by Peter Tonkin
As she said this, my father’s description of Prince Aias came to mind – that he would rather rape a woman than romance her.
But the High Priestess continued talking over my brief flash of suspicion. ‘When Nephele’s family had no news of her I began to grow more certain that the Goddess must have taken the girl to herself. My only hope then was that the departure from this realm was swift and painless. I had just left the family’s house when the messenger from the temple found me and gave me his terrible news. I saw the hand of the Goddess in this as well, for the messenger was only able to find me so easily because everyone at the temple knew I was going to see Nephele’s parents. A few moments later and he’d have missed me. I would probably only have found out the truth when I got back to the temple myself and I doubt very much it would have occurred to me to seek your help then.’
‘Did you go back and break the news to the poor girl’s family?’ asked Odysseus.
‘No, I did not. I was too upset to consider it. The messenger’s description of what my searchers have found made it immediately plain to me that I would need more than the usual guidance from the Goddess, though I am certain that it was She who put your name into my mind so swiftly. These are matters I can discuss with Pythia the oracle, who speaks directly to the Goddess herself from her sacred rooms in the temple. I told the messenger to return at once and order that nothing be touched or moved until I arrived to look into the matter. Then, instead of returning to the Nephele’s family I came in search of you.’
‘But you found Agamemnon instead.’
‘That is not quite what happened. I have been in contact with the High King on more than one occasion in the recent past. His army has pitched its tents on land owned by the temple, and, as more and more divisions have arrived, the encroachment has worsened. I have had to discuss the matter of rent and terms of occupancy with him. But more important still is what he has discussed with me. Hardly surprisingly, the huge army he has been assembling here is not only encroaching onto land I am responsible for as High Priestess but it is also going through his supplies at a tremendous rate. He tells me he planned a short campaign, which is why he is calling together such an overwhelming force. But by trapping him here in Aulis the gods are undoing everything he had counted on. He has a war chest of course, but that is being squandered - as he sees it - on feeding and watering his idle troops instead of arming them and preparing them for immediate battle. Thus he has been sending out ever-larger hunting parties deeper and deeper into the forests in search of food that he does not have to pay for. Indeed, because he is as bored and frustrated as anyone else, he often leads them in person.’
‘And they have further encroached onto ground that is sacred to Artemis, I assume.’
‘They have. Though I am as well aware as anyone of the irony that the goddess of the hunt should forbid hunting in her sacred groves. But so she does, because she is also the protectress of wild things and wild places and there’s an end to the matter.’
‘Though that’s not how the High King sees it?’ asked Odysseus.
‘Precisely. He is not a spiritual man. He is a pragmatist and is far more interested in worldly fame than he is in honouring the gods, so he sees the danger of angering them as much less important than the danger of running out of gold or facing the humiliation of watching his army deciding to go home and leave him stuck here alone. That is something he is beginning to view as an increasingly probable outcome unless he can find some way of changing the situation – or of persuading the gods to do so if he becomes sufficiently desperate to call on them. He is here in search of money and power – yet he discovers himself to be powerless in the face of the weather, wasting his gold at a rate he is beginning to find unacceptable and waiting for his army to walk away even before the final units have arrived. However, it is my duty to enforce the wishes of the Goddess, even in the face of his bluster. So we have had several conversations. In the temple, in the forest and in his tent.’
‘So you knew how to find the High King and hoped that he would know how to find me.’
‘Indeed. When I explained the situation, he was unusually co-operative; probably relieved that the matter on this occasion did not involve him or his huntsmen.’
***
This conversation took us down the hill, out of the camp, in through the southern gate and across to Aulis’ central agora. Karpathia’s chariot and driver together with two attendants were waiting for her here among the market stalls. The messenger who had brought the news about the murder had returned to the temple with her orders as she had explained. Karpathia questioned the attendants as Odysseus sent Elpenor to fetch his chariot and we waited for it to be readied, but they knew nothing more about the matter. ‘It’s probably just as well,’ said Odysseus in the end. ‘We don’t want to be distracted by what other people saw, or thought they saw. We need to approach it with fresh eyes, so to speak.’
Like Achilles’ recent acquisition, Odysseus’ chariot was a light war-chariot, though pulled by two horses, and really designed for a charioteer and one passenger – a fully-armed hero who would be carried to the battlefront and leap down there challenging opponents to single-combat. In doing this the heroes gained not only glory but gold – the winner took the loser’s armour, which was often gilded and bejewelled, as well as all his weapons. Elpenor took the reins, the captain stood at his shoulder and there was just room for me. Karpathia’s chariot was a far grander affair, as befitted the High Priestess of the divine protectress of the city and its surrounding areas. There was plenty of room for her driver, herself and her attendants. As her chariot was also pulled by two horses, our speed out of the city on the road west toward Thebes was stately rather than urgent. Fortunately, the contest between Achilles and Eumelus had taken place early in the morning and it was only approaching noon as we left the city with the sun god Helios guiding his own blazing chariot to the apex of its daily course somewhere high above the heaving overcast.
Thebes may have been well past its fabled glory, but the road between it and Aulis was still busy, most of the traffic heading for the coast. The restless army trapped here attracted traders of all sorts and as I observed them hurrying hopefully like flies towards a honeypot, I wondered whether my father’s father’s father had once been just like them, or had he been more like Captain Odysseus, preferring to ply his trade aboard ship, giving even Jason and his Argonauts, perhaps, some stiff competition. Nowadays my father commanded almost as many vessels as wagons.
I was able to indulge in these dreamy speculations because the road west mounted a steepening slope which slowed the chariots’ progress – something compounded by the traffic flowing against us like the counter-current that Odysseus had described which slowed Thalassa on our voyage to Skyros. Moreover, the distance between the chariots, the bustle of the traffic flowing against us and the constant bluster of the wind made conversation difficult. And once we got close to the heaving, roaring trees, impossible.
After some time, Karpathia’s chariot turned left onto a broad track that was clearly both well-used and well-maintained. The noise of the wind in the trees became almost overwhelming and the dull grey light thickened further between the close-packed trunks of tall pine trees. The restless air, however, was fragrant with the scent of balsam. The track led up through the trees to the holy precinct. This was a wide area that had been cleared of trees, levelled and flagged by earlier generations of workmen and worshipers. Behind this space, the hillside rose in two sheer steps, each one taller than several men but level at their tops as far as I could tell at this distance. At the centre of the lower space stood the temple. It was lined on all sides with columns that supported the main roof but within these stood the solid walls of the building itself. Three great steps reached up on all sides from the precinct to the outer columns then two more stepped up to the inner walls. A processional stairway started well back from the main entrance and led directly up to the doorway in the inner wall. The High Priestess’ ch
ariot drew to a halt by the foot of these stairs and Elpenor guided Odysseus’ chariot to a standstill beside it. ‘I must cleanse myself and consult the oracle,’ she said. ‘The temple servants will guide you to a place where you can rest and refresh yourselves then we will follow those who found poor Nephele to wherever she is lying.’
Male temple servants came out to take our horses and chariots to the stables while others led us into the temple itself where female servants and junior priestesses led us further in. The temple was designed similarly to the royal halls I had seen at Phthia and Skyros. There was an entrance area that led into a reception area with a huge, square formal megaron further in still where four columns stood in a square around the circular pit which contained the sacred fire. There was further accommodation deeper behind the megaron but we did not get a close look at it. Instead, we were led to one side of the reception area where there was seating and some low tables adjacent to it. Bowls of water were brought for us to rinse our hands and faces. Linen cloths arrived for us to dry ourselves. There was more water to drink and wine to mix with it if we wanted. There was bread, oil, olives, honey and cheese so that by the time the High Priestess returned, we were clean, satisfied and ready to follow her into the sacred groves of Artemis which had been so brutally desecrated.
ii
At first I assumed that it was the nature of our mission which made High Priestess Karpathia so grim and thoughtful as she led us back out of the temple, following the two servants who had discovered the murdered girl. But suddenly she started talking to the captain and I discovered she needed to share a burden that she found heavy and, as it turned out, dangerous.
‘Pythia the Oracle was very specific,’ she said. ‘The Goddess has dictated that whoever did this must pay for it, like for like. Until the debt is settled, Agamemnon and his army are going nowhere – unless they choose to go home. But even if they do that, they will simply be postponing the inevitable. Somewhere, sometime, the debt must be paid, like for like. Pythia says the Goddess has told her that a member of Agamemnon’s army is involved. I must see the High King once more and tell him to seek out this man – or all his plans and hopes will come to nothing. I pray that you can help me discover sufficient information to make the High King’s task quick and easy.’
I paid scant attention to the last few sentences spoken. The repetition of the phrase ‘like for like’ distracted me, made me think of my father’s wagering earlier that day. On the beach beside the race course the phrase had precise meaning. Prince Palamedes had wagered his gilded arm guards and his jewel-hilted sword. If Achilles had lost, my father would have given him another pair of arm guards and another sword – gilded and bejewelled, like for like. The race had gone the other way, so Palamedes had lost his arm guards and his sword. It looked as though whoever was responsible for the young priestess’ death would have to lose a child of his own in exchange. Or he would have to do so if Pythia the oracle was really in contact with the Goddess, and that was truly what Artemis had demanded. The thought made my blood run cold – what if whoever did this dreadful thing was working for Father? Could my life possibly be forfeit?
The path from the precinct into the forest was lined with cypress trees, and the resinous scent they gave off was heady but their dark green foliage seemed to make the day darker still and as the wind gusted through them I fancied that they were singing a sad song. A dirge, perhaps, for the poor dead girl. The two searchers led us unerringly through the undergrowth. The woods around us grew wilder. I imagined that there would be snufflings, stirrings, birdsong and sounds of movement had the wind not been so loud in the trees. Instead, there were flashes of movement up in the branches and out amongst the tree-trunks with the low bushes that grew sparsely between them. I found these confusing as the effort of keeping up seemed to make the flashes of brightness at the edges of my damaged vision more vivid. As we proceeded, the going got harder because the hillside we were walking across was folded into ridges that grew higher and valleys that grew deeper. It was still possible to make progress, however, because the undulations were not too extreme at first, though as I limped onwards I started considering whether I should break off a sturdy branch to use as a crutch.
But my disabilities did not blind me to what was going on around me. Odysseus’ gaze was everywhere. Walking beside him, I could make out the tilt of his head, the angle of his face and the movement of his eyes. He glanced up above our heads every now and then; looked from one side to another for longer periods, but most of his attention was focussed straight ahead, on the ground beneath our feet. I too tended to look down, for the combination of pine needles, fir cones and sparse grass made our way quite slippery because the last day or two, since the arrival of the stormy weather, had been wet. Beyond that, I had no interest in what was going on beneath my feet. Or rather, I didn’t until, seeing where I was looking, Odysseus said, ‘Yes. Hoofprints. There have been horses here.’
The High Priestess heard him, though he was speaking to me. ‘Horses,’ she echoed. ‘And horses can only mean one thing. Hunters. As the oracle said.’
‘Are these amongst your sacred areas?’
‘We are about to enter the grove of the Goddess. The area and every plant and animal within it is sacred.’
‘And, most sacred of all, I assume, will be the deer.’
‘Deer are more than sacred to the Goddess. She has been known to transform herself into a deer on occasion. The virgins of the temple tend the deer of this forest and have as an act of particular holiness gilded the antlers of the great stag who is king over them all.’
The conversation ceased after that but we did not walk in silence for long. Our guides slowed as they led us to the crest of the next undulation and stopped there, standing back as we approached. Where the ridge-crests so far had given onto downward slopes, this ridge ended in a low cliff. Even I could see that the ground and the vegetation along the cliff-edge had been violently disturbed. The earth was churned, with the footprints of people and animals intermixed. The bushes had been torn and broken; some of them were hanging over the edge of the low precipice, dangling by their roots.
‘Watch where you’re treading,’ ordered Odysseus as he walked towards the edge. Obediently keeping an eye on our feet and the ground beneath them, we followed him. The little cliff of mud and stone was about three times as tall as Elpenor the better part of two kalami high, but this was only obvious with careful observation for there were more bushes growing at its foot that reached between a third and half-way up it. Like the bushes at the top, these were battered and broken, some of them obviously dying. Other than that, I saw nothing but Odysseus said, to Karpathia, ‘Yes. I see her. Someone has moved those dead bushes to cover the body. Could you ask one of our guides to go down and remove them, carefully, please?’
The High Priestess gave the order. One of her servants scrambled down and pulled the bushes aside. And there was the dead girl, lying face down in the mud and rubble, her head at a strange angle, one arm clearly broken and the stub of something covered in blood sticking up out of a huge russet stain on the left side of her back.
***
‘Where to begin…’ said Odysseus softly to himself, ‘where to begin…’ He stood where he was, like the rest of us looking down at the corpse a couple of kalami below our toe-tips. Then he looked up. ‘I assume your searchers are adept at tracking – that would be why you chose them to come looking.’
‘Of course. Ikaros there has been a hunter in his time but now he serves the Goddess and protects the lives of her wild subjects. That’s why he’s the leader of my search parties.’ She gestured to the searcher who had not scrambled down to move the bushes but who stood beside us at the moment, looking sadly down at the corpse. This was a scrawny, hunched man of advancing years, who nevertheless shared with King Nestor, a lively athleticism and a sharp gaze that suggested an equally sharp mind. ‘Ikaros,’ said Odysseus, ‘I see the tracks of at least one horse here. The footsteps of a man approac
hing from the undergrowth back there, perhaps leading the horse. I see more footprints coming out of the bushes behind you, those of a woman or youth walking on tip-toe, or, more likely, running. And there is something else here I can’t quite make out…’
‘I’m surprised you can see that much, Captain,’ replied the retired huntsman. ‘These pine needles are near-impossible to track through. But yes: footprints – two sets as you say. Round, solid hoofprints. But I don’t think you mentioned seeing these.’ Ikaros pointed to the ground nearer the edge of the little cliff. ‘More prints near the same size as the hoof prints, but these are split, do you see? Split prints. There was a sizeable deer here.’
‘Ah, yes. I see its tracks now coming out from the bushes there, approaching this point and then, nothing.’
‘Where did it go, then?’ asked the High Priestess, her voice demonstrating her further concern that whatever had happened here had not only resulted in the death of the girl but in some sort of danger to a sacred animal.
Odysseus and Ikaros exchanged a glance, then Odysseus said, ‘It went over the edge.’
‘You mean it jumped? I’ve heard that stags will make some astonishing leaps but this one would need to be the Goddess in disguise, surely…’
‘It didn’t leap,’ said Odysseus. ‘It fell. And Nephele fell with it.’
‘But why?’ demanded the High Priestess. ‘How could such a thing have happened?’
‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ said Odysseus. ‘Let’s go down for a closer look.’
Ikaros led the way. His companion who had moved the bushes had found a fairly easy path on his way down to do so and we all managed to get down without any mishap – even me. We walked along the foot of the little cliff until we had reached the dead bushes and the dead girl they had covered. Looking up from here I was struck by the unexpected height of the cliff and how sheer it appeared to be from this angle.