22

The Journey Begins

ARDESTE LEFT FOR THE lower town carrying a market basket, but shopping was only an excuse to look for Zethus. My plan was to sleep, having had no chance the night before. But just as I lay down, Hippodameia drifted into my room. She was in a talkative mood.

“I was worried about you, Hermione,” she said sympathetically. “Pyrrhus seemed so angry last night.”

“Yes,” I agreed, hoping to keep the conversation short. “He was.”

“He’s that way sometimes. But I think it was hearing about the visit from your friend that set him off. Pyrrhus is like Achilles—very jealous. I wonder how Zethus found you here. We’re so far from everything.”

The direction this conversation was taking made me uneasy. No matter what I said, it would surely be repeated to Pyrrhus. My old friend Hippodameia was not only sleeping with my husband—she was more than welcome to him—but she also might be spying for him. I wondered why women couldn’t be kinder to one another. Maybe it was a matter of survival.

Now my survival was also at stake.

I yawned deeply and suggested that we talk later, after I’d rested, and Hippodameia reluctantly drifted out again. But still the gift of sleep did not come. Then I heard Ardeste’s soft footsteps.

“I found Zethus and told him everything that happened,” she whispered. “He was distressed to hear of your argument with Pyrrhus. I explained our plan and showed him the way to the cave. He’ll meet us there tonight.” She told me how to mix the poppy-seed powder into the wine so that it wouldn’t be detected. “We must be sure that everyone gets some. It won’t take much. And as soon as the drink begins to do its work, we’ll leave.”

“How long will the drug keep its effect?”

“Long enough, I hope.”

 

I TUCKED THE PACKET of powder into a fold in my peplos and held it in place with the gold-link belt. I was uneasy, my hands trembling no matter how I tried to control them, and I wondered if Pyrrhus would sense my anxiety and question me. But he was more intent on carousing with his Myrmidon chieftains and as usual paid little attention to me. The weather had become cooler, and a fire blazed in the hearth at the center of the megaron. Pyrrhus had ordered a banquet, and the smell of baking bread and roasting meat hung in the air.

Ardeste moved among my husband’s friends, pouring wine into their goblets. She avoided looking at me directly. A blind minstrel plucked his lyre and sang the men’s favorite stories of victorious battles. They listened intently, cheering loudly at their favorite parts. Then, unexpectedly, Pyrrhus called out to me.

“Hermione, my beauty! Bring your lyre and honor us with a song, to welcome your husband home!”

“My beauty”? I thought. Is he serious?

He had never called me that, and he had never asked me to play for him. I wondered if he suspected something. I hadn’t touched my lyre, made from the shell of a tortoise, in many months, and I was not sure I could even do this. But, I reasoned, the men had been drinking and they wouldn’t know if I performed well or not. The blind minstrel smiled and nodded in my direction. I hurried to my room, made sure the packet of powder was still secure, and took down the lyre.

The men were waiting. I plucked the strings, badly out of tune—enough to make me wince—but Pyrrhus seemed not to notice, or to care. “A love song!” he cried, with that sneering smile I detested.

I stumbled through the beginning of the one song I could remember that might be considered a love song, and then—almost miraculously—the blind minstrel picked up the tune and led me through it, while I added a few notes, singing along with him. Pyrrhus seemed surprised by this unusual performance, but the men were well pleased and called for more.

The minstrel began another song, a favorite of the men. I took advantage of their distraction to empty most of the powder from the packet into a large ewer of wine mixed with water and flavored with a little pine resin. The Myrmidons were fond of the slight bitterness of the resinated wine, and it served to mask the taste of the poppy-seed powder.

“Drink well, my good men of Pharsalos!” I cried merrily, smiling and moving among them with the ewer, pouring the wine into their goblets. The blind minstrel, sensing my presence, shook his head, refusing the wine. “Perhaps you’ll want it later, poet!” I said, and poured more wine into his cup. “Drink up when your songs reward you with a thirst.”

Andromache and Hippodameia turned up their noses when I attempted to fill their goblets. “I don’t like the taste of resin,” Andromache complained. Hippodameia agreed. “It’s too bitter.”

“True women of Greece are quite fond of it,” I reminded them—reminding them at the same time that they were not Greeks. “It’s a taste you would do well to acquire.” Then, with a smile and an arched eyebrow, I whispered, “And it will surely enhance your pleasure, both given and received, in lovemaking.” I glanced meaningfully toward Pyrrhus, who had drained one full goblet of the drug-laced wine and was ready for another.

Glumly, the two women held out their goblets, and I filled them. “Come now, drink up, my friends!” They sipped tentatively, made faces, and decided that the best thing was to drink it down in one swallow. I nodded, smiled, and moved on.

The potion Ardeste and I had administered was taking effect, gradually at first, and then, with another round of wine, more quickly. I watched their eyelids grow heavy; their speech was slurred. A few of the Myrmidons who had imbibed more than the others were actually nodding off. Pyrrhus yawned hugely. Moments later I heard him snoring. Andromache and Hippodameia had put their heads down on the table. Only a few of the guards were still awake, but they, too, had become drowsy.

It was time to go.

Ardeste moved quietly toward the door. I paused for a few moments, circling the megaron where the fire had burned down to glowing embers, and then I followed her. She had a simple woolen peplos for me, a plain rope belt, and a fringed shawl. I changed into sturdy sandals and rolled my soft leather slippers into a bundle with the embroidered gown I’d just taken off. “Bring it with you,” Ardeste advised. “You may find an occasion to wear it later in our journey.”

I added my wedding veil with the silver and gold ornaments, as well as the lapis lazuli and amethyst jewelry, necklaces and bracelets, armlets and ankle rings, that my mother had given me for my wedding—not with the idea of wearing any of it, but to use in trade. I also took my mother’s silver spindle and, of course, my half of the wedding goblet.

We left the palace by a side door, heads modestly lowered and faces covered, and walked toward the servants’ quarters, to avoid the suspicious glances of any outside guards who might have been around, though I suspected they’d all come into the megaron to enjoy the feast, leaving the palace unguarded, and were now asleep with the others. We circled behind the servants’ quarters to the small postern gate. From there a steep, narrow path plunged almost straight down through the scrub growth. Loose soil and crumbling rock skittered out from under our feet, and we began to slide, grabbing at brush and young saplings to break our descent. We reached the bottom with cuts and scrapes to our hands, elbows, and knees. My peplos was torn.

A thin sliver of moon darted behind a cloud. We were somewhere outside the walls that encircled the town, and Ardeste admitted that she was lost. “I’ve been to this cave a few times,” she said as we groped and stumbled through the darkness. “But that was in broad daylight.”

I was frightened, but I was also exhilarated. I had not felt so free in all the months since I’d married Pyrrhus. But as the night wore on, I was more aware of how tired I was. I tripped over tree roots and once or twice I fell, sprawling in the dirt.

An owl hooted, then hooted again.

“It’s Zethus!” Ardeste exclaimed, and imitated the same low call.

We’d been circling the hidden mouth of the cave without realizing it, but now we followed the sound of the “owl” until we found Zethus. We crouched in the damp cave ripe with the scent of animal dung and discussed what to do next. Bats flittered in and out through a small hole in the roof, on their nightly search for a meal of insects. The triumph I felt at escaping from the gloomy palace was rapidly being replaced by anxiety. The drug would soon lose its effect, and Pyrrhus and his men—and the two women—would wake up and realize that I was gone.

I could only imagine my husband’s rage.

“We can’t stay in this cave,” Ardeste agreed. “But where do we go now?”

“Why can’t we stay here, for at least a day?” Zethus asked. “The mouth of the cave is well hidden. I had a hard time finding it. So did you. And you made sure that everyone in the megaron drank well?”

“Oh yes,” I assured them, until I remembered the blind minstrel. “Except the bard,” I said. “He’s the only one I don’t remember seeing actually put the cup to his lips.”

Ardeste groaned. “The bard sees everything! Not with his eyes, but with his ears. He misses nothing. I will guess that he heard us both leave, knows we left together, and senses exactly which way we went. And Pyrrhus will demand that he report it all.”

“But that may not give Pyrrhus enough information to find you,” Zethus argued. “The question is, are we safer if we stay here quietly for a day and leave tomorrow night, or is it better to go now, before they wake up, and put as much distance between them and us as we can?”

I listened to the two of them discussing what we should do, my head sunk in my hands. “We haven’t even decided where we’re going,” I said wearily. “Maybe we should talk about that first.”

It was pitch-black in the cave, and I couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but I could guess from the sudden silence that they were staring worriedly in the direction of my voice.

“You’re right, Mistress Hermione,” Zethus said gently. “It’s not enough simply to run away from Pyrrhus and Pharsalos. You must run toward someone and someplace.”

“Orestes,” I sobbed, for the tears had come in a rush, and I could scarcely speak.

“Yes,” Zethus said, “Orestes. I propose that we begin with the oracle at Delphi. But first we’ll rest a while, then leave before the stars begin to fade.”