

  She slept deeply that night, sandwiched between two big, warm, safe mares.

  In the morning, there was a man there. She saw him before he saw her because he was asleep – as she must have been when he had arrived the night before. He lay wrapped in his cloak, away from the horses, under the tree. He was short and bent, very brown, grubby. She had no idea how old he was. He had no shoes, and he was snoring. She peered at him.

  I should leave, she thought, and it made her sad, because she had very much liked the quiet warmth of the horses. But men – well. She didn’t know what to think about humans. True, they could feed you, and give you somewhere to sleep, and fresh water, and they could talk to you – but then they bossed you and wouldn’t let you go where you wanted, and you couldn’t tell them what you really wanted, and they didn’t listen…

  Were they all like that? She didn’t know.

  She didn’t believe her human parents could have been like that. She brushed away the thought of her human parents. Now was not the time.

  And Nimine had been kind, in a way. But no one listened to Nimine either. They only listened to Aristides, or the mistress. And they had gone on and on about her father, and then when she didn’t seem to have one, they had decided to sell her, as if she belonged to them. She had always assumed that she belonged to herself, and with the Centaurs. Maybe she was wrong.

  But who else could she belong to? Or with?

  Her human father.

  Her human mother.

  Halo turned grumpily away from the man. She didn’t understand humans.

  Her eye fell on the horses. They were cropping quietly. She didn’t really understand them either. Well – she understood them with her heart. But not with her mind. She knew that much as she liked them, and much as they had comforted her, she didn’t belong with the horses.

  The man started coughing.

  Halo stood there, helpless. Run? Where to? Stay? The horses couldn’t help her. And the man?

  Her heart sank.

  He rolled over, stretched himself, sat up and had a coughing fit. Then he saw her.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

  Here we go again, she thought. She gathered herself together and stared him in the eye. He looked more like a fisherman than an Aristides. But what did she know of humans?

  Silence had done her no good before.

  ‘I am Halosydne, from Zakynthos,’ she said. ‘I got lost. Perhaps you could help me. I need a boat to get back home. I can work to pay my passage.’

  He coughed again, and spat revoltingly, and patted the ground around him till he found his leather water flask.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘You causing trouble? You a runaway? We’ve had enough trouble already this year.’

  ‘I’m not a runaway,’ she said. ‘I got lost.’

  ‘You talk funny,’ he said. ‘You’d better come with me.’ He gave her a drink of water from his greasy flask, and a basket to put some figs in. Meanwhile he put a bridle on the lead stallion, and soon after they began to plod slowly eastwards across the plain, the man leading the horse so that the rest followed, single file, behind, and Halo going dispiritedly by his side. What else could she do?

  Towards noon they found themselves in a river valley. The horses went to the waterside and drank and stood, ankle deep, in the shallows. The man rinsed his head and Halo tried to cool herself off. They rested awhile in the shade and he handed her a piece of disgusting sweaty cheese. Then he said, ‘Come on,’ and started off, heading up the valley.

  ‘What about the horses?’ she said in alarm.

  ‘They stay here,’ he replied, and strode off.

  Halo ran swiftly to her horse, her friend. She put her hand on its cheek and looked in its beautiful liquid eyes.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered. She kissed its nose quickly, and shut her eyes for a second. Then she turned and ran after the man. He hadn’t hurt her. And horses don’t have boats. Men have boats.

  Xαπτερ 7

  Late in the afternoon, Halo was brought to a dirty little house, where the man handed her over to another man, short and skinny and not much less rough than himself. This man laughed out loud when she said she was lost.

  He asked all the same questions. Where are you from, where’s your family, oh, no family – so who do you belong to? She didn’t say, To myself. I belong to myself. She had seen enough of humans now to know that he would just laugh even more.

  ‘Well, you’re mine then,’ he said, and she clenched her teeth to stop herself from yelling at him.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and he threw a piece of bread at her. She had to jump to catch it before it fell on the grubby floor. That made him laugh even more. Then he said, ‘What’s that round your neck?’ and grabbed her arm, and snatched at her gold
owl.

  ‘Pilo!’ he cried. ‘Come and get this off her.’

  A woman appeared from the shadows. She looked scared and slow, but she cheered up at the sight of the owl, and took it off Halo with her onion-smelling hands, and put it round her own fat neck. Halo kicked her, but the man held her tightly by the elbows behind her back so there wasn’t much she could do.

  ‘Go and cook my dinner,’ he said to the woman, who scurried off again, and then the man sat down and tried to make Halo sit on his lap, so she kicked him too, as hard as she could, on the shin with her bare tough little heel.

  ‘You little snake,’ he said, turning her round but not letting go of her, so she kicked him again and shouted and tried to scratch his face, so he dragged her outside and chucked her into what seemed to be an empty stable, throwing her on a pile of hay and locking the door behind him with a deadening thump.

  Halo didn’t bother to carry on shouting. She lay on the prickly hay, out of breath, furious, in the dim light. Humans! If this was what humans were, by all the Gods she did not want to be one! There was a hot sweep in the blood of her veins, and she wanted to kick him again, she wanted to be strong enough to bully him back, and hurt him, the disgusting thief, the bully…

  She didn’t know how long she was there. There was a small empty window up high in the wall – too high – and the light from it moved slowly across. She slept a little, and fumed, and plotted.

  She thought a lot about where she was, and where she could go. She was going to run away, of course. But she didn’t even know where she was. She could head back west, towards the sea – back through all the wild country she had already crossed. Yes, and get lost again, and starve to death. Maybe there was a better way. She tried to picture in her mind the map of the world: Zakynthos, between Sicily and Greece; Delphi, the centre of the world; and Athens, the great city towards the east. She recalled the great wild mountainous Peloponnese, in the middle of which she was now lost. She recited the names of the mountains of the Peloponnese, visualizing the map – and she realized what had happened. She must be far further south than she had thought. She must have come to shore not in Elis or Messenia but on the Mani, and come up to the east of Mount Taegetus.

  Well, no wonder the people were so wild! Maniots were famously wild. Perhaps she could try to find a place where the people would be more reasonable. Maybe in a bigger city they wouldn’t take so much notice of her. She tried to remember the cities of the Peloponnese: Argos and Corinth to the north – and Sparta.

  Sparta was south. And east of Taegetus. And Nimine had said things were better for girls in Sparta. She would go there. People would be more helpful in a city. Less ignorant. She would find a reasonable person with a boat and she’d work her passage back to Zakynthos.

  It felt good to have a plan.

  Later, when the window had begun to show the dimness of evening, she heard the man and the woman laughing: a mean and scary echo of the Centaurs laughing in the night at home. She stared at the wall in the half-light, and then she gave a little snort as she had an idea. She stood up, took out the sharp stone from the beach which she still had in the fold of her chiton, and began to poke at the wall with it.

  As she had thought. The wall was made of wood and twigs and mud. She easily poked a couple of holes big enough for a foothold, and just as easily clambered up the wall to the window. She peered out into the evening. It was warm and quiet and the cicadas rattled in the trees. Off to the west the sky was glowing.

  Halo climbed back down and sat quietly on the pile of hay, thinking. After a while, long after the evening light had faded, the voices from the house died down and the moon moved round to shine in through the small high window. It was easy to boost herself up to it, and not very hard to jump lightly out of it. Easy, too, to pick her way across to the low house. Even easier to slip through the door to the little courtyard: it wasn’t even locked.

  The man was lying on a pallet in the main room, his head falling back and his knobbly throat visible. Beside him was the woman, curled up and snoring. Beside them was an empty jar – Halo sniffed at it. It smelt a bit like wine, but stronger. She wrinkled her nose, and put the jar down again. Thank you, Dionysus, for knocking them out.

  Moonlight fell in through the open door to the courtyard, lighting up the woman’s face. It was red, with broken little veins, and a bit of spittle had settled at the corner of her mouth. As Halo stared at her, she shifted and rolled over – and Halo saw that the woman had a black eye, bruised like an old plum.

  Halo shivered with a sort of horror. What kind of creature was this man? She glanced over at him: fast asleep, snoring like a pig. And suddenly, looking at him, she wanted to slice his grubby throat. She was shocked by the feeling, and had to take hold of herself. She breathed out sharply through her nose, and shook herself. The urge passed quickly, but left her shaken, and her blood running fast. She made herself carry on staring at the man. She knew she didn’t want to kill a man, no matter what kind of pig he was, no matter what he had done. Killing was for the Gods, not for her.

  She calmed her breath, and waited for her heart to calm down. At last she was able to say to herself, That was anger. That’s what it’s like. You know that. Her teeth were still gritted though.

  And after all, had he harmed her? No. Because there, lying on the woman’s wrinkly neck, was her own golden owl. With a little hard smile, Halo leaned over the woman. The knot was under her neck, caught up in her tumbled hair. Halo slowly, delicately, took the leather thong between thumb and forefinger and gently pulled on it.

  It shifted.

  She pulled a little more. It shifted a little more.

  The knot came into view. It hadn’t had time to tighten and settle, and Halo was able to undo it quickly. She whisked the thong in one movement out from under the woman’s neck, almost feeling the heat as it pulled across the woman’s skin: then she froze.

  The woman rolled over and made a little moan.

  Would she wake?

  Halo’s heart seemed to be beating loud enough to wake them both.

  But no – the strong booze had them both in its thrall, and they snored on.

  Halo gave a little smile of triumph in the semi-darkness.

  She glanced again at the woman. She thought of Nimine, who worked all day for these people. Of the mistress, rich and beautiful – but who never left the house. Of Hypsipile, the important man’s daughter, who couldn’t even read. Of all the women she hadn’t seen in Zakynthos. Of this poor drunken beaten thing. Of the men she had met who had told her she didn’t belong to herself. No one has any respect for women, let alone girls, she thought. And it occurred to her, there in the moonlight, tying her owl-thong back round her neck, that being a female human might not be all that great.

  And at that exact moment an idea came to her.

  She decided to be a boy.

  Of course! It would be far better to be a boy. She had seen boys on the docks at Zakynthos, in the agora there, on the boats, in the distant fields as she walked here on the mainland. Boys and men were allowed to go about the place without being taken for a slave, or robbed, or laughed at.

  She would be a boy. It couldn’t be that difficult. She was tall, quite. She had a bony face and straight shoulders. She wasn’t soft and pale and curvy like Hypsipile. She was skinny and suntanned and muscly. She just had to make herself look the part: dress like a boy, walk like a boy, think like a boy. Ha! It seemed she already did – thinking she could just go about the place and do what she wanted.

  The man’s chiton and cloak lay on the floor by the pallet.

  She laughed softly. He had robbed her. So did that mean she could rob him? She thought about it for a moment and decided that yes, it did. He had broken that important law – so now that law didn’t stand between them any more.

  Dike, Goddess of Justice, she whispered silently, please understand my situation and forgive me for robbing this disgusting pathetic horrible man.

  The clothes were a b
it smelly but not much too big for her. She put his chiton on over hers, and wrapped her belt around it, to hitch it so it wasn’t too long. She wasn’t sure how a boy would fold his cloak, so she just slung it over her arm. As she lifted it, something fell from its fold. She flinched – but it made no noise on the hard mud floor. She bent and picked it up. A knife! Well, she’d have that too. She slid it through her belt, safely outside the thick chiton. Then she helped herself to the remains of their meal: more hard cheese and a lump of bread – and to the leather water flask that lay by them. Silently she filled it from the tall water jar by the door, and she slung it over her shoulder, and slung the cloak over that.

  She had no idea if she looked like a boy or not, but for the first time since she had been separated from Arko she felt strong and well equipped.

  She walked all night, following the stars, heading north. High clouds scudded across the moon, and she pulled the dirty cloak tight around her. She wanted to get far away from that man, but that wasn’t the only reason for not resting. She was scared to lie down in the dark, alone, among the muttering noises and shifting shadows of the night. If only Arko were here…

  As dawn came up and the stars faded, she saw the great mass of Mount Taegetus to the west, its flanks picked out by the silvery fingertips of sunrise. An eagle circled lazily against the crimson sky, appearing and disappearing behind the mountain. She stopped for a moment, shivering in the new sunlight, to watch the bird’s elegant movement, the fluttered curve of its sharp wingtips. She was on the right path.

  Not that she was on a path. There was no path, except the odd runnel made by wild goats, and the odd stream bed, full of rocks and tiny blue-black birds that roosted in holes in the cliffs above. She longed for fresh water – she wanted to wash these clothes, and herself – but it was late in the season and most of the riverbeds were dry, holding nothing but pebbles and cast-off porcupine quills.

  In the heat of the day she rested, and ate a little, and drank a little, and in the cool of the afternoon she carried on. She didn’t think the man would come after her – and if he did, he wouldn’t find her. Centaurs have always been good at hiding and dodging.