by Marilyn Todd
Her heart twisted at her own beloved being so romantic as to choose this shrine. She honestly didn’t think he’d had it in him!
‘Morin?’ She squinted among the wooden columns, where poppies sprouted in the fissures in the rock, their soft grey heads unfurling alongside rosemary, thyme and hyssop. ‘Morin, is that you, love?’
Probably Nobilor’s accident making her see shadows, and in all honesty, who could blame her? Made you stop and think, it really did. Strapping chap like that, here one minute and gone the next. What thoughts flashed through his mind as he plunged over the edge, poor sod? And how far it must have seemed, that drop to the bottom of the ravine…
As the tiny crescent moon rose higher in the sky, Lisyl chafed the goose pimples on her arms.
Tough as it was on the wrestler’s bride and mother, it was the girl she felt sorry for. Only eight years younger than Calypso, but what a difference, eh? And she might be thick as two short planks, that widow, but what Lisyl wouldn’t give to have legs like hers! Went up to the clouds, they did, whereas poor Daphne’s were like tree trunks, her neck was short, her waist almost non-existent, and her skin was ever so spotty, poor love. Still. Lisyl shrugged. Now that Nobilor was dead, that was something she could take pride in, don’t you think? Being the spitting image of her dad?
‘Morin? Morin, dammit, if that’s you larking about…!’
It wasn’t. Just votive ribbons that had been tied in the trees. Dancing, Lisyl liked to think, for Zabrina of the Translucent Wave, whose statue stood sentinel over her watery kingdom. In any case, it was daft, imagining Morin would have got here before her. He’d had to work the stable shift after Cadur, and that was the trouble with this blooming posting station. Even at the best of times, there was too much work for too few workers, and Phaos wasn’t exactly on the beaten track for itinerant labourers. God knows how Cadur found this place, but that wasn’t the point. Hector really ought to take on more slave labour—
‘Hello?’
Again, Lisyl thought she’d seen something moving in the darkness. A quick flash from left to right. But only the rustle of mice in the undergrowth answered her call, and the distant bark of a fox. Stretching upwards, she flicked one of the pottery doves suspended above the temple’s portal. The pebbles inside jangled a soft tune in reply. Besides, she thought, flicking it again, Morin wasn’t the type to play practical jokes, not when the occasion was so special.
‘Sandor?’
Hardly. Apart from Zabrina’s festival, the priest was only in attendance in the mornings. That’s why Morin said this shrine would be so perfect, and it was, it was! The lake was a sheet of purple velvet. The lights of Phaos twinkled in the distance like fireflies and fairies.
‘Look, if that’s you messing about, Yvorna, you can bloody stop it now. Anthea’s all for sacking you as it is.’
Madam made no bones about not being happy with the way she carried on with the customers, flirting and teasing, and slapping them down, albeit with a laugh and a wiggle. Yvorna insisted the punters loved it, and probably they did. But the punters didn’t run this blooming station! Melisanne said it was only because of his tenderness for her that Hector hadn’t caved in and dismissed her, though Lisyl wasn’t sure. Hector did love Melisanne, she was certain of that. But he didn’t seem the sort to bow under pressure. Still. If that’s how Melisanne wanted to see it, that was up to her, and anyway the threat of being fired might just be the shock Yvorna needed.
Take the Axe God festival the other night. She was quite unrepentant about spilling beer down Hermione’s frock, but for heaven’s sake, you can’t go round leaving bereaved mothers reeking of booze and not expect a bollocking afterwards. All right, she didn’t like Morin, so she put glue on his stool, and you had to admit that was funny. Him jumping about with three legs stuck to his bum, but she needed to tone it down a bit, did Yvorna. Lisyl watched a barn owl float through the air on silent, white wings. The trouble was, if she said anything to her sister, she was nagging. If she tried to rein her in, she was being spiteful.
You’re just jealous because I can have any man I want, whereas the only man who wants you is a self-centred, lazy Eagle, who’ll go to fat the minute you get married.
Lisyl had learned not to bite back. There’s a rumour going round that your latest beau is married, she said instead. You just be careful, Yvorna.
Folk are only jealous because I’m young and having fun.
Fun? You’ve gone through that many men, it’s a wonder there are any left.
Lisyl tried to make allowances. Yvorna only went off the rails after their parents died, and she was pretty sure rebelling was her way of burying the pain. The trouble was, Yvorna wasn’t the only person who was devastated, and the other two weren’t earning a reputation for themselves in the process!
She’ll settle down once she finds the right man, Cadur told her once.
Exactly Lisyl’s point. The way Yvorna was carrying on, no decent chap would ever offer his ring—
The snap of a twig made her jump.
‘That’s it, my girl, I’ve had it to here with your damnfool silly pranks.’
She marched down the portico because, seventeen or not, Yvorna was not above a bloody good spanking.
‘I know you’re trying to give me the jitters, but this fish isn’t biting, so cut it out.’
She stopped. Looked. Nothing!
‘For heaven’s sake, Yvorna, why don’t you just grow the hell up?’
At first, Lisyl didn’t see it. Then the thin sliver of moon shifted behind the pines, and its thin light caught something swinging in the shadows. A life-size puppet dressed in her sister’s tunic, with her sister’s frizz of curls.
‘That—’ she gulped—‘that’s not even funny.’
All the same, her heart seemed to be all over the place as she waited for Yvorna to jump down with that old familiar Got you! giggle. Instead, the only sound to cut through the blackness was the creak of rope against rafter—
‘Dammit, Yvorna!’
She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but from somewhere had a feeling she was losing.
‘You win, all right? Now get the hell down, you’re scaring the shit out of me!’
Lisyl was still screaming when Morin cut her sister down ten minutes later.
Twenty
Standing at the bend from which Nobilor’s chariot plunged into Hades, a figure stared into the blackness. So this was how it felt to be a killer. A murderer. A taker of life not just once, but twice over. A double executioner.
I should be feeling happy. I ought to feel relief. Instead, I have nothing but sorrow. Sorrow, and unimagined fear —
Far across the lake, the lights of the town rippled out in sensuous, golden arcs.
Everybody makes mistakes.
A weary hand rubbed weary eyes and knew that this was true. Error was the lynchpin of human nature, for without it lessons could not be learned, progress could not be made, for what was life, if not a journey in itself?
But not everybody cocks up on such a colossal scale.
As little as a week ago—no, even yesterday—the plan was on schedule. The future looked good. Bright. But then tonight… Tonight…
The pain inside was deep and crushing. It should not feel like this. It should not. But it did, it did, oh yes it did, and here was yet another lesson that had been learned.
Death is so very final.
Twenty-One
‘Hector.’ Anthea’s voice cut into the stillness like a knife blade, now that the keening and wailing in the yard had stopped. ‘Hector, are you absolutely certain about my having a heart-to-heart with Nobilor’s bereaved?’
The station master looked up from this latest dispatch from the Council for Interstate Communications and ran a weary hand over his face. His wife was growing older by the day, he noticed. The grey in her hair might be dyed with discretion and that gown might flatter her sixty-two years. But her jaw line was sagging, liver spots dotted her cheeks and, as h
er skin dried with age, so the lines round her eyes and mouth deepened.
‘It’s not a question of reopening old wounds, Anthea.’ He laid down the scroll. ‘Both women might give the appearance of having taken his death on the chin, but I’m pretty sure this is because neither wants to let the other see how vulnerable she is. This tragedy coming so soon after their own will cut deep scars inside.’
The impact of sudden death dangled in the morning air like dust motes in the office.
You can never tell, can you? the staff would be saying.
You never really know what goes on inside someone else’s head.
From bread being kneaded to stables mucked out, the shock that Yvorna, of all people, was so troubled that she hanged herself would be disguised by gossip and chit-chat. Inside, though, it would be a different story. Some would find blessings to count that they hadn’t previously considered worth the counting, while others would be discovering a shallowness among family and friends that they hadn’t been aware of until now. But for everyone who worked here, from supervisor to flunkey, official to traveller, troubles would be put into perspective. This morning everyone at this station would have seen their own mortality in the mirror—
‘I understand that,’ Anthea said, ‘but why me? You’re this station’s master. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for you to comfort an Olympic champion’s widow and his grieving mother?’
‘Probably.’
Hector lined his quills in a row. Mella collapsed when her sister’s corpse was brought into the yard, and all he could do was call for help.
‘But what can I possibly say to two women who hate each other’s guts and where the only thing they have in common is the charred remains of a corpse that’s lying at the foot of a ravine that I, personally, insisted on rolling a barrel of burning tar down the mountain to block the stench of rotting flesh because it was putting visitors off?’
‘You can’t blame yourself there. It was Hermione’s idea to cremate him, not you.’
Rather than meet his wife’s eye, he let his gaze wander over the array of wax tablets and bronze styluses on his desk, scanned the piles of coins waiting to be counted into the official money box, found solace in the familiar mix of parchment, ink and vellum.
‘Her son had just died, Anthea. No one thinks straight under those conditions.’
For gods’ sake, he should be holding Melisanne now. Rocking her, while the tears flowed…
‘I callously took advantage of a grieving mother to suit my own ends,’ he said levelly. ‘I don’t feel I’d have the right words today.’
‘And I do?’
‘You’re a woman. Women talk to other women.’ He produced a crooked smile. ‘Or so I’m told.’
‘Very well.’
Anthea let out a sigh of good-natured resignation, and he thought, she seems more contented in herself this morning. Less melancholic than she had been for some time, as though a weight had been lifted from her. Or was that just his imagination? Seeing smiles, where Mella was distraught?
‘I suppose if nothing else I can sit between them to prevent further bloodshed, but you did the right thing, Hector. Nobilor may have behaved foolishly, driving his chariot on these roads at full tilt, but even so, it wasn’t fitting for an Olympic hero to be left as fodder for vultures and wild beasts.’ She twirled her wedding ring round and round her finger. ‘I suppose you want me to call in on the daughter as well?’
‘That would be kind.’
‘Do you know how she’s bearing up?’
‘Strangely quiet, by all accounts. No tantrums, not even tears.’
Which surprised everyone, because until her father’s accident, Daphne had divided her time between showing off to Daddy, playing up to her grandmother and being perfectly vile to Calypso.
‘Shock plays strange tricks,’ Anthea said. ‘Nobilor never disciplined the girl. In fact, he indulged her every whim…’
‘Except when it came to his new bride.’
The atmosphere in the room changed abruptly.
‘That’s just sex, Hector.’ His wife’s voice was tight. ‘When it’s new, it’s exciting, but after a while, the passion wears off and in any case, sex like that isn’t deep or spiritual—’ She broke off. ‘I think what I’m trying to say is that thrill…thrill is no substitute for—’
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir.’ One of the scribes poked his head round the door.
‘Not at all.’ Hector vowed to sacrifice a white lamb to Hera in gratitude for her divine intervention. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘There’s a messenger outside on urgent business for the King of Illyria, and the warrant officer needs your seal on the authorization for a fresh ride as quickly as possible.’
‘Tell Ballio I’ll be along in a minute.’ Hector waited until the door closed before turning back to his papers. Suddenly, he felt as old as his wife. ‘While we’re on the subject of tragedy,’ he said, straightening his inkwells, ‘I know we’re short-staffed, with the equinox coming straight on top of two festivals, but I’ve given Lisyl and Mella three days off.’
‘That’s ridiculous! One morning is quite sufficient, Hector. What they need is hard work to take their mind off it, and I know I sound harsh, but quite honestly, there’s no better antidote. You should countermand the order.’ Anthea tutted with an affectionate smile. ‘Really, Hector. You can be such a softie at times.’
Torn between wanting to leave Mella to mourn in peace with her remaining sister and having her around so he could comfort her, he said nothing.
‘How on earth you manage to run a posting station so efficiently when you indulge the staff, I’ve no idea,’ she was saying. ‘But at least the problem of Yvorna has been solved—’
‘Anthea!’
‘Oh, don’t sound so shocked. Business is business, and of course I’m sorry she hanged herself, but life goes on, Hector.’ She indicated the open scroll with a nod of her immaculately coiffed head. ‘What did the Council have to say?’
The station master leaned back in his chair and at last lifted his gaze to his wife.
‘They are of exactly the same opinion as you, it seems, regarding the disposal of Nobilor’s remains. They remind me, in their usual pompous terms, that this posting station is sited at a critical crossroads for trade and is a showcase for the new alliance of city states. Therefore, leaving a champion’s corpse to rot would not have reflected at all well on Greece. In fact, they commend my decision to cremate our unfortunate hero in poetically fulsome terms.’
‘And why not?’ Anthea said softly. ‘You run a tight ship, but a fair one, Hector. You don’t fiddle the expense account, the rooms are clean, aired and welcoming, and there’s never any trouble.’
‘That’s because there’s a bloody great garrison on the other side of the lake.’
‘Yes, but by the time it takes them to march round, brigands could have stolen the horses, raped all the women and burned this place to a cinder.’
‘You exaggerate,’ he said smiling, ‘but I appreciate the sentiment.’ He covered her hand with his. ‘I am grateful to you, Anthea, you do realize that? I…I always have been.’
The hand beneath his slid away.
‘I’d better go and see Hermione and that dreadful widow creature.’ Halfway across the room, Anthea turned. ‘Oh, and Hector. My maid’s sister has just hanged herself,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Please don’t call her by the wrong name if you speak to her, she’ll think you don’t care. It’s Melisanne, not Mella.’
Shit. He’d just called her by his pet name in front of his wife—
‘Melisanne. Thank you, I’ll try to remember,’ he said, but the door had already closed.
For several minutes, he remained at his desk with his head in his hands, staring deep into space. Then the station master stood up, flexed his shoulders and marched off to keep his appointment with the warrant officer.
No one who saw him would have imagined there was anything wrong with his marriage. Or that
tragedy had struck his posting station twice in six days.
*
The lifeblood of the station was certainly spilling freely by the time Iliona disrobed in the bath house, and now there was no question of the place not being cursed.
‘The gods have taken against us,’ the hair-plucker wailed. ‘I can feel it in my vitals.’
‘Poor Yvorna,’ sniffed the sponge girl. ‘I miss her so much.’
‘You hardly passed two words with her,’ the coal-carrier retorted. ‘Not a girl’s girl, that one, but you know, I think you’re right about the gods. Someone’s upset them, and now we all have to pay.’
In the antechamber, where the attendant was busy damping down Iliona’s skin and scrubbing it, Iliona was surprised, but not displeased, that the staff no longer blamed her for the curse. Thanks to Melisanne, they’d decided the high priestess was merely an instrument of the gods, because Melisanne had seen her fall into a trance, and Melisanne did not exaggerate or lie. She had heard for herself the unearthly voice in which Hestia had spoken…which was all very fine and dandy, but the end result was, they still accepted Sandor’s word about the curse.
And maybe he was right, she thought, as the attendant smothered her from head to foot with olive oil and ash then scraped it off with gentle strokes of the strigil. Maybe the gods had cursed this enterprise. First the gold, then Gregos, the female groom who’d killed him and who herself might well have been silenced, not forgetting Nobilor, and now Yvorna.
She lay in the hot bath, thinking of the lush red curls and unforced laughter. A bright beacon of light that had deserved happiness in return, and who Iliona had seen as some lucky chap’s ticket to a life that was one long round of joy…
‘Dierdra.’ She hadn’t expected her to be working this morning. ‘I’m so sorry about Yvorna. I know how you felt about her.’
For itinerant workers, friends would be more important than family, and Iliona could only begin to imagine the poor woman’s grief, masked behind a professional smile.
‘Thanks.’ The masseuse looked drawn, her eyes hollow underneath the plaster of her make-up. ‘But life goes on, my lady. Terrible as it seems, it really does.’