Halo

by Zizou Corder

  ‘It’s our custom, traditionally, after all…’ said Kyllarus.

  That night all the adult Centaurs, after their dinner with their families, came back to the agora, and voted without exception to pass a law saying what they all felt in their hearts anyway – that they had to look after orphans and helpless babies.

  Halosydne, they decided, would be her name. Pearl and Lucy chose it. It meant ‘The Girl Who Was Fed by the Sea’, but they thought of it more as ‘Saved by the Sea’. ‘With a name like that, the sea can never harm her,’ they reasoned. Most people called her Halo, but Kyllarus always called her Chelonakimu – my little turtle – or Little Aphrodite, or some other affectionate nickname: Schnussy because that was the noise she made when she pulled at his earlobes; Owly-baby because of her amulet and her big round eyes; Captain Thumpy when she hit her fists against his chest in fury at being picked up and saved from some childhood peril; Dolly Dolphin when she started swimming underwater; Figling when she fell out of the fig tree.

  Arko had lots of different names for her too. ‘Pigling’, at first, when he was jealous of her and was being mean, because she was pink like a pig, and had no proper glossy chestnut horsehide. But as soon as she could run about she was in the sun all day so she didn’t stay pink and plump for long – soon she was a fine golden brown all over. Really all over, because she didn’t wear clothes in the summer either – why would she? Chariklo and the other Centaur women wove cloth for cloaks for the Centaurs to wrap around their shoulders when the north winds came, and for Halo they made a chiton3 because, as Chariklo’s mother said, ‘She does seem a lot more naked than us, in that delicate skin. The fine, soft cloth that Halo had been wrapped in they put carefully away. ‘It would last no time here,’ Chariklo said, so she folded it with lavender flowers and wrapped it in another piece of cloth and put it in the stone barn where they stored their nuts and olives and dried grapes and wine. Only occasionally would Chariklo take it out and tell Halo the story of how she was found – a story which delighted all the young Centaurs. They would often ask for it round the fire on winter nights, along with the ancient stories of the Centaurs, and the tales of the Greeks and the Trojans, the heroes and the Gods.

  And so it came about that Halo’s first memory – one that stayed with her all her life – was of the deep, dark, star-spattered night sky above Zakynthos. It was so beautiful she could hardly bear to close her eyes to sleep. The night sky above her, cool and velvety, was the same deep blue as the deep sea by day. The stars and constellations hung against it so very bright that the patterns they made were printed on her eyes, and when she woke before dawn she saw them hanging on the other side of the sky. The air was cool and the ground beneath her was hard, but the woolly goatskin she lay on was warm and snug. The faint sweet scent of sea lilies rose up from the distant beach on the cool breeze. The quiet voices of the adults drifted over from the fire, where they sat late into the evening drinking the dark pink wine, which tasted of sunlight and dust. At her back, for her to curl against, was the warm chestnut flank of Arko, her dear friend, gently rising and falling, safe and warm, fast asleep. So her first memory was of something she felt almost every night of her childhood: that peaceful feeling of looking up at the stars, night and morn, warm and snug, with the cool fresh breeze on her nose and Arko beside her.

  Xαπτερ 3

  One day, Halo was running and playing with Arko: he was teasing her, as usual, and she was trying to run as fast as him, still believing that if only she tried harder her human legs would be able to keep up with his horse legs.

  She ran too fast and too bold. She tripped. She fell. She put her arm up to shield her face.

  Her shriek of pain called the whole herd to attention and they came galloping up.

  She had landed awkwardly. Her arm had hit a rock. The angle was wrong, her arm was… oh and the pain…

  There was a bend where no bend should be. No blood. Just a strange bend in the middle of her forearm, and the skin misshapen over it. She could feel her hand and wrist dangling, wrong, agonizing, limp.

  Chiron came. He knelt by her side, took hold of her arm.

  ‘Watch,’ he said to her. ‘Watch through the pain and learn.’

  She stared at his kind, ugly face and tried very very hard to do as he said. The others were standing around them, silent and attentive. Chariklo cantered up with a basket of equipment, including a jar of wine. Chiron gave Halo a cup to drink, unwatered. It was rich and strange.

  ‘Watch!’ said Chiron again. ‘It will be all right. It’s not all right now, but it will be all right.’

  A fine sweat stood on her brow. A sweep of overwhelming pain overtook her, worse than anything, ever, ever… She shrieked again.

  She forced her eyes open, and stared at Chiron’s strong brown hands on her arm.

  He was pulling her arm apart: one hand firm around her forearm just below her elbow, the other circling her wrist. The bend was between his two hands.

  He was pulling her broken arm apart.

  She howled but no sound came out.

  A flaming blaze of pain.

  Agony.

  And within the agony, she felt a click. A clunk. A snap.

  She looked at her arm. Chiron’s hands were still in place. But the bend, the broken wrong bend, had disappeared.

  Her bones were whole. It was all back in place. Tender, bruised, unbelievably painful still, but whole. It was as if he had slotted them back into place. He had slotted them back into place. Pulled them apart, and slotted them back.

  She was shaking but she still tried to watch as he gently wrapped her arm in aromatic herbs, telling her their names as he did so, and bound it with a piece of soft cloth. She tried to repeat the names of the herbs, concentrating to keep the pain from overwhelming her. She stared as he laid a straight smooth length of wood under the soft inside of her forearm, and carefully, so kindly, bound it in place with strips. Chariklo had folded a third piece of cloth into a triangle: now they set her arm to rest in its fold, and tied it behind her neck in a sling. Another cup of wine; a cup of bitter herb tea, instruction to rest. She spent the time while she healed learning to read. Chiron came to see her.

  ‘The ancient Chiron had to do that for Jason, you know, when he was a lad,’ he said. ‘And he taught Apollo’s son, the God Asclepius, how to do it, and all the medicine the humans know. Do you think you could do it? Were you paying attention?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Halo cautiously. She was only about seven. She was pretty sure she would never be able to do it. At least – she hoped she would be brave enough to do it. But she was far from sure.

  ‘You can’t go around breaking people’s arms on purpose, to practise mending them,’ said Chiron seriously. ‘You’ve got to learn when you can. So what herbs did I use?’

  She ran through the names of the herbs, and what they were for.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Remember the cures, and you’ll always be able to help people. And animals.’

  Within a month she could play her flute again; within two she started practising her archery again; within four her arm was as strong as ever, or stronger. Next time somebody broke a bone, Halo was at Chiron and Chariklo’s side, helping and learning.

  ‘All right, I’ll never be as fast as you,’ she said to Arko. ‘I’ll be a better shot instead. And better at curing people.’

  ‘As if,’ he said.

  ‘You wait and see,’ she said.

  ‘Dad,’ said Pearl, one evening some years after this, as they sat around admiring the rich red full moon rising over the sea. ‘If that’s the harvest moon, then it’s ten years since Halo came. We should have a party for her.’

  ‘What, with music and dancing and we’ll invite all the boys?’ said Kyllarus.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pearl.

  She and Lucy were fifteen now, and would be getting married in a year or two. They loved music and dancing. And the boys.

  ‘OK by me,’ said Kyllarus. ‘What do you think, C
hariklo?’

  Chariklo smiled. ‘I’ll tune my lyre,’ she said, ‘and make yoghurt. We’ll need honey and wine.’

  ‘Halo can go up a tree and find some honey,’ said Lucy.

  With her skinny brown legs, Halo could go all sorts of places that Centaurs couldn’t reach: up trees, over rocks, down cliffs, right into the backs of caves. Arko would give her a leg-up, or she would climb up over his back, and he carried home her booty – figs, blackberries, sea urchins and octopuses for the grill, olives from the very tops of the silvery trees for oil, wild honeycombs.

  Even though it was not really allowed, he would carry her on his back, and she would clutch him round his waist as he galloped about. Chiron had told them off for it: ‘A Centaur carries only himself,’ he said. ‘He is not designed to carry any other person.’ But Arko and Halo had just giggled about that as soon as he had gone. She could stand on his back, or his shoulders, and jump and do all sorts of tricks.

  ‘And we’ll go and get some figs,’ said Arko innocently. There were reasons why Arko and Halo always volunteered to get the figs.

  ‘I’ll make baklava,’ murmured Kyllarus.

  ‘Tell us a story, sweetheart,’ said Chariklo, leaning against her husband affectionately. ‘Tell us… about the first Kyllarus, and Hylomene.’

  Kyllarus went quiet for a moment.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said to his wife.

  ‘Tell us, tell us!’ clamoured their children, but then Lucy saw that her father’s face was serious, and she hushed the others.

  ‘They’re old enough to know,’ Chariklo said. ‘Tell them.’

  ‘Well,’ said Kyllarus. ‘All right.’And he took a sip of wine, and cleared his throat, and sat up, and began.

  ‘You have all heard about the night of the great shame of the Centaurs, when the Sons of Ixion betrayed their honour as guests. The daredevil human Pirithous, himself a son of Ixion, invited his Centaur brothers and sisters to his wedding. The feast was generous, and the guests cheerful. Kyllarus, my ancestor, was there with his wife, the beautiful Hylomene, who wore jasmine and rosemary in her hair… As the night grew late and the moon rose, too much strong wine was drunk, and in drink, bold Eurytus, the fiercest Centaur, stole Hippodamia, the bride of Pirithous, to his eternal shame. You have heard how the other Centaurs joined battle to defend Eurytus even though he was in the wrong; how Thereus, who could capture mountain bears and bring them home snarling, was killed, and Phaecomes dressed in six great lion skins laced together, and Dorylas in his wolf-skin cap with bull’s horns… The hero Theseus was Pirithous’s twin soul and fought magnificently for him… Enough of that, blood and shame.

  ‘There was, that awful night, one moment of honour.

  ‘That night Kyllarus, after whom I am named, tried to stop the fighting. But he was caught between his brother Centaurs and his human brothers, and in the heat of the violence his voice was not heard. Everyone was mad with bloodlust and drink.

  ‘Peaceful Kyllarus, that night, was killed. A spear pierced his heart from behind, pierced right through him. And as he fell, Hylomene, seeing her husband bleeding to death, threw herself into his human arms, on to the blade of the spear that pierced him, so that she could die with him. Beautiful Hylomene, who wore jasmine in her hair, and loved her children…’

  Kyllarus fell silent. There were tears in his eyes, and his children stared. Only the sound of crickets singing disturbed the night.

  ‘Is that true?’ whispered Pearl.

  ‘True,’ said Kyllarus.

  ‘What happened to the children?’ whispered Lucy, finally.

  ‘The eldest son wandered the woods until he met his true love under the pomegranate tree, and the grandparents looked after the little ones,’ said Chariklo softly. ‘They grew up, they survived. They swore themselves to peace, and against fighting.’

  ‘It was difficult for the boys, because in those days if you didn’t fight you were nothing,’ said Kyllarus. ‘But my ancestor who combined with the Sons of Cronus learned that there are other roads to respect. He learned that if you have wisdom you don’t need to shed blood.’

  ‘I didn’t know Centaurs had human brothers. I mean blood brothers, not like us and Halo,’ said Arko.

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Pearl. ‘Why weren’t they Centaurs too?’

  ‘Because their mother wasn’t a cloud,’ said Lucy.

  ‘How can a cloud have a baby anyway?’ asked Arko.

  ‘It’s because of Zeus,’ said Pearl. ‘He was always turning himself into different things to have babies – a swan, and a bull, and a cloud of gold…’

  ‘It was the old days,’ said Chariklo. ‘All sorts of things went on in the old days that couldn’t happen now.’

  ‘So does a human have only one heart?’ asked Halo. ‘Because they were pierced through their human hearts, but they still died even though they still had their horse hearts.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Chariklo. ‘We need both our hearts to live.’

  Arko was about to tease Halo for only having one heart, when an idea occurred to him. ‘So will Halo marry a Centaur or a human?’ he asked, and suddenly a silence fell.

  Chariklo and Kyllarus shot each other a look. They had, as their older daughters grew near to marriageable age, thought of this.

  Well, the question had been asked, and so they had to answer it.

  ‘A human,’ said Chariklo, trying to make it sound as normal as possible.

  ‘What?’ Halo squawked. ‘What?’

  ‘Eyurgh,’ said Arko.

  ‘Shut up, Arko,’ said Kyllarus.

  ‘Must she really?’ asked Lucy. ‘Ooh. How odd.’

  Halo was staring at them all.

  ‘I can’t marry a human,’ she said, panicking. ‘I’ve never even met a human. I’ve never even seen a human. I’m not a human…’

  ‘Well, you are, darling,’ said Chariklo. ‘I’m afraid you are.’

  Halo did not sleep well that night. She couldn’t free her mind of the image of Kyllarus and Hylomene, torn between their human brothers and their Centaur brothers, lying speared and dead together. But alongside that was another, almost more frightening image. Herself, with humans.

  On the day of the party, Halo and Arko, with a set of panniers across his back, set off to the big fig patch by the bay. The land was scrubby and dry with wild fennel and old hay, but it was cool beneath the ilex and hibiscus trees, and mostly downhill. Coming back up would be a different story – it would be hot.

  At the fig patch, they unloaded the baskets, but they didn’t start picking yet. They had another plan first, and the figs would only rot and get ants in them if they were left lying around.

  The cool blue water twinkled in the sun ahead of them. Arko started heading across the smooth white sand, but Halo grabbed his tail, shouting, ‘Oi!

  Wait!’Then she clambered up on to his broad chestnut back, and grabbed him round his waist. He cantered out into the shining shallow waters, kicking up froth and bubbles behind him until the cold bright sea was up to his human chest. He paused, and she stood up easily on his back, the friendly little waves breaking against her shins.

  ‘Go on, before I buck you off!’ he cried, and she stretched up in the hot sun against the blue blue sky and dived off, SPLASH, into the cavernous, luminous turquoise light of the sea.

  When she came up Arko was laughing at her. ‘You look like a mermaid when you dive,’ he said. ‘Like a sea nymph. I could see your flicky scaly tail.’

  ‘Well, you look like a human!’ she retorted.

  He did – all his horse body was underwater. He glanced down. ‘Ugh,’ he said, ‘human, how revolting,’ so she splashed him, and he splashed her, and then they set off. Warm sunshine bounced all around them. Cephalonia drifted far off ahead, misty and pearly, and they swam round to the Caves.

  Neither Arko nor Halo had seen anything of the world beyond Zakynthos, but they both knew for a fact that the Gods couldn’t have made anything more beautiful than the Caves. T
wo Gods had come together to make them: Poseidon and Chronos, carving them out of the white cliffs, leaving arches and gateways, walls of rock and caves within, all the colour of clean bone. Inside the caves, in the morning, Phoebus threw his lancing rays through the water, filling it with clear, crystalline turquoise sunlight, which refracted and reflected until every movement you made left a trail of silvery-blue bubbles, and rainbows danced where the sea foamed on the rock.

  They had two special caves. One was much further south, just where the high hills where the Centaurs lived met the flat, low plain where the humans lived. This cave’s water was pale and milky and smelt of eggs, and strange bubbles rose in sparkly wobbly strings from the seabed. Halo and Arko could capture the bubbles in their hands and breathe their sweet other-worldly smell, and it would make them giggle and laugh and act foolishly. They argued a lot about where the bubbles came from. Halo thought maybe they came up from Hades, the underworld where the dead go;Arko said it was probably just invisible nymphs farting underwater. They talked a lot of nonsense when they had been breathing the bubbles.

  But they didn’t often go there. Although the humans didn’t seem to know the cave, Halo and Arko didn’t feel safe so near their territory.

  The other was Arko and Halo’s special beautiful cave, where you swam in through a low dark entrance with less than a metre to spare above the sea level, and inside all was turquoise dancing light and flashing bubbles when you splashed, and your whole body turned blue.

  So Arko and Halo were playing and splashing about in there, and sitting on the friendly rock at the back to rest from their swim, and soothing their sun-weary eyes in the cool, refreshing sea shade. They were discussing sea nymphs, and regretting that there seemed to be none around there for them to be friends with, and perhaps get magical favours off.

  ‘Perhaps they don’t exist any more,’ said Arko. ‘Or they’ve gone somewhere else. It’s not like the old days. The Gods aren’t popping up all over the place, like they used to, getting mixed up in stuff. Just as well, probably. I think they’ve just sort of stopped, and it’s all humans now.’