Shadow-brow held her gaze, shuffled, feinting left then plunging right with a roar. Kassandra drew her weight onto one foot to let the foe hurtle past, and when he skidded and came back at her, she fell to her haunches and slashed her spear across his belly. He stumbled on a few steps, then glanced down, confused, as a writhing mass of blue-gray gut ropes slipped and slithered out into the noon light to slap down upon the dusty ground. He looked at the cavity that remained of his belly, then up at Markos and Kassandra with a confused grin, before falling face-first onto the ground.
“By the balls of Zeus,” Markos wailed, wringing his hands through his greasy curls and falling to his knees as he gawped at the two corpses. “The Cyclops will kill me for certain now.”
Kassandra hugged the weeping Phoibe tight, kissing the top of her head, drawing her hands over the girl’s ears to shield her from the discussion. “We’ll bury the bodies. Nobody will know what became of them.”
“But he will find out,” Markos groaned. “You must learn: today you cut two heads from the beast, but four will sprout to take their places. And the Cyclops’s rage will be tripled. Like any tyrant, you must either obey him utterly… or destroy him completely, don’t you see?” He swiped a dismissive hand. “I am no tutor. Perhaps one day you will find a better one.”
“And perhaps you had better set down that wineskin and let your head clear. You need to find a way to pay the Cyclops back.”
Markos’s bulging eyes searched the ether before him, his face gradually slackening in despair. Then, as if struck by an invisible lightning bolt, he jolted, rising to his feet, stomping over to seize Kassandra by the shoulders, shaking her. “That’s it, there is a way.”
Kassandra shrugged him off. “A way to earn a sackful of silver on this island? I doubt it.”
Markos’s eyes tapered. “Not silver, my dear. Obsidian.”
Kassandra stared at him blankly.
“Think. What does the Cyclops value most? His men, his land, his ships? No. His obsidian eye.” He tapped madly under one of his own eyes. “It’s even veined with gold. We steal the eye, we sell it—somewhere on the mainland, maybe, or to passing traders. Then we have our sackfuls of silver. Enough to pay off my vineyard, enough to pay you what I owe you. To feed Phoibe,” he yelped, delighted at having found an altruistic rationale at last.
“We steal the Cyclops’s eye?”
“He never wears it. It’s too valuable. He keeps it in his home.”
“His home is like a fort,” she said drily, thinking of the well-watched den on a small peninsula that sprouted from the west of the island. “Skamandrios was the last person to try to break in there. He has never been seen since.”
Both paused to reflect on the weasel-like misthios, Skamandrios, thinking of the hundred possible fates he might have suffered. Burning, flaying and gradual dismemberment were some of the Cyclops’s preferred methods of dispatching his foes. Skamandrios was hardly a great loss to society, but he had prided himself on his stealth and quickness. The Shadow, some had called him.
Kassandra shook her head clear. “But getting back to the point… we steal his eye?”
Markos cowered a little and shrugged pathetically. “You are the misthios, my dear. I would only slow you down. For this to work it is vital, vital, that you are not spotted.”
“I’m rather more concerned that he will catch me,” Kassandra said.
“He will not catch you, for he is not at his den.” Markos wagged a finger. “As you know, almost every private galley on this island has been summoned to join the Athenian fleet. The Adrestia is one of the last vessels left. The Cyclops is out on the hunt, and that galley is his prey. He has some grudge with the ship’s triearchos, I hear.”
Phoibe wriggled free of Kassandra. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“Nothing, my young girl,” Markos answered first. “Kassandra and I were just discussing how much money I owe her. She just has one last job to do for me and then she will have it all. Isn’t that right, my dear?” he asked Kassandra.
“Then we can eat like queens, night after night?” Phoibe asked.
“Aye,” Kassandra said quietly, stroking Phoibe’s hair.
“Excellent,” Markos purred. “You will stay here tonight and enjoy a full meaclass="underline" fried mullet, octopus, freshly baked loaves, yogurt, honey and pistachios and several kraters of wine. And then, a comfortable bed and a good rest. Tomorrow, you can be on your way.” Then he whispered so Phoibe would not hear, “And remember, you must not be seen or all three of us will be…” He drew a finger over his throat and stuck out his tongue.
Kassandra refused to let Markos out of her sour stare.
TWO
Despite the promised warm and soft bed, she slept not a moment, troubled by the task that lay ahead. She stared at the head of her lance, propped near the bed, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight, for what felt like hours before deciding to rise while it was still dark. Phoibe, pressed against her, did not stir. She kissed the girl’s head before swinging her legs from the bed, dressing and slipping away from the vineyard and out into the night-chilled countryside. She stayed close to the western shoreline. In the predawn gloom, she heard wild cats hissing and yowling, and kept one hand on her hunting bow as she went. The sun soon breached the horizon and spread its fiery wings across the island, combing across the hills and meadows. On one high point, she saw the neighboring island of Ithaka, weltering in the rising heat. The remains of the ancient Palace of Odysseus stood on a hillside there, fingers of light streaking through that ghostly ruin. She gazed at the crumbling palace as she always did. And who could not? It was a wistful monument to a long-dead hero, an adventurer who had traveled across the world and back, fighting in a great war with his wits as well as his weapons. She glanced around the brushland of Kephallonia with a renewed disdain. Stop dreaming. I will never get off this damned island. Here I live and here I will die.
On she went and soon she came to the root of the rugged western peninsula that struck out into the sea like a thorn. She crouched there like a hunter, sipping her water, the cicada song growing in intensity like the heat as she studied the land. The Cyclops’s hideout sat upon a flat-topped, natural mound roughly half a mile ahead, near the peninsula tip. The sprawling compound was a hideout in name only—for the Cyclops did not need to hide from anyone. A low wall closed off the estate, grass and pink geraniums sprouting from the cracks in the weathered stonework. Within, a villa stood proud, roofed with terra-cotta tiles, the pale marble façade and Doric columns painted in ochre and sea blue. She counted six of his hired thugs upon the outer walls, walking back and forth along the crude parapets, watching the countryside. Two men stood statue-still outside the eastern gatehouse, and she could see a similar gateway on the northern wall too. Worse, Kassandra realized, the ground that lay between her and the estate walls offered little cover for her approach—just a few cypress trees and olive stands, but mostly low, thin brush—and four more men strolled to and fro across this open ground, wearing wide-brimmed hats to shield their eyes from the sun, watching for any movement, and all in plain sight of each other and the men on the walls. These outlying watchmen were effectively a border, sealing off this thorn of land as if it was the Cyclops’s own country.
No way through.