Oracle (24 page)

It was obvious where the men of Delphi were as soon as he passed the palace. They stood or sat in small groups around the small bright house, like men waiting for a show. They looked at him curiously, but not with surprise. They too, it seemed, took him for one of the men who had stayed at the palace the night before. They parted as he approached, to let him through.

As soon as he drew closer he saw that the Pythia’s was, as he had suspected, the house or shrine of the Mother, the place where the town’s priestess lived. On one side of the gold-painted door was a wide offering stone, dark with old entrails. But there was no baking stone or fireplace on the other side. Whoever lived here had her food sent up from the palace.

Now he was closer he could see a painting on the lintel: a girl in the red dress and gold apron of the Mother, and, either side, paintings of enormous snakes, like the pythons of Athens and Mycenae.

The Pythia must be the guardian of the house snakes, he thought, the senior priestess here at Delphi. Was Thetis a prisoner at the Pythia’s, not the palace? Or perhaps the guards from Mycenae had brought her up
here to sacrifice her, here on this stone, like the kids and lambs she’d sacrificed herself.

He looked around the crowd, his hand on his sword, unseen under his thick bear cloak, waiting for someone to yell in recognition, his mind grinding through alternative plans like a stone grinding wheat in the quirn.

The guards inside wouldn’t expect opposition. They wouldn’t expect to see him, either. Their shock would give him time. Time to grab Thetis, to use his sword to slash his way out of the house. The local men outside wouldn’t know what was happening. They’d stand back for a few moments at least, waiting for an order from their King.

And then…

He glanced up at the cliffs. They looked sheer, and unclimbable. But he was still Nikko the acrobat, and she was the Butterfly. There were footholds, for someone who knew how to balance his body, crevices where a hand could gain a hold. If they could make it up those cliffs they might escape. No one could live on the steep slopes above them. Even the goat herders wouldn’t be up on the mountains so early. They could make their way to the wild country, dance for the Hyperboreans perhaps, or trade jewels for security.

He stepped up to the doorway, and looked inside.

It was a big room, as big as his chambers back in the palace, but it looked smaller now, filled with people. He recognised the King of Delphi near the door, the small man with his intense black eyes, wearing what must be his best embroidered cloak, with his guards, in leather jerkins and trousers, around him.

In front of them were the men from Mycenae: guards in burnished leather kilts, and bare chests, kneeling on the floor. Among them was the man he had least expected to see, until they had both at last come to the realm of the dead.

The Chamberlain.

He looked as shrunken as a withered date in a box forgotten on the shelf. The last winter must have been hard for him, rebuilding Mycenae, and anointing Atreus’s son as the new High King. His face was painted in the Mycenaean style, with black around his eyes and red salve on his lips. It had been many months since Nikko had seen anyone painted like that. His woollen robes were purple, the most expensive dye there was, with thin gold edging, and there were rubies at his ears and throat and ankles.

He too bowed before the figure on the throne at the far end of the room.

Thetis.

It wasn’t a particularly splendid throne. It was carved wood instead of gold. But it had been polished till it shone; Nikko could smell rose oil and myrtle oil, Thetis’s favourites. She was dressed in Mycenaean style, the tunics she’d always favoured before, but now with the gold apron of the Mother, and a gold diadem in her hair. Dora stood beside her, her hair grey except at the tips—she obviously no longer dyed it. For the first time Nikko saw that Dora also wore the apron of the Mother.

On the other side of the throne was a thin cleft in the rock, like the one back at the palace where the pythons lived.

Pythons. Pythia, thought Nikko. It was Thetis who was the High Priestess here, guardian of the sacred pythons, one of them coiled upon her lap, its head raised and tongue flickering as it sensed the strangers.

Suddenly the head darted out as though to bite one of the guards. The man flinched, but Thetis rested her hand on it, as though to tell it to be still. The snake lowered its head onto her skirt.

She seemed hardly changed at first, despite the apron and diadem, till he looked closer, and saw that the laughing girl, the Butterfly of Mycenae, was gone. This
girl had been ripped from all she loved and knew, not once, but twice; taken to a strange land to fulfil a duty older than her years.

But somehow she’s done it, thought Nikko proudly. He needed only look at Thetis’s poise to know that she was truly the Mother’s priestess here.

One of the Mycenaean guards turned to him. ‘You can’t come in here, my lord,’ he muttered, obviously assuming he was the King of Delphi’s brother perhaps, or visiting royalty. ‘Wait outside, until the King can attend you.’

‘No,’ said Nikko. His words were loud enough for the whole room to hear.

The man looked at him in anger. ‘What gives you the right to say
no
to me?’

‘I am the Pythia’s brother.’

It was as though the snow’s cold had shifted from the mountain top down to the room by the cliff. For a moment the room seemed frozen. No one moved or spoke. ‘My lord Nikko,’ whispered the guard. ‘I didn’t recognise you. We…we thought you were dead!’

Nikko glanced at Thetis. She hardly moved, though she grasped the arms of her throne so hard the fingertips were white. Her mouth was opened in a cry of joy, or shock—it was impossible to say. But it told Nikko one thing. Whatever had happened to his sister in the past few seasons, she still refused to speak.

The Chamberlain was the first to move. He lifted himself out of his bow—or rather, as he began to rise, the two guards on either side helped him up. He turned to Nikko, his face first shocked—Nikko had never
thought to see the Chamberlain shocked either—and then with the most genuine smile he had ever seen the man give.

‘Nikko,’ he said. The smile twitched at one corner of the wrinkled mouth. ‘Believe me, I am truly glad to see you. So you survived. Your timing is as ever impeccable. I have never seen an entrance so superb.’

‘This is not a performance,’ said Nikko shortly.

‘Isn’t it? As you get older you may find that most of life is a performance. We are but players in one act or another…as I am now too.’ He bowed, first to Thetis on her throne, and then to Nikko. ‘I have come to take our Butterfly back home, on orders from His Majesty Agamemnon, our new High King. And you are welcome too, of course,’ he added. ‘I am sure the High King would have included you, if he had known where you were.’

‘Good of him,’ said Nikko. ‘Why are you taking my sister back?’

The Chamberlain sighed. His wrinkles sank into still deeper wrinkles. ‘Take your hand from your sword, young man. Your sister will come back in honour, as a priestess, a prophetess, this time, not a dancer. This,’ he added gently, ‘is the girl who said the King would die. Our new King is…shall we say…quite eager to know the future too.’ He smiled confidently at Thetis. ‘And our Butterfly can give it to him.’

‘No she can’t.’ It was Dora’s voice. It sounded older than Nikko had ever heard it, but firm too. ‘The poor lamb can’t speak, remember? How can she tell the new High King the future?’

‘She spoke once,’ said the Chamberlain gently.

‘Once and once only! She hasn’t whispered a word since. She’s not going back to that place,’ said Dora angrily. ‘Who knows what he’ll do to the poor lamb to try to make her talk?’

Thetis remained motionless, though her expression softened slightly at Dora’s words. A few of the Delphic guards began to mutter. The King of Delphi raised his voice.

‘She is our priestess now, upon the order of the last High King. All winter she has solved our disputes.’ The King gave a slight smile. ‘Somehow a gesture from the Pythia means more to our town that any orders from me. Not one child or elder died this winter, because of this girl here. She had us gathering snails all through the last of autumn, and grinding their shells with our flour.’

The Chamberlain smiled. ‘Snails? How fascinating. But I think her role might be a little more…important, down in Mycenae.’

The King of Delphi glanced at Thetis. She lifted her hand in a formal salute, then shook her head. She didn’t even deign to look at the Chamberlain. She stands like a statue of the Goddess, though Nikko, half admiring, half in wonder at the change in his sister. The last traces of her childhood had gone.

The King of Delphi put his fist to his forehead, then turned back to the Chamberlain, meeting his stare. ‘Important? Our Pythia stands between us and the Goddess, and brings us her blessings. Even the great mountain snakes have come to her this spring, a miracle that will bring us even more blessings still. The mountain
is a harsh land. We need our priestess. The Pythia belongs to us, not Mycenae.’

Anger rumbled under the formal politeness of his words, and determination too. And his men wore swords and daggers, even here in the safety of their fortress. It was clear, thought Nikko, that my sister has fierce protectors here.

He had come to rescue her, but she had a whole village prepared to fight to keep her safe.

‘It was not a—’ began the Chamberlain.

‘They’ve gone mad! The lot of them!’ The young voice came from outside. The crowd had surged to jostle behind Nikko in the doorway.

‘He’s right. I ran to look when I heard the noise.’ A woman spoke now, her voice amazed and urgent. ‘Those goats, every one of them cavorting and rolling its eyes. Some of them have dropped down like a thunderbolt hit them. But there’s no thunder in the sky.’

Suddenly the doorway was jammed with men outside.

‘We need the Pythia!’

‘It’s demons, out of the ground. They’ve enchanted the goats.’

‘The Pythia must calm them!’

‘Well?’ The King of Delphi’s eyes blazed at the Chamberlain. ‘You gave us our priestess. Is she allowed to serve us in our time of need?’

The Chamberlain sighed. ‘Mad goats. A disaster indeed.’ He nodded to his guards. ‘Fetch her chair.’

He turned to the King. ‘Shall we let the Pythia cast out these, er, goatly demons? Then we can get back to the matter in hand.’

‘There is nothing to discuss,’ said the King shortly. His eyes were firm and calm. ‘But yes, let us go and see the goats. They may not mean much to men of Mycenae, but here goats are our living.’

Despite his words, it was clear that he too thought the boy and woman were making a fuss about nothing. But mad goats were a good excuse to break off a discussion that was headed for confrontation. The King of Delphi was obviously no fool. Later, perhaps, he and the Chamberlain might find a compromise to suit them both.

But would it suit Thetis, and Nikko himself?

He made his way slowly toward the throne. Thetis lifted her cheek for him to kiss. Once, he thought, she’d have thrown her arms around me. He kissed her, keeping well away from the python’s head. Her skin was cold. She smiled up at him, then reached out and squeezed his hand.

Beside him Dora was weeping. ‘I knew you’d come. I told her you would come.’

He bent down and hugged her, surprised how much she’d shrunk—or he had grown—since they left Mycenae. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into her grey hair. ‘Sorry I wasn’t there for you this winter. Sorry about Orkestres. We buried him with full honours, just as he would have wished.’

Dora gave a gulp of pain, clasping him quickly then letting him go. He stood back, and the men of Delphi lifted their Pythia onto a cushioned chair, and carried her out into the mountain air.

He held Thetis’s cold hand as they carried her chair all the way down through the town, then out along the road and up the hill. She held her head high, her back straight. The girl who had tumbled across the court of Mycenae had vanished. Nikko felt tears clench his throat. He too was no longer Nikko the dancer, but most of him still mourned the children they had been.

The boy outside was the one he’d met on his way in. The child chattered now, eager to show the wonder of his collapsing goats to these important strangers, this strange procession of Mycenaean guards and men of Delphi, the King himself, and the man carried in a royal chair, the Chamberlain. The boy led the way, still chattering, only half his words intelligible in his excitement.

And there they were, up on the hillside among the tumbled rocks and shrubby junipers, just as the boy had said, half-a-dozen goats lying on the ground, a patchwork of white and black and red among the bushes. They were not dead, though their heads lolled frighteningly as they tried to rise. Others wandered aimlessly, almost in circles.

Thetis held up her hand—the one not holding Nikko’s—to signal to the crowd to stop. She slid out of
the chair. Her feet were still bare, with rouged heels: the soft feet of a palace girl. Nikko remembered Euridice’s calluses, the way her toes spread as though to take as much strength from the earth as she could.

Thetis signalled to the crowd again. She would go forward, it seemed, while the rest stayed here. The crowd obeyed her, even the guards and the King and the Chamberlain.

Nikko looked around in shock. What was going on here? A crowd of men—and women too—letting a girl go up into a mob of crazy goats?

He opened his mouth to protest, and then he realised that the girl who could control snakes, who foretold the death of a High King, who seemed to speak to the Goddess, even if not to them, had, in their minds, the power to control anything.

‘I’m coming with you.’ He grabbed her hand again.

She shook it off, firmly but not angrily, then pulled at his shoulder so he had to bend down. For a moment he thought she might whisper to him, but instead she smiled and stroked his cheek, then shook her head.

You are my dear big brother, the gesture said. But this is my business, not yours. I know what I am doing.

He stepped back into the muttering crowd, as she began to walk toward the goats, avoiding the sharp rocks and prickles. Dora stood next to him, near the Chamberlain in his chair and the King of Delphi and his guards. For a moment Nikko almost smiled, thinking of the little goat boy he’d once been, and where he and his sister were now.

The goats seemed oblivious to Thetis’s presence
among them, still circling shakily, or hanging their heads, their legs splayed. Even more were lying down now.

Suddenly Thetis paused, the dazed goats all around her. She turned to the crowd, and touched her nose, then pointed to the ground.

There was a crack in the earth, as clay cracked when it dried out. It was as long as a man, perhaps, and no wider than Thetis’s python.

The quake last night, thought Nikko. It’s opened up the ground. And now he smelled something too—brief and fleeting, too quick to tell more than that it smelled both sweet and sour, like a mouthful of crumbling teeth mixed with flowers.

What was in the crevice? For a moment he had a vision of giant pythons breathing staleness out into the mountain air.

Thetis touched one goat, and then another. Neither even seemed to know that she was there. Suddenly she put her hand to her head, as though confused, and then once more she turned again to face the crowd.

More people had gathered now: the women ran from the village, the children yelled, then turned quiet as their elders hushed them. All the men and women of Delphi, their children and the men from Mycenae were watching.

For a moment, Nikko was going to run to her. And then he saw her face.

This was a Thetis he’d never seen before. If the girl up on the throne had power, this was a woman whose face suddenly hid nothing of the years of watching, seeing, understanding: all the knowledge never spoken was written in her eyes.

Everything about her body spoke of all this now.

She held up her arms. And somehow the simple shift and Mother’s apron that she wore seemed to glow more brightly than any costume down in Mycenae.

‘The earth has opened.’ Her voice was a woman’s, no longer the light tones of the child of Mycenae. ‘It has given me a voice. Once the voice speaks it will not be silent, not for a thousand years.’

The Chamberlain peered from his litter, his face split like a pomegranate in an enormous grin. ‘She speaks again! Tell us the future then, girl! Tell us of the High King, our glorious Agamemnon.’

‘Agamemnon son of Atreus will rule for many years. Even if the Lion crosses the sea, Agamemnon will be victorious. But there will be blood…’ The voice wavered as though the image before it was too dark to bear. ‘Blood beyond the sea, and blood back home.’

‘She has no trouble talking now!’ The Chamberlain turned triumphantly to the King of Delphi. ‘Whatever upset those goats has got her speaking again. You can’t deny her to the High King now. Only a great ruler deserves…’

He hasn’t listened to what she’s said, thought Nikko, while the Chamberlain continued his argument, to her warnings of blood and war. He only noticed that she’s speaking. Most people never really listen. But Thetis does. And perhaps I do too.

‘I will speak only here, at this place on the mountain.’ Thetis’s eyes looked strange, as though they were going to roll up into her head. Nikko was suddenly desperately afraid. ‘Only when I stand here among the mists of the Underworld.’

Her head lolled onto her chest, then she looked up and, just for second, there was purpose in her gaze. ‘I will not come to Mycenae again, my lord. This is a true prophecy. All I say is true, for I am an Oracle who will not lie. Cannot lie,’ added Thetis softly. Nikko could see tears roll down her face, though her hands were too limp to brush them away. ‘Never, ever, though I have wished it…’ Her voice tailed off. All the goats had sunk to the ground now. Only a few struggled to rise, but on legs turned to mud.

‘Carry her down here.’ The Chamberlain’s voice was bronze. ‘There will be no arguments. We start back to Mycenae with her at midday—’

‘The first man who moves will get an arrow in his neck. And the second. And the third.’

The crowd froze again at the new voice. Only Thetis moved, a semi-conscious swaying above them on the hill. Her skirt fluttered in the wind, as though Thetis had grown roots into the earth and it alone was trying to get free.

Nikko turned to look at the new arrival. It was Euridice.