A large piece of yellow cloth draped the scroll-dresser in a vain attempt to hide the excessive angle at which it now leaned. Hermione caught one end of the fabric and pulled it away. It was only drawing attention to itself and to the large gap beneath it, the very opposite of the effect she wanted to achieve. Theseus had grown used to this item of furniture and had not once remarked upon its unusual stance. It was better to change nothing. An increase by the length of a thumb joint between the wall and the back of this huge item of solid timber might not even be noticeable. Theseus had his mind on other things. Instinct told her that she ought to act quickly and the increased lean of the scroll-dresser was a risk she was now prepared to take. She was certain that she was now able to pull the thing over in one quick and almighty heave. It was only a matter of choosing her moment.
Theseus was often leaning over one or other of these balconies, she had noticed, looking down into the court below. She did not know why. He would not tell her. But it was almost as if he was playing into her hands deliberately, letting her know that he was aware of her plan and that he was willing to play her game, and this unnerved her a little. But his real motive must lie elsewhere, she knew. And his curious delight in looking at the scrolls. She could not understand it. He could not even read!
She had tried relying upon chance and good luck and felt that she could not expect any more of this than she had had already. And the final moment had so far eluded her. She might have to take a more active role in the stage direction and try to choreograph events more.
Just as the sunlight began to climb down the columns on the lowermost balcony opposite and start to illuminate the floor of the court directly, Hermione heard a movement and spotted Theseus making his way up the lowermost flight of stairs. She called his name and he acknowledged her shout. Very shortly, his head was resting against the wood panels of a cabinet and the sun streaking across his face. His feet puckered up folds on a rug as he recited.
'bo - t - ni - a'
In front of him were strange forms, like the shapes that cranes make in flight. They flew into his eyes and made patterns inside his head.
'This is pronounced - po -,' said Hermione, patiently. She stretched back into a reclining position on the wicker couch to disguise her anxiety. The rays of the sun cast shortening shadows from the balustrade across the rug on the floor. Theseus puckered the carpet once more.
'po - t - ni - a'
'Potnia,' interpreted Hermione.
'Sssshhh!' said Theseus.
'wa - ch - fro - m - a - bo - v'
'Watches from above,' said Hermione helpfully.
'Sssshhh!' exclaimed Theseus.
'Do you believe that?' he asked.
'Yes, I do,' said Hermione.
'You don't believe that there are no gods but only people?'
'Will people prevent my daughter from running in the ladies' Games at Troezen?' she asked, obliquely, unable to disguise her irritation. 'Will people bring my son back to life again? Will people carry me across the water and let me return to my friends and to my daughters?
'Who knows?' replied Theseus.
'Well, I can tell you that they won't!' said Hermione.
Theseus turned again to the manuscript.
'hoo - no - zz ' Theseus wrote. Hermione watched him. Standing suddenly, she went to the balcony and leaned over as though looking for something that she had lost. 'I thought I heard a noise,' she said. 'It was down there somewhere,' and she pointed a finger purposefully down in the direction of the floor of the court.
Theseus leaned back towards a little ornament behind him, an object in the shape of a dog with folded wings, and with a pool of dark brown cuttlefish sepia in its back. He dipped the goose quill into the ink and turned to an empty leaf of papyrus paper.
Hermione watched a bird soar across the sky above the court and land on the tip of one of the horns that adorned a line of the roofscape. 'This is a nice courtyard to stand above,' she said, encouragingly. Theseus nodded and looked up into the sky. 'There is a court at Troezen very like this,' she said. 'A little smaller perhaps. I haven't seen it for quite a while, of course.' She waited for Theseus to say something, but he was practicing a syllabic cipher on the papyrus paper. Hermione glanced out of the corner of her eye at the scroll dresser and moved with a deliberate step or two a little further along the balcony.
'I used to stand on the roof above the highest balcony of that court,' she continued, 'and gaze at the ships sailing towards the head of the gulf, towards Aegina and Athens, towards Salamis and Corinth. I used to wonder what was aboard those ships. Oil and wine from the islands, silver from Agia, perhaps wool from this island. Ships bound for home. I wonder if you can see any ships from here? Come and have a look with me!'
'Come and look at this first,' said Theseus. He had drawn a shape. Hermione went back to the couch and sat down next to him, trying to conceal her anxiety and her irritation. Theseus noticed this, picked up her legs and carefully put them into his lap. Then he held up the papyrus sheet for her to look at. Hermione leaned forward. '- lo -' she said. He drew another shape.
'- b -' said Theseus.
'- b - lo -' he wrote.
'Billow,' Hermione suggested. 'Bellow?'
'Below!' Theseus took hold of Hermione's legs and swung them violently around so that she found herself looking away from him.
'There is something I must show you,' he shouted from the top of the steps, and disappeared down them.
'Wait!' Hermione cried, as she got to her feet and made after him.
'I can't keep up!' she called, as she descended the steps. 'Come on, I have to show you quickly,' shouted Theseus.
They made their way down flights of stairs to the floor of the Court of the Verandas and down more steps to the end of the long corridor, past the silver table and into the small hall that led into the storerooms, through into the back of the first of these and up the steps to the balcony above the hall that Theseus had jumped down into during his pursuit of a month before. Along the balcony, down more steps and across this hall, along the entire length of the long dark corridor that led from it and down a spiral staircase into the small hall that fronted onto the lightcourt in which stood standing posts that seemed now to be anointed with fresh honey. On the way they met Pmele, a black lady of the Goddess of great poise and distinction. Instead of ascending from here to the upper floors, as she expected, Hermione was puzzled to find Theseus leading them along a covered walkway into a small dark hall down some more stairs and into a dark room that revealed not the way into a suite of rooms, nor a balcony nor a lightcourt but the top of another stairwell. Steps descended into blackness.
'We need light,' said Theseus. 'Wait here,' and he vanished, returning quickly with an oil lamp from the hall above. The stairway led down to a roughly hewn room with stone walls on three sides, red earth on the fourth and a slightly damp smell in the air. Beyond it was a passage that began to circle around to the right, and to descend in earth steps that were not a comfortable dimension for Hermione's stride. Theseus left them both behind and they found themselves in the dark, trying to negotiate the descent.
'Come back!' Hermione's words rang out into a space that revealed itself to be much larger than she had imagined it to be. She stopped in momentary fear. Theseus returned with the light.
Pmele turned back. 'I am not going any further,' she insisted, stumbling up two steps and twisting around again to face the light. Her terrified expression stopped Theseus in his retort and he led her back to the dimness of the level passage, then returned to Hermione.
A little further on, the steps degraded into a wooden stairway that did not feel at all secure. Theseus shone the lamp into the darkness to their right, revealing a deep blackness. A few more careful steps brought them unexpectedly to the floor of the cavern. The lamp revealed the extent of the space in which they stood and also the entrance to a tunnel, which ran into the red earth of the wall nearby. Theseus led the way into the tunnel. It extended for quite a distance in a number of twists and turns and then enlarged into a space in which they could stand comfortably. Theseus spat on his fingertip and smeared a little area of the wall of the cave. It had the consistency of paint.
'Take off your clothes,' he said to Hermione.
'What!' responded Hermione. 'My skirt is freshly laundered - where shall I put it!'
Theseus smoothed a patch of the earthen floor of the cave with his foot, making a great show of care.
'No,' Hermione repeated. Theseus took her hand and licked the tip of one of her fingers, rubbed it gently against the wall and then traced the outline of '- po -' on his chest. Hermione acquiesced, removed her skirt, folded it carefully and placed it on the ground. With a painty finger, Theseus traced the shapes of syllables on Hermione's neck, back, breasts, bottom. Then lay on his back and worked under her, painting her like Michelangelo Buonarroti might have done, in a very low Sistine Chapel. 'Ouch!' Hermione flinched as the lamp's flame scorched her abdomen. Theseus slid the stone vessel away. 'Keep still,' he admonished. He finished, stood up and admired his work.
'Back to the Court of the Verandas!' he shouted and grabbed her clothes and the lamp.
'Wait!' Hermione scrambled to her feet, began to run after him, walked after him; felt her way carefully along the dark tunnel after him. Stopped.
She was in pitch darkness.
Behind her, as though from the depths of the Earth itself, rose a faint roar which grew and echoed through the tunnel like the bellowing of a bull. The ground began to tremble beneath Hermione's feet. 'Where are you?' she called. There was no reply. She felt her way forward again. 'Where are you!' she called again, suddenly frightened. The noise behind her seemed closer.