Still Waters

by Marilyn Todd

  In the name of plant collecting, Jocasta began a thorough search of the area. Unfortunately, the precinct and portico had already been swept. Another purification ritual in a shrine tainted by death. Also, if Yvorna’s killer had gone to the trouble of washing the blood from her hair, they would certainly have cleaned the spot where the life was bashed out of her body. Then again, she thought. The killer confidently expected the hanging to be taken at face value. In which case, a cursory sluice-down would be enough to avert suspicion. Also, Yvorna was most likely killed close to where she was strung up, if not directly underneath—and hey presto, what do you know. A dark, damp stain, which no one would have noticed in the dark. According to the various accounts, there was a stool here that had been kicked away, when Yvorna jumped. Was it the same stool her killer had sat on, waiting patiently for her to arrive?

  Jocasta sat on a rock, listening to the bees drone round the herbs. The murder weapon would be impossible to find, no doubt thrown as far as was humanly possible. But now she had all the proof that she needed. Nothing concrete, it was true. Enough, though, to set her mind at rest that they were dealing with a cold-blooded killer.

  The question was, what was she going to do with this knowledge?

  She remained at the shrine, watching the sun sink slowly towards the Isles of the Blessed, while crickets rasped in the trees and the breeze carried the scent of ripe blackberries, apples and change. The sky turned first to pink, then to fire, casting a lavender shimmer over the landscape, transforming the harsh valleys into enchanting, mellow, mysterious places and turning the water to silk.

  She couldn’t say when she first became aware of the flute. Perhaps it had been playing when she arrived. Part of the natural mood of the shrine. But it seemed to have been here from the beginning of time, with notes that were poetic, haunting. Breathtaking, almost. Captivated by the curiously soft, ethereal sound, she let her thoughts drift, while votive ribbons fluttered in the branches. Colourful, happy and free.

  Flute…?

  Jocasta jumped up, dagger in hand. Stupid bitch. How could she have let her guard down? She, who was so in tune with the nuances of nature and suspicious death! Stupid, stupid bitch! Stealthily, she followed the melody. As she approached the altar, it suddenly stopped.

  ‘My apologies if my music disturbed your contemplations,’ a low voice intoned.

  Major religious sites, in fact even smaller sites such as the Temple of Eurotas, generated spiritual tourism on a scale that required a massive contingent of clerical and manual staff. Not so Zabrina’s. The spring carnival that was held in her honour took place at the lakeside, and at midsummer young girls collected dew beneath a full moon to sprinkle on her waters like tears. Other than that, the role of her priest was a part-time profession, with equally part-time acolytes to call on, when needed.

  ‘On the contrary, Sandor. I found it relaxing, and to be honest, you play exceedingly well.’

  Pale bulging eyes looked at the knife in her hand. ‘Just as well it meets with your approval, then,’ he murmured.

  She was more concerned with the pipe. Long and conical, it boasted seven finger holes down the front and the same number of vent holes on the cone, explaining the soft, breathy sound it produced. ‘I’ve never seen an instrument like that.’

  With a wide sweeping gesture, he indicated for her to take a seat on the stone, then launched into another poignant lament, his cheeks bulging as he blew in a strange, almost circular pattern. Hypnotized by the music, Jocasta felt herself being lifted out of her body, drifting across a landscape lush with mint and bulrushes, over soft, marshy swamps and white, rocky beaches. It was, she felt, as though he had conjured the Blue Goddess herself, and shivers ran down Jocasta’s arms.

  ‘That was lovely,’ she said, once he had finished. ‘Genuinely lovely.’

  ‘A gentle tune for the gentle goddess who fills men’s barns, as well as their nets.’

  ‘Tell me, Sandor.’

  She picked a poppy and began making a doll, by bending the petals down to form the skirt and pushing a stick through the stem for the arms.

  ‘Why is it that, when gods are served by priests, goddesses by priestesses, and virgin goddesses by virgins, you tend the shrine of Zabrina?’ She paused. ‘Is it your sense of inferiority—a man doing a woman’s job—that makes you so bitter and twisted?’

  ‘How dare you! How dare you come to this sanctuary and spill poison and spite in front of my lady?’ The knuckles clutching the flute were as white as his robe. ‘I tend my goddess, madam, for the same reason your mistress tends the shrine of the river god, Eurotas.’

  ‘Ah. So you were also appointed by a king, who broke with convention in the mistaken belief that he thought he could control you?’

  That shook him, but his recovery was commendably quick. ‘I’ll have you know I was elected by the twin Councils of Elders,’ he said. ‘Both Eagles and Bulls, it was a fair and democratic decision, and I was appointed to this post for seven years.’

  Jocasta smoothed a strand of her jet-black hair. ‘Which, I am guessing, ends at the midwinter solstice?’ All appointments ran solstice to solstice. But given his attitude towards the future of the posting station, and the changes he had seen since it opened, it seemed reasonable to assume that his term was expiring. ‘And you’re seeking re-election. Obviously.’

  ‘Who else is qualified?’

  ‘Who else would put up with trekking up here every morning for no pay, and not even their food and lodging thrown in.’

  Although, to be fair, he would get a front seat at the Odeon…

  ‘What does it matter. Why can’t you just go? If you’re the physician you claim to be, madam, send the high priestess home for the good of her health. Surely that can’t be beyond your abilities!’

  Jocasta twirled the poppy doll between her fingers, making it dance, as fields and pastures merged with the hills in the fiery glow of the sunset. Groves that had provided shade for countless generations of cattle slowly slipped into shadows themselves. In the distance, the cowgirl was calling her herd home. ‘Was that the same silver tongue that invited Yvorna to sacrifice her honour on this very altar? For the life of me, I can’t imagine why she didn’t jump at the chance.’

  Sandor’s face turned as red as the sunset. ‘I…did no such thing.’

  ‘Yes, you did. After pestering Dierdra for sexual favours.’

  ‘I—I—’ He stood up, his eyes burning with hatred. ‘This is scandalous, madam. You bring your wickedness to Zabrina, through your lies and your curses, while a girl waits for her funeral pyre. It’s outrageous.’

  ‘My apologies, if my truth disturbs your contemplations, Sandor.’

  ‘I—don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ he stuttered. ‘People lie, they fornicate, they even die, yet nobody cares.’

  ‘I care.’ She stood up and looked him squarely in the eye. ‘I care about Yvorna.’

  ‘Oh? What about Nobilor, then? An Olympic hero dies, who gives a toss about him. Not his wife, not his mother, not even his daughter.’

  Typical of the con-man response. Change the subject.

  ‘When people don’t like each other,’ she said pointedly, ‘they tend not to want to expose themselves to the enemy.’

  ‘Really? Then how come the girl has gone missing and they haven’t called in the army,’ he stormed. ‘Doesn’t that sound an alarm horn to you?’

  Missing? Daphne? Holy bloody Hera.

  Jocasta tossed the poppy doll over her shoulder and flew back down the path to the station.

  Cadur was nowhere in sight.

  Twenty-Four

  As the daylight faded, the atmosphere in the station changed with it. While it was light—while they were busy—the fragility of life could be pushed to the side of their minds. But when darkness settled its cloak over the landscape, there was no escape. To the west lay the Realm of the Dead, where Yvorna would be taking her first tentative steps. But the Realm of the Dead lay in darkness, for once
Helios had finished driving his fiery chariot across the sky, he would disembark, to sail back to his palace in the east in a boat made of gold. Taking his warmth and light with him…

  ‘Regrettably, the posting station is not in a position to allow employees the luxury of the customary three days’ lying in state,’ the warrant officer said. ‘If—’ he cleared his throat—‘luxury is the right word.’

  Iliona watched the pyre being piled with firewood down by the lakeside and thought, given a choice, few people would opt for oblivion. They’d much rather be with their loved ones, running through wheat fields, splashing in puddles, feeling the rain on their face.

  ‘There is little indulgence in Hades, Ballio.’

  ‘There is little indulgence in trade, either, ma’am. Given the volume of traffic that passes through here, a corpse lying about would be quite inappropriate.’ He smiled smugly. ‘I shall be sure to put in my report that the Master followed the rules to the letter.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned at the Feast of the Eagles that your responsibility extended further than merely checking the credentials of the couriers. But when I asked around, I discovered that is exactly what your role is, Ballio. In fact, you can’t even sanction a fresh mount without the station master’s approval.’

  He sniffed. ‘Not yet, ma’am, not yet. But there will be changes, you’ll see.’

  ‘And when these changes come, the information contained in your reports will prove you are qualified for much more than merely inspecting warrants?’

  ‘Exactly. My reports are meticulous in every detail.’ He tapped his thin nose. ‘Very little escapes Ballio’s notice.’

  I’m not sure I can stick another season of noses poking where they don’t belong.

  ‘I can well believe it,’ she said.

  And yet secrets were kept here…

  One only had to look at the stables, where the tired donkeys and mules of the gold train were being brushed, fed and watered, and the warriors of Lynx Squad stropped their blades on the sharpening stones, children staring bug-eyed at their faceless, bronze helmets and marvelling at greaves etched with Hibernian cobalt.

  The Cretan banker, of course, was nowhere to be seen, but the wolf was still on the prowl.

  ‘Callous as it may seem,’ Anthea said, joining her on the path to the lake, ‘I believe the Council for Interstate Communications is right in ruling on immediate burial for those who do not have the funds to pay for a funeral in Phaos.’

  Her black mourning robe fell in elegant folds, pinned at the shoulders with brooches of gold and girdled with a belt hung with tassels. Through her diaphanous black veil, amethyst earrings glinted in the night, and a pearl choker matched the bracelets that hugged her wrists.

  ‘I would agree with you, Anthea, that a corpse lying in state is less than desirable, had I not seen the accommodation on offer.’

  Lanterns lit the way. Tiny glow-worms of light, flickering in the dark on both sides of the track.

  There were no lights on the River Styx.

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ Anthea said.

  ‘Let me put it this way. Fevers, heart failures, respiratory diseases obviously take their toll, but how many of the staff actually die at this station? Five a year?’

  ‘At the most.’

  ‘Yet the station doesn’t consider subsidizing the cost of transporting bodies across the lake worthwhile.’

  ‘Hector’s budget has little room for manoeuvre.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Iliona said evenly. ‘Yet the accommodation is luxurious and the fittings quite opulent. I half expect to see a ceremonial barge on the lake offering pleasure tours any minute.’ She paused. ‘How much of your money is left?’

  For a moment, she thought Anthea would tell her to mind her own business. Instead, ‘Not one obol,’ she said. ‘When Hector was given this appointment, I sank every last drachma into making this the best posting station in Greece. The standard to which all the others would want to aspire.’

  With its bath house and vapour room, vast kitchens and attention to detail, she had certainly achieved her aim.

  ‘But it still hasn’t made you happy.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  Anthea stopped on the path. Around them, tree crickets pulsed their repetitive mantras and bats flew low on the wing. The air smelled of roast goat and manure, incense and honey cakes. ‘It is not a pleasant experience for a woman of independent thought to be rejected by her husband, then returned to being the property of a father, who treats her with nothing but contempt for shaming the family name.’

  ‘Marriage to Hector was your escape route, but then you found yourself in a worse trap than ever before,’ Iliona said gently. ‘You made the mistake of falling in love with your husband.’

  ‘He was young.’ Anthea swallowed. ‘Very young. But even then Hector was ambitious. After the Persian Wars united the city states and the first designs for a communications network were being thrashed out, my father managed to secure him this job as station master.’ She laced her hands in an elegant gesture. ‘And all the time this place was being built, while my husband attended meetings with the various commissions and—well, organized everything from the ground up, I prayed, oh how I prayed, for a child.’

  Because maybe then, his love would grow.

  She smiled. ‘Of course, no baby came—’

  No love either, Iliona thought.

  ‘—and it wasn’t long before I grew too old to bear him a child.’ Anthea’s sigh was deep and came straight from the heart. ‘He tells me, can you believe, that he is “grateful” to me.’ She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘After all these years, that word still drives nails into my heart.’

  That was the key, Iliona thought. All these years. She was thirty-eight when her husband rejected her, nearly forty when she married Hector, who was just twenty-two. For more than two decades, they had lived with this uneasy alliance. Inevitably the distance would either close—or grow further apart.

  ‘Still. The relationship limps along without incident,’ Iliona said, ‘until, one day, his routine starts to change. He tells you he’s working in his office when you know he is not. He disappears at odd times of the day. Takes to wearing oil of bay.’

  ‘I am not a fool,’ Anthea said bitterly. ‘As soon as he hired the sisters after their parents died, I knew what that little bitch was up to. So if you think for one second I’m going to splash out one copper chalkoi so she can be buried in Phaos, you have another think coming.’

  Oh dear.

  ‘Yvorna wasn’t sleeping with Hector.’

  ‘The hell she wasn’t. The bitch even bragged about it at the Feast of the Eagles, I heard her. You were telling her about someone’s fortune you’d read, whose lover also happened to be married, and I remember her response very clearly. She elbowed you in the ribs in a quite common manner. Aren’t they the best ones? she said.’

  ‘A typical Yvorna quip, and quite frankly, if you’d taken the trouble to get to know your staff, any of your staff, Anthea, you would have realized that.’

  She should stop. High priestesses don’t swan around, insulting their hosts. She should apologize. Admit that she had stepped out of line, forgive and forget and all that. Should… But wouldn’t. Yvorna’s death had hit her hard. Someone had to fight for justice.

  ‘The trouble is, you’re still trying to hang on to a life that has gone. When you married Hector, you relinquished your status in society, and at the time you were happy to do so and, to be blunt, that was the person he married.’

  She’d changed. Not him.

  The colour drained from her face, throwing lines and age spots into sharp relief. ‘Are you saying I drove him away?’

  ‘I’m saying your hurt did.’

  The more grateful he was, the more barriers she erected, disguised as efficiency, rigidity, but most of all snobbery. More and more Iliona could see how Hector was drawn to Melisanne’s uncomplicated, unconditional love.

  ‘Is it too late?
You’re the Oracle, you speak to the gods. You’ll know if it’s too late to save my marriage, because I know, I know, he has a mistress.’ Tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks. ‘Is it love? Is it a servant? Iliona, I beg you. Read my future. Read his—’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She’d done enough damage reading Melisanne’s fortune. One mistake was plenty, thank you. ‘You will need to petition the gods yourself for this.’

  She left Anthea facing the consequences of her own actions, and hurried down to the lakeside. Yvorna lay on her bier, red hair streaming over her shoulders and clutching a laurel branch in hands that had been folded over her chest. Like Lisyl at the shrine of the Blue Goddess, Iliona expected her to jump up any second, laughing at her latest wheeze.

  Except this was no wheeze. Rigor had set in, she was as stiff as a statue, and colder than Hades itself.

  At the side of the stretcher, Melisanne was slumped on her knees, weeping uncontrollably, while a hollow-eyed Lisyl sat beside her, hugging her shoulders, her mourning garland cockeyed and wilted. Iliona wondered whether to go up to them, but what could she say that could bring comfort in the wake of this tragedy? Instead, she hung back while big, burly Morin stood over his girlfriend, patting her head with his hand as though she was a dog, looking uncomfortably out of his depth.

  Well away from the pyre, Cadur leaned against the trunk of a willow, his thumbs looped in the belt of his tunic and his head half turned away. The only part of his body that touched the bark appeared to be a thin band of bone on one shoulder blade.

  ‘The green tunic was my idea.’ Calypso came over to join Iliona, the dog stuffed underneath her arm. ‘I told Lisyl, Yvorna was too lively a creature to be wrapped in a boring white shroud, and she agreed. After all.’ She shifted Pookie to the other arm. ‘If you break with tradition about burial times, you can break it with other things, too.’