One
Runnels of water trickled across her cheeks. Behind closed eyes, she heard and saw it all again with vivid, terrible clarity. The line of Leonidas, shamed, tarnished. Twenty years was enough for some to forget their debts, come to terms with their flaws, or make peace with the past. "Not for me," Kassandra whispered, the broken lance in her hands reverberating. She stabbed the weapon, hard, into the sand by her side and the memories faded.
Her eyes peeled open slowly, adjusting to the bright glare of the spring morning. The cerulean waters hugging Kephallonia's eastern shores sparkled like a tray of jewels. The surf creamed in across the sand, fading to a gentle, cool gurgle that rolled up to where she sat and crept across her bare toes. The salt spray came in soft clouds, condensing on and cooling her skin. A squabble of gulls wheeled and screeched in the cloudless sky, while a cormorant plunged into the waters in an explosion of crystalline drops. Due east, out near the hazy horizon, Athenian galleys moved in an endless train. They were like shades, gliding across the twilight-blue, deeper waters and into the Korinthian Gulf to aid the blockade of Megara. The bright sails billowed like the lungs of titans, and every so often the sea wind carried the groan of ropes and timbers and the throaty shouts of the many warriors on board. Earlier this year, Kephallonia itself had been subsumed into the Athenian sphere, as had most of the islands. And so the war grew like a canker. Some small voice inside told her she should care about the colossal struggle that raged across Hellas, stirring the great cauldron of ideologies, bringing the once-allied cities to each other's throats. But how could she? Proud Athens, she cared little for. And on the other side . . . unswerving Sparta.
Sparta.
The mere presence of the word in her thoughts shattered the delicate idyll of the shore. She eyed the ancient half spear of Leonidas askance. The winged iron head, the intricate workings around the tang, and the half-length haft, worn and discolored from years of oiling. It had always seemed fitting to her that the one thing she had left from her broken past was a broken thing.
A shrill screech pierced her thoughts, and she looked up to see the cormorant emerging from the waves with a silvery mackerel in its beak . . . but speeding down toward it came a spotted eagle. The cormorant screeched again in terror, dropped its semimasticated prize then plunged under the waves for cover. The eagle clawed at the discarded fish corpse, only for the morsel to slip under the waves too. With a mighty shriek of dismay, the great bird wheeled around and glided in toward the shore, settling with a gentle run across the sand, coming to a halt beside Kassandra. She smiled despite herself, for the damned spear was not the only thing that remained of the past.
"We talked about this already, Ikaros." She chuckled. "You were to bring me mackerel to roast for my afternoon meal."
Ikaros stared at her, his buttercup-yellow beak and keen eyes giving him the look of a disapproving old man.
"I see"-she arched an eyebrow-"it was the cormorant's fault."
Her belly groaned, reminding her of the long hours since she had last eaten. With a sigh, she plucked the spear of Leonidas from the sand. For a moment, she caught sight of her dull reflection in the blade. Broad of face, with little humor in her hazel eyes and a thick braid of russet hair hanging across her left shoulder. She wore a dark brown exomis-a one-shouldered man's garment-shabby and sad. Just holding the spear brought the memories alive again, and so she quickly tied the lance to her leather belt, rose and turned away from the shoreline.
But something caught her eye, halting her. It was a strange thing-the kind of thing that is conspicuous for its irregularity, like a drunk man behaving himself: out there, on the sea haze, a galley cut through the waves. One of hundreds, but this boat was not tacking around the distant headlands and into the Korinthian Gulf. Instead, it was coming straight across the water, toward Kephallonia. Her eyes narrowed and beheld the white sail-or, more specifically, the staring, grimacing gorgon head emblazoned upon it. It was a most hideous depiction, discolored gray-green lips peeled back to reveal fangs, the eyes glowing like hot coals, while the nest of snakes that served as the creature's hair seemed to writhe with every lungful of wind that buffeted the sails. She stared at the terrifying mien for a time, the legend of Medusa stirring from the depths of memory: once a beautiful and strong woman, betrayed and cursed by the gods. A morsel of empathy rose and fell within her, like a spark from a fire. But there was something else; she could not see anything of the crew on the strange boat, but she was sure-certain-that she was being watched from those decks. For a moment, the pleasant coolness of the sea spray and wind became unwelcome, chilling.
Spartan children must never be afraid of the dark, of the cold or of the unknown, a voice drawled from buried memory. His voice. She spat into the sand, turning away from the sea and the strange boat. The taunting memories of her father's teachings were all that remained of her once-proud family. Passing traders had brought with them bleak tales of the broken house of Leonidas. Myrrine, bereft, had taken her own life, they said, driven to death by the loss of not just one, but both of her children. Because of what I did that night, she thought.
She strode from the beach, through the dunes and the wind-bent marram grass and picked her way up a rocky path. This brought her onto a small promontory overlooking the coast, and the simple stone shelter that was her home. The white-plastered walls shimmered in the sunlight, the poles and pegged rags that served as an awning of sorts creaked and flapped in the gentle wind and the lone olive tree nearby rustled and swayed. Greenfinches pecked at a pool of lying water near a broken stone column, chirruping in song. A good few hours' walk from the shore town of Sami, days could pass here with little contact from passersby. The perfect place for a woman to live out her time and die alone, she mused. She paused to twist back toward the sea again, gazing into the distance and the faraway blur of the mainland. How might things have been, she wondered, had the past not been so cruel?
She turned back to her home, ducking under the low door to enter, the constant sea breeze falling away to nothing. She glanced around the single room: a wooden bed, a table, a hunting bow, a chest of simple things-a broken ivory comb and an old cloak. There was no cage around Kephallonia's shores, nor shackles upon her limbs, but poverty was her keeper. None but the rich men of this island could ever hope to leave it.
She sat on a stool by the table, pouring a cup of water from a clay krater, then unwrapping the hide package she had prepared earlier. A small loaf of bread-hard as a pebble-a finger-sized strip of salted hare meat and a little clay pot containing three small olives stared up at her. A pathetic meal. Her belly howled in protest, demanding to know where the rest was.
She looked up and through the small window at the back of her home, seeing the recently dug hole in the ground. Until yesterday, her storage pit had held two sacks of wheat and a full salted hare, a round of goats' cheese and a dozen dried figs. Enough for five or six days' nourishment. Then she had returned from yesterday's fruitless fishing session to see two thugs stealing away into the distance with those provisions. They had a good half-mile head start on her and she was too hungry to give chase in any case, and so she had lain down to sleep with an empty belly last night. Absently, she ran the pad of her thumb along the edge of the Leonidas spear: honed to perfection. She felt the top layer of skin split, and hissed the name of her present tormentor-the one who had sent the thieves: "Curse you to the fires, Cyclops."
Turning back to her meager meal, she took the bread, dipping it in a little oil to soften it, then lifting it to her mouth. A further belly groan stopped her-but not her own. She looked to the doorway. The girl standing there stared at the pathetic loaf as a man might eye a torc of gold.
"Phoibe?" Kassandra said. "I haven't seen you for days."
"Oh, don't mind me, Kass," Phoibe said, examining her dirt-caked fingernails, tucking her dark tresses of hair behind her ears and fidgeting with the frayed hem of her grubby off-white stola.
Kassandra turned from the girl to the loaf to the sill of the window, where a dark shape fluttered into view. Ikaros gave her that same wide-eyed look of hope, his affections directed toward the sliver of salted hare. Nor me, she heard when Ikaros screeched.
With an unconvincing smile, she pushed back from the table, tossing the meat to Ikaros and the bread loaf to Phoibe. The pair were transformed into gannets at that moment, each devouring their meager meal with relish. Phoibe, Athenian-born and orphaned, was just twelve. Kassandra had first come across the girl begging in the streets near Sami, three years ago. She had given her a few coins that day on her way into the town. On the way back, she had lifted the mite and carried her home, feeding her and letting her sleep in the shelter. Watching her reminded Kassandra of times past, of distant memories of that soft, gentle heat within, of that long-ago snuffed-out flame inside. Not love, she assured herself, I will never be so weak again.
She sighed, standing and slinging on her bow and lifting a leather waterskin. "Come, let us eat while we walk," she said, taking the olives and popping them into her mouth. The soft, salty flesh and rich oil was tantalizing, awakening her taste buds but doing little to satiate her hunger. "Unless we want this to be the last meal we eat, we should go to visit Markos." The scumbag, she added inwardly as she strapped on her leather bracers. "It is time to call in some debts."
They headed south, following a sun-beaten track that hugged the coastal bluffs for a while, before bending inland. The heat grew strong as noon approached, and they cut across a meadow freckled with violas-the air rich with the scent of oregano and wild lemon groves. The long grass stroked her calves, butterflies flitted across their path in flashes of crimson, amber and blue, cicadas chirruped in the heat and for all the world the war and the past couldnÕt have been more distant, until they bypassed and overlooked Sami. The port town was an unwalled warren of shacks and simple, white-painted homes surrounding a raised mound of marble villas. Rich men chatted and supped wine on the roofs and verandas. Horses and bare-chested, sweat-slicked workers toiled in the tight lanes and bustling market, hauling olive crops and pine logs toward the docks. There, transport vessels jostled for space at the pale stone wharf where the materials were to be conveyed to the Athenian military shipyards and supply warehouses. Bells pealed, whips snapped, lyre music rose and so too did pale twists of scented smoke from the temples. Kassandra only entered the town when she needed to-for food or supplies she could not obtain in other ways.
And to carry out the jobs Markos lined up for her.
A misthios, they called her. A mercenary. Sometimes to carry messages, sometimes to escort shipments of stolen goods . . . more often though, to do what so few could. Her heart hardened as she thought of her most recent assignment-to a dockside den where a group of notorious bandits were hiding out. The Leonidas spear had been stained red that dark night, and the air fouled by the smell of torn guts. Every slaying was like a prickly seed of guilt that took root deep within . . . but nothing she had done for Markos compared to the twisted, gnarled oak sown on that night of her youth on the edge of the abyss, and the two deaths that had changed her life forever.
She shook her head to prevent the memories from taking hold and thought instead of her empty purse. Markos had yet again wriggled out of paying her when she had returned to him to report her successful efforts at the dockside hideout. How much did he owe her now? She felt her hackles rising. He's a scumbag, a crook, a filthy . . .
Another memory staggered across her spiraling thoughts-her first moments on this green island, twenty years ago. The day Markos had found her on the stone beach north of the town, washed up beside her broken raft. She remembered his pitted, oily features and curly, greasy black hair as he beheld her. "You are a strange-looking fish." He had chuckled, patting her back as she vomited gutfuls and lungfuls of seawater. He had fed her for a time, but seemed eager to be rid of her . . . until he noticed how nimble and strong she was. "Who in all Hellas trained you to move like that? I could use someone like you," he had remarked.
The thoughts faded as Sami fell into the distance behind them. Phoibe skipped ahead, looking up at the soaring Ikaros while "flying" a wooden toy eagle of her own, making screeching noises. When they came to a fork in the track, Phoibe raced off down the rightmost tine. "We're nearly there," she chirped over her shoulder. Kassandra gazed after her, perplexed. That route led toward Mount Ainos. An imperious, sun-bleached statue towered up on those rocky heights: Zeus, God of the Sky, crouched on one knee, holding a thunderbolt in his raised hand. The soils ringing the lower slopes were enriched with minerals washed down during the rains and so terraced vineyards decorated the base of the mountain, each lined with green vines, silvery-stone storehouses and small, red-tiled villas. "Don't be a goat, Phoibe," Kassandra called after her, gesturing to the leftmost track. "Markos's place is farther on-near the southern cove and . . ." Her words trailed off when she saw Phoibe speed on into the nearest vineyard. The estate had always been there, but the figure down by the crops in a green-and-white cloak, had not. "Markos?" she whispered.
