Nobody's Princess (20 page)

“Have them wait for me at the main altar,” Eunike said. “I’ll see them as soon as I’ve finished with these two.” I saw her point one foot at Milo and me. “They’ll be fetching me some things from the town, and you know how it is with boys: They don’t pay attention. I have to repeat everything at least four times before it sticks to the straw between their ears.”

The old priest chuckled. “Ah, just like I was at their age. The world was filled with so many captivating things, each one
much
more interesting than my responsibilities. Isn’t that so, lad?”

I watched in horror as his brown wrinkled hand reached down and cupped my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His eyes were bright and clear, with none of the clouding that sometimes blurs the vision of the old. I had nowhere to hide. I could only look up and shiver as I saw how drastically his expression changed the longer he looked at me. The friendly smile dwindled, rapidly replaced by a look of shock and disbelief.
He’s recognized me,
I thought.
Farewell, Iolkos! I’m doomed.

“By Zeus, that
face
!” He gasped and jerked his hand away, wiping it briskly on his robe. “Don’t you boys
ever
wash? I swear by the all-seeing sun, if I catch you looking half this filthy the next time you serve the holy Pythia, I’ll drag you down to the shore, throw you in the sea, and scrub your skin off with my own two hands.”

I ducked my head, muttering a breakneck string of apologies, but he left before I was done. Even the nicest of Apollo’s priests had more important things to do than listen to a servant. I heard his steps retreat and fade to silence while I was still speaking.

I raised my head, elated. “Did you see
that
?” I crowed at Milo and Eunike. “He looked right at me, and all he saw was a servant—a servant
boy
!” My heart danced with glee.

“That was all he expected to see,” Eunike said. “Haven’t you noticed that people don’t really
look
at ordinary things? If I told you, ‘Look at this apple,’ I doubt you’d even
think
of biting it to make sure it wasn’t painted clay. Most folk are too busy looking after themselves to ask too many questions; they accept what they’re told, as long as it’s not something that will make their own lives harder to bear.”

I grew thoughtful. “And if they’re told something that they believe will make their lives
easier
?”

“Oh, they’ll swallow
that
whole and swear it was soaked in honey,” Eunike replied. She raised one eyebrow. “Helen, why are you smiling like that? You look even happier than when you were mistaken for a boy. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that the road to Iolkos just laid itself down at my feet.”

         
16
         

THE PYTHIA HAS SPOKEN

That night, with a fat, nearly full moon dying in the western sky, I stole across the temple grounds to the Pythia’s room. I crept along barefoot, my dress tucked up high, my ears alert for the smallest sound. Once, I thought I heard a dog bark. I threw myself into the shadow of a building and held my breath, wildly wondering if the servants who patrolled the temple grounds at night kept dogs with them on their rounds. A good hound would smell me out in an instant. Then the bark came a second time, too weak to have come from nearby, and I could breathe again.

The herb garden outside Eunike’s room was thick with fragrance. I stepped on a mint plant and released a fresh burst of scent into the night. Peering through the open doorway, I saw a small oil lamp burning on the table and two figures waiting for me inside. Milo and the Pythia were standing together, deep in urgent discussion, when I joined them. Eunike glanced my way, then went back to arguing with Milo.

“Why
won’t
you take this?” she said, holding out her hands. The flickering light of the oil lamp danced over a dagger almost as long as my sword. A pattern of golden leopards and grapevines glimmered down the center of the blackened blade. “You’ll need it for the road ahead. You can’t go defenseless.”

Milo stared at the wonderful weapon. I could see how he longed to accept it, but what he said was: “I told you, I
can’t
take it. It’s too fine for me to have, even for a little while. If my masters ever found me with something as costly as this, I’d be beaten for stealing.”

“Milo, you
have
no masters anymore,” I said softly. “And it’s a gift, freely given. Do you know how to use it?” He nodded. “Well then, take it. Who ever heard of weapons bearers who didn’t have at least one weapon of their own?”

Eunike put the dagger into Milo’s hands. He gazed at the blade, fascinated and a little apprehensive. “Holy Pythia, this blade isn’t—it isn’t an offering someone made? It doesn’t belong to the god, does it?”

“It belonged to my father,” Eunike replied. “He was a cousin of the king of Corinth and the first to recognize my visions for what they were. He brought me here, to serve Apollo, and left this with me.”

“To remember him by?” Milo asked. “Holy Pythia, if that’s so, you should keep it.”

“I was ten when he left me. If he wanted me to remember him, he could have come back to visit or sent a message in the six years since then.” She shrugged, though her eyes were sad. “I know my visions can make people fear me, but I thought my father was braver than that. The dagger’s mine to give, Milo. You
will
be glad to have it.”

“This is a noble’s dagger,” Milo said. “It’s not for me.” He turned his face to me. “But I’ll carry it if it will please you, Lady Helen.”

Milo’s declaration made Eunike cover her mouth and do a bad job of smothering a snicker. I didn’t mind so much. I was glad to see her cheerful again.

“Instead of wasting time making fun of me, why don’t we get started?” I said. “It’ll be dawn before you know it.”

“Not before
I
know it,” said Eunike. We all laughed at that. Then she went to one of the four large chests and motioned for me to help her lift the lid. Milo dashed ahead of me, removed the heavy lid, and set it silently on the floor all by himself. He might look scrawny, but his life of slavery had given his skinny arms and legs hidden strength. I was impressed.

Eunike rummaged around in the chest and finally pulled out the most splendid, colorful, magnificent gown I’d ever seen, even among all of my parents’ royal finery. The flounced skirt must have had at least fifteen tiers, each one vibrant with patterns of red, blue, orange, white, and green, all of them decorated with twinkling gold and silver charms. The tight green bodice was so thickly embroidered with wild roses that it could have fooled a swarm of honeybees.

“Wait outside, Milo,” Eunike said before helping me take off my own dress and put on that fantastic garment. The weight was staggering, but she cinched in my waist so tightly with a wide enameled belt that I
had
to stand straight as a spear shaft or I’d snap in two. Once the gown was on, she began adding to my burden with earrings, necklaces, and finally a diadem of beaten gold for my hair.

“Am I ready?” I asked. I yearned to pick up Eunike’s mirror and see what I looked like, but she wasn’t yet satisfied with what she’d done to me.

“I’ll let you know when you’re ready,” she said, reaching for the pot of kohl on her table. I had to stand perfectly still, not even daring to sneeze and
definitely
not daring to blink while she painted my eyes, then traded kohl for carmine and painted my lips. Last of all, she dug a third jar out of the open chest and told me to put out my hands, palms up. “Henna,” she said, tinting my fingertips a deep, rich red, then working the colorful dust through my hair.

She stepped back and considered the results for a while, then nodded. “Yes, that will do; that will do
very
well, I think.” She glanced out the open doorway. “And just in time too. Dawn is almost here.”

I never did get to see what I looked like in my borrowed glory. Eunike insisted that there wasn’t enough time for that. She herded Milo and me out of her room and across the grounds to Apollo’s temple. We were climbing the steps when a young priest came out to bar our way.

“Halt! Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded. Then he realized whom he was confronting.

“Holy Pythia, forgive me, I didn’t know you were—” His words froze. He’d seen me. His hands seemed to rise on their own in a gesture of reverence. “Lady, how may I serve you?” he asked in a voice so worshipful it frightened me.

“Summon the others,” Eunike snapped at him, yanking his attention away from me. “The god has spoken concerning the lady Helen of Sparta. Tell the gatekeeper to let no visitors enter the sacred ground until I have revealed what I know to you all. The only exception will be the lady Helen’s guards, when they come for her. Bring them into the temple the instant that they’re here. Go!”

The priest bolted down the temple stairs, and the three of us went up as fast as we could. Eunike hurried Milo and me into the same small room at the back of the temple where we’d found her yesterday and shut the door behind us. The room had a window set high on one wall. It let in enough of the predawn light for us to be able to see one another’s faces dimly.

“I’d ask you to sit down and rest until it’s time,” Eunike said, waving at the lone chair that was the only piece of furniture in that room. “But I’ve worn that dress and I know you
can’t
sit down in it. You can’t even have a sip of water; you’ll smear your lip paint.”

“I can wait to rest and drink,” I said. “How soon do you think everyone will arrive?”

“Soon enough. You know what you’re supposed to do?”

“Stand there and look pretty,” I said archly. “I ought to know: It’s my plan, after all. What about you? Do you know what
you’ve
got to do?”

“Stand there and speak for the god,” Eunike replied just as playfully. Her expression turned suddenly earnest. “But I won’t lie, Helen. Remember that. I like you and I want to help you, but I won’t, I
can’t
dishonor Apollo with lies.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” I replied.

“Holy Pythia?” Milo ventured. “You would never lie, I know it, but…well, just now, when you told the priest you’d had a vision about the lady Helen—”

“I never said I’d had a vision about her,” Eunike replied. “I said that the god has spoken concerning her. I didn’t say which god or what form his words took or that he’d spoken to
me.
The gods are always speaking to us. Some people are just better listeners.”

“It sounds to me as if you’ve been listening to Hermes the trickster as well as Apollo,” I told her fondly.

“And why not? Hermes was an infant when he stole Apollo’s cattle and forced them to walk backward into a cave. The backward hoofprints fooled Apollo into thinking that they’d come
out
of that cave and gone who knows where. He finally did catch Hermes at his tricks, but the new god bought Apollo’s pardon with the gift of a lyre, an instrument Hermes had created himself from a tortoise’s shell. All this on the very day that he was born! Apollo will pardon me too, as long as I don’t lie outright.”

“May Apollo and Hermes both help you, Lady Helen, and bring you everything you want today,” Milo said gravely.

I felt someone give my hand a brief, reassuring touch in the small, dark room.
Milo? No, impossible.
I wouldn’t mind if it were him, but I couldn’t imagine him finding the courage to do that.
It must have been Eunike,
I thought.

A faint clamor sounded from outside. The Pythia cocked her head, listening as the sound got louder. “They’re coming,” she said. “We must be waiting for them.” She opened the door, directed Milo to take a hiding place behind a pillar in the darkest corner of the temple, and led me forward to stand beside her before Apollo’s altar.

The god received his sacrifices on a painted stone slab at the top of three shallow steps. Standing there, I had a wonderful view looking east out of the temple door. The dawn sky was streaked with peach and pink, purple and gold, as the priests brought my Spartan guardsmen into the temple. My men looked extraordinarily ill at ease, as if they were being led into a mountain pass where an enemy army lurked in ambush. They murmured among themselves and darted suspicious glances into every angle, every shadow, every face, including mine.

I met their wary, unhappy looks calmly. In my mind, I pictured the statue of Aphrodite that stood in the rooftop shrine at home, the one I’d loved from childhood. I also thought of the smaller figure of the goddess, the one that the old sailor had carved from a monster’s tooth and given to me. I tried to hold myself as coolly and elegantly as those images.

Eunike stepped forward and raised her arms to the dawn. “Hear me, servants of Apollo, men of Sparta!” she cried.

“Silence for Apollo’s chosen!” one of the priests called out. “Hear the Pythia!” The murmurs stopped. Somewhere in Delphi, a rooster crowed.

“It has been revealed to me that the lady Helen will not leave Delphi this day,” Eunike declared. “She will not go back to Sparta until it pleases Apollo to bless her return. This is how it must be.” She lowered her arms. “Men of Sparta, who is your leader?”

The same soldier who’d witnessed my brothers’ leave-taking stepped forward. “I am, holy Pythia.”

“Hear me, then. You will lead your men home and tell the lady Helen’s royal parents what I have told you, that she will not come back to them until it is the will of the gods.”

The man bowed his head. “Yes, holy Pythia, I’ll do as you say, except…” He took a deep breath. “Great lady,
when
will they see the lady Helen’s return?”

One of the priests glared at the man. “You question the Pythia?”

My guard returned the priest’s scowl redoubled. “I have a daughter, and I know how I’d feel if she were taken from me. I’ve served Lord Tyndareus and his queen long enough to have seen how dearly they love their children. I ask this for their sake. If that’s an offense, let me be the only one to suffer for it.”

“Spartan, you are a faithful man; you commit no offense in questioning me,” Eunike said. “Tell the lady Helen’s parents this as well: that although it will be a year or more before they can hope to see their daughter, they will have frequent word from Delphi to comfort them. Let them be content with that.”

With that, Eunike turned her back on the crowd and faced me, holding her hands above my head. “May the all-seeing sun bless you in all your paths, Lady Helen, and bring you safely home.”

Later that morning, Eunike, Milo, and I stood in the gateway of Apollo’s shrine, watching my guards march away. They raised their spears to me in one last salute as they passed, and though some still looked a little dubious about the whole matter of leaving me behind, most of them were smiling. They believed that the gods had spoken. I was not supposed to be going with them, and that was that. They accepted this unconditionally.