by Marilyn Todd
‘I am not defeated, Eurotas is not defeated, and Sparta will never be defeated,’ she retorted. ‘I just don’t take kindly to perverts who spy on women in quiet woodland glades.’
‘She should not have been there,’ he hissed. ‘That is the pool of the maidens—’
‘You like them young, eh?’
Now she’d got him. ‘You deliberately make my words coil like a cobra, turning them back on themselves in distortion, but it is you who spits venom, not I.’ He jabbed a bony finger into her shoulder. ‘Tragedy is coming, trust me on this. “Maybe tonight…maybe tomorrow… ”,’ he mimicked, ‘but make no mistake, Iliona of Sparta. When it comes, it will be on your conscience. Not mine.’
He limped off, his white robes flapping in—what? Anger? Pique? Contempt? Didn’t matter. The crucial word there was limp, and Iliona made a mental note to pass the word on to Jocasta. Maybe that would put a smile on her po face.
‘Take no notice of that old windbag,’ a rough throaty voice said, stuffing a goblet of wine in her hand.
Dierdra’s tunic was of loose, swirling linen that hung in elegant folds from the shoulder. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing about it. Iliona thanked her for the wine and thought, true, the flounces showed off her still-supple figure, but grey sucked the colour away from her face, while the heavy floral pattern emphasized the start of a wattle round her neck and exacerbated the severity of her yellow hair dye.
‘He’s been acting odd lately, must be his age,’ Dierdra was saying, seemingly unaware that Sandor was a good five years younger than her. ‘First he comes on to me, and when that wouldn’t wash—I mean, really, my lady! A priest! Do I look the pious type?’ She tipped her head back and roared. ‘Anyway, after I turned him down for the millionth time, he made a play for Yvorna, and you can imagine the effect that had on the poor girl. A priest, telling her it’s her solemn duty to go to the shrine and…well, purify Zabrina’s altar with her love, was how he put it.’
Dierdra looked round to make sure no one could hear.
‘She was worried she might have to go along with it, but I told her, he’s just a dirty old man. You tell him, I said. You tell him you’re more desired than Aphrodite herself, and that he can jolly well go hang himself.’ She sniffed. ‘’Course, he didn’t, more’s the pity. Instead he’s been wallowing around like a bear with a sore head, giving you earache, my lady.’
Sandor. A man who mistook misplaced youth for easy virtue, then mistook easy virtue for undiscerning. No wonder he was reduced to peeping through bushes.
‘What did her boyfriend say, or didn’t she tell him? Assuming she has one, that is.’
‘Ah, well.’ Dierdra’s mouth twisted down on one side. ‘Can’t really talk about that, my lady. Wouldn’t be right. Not with me being her confidante, and all. But I notice you’re not wearing your amulet tonight.’ She tutted. ‘I tell you, you’ll need all the protection you can get in this place. A right hotbed of gossip and malice, and I swear, if you look hard enough, you’ll see imprints of ears against every wall.’
Iliona smiled. ‘It’s not that I didn’t appreciate your gift, Dierdra.’ Actually, with all that angst about her son and the stabbing, it completely slipped her mind. ‘But I’ve multiplied its powers by leaving it on the altar in my room and asking Athene to infuse it with her strength and wisdom.’ The smile broadened. ‘I can feel it working already.’
‘Then remind me to stand next to you, if a fight breaks out later. We’ll be the only two left unscathed… Oops, must go. That’s Yvorna, calling me over again.’ She waggled her fingers across the heads of the revellers. ‘Man trouble, I’ll wager. Always is with us girls.’
With that, she sashayed off into the crowd, slapping a highlander’s face with a mighty backhander along the way for trying to lose your eyeballs down my front, you dirty sod. The clansman looked indignant, but his friends dismissed his protestations of innocence with loud bellows of laughter, and who could blame them. The man was so drunk he could hardly stand up, and quite frankly Dierdra could count herself lucky that he’d stopped at just looking.
Oh, Dierdra, Dierdra, she thought. Instead of letting soft lines of loose hair flatter your face, you will torture it into ringlets then dot them with ribbons and pins in an effort to look youthful. Worse, you douse the lot with enough perfume to mask even the heartiest tomcat’s spraint.
‘The Eagles are a hot-headed bunch,’ Hector said, sidling up to Iliona as she snaked through the throng.
‘They could always try using water to cool down,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘There’s little point in having a lake on your doorstep, if you don’t bother to wash in it.’
Hector’s beard creased into a smile. ‘Baths are for rich folk and cissies,’ he said, leading her to a less pungent part of the clearing. ‘But then anything the Bulls do, the Eagles will do the opposite. Contrary isn’t the word.’
Obstinacy wasn’t a virtue, she thought. Just another expression of assertion and control, and this communal lack of hygiene business must be the worst case of cutting off noses to spite faces that she’d come across in a long time. Perhaps that’s why Morin wanted to marry a laundress?
She watched the way the music continued to whip up the crowd, and thought, surely music was the mother of civilization. For without rhythm there would be no poetry, without poetry there’d be no song, and without song there would be no dance, therefore no traditions, no culture, no individual identity. Even if it didn’t like washing. Most importantly, though, without music there would be no joy in the world. She tapped her foot to the beat and thought, from birth through to death, paeans and chants accompanied every step of the journey. Ensuring that whether it was setting the pace for reaping, sowing, threshing or fencing, warding off illness, or averting evil and witchcraft, the gods would be with you.
Ask and it shall be given.
‘Ah.’ Hector turned to the peacock advancing towards them, his long hair elaborately folded at the nape, apart from two precociously oiled curls that dangled, one over each ear. ‘I don’t believe you’ve met our latest guest.’
The guest wore a belt of Minoan blue, tied tight round the waist, and a kilt of expensive linen that fell to mid-thigh.
‘A Cretan by birth,’ Hector said, ‘a banker by profession, his name is—’
‘Lysander.’ The banker placed his hand on his breast in an extravagant salute. ‘Always a pleasure to meet a beautiful lady.’
She looked at the blue lily embroidered on the left hip of his kilt, the symbol of Knossos. Was it her imagination, or was the middle section the exact shape of the Spartan emblem, the lambda?
‘Crete?’ she repeated.
Grey eyes met hers without expression. ‘Isolated, windy and deficient in harbours, but we invented chess, developed our own system of writing, use registered trademarks and employ our own methods for measuring weights, to ensure the highest possible levels of accuracy.’
‘One would not wish to be double-crossed.’
‘Indeed one would not.’
Hector’s nod of acknowledgement across the clearing was faint, and in the crush Iliona couldn’t see who it was directed at. Anthea, probably. ‘Yes, well,’ he said, rubbing his hands briskly. ‘I shall leave you two to get acquainted, and don’t forget, sir. If you need anything, anything at all, you’ll find a triangle hanging in every corridor. No matter what the hour, a servant will answer the summons at once.’
Hector bowed. Lysander bowed. Iliona thought even his mother would be hard pushed to recognize him tonight.
‘Cretan I can understand,’ she said, as the drums throbbed. ‘Cretans wear their hair long,’ and it would take more than this mission for him to sacrifice his warrior’s badge, ‘but banker?’
‘By definition, a banker is a man who takes care of his investments.’ His cheek twitched. ‘And I do have a great deal invested in you.’
He was in for low returns on this transaction, she thought. The gold train was due in tomorrow, yet sh
e had no idea who the thief was and no idea where the rock dust was stashed, while the whole object of the exercise, to enhance Sparta’s standing, had had completely the opposite effect.
But why go round telling the Krypteia he’d wasted his time bringing her here, when he’d work it out soon enough for himself?
‘Thank the gods,’ he growled, as the rhythm slowed then faded to silence. ‘I wondered how long it would take before they stopped this ridiculous bluster and finally got down to business.’
Silence settled over the crowd, and Iliona could sense the excitement among them. Drummers stepped into the clearing, nine in total. Three times three, the sacred number. Broad shoulder straps supported monstrous double-sided drum shells that balanced on their left hip, the underside of which was goat skin. Being thin, it was able to impart a light and sharp tone when swished with a thin willow switch, whereas the top face had much thicker wolf skin stretched over its frame, to impart a far deeper tone. What was unique was that the drummers used no accompaniment, such as the lyre or the flute. Music was made solely from the switch in the left hand, with accents made by a long wooden stick in the right. The result was hypnotic. Intoxicating. And like a vertigo sufferer drawn to the void, Iliona was sucked into the beat.
‘I presume you’re not the banker Hermione and Calypso are waiting for?’
‘Sadly, the grieving beauties will have to wait a little longer for news of their inheritance, though I understand bets are being taken on which way the wind will blow.’
‘Calypso being the hot favourite, I presume?’
‘By a considerable margin, though my two drachmas are on Daphne inheriting the lot.’
‘Tell me you didn’t really bet on other people’s misfortunes!’
‘I am a flamboyant banker, remember? Who’s lost count of the number of gold pieces he’s lost, betting on Nobilor’s opponent in the sure and certain knowledge that our celebrated wrestler was past it.’
‘You’ll lose your two drachmas, too,’ she said. ‘Daphne is a minor, and by law she can’t inherit.’
‘The estate can be placed in trust through an appointed guardian.’
‘That’ll be Hermione.’
‘Nobilor was besotted with his gorgeous bride.’
‘Not at the expense of his daughter.’
Take a burning house, with all three women trapped inside and only one who could be saved, and Daphne would be the one he’d rush to rescue.
Any father would.
She swayed to the hypnotic beat of the drums. Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.
Close to the spit roast, Cadur was leaning against an oak with his ankles crossed and his arms folded over his chest. He appeared to be watching the progress of some small beetle on the forest floor, and if she didn’t know better Iliona would have thought he was deaf. As though aware of being watched, he slowly lifted his head. A hank of hair fell over one eye which he made no effort to push away. Iliona smiled. He looked at her for a count of maybe three before nodding. Then returned to watching the bug.
Herbs were thrown on to the fire, but all she could smell was the Krypteia’s scent. Wood smoke with a hint of leather.
The drums drew her deeper into their spell. Now some of the drummers had muted the sound by wrapping gauze round their drumsticks, like clubs. Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum. Mesmerized by the throb and deft twists of their wrists, she was aware of yet more herbs being thrown into the flames. Bay, hemp seeds, fir she recognized. Many others she did not. She could feel herself being sucked into their narcotic stupor, and made no effort to resist.
Boom, boom, boom-a-doom-a-dum-dum.
Surrendering to the hypnotic pulse, at first, she didn’t realize. A dozen revellers wrapping their arms round each other’s shoulders, moving in time to the beat. So what? Then others joined in, until slowly, imperceptibly, three hundred people had linked up, dancing as one round the fire.
‘What bothers me,’ Lysander rumbled, slipping a strong arm round her waist and sidelining her to the edge of the clearing, ‘is how did Gregos’ executioner find him?’
Iliona tried to concentrate, but her head had been stuffed with wool. ‘It couldn’t have been difficult to follow him to that abandoned shepherd’s hut.’
‘On the contrary. Even his own men didn’t know where he hid out, and that was no mean feat, I can tell you. The boys are always trying to get an edge on each other. The word competitive doesn’t begin to describe it.’
She thought of the annual cheese fight. A ‘friendly’ contest between recruits, where all Team A had to do was grab cheeses guarded by Team B and run off.
A contest where death wasn’t uncommon.
‘Suppose it was an accident?’ she suggested, sipping the wine he had given her. ‘Another warrior discovered the hut in your man’s absence and decided to claim it as his own private bolt hole? Gregos returned. There was a fight. A spirited contest, if you prefer, in which things got out of hand.’
Grey eyes glittered. ‘On the very day Gregos was supposed to meet me?’
‘Contrary to what storytellers would have you believe, coincidences happen all the time,’ she reminded him. ‘Unless, of course, you’re a high priestess, whose job it is to interpret the riddles. In which case, it’s the will of the gods.’
For a moment there, he almost smiled. ‘All things are indeed possible, but I’m sticking with the elimination-of-witnesses theory. I grant you, brawls can turn ugly, and it wouldn’t be the first fatality in such matters. But hard as we breed our warriors, ma’am, none of them would choose to sleep on a blood-sodden pallet. The new tenant would have thrown that out straight away.’ His mood darkened again. ‘Gregos didn’t trust anyone,’ he growled.
Was it her, or was it hot? Sweat trickled down her collar bone. ‘He trusted you.’
He shot her a sharp glance from the corner of his eye. ‘I didn’t kill him.’
Now she was finding it difficult to breathe. ‘Let me put it another way, then. Who knows the whereabouts of your private hideaway?’
‘No one.’
‘Exactly. You trust no one.’
He leaned closer. His pupils were dark. ‘Betrayal is everywhere, Iliona. Remember that.’ Was it her imagination, or did a cloud cross those unfathomable eyes? ‘And when you live and breathe treachery, you soon learn the only person you can trust is yourself.’
‘Which is why you’re head of the Krypteia and Gregos was only head of a mule train.’
‘Donkeys.’
‘Don’t split hairs.’
‘Why not? I can only make an ass of myself.’ A strong hand grabbed hers. ‘Come. We are guests here. We must join the ring.’
Before she could ask herself, was that a joke, was frivolity part of the disguise, or was she just plain hallucinating, she’d been thrust into the circle, a bronzed arm round her shoulders, her hand somehow entwined round his waist.
Slowly, the new dancers picked up the steps. Simple, graceful, rhythmic and measured. Then a flute joined the drummers. A conical wind instrument, played with both hands. The sound was piercing and clear against the background of drums, setting the pace for the beat.
Little by little, the tempo increased. The whole crowd had now fused into one giant body, its very strength driving the dance. Faster and faster the flautist’s fingers moved. Quicker and quicker the drumbeats. Iliona’s skirts flared. Her veil soared behind her. Her feet were barely touching the ground. Somewhere there was shouting.
Ay, ay, ay, ay.
It was the crowd. It was Lysander. It was her…
Ay, ay, ay, ay.
Faster. Faster. Faster and faster, until suddenly—
AY!
As one, three hundred dancers stopped dead on the spot. For a second, there was silence. Then cheers shook the mountain. The Hunter’s Moon had been praised into a tumultuous crescendo. Now it was time for laughing and serious drinking.
At what point did he lead her into the woods?
When did he stand her against
this horse-chestnut tree and press his rock-hard body against hers?
‘I enjoy a breathless climax, don’t you?’ he murmured.
Was he laughing at her?
Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her veil. She must find it. No respectable woman would be seen outdoors without one, much less an exalted high priestess. But there was no strength in her legs to go and look for it. Would she fall, if he wasn’t holding her up?
‘What,’ a gravelly voice rasped in her ear, ‘was your point about Gregos trusting me?’
Oh, that. Yes, of course. Gregos. The gold. He’d brought her here, so they would not be overheard.
‘What—’ She cleared her throat. ‘What was his marriage like?’
‘I don’t see—’
‘Was it good?’
‘N–not particularly.’ He seemed puzzled by where this was leading. Though the branches, she saw stars in the sky. ‘Like all warriors, he was away more than he was home,’ he said, ‘but you know yourself what it’s like. Independence gives women strength and direction. Sometimes.’ He brushed a wisp of hair from her mouth. ‘Sometimes a man can feel out of place when he comes home.’
Someone had sucked the air from her lungs. ‘They argued?’
‘They argued, he’d get drunk, then they’d argue some more. But not enough for her to kill him, if that’s what you’re driving at.’
It wasn’t. ‘Was he faithful?’
A muscular shoulder shrugged against hers. ‘He wouldn’t be the first man to seek consolation elsewhere, if things weren’t going too well at home.’
A picture of Anthea flashed through her mind. ‘In other words,’ she said huskily, ‘you might not have been the only person Gregos allowed to get close.’
His little finger looped round a lock of long blonde hair that had fallen loose of her diadem and gently pulled it towards him. ‘That’s exactly why I need you, Iliona of Sparta. You read people.’ Closer. ‘You read situations.’ Closer still. ‘And you’re smart.’