Oracle's War Read online

  Issa is my first and – to date – my only lover, her availability due to the covert licence Achaean society grants widows, especially barren ones. Some women would be driven to sorrow by her condition, but she’s not overly maternal. Nor does she spend much time grieving over her late husband, a prosperous, elderly landowner her parents insisted she wed.

  She’s an intense and subtle lover by turns, and a perceptive conversationalist with her ear tuned to the niceties of Cephalonian politics and local trade. Sex and wealth move kingdoms, she likes to say, and she should know, as she’s among the richest people in Ithaca, and she’s bedding the Prince of Ithaca to boot. But we both freely acknowledge our coupling is purely for our own private pleasure – barren merchant women can’t aspire to thrones. I’ve never felt used and nor has she.

  The taste of her mouth and the touch of her skin are making me wonder whether I really want to wait until we reach her bed, when the canopy of stars above and the warmth of the night and her body are so inviting. But even as my hand edges into her bodice, a shriek shatters the silence, a woman’s panicked scream followed by a crescendo of others. We jerk apart.

  ‘Go straight to your house,’ I tell Issa. ‘Lock the door.’

  Then I spin and go tearing towards the sound, pulling my bronze xiphos from its scabbard as I go, my heart pounding. The cries are coming from the sanctuary of Artemis, though all had seemed calm as we walked by a short time ago.

  Ctimene’s in there.

  I hurtle towards the gates, ripping them open and entering a place where men are forbidden. Artemis is the patron goddess of young girls until they marry – the arktoi or ‘little bears’, the girls are nicknamed. Fully dedicated priestesses of Artemis are sworn virgins, and there’s a dozen of them inside the sanctuary, screaming like harpies at two men who are already inside the shrine.

  It’s Maeus and his rival for Ctimene, Lochus, and they have no right to be here.

  Nor do I, but that seems a moot point just now.

  The tableau freezes my blood: Ctimene is huddled on the ground, her plain white novice shift torn open, and she’s weeping inconsolably. Maeus is also on the ground nearby, writhing about stark naked, smeared in pig shit, clutching his bloodied jaw and groaning. His penis is fully, grotesquely engorged, despite his obvious distress. Lochus, fully dressed, is standing over him, sword in one hand and left hand clenched, the knuckles bleeding.

  Barring Maeus, who seems oblivious to anything but his own wretchedness, they all turn to face me as I storm into the shrine. For the priestesses’ sake I snatch a cloth draped over one of the altars and wrench it clear, sending sacred vessels and offerings crashing to the paving, before throwing it over Maeus’s squirming body.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I demand – though I’ve already guessed.

  ‘This beast tried to rape your sister!’ the head priestess screeches, pointing at the fallen Maeus.

  ‘And I saved her,’ Lochus adds emphatically, jabbing his finger into his own chest. ‘I saved her!’

  I stride through the women, ignoring their protests, shouldering Lochus aside and pulling Ctimene into my arms. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I snap. ‘Maeus would never do that.’

  ‘We saw him,’ several of the women chorus. ‘He came in here, drunk and lewd! He ripped her garment! He meant to rape her!’

  I look at Ctimene, brushing at her tears clumsily. ‘Ctimene?’

  Deny this, please…

  Instead, she nods mutely, her face white and her eyes terrified. ‘I… he…’ she manages to stammer.

  Oh shit…

  I look around the circle of women, and then at the triumphant Lochus, suspicions forming. This is too convenient. Far too neat. ‘What are you even doing here?’ I demand of him.

  ‘Saving your sister’s virtue,’ he replies smoothly.

  ‘Answer my damn question,’ I shout back.

  Lochus shrugs, too cool and calm by half. ‘I wanted to visit the Hermes shrine. I was almost there when I saw this… wretch come out of the sanctuary gates. So I followed him. I realized something was amiss because he’s supposed to be in vigil for the next three days.’

  ‘We were praying with your sister, Prince – then this animal broke in,’ the senior priestess adds, jabbing a quivering finger at Maeus. ‘He made horrid threats and suggestions, struck three of my women and then tried to force himself on your poor sister, here in the shrine. He deserves death for such crimes.’

  The chilling thing is, she’s right. Desecrating a shrine carries the death penalty, quite apart from attempted rape. But I still can’t believe Maeus would do such things of his own volition.

  Then Nelomon arrives with Father’s soldiers, calling from the gateway. By now Maeus has pushed the altar cloth away from his head. His eyes are beginning to focus, and I can see he’s appalled, staring up at Ctimene in mute horror. But when he tries to rise and go to her, she cringes against my chest, and then the women start howling at him again until he buries his face in his hands.

  I want to be with my sister, but if I leave Maeus unprotected, the soldiers and priestesses are going to tear him apart. They’re all after his blood, while Lochus is almost wetting himself with the effort of concealing his glee.

  ‘You,’ I say, facing the senior priestess. ‘Look after my sister! I’ll return to her presently.’ I ease Ctimene into her arms and step over to Maeus, take his forearm and pull him to his feet. He almost collapses against me, clutching the altar cloth to him with trembling hands. Even so, it’s obvious that his penis is still as erect as it was when I first came bursting into the shrine, and that’s not natural.

  Everything I know about Maeus speaks against this moment. And now I’m so close to him, I can smell his breath: no alcohol at all, but there’s something else, sweet and sickly…

  ‘I’ll take this man,’ I tell the room. ‘He’s under my protection.’

  Lochus bridles. ‘He belongs with the guard,’ he snaps. ‘He must face justice.’

  ‘The king’s justice,’ I remind him. ‘Not that of a mob.’ I face Nelomon – I can see in his eyes that our fight this afternoon is foremost in his mind. It’s enough for him to back down. Then Eurybates comes pushing through the crowd to take Maeus’s other arm.

  ‘Let’s get him out of here,’ I tell the keryx. Between us, we manhandle Maeus out of the sanctuary, with Nelomon arraying his men to clear a path through the gathering crowd of palace servants and guests, and the inhabitants of the closest houses. There’s no sign of Issa; hopefully she’s taken herself home safely.

  We half march, half drag Maeus over to the palace. I ignore Nelomon’s suggestion that he be locked up in a cellar. Instead, I take him to my spare room, and after we’ve sponged the worst of the pig shit off him and wrapped him in a cloak to hide that awful, bloated cock of his, I perch him on the bed I keep for visiting friends. I sit myself beside him, slapping his cheeks gently to try and bring him to his senses.

  ‘Maeus, Maeus,’ I whisper, ‘what happened?’

  In response, he falls sideways out of my grip, rolls off the bed to the floor and vomits. There’s precious little evidence of Laertes’s red wine. But there’s another odour overriding the stench of spew – that sickly-sweet stink I smelt back in the sanctuary…

  Eurybates kneels down, muttering under his breath, to mop the vomit up with an old tunic. ‘Examine that,’ I tell him, when he goes to leave. ‘I don’t like the way it smells.’ He catches my meaning immediately, and nods grimly. Then he’s gone, and I help Maeus back onto the bed. ‘Maeus,’ I try again. ‘What happened?’

  Now that he’s been sick, his awareness begins to return. He looks at me blankly. ‘I don’t… I can’t…’

  At first he has no memory at all of what happened before I arrived at the shrine. Then glimpses seem to hit him – of Ctimene, of his own hands tearing her dress, of the priestesses screaming and of Lochus and his fists. ‘I don’t know why… I just…’ Suddenly terrified, he clutches my arms. ‘Odysseus, I didn�
�t do this! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!’

  He collapses against me in tears and all I can do is hold him and tell him he’ll get through this. It’s a lie – I know his life now hangs by a thread.

  Eurybates returns with the cloth in a bag, murmuring that the vomit smelt to him of a rare Egyptian powder, some kind of pleasure drug he once tried – I have no idea when or why. Eurybates is part-Egyptian, a former mercenary, trader and adventurer, and while he’s told me much over the years, there are still large pieces of his past I know little about.

  ‘How would Maeus come by such a thing?’ I ask. ‘And why oh why would he use it on this night, of all nights? Especially after the betrothal, once he’d gone to Hermes’s shrine?’

  Eury just shakes his head, as mystified as me.

  I remember Lochus’s glee, the convenience of his presence at the sanctuaries. How would he of all people know exactly where to be, and at just the right time?

  But King Laertes arrives, and I have to shield my sister’s betrothed from his wrath. I step outside, leaving Eurybates to lock himself in the spare room with Maeus, and confront my father, who has Nelomon and four beefy guards at his back.

  ‘Bring him out,’ Laertes snarls. ‘Bring out the swine who assaulted my daughter.’

  ‘I can’t do that until I know he’s safe,’ I reply.

  ‘I said, bring him out,’ the king rasps, his spittle spraying my face as he and his men loom over me.

  I hate being short.

  ‘No man may be tried by the king, except in formal courts at the appointed hours, after the auspices are taken. All accused are permitted time to arrange their defence. Those are your laws,’ I remind him.

  I suspect I’m going to get a fist in the face. We lock gazes, his eyes bulging with rage, and mine – I hope – cool and calm. ‘He tried to rape your sister,’ Laertes snarls.

  ‘He is alleged to have done so,’ I reply, in exactly the same tones. ‘It’s not proven.’

  ‘There were dozens of witnesses,’ Laertes blazes. ‘What more proof could you want, you damned…’

  He won’t say bastard in front of witnesses, but I hear the word anyway.

  ‘Sire,’ I reply, the word carefully chosen for its dual meaning, reminding him who he is and who I am in the eyes of the world. ‘Let me investigate. All I ask is that he has a fair hearing, with someone to speak for him. There’s already evidence…’ My mind goes off on a tangent as I wonder what else there might be, and whether someone, right now, is destroying it. I look up at Laertes, schooling my face to supplication. ‘Please, Father.’

  His eyes narrow. ‘What evidence?’

  ‘A narcotic,’ I state. ‘One he didn’t voluntarily take. I beg you, Father, there may be more to find. I must hurry.’

  He doesn’t want to let me; he wants Maeus to be guilty because he feels forced into agreeing to this betrothal and he needs to win, to be right. He’s angry and he wants someone to lash out at. For a moment I fear that person will be me. But then his sense of fairness reasserts some measure of control. Laertes can be a bully, he can be pig-headed, but he is a just man at heart.

  ‘Very well,’ he concedes. ‘But I will convene the justice court after the morning meal tomorrow. I’ll not allow more time.’

  It’s approaching midnight – I have only a few hours. But I thank him for that small morsel of hope. I’ll have no time to revisit Ctimene. Nor will I be able to check on Issa, but she’s a sensible and independent woman and I have to trust that she can look after herself.

  Laertes orders Nelomon to appoint guards, but tells the burly warrior that only myself or Eurybates may enter my spare room. I suspect Nelomon would still like to see me put in my place, wherever he perceives that to be. But he’s compelled to do as he’s ordered.

  When did Maeus take the powder? Surely not before the banquet; I would have smelt it on him, and his behaviour all through the banquet was normal. And straight after that, he went with the Hermes priests. I can’t believe they would have drugged him – unless they were tricked into giving it to him. And was Lochus really just walking along the road when he saw Maeus? What if he’d already reached the Hermes sanctuary and found some way to poison Maeus with the drug?

  So many questions… and so little chance of answering any of them by tomorrow morning…

  There’s one thing I can look into, though. If the drug is Egyptian and hard to come by, perhaps it was brought here by one of the foreign guests. I elect to start searching for clues in the guest wing. Then, failing that, I’ll try the Hermes sanctuary…

  I tell Eurybates what’s transpired, check the suspicious vomit-cloth is safe, then hurry off through the palace. As I rush up the stairs, a shadow falls over me and I look up. There’s a skinny, black-haired girl at the top of the steps waiting for me, and her posture tells me that though it’s Hebea’s body, the being wearing it is the body-shifting spirit I know as Bria. I hurry onwards as she scampers after me.

  ‘What do you want?’ I call over my shoulder.

  Bria’s reply is spoken in Hebea’s voice, but with the crispness of maturity. ‘What do you think, Ithaca, when this night stinks of sorcery? You’ll need my eyes. I know what to look for.’

  She’s right – it might well be sorcery, and who better than her to seek it out?

  ‘How did you know to be here?’ I demand.

  She gives me a superior look. ‘I’m always aware of what my hosts are doing,’ she says. ‘Hebea’s not blind.’

  I take that in a little uneasily – I’m still working Bria out, and she still surprises me. We’ve known each other a year now, on and off. She’s the most irritating person I know, but right now I’m relieved she’s turned up.

  Broadly, she’s like me, a theioi. We come in four general types: the champion, the avatar, the seer and the sorcerer. Some are more than one, and some – a very few – have the potential for all. Last year I discovered I’m one of those: my true father Sisyphus gained his theios blood not from Athena but from his ancestor, the renegade god Prometheus. It is Prometheus who is my true patron, even though he is chained to a cliff face in Erebus under constant torment. The other talents he gifted me with, I’m only now starting to explore.

  Bria – from what I have seen of her so far – is similar, a polymath. But unlike all other theioi I know of, Bria has no body of her own. She moves from host to host, and in between times seems to exist like a ghost. How old she truly is, I have no idea. The only thing we have in common is that we serve Athena, for our own reasons. I know mine – I’m not sure I trust hers. But she’s here, and if she smells a rat, there’s a big one.

  I bring her up to date, emphasizing the drug smell in the vomit rag. ‘Eurybates has hidden it in my spare room,’ I tell her. ‘We mustn’t lose it.’

  ‘So where are you going now?’ she asks.

  I explain my theory about one of the foreign guests bringing the powder, at which she pulls a face. ‘You can’t just break into every room and accost them,’ she replies. ‘And if they’re smart they’ll have disposed of it by now. Anyway, what you’re describing is more than just a drug. Someone’s used spells and curses to increase its potency.’ She ponders a moment then says, ‘We need to look in Maeus’s room before it’s cleaned out.’

  ‘But he hasn’t been there since before the banquet, and I would swear the drugging didn’t happen until after—’

  ‘Likely you’re right, but sorcery like this requires a longer lead time. Hooks are planted, and they’re not always obvious. A sorcerer can work with small private things – the hair in his comb, worn clothing, and the like.’

  Though sorcery is one of the theios gifts, I’m not drawn to its more dirty and underhand aspects, and I say so.

  ‘Just because you’re not any good at it – yet,’ Bria sniffs.

  She leads the way into Maeus’s bedroom in the servants’ quarters, where he’s slept every night since Laertes bought him. It’s small and starkly furnished; though he was freed some little time
ago, he’s felt no urge to move out of it until his wedding day, such are his simple needs. It seems undisturbed, neat and tidy with only a few belongings, tokens he’s amassed, first as a slave and then as a fostered child.

  Bria finds a small roll of old, tattered cloth under his pillow, unwinding it to reveal a snatch of embroidery that is his only possession from his days in Syros. ‘What’s this?’ she demands, then answers her own question before I have a chance to explain that this was the evidence he used to prove his royal birth. ‘Ah… that’s the royal crest of Syros… and this… hmm…’ She indicates a part of the border, a naked woman with tree roots for feet, and branches for arms, fingers and hair. ‘This is a Caryatid.’

  ‘A what?’ I ask impatiently, as I kneel to rummage under the bed.

  ‘The Caryatids are an ancient sect within the Artemis cult,’ Bria says, thoughtfully. ‘They represent the traditions of the sect. They must have been active in Syros, to be incorporated into the royal crest.’

  ‘Is it significant?’ I ask, peering under the bed. There’s something strange under there…

  ‘Not really, but—’

  I interrupt Bria with a hiss as I pull the thing out. It’s a blackbird that’s been throttled with a piece of twine. When I pick it up, it’s still limp though it’s going cold. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up and there’s a shiver down my spine I can’t control. ‘What in Hades is this?’ I ask.

  ‘An ill wish,’ she replies, her face grim. ‘A sorcerer’s tool. See, I was right.’

  Despite my theios nature, I feel chilled to the core. Or perhaps that’s because of my theios status – I know these things of witchery actually work, and can be deadly.

  Of the theioi, the sorcerer has the most nebulous nature: champions have enhanced physical prowess, and are the most common; seers can enter a trance and examine possible futures; avatars can receive the bodiless spirit of their god or goddess and for a time become them; but sorcerers nibble at the edge of possibility, distorting nature and manipulating what is and isn’t.