Chapter 2 A Familiar Song #2
She ensconced herself at a table in the corner farthest from the group of men while the barkeep poured her cup. When he brought it over to her, she said in a low voice, ‘I’ve heard Taenarum is not just famous for its marble … it is said there is a gateway here.’
The proprietor’s hand trembled as he set the cup down. He looked at her for a moment, touched his forehead, then turned away.
‘Wait.’ She reached beneath the folds of her peplos and slid a golden drachma across the table towards him. ‘There’s more where that came from,’ she lied.
There were now only three obols left in the purse she had been given in exchange for Queen Phaedra’s ring back in Corinth. She’d planned on spending the last of her wealth on a fine amphora of wine for Hylas, but this was too important.
The proprietor snatched up the coin. ‘Talk to Antigonos, he might be foolish enough to take you.’ He nodded at a bald, middle-aged fellow with a complexion like cracked leather, sat amongst the group of men. ‘But no good will come of it,’ he muttered as he shuffled away.
Danae sighed, then drained her cup. It seemed a swift return to Hylas was not to be. Summoning her mettle, she approached the group.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. May the Twelve see you and know you.’
They blinked, staring at her as though she were a statue that had just come to life, until they remembered themselves and touched their foreheads in the sacred gesture.
‘You looking for someone?’ asked a man with dark hair and bloodshot eyes.
Danae addressed the man the barkeep had pointed out. ‘Are you Antigonos?’
His chest swelled. ‘Who wants to know?’ Like the barkeep, his accent had the broad resonance of the south.
‘I’m told you can take me …’ she lowered her voice, ‘to the place beneath.’
The kapeleion fell silent. Danae glanced behind her to see the musician clutching his kithara, eyes stretched wide. The emerald-cloaked stranger had grown so still, they could have been cast from Taenarum’s green marble.
‘You don’t know what you’re asking …’ Antigonos growled.
‘I know exactly what I’m asking.’ She drew herself up, wishing she still had her black seer’s robe.
It was much easier to command respect when people believed she had the power of the gods behind her.
‘I’ll make it worth your while if you show me.
’ She flashed her purse beneath the navy folds of her dress, hoping the men couldn’t tell how empty it was.
Another of the group, a younger man with sandy hair, pale cheeks and watery blue eyes, placed a hand on Antigonos’ arm.
‘No one ever comes back from that place. I’ve heard the ghosts of all those who died haunt the tunnels.
Their tears streak down the walls, and if you touch them, you lose your mind, and there are disembodied red eyes that follow anyone who –’
‘Oh, hush, Georgios,’ an older man beside the lad knocked him over the head, ‘you’ve been paying too much heed to your grandma’s tales.’
‘Tell me where the entrance is, and I will go alone.’
Antigonos barked out a laugh and licked his teeth, eyes raking over Danae. ‘You’ll die down there without a guide, girl.’
‘I will have to risk it, if none of you are brave enough to take me.’
Antigonos bristled. ‘You calling me a coward?’
Danae shrugged. ‘I am not the one who is afraid.’
The men looked to Antigonos. He ground his teeth then said, ‘Fine, I’ll show you the way. But it will cost you.’
‘I can pay.’
Antigonos sat back and folded his arms. ‘How much?’
‘Three drachmas.’
With the swiftness of someone with far less wine inside him, Antigonos lunged forward and grabbed her purse. He scattered her remaining obols on the table.
‘Liar.’
Danae remained still as the man rose from his seat and drew so close she could smell the fish and fermented grapes on his breath.
‘Tell you what, I’m in a charitable mood. So, I’ll let you pay another way.’ He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her towards him.
Her body tensed beneath his touch, but before he could strengthen his grip, she punched him in the chest, engorging the force of the blow with a small clutch of life-threads.
Antigonos flew back, crashing through the table, scattering his companions and smacking into the wall beyond.
He slid down the stone, leaving a floor-to-ceiling crack in his wake.
Her rage died as quickly as it had flared. She had used too much of her power. No mortal save Heracles could send a man flying like that with a single blow.
‘What … a-are you?’ stammered the barkeep, a stool held out in front of him like a shield.
Danae backed away. She was such a fool. It would only be a matter of time before someone told a local priestess what they had seen. Then the Twelve would find her once more, and she would never discover what had happened to her sister.
She fled from the kapeleion, pacing through the winding streets until she was sure no one was pursuing her.
She slowed, turning into a narrow alley, then leant against the wall to catch her breath.
The sun had already begun its afternoon descent.
She’d left Hylas too long and had nothing to show for it.
Biting the inside of her lip, she tried to focus on what to do next.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of green at the end of the alley. Her eyes darkened, and she paced towards it. When she turned the corner, she found the emerald-cloaked stranger who’d been sat in the corner of the kapeleion seemingly very interested in a pair of white shutters.
She grabbed them, dragging the stranger into the shadows of the alley, and rammed them against the wall, her forearm pressed against their neck.
‘Why are you following me?’
‘Daeira, i-it’s me.’
Her heart stilled. It had been a year since she’d heard the false name she used aboard the Argo. She dropped her arm and took a step back.
The stranger removed their hood. It took Danae a moment to place the man standing before her. His once round face was pinched and had lost its youth since she’d left him with the other Argonauts outside the city of Colchis.
‘Orpheus?’ she breathed.
The musician managed a strained smile. ‘I almost didn’t recognize you back there, but when you used your power –’
Danae whipped out her knife and held it to his neck. ‘Who are you with?’
His eyes bulged. ‘N-no one.’
‘Do not lie to me,’ she pressed the blade against his flesh.
Orpheus gasped.
‘The Argonauts, are any of them here?’
‘I-I’m alone.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘The same reason … you are.’ He drew a stuttering breath. ‘To find the entrance to the Underworld … and I have. I-I can take you there.’
She released him, her pulse drumming in her ears as the musician coughed and massaged his neck.
‘If you know where it is, then why were you idling away the hours in that kapeleion?’
Orpheus blinked, his hands laced protectively around his neck.
‘I thought if I listened to the locals I might learn something useful. The way will not be easy. No mortal has yet succeeded in breaking into Hades’ kingdom.
’ Danae thought of Theseus and his claim that he’d never made it past the River Styx.
Orpheus managed a half-smile. ‘A better approach than yours, I’d wager.
People tend to be looser with their tongues if you don’t throw them against a wall. ’
Danae watched him, searching the creases of his face as though they were a map that would lead her to the truth.
It was unnerving that an Argonaut had appeared in Taenarum at the same time as her, seemingly by coincidence. Unless it was no such thing …
Wild assumptions tore through her mind. She had abandoned Jason and the others without a word, leaving them under the cover of darkness to wake and discover Dolos, the healer and Heracles’ closest friend, slain and Danae vanished.
What must they have concluded? Perhaps Orpheus thought her a murderer, and he had been ordered by Jason to seek her out and deliver retribution.
Or the musician had been lurking in Athens, and King Theseus had charged him to snare her, and, despite Hylas’ speed, he’d somehow reached Taenarum first. Or he was an agent of the Twelve, sent to ambush her where the harpies had failed.
Or perhaps the fates might be smiling on her at last.