Oracle

by Jackie French

  Nikko shuffled his tunic on under the blanket. Dora had come into the room now. Like Orkestres she was dressed in her best silk, with necklaces up to her chin. She put her arms around Thetis’s shoulders.

  Dora is more her mother than ours ever was, thought Nikko blearily, trying to bow properly to the Chamberlain as well as straighten his tunic over his nakedness.

  ‘From His Majesty Atreus, High King of all the world.’ The Chamberlain gestured the guard forward. He placed a garland on Orkestres’s head, then on Nikko’s, Thetis’s and Dora’s.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the Chamberlain shortly. ‘The servants will bring your things.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Nikko finally had his robe on straight.

  Orkestres winked at him. ‘Don’t ask,’ he whispered. ‘Hold your head high. Pretend all this is your due.’

  They followed the Chamberlain up the narrow road, the servants straggling behind them with the furs and clothes from their rooms, then onto the wide white road that led up to the palace. The wind dappled petals across their faces. The air was filled with other fragrances—scented oils and baking bread and meat.

  They turned into a door that butted into the foundations of the high palace.

  The Chamberlain bowed again, his face still showing nothing of his thoughts. Is he angry at our success? wondered Nikko.

  ‘This is yours, by favour of the High King.’ The Chamberlain backed out, still bowing.

  ‘Well.’ There were tears in Dora’s eyes. ‘Well.’ She hugged Orkestres so hard he nearly overbalanced. ‘They’ve done it, my love, our little lambs have done it!’

  Nikko stared. ‘Is this ours?’

  The room was beautiful. Not as large as the room last night, but still ten times the size of Orkestres’s rooms. The walls were painted with dancers playing among a mob of lions, fat and sleepy, watching the dance. The floors and ceiling were tiled. The columns were painted white and gold. There were tables and stools of carved wood and ivory and small benches, draped with furs and cushions. Best of all, one wall opened out onto a terrace that had wooden walls folded back to close it off when it was cold.

  He ran outside.

  And he saw beyond the walls of Mycenae. There were streets of sheds and other buildings further down the hill, and even further down was a plain, divided into strange squares, fields of olive vines and the soft green that meant wheat or barley fields. Beyond, an endless blue line met the sky, but deeper, richer than the sky could ever be, like one of the blue jewels the ladies wore. The sea, he thought. I have finally seen the sea.

  He hadn’t heard Thetis come up beside him. She took his hand. He turned to her. Her face showed no surprise, or even interest in the view. She was looking at him, smiling at her brother’s pleasure.

  ‘You’ve seen all this before, haven’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘When you sneaked out?

  She nodded again, grinning this time.

  ‘I should beat you.’

  She laughed at that, then suddenly jumped up onto his shoulders. He steadied her ankles automatically.

  ‘You can see more than me now?’

  He felt her nod above him.

  ‘You will always see more than me,’ he added slowly. ‘You always have.’

  Again, he felt her nod.

  She slid down so she was sitting on his shoulders, then slipped off onto the tiled terrace and ran inside.

  There was a room for each of them, as well as the massive public chamber, all opening onto the wide terrace. Thetis’s room had walls and ceiling newly painted with butterflies, and red tiles in the floor. The King must have ordered the painters to work through the night.

  Orkestres and Dora’s room had chariots and horses, and a giant bed platform with an opening for coals to be shovelled underneath.

  ‘No loom,’ whispered Dora.

  Orkestres laughed, and hugged her to him. ‘No more weaving for you, girl.’ He bent down and whispered in her ear. ‘You can keep your dye pots though, just for us alone.’

  Nikko’s walls showed apes, picking fruit from a tree. This paint smelled old, not new. Instead of bed platforms Nikko’s and Thetis’s rooms were furnished with pallets piled with the softest fur: lynx and wildcat and others Nikko didn’t know. There were fine woollen sheets, and pillows stuffed with duck down.

  Nikko wandered out to the public chamber. There was space here to practise, and they had the terrace too. ‘Well, little sister?’

  But Thetis wasn’t listening. A servant had brought in a tray of roasted pigeons and hot fresh bread spiced with dates and honey. Another brought bowls of roasted pistachios, dates and almonds and pitchers of watered pomegranate juice. Thetis was already eating, sitting cross-legged on one of the softest furs, her mouth stained red from the pomegranate, a date in her fingers and crumbs in her lap.

  She smiled up at him, and gestured for him to join her, as relaxed as if she had always been a High King’s darling: as if it had always been her due.

  CHAPTER 19

  It was a new life, a more luxurious one than Nikko ever guessed existed. No chasing goats, or picking up rocks from the fields, or gathering manure to feed the barley. No fleas or flies or dirt. Even their chamber pots were gold rimmed, painted with lions or patterns of red and gold, and covered with cloth to keep in the smell till the palace servants took them away.

  Other servants came twice a day bearing whatever food was best from the palace kitchens. Two servants sat outside the door of the big common chamber, in case any of the occupants wanted anything. Jewels for their costumes, fresh furs, even herbs for Dora’s pots—anything was theirs for the asking.

  There was no need to hide within the rooms now.

  Thetis was accompanied at all times by Dora, or one of the servants, as was proper for a young girl. (If she still sneaked out alone she had the skill not to be noticed.) But Nikko was allowed out by himself. For the first time he was able to explore the whole of Mycenae, the alleys and the big walled roads, lined with lords’ houses, and the smaller courtyards for servants’ rooms like the ones they’d shared with Orkestres and Dora.

  Their big terrace looked down on most of the Mycenaean plain, lusher by far than the mountain lands he’d known, and on clear days the deep blue rim of the sea in the far distance. But now he was allowed to walk along the city walls too, so he could see out to the mountains, and up to the steep cliffs behind the city. Even more fascinating were the buildings outside the walls, the ones he’d missed in the shadows and tiredness of their arrival.

  For the city of Mycenae was basically a fort—a giant stone edifice that could hold back attackers with its steep walls and narrow Lion Gate. There was room for hundreds inside the town, but most of the economic life was outside.

  Nikko could sit on the city walls, sucking the juice from a pomegranate and spitting the seeds down onto the roof of the tanneries, where everything from goat hides to soft lynx pelts were scraped and dried and softened. Further along were the bronze works, with glowing forges and barrels of cold water that spat and fizzled as the smiths dipped the white hot metal of the knives and swords. But the biggest sheds belonged to Mycenae’s largest industries—perfumed oils and woollen cloth.

  Listening to the gossip of the palace, Nikko now realised that the food to feed Mycenae was only a small part of the tributes that flowed to the King. More important was the wool to be carded, spun, dyed and then woven into the thin woollen cloth for which Mycenae was famous.

  It was this fine woollen cloth that Mycenae could sell to all the nations around the Circle Sea, and even beyond the Sea Gales, north to the far-off Hyperboreans. There they traded cloth for the tin needed to mix with copper to make bronze, and, in Egypt, for gold and luxuries like dates and sesame, or even in eastern countries for the silk that had to travel three years on horseback until it came to Mycenae.

  Wool and linen cloth meant Mycenae was rich—rich enough to make weapons for its soldiers, rich enough to feed an army, so that n
o lesser king would ever defy its might.

  But the first time Nikko tried to go out the Lion Gate, to look closer at all these wonders, the sentries crossed their javelins in front of him, demanding his pass.

  Nikko smiled, so as not to seem embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. It is my mistake.’ But anger burned like the morning coals under the smoke hole; smaller than a flame, but hotter. Was he the High King’s slave then, no matter what his luxury, with no more freedom than the lion cub on the King’s lap?

  He turned to walk back up the road. A voice stopped him. ‘Let him through.’

  Nikko looked up. The Chamberlain sat in an ebony chair, inlaid with silver, help up by four big guards, with two more holding a small canopy over him to shield him from the sun. He smiled down at Nikko. Nikko was surprised to find it looked a true smile, if a touch sardonic.

  ‘You mean I can go out whenever I want to?’

  ‘No. You may go out whenever His Majesty, may he live ten thousand years, does not require you to perform or do other duties, or when your tutor does not have lessons for you. But apart from those times—yes, of course you are free.’ The Chamberlain raised an eyebrow, looking amused now. ‘Did you think you were a slave, boy?’

  ‘Am I?’

  The Chamberlain laughed, then looked surprised at his own laughter. ‘Thank the gods you’re not a slave, boy, or you’d have been whipped for questioning me like that. You are no more a slave than I am. We both exist to serve the King.’

  Nikko tried to read his expression. Perhaps, he thought, there are different kinds of slavery here in Mycenae.

  ‘Did you think I was your enemy?’

  It was impossible to say yes. Nikko shrugged instead.

  The Chamberlain gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. ‘I do my duty to the High King. Sometimes I make mistakes, as I did with you. Though,’ he added gently, ‘it was not a very great mistake, for the High King still has his Butterfly.’

  ‘Then I may go out the gates whenever I want to? When the King doesn’t need me,’ he added.

  ‘Yes. Go and explore, lad.’ He gave another of his inscrutable looks. ‘I explored once too, like you.’

  ‘Not any more?’

  ‘No, boy. The day came when I found serving the King meant more to me than anything outside the walls. But always remember,’ the look was serious now, ‘all the necklaces of gold, and emeralds, all the platters of dates and sesame pastries, mean less than the gift that you have now: time to look and wander, time to enjoy and not to have to work. How many in our kingdom—how many in all the world—have freedom like yours? Remember who you owe it to, as well.’

  ‘To you?’ hazarded Nikko.

  The Chamberlain smiled, a true smile this time. ‘No. To the High King.’

  Nikko had got the answer wrong, but he could tell the Chamberlain was not displeased. The Chamberlain tapped on the side of his chair. His bearers carried him on, toward his duties to the King.

  There was more to Nikko’s life now than exploring. They were not expected to perform more than once or twice each moon. The High King was aware how much work went into each performance. Thetis was a child, for all her genius, and tired easily. Perhaps the King didn’t want his new toy to grow stale either.

  But there was still practice every morning, including the stretches needed to keep an acrobat or dancer limber, as well as acrobatics—leaping, catching, tumbling, somersaulting and the art of catching daggers, or juggling balls.

  But they never practised the actual dance, the one they’d perform next for the High King. Each time Orkestres tried to tie Thetis to a routine she shook her head, and sat on the white stones of their hearth with her hands folded, staring up at the others to try to make them understand.

  And finally they did. Thetis’s dance flowed from her according to the music, the feel of the audience, and other forces they could never guess. If she would have spoken, perhaps she could have explained. But these days Thetis made no sound at all, not even a laugh, or mumbling in her sleep. At times Nikko wondered if her promise had wiped away whatever magic the hag had performed, and she truly had no voice, except the movements of her hands, her smile, the unspoken magic of her dance.

  There were other lessons for them both, as well; lessons in manners and royal etiquette, now they lived so close to the High King. Nikko was learning to ride as any gentleman of Mycenae would do, even though he was not a gentleman, and was never asked to ride or hunt with the sons of Mycenae. When he rode, it was with his groom, or instructor, not a friend.

  One other teacher came to him the afternoon after their first performance, unexpected by them all. It was the old blind harper from the night before, who had followed the music of his song. A young boy, dressed in a white kilt and a leopard-skin cloak, led him in, then vanished as the harper waved a hand to dismiss him.

  Orkestres bustled out of his private room. He bowed low, though the old man could not have seen him with those eyes white as clouds. ‘My Lord Orpheus. You honour us with your presence.’

  ‘No honour intended.’ The old voice was steady and clear. ‘I am not here to visit, but to work.’ He turned, surprisingly accurately, in Nikko’s direction. ‘You have a good voice, boy, and you know how to listen to the earth’s song. But your voice will change soon. It may be years before it steadies so you can sing properly again. Your sister will need other music—and so will you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  The old man smiled. His hair hung in white strands, like long-dead grass, as though he no longer bothered to plait and oil it. ‘How long has your mind loved music, eh? How long have you heard songs in the wind?’

  Nikko didn’t answer.

  The old man nodded. ‘Lead me to a stool, and sit beside me. I will teach you how to play the lyre—for I suspect I do not have years enough left in me to show you the harp—and when you have mastered that we will find a tortoise for you.’

  ‘A tortoise?’

  ‘Do not interrupt, boy. Do you know how old I am?

  Nikko shook his head, then realised Orpheus couldn’t see. ‘No.’

  ‘One hundred and four years, boy, if you know how to count that much, as the Egyptians have taught us. Which means you have little time to learn what I have to teach you. Don’t let your mouth rob your ears. Now, we shall begin.

  ‘To make a lyre you need a tortoise shell and wood to rim it and help keep its shape, especially in humid weather. You need cat-gut strings—lion is the best—and you will need to know how to make them and thread them, as they break, just when you are about to play for the King of the Hyperboreans and there is no one there to give you new ones…Now, take the lyre, and run your fingers across the strings.’

  It was as though Nikko had always known the music was there. Now, at last, he was learning how to control it and bring it forth.

  Sometimes he thought the lessons with the harper were the happiest time of his life.

  They never knew when the High King would call for them to dance. Sometimes it seemed he followed a whim; other times it was to impress a guest. Once or twice Nikko wondered if he called for Thetis because he was angry or upset. Those nights the noise from the feasting hall was subdued as they went in, as though none dared speak too loudly for fear of the King’s displeasure. But always when they had finished the King was smiling; the clouds lifted from the room, as though Thetis was a tiny sun evaporating the dew.

  Their dance was never a long one, perhaps because Thetis was still too young to dream up a longer dance, or maybe she already knew that a short performance would leave her audience longing for more. The King seemed to accept the dances almost as an offering, and let Thetis determine how long they went on. But each time at the end of the dance her wings wafted across his throne.

  She had many wings now. Silks traded from hand to hand, from camel to horse to long ship, until at last the cloth reached Mycenae, dyed in a hundred shades, gold threads, gold leaf pressed into the thinnest of woollen skeins.

  Each time the crowd b
reathed the silence that was the greatest applause of all, before they cheered.

  Sometimes Nikko wondered if his sister’s genius came from her lack of words; if she used to her body to communicate with the world.

  There were other entertainers too, even on the nights they danced; the harper, boys with lutes and girls who danced in filmy costumes, acting out a story. Even the lords sang, sometimes, songs in honour of the King, or drinking songs, beating out the time with their goblets.

  But all that summer, when there were important guests, kings who ruled their own lands but offered obedience—and tributes—to the High King of Mycenae, it was Thetis and Nikko who were called for.

  It was common for a visiting king to present a gift to the performers he most admired. Thetis soon had brooches of silver, cloaks of leopard skin, a corn belt of turquoise. Even Nikko was sometimes offered a gift—for politeness, he thought, for he was just the rock his sister danced from.

  But most gifts came from the High King—not only grand ones now, but smaller ones with thought behind them: a butterfly crafted in gold, a robe with butterflies embroidered on its hem, a gold cup, embossed with butterflies. One morning there was a gold cage holding a bright-feathered bird. Thetis stook it from the servant, smiling her thanks (the whole of Mycenae now seemed to accept the Butterfly never spoke).

  For three mornings the bird sang, staring at the sky from its cage. On the fourth morning, when Nikko went into the main chamber to look for breakfast, he saw the cage door was open, and the bird had flown.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was early summer, the sky high and blue, like a lord had thrown up a coloured cloak and it hung there above the earth. Nikko and Thetis danced on the High King’s walled terrace that afternoon, for the stones of Mycenae breathed heat. Down on the roads and in the lower houses it was almost as if the air was too thick to move. Only up on the palace heights was there a breeze.