by Marilyn Todd
Yvorna would agree wholeheartedly with that. Close your eyes, Iliona thought, and you can picture her rolling around on the floor, tickling three-headed Cerberus, who guarded the entrance to Hades. Tossing her hair, as she teased the shades on the Isles of the Blessed.
The trouble with being dead is you feel so stiff the next day.
Joking with the Ferryman as he rowed her over the Styx.
Who are you?
I’m death.
Then I’ll shout up a bit, so you can hear me.
Iliona swallowed. Took a deep breath. Turned her eyes away from the pyre. ‘Where’s Daphne?’
‘Oh—lying down, I suspect,’ Calypso trilled. Her beautiful hair was tied up in a fillet, her pink robe fell in elegant folds. But her cheeks were too red, her face was too pale, and if she shifted that dog of hers just one more time, the poor thing would spin on its own. ‘Bit upsetting, this funeral lark.’
‘There’s a rumour going around that she’s run off. In which case, you should call out the army.’
‘No need for that, dear.’ Hermione practically slapped Iliona on the back. ‘I know my granddaughter. She’ll be back soon enough.’
So it was true, then. ‘The kitchen staff say she’s taken a sack load of food.’
‘She paid for it,’ Calypso said quickly.
‘She’s fifteen years old, her father’s just died and she’s been cosseted her whole life. Surely you must be worried?’
The two women swapped glances.
‘She’s only trying to annoy us,’ Hermione said. ‘Thinks it’s funny, I suppose. They do at that age.’
‘I reckon it’s that Sandor,’ Calypso said. ‘Scare the life out of anyone, with that nonsense about curses and stuff. Honestly, the number of times he’s told me to—’ she pulled a face—‘ leave this realm and never come back.’
‘Oh, did he?’ Hermione frowned. ‘Well, he never told me to bugger off, because if he did, I’d have soon put him straight.’
‘Really? I’d have thought you’d be the first person he’d want gone.’
The bickering was halted by the uneasy hush that settled over the lakeside. Draped with a ceremonial fishing net over his robes and holding the Horn of Consecration, Sandor addressed the mourners. From the corner of her eye, Iliona noticed Dierdra sidle up to Cadur, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.
‘In the absence of male relatives,’ the priest intoned, ‘I call upon a volunteer to head the procession.’
The crowd, of course, expected the station master to step forward, but Iliona didn’t share their optimism and faith. Given his feelings for Melisanne, he would want to keep the lowest of profiles. Wisely, Hector had absented himself altogether.
‘I will,’ Morin said.
Lisyl rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘That’s a very kind offer, love.’ She pushed the hair out of her eyes and squared her shoulders. ‘But Cadur was Yvorna’s best friend. I think he should lead it.’
Morin leaned down and whispered something in her ear, but Lisyl looked straight past him.
‘Will you?’ she asked.
Cadur’s lips pursed white. ‘Of course.’ He prised himself away from the tree. ‘It would be an honour.’
Morin muttered something else that Iliona didn’t catch, but Lisyl simply indicated that he should station himself at the bier. On a count of three, the pall-bearers hefted the stretcher on to their shoulders and, to the sound of Sandor’s soft breathy pipe, the mourners formed a thin file, the sisters clutching each other’s arms for support.
With the priest at the front and Cadur behind, Yvorna set off on her very last journey.
Iliona stepped back into the shadows. This was a private occasion, where grief should not be intruded on. Dierdra was beating her breast and scattering ash in her hair. Wailing women drove off evil spirits. Holy water purified the procession’s path. Once the bier had been laid on the pyre, Sandor offered prayers to Hermes, Guider of Souls, laying sweet oregano over the body, then covering it with a cloth, which he tucked in tight.
O Cerberus, guarding the gates of the Underworld,
O Charon, ferrying souls over the Styx.
The singing drowned the first crackle of flames being lit.
Guide this shade
To the Elysian Plain,
Land of ambrosia, nectar and figs.
‘Pity I missed the start,’ Hector said, joining Iliona in the shadows.
The lines on his face were deeper, or so it seemed in this light, his skin was an unhealthy grey, and his beard was just that tiny bit less well trimmed.
‘Unfortunately, greeting an amber merchant took longer than expected, what with showing him around, pouring libations to Apollo, to whom amber is sacred, and then, of course, he would insist on telling me about the family business. How the men scour the Baltic shores after the storms, sorting out nuggets that become trapped in the seaweed and scooping any floating pieces in nets from boats.’ His smile was tight. ‘Interesting enough stuff, but rather long-winded in the telling, I’m afraid.’
She was only surprised he didn’t ask for chapter and verse about working the amber into beads.
‘Anthea thought you were sleeping with Yvorna.’
‘What?’
‘Well, you didn’t want long-winded again, did you.’
‘Yvorna, though?’ He pressed a clenched fist to his forehead. ‘What on earth made her think I would bed a girl like that? Please don’t get me wrong. She was a breath of fresh air, just what this station needed, and we’re going to jolly well miss her spark, that’s for sure. But she was a hot cinder, that girl. Not my type at all. ’
‘Whereas Melisanne is.’
There was a pause, while the station master tried to figure out how much she knew. Iliona saved him the bother.
‘Did you know she’s carrying your child?’
Hector’s sharp intake of breath was audible above the dirges and wails. ‘I—I don’t know what to say.’
‘The big question, Hector, is not what you’re going to say, but what you are going to do.’
Dripping holy oils from the horn of consecration, the skeletal figure of the priest circled the pyre. He sang of the River of Forgetfulness from which Yvorna would drink to erase the pain of departing. He sang about the apple orchards to the west, beyond the White Rock, where the skies never clouded and the fields were lush with asphodel. But he did not sing of the tiny heart that beat inside Melisanne…
The equinox, Iliona reflected. The true balance of nature and life. That as one dies, so another is born.
‘Mine is a marriage of convenience, nothing more,’ Hector said flatly. ‘Anthea and I both hoped, I believe, that something warmer would grow, and for my part, I deeply regret it did not.’
‘But you won’t leave her.’
Haunted eyes looked into hers. ‘I forgot you see through the eyes of the blind and hear through the ears of the deaf.’ He shook his head. ‘I would never have achieved such an exalted position without Anthea’s influence, and the station would not be half the success it is without Anthea’s money. But that aside, I would not shame my wife by seeing her divorced for a second time. I owe her that, if nothing else.’
‘Then you have no choice. You must give up Melisanne.’
His mouth pursed as he watched his darling Mella, howling and rocking with grief at the foot of the pyre. ‘Never.’
‘Would you twist the knife further into her heart, by letting your wife find out for herself?’
Two decades of unrequited love had congealed into bitterness, and for Anthea, barren and lonely, Melisanne’s pregnancy would be the last straw.
‘She will see it as the ultimate betrayal of her personal maid. She’d throw her out without pay, sacking Lisyl, Morin, and anyone else here that Melisanne might also be friends with. She would destroy you, Melisanne and herself. And what of the baby? What would become of your child then?’
Anthea would not tolerate the humiliation of having her husband’s bastard
anywhere that he might have contact with it.
‘The sooner you break the bad news, the better.’
They were tough girls, the sisters. They’d find a way through.
The dirge for Yvorna played on.
*
Further along the lakeshore, where the soft, marshy ground deadened the fall of footsteps and not even the moon was bright enough to cast shadows, the commander of the gold train met with his boss. He could not explain it. If they were bandits, why did they not attack the caravan? Why pick on only one soldier? The only theory he could come up with was that it was an accident. A plainsman hunting night game had either mistaken the guard for his quarry or else blundered with his aim. No wonder he disappeared silently into the night!
Lysander did not disabuse him. The Spartan phalanx was trained to fight, not think, and warriors with acumen soon stood out. Gregos was a thinker, that’s why Lysander chose him to supervise the gold train. If anything went wrong, Gregos would know exactly how to deal with it, and the Krypteia’s faith was justified when Gregos fathomed out how, and where, the switch was made. The new commander needed no such brains.
‘Do you have a good marriage?’
‘Sir?’
‘Yes or no.’
The commander blinked before answering. The closest to subordination he would ever come. ‘No, sir. Not particularly.’
No. He wouldn’t. It went with the territory that strong men who were absent a lot of the time would clash with strong women, who managed farms and ran the house in their absence.
‘How do you propose to rectify that?’
‘I—er—obviously I shall review the arrangements when I retire. But that’s not for another nine years, by which time the boys will be grown up and serving in the army themselves. Sir.’
‘In other words, you have no intention of changing the current situation?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Suppose you’re on the battlefield. The phalanx is locked, shoulder to shoulder, but you can feel the enemy pushing you back. The ground is flat. There are no hills. It is sunny. What do you do?’
‘Order the men to press harder, sir. Remind them they are fighting for their country and defeat would bring humiliation on Sparta.’
‘You would use encouragement to drive the enemy back?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Yes, sir. Always yes, sir. Lysander would give the order to unlock and retreat, thus unbalancing and confusing the enemy. He would then order his men to face the sun, blinding their opponents with the glare of bronze armour and shields. Then re-form and slaughter the bastards.
Just as Gregos would have done.
But then the commander, who never looked beyond the rigid lines he’d been taught, would never be sidetracked either…
The head of the Krypteia did not enjoy making mistakes, any more than he liked having his judgement called into question.
Especially when it was he, himself, doing the calling—
‘About the dead guard, sir. We buried the body and marked the spot with a cairn. Once the caravan arrives in Sparta, we will return and cremate him, and I will personally bring his bones home on his shield.’
‘Good.’
Except traitors don’t return home on their shields. Their bodies are left to rot in the wind, so their souls never rest and they may never find peace.
Even that was too good for the bastards.
*
‘Tell me his exact words again,’ Iliona said.
Jocasta moved downwind of the flames and repeated the conversation she’d had with Sandor verbatim.
‘So he thinks Daphne might have come to some harm, yet Hermione and Calypso aren’t worried,’ Iliona murmured.
‘I spoke to Dierdra when I got back.’
Jocasta didn’t like funerals. The pyres brought back the stories of plagues, wars and earthquakes that her grandfather used to tell her when she was a child. She couldn’t sleep afterwards for fear of Poseidon striking open the ground with his trident, or flaming arrows landing on the thatch.
‘She blamed Anthea for the girl running off.’
Put the fear of the gods into the poor girl, I reckon.
How so? Jocasta had asked.
Stupid woman has this idea in her head that those three needed some kind of counselling. I heard Hermione tell her, “Forget it, love, we’re just fine,” but does she leave it alone? Oh, no, not Madam. I’m at the window. I see Daphne skulking off into the stables. I see Anthea follow, and I hear her call out, “I’d like to talk to you later, young lady, if you don’t mind”—and that was it. Ten minutes later the silly cow’s gone.
‘I don’t like this at all,’ Iliona said.
‘Me, neither.’
After what Sandor had told her, Jocasta flew back to the station faster than Pegasus. She made enquiries, and eventually came to the conclusion that the priest was the only one who was worried about Daphne wandering off. If that wasn’t odd, then what was?
‘He was wriggling on a hook at the time,’ Iliona reminded her. ‘Could that have been a cheap ploy to get you out of his hair?’
‘I think it’s safe to say he doesn’t like me in particular and women in general. Unless it’s for ogling purposes.’
Yvorna’s ashes were being quenched with water and wine. Sandor was using cypress, juniper and laurel to waft away the smoke, and the women sung laments for her soul.
‘Yet you said he played beautifully on his pipe for Yvorna.’
‘I said he played beautifully, but only to negate the damage her death had caused to his shrine.’ Most peeping toms feel emasculated by women, why should Sandor be an exception? ‘I’m betting that, to him, Yvorna’s death was just one more nuisance. Another reason why the station should close.’
‘Either way, I find it amazing that such a hypocrite and pervert can produce such sweet music,’ Iliona said, watching him work in his ceremonial fishing net. The catcher of souls for his Blue Goddess. ‘It’s like he’s almost two people.’
They stood in silence while he sprinkled poppy petals over the ashes in the promise of resurrection.
‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s as though everyone at this station is two people. It’s the only way they can survive.’
‘Balls.’ It wasn’t often Jocasta disagreed with the high priestess on matters of human nature, but for once Iliona was wrong. ‘Look at all the foreign trade passing through these crossroads. Nearly everything that comes through is either new or fresh or stimulating, and the very nature of the traffic, not to mention the sheer bloody volume, is going to breed a far freer and open society than anywhere else in the Greek alliance.’
‘That’s what I thought, at first.’ Iliona hadn’t packed black for this trip, but her midnight-blue gown was close enough for the occasion. She adjusted the matching diaphanous veil, tucking it under her diadem and shook the folds of her sleeve. ‘Actually, it works in reverse.’
Too many people, too much stimulation, and none of it relevant to them. Consequently, the station had closed in on itself, creating a community within a community almost.
‘Right at the beginning I was told that gossip was the lifeblood of this station, and it’s true. But if rumour sustains it, then secrets are the glue that holds it together.’
They walked along to the shore, to where the fishing boats had been dragged on to the beach, their painted eyes watching over the water. The mountains seemed to creep closer at night, the snowy caps glowing like ghosts.
‘Maybe Hector’s principles about not employing slave labour are noble,’ Iliona continued ‘More likely it’s a cheap way of exploiting itinerant workers. Low pay, without any responsibility for them.’
And you could bet your boots he had a financial investment in this enterprise, she added. Anthea may have sunk her money in it for love, but Hector’s family had been running taverns for generations. Shrewdness was his middle name.
‘For some of the workers, it would be a case of having a past they’d want
to hide.’ Iliona sighed. ‘Others have different secrets they’d want to protect.’
Jocasta looked out across the kingdom of the Blue Goddess, and thought, don’t we all. ‘You mean Melisanne’s pregnancy?’
Iliona sat on the stones and crossed her legs. Jocasta remained standing, arms folded across her chest.
While she’d been changing Iliona’s dressing earlier, it came as quite a shock to discover that they’d reached the same conclusion regarding Yvorna’s death. This at least took the heat off the physician, who’d had no idea what to do about it. Go to the station master with her suspicions? What would he care? A serving girl killed at the shrine was nothing to do with him. Ballio would quite rightly argue that, although technically neutral, the shrine was not actually within the boundaries of Phaos, and was therefore a problem for the Eagles, not the Bulls. Sandor would only accuse her of malicious accusations. Worse, with no tangible evidence, no body to examine, not even a decent suspect for the murder, who’d take her allegations seriously? A woman physician was on trial for her life in Athens, relegating the likes of Jocasta to the status of healer/witch/wise-woman, take your pick. Throw in the fact that she was a helot, despised by every class in every city state, and the case was doomed.
‘When you stop and really look under the surface,’ Iliona said, ‘you start to see how secrets shape the personality in a small, tight-knit world like this. Not the other way round as it would for, say, you or me.’
Speak for yourself, Jocasta thought.
‘Even the sisters. Very different in looks, outlook and character, of course, but the overall impression is that all three are exactly what they appear to be. What you see is what you get, yes?’
Jocasta shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I really haven’t given it much thought.’
‘Bubbles of protection build bubbles of illusion, though.’ Iliona rose to her feet and brushed off the dust from her robe. ‘The danger comes when you start to believe your own script.’ She squeezed Jocasta’s arm. ‘Throw petals on the pyre for me, will you.’
‘Why? Where are you going?’
‘I need to talk with a banker about his investments.’