Voyage of the Snake Lady (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Mouse Boy

M
YRINA STARED OVER
toward the mainland as, shading her eyes, she saw many people gathering on the shore.

“Where are the boats?” she asked.

Cassandra smiled, amused. “They do not need boats; this is a magical island—they walk on water. Look . . . here they come.”

Myrina watched with growing amazement as a trail of people, young and old, some leading little children, seemed to march into the water and set off toward them. Cassandra laughed at her expression of astonishment.

“We are not really an island,” she explained. “At least not for much longer!”

Myrina frowned. “It’s a causeway!”

“A causeway built by Maa, you might say. It’s a sand spit that seems to grow each year, and every storm washes a little more sand around the island to build the pathway. In years to come we will be part of the mainland.”

Myrina smiled as she watched the procession. She could see now that they must proceed almost in single file, the sand spit just wide enough for a mother and child. They marched confidently toward the temple, looking just as if they were walking over the sea, the water swishing at their ankles.

“Even though it’s only a sand spit, there is something magical about it. It’s as though Maa leads them over here to find you.”

“I’d like to think that was true,” Cassandra said.

“What do they come for, and what are the little bundles they carry?”

“They come for advice! They come for healing! They come to share their troubles, and the bundles are our payment; bakers bring us bread, goatherds bring us milk, weavers bring us rugs and linen.”

Myrina laughed. “You seem to have found a perfect way of living and a true purpose here,” she said, “just as Centaurea did on Lunardia, her Nest of Maa.”

Cassandra took her hand. “Dear friend,” she said, “I have found real peace on this half island. I am happier than I have ever been, and the people here treat me with more respect and honor than ever I was given as princess of Troy.”

“But it must be hard work,” Myrina insisted, “serving so many folk.”

“They don’t all come for my advice; I have a helper. Come and see!”

Cassandra led her by the hand down to the gardens, where the dark pool lay surrounded by weeping willows. The people were already arriving, and a few of them gathered beside the pool, waiting and whispering hopefully as Cassandra came into view. Beyond the pool in a sunny, open space Chryse crouched beside the shallow stone trough that teemed with mice, just as Myrina had seen in her mirror visions. He dipped into the middle and lifted one small mouse out from the many. Then he rose to his feet and handed the creature to a little girl. The child took it carefully in her hands, then solemnly followed her mother into the temple.

Cassandra went to greet the people who waited patiently by her pool, but Myrina stood quietly in the sunshine to watch what Chryse would do next.

As soon as the young girl had left carrying her mouse, a father immediately pushed forward in her place a boy who’d seen four or five springs. He stood by the trough, white-faced and yawning, dark shadows beneath his eyes. The father looked exhausted, too, and he spoke with quiet desperation. Myrina crept closer to hear what he said.

“Our son Machus will not sleep,” he told Chryse. “He is restless all night and wanders away. We cannot sleep ourselves for we fear he will go outside and fall down the well. We are all worn out, and my wife and I begin to blame each other!”

Chryse listened intently, then he reached out to touch the man’s shoulder in a kindly, soothing gesture that seemed mature beyond his years. He studied the mice carefully, then he picked one out and turned to Machus.

Involuntarily, the child’s hands went out, palms up. “I give you my friend Poppy,” Chryse said solemnly. “You must weave a little house for him to live in, made from willow wands, with many holes to give him air. He needs clean water to drink each day, sunflower seeds to eat, and soft dry grass to sleep in, and when he curls up to sleep, you must watch over him to see that he is safe. But you must remember this—when he wakes at night to drink and feed and run about his little home, then it is time for you to close your eyes and sleep. You and Poppy will be two sides of one coin. When he sleeps you will stay awake to look after him and while you sleep, Poppy will stand guard and keep you safe. Do you understand?”

The boy solemnly nodded, still holding out his hands.

Chryse gently gave him the mouse, and both father and child watched with wonder as the small brown creature curled up in the child’s soft palms and went straight to sleep.

“Guard him well until he wakes!” Chryse said. “When he wakes, what will you do?”

“I will sleep,” the boy promised. Then he turned and followed his father toward the temple.

Myrina watched the Mouse Boy with pride, remembering the poor weak baby he’d been, born within the war-torn walls of Troy.

As soon as Machus had moved away, a woman pushed a small girl forward, who looked healthy enough to Myrina. “Can you help us, Mouse Boy?” she begged. “We cannot get a word out of this little one. We’ve six all bigger than her and we can’t keep them quiet, but little Dor won’t say a word. All our family have great loud voices, but not little Dor—she won’t make a sound!”

Chryse didn’t answer; he just nodded and put his finger to his lips as though to hush the mother. The woman fell silent at once. Chryse studied his mice again, then he picked one out while Dor watched, wide-eyed. “This is Squeak,” he said to her softly. “Squeak has no words of her own, so you must speak for her—you are to be her voice. You must tell others what she needs—do you understand? Your brothers and sisters must do the work.”

Dor held out her hands and took the small brown, trembling creature. The mouse looked up at her and squeaked. The mother opened her mouth as though to speak, but Chryse hushed her. “Dor is her voice!” he reminded.

The mouse squeaked again, and Chryse waited patiently. Dor looked anxious. “You are her voice,” Chryse told her gently. “What does she say?”

Dor still looked worried, but her lips suddenly moved, as though with a great effort. “N-needs a . . . a little house,” she managed at last.

Her mother’s mouth dropped open in surprise to hear her voice; there was clearly nothing wrong with little Dor’s hearing.

Chryse turned his sweet smile on the child and she glowed. The mouse squeaked again.

“And what else?” he asked, his voice still low.

“W-water and s-sunflower seeds.”

“And who must get them for her?”

“My brothers and s-sisters.”

“And who will tell them?”

“I will.” Dor spoke with conviction.

“Thank you,” the mother whispered as she led her child away.

Myrina looked on with tears in her eyes, as she thought of Chryse’s babyhood. In war-stricken Troy, while fighting raged all about the walls, both she and Cassandra had struggled to help the gentle priestess of Apollo accept the child that Agamemnon had forced on her. They had won that battle, and Chryseis had grown to love her son dearly. “He was well worth the effort,” Myrina murmured. “A gifted child.”

She left the busy garden and went into the temple to find a growing collection of small offerings laid out on a table in the main entrance hall. She poured a little goat’s milk into a beaker, took up a small bowl of figs and carried them out to Chryse.

“You work hard,” she told him. “You deserve a little rest and food.”

The Mouse Boy looked at her, surprised, but then he smiled and thanked her.

“Your mother would be very proud of you,” she told him warmly. “This is important work that you do. Nobody could do it better.”

Later that day, Orestes emerged from a long sleep and wandered out to see how Chryse spent his time. He watched, impressed. “I thought to spar with him as young boys do,” he confided to Myrina. “But my little brother has the wisdom of an ancient one.”

“I think he would still like a bit of brotherly fun,” Myrina told him.

That evening, when the long trail of visitors had left, Orestes and Chryse clashed fighting sticks together on the temple lawn, and the quiet place grew noisy with laughter and shouts. Tamsin and Phoebe watched them impatiently for a while, voicing their criticisms, hands on hips.

“Let’s show them what Moon Rider girls can do,” Phoebe said at last, all shyness gone.

“Come on, Tiger Girl,” Tamsin agreed.

They found themselves sticks and joined in with gusto. Pylades came to help his master, fearful that he needed it against so fierce a crew.

That same evening, after they had eaten, Cassandra, Iphigenia, and Myrina danced together on the lawn. Tamsin and Phoebe swore they were too exhausted to perform, but the truth was that they wanted to watch this dance, for they saw that the Snake Lady’s eyes shone as never before and her smile was wild with joy as she spun and swayed. Those three friends, who’d seen so many years of struggle, had the appearance of agile young girls, their hair swinging out as they moved in harmony, their limbs lithe and strong.

Orestes and his supporters looked on with awe and a deep sense of privilege. There would never be another night like this, and nothing but the dance could express the love and happiness that the three friends felt.

Chapter Thirty-Nine
Parting

T
HE NEXT MORNING
brought practical talk of what they should all do next. Captain Seris set about repairing the damage that had been done to his ship, and the word soon spread around the Sminthean countryside that the priestess and the Mouse Boy had shipwrecked visitors who needed help. Instead of pots of honey, people carried across the sand spit planks of wood and pots of pitch. Carpenters came to offer their help, and by the time the Month of Flowers had arrived the boat was fully repaired and strong again.

Many of the provisions they’d been given on the Isle of Marble were salvaged and stashed safely aboard the ship, and then a touch of restlessness seemed to come to Orestes. After they’d worked hard all day to see the
Castor and Pollux
shipshape he spoke to his sister at supper, putting his thoughts into words. “Seris says there is time to reach Athens before the hottest weather comes,” he murmured, looking at his sister anxiously. “If we are to return to Athens, I think we must set sail soon.”

Iphigenia nodded sadly.

“I hate to take you from your friends,” he told her. “You are free to change your mind and stay here with them. There could be no better place for you to be.”

But Iphigenia shook her head, determined to go with him. “We have work to do,” she said. “I think the council of Athens may listen to me. You and I are the only ones who can wipe out the bitter curse of our inheritance and bring peace to the troubled land where we were born.”

Orestes nodded in agreement. “I don’t return to the council with the image of the goddess they told me to seek, but I think the living person of my sister safe and well will impress them more.”

Cassandra sat on the other side of Iphigenia and heard his words. She smiled. “You have found more than you know,” she told him mysteriously.

They looked at her, surprised, but Cassandra refused to say more.

On the day of their departure they all gathered at the beach to make their sad farewells. Seris made his offer of marriage to Myrina one last time.

She hugged him tightly, but shook her head. “I will never forget you,” she whispered.

He sighed heavily and kissed her forehead. “He is a lucky man, that one who waits. You had better not make him wait too long.”

Orestes and Iphigenia both hugged Chryse. “We are so glad to know our little brother,” Iphigenia cried, tears in her eyes.

“You can always find a home with us on Sminthe,” Chryse offered in an almost fatherly way.

Orestes kissed the young boy’s hand. “Your love and forgiveness does much to heal all wounds,” he said. ‘We children of Agamemnon can give one another peace.”

Myrina led Moonbeam down to the ship. “Take her with you,” she told Iphigenia. “With Moonbeam at your side, you will always be a Moon Rider.”

Iphigenia clasped her as though she could not let go, but at last she managed to pull away and began with shaking fingers to untie the pouch that contained her ancient magical mirror.

“This precious gift should now be returned to its true owner,” she offered, holding it out to Cassandra.

“No.” Cassandra was firm. “I’m glad that you value my old mirror, but I have no need of it these days, and believe me, its true owner is you. If you keep it, just as before we will never be apart, but there is more to this mirror. Take it out and examine it carefully.”

Iphigenia looked puzzled, but she obediently pulled the dark glossy round of rough-cut obsidian from its pouch. Both Orestes and Myrina crept close, intrigued by her words, frowning and trying to understand what Cassandra might mean.

Myrina remembered only too well that Atisha, the old leader of the Moon Riders, had spoken with reverence when she’d first seen the shining hard black shape. Now Iphigenia held it up, so that the sun gleamed on its simple glassy surface. They could see nothing but the images of themselves reflected there, staring back with curiosity.

Cassandra smiled. “Tip it just a little to the side,” she said.

Iphigenia obeyed and they all gasped: as the smooth shining surface tipped, they could suddenly see that it was marred in four places, but those four breaks had been carefully placed. They were so slight that they were hardly there, but once you had started to look at them, it didn’t take too much imagination to see that the marks represented two eyes, a nose and a wide, generous mouth.

Once she had seen it, Iphigenia gasped. “A face that smiles at us! Why have I never seen it before?”

“You never needed to look for it before.”

“No . . . the face is full of sadness,” Orestes insisted. “But who . . . ?”

Myrina suddenly felt that she understood. “The goddess!” she whispered, her voice low with excitement. “It shows us the image of the goddess!”

Orestes saw what she meant. “Could this be the image that I have been seeking? I was looking for the ancient image of Artemis!”

“This goddess can be Artemis to you Achaeans, or Rhea to the Hittites,” Cassandra replied; “to the Moon Riders she is Maa. We see whichever goddess we want to see. The magic is in the simplicity; it shows the face that all true seekers wish to find.”

Orestes smiled in wonder, shaking his head. “My sister had the precious image there beside her all the time. She and the magical image are one and the same. I am blessed.”

Iphigenia smiled with joy as she turned to him. “The curse is already lifting. The fates are beginning to smile on us.”

So with this treasure, Orestes and Iphigenia at last managed to tear themselves away from Sminthe and their friends. Myrina stood beside Cassandra on the beach, watching the lift and dip of the new oars as the
Castor and Pollux
moved out into the deep blue Aegean Sea. Seris swung the steering oar about and ordered the sail to be unfurled.

“You knew about that mirror all along,” Myrina accused, her mouth twitching with humor.

“There’s a right moment and a wrong moment for telling,” Cassandra told her firmly. “That was the right moment.”

They watched the sail bell out to catch the wind as the ship headed away from them, shrinking smaller and smaller as every moment passed. At last they turned away and walked back up the beach. Myrina was quiet and thoughtful; Seris’s generous warning not to wait too long to return to Kuspada had touched her.

“And has the right moment come for you?” Cassandra asked, as though she picked up her thoughts. “I cannot see my fierce Snake Lady staying here forever in the peace of Sminthe.”

Myrina looked at her with sadness. “It is hard to think of leaving,” she acknowledged. “But I do long to live as a Mazagardi once again, and when I gazed in my mirror last night, I saw the devoted man who still waits for me beside the Sinta River. I must travel north to release him from his dreary watch, but I fear to drag the girls away from this lovely place on such a long harsh journey.”

“It is a long journey,” Cassandra agreed, “but you need not make it all alone.”

“You would come?”

Cassandra shook her head sadly. “I am needed here too much, but here, close to the foothills of Mount Ida, we are well placed to watch all the comings and goings, the traders and the camel trains. I had word this morning from a trader I know who was once a captain of the guard in the city of Troy.”

“Aah.” Myrina looked at her with interest. “A camel train, you say!”

“Cornelius is on his way from Ephesus, having heard of the death of Neoptolemus. He will be here in three days’ time, with his camel train of goods, and will go as far north as the Caucasus Mountains. The young Ant Man’s death has freed up the old traveling routes.”

Myrina caught her breath with pleasure at the thought. The journey would follow many of the old ways along which her own lost tribe, the Mazagardi, traveled when she was a child. “We would go past the Place of Flowing Waters,” she said. “And travel close to the Nest of Maa, where Centaurea raises her fledgling warrior priestesses. Such a journey would bring much joy,” she admitted.

Cassandra smiled encouragement. “The girls are young and brave, always ready for a new adventure. They will have so much to tell their friends when they reach their journey’s end.”

Myrina saw that this was true. “I cursed the fates when they smashed our mast and sent us skittering off course, but I would never have seen you again, if it were not for that storm.”

“The fates can never hold you prisoner.” Cassandra spoke solemnly. “Our brave Snake Lady must go where she will.”

“Will your trader friend be willing to take us, do you think?”

Cassandra had no hesitation. “Cornelius carries oil and olives up through the Caucasus Mountains and comes back with heavy iron goods. He would appreciate the support of a good archer on horseback—there are bears in those mountains as well as thieves.”

“Quite an adventure!” Myrina grasped her friend’s hand. “You understand me so well.”

Cassandra clung to her for a moment and her mouth trembled with love as she spoke, but she was determined to say what she must. “There was once a friendless princess, rejected by her own family, for they thought her mad, but . . . she met a crafty sharp-tongued snake lady, who became her friend and the only one she could really trust. She will never forget that crafty one.”

Myrina kissed her and they sat together holding hands until the sun had gone.

Both Phoebe and Tamsin stamped a foot when they heard of the journey that Myrina planned. “Why go? We love it here,” they said.

Myrina knew that it was the sweetness of the Mouse Boy’s smile that made them both wish to stay. She could not blame either of them, for Chryse had won her heart, too. She felt guilty at the thought of dragging them away, but the image of the watcher by the Sinta River was strong in her mind.

“I could leave you here with Cassandra. I’d trust my oldest friend to care for you better than I do. I will not force either of you to come with me to the cold northern steppe. But if you do, I promise that I will beg Kuspada to make you both fine golden mirrors like mine. Then I will teach you the real magic of a Moon maiden and you will be able to watch those you love, wherever they are, and Sminthe will not seem so very far away.”

Chryse saw the terrible uncertainty that his young friends struggled with. “If you learn the Moon maiden’s magic, I will send you messages. If I hold up my hand like this, it is in greeting. If I touch my heart, it means that I am missing you.”

They smiled at him. “And this,” said Tamsin, closing her fist, “means I wish I could spar with you!”

They all laughed and made up more signs, but then Phoebe turned serious again. “But you have no magic mirror,” she told Chryse.

“I can look for you every day in Cassandra’s dark pool,” he promised solemnly.

“Well then, we had better get ready for our journey,” Phoebe agreed.

“I will need a mirror with two lizards.” Tamsin was already making her plans. “Their tails twisted together at the top.”

Myrina smiled at Cassandra. She would have been true to her word, but it would have wrenched her heart to leave either of them behind.

Cornelius arrived at Sminthe on the evening of the full moon. He left his camels and drovers camping on the mainland and came to spend the evening at the temple of Sminthean Apollo. Cassandra had prepared a feast for them all, and Myrina watched with approval, remembering the stick-thin princess who would not touch her food. This time it was Myrina who could not eat; her heart pounded with excitement at the adventure that lay ahead, at the same time feeling heavy with sadness at leaving her friends and this place of safety.

The camel drover ate and drank well, appreciating what Myrina could not. He went to his bed replete, while Cassandra, Myrina, and the two girls went down onto the sandy beach, followed by Chryse, who had brought out the oud that his mother had taught him to play. Beneath the full moon they performed the familiar steps of the sacred moon dance, twisting and turning their hands in graceful harmony. At the end they linked hands and arms, circling one way and then the other, full of loving smiles and tears.

“Do our sisters in the north dance, too?” Myrina wondered.

“Oh yes,” Cassandra assured her. “They dance beneath the moon just as we do, and they long for the Snake Lady to return.”