Halo

by Zizou Corder

  It was a plaintive cry. Such a small question, and yet so big.

  And from within she heard a deep sigh, and a rustling, and then a light laugh, and then a woman’s voice called out: ‘You are the child of Aiella from the east, and Megacles of the Family of the Accursed of Athens. Go there and they will tell you.’

  And that was it.

  ‘Aiella and Megacles,’ whispered Halo. They had names. Her human mother and father were Aiella and Megacles.

  ‘Thank you,’ she called softly. ‘Thank you, Pythia, and thank you, Apollo…’

  She left as if in a trance.

  Aiella, and Megacles. Megacles, and Aiella.

  Aiella might bake bread, and sleep on a low bed. Megacles might laugh, and come home with fruit from an orchard. Perhaps Aiella was beautiful and wise. Perhaps Megacles was strong and kind. They might hug her, or tell her off, talk to her, listen to her. They might look like her.

  They existed. She thought of Kyllarus and Chariklo. She thought of Aiella and Megacles.

  Perhaps they had loved her.

  Tears were streaming down her face as she came out, reeling, into the shock of the hot sun.

  Leonidas was there. She ran almost into his arms. He took hold of her, and sat her on a smooth white step under an almond tree.

  ‘So?’ he said, and sat down beside her on the step.

  ‘Aiella and Megacles,’ she said.

  ‘What about them?’ he asked.

  ‘My parents,’ she said. ‘Megacles, my father. Aiella, my mother.’ She smiled enormously at him. ‘There you are! I have parents.’

  He grinned back. ‘Congratulations!’ he said. ‘Good news. And do you have a city?’

  Ah. Her face fell.

  She didn’t want to tell Leonidas that she was from Sparta’s enemy city. Or that her family was cursed.

  In fact, as she started to think about it, the Pythia’s pronouncement just led to more questions. Wonderful to have parents, but she didn’t know if they were alive or dead, where they were, how she could find them – if she could find them – or anything, really… other than that they were cursed.

  And did that mean she was cursed too? And who by? And why? And…?

  She couldn’t talk to Leonidas about that. Could she? She glanced up at him. He was looking at her encouragingly, his green eyes friendly, waiting for the answer to his question. She wanted to tell him. Despite all the things that separated them – two more now! – she wanted to talk to him.

  No, she thought.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘She told me where to go to find out!’

  ‘Where?’ he said, with a smile.

  No! If he knew, he would never let her go there. He had already snapped the chain back on to the cuff on his arm, and Melesippus and Manticlas had reappeared. They were very taken up with their own business, and didn’t seem to have noticed that she had also spoken to the Oracle. She was grateful for that.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Melesippus was saying. ‘We must get on the road. Our news can’t wait.’

  Leonidas rose to follow him, and Halo was dragged along as usual. She was utterly perplexed. She must go to Athens to find her parents; Sparta was about to declare war on Athens, Apollo was on Sparta’s side, and the Oracle said Sparta would win!

  She was more than ever among the enemy. She must go straight to Athens and tell them. There mustn’t be a war! The mighty Spartan army would destroy Athens, the city she had only just discovered was hers.

  She trotted along behind Leonidas, too many thoughts spinning. She pinned down the most urgent: How can I escape before we get on the ferry, which will only carry me in the wrong direction? She didn’t notice that something was going on on the broad marble steps of the Sacred Way. A crowd was bustling and pushing. Some were tutting, some stumbling, some telling the others to calm down. They were all trying to see something, at the centre of the jostling. Cries of amazement rose up. Grinning boys followed on. ‘Dear Gods! Dear Gods!’ Halo heard someone cry in disbelief.

  Melesippus was trying to get through, his mouth set firm with impatience. The Spartan cloak and air of casual determination were not having their usual effect. Manticlas was glancing into the crowd with idle curiosity as they tried to squeeze past.

  In the chaos, several people had come between them and Halo and Leonidas.

  A loud, authoritative voice called out, ‘Stand back please, make way!’

  Halo found herself pushed to the front of the crush. She looked up to see what was amazing everybody.

  The sight stunned her, delighted her, and cast her into terror all at once.

  An unmistakable, beautiful, bright-eyed, red-haired, four-legged, chestnut-flanked sight.

  Arko!

  But Arko in chains.

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  ‘Arko!’ she cried out, before she could stop herself.

  He turned and saw her, and his face lit up like the morning sky.

  She longed to rush to him. He longed to rush to her. But he had shackles on his legs and arms, and he wore a broad leather belt, from which several heavy chains ran to the hands of a couple of men on either side of him.

  Arko was a prisoner, just like her.

  ‘Arko?’ murmured Leonidas, right behind her. He remembered that name. ‘Arko! Well, my little slave, you are a creature of mystery.’ He meant to say it almost silently. How could he know that Centaurs have exceptionally good hearing? Arko picked up the sound of his own name, and flicked Leonidas a narrow look. Even narrower when he heard the word ‘slave’, and saw the chain hanging from Halo’s narrow wrist.

  ‘Now, now,’ said an authoritative voice. Halo looked over. It was a priest; a tall man with a dry brown face like a dead vine leaf. ‘Calm down, everyone, or none of you will be coming in. This is the sanctuary of Apollo, not a Dionysian revel. Now who is with this… er…’

  He stumbled to a halt. He didn’t know how to describe Arko. So Arko helped him out.

  ‘I’m with myself!’ he called out firmly. ‘I’m a free creature. I am here to ask Lord Apollo of the Silver Bow, Far-shooting Apollo, to remind these villains that they have no right whatsoever to put chains on me and attempt to drag me around!’

  His voice was clear and strong, and shut everybody up.

  ‘It can talk!’ squeaked a bystander.

  ‘Of course I can talk,’ said Arko kindly. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  One of the men to whom he was shackled, a low-browed rapscallion with a long bushy beard and a fur cap, started to shout. ‘He’s our captive!’ he said. ‘He’s our animal! We’re here to get Apollo to tell him so! He won’t shut up!’

  ‘Sweet Zeus and Athena,’ said Arko. ‘How many times do I have to tell you I’m not an animal? Do animals talk? Or play the flute? Or pray to the Gods? Honoured priest,’ he continued, ‘do I look like an animal? Am I behaving like an animal? You all know what I am! I’m a Centaur!’

  ‘That’s an animal!’ shouted someone in the crowd.

  ‘No it ain’t!’ shouted someone else.

  Everybody decided to shout out their own opinion. There were quite a few opinions, and a cake-seller’s tray of cakes got knocked over, and a skinny yellow dog ate some of them, and a small fight broke out.

  ‘Desist!’ thundered the priest. ‘All of you!’

  Silence fell.

  ‘The Oracle will tell us,’ he said calmly. ‘Is that not why you are here?’

  There was a mumbling of agreement.

  ‘Everybody not connected to the question, stand back,’ he said, and beckoned Arko and his captors up the Sacred Way.

  Leonidas had his hand still firmly on Halo’s shoulder. Halo glanced around at him. She couldn’t see Melesippus or Manticlas at all.

  Leonidas was grinning at her. ‘Don’t you want to go and see what happens to your brother?’ he said. ‘Come on.’And he grabbed her by the elbow like a naughty child, and propelled her through the crowd, towards the temple.

  When they got there, the priest was decid
ing that he himself would put the question to the Oracle. He wasn’t sure a Centaur was allowed in the temple at all, and the slave dealers who had captured Arko were horribly squabblesome. More sacrifices had to be made. Arko had to stand on his own, up on the temple steps by the columns, still chained. Pain rose in her throat at the sight. How dare they! Apollo! she prayed, angrily – then stopped herself, and breathed slowly for a moment or two, and started again. Sweet Apollo, you have given me so much today; you are so kind. I know you know Arko is not an animal. Please make them let him be free.

  That was better. It made no sense to be rude to the Gods.

  At that moment, a hand touched hers – a gentle touch, almost as if by mistake.

  She turned her head. It was Ion, the temple boy.

  ‘Glad I found you,’ he whispered. ‘Here.’

  He pressed something into her hand. She took it quickly, instinctively. She couldn’t tell if Leonidas had noticed what was going on.

  She glanced quickly down to see what it was – and filled up with joy.

  It was her little gold owl.

  Quickly she closed her hand around it again, and looked up at Ion with joy all over her face.

  ‘What’s that then?’ came Leonidas’s calm voice. He nodded a greeting to Ion.

  ‘Spartan,’ Ion greeted him in return.

  ‘It’s my owl!’ Halo said. ‘Look!’ She showed it to Leonidas.

  ‘She wanted you to have it back,’ said Ion.

  ‘She?’ Halo asked.

  Ion nodded. ‘The Pythia. She said, “The owl is a great gift, not to be given up lightly”,’ he said.

  Halo smiled. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

  Ion laughed softly. ‘Ah, you’ll have to ask one of the interpreters of the Oracle,’ he said. ‘I never understand what she says. But I do know,’ he went on, and he shot her a look, ‘that the owl means Athena, and wisdom.’

  Halo shut her mouth firmly. And it means Athens, she thought – but she couldn’t say anything about Athens in front of Leonidas. He stood quietly, looking at Arko, as if not interested at all in what she and Ion were saying. But his strong brown hand was still tight on her upper arm, and she knew perfectly well that he was taking it all in and storing it up.

  Ion bent and whispered quickly in her ear, ‘I know you heard the Spartans’ oracle. Don’t be afraid. Apollo cares for all the Greeks. But he can’t stop them from doing what they’re going to do anyway. And after all – he has given you back your owl.’

  Apollo had given her back her owl. She swallowed, and she smiled hugely, feeling it spread across her face.

  ‘Say to them thank you,’ she said to the boy. ‘From me.’

  He grinned, and slipped away through the crowd. She smiled. Here she was, a slave, and there was Arko, a captive, and war was coming, yet she felt happy! How rich she felt! From friendless orphan to girl with parents and her best friend – and her owl back – in about ten minutes. Now, she thought, she had her line. She had something to fight for. Yet there were tears in her eyes. Unless I suddenly grow giant teeth to bite through this chain, it’s all pointless.

  ‘So many unexpected friends you have,’ Leonidas said. ‘Whatever next? Are a couple of nymphs going to appear, perhaps, bringing a message? Or Dionysus, greeting you as his long-lost daughter? Apollo himself, perhaps, might come down and offer you a cup of wine.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, but she laughed anyway.

  She was trying, and failing, to fasten the owl round her neck. Leonidas brushed her hands away and did it for her, quickly and easily. She glanced back at him to thank him.

  ‘Halo,’ he said. He held her eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Halo, look at me,’ he said. ‘Halo – do you understand?’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Halo, if you are an Athenian, we are enemies now.’

  I should have known you’d notice that… Enemies. The word in his mouth pulled her up sharp. She turned and stared at him.

  ‘We are enemies,’ he said softly.

  A voice deep in Halo’s heart said, I don’t want to be your enemy. How can we be enemies?

  She didn’t say it out loud. Instead she said, ‘Leonidas?’

  ‘Gentlemen!’ the priest called out. The announcement!

  Leonidas squeezed her upper arm even tighter, looking at her intensely. ‘Enemies,’ he said, with a grim little smile, and he took his hand off her arm, raised it as if in surrender, or farewell, and he turned and he walked away from her through the crowd.

  She could see the leather cuff still strapped to his sunburnt arm.

  The chain dangled, empty, at her side.

  Leonidas?

  ‘Gentleman, the God has spoken, and desired that his words be made public.’

  She looked up to where Arko stood, still wearing a bold face and a proud demeanour, but Halo could see he was pale. She looked back to Leonidas – but he was gone, melted into the crowd.

  ‘Far-shooting Apollo, the Just God, speaking through his most honoured Oracle the Pythia, has said, “Dishonour is upon any who takes the Centaur to be a slave; as it is upon any who makes a slave of a free person illegally…”’

  Yes! Arko!

  The priest said more, but it was lost in the hubbub. The captors were complaining, but they soon shut up. The temple staff were calling for order and decorum. Halo stood motionless and alone in the crowd, her mouth open. Everyone else was crowding up the steps to Arko, undoing his chains and at the same time poking him, talking to him and pulling hairs out of his tail as souvenirs and lucky charms. He was trying to be polite, trying to shake them off. They wouldn’t go. Suddenly he reared up on his hind legs, a magnificent and noble sight beneath the gleaming portico, the sun shining on his flanks.

  The people scattered, shrieking in alarm.

  Arko nodded to Halo – a nod of Are you ready? She came back to her senses, in a flood of reality.

  And then – Arko leapt. He bounded right over the heads of the people below him on the temple steps, his hair flying behind him, and landed by her. He scooped her up in his arms and she flung her arms around him, forgetting everything else in a flood of affection and relief such as she had never felt in her life before. He was hugging her and she was hugging him and he was picking her up and rearing up on his hind legs with joy, and everyone started yelling even louder, and her legs were flying out behind her as he swung her and his tail was swirling and never, ever, had brother and sister been more delighted to be reunited. Then he flung her over his shoulder. He swerved, and skidded to a halt for a second, and then he was galloping off down the Sacred Way, his angry hooves sending chips of marble flying, and crying out, ‘Blessings on you, Apollo, and the gratitude of all Centaurs!’

  The crowd went mad.

  ‘What in the name of all Gods was that?’ cried Melesippus, muscling through with Manticlas to where Leonidas was standing silently at the back of the crowd. ‘Has that creature just stolen your boy?’

  ‘Just taken back his own,’ said Leonidas.

  ‘Leonidas?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t really a slave, Melesippus,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘So who was he?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Leonidas. He knew he was in trouble. Sparta doesn’t let slaves run away.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ breathed Manticlas. His huge pale eyes were glowing as he took everything in.

  ‘I gave you a chance to control him, Leonidas, and you failed,’ Melesippus said coldly. ‘I don’t have time to go and kill him now – and I don’t trust you to do it.’

  Leonidas forced his face to stay rigid. He hated to hear these words from Melesippus. He knew Melesippus was right. But how could he have not let her go?

  ‘How did he escape his chain?’

  ‘I unchained him, sir,’ Leonidas said. He held his chin high. He didn’t blink. He wouldn’t lie.

  Melesippus stared at him for a long moment, and then he gave a little snort, a
nd said, ‘Then his death is your fault. Is that punishment enough?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Leonidas, and gave his mentor a swift soldier’s bow. He knew well enough how not to betray his feelings. He didn’t betray them now.

  ‘But now, if you remember, we have things to do.’ Melesippus was angry. ‘Manticlas, what does it mean? Is the Centaur an omen for us?’

  ‘Oh, I should think so,’ said Manticlas thoughtfully. ‘It could well be. But the Oracle spoke so clearly in our favour. It is most unusual… We have been told that we can win this war if we fight our hardest.’

  ‘True,’ said Melesippus.

  ‘Are we to take that to mean using all weapons available to us?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Melesippus.

  ‘Including more… esoteric weapons?’

  ‘Esoteric?’ asked Melesippus.

  ‘Unusual,’ said the pale-haired boy, with a distant look in his eye.

  ‘I know what it means, thank you,’ said Melesippus. ‘I just don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I will tell you in due course. But thank you for your words. You put my mind at rest. One last question – the Oracle, did she say “the Centaur” or “a Centaur”?’

  ‘“The”,’ said Melesippus. ‘Why?’

  Manticlas stared at him dreamily. ‘Don’t you know?’ he said. ‘A Centaur’s heart can win any battle… This Centaur may be forbidden, but perhaps… We have assumed that there were no Centaurs any more, but as there are, well… we might as well, don’t you think? Melesippus, I won’t be coming back to Sparta just yet. I have something to investigate. I’ll return before –’ and here he breathed a great sigh – ‘before the black blood starts to drip from the highest roofs.’

  Melesippus, the stalwart soldier, gave a little shiver as Manticlas turned away. Clearly, the strange pale boy saw things which others didn’t see. Or want to see, thought Melesippus.

  As for Leonidas, he felt the cold claw of Phobos touch his heart. Now one of them will kill her, he thought, and the other will kill her Centaur brother, and I, who have already betrayed my duty, for her… I can’t help her any more.

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