Snakehead (8 page)

Moumi had been doing my front-of-house job. She left it to one of the waitresses and came to see me off. It was
dark in the yard by then. The geese and chickens were jabbering, settling for the night; the sounds and lights of the taverna seemed far away. Koukla was trembling as if she’d already seen the three of us carried back dead. I hugged her, and she squeezed me as if I was a recalcitrant piece of washing. My mother held up the lamp. I saw the grim resolve in her eyes: dark blue, like mine.

“Why did she go to the Enclosure, Moumi? She’s never left the house alone.”

“I don’t know…. Perseus, you’re not a child anymore. This had to come.”

“I know I’m not a child. We’ll find them, don’t worry. Maybe they went for a walk in the fields, Pali sprained his ankle and they’re limping home. Come on, Kefi.”

It had to come, my day of reckoning with the king of Serifos; I knew that. But right now I was thinking of my friends. This was how it happened to other people. Young men, boys, recently even girls too: they went out one day and they never came home. They’d been kidnapped and forced to join the king’s guard, or to work in the mines.

What I found hard to bear was the way the people didn’t complain. They mourned as dead the children, brothers, sisters, lovers they would never see again. They were robbed, bullied and beaten by the king’s men. We heard of incidents all the time, and we gave the victims what help we could. But they were like Papa Dicty himself, still
waiting
for something, before they would resist. Some of them even praised the king. He was a strong leader; he had made Serifos a name in the world….

I’d had some weapons training. There were old men up in the hills, too old to be of interest to the king, who knew how to use a sword and shield. The boss had made sure I was taught how to fight. But I had no weapons; the truce forbade me to be armed. What if we ran into something right now? Papa Dicty had an uncanny way of knowing what the king would do, and what he wouldn’t do. He thought we were safe to go hunting for Pali unarmed; that was all the assurance I had.

We were hurrying through the fields behind Seatown as I went over these thoughts, heading for the hill of the citadel by a roundabout route. Poor Kefi had to scamper to keep up with me.

“Master, dear master, please let me hold your hand!”

“Kefi,” I said, slowing down, “you can hold my hand if you like, but don’t be scared. There’ll be no fighting. We’re just looking for Pali and Anthe.”

“I am n-n-not afraid of the soldiers! I am afraid of the d-d-d-ark. Wicked things inhabit the dark. There may be ghosts.”

Mortals have an unfortunate habit of being afraid of
anything
that can’t harm them. Show them a sword, a whip, a club, they’re placid. Offer to beat them up, tell them a fancy food is poisonous, they don’t turn a hair. But they’re afraid to be alone, out of the sight of houses. They’re afraid of the
dark, afraid of meeting a cat or being followed by a dog; afraid of a bubbling spring, or a tree that seems mean-tempered. I knew honorable exceptions to this mad rule, but our mule boy was not one of them.

We were unarmed, and heading for forbidden territory. I was scared that we might be running into a murderous ambush. Kefi was terrified that the dead would jump up and bite him. I held him by the hand and marched him to the road, which we met on the ridge, where it started winding to and fro, like a hank of yarn spilled on the hillside. There was a shorter way to the High Place from here, a flight of stone steps that had once led to a Great Mother temple. It had fallen into ruin and the king had had the ruins cleared; they were spoiling his view. The steps remained, overgrown but still painted in faded whitewash. It was because of them that we called going to the High Place “going upstairs.”

There was a hollow on the ridge, with a spring where the goatherds brought their flocks. I decided this was where Kefi and I would part company. We’d both be better off.

“Listen,” I said. “You’re going to stay here and wait for me, in the hollow. You can peep out and see the lights of the town, and the stars in the sky, so you won’t be scared.”

“Wh-wh-what if you don’t come back, dear Perseus? What shall I tell your mother?”

“You can tell the time by the stars, can’t you?” He nodded. “If I don’t come back by an hour past midnight, go
home, and tell my mother and the boss. Or if you hear any fighting, run like a rabbit straightaway. But in that case, stay off the road.”

The boy’s teeth were chattering. He clung to me like a burr.

“P-P-Perseus, you can’t leave me. It feels strange. There’s s-s-something wicked in the goat hollow. I’m sure there is. It will frighten me.”

I pulled a snagged thread from my tunic, spat on it and tied it around the boy’s wrist. “That’s a charm; it will keep you safe. Wait here. I’ll go and see.”

I unpicked his fingers from my arm and stepped down into darkness, the starlight immediately cut off by summer foliage. The spring made a faint, plaintive song as it rose from the earth and fell into an old stone basin. At first, I could see nothing, but there was a strong goaty smell. I caught the gleam of hooves, the outline of horns amid curly hair. It watched me, slant-eyed, without moving. My eyes got accustomed, and the almost-human face came clear. It licked its lips.

“Hey,” I whispered. “What are you up to?”

“Ssss.”

“Ssss
yourself. You don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with you. All right?”

“No harm, Perseus.”

“I should hope not. Listen, I want to leave a mortal boy here, and he’s afraid. Who will look after him for me, and keep him calm and steady?”

“Why is he afraid?” demanded another, fretful, sighing voice. I saw the dryad of the tree above me, leaning from her boughs, looking sulky. “We are the shadows of shadows. What does he think we can do to him?”

I had no answer. I
really
didn’t understand why people were afraid when they felt the presence of these harmless things, which I could see and mortals could not. But I was afraid of floating boxes, which was just as senseless. A slim, cold hand crept into mine. It was the naiad of the spring, a glimmering, transparent girl-shape. “I will mind him for you, Perseus. I will sing to him and make him comfortable. Will you kiss me?”

“Of course I will, my dear.”

I knelt and drank, just a mouthful. She was sweet on my lips.

Kefi was hugging himself and hopping like a demented grasshopper. I convinced him there was nothing wicked in the hollow, and reminded him that the spring was a kindly one. Then I went on alone, like a fox through the bushes, close to the steps, hoping he wouldn’t bolt for home as soon as I was gone. I wondered if he could really tell the time (when I came to think of it, I’d never seen Kefi out this late), and what the gathering of spirits in the goat hollow meant. Those creatures didn’t usually speak, or show themselves so clearly. Maybe they’d come to see the end of me.

The cemetery, which was perched on the hillside halfway between Seatown and the High Place, was our
final boundary. I skirted the walls, then I climbed in and hunted between the graves. There was no one about and no obvious sign of a struggle. It was a small field. We sow the dead, one upon the other; they don’t disturb each other. Still not a sign of Anthe or Pali. But there at the cemetery gates, caught on a bramble, I spotted a ragged scrap that wasn’t a leaf. I crouched to pull it free, sniffed it, and smelled our taverna kitchen. I had tapers, flint and tinder in my pouch. But I didn’t need a light to see the color. I knew. They’d been here. Anthe had torn her yellow dress.

I decided I must go farther. If I was caught, then the truce would be over no matter what, but I had to find out what had happened. My mind was on my friends: the king’s men had been known to torture prisoners. But I was thinking of myself too, with a horrible crawling in my belly that told me I
was not ready
. I was the threat that Polydectes couldn’t endure, and I was just a kid, a great overgrown boy with no beard, no brains, no ideas….

What could I do? Challenge him to single combat? Not even if he would accept. A tyrant king is like one of those monsters where you chop off one head and a hundred leap into its place. He had an army, most of them kidnapped villagers once, but they were soldiers now. He had nobles, as bad as himself, ready to fall on each other like a pack of savage dogs. I could kill Polydectes, and war would come anyway, laying waste to everything I loved.

I heard a faint groan, over on the stone stairway.

I dropped to the ground, and listened intently. The groan came again. Uphill, but not far. Then I heard someone whispering, pleading. It was Anthe’s voice!

I don’t know which of us was more relieved when I crawled out of the undergrowth. She was crouched beside Palikari, who was lying in a heap on the steps. She leapt up, with a fish-gutting knife in her fist, smears of blood all over, saw it was me and we fell into each other’s arms. Anthe hadn’t been touched, and there were no soldiers around, but Pali was in a bad state. She’d ripped up her dress to bandage him, but he had a head wound that was still bleeding, his left shoulder was a mess and he was barely conscious.

She told me what had happened while I tried to find out the extent of Palikari’s injuries. There was a young man who’d been a childhood friend of Pali’s who was now an officer in the king’s army. He was an informant we’d used once or twice, but not someone we trusted. Pali had got word to this officer. The man had agreed to meet him at the cemetery, at sunset, with important news about Kore. Pali had gone to the meeting place. Anthe had stayed in hiding, and hadn’t heard a sound. She’d waited and waited, but he hadn’t come back. So she’d gone looking.

“I found him farther up. I tried to stop the bleeding. I got him this far, then he collapsed, and I couldn’t rouse him. He’s lost a lot of blood. I didn’t dare leave him, Perseus. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You shouldn’t have gone up there alone!”

“What should I have done? Left Pali to die?”

They shouldn’t have been here at all. But Pali was a grown man; he had a right to make his own decisions. So did Anthe.

“You didn’t see any soldiers?”

“I’ve seen nobody. No one comes this way; the High Place swells use the road. But I don’t think he got away from them, Perseus. I think they left him for us to find. They s-s-sent for him, and then roughed him up as a warning.”

“Maybe. Let’s see what he can tell us, when—”
When we get him home
, I was about to say. The words didn’t come. The earth heaved and shook under our feet. The darkness around us shuddered, and cried out. Something ran past me, sobbing
oooh, oooh
, like a brokenhearted child. Almost-human faces flickered; there were horns and hooves, limbs like supple branches, hair like rustling leaves. All the spirits of the island were awake and crying, running for shelter. Anthe wailed and grabbed me.

“What is it?” I yelled. “What’s the matter with you all? What’s
happening?”

Andromeda had wrapped herself in a long, dark shawl, but the disguise only made her conspicuous. It was midsummer; she should have covered herself in flowers if she wanted to go unseen on the streets of Seatown. The other girls, and even grown women, were in flimsy
one-shouldered dresses, some with the skirts kilted up for wild dancing. But she reached the Enclosure without being stopped or questioned.

She was glad that the refugees had gone, though they had not known her. She’d been very ashamed the day they’d had to get out of here, and she’d had to talk to them. When you start to lie, you think it’ll be one lie, severing you from your past,
no, I’m not that person
, and then you’ll be free to be someone else. But it doesn’t work like that.

At the gates she asked for Holy Mother. After a long wait the old lady in gray who had ordered Papa Dicty around appeared and waved the gatekeeper nun away with her stick. “Why couldn’t you come and find me, young lady? What are you, a princess, that you think I have to come traipsing out to greet you?”

“I’ve broken a vow, Mother. I wish to rededicate myself.

May I enter?”

The holy woman sniffed, turned her back and stumped away. Andromeda realized she was supposed to follow. “Well, well, a dedication. D’you wish to bathe?”

“N-n-no. I wish to make sacrifice.”

Holy Mother could be heard muttering crossly, “Hmph, one of those.”

“What’s the name of the divinity?”

Andromeda told her the name, which was Melqart.

“Doesn’t mean a thing to me. But these newfangled Supernaturals are all the same, from one end of the
Middle Sea to another. What’s ‘Melqart’ supposed to rule?”

Death, she thought, but she didn’t say it.

“He is the God of Making. Of Taming Horses, of the Ocean, and …”

“Speak up!”

“Earthquakes.”

“That sounds like the Achaean called Poseidon. You speak Greek, don’t you? You should call him Poseidon if you meet him here. We don’t worship those upstarts, but as you’re a foreigner, I
suppose
I can make an exception.” Holy Mother looked suspiciously at the small bundle in Andromeda’s hands. “Nothing alive, I hope? I won’t have animals killed in here, it’s revolting.”

She tried to shake her head, and couldn’t.

Holy Mother shrugged; she asked no more questions. They reached a door in the rocks at the back of the Enclosure. There was a cave, and a small, pale figure on a plinth. The old lady shut out the sunlight, and dragged a brazier from a cupboard in the rock wall. She put together a heap of charcoal and spices, and lit it with a firebox.

“Now, you lie down and go to sleep. See if you dream.”

Andromeda knelt. The cave was dry and quiet. This was a very holy place. Light-headed from so many nights with little or no sleep, she slipped at once into a meditation, and didn’t see the Holy Mother leave.

She saw the Gods of the city where she was born, and
the Gods of her mother’s people, and the Achaean Supernaturals, falling away like veils.

She didn’t know if she was falling back in time, or deeper and deeper into herself.