Halo

by Zizou Corder

  ‘What’s the komos?’ Halo wanted to know.

  ‘It’s when the young men drink far too much of Dionysus’s lovely wine, and go completely mad carousing all over the town in a Dionysian frenzy. All the laws turn upside down, and the donkeys are king for the night. Even the Skythians give up trying to keep order…’

  ‘Skythians!’ cried Halo. ‘There are Skythians here!’

  She had heard about Skythians. They came from beyond the Euxine Sea. They were the finest archers and horsemen in the world, but they sacrificed humans, and gilded their skulls for drinking cups, and hung the dried-out scalps of their enemies from the bridles of their horses, and had giant Molossian hounds with them everywhere they went, and… oh yes…

  ‘The City Guard,’ said Aspasia. ‘You’ll have seen them. Terrifying-looking men on horseback, with those alarming big dogs. Of course – the ones who brought you in.’

  ‘Those men are Skythians?’ she gasped. ‘But – is it safe?’

  ‘Not everything you hear is entirely true,’ Aspasia said. ‘You can see for yourself there are no scalps hanging from the bridles of the City Guard. And none of the Athenian Skythians are bald. And certainly the ones here don’t chop up their dead and eat them in sausages along with the sacrificial meat…’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Halo said.

  ‘But you’re right,’ Aspasia said. ‘It is good to be wary of them. They are not like us. And they don’t see the point of worshipping a God who drives you out of your mind, so they all go back to their barracks during the Dionysia. That’s another reason why it gets so very chaotic out there…’

  ‘It sounds interesting though,’ said Halo.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Aspasia, with a little sniff. ‘In a few years no doubt you’ll be doing it yourself, but tonight we are going home and closing the doors. And anyway, I think you’ll like tomorrow.’

  Xαπτερ 21

  Every day for the next three days, Halo and Arko found themselves back in the Theatre of Dionysus, watching the tragedies – three a day – of the Grand Dionysia. Only one of them made Halo cry.

  Later that night, she sat with Aspasia in her little sitting room, drinking honeyed tea.

  ‘So, Halosydnus,’ Aspasia said. ‘Why did you weep so much at the story of Medea? Have you not heard it before?’

  ‘Of course, I have,’ said Halo. ‘But I haven’t seen it acted.’

  ‘And what was it touched you so? I was watching you, and it looked personal.’

  Halo grinned at her feet, embarrassed. ‘Well, according to the play, it’s better to die than to lose your homeland,’ she said, and she tried to laugh, but it was hard. ‘And I have lost my homeland twice…’

  ‘Tell me about that,’ said Aspasia kindly.

  Of course Halo and Arko had told Pericles and Aspasia their stories already – but Aspasia was so gentle, so perceptive and so interested that now Halo told her things she had told no human but Leonidas. She told her about the shipwreck, she showed her the little owl, she told her about the Centaurs, about the Spartans, about going to Delphi. She did not tell her she was a girl. But she did tell her what the Oracle had said to her – at least, some of it.

  ‘Aspasia,’ she said. ‘The Pythia told me my father is Athenian. My mother is foreign, but then you are not a citizen either and you lead a good life… Aspasia,’ she burst out, ‘do you know anyone of the name of Megacles?’

  ‘Of course. Many men are called Megacles. It is a fine Athenian name, and a noble one.’

  Halo took this in. She was trying to find out as much as she could without admitting what she must not, could not, admit. Many men called Megacles. Well, that didn’t help much.

  ‘And,’ she said, ‘um, are people in Athens, um, cursed, very much?’

  ‘Cursed?’Aspasia said. ‘Well, there are always people who cast around superstitious curses, which mean nothing.’

  Halo didn’t think the Pythia would have bothered to mention it if it was something like that.

  Her heart was thumping.

  Do not reveal it, you will be banished, you will lose your home-land a third time…

  She had to know. The curse was the only clue she had. Aspasia was kind. She had to ask.

  ‘But is there, perhaps,’ she said, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t at all important, ‘I mean I just heard about it, a family in Athens, which is cursed?’

  ‘A family?’ said Aspasia. Then she cried out, ‘A family!’ Then she sat up suddenly straight, and looked at Halo quite differently, and Halo knew that Aspasia had seen through her, had worked it out, and that it was all over.

  ‘Halosydnus,’ Aspasia said. ‘Did the Pythia tell you that your father is of the Family of the Accursed?’

  Halo couldn’t speak. What shame does it mean? Megacles – if I am your child, as I must be, I submit to any shame.

  Her mouth had gone very small and tight, and tears were in her eyes, but she held her chin up and clenched her teeth and tried to be proud as she nodded, shortly, ‘Yes’.

  ‘Halosydnus!’ Aspasia cried.

  Halo’s eyes were clenched as tight as her mouth. She had to control herself, not make a fool of herself. Her heart was breaking. She would have to leave Athens at least; or be punished, or – oh, but she didn’t want to leave beautiful, interesting, exciting Athens!

  ‘Halo, calm down,’Aspasia was saying. ‘Halo?’

  Why is she using my short name, which only Arko uses?

  ‘My dear…’

  My dear?

  ‘Did the Pythia tell you who the Accursed are?’

  Halo shook her head quickly.

  ‘Halo – the Accursed are the Alcmaeonids.’

  The whats?

  ‘Halo – it’s Pericles’s family.’

  Halo’s eyes flew open.

  She stared at Aspasia.

  ‘You couldn’t belong to a better family,’ Aspasia was saying. ‘Really. You are cousin to Pericles. You are cousin to my son. Come here, my child. Come here.’ Aspasia held open her arms, and like a bolt from a bow Halo shot into them, and hugged her like a mother. It felt unspeakably wonderful. She hugged her and hugged her, and she cried and cried, and Aspasia stroked her hair and murmured little soft bits of nothing – and also, after a while, bits of important information, about why the Alcmaeonids were known as the Accursed,7 and how it means nothing now, except when enemies tried to make an issue of it. Why, only this year the Spartans tried make the Athenians denounce and reject Pericles because he was an Alcmaeonid – and it only made the Athenians love him more, because it showed how scared the Spartans were of him. In Athens, to be associated with the Accursed was a blessing.

  And that was when Pericles came in. Halo jumped up nervously. He was tired, but friendly.

  ‘I’ll go to bed,’ said Halo. ‘It’s late –’ but Aspasia cut in.

  ‘No, wait – Pericles, we are starting to solve the mystery of this boy,’ she said excitedly. ‘Guess what?’Aspasia paused for effect, her eyes sparkling, excited at the news she had to impart. ‘The Pythia told him his father is Megacles, and an Alcmaeonid. What do you think of that?’

  The tiredness fell off Pericles’s face, replaced in that instant by a look of wonder and keen intent that he fixed on Halo.

  ‘How old are you, boy?’ he said urgently.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Halo. ‘I think perhaps twelve or thirteen or so.’

  ‘And found on Zakynthos, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Eleven years ago, come the end of summer,’ said Pericles, stating it as a fact.

  ‘Yes,’ said Halo. ‘How do you know?’

  Pericles ignored her question. ‘And the Pythia told you?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘I might ask for guarantees and witnesses,’ he said, his voice full of emotion, ‘but to look at your face and your eyes I don’t think I will.’

  He put his hand over his mouth, and blinked.

  ‘Sweet Hera, by Zeus and
all the Gods, Apollo, sweet Apollo,’ he said, and he fell to his knees. The great Pericles was weeping on his knees. Aspasia’s eyes were wide.

  Halo just stood there. What else could she do?

  ‘My child,’ he said. ‘My child, my cousin’s child returned to me – oh, the kindness of the Gods, your kindness to me… Come here, child.’

  Halo went to him. He stood up again, a little sheepishly. He stared at her face, clasped her, and said, ‘Am I deceiving myself? Do you look like him? I swear, I think you do. Skinnier than he ever was, but his clever eyes look back at me. Megacles’s son, brought back to me, looking like him, and guaranteed by the Pythia…’

  His eyes… she had her father’s eyes. She was skinnier than him, and she had his eyes, and Pericles had loved him. Megacles began to take shape in her mind.

  ‘I have this, sir,’ she said, and she pulled her little owl on its thong out of the neck of her chiton.

  He bent to look at it. He took it between thumb and finger. ‘Hmm!’ he said. He seemed to be finding it hard to speak. ‘Hmm. Well. And you were wearing this when you were found?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  He was blinking quite a lot.

  ‘My mother gave it to him,’ he said shortly. ‘Before he went away. Superstitious fools, the pair of them. As if an amulet can help anything. She said, “Never forget you’re an Athenian. May Athena bring you home safely.” That was the day he left. He said he’d always wear it. Big fool…’ He blew his nose.

  Halo was holding her little owl, feeling it so small and smooth between her fingers. Her father’s owl that he had worn, that he had given to her.

  Pericles sat down. Aspasia poured him tea. Halo sat on a stool at his feet. Her heart was so full of feelings that she didn’t know where to begin. Everywhere she looked she saw a thousand questions, and each answer might lead to a thousand more questions.

  I’ll start with a simple one.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘are you my uncle?’

  ‘As good as, child,’ he said. ‘Your own flesh and blood. You have many relatives here, you know.’

  But Halo knew in her heart that none of those other relatives could make her happier than this, her first relative, her Uncle Pericles.

  Except, of course, if… if…

  Well, now she could learn the truth. Here – she had come all this way, and now she could know.

  She was strangely reluctant to ask. Knowing meant the end of possibilities…

  ‘Uncle Pericles,’ she whispered. ‘What happened to my parents?’

  He took her hand in his and she leaned against his knee.

  ‘Well,’ said Pericles, and he looked her in the eye and she knew in that moment that there was no good news coming. ‘Fifteen years ago, my brave and amusing cousin Megacles, the kindest man you could hope to meet, with no sense of money and a dreadful singing voice, then twenty-five years old, took it into his head to visit another cousin, in Ionia, who had stayed on after one of our family banishments. While he was there, he met a woman, whose name we never knew. He married her, and travelled with her, and had a child, whose birth we heard about. You, Halosydnus – though actually that’s not your name…’

  ‘It’s not? – Oh! No, of course not… um, what is my name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pericles. ‘Cleisthenes, probably, after your father’s father.’

  Cleisthenes the father of democracy. ‘Was Cleisthenes my grandfather?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘He was your grandfather’s grandfather,’ he said. ‘So his name is yours.’

  I am descended from Cleisthenes! But even that was just an interruption to the story she wanted – needed – to hear.

  ‘Carry on, Uncle,’ she said.

  ‘Well. We heard that Megacles was travelling to Graecia Minor, that he might come via Athens, and I for one was very excited at the idea of seeing him again… and they didn’t come.’ Pericles paused for a moment. ‘Instead, news came that the ship was lost, and… we mourned them as dead.’

  Dead.

  That doesn’t mean they are dead. After all, I’m not dead.

  But how could they be alive? If they were alive, Pericles would know.

  ‘Her name was Aiella,’ said Halo softly. ‘My mother.’

  ‘Aiella,’ said Pericles.

  Halo felt peculiar rivulets stirring inside her, to hear him say the name.

  ‘Are they dead, Uncle?’ she asked.

  He had a faraway look in his eye. Memory was enfolding him.

  ‘I believe that they are dead, my child. But without a body, how can one be sure? Halo – listen. I do not expect to see my dear cousin again in this life. I would be a liar if I said otherwise. Believe him to be dead, my dear. Do not spend your life seeking his life. Honour him as one does the dead. I will show you the monument.’

  ‘There’s a monument?’

  ‘Of course. At Kerameikos… Halo, he is ataphoi,8 and there is nothing we can do about that, but only the superstitious still believe that would affect his chances in the afterlife. All care has been taken for him – he was much loved. You will want to perform your own rites, as his first-born son. I will speak of him with you at length, as best I can, though the coming months will be busy for me… I would like to help you to know him as he was. But you will know him as an orphan, my dear, not as a son to a living father.’

  As an orphan.

  ‘But Halo – I will be your father now, if you will have me.’

  If I will have him? By all the Gods yes, I will have you for my father.

  ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘Uncle. I have lost a father and gained a father within two minutes… I don’t know what to say…’

  ‘Will you not have me?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Halo, nodding a lot, and then she started crying, and after a while Aspasia said that there would be plenty of time for talk later, and that she should go to bed now, and took her through, and laid her down.

  Halo curled up with Arko, still weeping, and whispered to him until he woke.

  ‘Arko,’ she whispered, ‘Arko, I’m an orphan. Arko, they’re dead. Arko, they’re dead…’

  He shifted so she could curl up to him. ‘You knew that already,’ he said softly. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But now I know it more.’

  Xαπτερ 22

  Pericles was so delighted with Halo that he took her everywhere with him, introducing her, laughing at her jokes, clapping her on the back. He showed her the city walls, fed her from his plate, and admired her intelligence. She liked him very much, and imagined that her father might be a bit like him. ‘Oh, he was much younger than me,’ Pericles said. ‘And much sillier…’ Halo was happy to hear stories of her father. They made him real.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ asked Arko.

  ‘What?’ said Halo, slipping on a clean chiton to go up to the Assembly with Pericles.

  ‘You’re a girl, and you’re lying to him,’ said Arko bluntly.

  Halo stopped in mid-movement. ‘And if I tell him, he won’t like me any more because I’m just a girl… and he’ll be angry that I lied…’

  ‘Yes,’ said Arko.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. I just don’t know what to do about it… He’ll be angry either way…’

  ‘Yes,’ said Arko.

  ‘I know I should tell him the truth…’ she said.

  ‘Well, we’ll be leaving soon,’ said Arko.

  This too was proving complex. Pericles had plans for them, and it seemed ungrateful just to leave. But they had to warn the Centaurs about Manticlas. They decided just to leave quietly, with a promise of a quick return.

  ‘After all,’ said Halo, ‘Pericles and Aspasia are not just hosts. They’re my family…’

  But the day they planned to leave, the house and the city fell into uproar.

  News came in at dawn: Halo was woken by a ruckus in the yard, as a messenger arrived from the north, soaked, mud-streaked, and pale wit
h exhaustion.

  ‘Thebes has attacked Plataea,’ he panted to Pericles. ‘Plataean traitors let them in during the storm last night – everyone surrendered and we retreated inside our houses, but we tricked the Thebans – we dug through the mud walls and all joined up and we came out fighting – we’ve taken hostages. But we need help, Pericles. We need Athens’s help. Thebes will send more men. They’ll besiege us…’

  ‘The Thebans?’ said Halo, confused, looking down. ‘Plataea? I thought the war was to be between Sparta and Athens…’

  Aspasia was behind her, looking out too. ‘It’s not going to be that simple,’ she said softly. ‘There are many alliances, and also many old grudges, which people will take up under the pretence of war. The Thebans have always wanted Plataea for themselves, though how they can attack a city promised safety forever by all the Greeks after the great battle there fifty years ago, when we beat the Persians…’

  ‘Who beat the Persians? The Athenians?’

  ‘Well,’ said Aspasia. ‘All the Greeks.’

  ‘Including the Spartans?’

  ‘Yes – and the Thebans!’ said Aspasia. ‘So for them to attack now, while we are still in negotiation with the Spartans… well, the peace is well and truly broken.’

  The only bit Halo understood was that fifty years ago at Thermopylae and Plataea all the Greeks had fought together against the Persians, and now they were all fighting against each other. She would have asked Pericles about it, but he was very busy now.

  She remembered Thanus talking about these things. She hoped he and his family were all right. The thought of Leonidas skittered across her mind.

  ‘So will Athens send Hoplites?’ Halo asked. She recalled so clearly the Spartan phalanx marching out, so fine, so terrifying. Would the Spartan Hoplites come to Plataea to support the Thebans? Imagine them in battle. Two phalanges, face to face across the battlefield. Imagine them colliding.

  Leonidas would not be a Hoplite yet. She pictured him for a moment, two and a half metres tall in his crested helmet, dealing death at close quarters from behind his great bronze shield. Another image flew into her mind: a small boy being beaten and cheered outside the temple of Artemis. And another: a strong arm pulling her from deep water. A strong young man standing up for her over and over again. A friendly warm voice under a starlit sky. A cry of ‘Good luck.’A pair of green eyes, laughing.