The Arrow of Apollo, page 3
‘My lord,’ said Aeneas, apologising. Elissa could not help noticing the look on his face. It was as if he’d lost something infinitely precious.
The centaur cut over him with a stamp of his foreleg. Then he carefully removed the chain from around his neck.
Elissa, looking at the casket that hung from it, felt that she might be drawn into it, shrunk, absorbed wholly into its shining walls. She began to feel dizzy. Its surface was rippling with extraordinary colours, iridescent, shimmering. There were three animals engraved upon it. A lion, little more than a cub, was crouched in the right-hand corner. Facing across from it was the form of a young wolf, lips bared. And in between them, splashing upwards as if leaping out of water, was a dolphin.
As she watched, the dolphin glimmered, enticing her inwards.
She barely heard the centaur saying, ‘Aeneas. I do not know how we can defeat this thing. But know this.’ The tremor in his voice brought Elissa back. ‘When the world was young, the god Apollo laid low the great Python with an arrow forged by the smith-god himself, and took the Oracle of Delphi from him. Such a terrible weapon could not be left intact, and nor could it fall into the hands of the enemy. The arrow was split in two. Apollo placed the Arrowhead into this casket, and entrusted it to us, the centaurs of Italia.’
‘So where is the other half?’ Elissa asked, still gazing at the box, her eyes quick and bright. Silvius was at her elbow, peering over her shoulder. She could feel his hot breath on her neck.
The centaur twitched his nostrils. ‘That is only known in Achaea. Someone must find it out, and find how Python can be destroyed.’
‘Achaea?’ Silvius stepped back towards his father.
A clamour of voices arose from the Trojans. ‘Filthy Achaeans! They killed our king and queen! They burned our city!’
Aeneas quelled them with a raised palm. ‘The foul King Agamemnon and his murderous brood are not our friends. What do you ask of us?’
‘You must travel to Achaea, as quickly as possible. Put aside your human quarrels. This is greater than anything else. Python enters minds, gives people powers they should not have. Already he gathers an army. If we do not stop it …’
‘What then?’ The room was getting warmer. Elissa could smell the horsey tang of the centaur even more strongly now, tinged with the piny scent of the woods at night.
‘He wants to reign over the world. He wants chaos. Night, and chaos.’
Again voices erupted. Elissa noticed that Silvius was standing quietly, listening. Aeneas tried to maintain order, standing up to calm them. People surged around the centaur, buzzing angrily. He was growing agitated, his back legs skittering. Elissa instinctively put out a hand to soothe him. ‘They mean no harm,’ she whispered. ‘They are confused. It is a lot to ask of them.’
‘But they must do it.’
‘Get back,’ she called. ‘Give him room!’
‘Who will go?’ Stargazer cried. ‘The gods have all but fled. They will not help us! Who will go to Achaea to save the world?’
‘Never!’ cried someone. ‘I would slit an Achaean’s throat as soon as see one!’
Elissa saw Silvius hesitating by his father’s side. His brother had marched out, leaving Aeneas looking old and alone. Silvius had no quarrel with the Achaeans, she knew. He had not been born when the city of Troy fell.
She recognised the look in his eyes. It was the same look he had when his brother won a wrestling match.
A sudden thought struck her. He would take it on himself. He would think it was down to him, to prove himself.
Before she could do anything to prevent him, he had already moved. She saw Lavinia’s pleading glance, but it was too late.
‘I will.’ He stood upright, hands clenched by his sides.
Few heard him. Lavinia reached out. ‘Silvius! No!’
Silvius climbed onto Aeneas’s chair, took a deep breath and shouted, his slight frame shaking with the effort. ‘I will! I swear to unite the Arrowhead and the Shaft, and discover how to destroy Python! I swear it by all the great gods!’
Silence rippled through the room. Somebody coughed. Lavinia begged, ‘No, you can’t!’ She turned to Stargazer. ‘My son … he’s young, he’s barely been out of the city.’
‘I have hunted on my own,’ said Silvius. ‘I lived in the woods with you most of my life. Do you forget the woodcraft you taught me? I have trapped wolves, and I found the stag with the white star on its forehead!’
There was a glint of respect in Aeneas’s eye, Elissa saw. ‘You deserted your post,’ he said, evenly. ‘I should punish you. Why should we entrust such a mission to you?’
‘I can do it,’ said Silvius. ‘I’m ready. I will prove myself.’ But Elissa saw him playing with the loop of his belt, fingers tightening and then relaxing. She knew what that meant. Half of him didn’t know what he was saying. The other half was white hot.
‘What do you say, centaur?’ Aeneas’s tone was heavy.
Stargazer beckoned to Silvius. ‘There will be one, but there must be more. Does anyone else present themselves?’ Elissa felt a prickle on her neck, and saw Stargazer staring at her with his beautiful wild eyes. Once more she felt that tug of understanding. And Silvius looked so slender, so frail by the side of the centaur.
She knew what the centaur was suggesting. He would need help. And also, that she had some part to play. The image of the dolphin played in her mind, dancing off the shore of some distant coast.
An older soldier, named Achates, stepped forwards. ‘I present myself.’ He was a broad man, but he was beginning to stoop.
‘Very well,’ said Aeneas, a challenge in his voice. ‘My second son and my oldest companion. Is there no one else among my Trojans? Among my wife’s people?’
‘Not among the Trojans.’ Elissa hardly knew what she was saying. ‘I don’t quite know what I am, but I’ll try.’ The pitchy smoke made her cough. She slid her way to standing beside Silvius, greeting him with red torchlight flickering across her mischievous features. He looked at her with something like pain, but she saw also a flicker of gratefulness. She took his hand and squeezed it. He released it quickly.
‘Elissa! No, I don’t think—’ said Aeneas.
‘She has presented herself,’ cut in Stargazer. ‘She will take the test.’ There was no arguing against the centaur. Power vibrated in every word.
Elissa nodded. She had expected that answer. Yet she could also see that Aeneas, used to being obeyed, was finding it hard not to disagree.
After a moment, in which he scrutinised both Elissa and Silvius, making her feel distinctly uncomfortable, Aeneas relaxed, and said, ‘If the gods will it, it will be so.’
‘Then we shall begin the test. You must hold onto the casket for as long as you can.’
Stargazer ordered Achates to go first. The old soldier, smirking a little, looked around, as if expecting some kind of trick. One of the wags in the crowd shouted, ‘Come on, Achates! Easier than conquering the Rutulians!’
He grasped it tightly for a second, and then began to gasp, shrieking in pain. Blowing on his fingers, he hissed, ‘It’s as hot as fire!’ He backed away, seeking for water to pour onto his burnt skin. A shocked silence met him.
‘Will you take it still?’ Stargazer spoke softly to Silvius. Achates had plunged his hands into an amphora of wine.
Elissa watched.
Silvius nodded. He clenched his teeth together, standing firmly on the ground.
At first, he grunted with effort, and Elissa saw veins appearing on his forehead. Little rivulets of sweat were flowing down from his temples, and his cheeks were reddening with heat.
Then suddenly he went limp, his legs crumpling beneath him. There was a terrible stillness in the hall, and Lavinia started forwards. Aeneas held her back.
Stargazer was implacable, eyes unfathomable in the torchlight. This was a wild creature, after all, thought Elissa. They had taken him on trust. But how did they know that he meant what he said? And a spasm of fear shook through her.
Silvius gasped, a huge intake of air, and opened his eyes with shock, seeming to take the room in as if he’d woken from a dream.
‘Release your grasp. What did you see?’ Stargazer was calm.
Silvius looked up, puzzled, ‘I saw … Python.’ Even the name made Elissa shudder.
‘Yes,’ answered the centaur. ‘Is that all you saw?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘And then I saw Apollo.’ There was uproar from the watchers. ‘Only for a moment. His light … And he said it was for me!’ Lavinia choked back a sob. ‘But …’ And he looked at Elissa, and there was something in his expression, more than envy. He retreated, his look settling into a challenge.
‘Elissa must take the test too. Please, Elissa, stand forward.’ Stargazer touched her gently on the cheek.
‘I really don’t think …’ Aeneas said. ‘We can’t put her through that trial …’
But Stargazer lifted his hand, and Aeneas bent his head in acknowledgement. Elissa finally realised that her sandal was undone, and she quickly did it up. Ready now, she faced the casket, and grazed it with her fingertips, feeling Stargazer’s eyes on her.
At first, it burned through her fingers, hotter than a warming pan when it’s come straight off the fire. Her entire body was telling her to let go.
She looked up, and into Stargazer’s eyes. He nodded, very slightly, and it sent a surge of resolve through her. But as she concentrated through the pain, a different sensation began to take over.
The shadowy, smoky wooden hall slipped away from her vision, and instead she was in a brightly lit grove by a rushing stream. She was no longer holding the casket, and there was no pain.
Standing by the stream was a tall, dark-haired youth, handsome and lit from all around, garlanded with laurel leaves. A glossy-feathered raven was perched on a branch above him, and it cawed. In its eye Elissa could see herself reflected.
Elissa knew the youth was the god Apollo. He smiled, and strummed his lyre. A golden globe spun in the air around him, slowly, dancing. The most beautiful singing she’d ever heard came from somewhere far distant. There was a road leading from the tree, but she couldn’t see where the road led, only that there was a great brightness at the end of it.
She moved forwards slowly. ‘Do not come near,’ said the god. The force of his voice made Elissa bow her head. The god spoke again. ‘I slew the Python once. But he is immortal, like us, and cannot truly die. My father, the Lord of the Gods, whom you call Jupiter, has turned away. My uncle Neptune, the Lord of the Sea, has found a new world made of oceans where he sports all day with his dolphins. Even Pluto, the Lord of the Underworld, they say, has gone elsewhere. I am tempted too to find places made from light, from sound. The other gods forget you. But I remember still. I, and Mercury. You will learn his other name. Hermes.’
Elissa heard a joyous laugh, and turned to see a tall, curly-haired young man hovering a few inches above the ground, wearing winged sandals, a golden winged helmet on his head. Hermes swooped towards Elissa, plucking her on the shoulder, then dashed away as if he were a butterfly darting from flower to flower. ‘We will help you,’ he called, his voice infectious with brightness. ‘I like you mortals still.’
‘What should I do?’ asked Elissa.
‘Go to the land of the Achaeans,’ said Apollo. ‘Go with Silvius. There is much for you to do. But first, you must stop at Sicilia. There you will be told more.’ In front of her, a golden mass was floating in the air, and it formed into the shape of a bow, and suddenly she was holding it, and for one brief second it was as if she was the bow, and the power of Apollo was flowing through it.
Then it was gone, and it was as if the sun had vanished behind dark clouds.
Elissa blinked. She was back in Lavinium. She steadied herself. Lavinia was weeping, and Aeneas was talking to Silvius. She heard him say, ‘My son. Rest now. You will be punished for leaving your post in the morning. Then we will talk.’
But there was nobody to take Elissa’s arm, and, unnoticed by anyone except the centaur, she slipped away to the tiny room she shared with three Latin serving girls, and soon, whilst they snored, she was lying awake, shifting uncomfortably, playing with her little dolphin pendant.
Four
The Tumbler
MYKENAI, ACHAEA: KINGHOUSE OF THE LION
Erigone’s screams sluiced through the stone corridors of Mykenai’s kinghouse. It was the morning after Tisamenos had seen the swallow in the entrance hall, and dawn was spearing through the light wells, showing up the cracks in the walls and the frayed ends of the tapestries. A couple of hounds were sniffing at something; they glanced balefully at Tisamenos as he went by, aiming for the women’s quarters, in search of Hero.
‘… up at this time of day, at my age …’ A voice came from behind him. It was his old nurse, Agatha, stomping past him bearing a gold-rimmed jug of hot water, a pile of the softest fragrant linen towels stuffed under her arm. The scent of sweet herbs wafted from the jug.
He grabbed her by her rather thick elbow. ‘What’s going on?’
‘She’s giving birth,’ panted Agatha, her weak eyes blinking, face blowsy and red. ‘She’ll have the whole kinghouse down with that wailing. Sounds like a Fury!’ For a moment her ancient, creased face seemed to lighten.
‘Agatha,’ said Tisamenos. ‘What do you think about Hero?’
‘Hero? That flighty creature? Dancing about in the woods, spouting nonsense? Don’t listen to her …’ Her face settled into its customary tightness, the mouth a thin line and the eyes hooded with suspicion, and she was off again, making the sign against evil, disappearing into the gloom ahead of him, spilling water as she went.
Tisamenos continued in her wake. That’s what Hero had said. ‘Don’t listen to me, they’ll say.’ If Agatha thought Hero wasn’t worth listening to, then maybe Agatha was wrong.
Sometimes a servant would rush past him, carrying wood or a pail of water. A man bearing the staff of Asclepios, the god of healing, with its carved coiled serpent, was hurried along the corridors by the steward. Tisamenos, keeping to the shadows, made sure he was not noticed.
When he reached the women’s quarters, down a few hundred paces of dank stone passages, he found the ancient wooden doors firmly closed. A guard was set in front, his bronze spear upright. Tisamenos went to push past him, but the spear came down in front of him, barring his way.
‘Not even the son of Orestes is allowed in the women’s quarters.’ The guard, a thickset, beetle-browed oaf, was unsmiling.
‘I used to come to see my mother,’ said Tisamenos.
‘When you were a whelp. You’re too old now. Clear off.’ The guard made a shooing motion with his hand, which riled Tisamenos.
‘Take a message through,’ he said, puffing up his chest. ‘I am the king’s son!’
‘I said, clear off!’
It occurred to Tisamenos as he made his way, deflated, back to his own quarters, that he knew very little about his half-aunt Hero, or where she might be found. He remembered the swallow. Had that been real magic, or a trick of the streets? He had seen people casting voices before, in the agora. Was that what Hero had been doing? Had she simply caught a swallow and, by some clever sleight of hand, made it appear in her grasp?
But the voice had been inside his head. It couldn’t have been Hero speaking. The thought made him uneasy.
The wedding guests were now all stirring, and some were thronging the feasting hall, calling for their breakfast, shouting, eating the spitted meat of a boar recently killed in a hunt, quaffing from drinking horns. There were going to be games that day, wrestling, chariot races, foot races. Somebody threw him a challenge as he went by – a young handsome prince from Athens, a grandson of the famous Theseus – and Tisamenos batted it away without thinking.
The hall was decorated with flaking murals showing his ancestors and, by order of Orestes, they were depicted in all their crimes as a constant reminder. There was Tantalos, the bunch of grapes always out of his reach. There was the kinslayer Atreos, whose terrible acts made Tisamenos’s stomach turn, even thinking about them. He turned away from the sight.
Instead, he looked about for Hero, in case he had missed her in the throng.
Seeing the huge, crumbling stone throne that Orestes ruled from caused a pang of memory. His mother Hermione would take her place there by his father’s side, her long blonde hair piled up in some fantastic arrangement, and she would feed Tisamenos sweetmeats and honey from her golden plate as the kinghouse inhabitants laughed and drank and feasted around them. ‘My little lion cub,’ she would say. Only Hermione called him that. Her tender fingers stroking his cheek. ‘This world is full of evils. Know things, and know the names of them, and you will have them in your power.’
A shout from nearby brought him back to the present. One of the guests, calling to another about some argument they’d been having the previous day.
He turned his mind back to the swallow. It was a message. But of what kind? What could Hero want from him? And could he trust her? He chewed on a piece of crackling, and watched a tussle between two men of Mykenai, squaring up to each other over which of them might win a foot race.
Orestes entered the room as the quarrel began to get serious, and there was a ragged cheer. The two men stopped and shook hands. Orestes limped to his stone throne and took a golden goblet, finely decorated with a stag hunt. He lifted it high and said, over the cheers, ‘I drink to Hera, the Goddess of Childbirth!’
Somebody thumped the table, and others took up the action.
‘She has given me a child! A son – a fine son!’
A round of hurrahs exploded through the hall. The tables shook, goblets and plates clattering, hounds barking to the ceilings.
