The Bow Page 20

  Iphitos had already emptied the quiver onto the ground and was sorting through the arrows. After checking each one, the old man passed Odysseus two, with an enquiring look.

  Odysseus ran his fingers along the shafts and peered at the fletchings. They both looked flawless. He put one arrow on the ground beside him and notched the other on the string.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Skotia pushed on up the street, past the revellers intent on ending Demeter’s festival with drink, dance and anything else the night could give. The sense of impending disaster that had driven her here, clipping her heels at every step, seemed to lurk in every corner, in every half-turned face. Perhaps she was too late. But too late for what?

  A man thrust a wineskin at her, unambiguous enquiry in his eyes. A woman lurched back onto her, cursing in some country dialect. Skotia kicked the woman’s ankle, warded off a flailing arm and hurried on.

  Ahead a dense crowd had gathered at a crossroads to watch three tumblers flip and roll in time to a staccato drum beat. She wormed round them and into the mouth of a side alley.

  At the top of the street a torch-lit roof behind a courtyard wall stood out against the night sky. The local lord’s house. The street was jammed with merrymakers but this side alley might also lead up to the wall. She could climb over it once she was there.

  The alley was full of shadows. One of them swayed forwards and grabbed her.

  “Let go,” she cried, trying to wriggle free. A menacing snarl made her freeze.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” the shadow said. “Sit, Argos! Stay, stay. That’s it, nice dog. Ha, ha, he thought you’re attacking me.”

  A nob’s voice, she thought. And drunk with it.

  “Actually,” it went on, “I’m not attacking you, really I’m not.”

  Now, as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see her assailant – a lanky boy with curly fair hair tumbling over a high forehead. He grimaced toothlessly as she twisted in his grip.

  “If you promise not to hit me, I’ll leggo,” he said. “Say hullo to Argos. Here, Argos, here’s a friend of yours.”

  “All right.” She patted the dog while the boy gave her an unfocused grin. He did have teeth after all – they were black with wine. And she knew him. Except the last time she’d seen him, he’d been sober. “You’re Olli’s friend,” she said. “You were with him at the court case.”

  The boy’s face dropped. “You’re from Kyparissia? Damn.”

  “What’s it to you where I’m from?”

  “Nothing at all. It’s jus’. You see, I was hoping you lived round here. I’m looking for a girl; she went along thish, this street. You seen her?”

  She ground her teeth in frustration. “Where’s Olli?”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  The boy’s face split into a wide grin. “Aha. I know who you are. You’re his girl.”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He peered at her, swaying on his feet. “You sure?”

  “Yes. Where is he?”

  “Up there.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the big house.

  “Thanks.” She stepped back and he grabbed her again.

  “I’ve banged on all the doors,” he said. “No luck. Maybe they’ll open up to a nice girl like you?”

  “I haven’t time.” Maybe she should bite him.

  Suddenly, the boy gasped, staring at something or someone at the entrance to the alley. “Mongrel’s mucus – what’s he doing here?” he said. “He’s supposed to be a day’s walk away.”

  “Who?” She twisted round. A tall man in a rough kilt, a wicked-looking knife thrust through his rope belt, was pushing round the edge of the crowd only a few paces from where they stood.

  “Phylas,” whispered the boy. The dog had started growling again and he shushed him quickly.

  “Who’s he?” Skotia said.

  “Shepherd. The one Olli tricked at the court case. You were there, you must remember him.”

  “I was out in the courtyard.”

  “Shh!” The boy pulled her back into a doorway as the man turned.

  Two fierce eyes glared from either side of a massive, craggy nose. The man’s arms and hands, thought Skotia over the thumping of her heart, were strong enough to rip the hide from a sheep or twist a hare’s head off its neck.

  For a dozen heartbeats the shepherd stood, biting his lips. Then he pushed on up the street. Not interested, thank the gods, in a drunken boy groping a girl in a dark alley. If he’d seen them at all.

  “I suppose they let him go,” the boy said, in a shaky voice.

  “Who did?”

  “Eury and them. He was takin’ them to where the sheep were hid.”

  “So why is he here?”

  “Dunno.”

  The shepherd had ploughed back into the crowd with the same furious intent she’d felt herself. Suddenly she knew. Knew why she’d had to come back, knew what the shepherd was after, knew what was going to happen. “Did you see the look on his face?” she cried. She wrenched herself out of the boy’s grasp. “He’s come to kill Olli.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!” She grabbed the boy’s arm. “Come on!”

  The closer they came to the great house, the tighter the crowd were crammed together. And now a great roar of applause erupted from behind the courtyard walls. Skotia barged on, elbowing ribs, stamping on toes, kneeing the backs of legs, ducking the occasional blow. Behind her she could hear the drunk boy swearing. Ahead she could just see the top of Phylas’s head. She was getting no closer to him.

  Something wet jostled her hand and she glanced down. The dog, Argos, had kept up. He looked at her and whined. “Come on, Argos,” she called. “We’ll stop him.”

  The gates to the courtyard were open. The guards had left their posts and were craning to see as they shouted excitedly to each other. Something about stringing a bow. “Odysseus,” the crowd inside was chanting. “Odysseus. Odysseus.”

  He must have done it. Strung the great bow of Eurytos, the one he’d told her about.

  Phylas had pushed inside the gates. She wriggled after him, near enough now to smell the sheep-dung stink of him. He’d pulled the knife from his kilt, keeping it down by his leg as he shouldered forwards. Oh gods. Blessed Demeter!

  And now the crowd had hushed. “Olli!” she shouted, into the silence. “Olli! Look out!”

  “Odysseus,” the crowd bellowed, as if in answer. “Odysseus.”

  Phylas had drawn his arm back, the knife poised to throw. Perhaps she could grab him. A drunken woman heaved into her path and Skotia clawed ineffectually at her shoulders. Argos started barking, jammed somewhere in a forest of legs.

  She’d failed. Again. This was worse than the soldiers at the hut, worse than the slave-traders whipping Aunt Danae into the dust, as bad as her father’s face grey and drenched with the sweat of death.

  She threw her head back and screamed, wordless, wild.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The crowd hushed as Odysseus notched the arrow. “Athena,” he prayed. “Dread goddess, help me.”

  The bow groaned as he drew the string back on an outward rush of breath, his left arm hard and straight, the muscles in his back and abdomen screaming under the strain. The bowstring bit deep into his fingers as they pulled back to touch the corner of his mouth.

  Somewhere a girl called out his name, the sound blotted out by the fierceness of his focus. Now. He relaxed his fingers and the string propelled the arrow towards the axes, too fast to see.

  The thwack in the straw target against the wall told him all he needed to know.

  Iphitos was slapping him on the back, crying, shouting, laughing, the words stumbling from his lips: wonderful, heroic, glorious, unbelievable. Arion was standing, his face corpse-white and his arms clutching each other across his chest. All about them people were shouting at the top of their lungs. “Odysseus,” they were chanting. “Odysseus, Odysseus.”

  The cry cut through the n
oise, anarchic, desperate. For a heartbeat he was back in the forest near Tiryns, the hut blazing and Skotia screaming as she fought for her life. Instinctively, his fingers closed on the second arrow, notching it as he raised the bow again.

  Phylas broke from the crowd like a wild boar crashing from the undergrowth. Odysseus saw the glitter of bronze in the shepherd’s upraised hand, drew the bowstring back and fired. The arrow pierced the shepherd’s wrist, spinning the knife high in the air.

  And Argos was there in a blur of white and brown. Phylas toppled sideways, the dog on top of him. Odysseus thrust the bow at Iphitos then hurled himself at them.

  Too late.

  He dragged Argos back, snarling, as the blood spurted from Phylas’s throat. A woman fainted and over her crumpling body his eyes met Skotia’s, her terror blazing into joy.

  She’d come back. Changed her mind.

  He hesitated, a moment too long. She raised her hand, swung round and vanished into the crowd.

  Skotia paused, panting. The road ahead shone in a dazzle of silver light as it plunged down the hill to the ford. To the right of the crossing, the rocky stream bed climbed into the forest, up towards the clearing where she’d taken Olli last night; to the left, the valley opened out as it dropped down towards the river flats.

  High in a tree above her an owl hooted. She caught a glimpse of yellow eyes and the flash of grey wings. She shivered. The fire that had flooded her veins was cooling.

  She was free, truly free at last. And Aunt Danae would be waiting for her at the river.

  She looked back towards the town, half-hidden by a shoulder of the hill. What was Olli doing now? What would he be thinking? Should she have stayed? Just a short while longer, to say goodbye?

  And she remembered the look in his eyes as he stared at her. Anything is possible, it said. Anything can happen. He would try to change her mind again. But – even if she had wanted to go to Ithaka – she had Demeter’s bow and Aunt Danae to think of now. And her own life.

  No, she’d made the right decision.

  She set off down to the ford, her face to the moon.

  Epilogue

  Odysseus scrambled up the sand dune, leaving Menelaos, the chariot and the borrowed mule waiting below on the coastal track from Kyparissia. A little way north a line of masts could be seen, half-hidden by the dunes that backed the beach. His shoulders sagged in relief. Nestor hadn’t reneged on his promise after all.

  “Are they there?” asked Menelaos.

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Hard to say,” Odysseus replied. “Ten ships? No, eleven. But one of them will be the warship we sailed down from Ithaka.”

  He glanced up at the clouds marching overhead. An easterly, confound it – the perfect wind to transport the sheep back to Zakynthos, but an equally perfect wind for Thyestes’s navy to break out through the Narrows.

  The wind had started in the night, a thin whisper scarcely able to stir a shutter. He’d lain awake in Ortilochos’s house, listening to it, too overwrought to sleep, with the bow beside him and Argos lying across his feet. As soon as he’d realised its direction, he’d woken Menelaos.

  They’d roused their host and persuaded him to lend them a chariot and a mule to carry the box with Eurytos’s axes. They’d already said their farewells to Iphitos before everyone went to bed, when Odysseus had persuaded the old man to accept a gift of his own sword and Laertes’s spear to cement their friendship. As soon as the mule had been loaded up, they’d set off, their path lit by the moon.

  Sunrise had found them in Kyparissia, staring in horror at an empty harbour. A furious exchange with Nestor’s officials had revealed that the promised ships had been beached on the far side of the river mouth.

  “So much easier to drive the sheep straight there,” the officials had assured him. “No need for them to make a river crossing. And you could hardly have brought all those animals through the town to the harbour, could you?” And yes, they’d already sent word inland to Eurybates.

  Of Nestor there was no sign – he’d already loaded up his own ships and headed south with Didaion’s riches.

  Odysseus rejoined Menelaos on the track, his boots full of sand.

  “You’re a bit quiet this morning,” his friend said.

  Probably. He’d wanted to talk but there was no easy way to describe his feelings. The bow case strapped to his back was solid enough. He should be feeling exultant – perhaps he was, deep down, in some hidden place he couldn’t reach.

  Skotia’s departure, Argos’s attack on Phylas, the shepherd’s bloodstained body, the looming threat of battle – it all seemed fantastical, like a nightmare that had somehow stepped out of his mind to stand leering before him.

  “It’s because I got drunk, isn’t it?” said Menelaos. “I let you down.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to be nice about it.” Menelaos was more than a little hung-over today, his face a greenish colour. Once they’d had to halt the chariot while he retched into a nearby bush. But now his cheeks were flushing red.

  “I’m not being nice,” Odysseus replied. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Weasel’s whiskers. I was supposed to be watching out for you and instead … You must hate me.”

  “What a load of donkey’s offal.” Odysseus threw an arm round Menelaos’s shoulder and tried hugging a little sense into him.

  “Don’t do that!” Menelaos took a deep breath. “Oh, my head.”

  “If you hadn’t gone down into the town, you’d never have seen Phylas.”

  “So? I was too drunk to warn you.”

  “But you told Skotia. And you had to drink all that wine so I’d be sober enough to string the bow. I’m alive because of both of you.”

  Menelaos looked Odysseus in the eye for the first time that morning, a slow smile creeping across his face. “Well, maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course.” Odysseus grinned back. “I always am.”

  Acknowledgements

  Setting a story in Bronze Age Greece, more than three thousand years ago, when even the most basic information is hard to interpret, creates great problems. How did they wipe their bottoms? The solution for me is to make the story as true to itself as I can, consult experts where possible and work hard to avoid bloopers. Any that remain are entirely my fault.

  Fortunately, I could summon up some hard facts to help my story along. Geology and geography have played a major part in shaping the plot. A Geological Companion to Greece and the Aegean by MD and R Higgins first alerted me to the strange sinkholes that drain the Tripoli plain. The Geoarchaeology of the Argolid by E Zangger told me of an ancient lake and a changing shoreline near the fortress of Tiryns. Even more crucial was an 1893 account by NA Siderides of the Palaiochori cave in Arkadia, published in the French caving journal, Spelunca, in 1911.

  Many thanks to Mike Rodgers, of the New Zealand Speleological Society, and his wife Jane Rodgers, for helping me track down the Spelunca article, and for vetting the caving sections; thanks too to Cathy-Jean Simmons at Auckland Public Library for her assistance. Nikos Leloudas, Greek caver extraordinaire, has made it possible for me to visit the cave.

  Much guesswork surrounds a major Homeric problem. How can one shoot an arrow “through” the twelve axes of The Odyssey fame? I have come up with my own solution, which hopefully is clear enough on the page.

  Little is known about Eurytos’s great bow, except that it involved goat horn in some way. I’m not an archer, so it has been a great relief to have Sally Fausett and Glenn Fuller, champion archers and old friends, read the archery sections. Pilates teacher Greg Paine dreamed up Stenelos’s test in Chapter Eleven.

  Once more I am most grateful to Professor Anne McKay for helping with pronunciation and spelling, and to Kirk Lee Spencer, who has shared his extensive understanding of Bronze Age metallurgy.

  Liz Hegarty and Tim Heath read through the first draft and I am, as ever, indebted to my critiqui
ng group for their refusal to be blandly polite about my many faults; thanks especially to Robin Harding for her hard work with the Teachers Resources and to Glendowie College for their support along the way.

  Reaching further back into the past, I must thank Dr Bill Barnes for his profound and meticulous understanding of The Odyssey, Stuart Lawrence for setting my venture into Ancient Greek language on its way and Ken and Les Wilson for triggering the whole process.

  I am constantly amazed by all the team at Walker Books Australia for their fabulous and insightful work, especially my editor, Nicola Robinson, and Gayna Murphy for all her design work. Thanks also to Nicole Onslow at Aija for more fantastic cover art.

  And most of all, a huge thank you to my husband Alan, who has given me such support and belief over the years, and who constantly puts up with me when I fall silent in the middle of a conversation. By now he knows the faraway look in my eye means I’m trying to work out if Odysseus wore a loincloth under his Mykenaian-style kilt.

  About the author

  CATHERINE MAYO grew up in Auckland and was a compulsive reader and dreamer. With academics in her DNA (her dad was a research scientist and her grandfather a professor of philosophy) it was taken for granted she would follow the same path. She studied many things at Auckland University – history, philosophy, geology, French, music, performance violin and art history – before life took an unexpected turn and she began an apprenticeship in violin-making and restoration. About 10 years ago she started writing, urged on by the stories and dreams that filled her head since she was a child. She has since won several prizes in short story competitions. Her first book, Murder at Mykenai, published by Walker Books in 2013, was a 2014 Storylines Notable Book.

  Published in 2014

  by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd

  Locked Bag 22, Newtown