The Iron Grail (39 page)

‘Here they go. Here they go. Do you see, Antiokus? Seeking. Seeking. Blow wind blow! Up sail!’ he cried as he played. ‘Ship oars, and shit over the side. Quickly, quickly, while you have the chance. The gods alone know what might be down there watching. The wind might drop. Catch the breeze. Jason sails the great unknown. My mother waits. My mother waits. Over here, Antiokus, in Hydraland. Do you see?’

A woman’s effigy in straw draped in black moleskin stood on a lump of red granite. ‘Boiling up her strange brew. Making the smoke that gives you dreams. Ready for rescue from the warped king who keeps her prisoner.’

He sang a little song.

‘Mother’s charms, and father’s arms,

Hold me tight, through each long night.

Charms that sing,

Arms that ring.

Time will tell.

All
must
be well.’

He seemed very happy as he played with his toys. I asked him if he had seen the ship in the bay and he shrugged.

‘I see many ships.’

‘Didn’t you recognise this one?’

‘No. Why should I? I recognised you, though.’

Had he seen his father? Would he even have recognised the man? I asked him carefully whether he had noticed anything strange about the rest of the crew, peering over the sides of the vessel.

‘Just ghosts,’ he said. ‘The sea here is full of ghosts.’ He sat up suddenly. ‘Let’s eat the fruit. I have plenty. And I can always get more for my father when he comes. And then I have something else to show you. A wild rose,’ he added with a little laugh. ‘Here you are…’ and he tossed one of the plump plums towards me, stuffing the other into his mouth with a great burst of crimson juice, laughing through the mashing of the pulp.

I was about to pursue the subject of Munda when, unexpectedly, Niiv appeared on the path, calling to me. Kinos was at once annoyed.

‘Who’s she? I didn’t invite her here!’

‘She’s a friend. She means no harm,’ I assured him.

But he rushed to a basket in the corner of the cave, fetched out two ripe plums from his hidden store and flung them at the Pohjolan woman. One struck her on the face and she screeched with shock and anger, but stood her ground. Kinos threw a tantrum. ‘I don’t know you,’ he shouted at Niiv, and then looking at me through tear-filled eyes. ‘Why did you bring her? I wanted to show you this place alone. This is my special place. This is the
Father Calling
Place, Antiokus. You told me you had lost your own father when you were young. I thought you were my special friend. It was only for your eyes.’

And with that moment of astonishingly disappointed outrage, he ran from the cave, fleet as a hound, and was lost among the whispering trees.

Niiv wiped the juice from her face, picked up the broken plum and ate it. ‘Who was
that
little brat?’ she asked. She seemed more interested in her meal than in the question.

‘Jason’s son. Little Dreamer.’

‘What? Not old enough. He’d be a man by now.’

‘I know. What are you doing here?’

‘He can’t have been Jason’s son,’ she repeated. ‘The other son was only slightly older than this one, and when we saw him he was a grown and angry man.’

‘I know. We’re in a world of phantoms. What are you doing here?’

‘I was worried about you.’ She was transparently lying. She was intrigued by what I might have been discovering. I let it pass.

On impulse, I went back into the shallow cave and picked up the woven-grass figure of Phineus. I put it back, but gathered up the effigies of the argonauts. I stole them all. They felt like desiccated grass and dried skin, but they might have been hiding the kolossoi of my old friends.

Without my old wits I couldn’t tell, so reason suggested that I should leave nothing to chance.

My belt stuffed with crumbling dolls, Niiv and I went back to the cove, where Argo waited. The boy followed us, lurking in the undergrowth, but he neither revealed himself nor railed against the theft.

Later, Mielikki whispered to me:
She says they are not the souls you seek
.

*   *   *

Once aboard, Argo cast off and found deeper water, following the line of the cliffs. I expected Jason to ask me about the boy, but he was implacable and dark. Urtha, looking relaxed at his oar, a king who had cast off his cloak of royalty, whispered, ‘Who was he? That lad?’

‘The image of Jason’s second son.’

‘I thought as much. There is a smell of Greek Land in this place. And Jason knows what he saw, he simply doesn’t accept it. He referred to the boy as a ghost. He knows he’s searching for a man. Was he a ghost?’

‘No.’

‘But not the son.’

I didn’t answer the question. I didn’t know how to at that moment. Yes, it was the son. Everything was the son. Everything was Little Dreamer. The crushed dolls in my waistband seemed to pinch at my flesh. Perhaps I had stolen them as much because I didn’t want to leave this island as to see if they were my friends’ kolossoi. There was more to learn on this intriguing sea-fortress.

I had no doubt that I’d set foot on the Island of the Wicker Men.

The wind gusted and Argo shifted on the swelling sea. The cliffs rode dramatically past, light flashing from polished marble high up among the dense trees that crowded the edges. And after a while, another bay came into sight. A youth, sitting astride a small white horse, waited there. The young man was wearing a green tunic with black edges. He wore a Greeklander helmet tipped back on his head to show his face; the helmet’s crest flowed proudly down his back, a wild horse’s mane of red. His legs, gripping the animal’s flanks, shone where they were encased in silver greaves.

As Argo dropped anchor again this young warrior turned on the beach, marking a pattern in the sand before kicking his way towards the narrow defile leading inland and disappearing from view.

I looked at Jason. He had seen everything I had seen, but he had not responded. His face was a scowl, but as he gripped the rail his hands were white.

‘Do you think that might have been your
grail
?’ I asked the man, using a word fashionable among warrior-mercenaries.

‘My what?’

‘Your small copper bowl of hope.’

‘The small copper bowl of hope and desire,’ he corrected. ‘Apollo’s
krater
, emptied of wine, filled with dreams. You mean Little Dreamer, of course.’

‘Was that your son?’

‘No,’ was Jason’s blunt reply. ‘Not him. Not that one. I’ll know him when I see him; he’ll know me.’ He gave me a searching look. ‘But I have the feeling that we’ll not sail on until you’ve been ashore. Are you learning something from this place?’

‘I am,’ I confirmed.

‘Then go ashore.’

I waded to the white sand of the cove and had hardly set foot on dry land before Niiv slipped over the side of the ship and followed.

The rider clattered back to the entrance of the defile and grinned at me, helmet now held in his hand. He had long hair and engaging eyes, a young man at ease, delighted with this new company.

‘Antiokus, as I live, laugh and cry! It’s you. Again. Years have passed, but you don’t change! Read what I marked in the sand … then come and see what I’ve built. Come and see what I’ve built! Who’s that?’ He craned forward over his steed’s nape, face glowing with curiosity as Niiv, naked, stepped on to the sand and dropped her dry robe over her head.

‘A friend of mine,’ I told the youth.

‘Hah!’ Niiv exclaimed behind me. Kinos was puzzled for a moment, then laughed.

‘You wild rover! She’s young. I think I understand. But if I don’t, who cares anyway? Come and see what I’ve built. Both of you.’

Niiv raced past me and held on to the horse’s tail as Kinos led us to his new and strange domain. Niiv was fluent in his language, and whispered to him as he rode, but Little Dreamer had ears only for my own progress through a difficult terrain, ensuring my safety; though he had eyes for the woman, eyes that shone.

Only once did our path bring us back in view of the sea and the strand. I glanced down again at the face of Medusa, roughly stamped out by the hooves of the horse. Kinos saw me looking. ‘My mother’s mark!’ he called back. ‘I don’t understand it; but it comforts me to make it. She liked snakes; and their venom; and strange herbs, potent herbs. My mother protected me at a time of great danger. She protected me often, my brother too. She gave us drinks that took us to the stars, Antiokus! I have journeyed to the stars with my mother’s help.’

‘Where is your mother now?’ I challenged him as we continued along the path.

‘Long dead, bless her heart. But she saved my life. My brother’s too. A man disguised himself as my father and tried to kill us. This was a long time ago, in the great city of Iolkos, when we were children.’ He turned on the thin saddle to look at me, riding in awkward fashion, but with ease. ‘Mother hid us carefully. My brother decided to leave this hiding place; I agreed to stay, to wait for Jason. I know he’ll come and find me. I’ve been calling for him. You were my father’s friend. Come and see what I’ve built for him.’

He turned back to a proper riding position, kicked the horse and cantered ahead, Niiv stumbling behind him. As she realised the animal might kick her, she let go of the poor beast. I caught up with her and she clung to me. ‘Where are we going?’

I had no words nor time to reassure her. I said only, ‘Step by step into a darker place than even the realm where Persephone rules.’

‘I don’t understand. Who’s Persephone?’

‘Never mind. Just watch and listen; you may see things that pass me by.’

‘What are you two chattering about?’ the brash young man called back. It was a question addressed in a mild manner. I replied that we were breathless with the pace. He grinned, slowed to a walk and led us through an olive wood, away from the sea.

After a while he swung down from the horse and tossed his helmet aside, watching us with obvious pleasure. He seemed to notice at once that Niiv’s black hair was falsely coloured, but was clearly excited by the pale tint of her eyes.

‘We have to be careful here,’ he cautioned. ‘We’re entering a dangerous valley. Keep as quiet as possible. You’ll hear the sound of a forge. Ignore it. I should have ignored it, but alas I didn’t, and there are some unpleasant creatures hunting the woods and gullies.’

As we walked along the narrow path, we were aware that we were being followed. Our pursuers were furtive. Occasionally, a gleaming gaping metal maw would peer out through the underbrush, some bright, some tarnished a dull green. Though we didn’t hear the sound of a forge as we journeyed, I caught the whiff of smelting, the occasional warm draught from a furnace somewhere close. And although the sounds from the crowded woodland were animal and hoarse, Niiv whispered to me: ‘Some of them sound as if they’re calling his name.’

At the far end of this uncomfortable gorge, Kinos looked back, clearly relieved that we had left the path behind.

‘They are quite alone, and some escape to the edge of the world, but they are always drawn back to me.’

‘What are they?’ I asked him, remembering the snapping jaws, taking a carrion bird, as we had first sailed through Ghostland.

‘Wild friends,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t really know what I was doing when I had them made. I needed friends. But
this
I must show you. Look here—’

And he led us a little further, leading the horse by the reins.

We had come out of the wood to face a high, rock wall, stretching away to left and right. The rock was carved in horizontal striations, like the planking of a ship’s hull.

With a start of surprise, I realised that that was exactly what it was.

Kinos touched an appreciative hand to Niiv’s damp cheek, tugging at a lock of her hair, then turned to me, indicating the high wall. ‘Do you see what it is?’

‘A ship?’

‘My father’s ship! Just as I remember it from the harbour; the great ship, the ship of the fleece, the ship of the argonauts! Come inside, Antiokus. Come inside and remember. This is what I have made for my father.’

The structure was enormous. As we approached, it seemed to grow in length and height. Enormous eyes had been carved on the bow; decorated round shields ran along below the rail. The images were vaguely recognisable: Hydra, Cyclops, helmets, riders, lizards, whales … all were eerily unreal. Yet recognisable.

Kinos tethered his horse, then led us to the doorway into the stone hull. We entered what, in Argo out at sea, was the Spirit of the Ship, the hidden place where fragments of all the old ships that lay at Argo’s heart were fitted into the keel. I don’t know if Kinos knew of this ancient connection, but this part of his gigantic model was rich with engraved vessels, a fleet of ships carved as if sailing to battle, fish leaping beside them, seabirds circling above their decks.

Stone men sat at benches. Each was the height of a tree. They were fashioned from white stone. Though they were shown holding the leather grips of their oars, no oars penetrated the hull. It was as if we walked through a temple of great gods as we passed between the two ranks of straining, struggling men, towards the figurehead looming from the stern, and the towering figure of a man at the steering oar, braced against the heave of the tide, stubble-chinned face set grim.

There was no mistaking Jason in those features. Nor, in the narrow, calculating eyes of the beautiful face carved as figurehead, was there any mistaking Medea.

Kinos raised his arms to indicate the argonauts. ‘I sculpted them as I remembered them, though many had left before I met them, so I used other men’s faces. But look, there is Tisaminas, there Antigos. The one with the harp is Orpheus. That one, with the lion skin, is Heracles. I heard all the stories from my father. I heard all the names. I knew of all the argonauts, even though I didn’t meet them all. Do you see that crouching man? That’s Phineus. He was the best part of the story. He betrayed the gods. They blinded him and tormented him, but he never gave up hope. He knew he would be rescued. His salvation lay in the hands of men, not gods. Though my father left him behind, in a happier state, I’ve included him on board. There, then. Do you think he’ll be pleased when he sees it?’