Odysseus in the Serpent Maze (8 page)

“Hurry,” Odysseus said. “We have to catch Silenus before he and Mentor come to blows.”

“Wait a minute,” Penelope said, hefting the last heavy jar.

“Just kick it over and—”

“You really don’t plan ahead very well, do you?” Penelope said.

“Of course I plan.” Odysseus could feel heat rising to his cheeks. He was sure they were bright red. “How else do you think we managed to rescue you?”

“Rescue? Is
that
what you call it? Throw a rock and then run? And I bet that’s as far ahead as you’d planned.” She made a face. “Boys! Always thinking about heroics and never about what needs to happen day to day.”

Odysseus began to sputter.

“If we’re going to be in an open boat, my hero, we’ll need fresh water ourselves.” She staggered under the heavy krater, and at last Odysseus took it from her, settling it on one broad shoulder. Then he started towards the rocks.

When he looked back to see if Penelope was following, she was just stooping to pick up the dropped club, her long dark braids like thick ropes on either side of her face.

“Wait for me,” she cried.

He slowed a bit, but his pride wouldn’t let him wait.

They came upon the goat-man and Mentor about thirty feet beyond the rocks. The two were rolling about on the ground and cursing one another in steady streams of invective and bleating.

“Pillager!”

“Mortal!”

“Goat from the hind end of Hades!”

“Boy whose paaaarts have not yet grown!”

Helen had been thrown to one side, where she lay with her skirts tumbled about her, the gag partially loose. Her dishevelled curls perfectly framed her perfect face. She was crimson with outrage. And—Odysseus thought—very beautiful.

Penelope ran over to Helen and undid the bonds around her wrists. Then she ripped away the gag.

“My dress! My hair!” Helen screeched.

Penelope put her arms around her cousin for comfort. “There, there,” she crooned.

Mentor now lay exhausted on the sand, but the satyr sat up and rubbed his head, between the little horns.

“You stupid creature,” Odysseus said, setting down the krater of water. “You’ll have brought the entire pirate crew down on our heads—and for what?”

The satyr drew himself up with a dignified air—or as dignified as a mussed-up, stinking, tangle-haired, bandylegged goat-man could. “For the saaaake of a beautiful maiden,” he said. “Surely we need a few comforts for the voyaaaage.”

“
Comforts
!” screeched Helen. “I’ll
comfort
you, you immortal dunghill. My brothers will pound you into paste. My father will skin you alive and use your hide for a rug.”

Odysseus noticed that when Helen got going, she could turn a man to stone with her tongue. It certainly made the satyr wince.

“I thought she’d be graaaateful,” said Silenus.

“Now you know why she wasn’t part of my original plan.”

But Mentor was now hovering over Helen, his hands waving in the air, as if he wanted to comfort her and didn’t dare try. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Princess, are you all right?”

“Of course I’m not all right,” Helen screeched. “Bad enough to be abducted by brigands. But then to be manhandled by a misshapen goat! Did you plan this as a joke?
Did
you?”

Behind her Penelope shrugged and put her hands into the air as if to say,
Even I can’t solve this one
.

“Silenus has a boat,” Odysseus said quickly, as much to silence the screeching girl as to inform her. “We’re going to use it to get off the island and escape the pirates.”

“A boat?” Helen looked over her shoulder at her cousin, who smiled soothingly. “Why didn’t you say so before?” She stood and smoothed down her skirt. “Take me there at once.”

“Follow Silenus,” Odysseus instructed the girls. “Mentor and I will bring up the rear.” He handed the krater to Silenus, gave the knife to Mentor, and took the club from Penelope. “In case we’re found,” he said to Penelope. “That’s how
boys
plan ahead.”

Silenus hoisted the krater on to his shoulder and took off at a run. Hand in hand, Penelope and Helen went after him.

But Mentor turned, his lips tight together, a sure sign he was furious. “How could you let that brutish thing lay a hand on her?”

Odysseus sighed. “Whatever happened to ‘thank you’?”

“He’s a hairy, smelly
satyr
, Odysseus. Whatever were you thinking?”

“That hairy, smelly satyr took care of me when I could have died on the beach. That hairy, smelly satyr helped rescue you at great risk to himself. That hairy, smelly satyr has a boat.” Odysseus’ voice had got cold and old.

“What if he—”

Now Odysseus began to redden himself. “If you’d come when I told you instead of mooning over that vain little piece of Spartan honey cake, we’d be clear to the other side of the island by now.”

“
Mooning
!” Mentor’s face went grey. “I never—”

Odysseus put his hand over his heart and in a high whisper said, “Oh bea-u-te-ous maid, my heart flutters like the wings of a dove.”

Mentor took a deep breath. “She can’t help it if the gods have blessed her with surpassing beauty.”

“I wish they’d blessed her with surpassing wisdom or a surpassing sword,” Odysseus said.

Mentor pouted. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s been very nice since she found out that I’m a prince.”

Odysseus said softly, “But you’re
not
a prince, Mentor.”

“Do we have to tell her?”

Odysseus didn’t answer, but with a lift of his chin signalled Mentor to hurry on after the satyr and the girls.

“Hush,” the satyr said suddenly. His sharp ears had picked up the sound of the pirates. Abruptly he changed direction, and the others followed him into a deep hollow, where they crouched shoulder to shoulder. Pulling a ragged bush down to cover them, Silenus put a finger to his lips.

Penelope was pressed up against the satyr as a kind of shield for her cousin. She made a valiant effort to hold her breath against his stink.

Helen whispered, “I’ll never be clean again as long as I live.”

“Shut up,” Penelope said, managing to sound fierce and comforting at the same time. “Once we’re back in Sparta, you can bathe in asses’ milk every day.”

Just then they heard the pirates on the path, and they shrank even farther back into the hollow.

“How can anything that fat vanish into thin air?” asked one.

“It’s more than I can fathom,” said another.

“Come, let’s return to the ship. That Spartan spitfire is still worth more than any goat-man,” said a third,

The first one replied, “She’d better be. If the captain hadn’t had her gagged; I wager he’d have had to throw her over the side or face a mutiny.”

They laughed.

“Did you hear what she called Memnax …?”

Their voices faded as they disappeared back around the bend of the path.

As soon as they were gone, Odysseus and the others climbed out of the hollow, pulling twigs and brambles from their clothes and hair. But Helen refused to move another step.

“I’m tired, dirty and unhappy,” she said. “I have been mauled, laughed at and slandered.”

Exasperated, Odysseus snapped, “Will you shut up and get going, princess? Once those pirates find that you and Penelope are gone too, they’re going to be all over this island. Do you
want
us to be caught?”

Helen’s eyes got narrow, and she glared back at him. “You rude, exasperating pig herder. I don’t know how Prince Odysseus puts up with you, but my father will know how to deal with your insolence.”

Odysseus was in no mood for games. “
I
am Prince Odysseus,” he informed her. “And
he
”
—
he turned to glare at Mentor for a moment—“he is my companion, Mentor.”

Unbelieving, Helen turned to Mentor who nodded and lowered his eyes in shame.

“Well …” she said, then she flounced off after the satyr.

Penelope just laughed and shook her head.

“You knew all along,” Odysseus whispered.

“I guessed.”

“And didn’t tell her?”

Penelope shrugged. “Sometimes even a Spartan has to have some fun.”

The satyr led them on tiny tracks that switched back again and again until at last they emerged into a small cove where a tiny two-man fishing skiff was sheltering under a stand of willow.

“There!” he said proudly. “The boat.”

The hull of the skiff was crudely patched with wood and bark; the spindly pinewood mast looked scarcely strong enough to hold one of Helen’s skirts, much less a linen sail.

“I’d sooner go to sea in that krater,” Mentor said, pointing to the water jar.

“Where are the oars?” asked Helen.

“Is it supposed to haaaave oars?” The satyr’s face collapsed in on itself with disappointment.

“How will we steer it?” Odysseus asked.

“I’ve paaaatched up the sail,” said Silenus. “The wind can taaaake us where we will.”

“Not unless you can tell the gods which way the winds should blow,” Mentor said.

Penelope cocked her head to one side, considering. “Really, we don’t have any choice.”

“Of course we have a choice,” Helen said firmly. “We can always go back to the pirates.” She turned from them in a swirl of skirts. “They have a
proper
boat. And they don’t smell like they just climbed out of a dung pile.”

“Let her go if she wants,” Odysseus said. “We haven’t the time to argue with her.”

Penelope turned on him. “For a hero you have an awful lot to learn about courage,” she said. “I wouldn’t abandon
you
to those cut-throats just to save my own life.”

“My … own …” Odysseus sputtered and then, realising he had no answer to what Penelope had just said, closed his mouth into a thin, firm slash. He walked over to the little boat and put his shoulder to the hull and began to push it towards the water.

“Wait!” Penelope cried. “The water jar!”

Silenus galloped to the boat and snugged the krater down next to the mast.

Mentor waded into the water and started pulling the boat from the water side.

Soon the little craft was afloat.

Odysseus called over his shoulder to Penelope. “You two girls, get on board. Now.”

Helen dug in her heels and shook her head, but Penelope took a firm grip on her arm.

“Just think how angry those cut-throats will be when they find we’ve escaped, Helen,” she said.

Helen sighed, torn between pride and good sense.

“Come on,” Penelope urged. “You know this boat is our best chance of seeing home again.”

“Yes, that’s what’s so horrible,” Helen said.

Penelope pushed Helen up into the boat and then she hauled herself in.

Mentor climbed in after, and Odysseus was next.

Leaning out over the stern, Odysseus held out a hand to the satyr, who was still standing on the rocky beach. “Come on, Silenus,” he cried. “The tide is carrying us away.”

The satyr put one hoof into the sea and paled as water surged up his leg. Gritting his teeth, he advanced one step, two, until his entire goat half was under the waves.

“Come on!” Odysseus shouted again.

Penelope took up the cry.

The satyr got as far as the boat and put his hands on the side. He tried to climb in, and the little skiff tilted alarmingly.

“He’s going to drown us all!” Helen cried.

“Hush, cousin,” Penelope said. “We’re hardly three feet from shore.”

At Helen’s cry, Silenus had let go of the boat and fallen back into the water. He rose up out of the waves like some pitiable sea creature, wet strands of long grey hair hanging over his face.

“Silenus!” Odysseus cried out again. “Hurry!”

But the goat-man, coughing and spitting up brine, his body trembling in full panic, was already splashing back to the shingle. Once he reached the shore, Silenus turned a grim face to them.

“Don’t be stupid, Silenus—the pirates will find you,” Odysseus called to him.

“Don’t worry, maaaanling,” he bleated. “Goats and waaaater just don’t mix.”

The tide had now carried the boat too far out for the satyr to wade after them—even if he could have summoned up the nerve.

Odysseus lifted a hand in salute. “I will get a ship and come back for you,” he shouted. “I swear it by the gods.”

“Never swear by them, maaanling,” came the return. “They taaaake themselves too seriously.”

And then satyr and island were gone in one long swell of a wave.

T
HE LITTLE BOAT SHUDDERED
with every new wave, but the patches held. The boys managed to raise the linen sail, which was as patched as the hull. A small wind teased into the sail, filled it, and—to their delight—the boat began to skim across the water.

“We’re away!” Mentor shouted.

Screaming seabirds wheeled overhead, cheering them on.

Penelope grinned up at them, but Helen turned her head to one side and contemplated the endless sea.

It was some time later when Helen made her way to the little stern, where Odysseus and Mentor were taking turns trying to use the club as a makeshift steering oar.

“So,” Helen purred to Odysseus, “
you
are the prince.”

Odysseus nodded.

“And your father is king of Attica?”

“Ithaca. It’s an island off the coast of—”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Helen said dismissively. She pushed her curls back from her forehead. “Does he own a lot of ships?”

Odysseus paused to calculate. His father’s fleet numbered about a dozen. “Quite a lot,” he said.

“Well,” Helen said, “my father is King Tyndareus of Sparta, and he has hundreds and hundreds of ships. Right now they’re all scouring the seas for me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Odysseus muttered.

Mentor cleared his throat. “Ummm, Helen, I come from one of Ithaca’s noblest families. We have many slaves and many hectares of land, and my father fought at Thebes and—”

Helen sighed loudly, effectively silencing him. “How long have we been drifting, Prince Odysseus? It feels like forever.”

Joining them, Penelope replied, “Only half a day. See—the sun is just past the—”

“I’m sure you’re wrong,” Helen said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be so hungry. And so thirsty.” She reached for the water jar.