Hylas stood watching her, a bloody stain across his snowy muzzle, his dark eyes tinged with sorrow.
Danae suddenly found she could not look at him. She scanned the ground and spotted the omphalos shard nestled in a scatter of leaves. Her heart skipped with relief, and she stooped to retrieve it, carefully wrapping it in the hem of her cloak.
‘We have to go.’ She stowed the stone away in Hylas’ saddle bag and attempted to lift it onto his back.
Hylas retreated, tossing his head.
‘I know, we both need rest, but we can’t stay here. The harpy that got away will report to its master. The Twelve will come for me …’ Her voice wavered. Despite her newly replenished life-threads, a wave of tiredness crashed over her. ‘Please, Hylas.’
The horse blinked, then took a step towards her.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly as she lifted the saddle over his wings and buckled it beneath his belly. Then she grasped a fistful of her sodden tunic and attempted to scrub the blood from his nose. Her efforts only spread the stain deeper across his white hair. She winced.
‘Sorry.’
Hylas nipped her ear, harder than usual, but still within the realms of affection. He lowered his right wing so Danae could hoist herself into the saddle. Once on his back she wound her fingers through his mane.
‘Take us to the Underworld.’
There was little in the way of shelter on Cape Taenarum, a hardy, rugged stretch of land situated on the tip of the southernmost peninsula of mainland Greece.
The sun soared high in the sky by the time Danae brought Hylas down on a rocky slope out of sight from the walled town. There were no beaches that she could spot, just the deep, dark sea on all sides, crashing against the cliffs.
She looked at Hylas, torn between her reluctance to leave him alone and exposed and the knowledge that she couldn’t walk into a strange town with a winged horse. She retrieved her purse from his saddle bag, then unclasped her cloak, shivering as the wind lanced across her skin. She set about securing the obsidian fabric to Hylas’ saddle and draped the material over his wings. It was a poor disguise, but hopefully it would be enough to give a passerby the impression of an ordinary horse.
Hylas let out a weary nicker.
She smoothed his neck. ‘I won’t be long, I promise.’
Hylas blinked, his white lashes stark against his large mahogany eyes.
Her chest twinged as she turned away from him, but as she clambered over the tufted earth towards the town of Taenarum, her thoughts narrowed to her task: find food and discover the location of the entrance to the Underworld. With no military fortifications, the stone wall around Taenarum was simple enough for a seasoned rock climber, like Danae, to scale.
Taenarum was famous for its green marble, and the town reverberated with the clanging of stonemasons’ chisels. As she and Hylas had flown in, Danae spotted several mining sites dotted around the cape. Despite the modest size of the town, the wealth this resource brought in was evident. The buildings were all fashioned from polished stone, theirfacades pristine and the roads swept clean. Many of the dwellings sported talismans above their doors crafted from the local stone: dolphins, miniature hammers, the all-seeing eye of the Twelve. Most of the people walking the streets appeared healthy and well dressed, the women favouring long, layered peplos in rich colours. It was a welcome relief that, even in the middle of the day, Taenarum was quieter than Athens at night, the pulse of the town more an amble than a sprint.
Once inside the walls, Danae clung to the shadows. At the end of the fourth street, she spotted the wooden sign of a kapeleion. She paused. Like in Athens, she would most likely find the information she needed from loose-lipped patrons deep in their cups. However, she was already garnering unwanted attention in her bloodstained, talon-torn tunic and doubted she would be welcome in the establishment dressed as she was.
She veered east, up a sloping road towards the heart of the town, until she reached a market square. Many of the shops displayed groaning stalls beneath their colourful awnings. She scoured the various merchants’ wares until she found what she was looking for.
A moment later, a rainbow of cloths arced through the air as she hurled a blast of wind to upend the table of a fabric seller. The woman screeched in dismay, hurrying to scoop the materials from the dusty ground. While several other shopkeepers clustered to her aid, Danae snatched a roll of navy woollen cloth and ran. She had enough coin to buy the wares, but with an ever-dwindling purse she had decided to only pay where she could not steal.
Once free of the bustle of the square, she darted into an alley and folded the fabric at the top, then wrapped its length around her before removing the tattered clothing beneath.Fixing it in place with the pins and rope belt from her old tunic, she fashioned herself a similar garment to the one exhibited by the women of Taenarum. Her disguise complete, she retraced her steps to the kapeleion.
The gloom inside was a welcome balm to the brightness of the day. It was a small establishment, quiet except for a group of men dominating one corner. The remnants of a plate of salted fish, flatbreads and small dish of olive oil lay between their cups. Another man sat beside the hearth, idly strumming a seven-stringed kithara. On the far side of the fire was a lone patron, the hood of their faded emerald cloak pulled low over their face, their feet twitching in time to the melody.
Danae approached the proprietor, a slight man with ebony skin. She drew an obol from the purse tucked into her belt and proffered it to him.
‘A cup of wine.’
The man eyed her, then pocketed the silver. ‘Right you are.’
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.
