A gust of wind shivered the long grass and blew dust in Pirra’s eyes. Her head was swimming with fatigue after climbing into the hills for most of the night, and sweat was trickling down her sides. She tried to ignore the purple stormclouds rolling in from the east, and the tide of red dust slowly advancing across the plain towards the rebel camp. Soon the battle would begin, and Hylas would be in it.
‘So that’s Lapithos,’ murmured Hekabi, peering at the Crows’ ancestral stronghold, fifty paces ahead. ‘As I thought. Only a few guards left.’
Pirra didn’t reply. Lapithos was much smaller and cruder than the House of the Goddess where she’d grown up, but far more war-like and intimidating. She thought it resembled a monstrous toad squatting on the roots of the mountain. Flocks of crows wheeled above it, and vultures glided on huge, fingered wings. Atop the oxblood walls, she saw helmets with crests streaming in the wind. She pictured the guards with bows and arrows poised to shoot.
The idea of setting fire to this impenetrable stronghold – which had seemed so recklessly inviting when they were safe in the rebel camp – now struck her as suicidal folly.
‘Hekabi, this is madness,’ she hissed. ‘The whole place is bristling with Crows!’
‘Then why,’ breathed the wisewoman, ‘was Havoc so relaxed when she passed us just now? And look at Echo!’
She was right. Earlier, they’d glimpsed Havoc on the spur, moving calmly through the long grass. As for Echo, having regained her strength, she was having a marvellous time, soaring almost out of sight, then hurtling out of the Sun in one of her astonishing dives, and scattering the crows above the stronghold.
‘But even if you’re right,’ whispered Pirra, ‘there’s no way we can get in without being seen!’
Hekabi was peering intently at the helmets on the walls. ‘Yes there is. Those gates are ajar. I say we just walk straight in.’
Pirra shot her a horrified glance. But Hekabi was already striding fearlessly towards the vast double gates that fronted the stronghold.
Muttering a quick prayer to the Goddess, Pirra followed, keeping low, and darting from one thorn bush to the next.
To her amazement, no shouts came from above, no hiss of arrows. A shadow sped over her and she ducked – but it was only Echo, heading for the gates. Drawing in her wings at the last moment, the falcon shot through the narrow gap between them.
They were massively thick and studded with bronze, mounted on posts hewn from whole pines. ‘This has to be a trap!’ muttered Pirra.
Hekabi pushed them wider and went inside. Nothing happened. Pirra went after her with her heart in her mouth.
She found herself in a courtyard with doorways on all sides. From one, she heard a donkey bray and the snort and stamp of horses. From another, smoke wafted: she guessed that was a cookhouse, she caught the mouthwatering smell of roast pork. In a corner of the courtyard shaded by a gnarled and ancient vine, vultures squabbled over the remains of a meal on a rough table which had been abandoned in a hurry. Between the heaving wings and snaky necks, Pirra saw broken flatbreads, goats’ cheese, salted fish; a dripping jar of barley beer.
She was wondering what all this meant when a gust of wind sent the dust whirling across the courtyard and she caught movement on the watchtower. ‘Hekabi, watch out!’ she cried.
But the arrows she dreaded didn’t come. Instead, a helmet came crashing down from above and rolled to rest on the stones.
‘See?’ said Hekabi with a curl of her lip. ‘There’s nobody here!’
Echo shot out of a doorway and swooped in to land on Pirra’s shoulder. The feathers beneath the falcon’s chin were fluffed up: she was excited, but not alarmed.
‘I knew it!’ cried Hekabi. ‘There’s nobody in those helmets up there! They left them on the walls to make it look like it’s guarded, but they’ve all gone! Lapithos is deserted, Pirra! This is going to work!’
‘We still don’t know for sure that there’s nobody here,’ breathed Pirra.
‘Then we’ll have to work fast,’ retorted Hekabi.
There were two lines of storerooms, one on the east side of the courtyard and one on the west. ‘We’ll start in the east,’ said Hekabi. ‘One of the scouts told me that’s where most of the oil is. It’ll catch fire quicker.’
The first storeroom they reached was packed with man-high jars of wine and oil, and big bales of linen and wool. Pirra tried to ignore the panicky feeling she always got in cramped spaces, and did as Hekabi was doing, fetching straw from the stables and hastily twisting it into sheaves, then sticking them in the jars, to act as giant wicks.
Somewhere, a door banged and a horse whinnied. Pirra froze. ‘There’s someone here, I can feel it!’ At any moment she expected running feet and the creak of rawhide armour. ‘Why would they all leave, Hekabi? Why?’
‘Who knows?’ snapped the wisewoman. ‘Maybe they went to join the battle, maybe the ones who were left took fright and fled!’ With glittering eyes, she unravelled a bale of wool and strewed it about, so that it would burn more easily. ‘I counted four more storerooms on this side,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’ll do the rest here, you take the ones across the courtyard, and we’ll meet outside on the spur –’
‘But surely a single room will be enough? Let’s just set fire to this one and get out of here!’
‘No, we have to be sure! These roofbeams are hard as stone; for the whole place to go up in smoke, we’ll need the strongest, hottest fire, or it’ll simply burn out!’
After a brief, fierce dispute, which Hekabi won, Pirra stomped off across the courtyard clutching more straw.
The stone passageway struck chill, and in the cramped space, her breath was unpleasantly loud. She smelt rank sweat: men had passed here, and not long ago.
Suddenly, she was gripped by an appalling feeling of being trapped. For an instant, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t move: it was as if her arms were pinioned to her sides. Then the feeling was gone as swiftly as it had come. Echo, she thought in horror. Something’s happened to Echo.
At that moment, a shriek rent the air. Then another and another.
Flinging down the straw, Pirra raced up the passage. Echo’s shrieks grew louder – then abruptly cut off. Oh no, no …
Pirra caught a glimmer of light. She burst into a large hall, dimly lit at the far end by a smouldering brazier. In a heartbeat, she took in roofbeams blackened by smoke; a dizzying red and green floor; walls daubed with savage pictures of warriors and hunting dogs; and a green marble throne on one side, flanked by two painted lions. In the middle of the hall, a mound of ash in a huge round hearth was guarded by four massive pillars zigzagged in yellow and black.
Pirra sensed that Echo was in here, although she couldn’t see where. At her feet lay a cloak and a spear, as if discarded in haste by some guard – but the hall itself was empty.
No it wasn’t. At the far end, near the brazier, a man was slumped head down on a gilded table. Pirra couldn’t see his face, but she saw his purple tunic and the white goatskin mantle of the High Chieftain of Mycenae. She saw his stony scalp and the gold diadem around his temples; the cloak pin the size of a fist at his shoulder.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She had to make sure. Reluctantly, she drew closer. She caught the reek of charcoal from the brazier. She halted.
Koronos lay with his face in a great silver dish of wine. One hand dangled beside him, the other was on the table. Pirra saw its waxen fingers and black nails frozen in the act of clawing at the bowl. She met the dull glare of one lifeless eye.
She wished she had an amulet to ward off Koronos’ angry ghost: without the proper rites, it could not be far away. If Hylas was here, he would have seen it.
Then she heard the scratch of talons on wood. ‘Echo?’ she whispered.
There: in the corner behind Koronos’ corpse. Pirra’s heart stood still. Someone had bound the falcon’s wings to her sides with a strip of cloth, and tied another around her beak and across her eyes; then they’d secured her by her feet to a stool, which they’d set in the shadows. Echo was still breathing, although clearly half-dead with fright.
It was then, with an odd sensation of calm, that Pirra realized Hekabi had got it wrong: there was someone left in Lapithos – and now he had caught her in his trap, using Echo for bait.
Lifting her chin defiantly, Pirra walked past Koronos’ corpse, towards Echo. ‘It’s all right, Echo,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘I’m here. And I’m going to set you free.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Telamon, stepping out from the dark.