Halo

by Zizou Corder

  Is this how it works? They inflict such pain and hardship on each other that nothing can ever hurt them again? Poor poor Leonidas, to be brought up in pride and violence instead of love and kindness. She admired him for surviving all this, and still actually being kind.

  She wanted to turn away from it all, to leave, to run. She couldn’t – Borgas was right there, She looked away in disgust, unable to watch any more. She stared at her feet and tried to block out the brutal, inhuman racket of weeping, booing, singing and the crack and thud of clubs and belts on young flesh.

  Later, the boys who had not cried were crowned with wreaths of leaves, and marched around the city in triumph. The crowds shouted out to them, ‘Bravo, well done, brave and noble sons of Sparta.’ They laughed and grinned and waved, showing off their wounds and waving to their mothers in the crowd.

  She didn’t see what happened to the boys who had wept or fallen.

  The next day, back at training, the triumphant boys bounced around, full of themselves. ‘I was silent! I was silent!’ they yelled.

  ‘Well, be silent now,’ said Borgas. ‘There’s no honour in vanity. We’re feeding you too much, if you’ve got energy to spare to be vain.’

  Each week there was a parade. Halo and the other slaves had to stand by and admire. She just turned her mind off as the boys marched up and down. One grubby evening, Borgas broke up the boys’ half-hour relaxation. ‘Parade!’ he shouted, and they all leapt up and ran down to the agora to line up. Halo dragged her weary body off the straw and limped down there. Crenas had stamped on her foot in training. It wasn’t broken, but it was very painful.

  She never forgot this particular parade. All she saw was that after about an hour of standing in the cold, Silenas had fallen down, and that blood had seeped out from where he fell, and spread across the icy ground. Borgas told them all, the next day, what had happened. Silenas had trapped a fox, to eat. He’d had it in his cloak, ready to kill, when the parade had been called. He hadn’t wanted to be shamed by revealing it. He had held it tightly against his belly, all through the parade. It had been biting him. All through the parade.

  He died. But he had made no sound, so he was a hero now. His mother would be so proud.

  Halo had thought she already hated Sparta completely, but after this, she hated it more.

  Xαπτερ 13

  Spring was coming. The sky was blue, and pale, and so high and big! There were little green buds of leaves on the trees – when had they come? The sun was shining. It was warm. And there was a smell on the air – a damp, sweet, lovely smell, like earth, and growing things… It was travelling season again. Halo had seen a group heading off to the north only that morning. Now she stood firm, thigh-high in the river while the seven-year-olds punched her belly, one after the other. She thought of Zakynthos, of anemones blooming, and blossom coming through on almond trees.

  Sometime during the winter, Halo had stopped fighting like a wildcat. She had stopped answering back. She had stopped minding the insults, stopped responding to the abuse. After the festival of flogging, and Silenas’s death, she had learned something: accept what is dealt you, and keep quiet. She started calling Borgas ‘sir’. She fought only enough to keep from getting hurt. She grew as calm as she could be.

  Borgas liked to think he was a good judge of character. He saw how the wildcat Titch had calmed down. Once the bravado had been knocked out of him, he’d turned out a coward like all foreigners. He hadn’t even been able to watch the flogging. When it was time to choose the slaves to take the seven-year-olds into the countryside, Borgas didn’t hestitate to choose Titch. Titch was no longer the type to try and run away.

  Look at him now, standing there, being hit. Well, the littl’uns weren’t going to learn anything that way.

  ‘Titch!’ he yelled. ‘Give ’em something to do! Dodge! Duck! Splash! Keep them out of the current though.’ She glanced towards the middle of the river. It was not so wide, but snowy spring meltwaters from the mountains surged swift and deep and cold.

  So she dodged, and ducked, and splashed, feeling treacherous slimy pebbles under her feet, and swirling eddies of water on her legs and waist. Around her, the small boys slipped and slid, learning how to balance and move in water. One of them trod on a sharp stone, and squeaked in pain. For a second Halo felt a pang of pity for him – but this child already knew not to make a fuss. He shut his mouth tight, and looked around quickly to make sure no one had heard.

  ‘Chase me!’ she said, and dodged away from her group. Just beyond, Nebo was larking with his boys. They caught eyes for a moment, and smiled. Everyone was glad to be out of the city, in the spring sun.

  Borgas and another instructor were on the bank, showing a group how to tie up their equipment to keep it dry when crossing a river. Borgas didn’t really like water.

  And then one of Halo’s little boys slipped, and fell. She turned. He couldn’t get his footing. He was too far out – Halo strode across to grab him. The current got him first. His yell was drowned by the rushing sound of water.

  But Halo was almost there. Instinctively, she dived into the quick-flowing waters after him, the cold hitting her like a slap. She hurled herself at him with all her strength, and grabbed him, and kicked madly through the curling, hissing waters. Her blood pounded and the water was over her head, in her eyes, up her nose – but the strength of her dive took them across the danger zone. She kicked and kicked madly as they were tossed downstream – and suddenly they were in calm waters again. She shook the water from her head like a dog, panting and spitting. The little boy was in her arms. She looked around, trying to breathe. It was as if the pale icy green river had spat them out.

  They were on the other side of the river.

  Carefully, she picked her way to the bank, carrying the crying child. She put him down, kneeling beside him and holding him as he shivered and snivelled. She could see the group, not so far across the river: the boys standing in the water, staring; Borgas, staring.

  He was really staring at Halo.

  She felt her sodden chiton clinging to her. Quickly she pulled the wet folds away from her thighs.

  Borgas was narrowing his eyes.

  What he saw, modest, dressed, and cuddling a child, did not look to him like a boy.

  What Halo saw was the end of her secret.

  Or – and she quickly summed up the situation – an opportunity.

  It’s now or never.

  So it’s now!

  She grinned, ruffled the child’s hair, and she turned and ran.

  She could hear Borgas yelling behind her. She knew he wouldn’t brave the rushing river to come after her. She kept running. She doubted the other instructor would come either. Only a person acting on the instinct of life and death would jump into that icy crashing roaring stream. She kept running – away from the river, up the hillside, towards the woods, into the woods.

  She was still running when she heard the thudding of feet behind her. For a second fear made her falter – and she heard again in her head what Leonidas had said about fear, about what it could do, about using it.

  She used her fear to make herself run faster. Desperation clung to her. She dodged to where the trees were thicker.

  Downhill now. A gully, a thicket.

  A river. On the other side, a fallen tree, a pool. She could hear frogs croaking and hiccuping.

  Footsteps behind. Her own breath tight in her ear.

  Behind the tree, against the bank… a hiding place.

  She flung herself flat on her belly, landing on ferns and mud, half in water, no breath left. Frogs plopped to left and right of her as she tried to get her breath back.

  Her nose was practically in the pool. She smelt its damp greenness.

  The footsteps stopped – somewhere above her. She heard voices shouting.

  She could see across the water, right in front of her, level with her nose, a low dark gap, deep in the shadows. It lurked, almost invisible, overhung with new spring growth. Ri
ver water stood deep and stagnant in there. Creepers overhung it.

  It was a cave.

  ‘Down here!’ someone yelled, above.

  There was no time to think. Silently, sleekly, she slid herself forward and slipped down beneath the oily dark surface of the pool. Gently, quietly, she propelled herself underwater towards the darkness of the cave. Into it. Eyes open, mouth shut, controlling her breath, repressing her fear, she followed the darkness.

  Patches of sludge blopped at her face. She ignored them.

  She needed to breathe.

  She had to breathe.

  She burst to the surface and flung her head back, gulping gratefully at the cold air, shivering as much with relief as with cold. She hadn’t been sure there would even be a surface. If the water had filled the cave…

  The relief did not last long. True, she had found air. But she found nothing else. She had followed the darkness all right. There was not a speck of light to show her where she had come from, or where she should go.

  She had come up underground, cut off, in a pitch-black hole full of cold, cold water.

  Halo doggy-paddled along desperately, reaching, seeing nothing. She was terrified, scared to reach out in the darkness, or put her feet down, for fear of what she might touch – or not touch, for there might be nothing beneath her feet but empty dark depth… but knowing she had to, because if she didn’t find a solid surface and get out of this freezing water, she would die.

  Her arms quivered.

  Keep going. Use your fear…

  She was so tired. She paddled tensely and frantically, as if trying to keep her body up, out of the water almost – what if there was thick, squelching mud full of water snakes, and rotten dead animals, or toxic, stinking gas bubbles… or dark, long, slimy weeds, their stalks disappearing down in the blackness deep below, reaching up to entangle and snare her… or quicksand to pull, sucking, at her legs and drag her down and swallow her up…

  For all she knew there might be solid clean rock just beneath her feet but she daren’t reach down…

  Something trailed against her leg and she screamed. Her voice drifted out and echoed across an expanse.

  Ah!

  Her foot touched rock. She scrabbled towards it. The water was shallow there.

  She pulled herself up, on to she could not see what. Some underground bank, or beach. She stretched her arms up, and stood. Too late she realized she might crack her head – but no. It was high enough to stand.

  She could hear nothing. She could see nothing. She knew nothing.

  Cold.

  She called out again more softly, trying to judge how big the cave was.

  The echo replied, hollow and lonely. The cave was huge!

  She rubbed her arms, held her hands in her armpits, and jumped. She had no idea, no way of telling, which way she had come.

  It occurred to her that she was a fool, and that she was in great danger. Was this really better than being a slave? Better than Borgas knowing she was a girl?

  Her teeth were chattering and her muscles were seizing up. She had to move. The air in the cave felt cool and fresh. It had to come from somewhere. The question was, where? How could she ever know if she was walking in the right direction?

  This great dark cave could easily be her grave.

  She put herself in the hands of the Gods, and started walking.

  When she first saw the little twinkling lights, she thought that the cold and the hunger and the darkness were giving her hallucinations. When she bent down to look at them closer, she saw that they were real. Little blue-white lights. They seemed to be a fungus. She gathered a handful, and marvelled at it – a handful of light! She held it high. It showed her nothing much. But she could see, from the way it lay on the ground, that she was on a slight slope.

  I shall walk uphill, because uphill should lead away from water… and to the surface…

  The river was in a gully. The area round about was hilly. She had no idea where anything might be. For all she knew, she might come up under the temple in the middle of Sparta.

  She walked on.

  When she started knocking her head on long, firm strands of who-knew-what hanging from the ceiling, which seemed suddenly much closer, she was happy. She hadn’t come across them before, so she was not going round in circles. It wasn’t until she had walked far past them that she realized they must be the roots of trees. Should she turn back, and try to dig upwards into the ceiling? But would she find them again?

  She walked on.

  She would very much have liked a wall to walk along. It would have seemed safer, somehow. Then she felt, suddenly, by a change of air, that she was walking alongside something.

  Not for a moment or two did she realize it was a precipice.

  She had no idea how far it fell.

  She gulped, and walked on.

  She felt something rolling under her foot, something long and hard and thin. She picked it up. A porcupine quill. She smiled in the darkness. Porcupines wouldn’t go very deep underground.

  Bats. A sudden, massive, whispering flurry of bats, a shifting, rustling tube of bats swooping from behind her, peeping their high, high noise, catching her up in the movement of air from their fluttery, papery little wings…

  Bats! They sleep by day in caves, and at dusk they go out into the open air…

  Open air!

  She began to run, following the bats.

  Their exit was a one-metre hole high up in a sloping wall of rock. She could see the beautiful glow of the sky, blue and clear, as she scrambled up the rocks, breaking her nails and skinning her knees and elbows. She slithered out through cobwebs over a patch of wild thyme that smelt as sweet as the gates of heaven, and then she was lying on green grass in a wooded glade, practically on top of a little waterfall, as the last pink gleams of sunset were lighting on the under-sides of a few fluffy clouds.

  Xαπτερ 14

  Halo washed under the waterfall, and then headed on, without food or water, or even a cloak to wrap round her. If I travel by night I can keep myself warm and out of sight, she told herself, and then I can sleep in the day when it’s warmer. She was impatient. She was heading north and west, between the sunset’s dying glow and the first pricking of the North Star. North and west, to Zakynthos. If necessary, she would swim across. She needed her home.

  She could see dim flickering lights below her to the south. Sparta? If it was, she was already some distance in the right direction. She must have been going north underground. So much the better, she thought, as she strode on.

  As the moon rose, she could make out the River Eurotas down below, with the road beside it leading from Sparta to the north. There was no traffic on it. Tomorrow, perhaps, she might be able to get a lift… she would have to be careful though. She turned her path downhill. Best to cross the river, and the road, by night.

  She was tired, of course, and even though she had grown accustomed to the paltry Spartan rations she was very hungry. There were no nuts or fruit for her to eat. She was going along, parallel with the road, a little distance from it, thinking about how she would have to get back in the river to cross it. She dreaded it.

  She sat down to rest. Sleep crept up swiftly.

  It was the sharp toe of a travelling boot in her ribs that woke her an hour or so later. She was being kicked, or tipped over. She jumped up, confused, from a deep, deep sleep. A hand was twisted into the belt of her chiton, and a smooth arm snaked round her neck from behind, holding her captive. A voice she had never heard before hissed in her ear.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here,’ it said, and she was propelled, still blinking, down on to the road. She tried to struggle, to turn her head and see who her captor was – but each time she did she got a sharp jerk at her throat. Well, she thought, I’ll see soon enough.

  He threw her down at someone’s feet, and she looked up. Firelight flickered, orange and black: two horses, a little wagon, a trio of faces in the dark.

  Her captor was
the silky blond boy from the crowd at the festival.

  The feet belonged to Melesippus.

  Beside him, sitting – Leonidas.

  Splayed by the road beneath these three, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All that effort, all that danger, all for nothing.

  ‘Hah!’ said Melesippus, who was sitting on a tree stump, as if hardly surprised. ‘It’s your little friend, Leon. What are you doing out here? Can’t bear to be parted from our handsome young cadet? Or are you running away?’

  Immediately, Halo realized that they didn’t know she had escaped. They must have left before Borgas got back from the river. She thought quickly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What, sir?’ said Melesippus. ‘Yes or no?’ He was having his dinner, and seemed in a good mood. She didn’t feel that this was something she could rely on. Think of something! Her mind was a big, scared blank.

  She glanced at Leonidas. She hadn’t even seen him since the festival of flogging.

  ‘No, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Tattooboy,’ said Melesippus, a little more impatiently, ‘tell us why you are here.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Leonidas suddenly.

  Melesippus turned to him, looking a query.

  ‘I offered him my protection, and then forgot to tell him I was leaving,’ said Leonidas, as if it wasn’t very important. ‘He probably thought it his duty to follow me. In case I needed him.’

  He stretched, and yawned. ‘I suppose we’ll have to take him along now,’ he said.

  Melesippus looked at him, as if weighing this up. He snorted.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Do try and keep your responsibilities under proper control, Leon.’

  Halo tried not to gasp with relief.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Leonidas. ‘Come on, you, stand up.’

  Halo stood up. Her knees were shaking. If you even think about running away, they’ll kill you… She could hardly believe her luck.

  The blond boy was giving her a very clear look, from his round blue eyes. It’s as if he knows everything, she thought. He sees right through me.