I, Antigone E-Book

Carlo Gébler

• Herausgeber: New Island
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

After her father's death in exile, Antigone returns to Thebes determined to set the record straight and restore her father's reputation. Tracing the histories of Oedipus and his parents Laius and Jocasta, as well as the peripheral characters of the plays who had a central role in him fulfilling his destiny, Antigone's 'biography' causes us to re-evaluate the extent to which any of us can be entirely blamed for the actions by which we will be defined. Ending with Antigone making a conscious choice to reclaim her brother's corpse from the battlefield, an act of defiance which will guarantee her own death, the book ultimately meditates on the illusion of free will, and the warning that context is everything, I, Antigone will be a major contribution to the reclaimed classics.   

Leseprobe

I, ANTIGONE

First published in 2021 by

New Island Books

Glenshesk House

10 Richview Office Park

Clonskeagh

Dublin D14 V8C4

Republic of Ireland

www.newisland.ie

Copyright © Carlo Gébler, 2021

The right of Carlo Gébler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

Print ISBN: 978-1-84840-814-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-84840-815-9

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owners.

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. In all respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Gratefully supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland

New Island Books is a member of Publishing Ireland.

ANTIGONE: Sirs, sirs, you are just and reverent men;

Though you refuse to hear my poor blind father,

Because of the things he is known to have done –

Though they were none of his own devising –

Yet have some pity for me, I beseech you!

Only for my father’s sake I am pleading.

Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles

Contents

Prologue

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Book Four

Book Five

Book Six

Book Seven

Book Eight

Book Nine

Book Ten

Book Eleven

Book Twelve

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Also by Carlo Gébler

Praise For Carlo Gébler

Prologue

I, Antigone, have closed my eyes.

I hear the stylus scoring the wax tablet as the scribe inscribes my words.

I, Antigone, have closed my eyes.

Every word is to be written down. The scribe and I agreed that before we began. He writes down every word, and that includes I, Antigone, have closed my eyes.

In my head I hear the sounds of Colonus, the faraway clanging of the sheep bells, the rustling of the dry leaves of the olive trees, the chirruping of the sparrows as they bathe in the dry bitter dust of the red earth.

My voice is deep and quiet, dark and slow, like a river moving over rocks, never stopping, never ceasing, endless.

After we fled Thebes and went to Colonus together, Oedipus, my father, was miserable. I should not have done such and such, he wailed, and I should have done such and such. He felt such guilt, such shame. At the end of our time in Colonus, Hermes came to my father in his dreams and talked to him. Straight afterwards, my father told me everything Hermes had said to him, and now I shall tell you.

Like a sailor going hand over hand down a rope, I shall trace the thread of my father, the late king of Thebes. I shall show that he never intended to cause the harm he was warned he would cause, but as he struggled not to cause it, he did cause it.

He was to blame for the father-murdering and the mother-marrying and the rest of it and, at the same time, he wasn’t to blame.

He was wholly at fault and he was entirely innocent.

This is true of us all if we only knew it. His fate is everyone’s.

In the dark making place deep within me, the sound of the sheep bells and of the fluttering leaves of the olive trees and the twittering of the sparrows bathing in the red dust is slowly quietening and, in their place, gradually growing louder, I hear waves rolling up the beach at Tyre and standing on the sand I see a shape gradually sharpening into a girl, young and lovely, smiling, gentle, supple-limbed …

All I need to do now is speak what I see and hear. The scribe will write everything down and what would otherwise be erased by time will become permanent.

BOOK ONE

Europa, brown-skinned and brown-eyed, wore a long, loose white shift and a chaplet of red and yellow flowers on her head. She was squinting out to sea, watching a dark spot moving towards her. Originally, she’d thought it was a seal but now, what was this? Instead of a long snout, round eyes and a smooth domed head, she saw a blunt mouth, a broad face and blade-like horns sticking up at the sky. It was not a seal. It was a bull swimming in.

The animal reached the shallows and began to wade. When he got onto dry sand he stopped and shook himself. The heavy fold of skin under his neck was flung now this way, now that, like a heavy, wet piece of leather, and tiny water droplets flew out in every direction from his body. For a moment these hung in the air and caught the light – they were like little silver beads, Europa thought – and then they vanished.

The bull stopped shaking himself and ambled off. With each step his hooves sank straight down, like a pestle into grains in a mortar, and in the sand behind him two lines of hoof-shaped holes appeared. His direction, Europa noticed, wasn’t towards her but slantwise along the beach.

The bull stopped, lifted his head and gazed at Europa. His look seemed – what? – surprised. Yes, surprised, she decided. Then he pivoted slowly round until he was facing out to sea, bent his back legs and sank down onto the sand.

Europa heard the sea and, coming from the bull, low moans. His pelt looked beautifully smooth. She wanted to stroke him, as she might a horse or a ferret.

She began to take small steps forward. Her tread was light. Unlike the bull, she left no marks on the sand. Closer, closer, closer she went, until she was right by the bull. She smelt his odour, like a cow’s, but stronger, meatier. She saw how thick his legs were, and how substantial his tail was. It was like a ship’s cable and she imagined it would be hard to lift. She saw his chest rising and falling and she heard the air going in and out, in and out.

The bull lifted his huge head and looked at her and, if she wasn’t mistaken … No, she wasn’t … He was looking at the chaplet of flowers on her head.

She knelt down near his head, took off her chaplet, separated a few flowers and offered these on her palm. The bull sniffed her offering and opened his mouth, revealing his flat, square teeth and his red, wet tongue. She laid the flowers along his dark, thick bottom lip, stems inwards, blooms outwards, all the way round, from one side of the mouth to the other. When she finished the bull closed his mouth gently and she stretched the chaplet over his horns and worked it down to his forehead.

She stroked his neck. The pelt was smooth and warm. The bull shrugged and put his face to her stroking hand and from his two moist, black nostrils, warm air furled out and ran backward and forwards like water over her knuckles and around her fingers. Then, slowly, the bull moved his nostrils up the length of left forearm to her elbow and then on to her shoulder and then to the side of her neck, her chin, and finally her cheek. His breath smelt of warm grass. She felt calm and still. She could put her head down, she thought and sleep. Well, why not? What a perfect thing to do.

She put her right hand on the neck and her cheek on her palm, her own little pillow of bone and skin. The smell of animal and salt and the bull’s ribcage going up, going down, and the heart beating away behind … She closed her eyes and began to slide …

When he heard Europa’s breathing, slow and quiet and gentle, the bull – who was in fact the great god Zeus – gently shook the sleeping Europa onto his back, stretched out full length, her head on his neck and her feet by his tail. Then he walked back out into the sea, spat out the flowers Europa had put in his mouth and launched himself forward.

At the end of the afternoon when Europa did not return home, as she had done every day of her life up until then, Cadmus, the youngest, stood with his brothers in the courtyard of his father Agenor’s palace.

‘Find your sister,’ Agenor shouted at his sons.

The brothers, with the exception of Cadmus, hurried off in different directions to search for their sister. Cadmus, who was the most attached to her, thought he’d be better asking his father’s cowherd, who by chance was just in front of the palace driving some cows.

‘Did you see my sister today?’ Cadmus asked.

‘I did,’ said the cowherd. ‘I saw her this morning.’

‘Where?’

‘Heading for the beach.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes, alone.’

‘Were you on the beach yourself?’

Cadmus knew that sometimes the cowherd brought his animals down to the sea.

‘Not today,’ said the cowherd. ‘I had all the animals inland.’

Cadmus set off along the track that went down to the sea. On the way he passed some trees where doves were roosting. Their cooing sounded to him like a deep and reassuring purr, like a lion might be heard to make, a lion that was content and at peace and was stretched, half-asleep, in the shade. Was it a good omen, he wondered, to hear this? He hoped so.

He passed beyond the trees and there, ahead of him, stretched the beach. In the bright day the sand was yellow but now the light was fading it was a light grey. He went on and underfoot earth gave way to sand. He’d arrived, right at the beach’s edge. A great swarm of small black birds, disturbed by his sudden appearance, jumped into the air, flitted about and settled again a little way off.

He moved over the sand. It still held heat from the sun. He could feel the warmth off it. He looked around. The beach was empty. There was nobody in any direction. Nor were there any footprints. He did notice, however, that in one spot the sand appeared disturbed. He went to look and saw some sort of creature had been sitting there, and there were holes in the sand nearby. They were like the hoof marks made by cows, which he’d noticed before when his father’s cows were on the beach. He put his hand into one. It was deep enough to take his whole hand, right up to his wrist. No cow could have made a mark that deep. The animal who made this was bigger and heavier. A bull, perhaps?

He stood up and followed the hoof marks. They led out of the sea to where the sand was flattened and then back to the sea. A bull, if he was right that it was a bull, had come out of the sea and then gone back into it. That didn’t make sense.

He walked down to the foam, which marked the line between dry and wet, and looked out. The sky was purple and the sea was very still. He saw nothing of his sister. He saw just sea and sky.

Far out at sea and well out of Cadmus’s sight, the bull swept his legs backwards and forwards. His strokes were unhurried but powerful and they moved him on, back the way he had come. Europa, lying asleep on his back well above the water line, was oblivious of where she was and what was happening until a splash fell on her cheek and roused her. Then, though she was still half-asleep, she heard a lapping sound, like a boat’s bow might make curving through water, and simultaneously she felt movement beneath her. This made no sense. She opened her eyes and saw, just below her head, the grey, green, wine-coloured sea, the way it ran into the horizon for as far as she could see. She shouldn’t be seeing the sea unfurling in front of her like this. She should be looking out to sea.

She panicked. She sat up and saw they were heading towards the sinking sun. She looked behind. She saw no beach. She saw no shore. All she saw was sea.

‘Turn around,’ she shouted. ‘Take me back!’

She felt the bull’s legs moving and his shoulders see-sawing below. She stared down through the clear water at the sandy seabed far below. If she jumped now she would find nothing firm to hold her up. If she jumped now she would go down to the bottom, like a stone. She could not swim.

‘Turn back,’ Europa shouted. ‘Turn back!’

She pounded the bull’s shoulders with her right hand but he ignored her and swam on, his legs under water moving fiercely, his head jerking backwards and forwards as he pulled himself onwards, his eye fixed on the dark line far ahead, where the sea met the sky.

Cadmus returned to his father’s palace at dusk and found the cowherd he’d spoken to before. He was sitting on a stool outside the stables, whittling a piece of wood.

‘Did you have a bull on the beach today?’ Cadmus asked.

‘I had no animal on the beach today,’ said the cowherd. ‘I told you.’

Cadmus went on to the palace and into the hall. It was dark by now. The lamps had been lit. Their flickering lights were pale and small in the darkness. His father and his brothers were standing, waiting.

‘I know she was on the beach today,’ said Cadmus, ‘because the cowherd told me he saw her heading for the beach this morning, but when I went to look just now there was no sign she’d been there. But something had been there. In one place the sand was flattened and I think that’s where it sat down. And there were hoof marks, which led to and from there to the sea. I’d like to say these were a bull’s, except when has a bull ever swum ashore, sat for a while, then got back into the sea and swum away again?’

Agenor questioned his son. It was his belief his daughter had been seized by passing sailors and all his questions flowed from this assumption. Were there really no footprints in the sand? he demanded. No sign a boat had beached? No signs of a struggle? No discarded weapons? No lost sandals? Nothing?

‘No, nothing,’ said Cadmus.

More questions followed but neither Cadmus nor his brothers had any answers to give.

‘My daughter was here this morning and she is not here now,’ said Agenor. He spoke quietly but his sons all felt the pressure under his words, a mix of grief and anger and rage.

‘She is gone but she would never have left of her own accord,’ said Agenor. ‘She would never do something like that. It isn’t in her nature. This leaves only one explanation. She was taken. My sons, you will scatter in all directions. You will find her and bring her home. None of you will return unless it is to bring her back to me. That is my final word. Now, go and prepare to search for her.’

In the morning, bobbing in the sea around her, Europa saw bits of trees, bushes, plants. There were birds overhead and fragments of their cries drifted down and, in the distance, she saw a smudge where the sea met the sky. As the bull swam this thickened and darkened, and eventually she made out a sandy beach like the one she had been abducted from, with trees and rocks and hills behind.

As they approached, she planned. As soon as they were in the shallows she would jump. The sea’s floor would be under her feet and she would sprint a little bit sideways and mostly forwards. She would lift her knees high, just as she did when she ran in the surf at Tyre. She would be fast and the advantage would be hers. She’d be on two legs. The bull would be on four. She was fresh. He was tired.

In a few paces she’d reach the shore. Then she’d really start to sprint. She’d speed up the shelving beach, all the way to the pine trees. She’d find a good one, with low branches. She’d scramble up. It would be like going up a ladder. And once she’d reached a safe perch, she would be able to gaze down on the bull circling below, huffing and bellowing, perhaps banging his head on the trunk but unable to reach her. How could he? He was a hoofed creature, while she had hands and feet.

The bulk below shuddered. The broad back shrank. The pelt melted and feathers showed instead. The thick neck elongated, becoming long and sinuous. The heavy head collapsed into a small domed form with oval-shaped eyes at the side, each with a yellow iris and a heavy black pupil. A beak, yellow, hooked, vicious, showed ahead. Europa knew exactly what kind of a creature this was. She had often watched them wheeling in the skies over Tyre. It was an eagle and she was on his back.

The bird sprung out of the water and into the air, spread his wings and rose upwards. She gripped the neck feathers. She must not slip. The fall would kill her.

She looked down. The earth was far from her and the eagle was climbing, heading over the very trees she had been intending to run for, swooping inland and carrying her away …

BOOK TWO

Cadmus and his companions sailed west to Crete, made landfall and searched the island on foot for Europa. They didn’t find her. They went on to Greece where they continued their search, again on foot, and again with no success. Eventually, though it had never been Cadmus’s intention to come here, the party found themselves at the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi.

‘Well,’ said Cadmus, ‘having looked for my sister and failed to find her, I might as well ask the Pythia what I should do next, seeing as I am here…’

Cadmus offered himself as a supplicant. He paid his fee. He was interrogated by the priests. He gave them his question. His question was judged worthy. He paid a further fee. He offered sacred cake at the altar. He entered the temple’s grounds, taking a fat sheep. He sacrificed the animal in the proper way by cutting its throat. He captured the sheep’s blood in a ceremonial bowl. He hung the carcass up by its back legs from a tripod, then skinned it, cleaned it out and dismembered it. He wrapped its thighs in folds of fat, laid these on the ceremonial fire with raw meat on top and burnt them. He sprinkled the animal’s blood on the flames and the blood hissed. He cut what remained of the carcass into small pieces, pierced these with skewers and roasted them. He distributed the cooked meat amongst temple staff and Delphians who lived entirely on the food they received from supplicants like himself. He drew a lot to determine his place in the line. His turn would not be for a while. He found a seat in the forecourt in front of the temple. He sat and smelt the strong smell of mutton that hung in the air.

A supplicant, fresh from his interview with the Pythia, came out of the temple and passed in front of Cadmus. He was weeping and making loud little gasps.

The next supplicant was led in. A little later this supplicant emerged and passed Cadmus. He was laughing.

This in and out process repeated as supplicants were led in and out. Cadmus saw nobody weeping or laughing again. The subsequent supplicants Cadmus saw all had still, silent faces when they came out and it struck Cadmus that they all had a strange way of walking too, as if they were carrying something precious, which they didn’t want to drop.

At last his turn came. A priest led him into the temple. The interior was dark. There was another smell along with that of mutton, something sweet but also putrid. He’d never smelt anything like it. As the priest led him forward he began to feel odd. He was in a dream, but awake.

The priest took his hand and together, step by step, they descended steps. As they descended the sweet, putrid odour grew stronger and he sensed his body had lost its bulk and had become so light it would blow away if a breeze blew. At the same time, he felt his head and his feet were drifting apart, like two floating objects borne out to sea on the tide in different directions. His tongue was dry. He couldn’t stop swallowing. He saw the darkness through which he was gliding was full of silver flashes and he heard strange whispers.

They reached the bottom. He was now twice as tall as he had been. He wondered about his head. Would it strike the ceiling? He looked up. He saw nothing. There was nothing. His head was safe. They were in a space that was dark and windowless. There was something in the middle of the space and the priest led him forward towards it. He couldn’t see at first what they were approaching because it was dark but when they got close, he saw that it was a drape, one of several that hung down, screening something. On the far side was the adytum, the inner sanctum of the temple. The Pythia was in there. He felt frightened at the thought of meeting her. He also felt joyful.

The priest tugged the edge of one of the hanging drapes and ushered him forward. He stepped through. The priest followed and let the drape fall behind. The space was dark and smelt of hot pitch as well as the strange, sweet, putrid odour. There were two burning brands and that was all. Their light was wavering.

The priest gestured. The Pythia was there, right in the middle, dimly visible. He stepped up and peered. His eyes adjusted. She was an old, heavy woman in a young girl’s short white dress, with a scarf over her head covering most of her hair. She sat on a broad bronze seat supported by a gilded tripod. In her left hand she held a libation vessel, a flat open bowl with Kassotis spring water in it, and in her right hand she held a stem of laurel with its unmistakable dark green leaves. Her knuckles were huge, her face was lined, her mouth was open and he saw that a tooth at the top and on the left was missing. Her earrings were heavy and her lobes drooped with the weight of them. Her eyes were dark and impenetrable.

The Pythia closed her eyes and dropped her head and shuddered. The god was entering into her, Cadmus thought. Then she went still. The god was in her. The god was waiting. The god was ready.

The priest stepped up to the Pythia and whispered into her ear. She opened her eyes but kept her face down, staring into the water. The priest touched his arm.

‘Go on,’ said the priest.

He told his story: His sister, Europa, had vanished from the beach at Tyre. He had been searching for her but he had failed to find her. What was he to do? Where was he to look?

‘You will not look anymore,’ said the Pythia. ‘You are done with searching.’ This was the Pythia’s voice, thought Cadmus, but the words were the god’s words. He was hearing the god speaking in a woman’s voice.

‘Here is what you now do,’ the Pythia continued. ‘Leave here and buy a cow immediately. March the animal away and don’t let her stop or rest until she flops down with exhaustion. And where that is, build a city. On that spot.’

‘Where is my sister?’ said Cadmus.

The priest jogged his arm. That wasn’t the agreed question.

The Pythia looked up at him, stared for a moment, then closed her eyes and shuddered. The god was leaving her, Cadmus thought. What Cadmus didn’t know was this. The Pythia had lost two husbands and three children before she came to be the Oracle, but the anguish caused by the loss of her loved ones was nothing compared to what she felt every time the god withdrew. This was a desolating experience, and moreover one that she had to endure many times over every day.

The Pythia opened her eyes. The god was gone. She was herself again. He felt the priest touch his wrist. ‘Come,’ said the priest. ‘We leave now.’

Cadmus rejoined his companions. He told them what the Pythia had said he must do. They left the temple’s grounds together and set off along the road that went south to Phocis. After a while they spotted a herd of cows ahead and they heard the clanking noise of the bells hung around the animals’ necks, and the raucous cries of the cowherds watching over the beasts.

Cadmus and his companions moved closer. They heard the clip-clop of hooves on the ground and the occasional sound of horn striking stone. They smelt the cows’ muck, their milky breath and their dusty pelts. They came closer again. They heard the extraordinary sound of hundreds of sets of teeth grinding the grass, reducing it to wet, green cud.

Cadmus went up to a cowherd. The fellow had a long brown face and an egg-shaped lump right in the middle of his forehead. ‘Will you sell me a cow?’ Cadmus asked.

‘I can’t,’ said the cowherd. ‘My master, King Pelagon, wouldn’t like it if I sold an animal without his agreement.’

 Cadmus stared at the man’s face and imagined a god pinching the cowherd’s brow with finger and thumb to make the swelling.

‘He won’t be displeased when he learns what I’ve paid,’ said Cadmus. He named a figure that was far bigger than had ever been paid for a cow since cows and men had come together.

‘Wait,’ said the cowherd.

The cowherd went and gathered the other cowherds around him. Cadmus and his companions heard them all muttering quietly but it was impossible to follow what was being said.

The cowherd returned.

‘You like my offer, don’t you?’ Cadmus said.

The cowherd nodded. Cadmus wondered if the lump on the cowherd’s forehead might be soft not hard and whether, if he touched it, it would pop back into his head.

‘She’s the one I want.’ Cadmus indicated a small, sturdy, solid, hornless cow. She had a short grey coat and, on each flank, a full moon, white and perfect.

The cowherd nodded as if this were not a surprise. He turned to the other cowherds. ‘He wants the one with the moons on her flanks,’ he said.

His fellow cowherds nodded and shrugged and one shouted, ‘Of course he does. What other cow would he want but her?’

The price was paid. A halter was fetched and fitted.

Cadmus and his companions set off with the cow with the two moons. They walked for the rest of the day. They took it in turns to hold the halter and haul the cow onwards. The cow grew gradually more and more sullen, yet still she kept going, or let herself be kept going.

The sun left the sky. Dusk came on and the nightjars came out and their trilling cries filled the cooling air. Then it was night. No moon. Everything black. Bats swooping. Stars bright above. Still they went on, the cow holding back, Cadmus and his companions pulling her on. Dawn came. The edge of the sky lightened. They passed out of Phocis and entered Boeotia.

‘She’s tired but not yet tired enough,’ one of Cadmus’s companions said, and the others laughed.

‘She’ll tire in the end,’ said Cadmus. ‘She must.’

The sun rose. The air grew warmer.

‘It can’t be long now,’ said someone.

‘If she doesn’t sit down soon, I’m going to sit down myself,’ said someone else. More laughter.

‘Come on, moon beast,’ said a third, ‘put us out of our misery. Just sit down.’

The cow bellowed, the noise low and plaintive. Chirping lightly, two sparrows rolled in the dust at the side of the road. 

They went on. Time after time it seemed the cow might sit down, but then she didn’t. She kept going or she let herself be kept going.

In the sky the sun reached its zenith and then started to decline. The shadows on the ground, which had been at their shortest, began to lengthen. It was very hot. An eagle circled in the sky and every man below felt a pang of envy. Every man wished he could be that eagle, circling in the sky instead of being on the earth with his sore hands and his dusty lips, his tired arms and his bruised feet.

The cow made a sound. It was not a bellow but a wail. She put her head down and raised her shoulders.

‘She’s going,’ said one of Cadmus’s companions. This man had been a cowherd in his youth. He knew what the movement of the head and shoulders meant.

The cow folded her front fetlocks and settled her pasterns flat on the ground. She collapsed her back legs and sank down onto her right hip. She tucked her front legs under and stuck her back legs out. She was finally down.

There was a round of applause, a couple of whistles. ‘She won’t be going anywhere, I believe,’ one of Cadmus’s companions shouted. The halter’s end was dropped. The cow snorted and sighed.

‘A good spot indeed,’ said Cadmus. ‘And now, having found our place, the goddess must have her due.’

He meant Athene, helper of all involved in heroic endeavour, without whose aid they would never have reached where they were, and without whose aid Cadmus would never be able to do what he had to do next. A sacrifice must be made in her honour. The cow with the two moons must be killed, her blood collected, her body skinned, her carcass butchered, her flesh roasted and the choicest parts offered in the right and fitting way to the goddess. But first, lustral water must be found so the animal might be cleansed in the ritual of purification before her sacrifice. 

Cadmus glanced around him. Off on one side of the road, beyond a stretch of ragged ground strewn with rocks and bushes, he saw a forest, its trees heavy and old and thick. ‘There should be water in there,’ he said. ‘Go and see.’

His companions picked their way across the ground and disappeared into the trees.

The sun was hot in the sky. The air was dense and motionless. The only sound was that of cicadas, the noise they made like hundreds of wooden sticks beating on hundreds of sheets of bronze. Cadmus was covered with a slick of sweat. He tugged his sodden smock away from his chest and blew on his bony collarbone. He thought of the pool his companions might find, and imagined splashing water onto his face, and the shocking coldness of it.

In the distance he heard cries. It was his companions. They were shouting. He ran through the light and the heat and slipped into the forest where the light was dappled and the air was cold. It was like diving underwater.

Over on his left, a cry came from a tumble of green rocks, after which, nothing. He began to tread through the murky light towards where the sound had come from. Faintly to begin with but getting louder, he heard the plashing of water. His companions must be somewhere nearby, he thought, yet it didn’t make sense that he couldn’t hear anything. If lions had attacked them the lions would still be roaring. If boars were to blame he’d be hearing squealing and screeching. And if bandits had waylaid his companions, he’d be hearing them laughing and cursing. But he heard nothing except the sound of water and, very far away, a kite, which had started screeching.

He stopped. Ahead of him there was something sticking out from the end of a fallen tree. It could be a foot with a brown leather sandal lashed onto it with leather ties, but he couldn’t be quite sure because of the shadows and the murk.

His heart began beating. He would change direction. He would go around the top end of the fallen tree and approach the foot from the far side. The sound of plashing. The sound of the kite. The sound of the dry stuff of the forest underfoot as it gave way when he trod it down. The kite stopped. Now just plashing and his footsteps. The silence was worrying. Nowhere should be so quiet.

He rounded the top of the tree and stopped. He was looking at a body without its head. It ended at the neck. He saw cartilage and muscle. He saw windpipe and tubing. The head was lying on the ground a few feet away. The cheeks and nose were smeared with blood. The eyes were open. The mouth was open. Some of the teeth were broken. An ear was missing. He knew who this was despite the blood and the injuries. It was the companion who’d said, ‘She’s tired but not yet tired enough,’ and made the others laugh.

‘Cadmus!’ he heard someone shout.

He turned to where the cry came from and saw another of his companions jump from a tree. He landed badly. He tumbled forward and sprawled on the ground. This was the man who’d said, ‘If she doesn’t sit down soon, I’m going to sit down myself.’ The man struggled back to his feet and started to lurch towards Cadmus. He was hurt. There was something behind him. It was dark and quick. It was the thickness of a man and the length of several men. It reared up behind his companion, then lunged forward and punched the man hard between his shoulder blades, a walloping blow.

The man toppled over. The vast shape became something like a serpent, heavy and black. It wrapped itself about the man’s body with incredible speed. The man opened his mouth. But the serpent had him squeezed so hard in his coils that the man had no air in him, and so he couldn’t speak. He gasped. His face went red, like he’d caught fire.