Secret of the Oracle

by Saviour Pirotta

  He whistled and a Spartan hound padded out from behind a tree, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. Heliodorus mumbled something as he stopped to rub its ears, then master and dog marched on without looking back. Together they disappeared down the path.

  ‘I apologise for his rude behaviour,’ said Zoe. ‘He hides his fear with rage. He is very worried about Selene.’

  ‘Where do you think she has run off to?’ asked Thrax.

  ‘My mother thinks she has gone to the mountains,’ said Zoe. ‘There are caves up there where she can hide.’

  A thin, reedy voice called from inside the house. ‘Thugater!’

  ‘Please, come in,’ said Zoe. ‘My mother wishes to speak to you.’

  Thrax and I followed her. The farmhouse seemed to have only one room, with extremely tiny windows that let in the light but kept out thieves and vandals. It was spotless, with a fire burning in one corner and cooking utensils arranged neatly on a wooden shelf. Beneath it were two beds with clean mattresses. The farmer’s wife was rocking backwards and forwards on a stool in front of a small household altar showing Hera, the goddess of the family. Her fingers clutched a woollen epiblema on her lap.

  She smiled through her tears when she saw us. The rocking stopped. ‘Please, get our visitors some milk,’ she said to Zoe, who had started clearing away the broken pottery.

  I flinched at the thought of drinking raw milk, for in Athens only barbarians are believed to do so. Cultured people only have it in cheese. Thrax, on the other hand, drained his cup in one gulp.

  The farmer’s wife managed a weak grin. ‘I can tell you were brought up in the country. Farm people understand how good fresh milk is. My Selene likes her milk too.’

  Thrax put down his cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘When did she run away?’

  ‘Yesterday.’ The farmer’s wife clutched the epiblema to her chest. ‘She had an argument with her father about going out on her own again. We don’t mind her taking the goats to pasture in spring and summer. Many girls around here do that. But she keeps going into town too, without her sister Zoe as a chaperone. It’s not proper for girls to do that, even farmers’ daughters. The boys jeer at her. She is becoming the laughing stock of Delphi. We are a good family and our children must behave accordingly. Selene has a fine chance of being chosen to be a Pythia when she’s older. She must show she is a respectable girl or she’ll have no future.’

  These last words made the farmer’s wife dissolve into a fresh bout of sobbing. An enormous tear rolled down her weather-beaten cheek.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, holding trembling hands out to Thrax. ‘I was about to send Zoe to fetch you. We’ve heard you are a kind and resourceful boy. Find my daughter. Tell her to come back to her family. Her father might be very strict but that’s because he loves her very much.’

  ‘Your master told my parents all about your adventure in Corinth when he came to hire us,’ explained Zoe. ‘She’s hoping you can come to Selene’s rescue too.’

  The farmer’s wife fumbled inside her dress and pulled out a small purse. ‘We make a little from selling goats to the temple. We can pay.’

  Thrax pushed the bag away gently. ‘I couldn’t take money from you poor, working folk. But I’ll help find your daughter. She will come back home.’

  The farmer’s wife wiped away the tear and reached out to ruffle Thrax’s hair. ‘Thank you. May the gods bless you and your friend.’

  Thrax pulled a stool close to the farmer’s wife and sat down. ‘I need to ask you some questions,’ he said. ‘You must answer as accurately as you can. What time did the argument happen?’

  ‘The sun had not yet set. I was laying out our evening meal.’

  ‘And did Selene run away straight after the argument?’

  The farmer’s wife shook her head. ‘We don’t know. We just found her bed empty this morning. It hadn’t been slept in.’

  ‘The weather’s been nice these last few days. How can you be sure that she’s not just out on the mountain pastures?’ I asked.

  ‘She left the goats behind,’ explained Zoe. ‘Selene would never go up the mountain without them, not unless she knew she wasn’t coming back. My father knows this mountain like the back of his hand and he’s not found her. That’s why he looked so angry and upset just now.’

  ‘So where do you think she went?’ asked Thrax. ‘Could she have gone down the mountain to Kirrha?’

  Zoe frowned. ‘No one in our family has ever been there except my father, and he only went once, a long time ago, to buy goats.’

  ‘Could Selene be staying with friends in the city?’ said Thrax.

  ‘Selene has no friends. She’s a loner.’

  Thrax indicated the beds. ‘Does your sister sleep in here?’

  ‘No,’ replied Zoe. ‘These beds are mine and my mother’s. My father sleeps on a cot in the big barn in case someone tries to steal the animals. We have a smaller barn, a shed really. Selene sleeps in there.’

  ‘May we have a look?’ said Thrax.

  Zoe led us out of a back door across an orchard. I was expecting a dirty hovel but the shed was surprisingly clean. The walls were painted a fresh white and there was a wooden door with a carved handle. Zoe pulled it open. ‘Has anyone been in here since Selene ran away?’ asked Thrax.

  ‘Father sent me to look but I didn’t need to go past the doorway to know that Selene wasn’t in here. There’s nowhere for her to hide.’

  Thrax peered inside the shed. ‘I see. If Nico and I could look it over on our own...’

  I felt a sense of excitement when I heard those words. We had another mystery to solve at last, not a small one like I’d wished for, but a proper one. A girl gone missing!

  ‘Very well,’ said Zoe. ‘I shall wait for you in the house.’

  Thrax stepped into the shed, leaving me at the door. The place was so small there wasn’t enough room for the both of us at the same time.

  Bright morning light streamed in through a small square window. It had a lamp on the sill. There was straw on the floor, which smelt fresh and clean. A cot sat against one wall, with no headboard but an enormous soft-looking pillow. A small wooden chest stood beside it, with a crudely made perfume jar on it.

  Thrax lifted the pillow off the bed and squeezed it in case there was something hidden in it. He peeled off a goatskin blanket and checked under the bed. Then he looked inside the wooden chest. When he was done, he started shifting the straw on the floor with his feet.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ I asked. ‘A hidden trapdoor?’

  Thrax didn’t reply. He never does if you ask a silly question with an obvious answer. Smoothing down the straw, he lay on the bed and studied the walls.

  ‘It is my theory, Nico,’ he said, ‘that people always hide valuable things in a place where they can keep a constant eye on them, even when they are in bed.’

  He hummed to himself for a few moments, then sprang up. ‘Aha!’ He went to the wall across the room and peered closely at the bricks. ‘Do you have a knife on you?’

  ‘You know I don’t carry knives.’

  ‘Your broken reed pen, then. The one you use for cleaning your nails. It’s in your bag, I believe.’

  I handed him the pen. Now that I was looking closely, I noticed that one of the bricks in the wall had a hairline crack around it. It was loose. Thrax wedged the blunt end of the reed pen under it and prised it out.

  A dark hole appeared as the brick came out. Thrax put in his hand and drew out two little cotton bags. One was filled with loose coins. The second one held a small amulet, a bracelet made of pierced stones strung on a piece of leather. Every pebble had a strange symbol painted on it.

  Thrax put the amulet back in its bag and we returned it to its hiding place with the money.

  ‘No word about the money and the amulet to Zoe or her mother,’ he whispered as we headed back to the farmhouse. Zoe had been busy while we were in the shed. She had filled the goatskins with wine and water and
wrapped a warm dish in a piece of cotton. Her mother was tucked up in one of the cots and her soft snoring filled the room.

  ‘I’ll let her sleep till Father comes back home,’ said Zoe, handing us the warm dish and another bag with bread and cheese. ‘She’s had a dreadful fright.’

  ‘Tell her we said goodbye when she wakes up,’ said Thrax. ‘And please don’t worry too much about your sister. I’m sure Nico and I will find her.’

  Zoe nodded and kissed the tips of her fingers. ‘May the gods listen to your words.’

  ‘You must come and tell us at once if you have any news,’ said Thrax. ‘Meanwhile, Nico and I will start our investigations right away.’

  We nodded our goodbyes and walked back up the dirt track, weighed down with food and wine. The full goatskin was surprisingly heavy on my back. ‘It’s going to be very difficult finding this girl,’ I said, puffing in the morning heat. ‘You didn’t even ask Zoe for a description of her.’

  ‘I didn’t need to,’ said Thrax.

  I stopped to shift the goatskin from one shoulder to another. ‘Oh?’

  ‘We know what the missing girl looks like already.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘That epiblema the farmer’s wife had on her lap?’ said Thrax. ‘We’ve seen it somewhere before. The girl in the cheesemaker’s yard was wearing it. That boy Belos and his friends tore it from her shoulder. Selene is the girl with the red hair.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And she didn’t run away. She was kidnapped.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  A New Investigation

  ‘Kidnapped!’ I gasped. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The bags in the hidey-hole. The things in them were special enough for Selene to hide. If she had run away, she would have taken them with her.’

  ‘Should we tell Zoe?’ I asked.

  ‘I think the family is upset enough as it is. We’ll tell them after we’ve found Selene.’

  ‘And here I was thinking nothing nasty ever happens in sacred places.’

  Thrax chuckled. ‘Sacred places have the most powerful communities in the world. They influence kings and generals. And where there’s power, there’s always foul play of some sort.’

  ‘But why was Selene kidnapped?’

  ‘We’ll know that when we find her,’ said Thrax.

  ‘You seem very sure that we will.’

  Thrax walked faster, his feet stamping on the rocky ground. ‘Did you not see that mother crying? I can’t leave a woman to grieve for her child if I can help it.’

  I thought of Thrax’s mother, who might be sitting at home even now, hoping and praying to the gods that her son would be returned to her.

  ‘Where do we start our search?’

  ‘At the agora,’ replied Thrax. ‘It’s the heart of the community, especially in a small mountain place like Delphi where all the locals know each other. If we keep our eyes and ears open, we’re bound to pick up some vital information.’

  ‘Selene might have been carried away by mountain bandits,’ I said.

  Thrax switched the food dish from one arm to the other. ‘Bandits wouldn’t dare come so close to Delphi during the months the oracle is open, not since Athens sent a small army to deal with them.’

  Sadly, we had no more time to discuss our investigation because we’d reached the country house. Master Ariston welcomed us with a furious scowl. ‘What kept you?’ he asked. ‘I am about to pass out with hunger.’

  ‘We’re sorry, master,’ said Thrax, hastily laying the table. ‘The farmer and his family are very upset. They think their youngest daughter has run away.’

  ‘That odd-looking girl with the flaming-red hair?’ snorted Master Ariston. ‘I saw her making honey cakes when I went to see the farmer. I saw her last night too, when I was coming home from my “thinking walk”. She was scurrying along the mountain path after some boy.’

  ‘What time was this?’ said Thrax, setting out the food we had brought.

  ‘Too late in the evening for a young girl to be out chasing boys,’ said Master Ariston. ‘The stars were in the sky.’

  Thrax tore up the bread, dipped it in wine and placed it on the table. ‘Zoe told us Selene had an argument with her father earlier that night. Did she look upset?’

  ‘I didn’t give the child a second glance. I only recognised her because of those enormous green eyes she has.’

  ‘What about the boy?’ asked Thrax. ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  Master Ariston scowled at Thrax, his mouth full of half-chewed bread. ‘I’m afraid I was too engrossed with my play to have noticed what the boy looked like. Nico, fetch your pens. We’re so late starting today, we’ll have to work extra hard to catch up.’

  The morning dragged on and on, with Master Ariston making up one ridiculous piece of dialogue after another. If his comedy was ever to be performed, I pitied the poor actors who would have to act these lines, and the audience that would have to sit and listen to them. I found it very hard to concentrate too. My mind kept wandering to the new mystery we had to solve.

  Who had kidnapped Selene? And why? And, most important of all, where was she now? Was she somewhere we could rescue her?

  Late in the afternoon, Master Ariston yawned and scratched his armpits. He asked Thrax to heat up the dish that Zoe had given us. It was sausage stew, and he wolfed it down without leaving any for Thrax and me.

  ‘My imagination has run dry,’ he said. ‘Let’s take the rest of the day off. I’ll go to the baths for a soak and a think.’

  ‘May Thrax and I go and buy petasos at the agora, sir?’ I asked. ‘We’ve both lost our old ones.’

  ‘As long as you use your own money,’ replied Master Ariston. ‘And get me some dried chickpeas while you’re there. Use your own money for that too, seeing as you have enough to splash out on new sun hats. Thrax can roast them for snacks.’

  It was exciting leaving the country house that day. We couldn’t wait to start our enquiries. Thrax and I both tried not to look too eager as we hurried down the lane, leaving Master Ariston to gather his own things for his trip to the baths.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Blind Man with the Aulos

  ‘This is what we have so far,’ said Thrax as we walked into Delphi. ‘Selene had a furious argument with her father yesterday just before sundown. Later, when the stars were out, she slipped out of her house to meet someone, a boy. Some time after that she was kidnapped. She hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘I wonder who that mysterious boy was,’ I said. ‘He might have been the kidnapper.’

  ‘Possibly. Or possibly not,’ replied Thrax. ‘Selene could have disappeared any time between then and the morning when Zoe found the shed empty.’

  We came to the agora. ‘Remember,’ warned Thrax, ‘we are here to buy sun hats and chickpeas. No talk of Selene or kidnappers. We are visitors and must not look or sound interested in local matters or we’ll make people suspicious. You can bet that the kidnapper will have his ear to the ground until the fuss dies down.’

  The marketplace was busy despite the lack of pilgrims. This being Delphi, there were lots of people selling holy objects to do with the oracle: small statues of Apollo, oil lamps, and strange round stones wrapped in miniature woollen nets.

  ‘Those are called omphalos,’ explained one of the stallholders when he saw us inspecting them. ‘They represent navels, because we believe Delphi is the centre – the belly button – of the world. These are small copies of the original omphalos in the oracle, and they’re going cheap today...’

  ‘We’re only looking, thanks,’ said Thrax hurriedly. ‘My master sent us to buy chickpeas for roasting.’

  ‘We’ll not get any information out of him,’ he said, as we walked away.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Did you not get a good look at his clothes? His chiton is spotless and his belt is a very expensive one. He’s a very successful trader. People like that are too guarded to gossip. They leave their talk f
or the andron and the symposium where only other rich men can hear. We need to eavesdrop on the fishmongers and the vegetable sellers. Ordinary folk who never get invited to symposiums. They’re the ones who notice things and don’t mind sharing them, mainly because gossip is the only entertainment they can afford.’

  We made our way across the market to where people were selling fresh produce. The smell of fish was overpowering but it did not seem to prevent customers from lingering at the stall for a good old chat. Thrax stopped by a stall, pretending to admire the fish. His instincts are always accurate and within moments, we overheard someone talking about Selene.

  ‘Poor Harmonia and Heliodorus,’ said an old woman so bent with age she seemed to be looking at the ground while she talked. ‘Their daughter Selene has run away.’

  ‘That girl is a strange one,’ said the vendor, wrapping anchovies in a filthy piece of cloth and putting them in the old woman’s basket. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s just hiding in some cave or disused farm to scare her parents. They’ll find her soon, no doubt.’

  The old woman counted out coins into the fishmonger’s hand. ‘May the gods bring the girl back home safely.’

  Thrax nudged me. ‘Nico, buy us some food, will you, please? I’m starving.’

  I dug in my money bag and stopped a street seller who was selling fried fish wrapped in flatbread.

  ‘Let’s go and eat somewhere quiet,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Thrax. ‘We’re staying here.’

  He indicated a patch of ground where an old beggar with a crown of white hair was squatting, a small bowl at his right knee. He had very wrinkled skin and his eyes were a milky yellow. The man had been playing an aulos but had stopped when the old woman started talking, his head cocked to one side as he listened. Thrax dropped on the ground next to him and thrust half his snack into his hands.

  ‘Share our good fortune with us, sir.’