by Emily Hauser
He was silent once more.
I opened my eyes. It felt strange to see the sunshine pouring in through the open windows, to smell the familiar warm scent of Aura upon the air, mixed with the roasting meat and the straw from the goatshed, when a moment ago I had been there upon the mountain with my father, the snow swirling around us, the wind bitter. I looked down at my bow in its slot within the quiver, the arrows I had sharpened upon this very stool, the fletching feathers I had plucked from a tufted duck we had caught together upon the lake in the woods.
‘I was not wanted,’ I said. ‘They left me on the mountain to die. Is that it?’ I turned to my father. ‘They did not want me?’
I had grown up in Kaladrosos, raised to think I was cared for, that I was loved – too much at times, perhaps, too close, yet as constant and steady as the mountain rocks. And now to find out I had been consigned to death, that the mother who had borne me had given me up to the snows and the winds in the dead of winter. That I had been saved only by chance … that my fate had been to die …
A sob caught in my throat, and I banished it with difficulty. The tears were threatening to spill down my cheeks as a yawning emptiness filled me, terrible, desolate, and every certainty I had ever known fell away.
I was not wanted.
Why?
Why did they not want me?
My father said nothing in reply but stood, went over to the wooden chest by the wall where he and my mother kept their few precious things, unlocked it and brought out a small square of linen wrapped around an object I could not see. ‘You had this around your neck,’ he said, pressing it into my hands, ‘when I found you. The workmanship looks Pagasean to me – they have more goldsmiths than Iolcos, at any rate.’ He sighed. ‘If I had to make a guess, I would say you came from a family in the city, though whether this belonged to a wealthy noble or was a gift to his slave, I cannot tell.’
Fingers trembling, I lifted back the edges of the cloth. Inside was a golden medallion on a long leather cord, beaten thin into a circle, an image of two huntsmen chasing a stag hammered into it. I lifted the medallion and felt the cord slide over my hand, saw the disc sparkling in the light cast by the fire. The loss I was feeling inside was changing slowly, growing, kindling into a burning desire – and with it, a question: who am I?
Why was I left to die?
I looked up into my father’s face, seeing the hesitation in his eyes as he watched me, waiting for a reaction. I wrapped it back in its cloth, feeling the thin edge of the medallion with my thumb, and bent to place it in my quiver. The burning in my chest was flaming, leaping higher and higher – whether it was shock or anger or excitement I could not tell: all I knew was that I had to do something. To do nothing would be unbearable.
‘I could not have asked the gods for a better father,’ I said, my throat tight. ‘But, Father, would you understand if I said I wished to go to Pagasae? To find my parents – to prove to them they were wrong to abandon me to die?’
My father let out a long sigh and gave me a faint smile.
‘You do understand?’ I pressed him.
He squeezed my hand. ‘I would have expected nothing less of you, Atalanta, my dear.’
There was a sound from beside me, and I turned. My mother had approached, unnoticed, and stood beside me, Maia still on her hip. She reached to her girdle and untied a leather pouch that hung from it, then handed it to me. It chinked softly as I opened it and looked inside to see a handful of silver and bronze coins. ‘We do not have much, Zeus knows,’ she said, her expression fierce, as if challenging me to say otherwise, though her cheeks were glimmering with the tracks of tears, ‘but I put this aside knowing that this day would come, sooner or later. It is enough to keep you in the city for a month or so, maybe more.’
I gazed at her, unable to speak.
My father reached up and patted her hand. ‘You are a good woman, Tyro.’
I nodded, swallowing hard. ‘My thanks to you – to you both. I shall return – I promise you.’
And in my thoughts, that flickering, spreading, burning desire: I have to know who I am.
To the City
Kaladrosos
The Hour of the Middle of the Day
The Thirteenth Day of the Month of Sailing
I left Kaladrosos nine days later when the sun was halfway to the arch of the sky, my father standing by the door in the porch watching me go, my mother inside with the smoke and the children. I looked back down the slope of the hill. He was leaning on his wooden walking stick, his hat askew upon his head, one hand on the scruff of Aura’s neck as she strained against the rope tethering her to the doorpost, her ears flapping as she leapt and barked and tried to follow me. I nodded to my father, tears at the corners of my eyes, trying, with one gesture, to tell him why I had to leave. I saw him smile a little and wave me on. I hesitated, looked back one last time, a lump rising in my throat as I thought of my mother within, fighting an urge to turn back and allow myself to be held once more in her arms, to inhale the scent of soot on her tunic, to kiss Corycia a last time on her plump pink cheek and to tell Leon to remember to practise with his little wooden bow while I was gone.
Then I turned and began to run.
I had fastened the medallion my father had given me around my neck, and the disc leapt against my chest beneath my tunic as I went. For the first part I was pounding along paths I knew, following the steep flank of the mountain south and west through the woods, the dappled shade cooling my limbs and the scent of the pines on the breeze. I stopped now and then to drink and splash water upon my face at the streams along the way. The path wound back and forth, following the contours of the foothills, and to my right the towering rocks shrouded in olive shrubs traced the route north towards the mountain’s peak. Those first steps from Kaladrosos were harder than I could ever have thought, each bend in the track filled with memories – the carpenter’s hut in the village of Lechonia, where my father had had my first bow made; the glade where I had picked branches of silver fir sacred to the goddess Artemis to cover our door when my mother was lying in with Maia; the mountain lake where Aura and I used to swim together, with its veil-like waters and pine-edged sandy banks. But as the sky above became more expansive, and the ground fell away at my feet, revealing a vista over the rolling olive-clad slopes towards the vast blue bay and the distant mountains on the other side, my excitement mounted, as my thoughts turned from what I had left to what I might find ahead.
Pagasae lies furthest to the west of the cities of the bay beneath Mount Pelion, past the citadel of Iolcos at the place where the land curves back towards the sea. My father’s words echoed in my head as I ran, each word beating with the slap of my sandals against the rocks. I had never been so far from Kaladrosos – we had never needed to venture further, exchanging the wood my father cut from the forests for fish at Kaladrosos harbour and spices from the merchants that sailed the open sea – yet already I was savouring the new sights and sounds: the warmth of the sun sinking over the mountains to the west upon my face, the burning golden disc turning the sky to orange and pink, then to a pale purple, a myriad of colours. Cicadas were chirping gently in the boughs of the pines, calling to and answering each other, while swifts circled overhead, shrieking and swooping towards the bay. I felt myself thrill with anticipation, and ran on down the winding path.
I spent the night at a woodcutter’s hut set just above the harbour of the little village of Aphussos, and ate companionably outside with his family around a small fire built up from dry underbrush. The stars began to glimmer overhead, and I sat tearing bread, cutting the skewered meat from the spit and talking with the man’s wife, all the while gazing towards the dotted torchlights of the towns to the north and west of the bay, wondering which was Pagasae and what I might find there.
I left early the next morning as the sun’s rays broke through the mists rising from the water, and turned to run north as the sun climbed towards its peak, following the sandy shores of the bay, fo
rding rivers running down from the mountain to the sea, passing olive orchards and small clusters of dwellings surrounded by cypress trees, the many-ridged slopes of Mount Pelion rising green-clad on my right. As I rounded the north of the bay, away from the mountain, the ground became drier, dustier, swallows swooping overhead, the grass a paler green and tufted beneath my feet. The path forked to the right, leading up the plain towards a distant hilltop fortress set back from the sea, but I followed the track on, running past fishermen, tradesmen and pedlars with trays slung around their necks, keeping close to the bay as my father had said. I was aiming towards a headland curving back into the ocean. Above it, a long, low hill was coming into view upon which another city was built, its fortified limestone walls tracing the contour of the rocks, the rooftops of the buildings behind just visible, the path winding up the slope to a pair of wide gates and a tower. My stomach churned and I slowed to a walk, breathing hard, brushing my fingertips through the marram grass and rushes growing nearby.
Pagasae.
I swallowed, doubt and fear leaping in my chest like cold flames as I contemplated the enormity of what lay before me.
Lady Artemis, I thought, turning my eyes to a nearby pine, willing the goddess to speak to me from its branches. Tell me, was I a fool to leave Kaladrosos?
Was I a fool to think I could come to the city, and be welcomed there?
I was deserted upon the mountain, left to die … What if I find my family, and am told they do not want me?
I bit my lip, glancing back over my shoulder towards the mist-tinged outline of Mount Pelion on the other side of the bay. I had left my family behind, my whole way of life: the familiar crowing of the cockerels in the village at dawn, the smell of hay, smoke and burnt wood in our house, the breeze through the olive leaves in the yard just before the sun dropped behind the mountain, and the evening light that tinged the leaves with gold, like first-pressed oil. My heart tugged as I remembered Aura, barking and straining at her leash to follow me as I ran away, as I thought of the tear-tracks on my mother’s cheeks, and my father waving farewell. Had I done wrong? Should I, perhaps, have stayed, pretended I had never known, as my parents had done all my life?
I shook myself. You have to be strong, I thought, clenching my fists. Free from fear, as your father and mother taught you, as you taught yourself upon the mountain slopes.
I drew myself up straight and tall, chin raised.
You have come this far.
With that, I took a deep breath and started to run up the hill towards the gates of the city ahead.
As I neared them I saw two guards stationed on top of the gate-tower, clothed in tunics and cloaks, carrying bronze shields and long, horn-tipped bows with quivers upon their backs. A small bronze bell hung beside them on a wooden frame, a rope dangling from its clapper. They watched, hands resting on the curved ends of their bows, as I approached.
‘I wish to enter the city!’ I called to them, shading my eyes against the bright rays of the sun. An olive tree nearby, its trunk twisted and knotted with age, offered some shade and I moved towards it.
‘What is your name, and where do you come from?’ the guard on the right called down, a swarthy, bearded man. I could see him taking in my short wool tunic, leather sandals, and the quiver hanging at my back.
‘I am Atalanta of Kaladrosos.’
‘An inhabitant of the city?’
I hesitated. I had no idea who my family might be: as my father had said, they might be nobles or slaves. Who could tell whether my medallion had been owned, given or even stolen? ‘No.’
The other guard, shorter, broader, with curling red hair, frowned. ‘You are a slave from the hunt, run from your master, then? It is a strange man who keeps a woman to do his hunting for him.’ They laughed.
‘Surely it would not matter if I were a slave, for all, free born or not, should be given entry to your city,’ I asked, attempting to keep my voice even.
‘Not during a festival,’ said the first guard. ‘The rites of Zeus forbid it. The feast of the god lasts from the waxing of the moon to its waning, and in that time no one is allowed into the city who has not been properly cleansed.’
I stared at him. At our shrine upon Mount Pelion, the sanctuary had always been open to anyone who wished to lay an olive branch or a cluster of black grapes upon the altar. The priests – though in truth they were more fishermen than priests: they came in from the harbour and donned the white robes of the priesthood for the festival days – had always said that there were more gods in the blue of the sea, the sky and the dark clods of the earth than in the temples built by men. When I ran through the glades of the mountain, surrounded by the shimmering needles of Artemis’ pines, I had always thought I agreed.
‘Our Lord Zeus,’ the guard repeated, as if I were a halfwit who did not know the name of the king of the gods. ‘The patron of our city.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course. Where may I cleanse myself to appease our lord god?’
The guard shook his head at my ignorance. ‘All worshippers at the festival bathe in the mountain spring at Makronita.’
I was growing impatient. ‘Then I shall go there.’
‘Wait!’ he called, as I made to walk back down the slope. ‘I have not yet told you all. Two days ago, at the hottest hour of the day, the fountain disappeared, dried up, the water draining into the earth. The king’s priest read the signs: it is an omen from the gods. Zeus has decreed that no one who has not already been cleansed at Makronita shall enter Pagasae. The bell has not been rung to open the gates of the city since.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ the other guard said. ‘Not until the festival ends.’
I frowned. ‘How long? Until the festival is finished?’
‘Ten days.’
‘But—’ My thoughts flew to Kaladrosos, and how hard it would be to leave my father – my family – a second time. And, besides, there was something tantalizing about the unknown city that lay ahead, filled with strange new possibilities. ‘Please! I beg you!’
The red-haired guard laughed. ‘You had best be on your way, little slave,’ he said, and he lifted his bow, drew an arrow from his back and fitted it to the string. ‘The king does not want stragglers around the walls disturbing the peace of the festival, and it would be only too easy for my hand to slip …’ He let the arrow slide a little forward, the bronze tip glittering in the sunlight.
My temper was rising. ‘I am a guest at your gates! You dare to threaten to kill an innocent stranger when you claim piety to the festival of the gods?’
He lowered the bow to his side. He had stopped laughing now. ‘Why, you impudent—’
But the second guard laid a hand on his arm. ‘I could have you strung up and fed to the crows for your insolence, girl. Go back to where you came from, and cease wasting our time with your foolishness.’
Before either of them had time to raise their weapons, I drew my bow from my back, nocked an arrow and pointed it directly between the eyes of the guard who had just spoken. ‘I would like to see you attempt it.’
There was a pause, as the two guards stared at the arrow tip. Then, as one, they burst into laughter.
One nodded towards me. ‘Where did you steal that from, then, peasant?’
I saw their hands move towards their bows. Before they could so much as lift them, I aimed my arrow, drawing my right hand towards my ear till the arrow tip grazed my thumb. I saw their eyes widen, saw them scramble for their shields. I swivelled to the side, took aim, and let loose. The arrow sprang from the string, flying through the air around its point, up, up, up – and then it hit its target. The bronze bell rocked to the side, once, twice, clanging loudly over the city.
There were a few moments in which nothing happened, and all I could hear was the ringing of the bell and the thumping of my heart.
Then there was a creaking sound from beneath as the bolt was drawn away from the gates and first one gate, then the other, was pulled slowly back upon its hinges.
But they were already swinging back. I nodded to the guards. ‘My thanks to you!’ I called up to them, then ran forwards, slipping into the city.
‘Stop!’ I heard the guards clattering down the tower steps; the slaves who were pulling the gates open with long ropes, knotted around bronze rings upon the doors, turned in surprise as I dashed past them.
‘Catch her!’ the guards roared.
But I was already gone, disappeared into the crowds of people swarming up the street and into Pagasae.
I was hurrying down the wide, stone-paved street, my head turning to the wooden carts trundling past me, the fishermen, with nets of silver fish upon their backs, and the blacksmiths, faces darkened by soot. I had never in all my life seen such confusion – so many people crammed together, all pushing past each other, talking, crying out their wares or shouting after thieves: cloaked merchants and swearing traders, priests robed in white, mules dragging carts, and as far as my eyes could see, an array of different hues – red-patterned tunics, brown-and-green tunics, blue woollen cloaks, red-and-yellow skirts, cloth of purple, and clay pots of ochre and black.
I felt a little dizzy from the deluge of sound and colour. How was I to know where to even begin to look?
A hand touched upon my shoulder. ‘You had better come with me.’
A young woman, slightly older than I, was standing before me, her curling black hair done up loosely on her head, her eyes dark and her mouth curved into a half-smile. Her simple tunic clung to her hips, and over the coarse material a girdle was fastened, crossed over her chest and knotted at the back, framing her breasts. As she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, I noticed a brand in the sign of a cross, bordered by a circle, burnt onto the inside of her wrist, marking her a slave. We had no slaves in Kaladrosos, for all of us worked the land and sea to earn our living; I had heard tell of slaves in cities, where warring lords took the freedom of others to buy themselves a life of luxury.