Still Waters

by Marilyn Todd

  She wished he wouldn’t lump the two of them together. ‘Then feel free to join me in my administrations. The Krypteia should be good at setting riddles.’

  The wine was strong, but not half as strong as the hand that held the bowl.

  ‘Do you know the Lake of Light?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that one of the riddles?’

  Something twitched in his cheek. Indigestion, most like. ‘I’m told the scenery is stunning and the climate quite impeccable. You will recuperate much faster there, I’m sure.’

  ‘No doubt.’ She was standing her ground on this one. ‘But unless you’re sacking me, the high priestess is needed here.’

  ‘No one serves Eurotas better, my lady, and your presence at the temple is essential.’ He set the cup down on the table. ‘Were it open.’

  ‘What?’

  The head of the secret police resumed his pacing. ‘Given the amount of construction work, the new watercourses, the various porticoes, bridges and steps, I felt certain you’d be worried that a worshipper might trip over the rubble and hurt themselves, or fall down one of the trenches.’

  ‘The hell you did. And in any case, you don’t have the authority to close it.’

  ‘Absolutely none.’ He paused to admire a tapestry on the wall by the doorway. Odysseus resisting the lure of the Sirens. ‘But the king, your cousin, has the authority. Once I’d explained how much easier it would be, not to mention quicker and more economical, for the works to be carried out when no one’s around, he put his seal on the order straight away.’

  Iliona stared at the hills, red-hot pokers jabbing at her insides that bore no connection to her injury. ‘What about the Oracles? The temple physician who heals the sick? Our sacred obligation to keep the eternal flame burning in the tripod? If that goes out, I warn you, it will bring about the end of Sparta, we’ll be ruined.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s the funny thing.’ He stroked his chin. ‘There haven’t been any Oracles since the stabbing and I haven’t noticed that the world’s stopped spinning, have you? A good physician can treat the sick anywhere, while both you and I know those coals have gone cold many, many times, yet Sparta remains strong and is, if anything, growing stronger.’

  She should have known better than to try and fool him, and suddenly the wine tasted sour in her throat. It was, she decided, the flavour of defeat.

  Lysander rested one foot on the bottom of her couch and folded his arms on his knee. ‘What do you know about posting stations?’

  Very little, she thought. Only that they were a novel concept, imported from Persia, intended to support a new network of communications being set up across the newly allied city states.

  ‘Not half as swift or sophisticated as their Oriental counterparts,’ he admitted, not waiting for her answer. ‘But then our Greek courier service is still in the experimental stage, who knows if it’ll even take off?’

  Quite. What works in the wide open spaces of the Persian Empire wouldn’t necessarily succeed in a hotchpotch of mountainous, landlocked, autonomous nations.

  ‘But if the trials are abandoned, it won’t be because of lack of cooperation from Sparta,’ he said firmly. Adding that beacons were fine when long-distance warning signals were needed, or marking hazards for shipping, and runners were quite capable of carrying letters and conveying messages in situations where speed was not of the essence. ‘When time is tight, though, nothing beats a fast horse.’

  ‘Is that where you’re sending me? To exile in some grubby little post house on the edge of nowhere?’

  ‘Can’t imagine why you think I’d want to exile you,’ he rumbled, although they both knew he could list twenty reasons without stopping for breath. ‘And this station is far from an outpost.’

  Sited on a crossroads, one way heading north to south along the Amber Route, the other east to west linking the Aegean with the Adriatic, this particular posting station was a flagship for the newly united Greek nation.

  ‘The potential for a nationwide courier service is enormous,’ he added. ‘But the system can only work if it’s underpinned by first-class support, which in turn should generate a massive increase in trade.’

  Iliona looked at the lines of old battle scars criss-crossing his bronze thighs, and a couple of fresher ones, too. ‘Where do I fit in?’

  ‘Well, now that’s where it gets interesting. Suppose, for a moment, Sparta’s famous Oracle decides to visit the Lake of Light to recuperate? And suppose that, while she’s there, the Oracle happens to foresee a brilliant future for this intrepid joint enterprise? Where would that leave Athens, do you think?’

  You had to hand it to him, she thought grudgingly. Having finally defeated their common enemy, the Persians, a thousand city states were now basking in peace. Athens, the birthplace of this new democracy, had subjugated the island states of the Aegean with her massive naval strength, while Sparta kept the lid on peace on the mainland. But the alliance was uneasy. Why share half the power when you could have it all? That was Athens’ attitude. Her sights were set on an empire in which Sparta played no role, and she would stop at nothing to achieve it. So if blessings could be heaped upon on the enormous amount of trade passing through the crossroads at the Lake of Light, the posting station would be forever associated with the Oracle of Sparta. Leaving Athens sidelined once again…

  ‘Fine. If that’s what you want, Lysander, I’ll trek up there and bless this glorified tavern of yours—’

  ‘This glorified tavern of Greece’s.’

  ‘—on one condition.’

  ‘Hm.’ He took his boot off the bed, brushed the coverlet and straightened it. The Krypteia never left any traces behind. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You tell me what this is really about.’

  Four

  Nobilor climbed into his chariot, wrapped the reins around his waist and pulled on a pair of translucent rawhide gloves.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see his daughter slouched against a pillar, chewing on a strand of hair. Daphne worried him, she really did. At fifteen, she had (or so he was reliably informed) reached That Awkward Age, which apparently had nothing to do with her mother running off when she was three, but a lot to do with puberty and men. Chewing lips that had been ripped, torn, twisted and bitten, he was well aware that he couldn’t watch Daphne every second of every day. But by thunder, he’d kill any man who laid a hand on his baby girl.

  Knotting the reins to prevent himself from getting tangled up and dragged, his eyes searched the posting station yard. No Calypso. Hardly surprising, he supposed. It was only a few a few minutes ago that he’d left his lovely bride, her long legs still tangled in the sheets and her blonde hair splayed across the pillows. He knew, before he’d even married her, that Calypso wasn’t the type to grab a wrap and pin up her hair any old how to wave goodbye. But even so. His eyes continued to scour for her.

  ‘That lazy cow not up to see you off?’

  ‘Ma.” Nobilor stretched his groan into three syllables. ‘Ma, please.’

  ‘What? It’s mid-morning.’ Hermione planted her hands on her ample hips. ‘Or are you worried she might hear me?’ She lifted her chin so her voice would carry. ‘Worried I might say something about that money-grubbing little bitch that might offend her?’

  That did it. Doors and shutters sprang open in every direction.

  ‘Now you’ve caused a scene,’ he said.

  His mother’s reaction was to laugh. ‘Calm down,’ she cackled. ‘It’s not as though people don’t know my opinion of the narcissistic little cow, now is it?’

  The excitement was too much. Suddenly the enclosure was full of servants with an urgent need to fill their pails or empty out the slops. Many didn’t even bother to pretend.

  ‘Here. Dierdra.’ Hermione beckoned over a woman whose dyed blonde hair had been tortured into ringlets more suited to a girl of Daphne’s age. ‘Didn’t you tell me, while you were giving me that lovely rosemary rub, that there’s a groom here who can saddle a horse in un
der two minutes?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, to be quite frank with you, dear, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Ma,’ Nobilor warned under his breath. ‘Not now.’

  ‘I don’t believe any man can do it in less than three,’ Hermione continued blithely. ‘And if he told you that, then he’s just bragging.’

  Dierdra cupped her hands to her carmined mouth. ‘Cadur?’ At her shout, a young man emerged from the stables. One of the few workers who hadn’t come to gawp. ‘Lady wants a word, love.’

  Cadur’s walk appeared lazy, but Nobilor noticed he closed the distance as though he’d marched briskly, strength pulsing through every pace. But a strength, he decided, that was turned inwards, not outwards. The boy’s eyes flashed hostile and dark.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  Hermione folded her arms over her chest. ‘Your girlfriend here swears she’s seen you saddle a horse in under two minutes. Is that true?’

  Cadur lifted his gaze to the man in the chariot. ‘Dierdra is my friend, not my lover,’ he said in voice that only Nobilor and his mother could hear.

  ‘Whatever you say, dear.’ Hermione shot a wink at her son that said she knew otherwise. ‘The point is, I say it can’t be done, so suppose you prove one of us lovely ladies wrong. Billi, would you start the count, please?’

  Cadur slanted a low, sideways glance at Daphne, still leaning against the pillar, but now chewing her nails instead of her hair. ‘With all due respect, ma’am, I am not a performing monkey.’

  ‘Then let’s make it worth your while.’ Hermione fished out a five-drachma piece, the equivalent of a week’s wages for the groom.

  ‘I don’t think this is such a good idea, Ma.’ Nobilor didn’t like the way Cadur was looking at his daughter, but far worse was the way Daphne eyed him up.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, you’re not still cross about them debts I ran up in Athens, are you? For the life of me, I can’t imagine why. You’ve earned more money than any one of us can ever hope to spend.’ She shot him a playful smile. ‘Stop trying to begrudge your poor mother a good time, now she’s old.’

  ‘It’s not the gambling and you’re not old.’ Something inside the big man was churning. ‘But the mares are getting restless, Ma. Suppose we pursue this when I get back?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ The silver disappeared back inside the folds of her robe. ‘But no cheating, you.’ She wagged a podgy finger at the groom. ‘No practising while he’s gone—’

  ‘I don’t cheat,’ Cadur said, taking a step towards her. His lips were tight with anger. ‘And anybody who—’

  To Nobilor’s relief, any confrontations he might have been called upon to smooth over were nullified by a pony cantering into the yard. A thin-faced man wearing the official insignia of a warrant officer dismounted, brushing the dust from his tunic.

  ‘Nice chariot,’ he said, walking round it. ‘Spokes made of polished cornel wood. Very nice indeed. Corners well, does she?’

  ‘Not half.’ Little more than a board with wheels either side and a wicker front frame, it was one of the lightest, and sleekest, racing machines Nobilor had ever owned.

  ‘Only two horses, I notice.’

  He was proud of his mares, too. Wild to train at the beginning, they were a cross between Thessalians and Persians, and it was their very boldness that made them good chariot horses. They were fast, intelligent and had stamina.

  ‘I leave the bigger teams to the professionals.’ He shot the official a self-deprecating grin. ‘Can’t afford to fall off and ruin my looks.’

  The warrant officer did not see the joke, but then anyone who spent his life checking up on people wasn’t hired for his sunny personality. It was a necessary evil, Nobilor supposed, validating the brands on the horses’ flanks and making sure impostors weren’t claiming to be couriers to get free mounts and accommodation. All the same, it didn’t make for popularity.

  ‘The name’s Ballio,’ he said, running a hand over the axle. ‘Fast, is she?’

  ‘Too fast, if you ask me,’ Hermione cut in sharply. ‘One of these days he’ll run someone over, and then he’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Not as sorry as them,’ Nobilor quipped back.

  ‘Tch! You’re just like your father, you.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He never listened to me either, and look where it got him, poor bugger.’ She turned to Ballio. ‘My husband was a tiler, you know. Good one. In fact one of the best, but I kept telling him, You’re too old to be up on them roofs. And did he listen? Not a word!’

  ‘Ma.’ Nobilor tugged at what was left of his remaining ear lobe. ‘He died from pneumonia.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how your father died. I know how he died. I nursed him in my arms right up till the end. But the point I’m making,’ a chubby finger jabbed him in the thigh, since she couldn’t reach his arm, ‘is that if it hadn’t been for that illness, sooner or later your father would’ve come a cropper on those roofs and the fall would have killed him, that’s for sure.’

  She didn’t see why everyone was laughing.

  ‘Oh, Ma.’ With a resigned shake of the head, Nobilor geed the mares into action.

  An Olympic champion becomes a hero to rich and poor alike, and there wasn’t anywhere he could go without being recognized and mobbed. Which is why he rode. With the wind in his face and the world hurtling past, it was the one place he could be his own man. The one place he was free to forget…

  With a crack of the whip, the mares broke into a canter, but despite the delay in the yard, there was still no sign of Calypso.

  As he rode through the gateway, Nobilor cast a longing glance over his shoulder and wondered why it hurt more than having ribs broke that his wife wasn’t there, waving him off.

  *

  Standing in the sacred plane grove by the river, her white robes billowing in the sticky breeze, Iliona acknowledged the soundness of the Krypteia’s logic to close the temple during the construction work.

  She lifted her eyes to the naked, jagged peaks of the twin mountain ranges that flanked the broad, fertile plain of Sparta. Another month would pass before the first snowfalls softened the harsh contours of the mountain tops, though dormice, bears and squirrels would already be laying down fat to see them through the winter. For people, the pattern was pretty much the same. With the harvest in, this was traditionally a time of quietude and plenty, a soft and gentle lull when even the poor had few worries on their plates. There was still work to do. There always was. Plump, purple grapes still dangled on the vines, olives ripened in the groves, neither the wheat nor the barley had been sown, and roofs and fences needed shoring up against the autumn gales.

  But whether landowner or helot, carpenter or coinsmith, few had need of spiritual guidance right now. In a few weeks, of course, things would be different. The men would have been home from the wars for long enough for personalities to grate. The change in the weather would start affecting health. Things would be said and done during festivals that would be regretted. Then tensions would build up again, and people would turn to the river god for help, justice and advice. For the moment, though, their cares were few.

  Listening to the wind chimes making sweet music in the trees, Iliona envied them their carefree existence. She inhaled the temple incense drifting on the air. Heard the distant bleating of sheep in the olive groves. She loved this land, this job, this temple with every fibre of her being. The slow burble of the river that carried hopes and dreams towards the delta and the sea. The big, fat frogs that croaked in the rushes. The satisfaction of knowing she was helping other people.

  But lately…

  She tucked a wisp of blonde hair back under her diadem. Lately, all she seemed to see was her son’s eyes laughing up at her, and the face of her attacker, twisting up with hatred…

  She ran her hand up and down the smooth trunk of the plane and thought, who knows. Maybe the Lake of Light would work its fabled magic and send the terrors back to hell?

  ‘Opportunity to advance Sparta’s p
olitical standing, my arse!’ Beside her, Jocasta snorted. ‘What’s the real reason behind this madcap trip, did that murdering bastard say?’

  Never trust a helot, Lysander said. They chart rebellion.

  Who could blame them? Uprooted from their homeland, forced to work the fields with no rights, no assets, no dignity, small wonder insurgence bubbled just below the surface.

  Take Jocasta with you to the posting station. She’s less likely to cut your throat on unfamiliar territory.

  ‘Unfortunately, that murdering bastard wouldn’t be drawn,’ she lied. ‘It’s not the Krypteia’s habit to go round blabbing state secrets.’

  Jocasta wouldn’t cut Iliona’s throat, and they shared some of the deepest, darkest secrets on the planet. Their destinies were, quite literally, written in blood. All the same—

  ‘Then all I can say is, praise be to Zeus he isn’t coming with us,’ the physician retorted. ‘He’d probably toss me over a cliff and say I slipped, the dirty, murdering scum.’ She spat on the ground. ‘If I was a man, I’d kill him.’

  ‘Glad you take your medical oath seriously.’ For the first time in a long while, Iliona felt like smiling. ‘Now I suggest you go and pack before you spontaneously combust. With the temple shut, there’s no reason for us to hang around.’

  Or put it another way, when the Krypteia said now, he meant now.

  All the same, the high priestess remained on the river bank, watching dragonflies and butterflies, listening to the cry of the hawks and the warble of skylarks over the fields.

  Twenty years ago, Greece was a diverse collection of city states connected by nothing more than a common language and religion. A weakness the Persian Empire sought to exploit in a mighty mass invasion, and had these city states not united against the enemy, it might well have succeeded. Instead, the Persians were routed, Greece was basking in a golden age of science, philosophy and art, and the economy was booming. Most of the lands were arid and barren, but the lush plain of Sparta put it in a unique position to export food, as well as horses, porphyry, fine art and iron—which was just as well. Peacekeeping ran expensive, and part of the trade for horses and iron included Macedonian copper and gold.