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The hag looked at her sharply. ‘So you gave your daughter to the Mother. Then how is she here? Did a wolf suckle her, or an eagle fly her home?’

‘Nikko.’ His mother gestured at him. Her voice was almost too soft to hear. ‘He brought her back.’

‘Ah.’ The hag looked directly at Nikko for the first time. ‘So you took back a gift to the Mother. But the Mother kept part of her gift. Your sister’s voice.’

‘She wasn’t a gift to the Mother!’ cried Nikko. ‘The wolves would have eaten her! Why should we give a gift to the wolves?’

‘Why indeed.’ The hag almost smiled. ‘I think you are
right, boy. The Mother does not need babies left to die on the mountain. So perhaps there is no reason why your sister should not speak. You girl, what’s your name? Thetis. Swallow,’ she ordered suddenly.

Thetis swallowed.

‘Now open your mouth. No, over here, where the light is better.’ The hag thrust two fingers onto Thetis’s tongue. ‘Breathe out, then in again. Lift up your tongue. Now poke it out.’ The hag sat back. ‘Shut your mouth now.’

The hag sat quietly for a moment. The hut was silent. Nikko could hear goats bleating up on the mountain, and pigeons cooing down in the barley fields. A shadow flitted through the gaps in the door as a pair of swallows dived for flies.

The hag looked at Nikko’s mother. ‘She cried as a baby?’

His mother nodded. ‘At first. But later…’ she hesitated ‘…it was as though she learned not to cry. I have never known such a silent baby. It was,’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘as though sometimes she wasn’t there.’

‘And she has said no word at all? No sound?’

Another nod.

‘Your husband—this Giannis—how did he like his daughter coming back from the mountain?’

Nikko’s mother looked at the ground. She didn’t speak.

At last Nikko said, ‘He pretends it never happened. He doesn’t talk to Thetis. No one does. He doesn’t even look at her, most times.’

Or me, he thought.

The hag turned away and stared into the stuttering sparks of fire. At last she said. ‘I can make her speak, if that is your wish.’

His mother’s face lit up as though the sun shone on it. ‘Oh, thank you, mistress.’

The hag held up a hand. The nails were dark and wasted, like snail shells. ‘Do not thank me yet. I said, I can do it if you wish. But if you are wise you will leave things as they are.’

His mother looked bewildered. ‘But why, mistress?’

‘Because it is easier not to see a child who does not speak,’ said the hag simply.

Nikko’s mother shook her head. ‘People whisper about her, mistress. If she speaks she will be like other children. Maybe…maybe people will forget—’

‘Ha. People only forget the things they don’t wish to remember.’ The words were soft as day-old cheese, but they still made him shiver. ‘So be warned, wife of Giannis.’

Nikko thought of the night he’d carried his sister home. The hag is right, he thought. People are good at not seeing. But his mother was shaking her head.

‘If she does not speak she will never have a husband.’

‘Ha! A terrible thing, not to have a husband. Believe me, wife of Giannis, some men would rather have a wife who does not speak. But I admit they may not realise it when they choose a bride. Very well, if that is your wish.’ She looked down at Nikko. ‘You boy, do you want your sister to speak?’

Nikko hesitated. Of course he did. Anything that
made Thetis more like the other girls must be good. And yet…‘If she wishes it, I do,’ he said.

The hag looked at him approvingly. ‘A good answer, especially from a boy.’ The words were kind, but somehow Nikko had the feeling the hag didn’t think much of boys. Or men. She looked down at Thetis, sitting on her carved stool, picking up the last crumbs of honey bread with her finger. ‘Very well.’

She reached down into the neck of her dress, and drew out something on a twist of wool. It glittered in the light from the doorway, then flashed again as the fire light touched it. ‘Look at this, child.’

Thetis bent closer. Nikko narrowed his eyes. It looked like a piece of rock, polished smooth. How could a piece of rock charm his sister?

The hag twisted the stone over and over in her fingers. Thetis’s eyes grew wider, and fixed unblinking as it flashed again. ‘The dark of night took your voice,’ said the hag quietly. ‘Now the light gives it back. You will speak now. But if you ever choose muteness once and for all, it will be yours.’

The hag closed her eyes for a second, her face still. Almost as though she’s praying, thought Nikko, or pleading with the Mother. Why should Thetis ever want to be silent?

The hag slipped the stone back into her dress. ‘It is done.’

Thetis blinked, then stared at the hut, as though she had forgotten where she was.

‘Well?’ Their mother’s voice trembled. ‘Can you speak to me?’

Thetis nodded. ‘I can speak.’

Her voice sounded matter-of-fact. It’s as though nothing momentous has happened, thought Nikko, surprised.

Their mother gave a sharp cry. She gathered Thetis into her arms. Thetis hugged her politely, then looked back at the hag. ‘May I have another honey cake?’

Nikko felt a smile stretch across his face. Thetis’s voice was light and dancing as the butterfly. The hag grinned, a shadow of relief crossing her face. ‘Those are good first words for any child. Yes, you may have another honey cake.’

Thetis reached for the honey cake. ‘They are good cakes. Mother cannot make cakes as good as this. Father has all our grapes made into wine. Do people give you honey?’ Her voice sounds as though she has spoken all her life, thought Nikko wonderingly.

‘Yes, child. In return for my help.’

Thetis settled herself on her mother’s lap, nibbling her cake, the only one in the room who didn’t seem stunned by what had happened. ‘If you told them how to help themselves they would not give you honey.’

The hag stared. ‘No.’ She looked up at Maronis, whose face was damp with tears as she stared at her child, her talking child. ‘You have a child who tells the truth. It is not an easy thing, wife of Giannis, to have a daughter who speaks the truth.’

‘I would wish her to tell the truth.’ His mother brushed away her tears. She sounded even more bewildered now.

‘Ha!’ The hag grinned, showing her strong white teeth again. ‘Most people hide the truth under the skins of
their bed, where they do not have to see it.’ She shook her head. ‘I saw that she was a watcher. But a watcher and a truth sayer—I do not know if I would have helped her speak if I had known that.’

Nikko’s mother blinked. ‘Thetis watches everything. No child learns as fast as she.’ There was a hint of desperate pride in her voice.

‘I like watching,’ said Thetis, still matter-of-fact. ‘You learn things when you watch. I saw the headman’s wife pick olives from her neighbour’s trees. I saw the bruises where the headman hit her. His daughter has bruises like that too.’

The hag’s face was very still. ‘What do you know about me from your watching, child?’

Thetis seemed to think for a moment, still chewing her cake. Nikko could hear doves coo outside in the silence, and the yells of the boys trying to hit them with their slingshots.

‘There are no spears at the door, and only one skin on your bed,’ Nikko put in quickly, as the silence grew uncomfortable. ‘I think you have no husband and no sons. I don’t think you like men much,’ he added.

The hag looked at him, her face expressionless. ‘So you watch too, do you? But you don’t see the truth. Well, girl? Is what your brother says correct?’

Thetis shook her head vigorously. ‘No. I think you had a husband. Maybe you had a son too. But they died.’

The hag’s skinny fingers whitened as she gripped her knees. ‘How do you know that?’

‘The people here do not like you. They give you cheese and grain, but they wouldn’t give you a fine
bearskin like that one. So your husband or your son must have speared it.’

The hag gave an almost smile. ‘Not quite the truth. But near enough. The bear killed my husband and my son. The other hunters speared it. They brought its fur back to me, with their bodies, and when I sleep with it I can remember them. Only men would risk their lives just for a bearskin. I remember that as well, as I lie warm under the fur. What else do you see?’

Thetis considered. ‘I don’t think you want a husband now. You let your hair go wild and you are smelly. Mother says you must smell sweet and braid your hair if you are to get a husband.’

‘Thetis…’

The hag gave a bark of laughter. ‘No, let her speak. Why should I want another husband, child? A man to tell me what to do, who expects me to serve him barley bread and wait for the crumbs when he has finished? Why should I want another son? A few years of joy and then a lifetime of remembering and grief.’ She grinned, but it was more wolf’s grin than woman’s, the strange strong teeth within the wrinkled face. ‘What else?’

‘I think you don’t like the people of this village either. I think you smell like old Antigone did too, before she died, which means you have pains here and here,’ she touched her stomach and then her back, ‘and that you will die soon as well—’

‘Thetis! Be quiet!’ Their mother clutched her tighter, muffling her voice against her chest. ‘Mistress, my apologies, she does not know what she is saying.’

‘Oh, she knows,’ said the hag. ‘She knows exactly what she says. She watches and she tells the truth.’ She smiled again, but this time the smile was mocking. ‘I did not think you would regret your daughter’s voice quite so soon.’

Their mother gave a startled gasp. She loosened her hold. Thetis looked from her to the hag, a little wary now.

‘Well, child,’ said the hag again.

It is as though she and Thetis are alone, thought Nikko suddenly. As though Mother and I have vanished.

‘You are mostly right. I do not like most people. Most people are stupid, but that is not why I do not like them. I dislike them because they love their stupidity, because they do not want to know. Most people like lies instead of truth. Lies are so much simpler to understand. Magic is easier than the hard work of grinding snail shells. As for the rest—yes, I am dying.’ The smile grew to another grin.

She is enjoying this, thought Nikko.

‘We are all dying, but I will die first. But you are wrong about the pain. There are flowers up on the mountain that take my pain away.’

She was silent for a moment, then looked up at their mother. ‘If you leave your daughter with me I will teach her all I know—or all I can teach her before I die.’

‘I—’began their mother, but Thetis’s high clear voice interrupted.

‘You want me here to care for you when you are weak, because the village people won’t.’

‘Ha.’ The hag slapped her knee. ‘I take back my offer. I want my dying months to be quiet, not interrupted by a
child who both sees and tells the truth.’ She shook her head. ‘If I had known…’ She glanced out the door at the mountain. ‘But only the Mother knows everything. Only the Mother can be truly wise.’

Maronis stood up quickly. Uncertainty had replaced the joy on her face. ‘We must go. I can never thank you enough, mistress. The cloth…it is such a small thing for such a gift.’

‘Just do not blame me, that is all I ask. But I will take the cloth. It looks soft, and I like the colour.’

‘I put calendula flowers in the urine pot when I soak white goat hair, so it turns gold.’

‘Ha! Your daughter is right. If you tell your secrets you do not get the honey. But I thank you.’

‘You have another secret to use now.’ Thetis had finished her honey cake. She explored the hut with her eyes. ‘That is a nice pot. It has goats on it. Who gave it to you? The wife of the headman has a pot like that, but hers has girls playing with a ball. It came from Mycenae. The tribute collectors gave it to her. Did they give you yours?’

‘Go,’ said the hag, ‘before the child sees anything else and tells the world. And it will be dark before you get back if you don’t leave soon,’ she added.

‘Of course, mistress. And thank you. Thank you, thank you.’

‘The mistress wants me gone before I ask for her last honey cake,’ said Thetis. She smiled up at Nikko, and he felt his heart stretch. ‘Will you hold me on your shoulders again, Nikko, so I can be a butterfly?’

The High King’s tribute gatherers were due with the first purple shadows of autumn. That was when the tribute collectors always came: when the barley was threshed and in the storage pots, the grapes were drying on the racks, the olives were pressed or soaked in wood-ash water for the winter and the goats were still fat from summer’s green. Every year the tribute men came to gather up a tenth of the year’s produce and take it to the High King down at Mycenae.

It had been a hard summer. The sun had burned hot and early, melting all the snow, so that by midsummer the stream by the village was dry. The women had to cart water from the spring high up on the cliffs, and the goats had to be taken up there to water twice a day. The clouds had gathered, grey and heavy, but the rain had refused to come, so the barley shrivelled before the seed heads grew fat. And even the best goats seemed barren.

The headman’s wife had put on her sacred apron and sacrificed a pigeon on the Earth Mother’s stone by the spring. When that failed to work the headman even offered one of his goats for sacrifice. The kid went willingly to the slaughter, kneeling on the slab till the instant before its neck was cut; the blood streamed from
its throat, bright red against the black stains on the rock. It was the best of omens.

But it didn’t rain.

The old women whispered that in their great-great-grandparents’ time a person would have been sacrificed instead of just a goat. A human sacrifice brought the rain. But there had been no big drought for so many years that the old way had been abandoned. Surely more than a baby goat was needed to make the sky weep. Sometimes Nikko felt their gaze burning him or Thetis, and was afraid of what else they might be whispering. But the headman ignored their mutters.

And still it didn’t rain.

The hut smelled of cooking and fresh mud—Thetis and their mother had been caulking the holes between the saplings that made up the walls, to keep out the draughts in winter.

Nikko’s father gazed around the walls at the pots that held the family’s barley harvest, and scratched a louse that itched under his beard. He and his sons were eating well that night, for Aertes and his friends had speared a giant sow. The juice from Aertes’s share of the meat dripped from the spit outside and sizzled in the cookfire. ‘Feast while we can,’ their father muttered, catching the louse in his fingers and throwing it into the fire. ‘We’ll be living on pine nuts and acorns by midwinter, and starving come spring, most like.’

Thetis looked up from her seat on the bed platform, where she and their mother sat, serving the men bread or whatever else they called for, and waiting for the
remnants of the meal. She was small for a child of five summers. Her wrists were almost as skinny as sparrow bones. ‘Mother and I might starve. But you will eat.’

‘Shh.’ Their mother glanced up at their father with concern. But he ignored the comment, as he had ignored everything Thetis had said all summer, since the night they came back from the hag’s. It is just like he ignored her the night I brought her home, thought Nikko. When he cannot stop something he pretends it isn’t there.

‘Pig meat smells different from goat meat,’ said Thetis. ‘I can smell where Aertes has made water after he eats pig meat. And you know, Aertes has a pimple on his bottom. It’s all red and puffy. I saw it when he lifted his kilt last time he made water.’

Aertes’s fingers clenched around his mug. But he didn’t look toward his sister either.

His father stood up heavily and wiped the grease from his hands onto his goatskins. He nodded at Aertes. ‘Come. The headman has called a meeting.’ He looked at neither wife nor daughter as he headed for the door. Aertes followed him.

Nikko hesitated. No one had mentioned the meeting to him before. Meetings were for men, not women or children. At ten, nearly eleven, he was neither a man nor a child. His father hadn’t told him to come to the meeting, but he hadn’t ordered him to stay away, either. He made a quick decision, and followed them out of the door.

His father glanced down at him as he caught up. For a minute Nikko thought he would order him home. But he just grunted. He almost sounded pleased.

The men of the village had gathered in the headman’s hut. It was the largest hut in the village—two rooms instead of one—and its hard dirt floor was covered with a woven carpet. The older men sat on stools or the bed platform, the younger ones on the floor. The headman’s wife and daughters brought mugs of wine mixed with water—much more water this year than wine. The grapes had shrivelled too.

Outside the afternoon shadows thickened. The sun was setting in a red haze of dust.

The headman held up his hand for silence. He was a small man with a thin face, but he could sniff out a wild boar when even the dogs couldn’t track it, and bring it down with two casts of his spears.

‘The swallows are leaving, and the leaves are turning. When the leaves turn the High King’s tribute men aren’t far behind. But this year if we give the High King a tenth of the harvest we will starve.’

‘It’s death to deny the High King his tributes,’ said someone.

The headman nodded. ‘Empty bellies are death too. I propose that we send the best of the goats up on the mountain till the tribute men are gone, and we hide a third of the barley in the cave by the well.’

‘We should hide more,’ said Aertes. ‘Why should we go hungry when the High King feasts?

The headman scratched his tummy. The dry year had brought a plague of fleas as well as lice. ‘Ha. It’s a young cub who boasts before he’s seen the battle. If we hide too much the tribute men will suspect.’ The headman looked around the room. ‘We must be careful. Don’t let the
children know what you are doing, in case they speak when they shouldn’t.’ His gaze carefully avoided Giannis and his sons when he added, ‘If just one person gives us away, one in every family will die by the High King’s swords.’

Nikko shut his eyes. Thetis would notice the barley being carried to the cave, the absence of the goats. But maybe, he thought, the tribute men won’t bother talking to a girl. Not one as young as Thetis.

There was discussion—there always was when anything had to be decided in the village. Argument made life more interesting, and what else was there to do so late in the afternoon, when it was too late to hunt? But Nikko could hear that the meeting would agree. Even he could remember the bad winter the year before Thetis’s birth, when all the hunters brought back was wolf, as thin and starved as they were, and the women had ground acorns into flour. His grandparents had died that winter, as well as many of the village’s children.

He started. They must have come to a decision while he was daydreaming, for the men were standing up. He scrambled to his feet, and followed his father and Aertes outside, stamping his feet against the cold autumn air. Night had dropped over the village. The first bright star shone in the west. The moon had not yet risen, but the village was so familiar that all could find their way around its shadows.

Nikko’s father glanced down at him. ‘Take the best goats up to the mountain ridge as soon as it’s light tomorrow,’ he said abruptly. ‘Wriggle Horn, I think, and Big Butt and Black Ear and their kids. Keep clear of the
other boys and their goats—small herds will be less noticeable than big ones. Aertes will come and get you when it’s safe to bring them down.’

Nikko nodded. He’d guessed he would be the one to take the goats. It would mean missing the feast—every guest must be given the best the village had, even unwelcome guests like the High King’s men.

His father looked straight ahead, not at Nikko now. ‘And take your sister.’

Nikko glanced up at him. His father was right. It was the only way the village could be really safe. A few words from Thetis could mean death throughout the village.

‘Yes, Father.’ He was glad there was no need to say the truth out loud.