Voyage of the Snake Lady (12 page)
M
YRINA WATCHED THE
three girls dance together with enjoyment. Perhaps this place was not as sinister as she had feared. When at last they all flopped down onto the rocks, laughing and exhausted, she touched the girl by the arm. “You are a fine dancer,” she said. “What is your name?”
“I am . . . Katya,” she told them, still gasping a little after the exertion. “Once . . . I danced in the temple for the great Moon Goddess Artemis, but nobody wants my dancing now—no coins and no food.”
“The temple of Artemis,” Myrina murmured thoughtfully. She felt sure that it must be the strange ornate building they had seen perched up on the cliff tops.
But the girl suddenly frowned and her mouth twisted up in anger. “My grandmother and I sit here and starve . . . and it is all the fault of Hepsuash, the girl from the sea.”
Myrina was at once alert. This was surely the name that Kuspada had used when he spoke of the new priestess at Tauris, the one he thought might be Iphigenia.
She put out a gentle hand to hush Tamsin and warn her to be careful. “Who is this . . . girl from the sea?” she asked Katya gently. “And how has she injured you?”
Katya’s lip curled with fury, and Myrina feared that she had asked too much.
“Hepsuash!” Katya spat the strange name out with such forceful contempt that Myrina’s sense of unease came back a hundredfold. “She was washed ashore,” the girl went on, her resentment clear in every word, “clinging to a statue of Artemis. A bedraggled fish she was, a skinny, slimy eel!”
Phoebe sat still and tense, worried by the hostility that had suddenly surfaced. Tamsin looked as though she’d like to speak but heeded her mother’s warning.
Myrina bit her lip as she listened, troubled by the girl’s vehemence, but at least she was getting the information she needed. “But . . . how has this Hepsuash injured you so sorely?”
The girl looked surprised. “You must be strangers here,” she said, scowling at them, full of suspicion now.
Myrina hesitated, unsure whether to admit that they were strangers or not. But the girl’s expression quickly changed again as she looked down and saw the neat parcel of food that they had set on the rock for the old woman. It served to remind her that, strangers or not, they had fed her and left more food for her grandmother.
Even Tamsin sat very still and quiet now.
“Well, I suppose you cannot help being strangers,” Katya murmured, softening a little. “I will tell you what Hepsuash has done,” she continued in a more friendly tone. “My grandmother is Nonya. She was the great priestess of Artemis.” She inclined her head slightly toward the cave mouth, and Myrina again had the uncomfortable sensation of movement in the darkness behind them. The old woman must be listening to what was being said.
“My mother, Solya, was to take her place when Grandmother went to join the goddess in the sky. I was to follow in my turn. All three of us lived in the temple and we were the three most respected women in the whole of Tauris.”
“Aah.” Myrina nodded with some sympathy. She began to understand the ragged gown that had once been so fine and the dainty, confident way of speaking.
“What happened?” Tamsin could not hold back her curiosity.
“The Taurians are so stupid!” Katya’s anger came flooding back. “They found that slimy fish on the beach and instead of sacrificing her as they should have done, they all fell in love with her little flower face!”
Myrina glared at Tamsin again, warning her to stay silent.
“Well,” Katya said, “they insisted that her arrival with the statue must be a message from the goddess herself. And when Thoas set eyes on her, he became just as besotted with her as those who had found her on the beach. They set up the statue on a great plinth, and Thoas insisted that Hepsuash be made high priestess. They carried her up to the temple and set her there in Grandmother’s place, while we were cast out!”
“That was unjust!” Phoebe spoke low, trying hard to be fair and finding a little sympathy in her heart.
“Yes, it was,” Tamsin agreed heartily.
“Why do you care?” Katya asked, puzzled by their sympathy. “Nobody else cares! When Grandmother refused to leave the temple, the king sent his guards to remove us. Once outside the temple gates the people turned on us. They stoned us in the streets! Mother died.”
Both Tamsin and Phoebe gasped at that, and Myrina sighed heavily, understanding the anger at last.
Katya ignored their concern. “Grandmother and I fled to this cave,” she said. “Now we live here and we have nothing. Grandmother sends me into the city to dance for coins. To dance for our food. But I am lucky if they do not pelt me.”
Phoebe’s eyes were bright with tears. “I am truly sorry for you,” she said. “I lost my mother when I was young—too young to even remember it—and we all know what it is to be treated badly, for we were once taken as slaves.”
Katya looked at her with new interest, touched by her words.
“How do you manage to survive?” Myrina asked. She could see many difficulties in this situation.
“Sometimes people forget who I am— who I was,” Katya corrected herself. “And they may throw me a coin or two, but others throw stones and curse me so that I have to run.”
“Poor girl,” Myrina murmured. “What a way to live.”
“Huh! I will not be a poor girl for long!” Katya gave a sudden sneer. “Grandmother knows things that nobody else knows . . . she has her secrets and she will see Hepsuash back in the sea, even though the king now swears that he will marry her.”
“He wishes to marry her?” This was a shock to Myrina, but almost at once she remembered the richly dressed young man speaking to Iphigenia in her mirror vision. Yes, this began to make sense. Was that why she had seen Iphigenia shaking her head at him?
Tamsin and Phoebe were looking anxiously at Myrina, aware that this was not quite what the Snake Lady had expected.
Katya smiled nastily. “The foolish milk face refuses him, but whether she marries him or not is naught to us. By the time my grandmother has finished with Hepsuash she will be nothing but fish food!”
Myrina’s stomach turned over with apprehension. Katya’s revelations told her for certain that Iphigenia stood in great danger—and not only from King Thoas or the Taurians. While she must feel sorry for the plight of the deposed priestesses, she also feared the vicious poison of their anger. She must find out if this Hepsuash really was Iphigenia.
“We have journeyed all day and we are weary,” she said, rising to her feet and taking the two girls by the arms. “We must rest now, but tomorrow we will try to bring you more food and some for your grandmother, too. We go into Tauris city to sell our horses.”
Katya rose politely, looking a little disappointed that they should go so soon. “There will be no buying or selling of horses tomorrow,” she told them. “It is a sacred day, and the city will be crowded. They carry the two boys through the streets in procession.”
“Two boys?” Myrina murmured uncertainly.
“The two boys who are to be sacrificed at the full of the moon!” Katya seemed slightly irritated that she should be so ignorant.
Myrina was shocked again, but she tried to think fast and not look surprised. “The sacrifice of strangers who are shipwrecked?”
“Of course!” Katya’s lip had a curl of disdain. “Milk-faced Hepsuash stopped it for a while and refused to officiate, swearing that the goddess reviled such acts. At first Thoas bowed to her will; he would do anything to please her. But now that she has refused to marry him, he’s losing patience with her. He says that she cannot have it both ways—either she is priestess and must officiate at the sacrifice, or she gives up that role to be his wife.”
“So”—Myrina tried to get a clear picture in her mind—“she has no choice but to see these boys sacrificed or marry Thoas?”
Katya nodded. “She’s a fool! I would not refuse Thoas! And if she knew him better, she’d understand that he doesn’t mean what he says. She could be priestess
and
his wife, if she wanted it.”
Myrina thought hard. “What will Hepsuash do tomorrow?”
“She will be brought out of the temple when the procession arrives, receive the boys, and prepare them for sacrifice. It should be Grandmother instead of her.”
Phoebe’s cheeks were pale. Sympathetic though she was, the way in which Katya spoke of sacrifice made her feel sick. Tamsin looked at Katya with horror in her wide eyes, though she did not speak a word.
Myrina had to grit her teeth. This grim information was very important, hard though it was to stand there calmly and listen to it. As they turned to go, the burning resentment seemed to fade from Katya’s voice. “You are the first people to speak kindly to me since we were cast out,” she said, suddenly sounding like a lost and lonely child.
Myrina stared for a moment, trying to adjust her thoughts quickly. “Then we will look forward to speaking to you again.” She tried to sound reassuring, and the sudden change in the girl made her think that perhaps Katya was not so damaged by tragedy that there’d be no chance of winning her back. In among the outpouring of hatred were strange, touching traces of dignity and even decency.
Quietly they walked back to their tent, deep in thought. Myrina’s head was buzzing with all that she’d learned; Tamsin and Phoebe were both subdued.
“Now what do you think of your new friend?” Phoebe asked.
Tamsin said nothing.
“And those guards at the temple! They were guarding . . . ?”
“Yes, Young Tiger.” Myrina nodded. “I think you are right; they are guarding Hepsuash. We must find out if she can possibly be our Iphigenia.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Chosen Ones
T
HE NEXT MORNING
they dressed themselves carefully and prepared to go into the city. If the streets were to be as crowded as Katya had warned, Myrina thought it better to leave the horses and go on foot. They’d certainly be able to mingle with the crowd and discover more that way. Though the city seemed a dangerous place to be taking the girls, she knew that she’d feel better if they were by her side and it would have to be a bold horse thief to get the better of Big Chief.
She was hesitating when Katya slipped out of the cave and sidled almost shyly over toward their tent. “My grandmother will watch your camp and horses for you if you want to go into the city,” she said.
Myrina turned to the cave mouth to see the old woman hobble out into the sunlight and settle once again in the place she’d occupied the evening before. Nonya gave a grim nod in their direction and Myrina acknowledged it, smiling to herself. This was a strange guardian indeed, but it seemed that she had little choice in the matter and must make the best of things. After all, she was really leaving Big Chief in charge and she could be sure that he would not let a stranger near their tent or the mares.
“Tell your grandmother, Thank you,” she said.
“If you wait for me, I will go with you to the city,” Katya suggested. “I can show you the way.”
They looked at her uncertainly for a moment. It seemed that now the girl had decided they were friends, she was unwilling to let them out of her sight.
“Very well,” Myrina agreed at last, unsure that an outcast was the best kind of guide.
They waited while she washed in the stream, smoothed down her ragged skirt, and began to rake at her hair with a twig. She’d told them that she and her grandmother had been left with nothing when they were cast out of the temple; it was proving to be true. Phoebe watched Katya’s struggle to smooth her hair, then went to her baggage and brought out a bone comb that Kuspada had carved from the shin of a wild boar. It was a practical and cheerful thing with a fat hog carved into the handle.
“For you.” She handed it to Katya.
The girl took it uncertainly.
“For you to keep.”
The girl gravely whispered her thanks and set about combing her hair very thoroughly. As Myrina watched, she glimpsed a touch of beauty in the young face. Swiftly she recognized that if Katya were dressed in a fine gown and jewels, she would make heads turn.
“Just a moment,” she said and went to one of the leather-bound bundles she’d hidden away in the tent. She pulled out a long tunic of the softest light-green linen which Tabi had given her at the winter feast. It wasn’t the rich floating gown she envisioned for Katya, but it was a good, practical garment that would allow for movement.
Myrina emerged from the tent and held it up in front of the girl. “It’s short for me,” she said. “It will suit you much better.”
The girl’s face fell and for a moment she almost looked angry again. Myrina’s stomach gave a small twist of regret; it seemed so easy to give offense. Did the gift signify humiliation to the proud priestess’s child?
“This is payment,” Myrina added hurriedly.
“Payment?” Katya looked up with interest.
“Yes—payment. Today you will act as our guide. You know the city and we do not; we will be lost without you. This is payment for a day’s work.”
Katya took the tunic and slipped it over her head. She smoothed the sleeves down over her shoulders and arms, sighing with pleasure at the comfort that the fine woven fabric brought. She bent to rip away her old rags from underneath it.
Tamsin grinned at her. “You look like a Moon Rider now,” she said.
Katya shook her head, puzzled. “Moon Rider . . . what is that?”
There was a moment of tense silence as Tamsin realized that she should not have betrayed their true identity.
But Phoebe jumped in quickly to put things right. “Dancing priestesses,” she said. “Tamsin and I once saw them long ago and we have copied them ever since.”
“This is not what a priestess of Tauris would wear.” Katya hesitated, frowning; then her face softened again. “But it is very comfortable,” she assured them.
The moment of tension had passed and Myrina was relieved. Though there were now few coins left in Kuspada’s purse, she promised herself that as soon as she sold one of the mares she would make Katya a present of a new gown—and it would be a gown worthy of a Taurian priestess.
They set off for the city, Katya taking her work as a guide seriously, keeping up an informative flow of conversation. Now that she had found listeners, it seemed that the young outcast could not stop talking. Myrina was soon grateful for the skill with which the girl directed them through the outskirts and into the maze of busy streets. Some people looked at Katya with a touch of suspicion, as though unsure whether they recognized her or not.
The palace of King Thoas was very grand, situated halfway down the sloping hillside and facing the sea. Many smaller palaces surrounded it, and Katya could relate the names of all the occupants, many of whom were wives to the king.
“So if Hepsuash were to agree to marry him, she would not be his only wife?” Myrina mused.
Katya’s frown returned. “Of course not.” She seemed surprised at the very idea. “But the fool wishes to make Hepsuash his chief wife—she would be his queen and still she refuses.”
From the palace gates they could look up along the winding streets to see the strange building they had passed the day before, perched on the highest rock, far above the city. None of them dared to ask the question, but Katya saw that their eyes were drawn to it.
“That is the temple of Artemis,” she told them, her voice suddenly soft and wistful. “It is— it was where we lived—the only home I have known.”
They shaded their eyes, gazing up at the lofty temple.
Phoebe touched Katya’s arm. “It’s a beautiful home,” she said kindly.
“If I lived up there,” Tamsin said, “I’d dream I was an eagle, swooping down from my nest to fly across the sea.”
Katya looked at her with sharp approval. “You understand well,” she said. “That is what happens to sacrificial victims. The priestess takes them up to the very top of the tower, and if they are brave and worthy they fling themselves from it, then—just for a moment—they swoop like an eagle.”
Tamsin’s smile fled. “You mean . . . they swoop down and then . . . ?”
“Oh yes,” Katya answered, as though it were only to be expected. “They swoop down and then they plop into the sea.”
Myrina put a reassuring hand on Tamsin’s shoulder.
“They . . . drown?” Tamsin’s face had turned white.
“Of course—they are a sacrifice! If they have died bravely, their spirits fly at once to Artemis’s hunting ground up in the sky and live there happily with the goddess forever, while their bodies feed the fish.”
“But . . . what if they do not wish to throw themselves over the edge?” Tamsin was aware of her mother’s warning, but was so troubled by Katya’s words that she had to know the answer.
“Then the priestess must push them—that is her job! Though it seems that flower-faced Hepsuash has little stomach for it!”
“So . . . your . . . grandmother . . . ?”
Myrina slid her hand down Tamsin’s arm and squeezed her hand tightly. Tamsin heeded the warning and swallowed her question, falling quiet.
People had begun to emerge from their houses dressed in their best clothes; they crowded the streets, baskets full of rose petals in their hands. “Tell us”—Myrina wanted to find out as much as she could—“where will the procession start from and where will it go to?”
“It starts from the palace, then they move slowly up the hill, winding in and out of the pathways until they reach the temple.”
“Then what . . . ?” Tamsin’s eyes were wide with fear. “Will they leap . . . ?”
Katya shrugged, an impatient glint in her eyes. “No, no, not today. For a sacrifice to be judged worthy by the goddess, those who are offered must undergo preparation. Today Hepsuash will come out of the temple to meet them and take them inside to begin the preparation.”
Tamsin could no longer hold back and her voice trembled with accusation as she asked the question that troubled her so much. “Has your grandmother pushed people off that tower?”
Myrina held her breath, fearful that this would make the girl angry again. But Katya only looked puzzled for a moment, then answered with fierce certainty. “Of course. It was Nonya’s job. She should be here to do it now!”
“How long does it take—this preparation of the sacrifices?” Myrina asked quickly.
Katya answered with an irritated sigh. “Until the full moon,” she replied. “Don’t all sacrifices take place on the night of the full moon?”
Myrina saw that they must ask no more, but the very words “full moon” brought back to her the frightening days and nights in Aulis, before the intended sacrifice of the young Iphigenia. Katya was right about that—it was always the full moon, and the memory of it made her tremble, fierce Snake Lady though she was. How then must Iphigenia be feeling? And to be expected to actually push unwilling victims from a tower! Iphigenia would not willingly crush a beetle beneath her foot.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!”
There was a flurry of anticipation all around them; horns sounded and the palace gates were opened.
Myrina thrust away the dark feelings of despair that suddenly threatened to engulf her, forcing herself to be practical. Iphigenia had been rescued before—well, now it must be done again. She was the Snake Lady; she must think hard and draw on the craftiness that had always been her strength. At least this time it didn’t seem to be Iphigenia’s life that hung in the balance; only her freedom—but then to a Moon Rider, freedom was life! Maybe she would see her friend today and then at least she could be absolutely sure that it was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra whom the Taurians had imprisoned in the lofty temple on the rock.
All at once there was a small rush of expectation in the crowd.
“The king, the king!”
Loud horns sounded again as King Thoas rode out of the palace gates on a fine black stallion, surrounded by heavily armed guards. He was still young, with a thick dark beard and a thin, rather somber face. Myrina recognized him as the man she’d seen in her vision. His clothes were rich with cloth of gold, and a heavy diadem crowned his brow. His horse’s bridle was decorated with heavy golden bulls, and his hands and arms dripped with jewelry.
The people cheered, but Myrina sensed a dutiful reticence in the applause. The king did not lift his hand to wave or respond with even a nod; he seemed unaware of the crowd that surrounded him.
“Fool!” Katya murmured under her breath as he came toward them.
Myrina thought that for a brief moment the king’s eyes rested on the deposed priestess’s granddaughter, as though he recognized her, but then he looked away uninterested and rode on.
Many finely dressed courtiers followed in the king’s wake and again they were cheered politely. It was only when a small but elaborate cart rattled out through the gates that warm smiles and real excitement seemed to ripple through the crowd. The cart was pulled by two milk-white ponies, and as it passed, many hands reached out to touch its gilded sides. Two young men sat in it side by side, richly dressed in white robes and cloaks, gold fillets bound about their brows. The crowd surged forward to surround the cart, throwing rose petals over its occupants.
“Sweet boys, sweet boys!” they cried.
“Hail to the Chosen Ones!”
“Bring us our harvest from the sea!”
Myrina closed her eyes for a moment, suppressing horror, as understanding flooded through her mind: the gilded curves that adorned the cart represented the rolling waves of the sea, into which the two young victims would be flung.
“If I were them, I’d jump out now and run!” Tamsin whispered.
As the cart passed close to them, Myrina could see only too well why they didn’t attempt to escape. The boys sat side by side on a gilded bench, but they were tied by the ankles to the base of the cart, their hands fastened behind them with golden ropes.
“Bonds of gold,” Myrina murmured. “Boys—just boys!”