Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE GREAT HUNT BEGINS

ORION INSISTED ON LEAVING at dawn. Only a few servants were bustling about at that time, more interested in their work than the hunting party gathered in the courtyard. The majority of the Tegeans were still sleeping off the banquet.

Prince Ancaeus looked as if he wished he were still abed. He wore a rough tunic, dyed green, like his nephew and Hierax. But while they were both clear-eyed, his eyes were rimmed with red and his face pale. Atalanta worried about him. A hunt was no place for a sick man.

“Perhaps we should carry you in a litter, Uncle,” Melanion suggested with a smile.

Ancaeus merely glowered. “Where are the chariots?” he complained. “Why aren’t they ready yet?”

Leaning patiently on his spears, Orion cast a disapproving eye over the battle-ax Ancaeus carried. It had a broad, curved blade and a three-foot-long wooden handle. “You’d be better served by a hunting spear, my lord,” he said. “You can’t keep an animal at bay with that. It’ll have your arm.”

“Keeping it at bay isn’t the point, is it?” Ancaeus retorted. “And a spear point can be deflected too easily.” He ran a finger down the edge of the axe. “This will shear through flesh and bone like a scythe cutting corn at harvesttime.”

“The prince likes to deliver the killing blow,” Hierax explained, his voice carefully neutral.

Suddenly Atalanta understood and felt sick with the knowledge. Ancaeus wanted to wait until his huntsmen had the mantiger helpless before he went anywhere near it. But as the ranking noble, he would insist on the honor of killing the beast for himself. She wondered briefly what Orion thought of such a plan. She thought she could guess.

There was a brief flurry at the entrance to the palace, and King Iasus appeared with his queen.

In the weak morning light, she realized that there was something familiar about the queen, something about the eyes and nose that she hadn’t noticed in the firelight.

But I never met her before yesterday, Atalanta told herself. What is it that’s so familiar? Then she realized that she’d seen that same coloration, those same olive-shaped eyes, the same tilt of nose whenever she bent over a pool of water and beheld her own reflection.

Atalanta turned away from the royal family and shook her head. No, she scolded herself. This is only imagination, Atalanta. The royal couple had no children. Melanion said so and surely he would know.

“You have decided where to begin the hunt then?” King Iasus asked Orion.

“Yes, Hierax and I have been going over the various sites of the attacks,” Orion replied. “Here, sire, is a rough map of what we know.” He drew on the loose ground with his sandal. Atalanta had never seen any such thing before, and it looked like nothing more than a squiggle of lines.

“See, Your Majesty, there is a pattern to the way the beast kills,” Orion said. “There. There. There. There. There.” His sandal pointed out places on the rough map. “It moves out of the southwestern mountains, northward around the kingdom, then back again to the south. After that there is always a lull. The beast’s last kill was here.” He jammed the butt end of one of his spears at a point about a hand’s span from Eteos. “Knowing the pattern will let us find him.”

Squinting her eyes, Atalanta tried to understand what the men seemed to know. The pointed shapes Orion called mountains, the circles for Tegea and Eteos, the snaking lines of road and river, and the northern movement of the beast. I must learn more about maps, she told herself. I’ll make Orion teach me.

Orion continued, “The mantiger and creatures like it always have a lair, and in this case I am guessing it’s in the mountains of the southwest. Melanion tells me that there are many caves there.” His sandal touched the leftmost area of the squiggles.

Suddenly the whole thing made sense to Atalanta.

“That’s where we’ll have our best chance of catching up with the mantiger,” Orion said.

“While it’s denned,” Atalanta whispered to herself.

“Succeed in this and any reward you care to name will be yours,” said the king, leaning in close to Orion and speaking in a low voice. “Just remove this curse from my kingdom.”

Queen Clymene left her husband’s side and walked toward Atalanta with an expression of grave concern on her face.

Does she recognize her face in mine? Atalanta wondered. The thought actually alarmed her. How could she like this queen, if it turned out she was the one who’d left Atalanta on the hillside?

“I am unhappy that this girl should be going on such a hazardous expedition,” said the queen to Orion. “She’s far too young.”

“It was her own choice,” Orion said, “and I can’t deny her a place in the hunt. It’s a point of honor.”

The queen reached out a tentative hand to touch Atalanta’s hair. “Men and their honor.” The queen sniffed. “As if being a hero was all there is to life.” She turned to Atalanta again. “Then, child, you must make the decision for him. The slaying of the mantiger is best left to these hunters. There is no need for you to go. You’re no Artemis. We have quarters here in the palace where you can stay until your friends return.”

Atalanta recoiled from the queen’s touch, her heart hammering in alarm. All at once the palace seemed like a trap to her, one that would spring shut and keep her forever from the woods she loved.

“No, I’m going with Evenor and Orion,” she said abruptly. “I belong with them. I don’t belong here.”

The queen looked by turns angry, puzzled, and hurt by the hostile reaction. She turned to her husband. “Iasus, can’t you…?”

The king waved her aside with a movement of his hand. “This girl’s fate is no concern of ours,” he said as the chariots arrived.

“Here are our rides,” said Evenor.

“Good,” Atalanta said. “Now the hunt can begin.” Even riding in a chariot is better, she thought, than facing the mystery that lies here in Tegea.

Orion turned to the king and queen. Striking himself on the chest with his fist, he proclaimed, “I, Orion, son of Hyrieus, dedicate this hunt to you, King Iasus, and all your kingdom.”

Everyone cheered.

The journey to the southwest lasted two bone-wrenching days that took them through fertile valleys where fields of corn danced in the breeze. They drove past wandering herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and groups of scampering goats. They wound through stands of oak, fir, and cypress, and had to ford two small rivers. It was Melanion who knew the way.

When they finally reached the foothills of the southwestern mountains, the hunting party dismounted, leaving the charioteers to return to Tegea.

Atalanta wasn’t sorry to see them go.

Each member of the hunting party was to carry packs of food and lengths of rope and cord to fashion into snares. Prince Ancaeus was none too happy about this, even though Hierax had volunteered to carry much of his equipment and Melanion took over the care of his uncle’s food.

“Ah, Uncle, as the poet sings—I’ll be ant to your grasshopper,” Melanion said, laughing.

“We could have brought servants to carry all of this for us,” Prince Ancaeus pointed out.

“More mouths to feed,” said Orion. “More feet to give us away with a careless step.” He turned and added under his breath so that only Atalanta, who was standing by his side, heard, “More idiots to protect.”

She was shocked at what he said, more shocked because she agreed with him.

“So what do we do now?” Evenor asked, coming over to Orion. The others joined him.

“Spread out into a line, twenty yards between each hunter,” said Orion. “We’ll move up into the hills looking carefully for any sign of our quarry. Watch out especially for tracks, spoor, a feather from one of its wings. Look out for any animals that have been savagely butchered, their hair and teeth, and bones.”

“What if we spot the mantiger itself?” asked Melanion, who was chewing on a stalk of grass.

“If that happens, then scream for me,” Orion ordered emphatically. “And quickly!”

“I shall be quickness entire,” Melanion responded. “Shall I take the right flank?”

Orion shot him a hard look. “Now, keep in contact with those to either side of you by calling out at regular intervals. At noon, when the sun is high in the sky, we’ll gather together to make reports and eat. Then we’ll resume the search.”

By afternoon Atalanta was beginning to wonder if Orion had made a mistake. For all the tales that were told about him, he was still just a man and as likely to be wrong as any other. Certainly she’d found nothing to indicate they were on the mantiger’s track. No prints, no feathers, no spoor. And more importantly—no butchered animals. At noon the others had reported the same lack of success.

She could only hope that some other member of the party would pick up a trail by nightfall.

All at once she heard a movement behind her. She waited, pretending to be unaware of its approach, then spun around in an instant, spear poised to throw.

“Melanion!” She lowered the spear but kept the spearhead pointed at his middle. “Of all the muddleheaded…Why are you sneaking up on me?” she demanded. “You should be checking your patch of forest.”

Melanion shrugged. “All I’ve come across out here are some bees and a few mice. Have you found anything?”

“Only an idiot who should be tethered up for his own safety.” She walked briskly on, eyes scouring the ground on either side. Melanion jogged after her.

“You know, there’s something familiar about you,” he said, popping a fresh stalk of grass into his mouth and chewing on it thoughtfully. “When I first saw you at the banquet, and then again the morning we left, when you were talking to the queen, and now looking at you in this light, I have a strange tickle at the back of my mind. Something I see but yet don’t see.”

Atalanta could feel her face flush. Unaccountably her hand was clenched tightly around her spear. Too tightly. Carefully she loosened her grip. Lightly, she said, “Did you come to chase the beast or to hound me?”

“Madam, I am wounded by you,” Melanion answered. “As the poet says, a man wounded by a rabid dog sees the beast’s image in all waters.”

“I don’t know your poet, but I’m no mad dog,” she answered. “Except that I’m mad at you for interrupting me. Now will you go back to your line?” She strode quickly away to resume her part of the search.

As evening fell, the hunting party gathered to discuss their progress. No one had come across any sign of the mantiger.

Ancaeus looked around at the tree-covered slopes, the forbidding crags, the sun setting behind the looming western peaks. “We should have brought more men,” he complained. “We are too few to cover all this ground. Isn’t that right, Hierax?”

The royal huntsman nodded reluctantly, bound by duty to agree with his prince, but he said nothing. Atalanta doubted he’d spoken more than a few dozen words since they’d left Tegea, but he’d never strayed far from Ancaeus’ side, as though he were intent on guarding the prince, either from the dangers of the wild or from his own folly.

“The mantiger can only be in one place at a time,” said Orion, “so we only need to cover one place.”

“We’ve hardly seen any kind of animal at all, let alone the one we’re looking for,” said Ancaeus. “Perhaps this is the wrong place.”

“That’s the whole point,” said Orion. “Sometimes you find tracks or spoor, other times it’s what you don’t find that leads you to your prey.”

Ancaeus looked baffled. “What’s he talking about?”

Evenor answered, “This place should be rich with animals—deer and boar and rabbits and birds. Yet there are none. What Orion means is that the mantiger’s scared them off.”

Orion turned to Melanion. “You said there are caves up here.”

“Yes, lots of them,” said Melanion, pointing toward the mountains. “I’ve found mountain cats and bear and—”

Prince Ancaeus interrupted. “You’re no hunter, boy. A sluggard, yes. A parasite…”

“I’m not a hunter, Uncle, but I am a finder,” Melanion said.

“Yes, you find, then you run away.”

Orion raised his hand, which effectively stopped their quarreling. “Let’s make camp,” he said. “Any family feuds should be settled at home, not here.”

They set down their equipment in the shelter of some poplar trees, and Orion gave Melanion the job of gathering firewood with Hierax to guard him.

Atalanta was glad to see him sent off on an errand for she was afraid he might start questioning her again. Sitting down on a stone, she set her quiver and bow aside. Then she began rubbing her temples for she’d developed an ache that seemed to invade both sides of her head.

“Something’s troubling you,” Evenor said. “Is it Melanion?”

“He keeps following me around.”

Evenor chuckled. “You’ll soon have lots of young men following you around.”

“They won’t if they know what’s good for them,” Atalanta said. “But that’s not what’s bothering me. This is something about King Iasus and his brother.”

“What do you mean?” Evenor squatted next to her so that they were face-to-face.

“Well, you’ve heard Ancaeus complaining, haven’t you. He sounds like he doesn’t want to be here at all. So why did he come?”

Evenor ran his fingers through his hair. “I think he wants the glory of the hunt but none of the hard work or discomfort.”

“Maybe,” Atalanta said. “But I can’t help feeling that the king made him come.” She remembered Artemis’ voice in her dream saying, “Only your own blood can save you now.”

“Why should you think that?” Evenor asked.

Not wanting to tell him about her dream or the rumor or the statue or the image on the ring, she stood up. Head aching, she picked up her bow and started toward the trees. “I think I’ll make some use of the last of the light.”

She didn’t expect to find anything—and she was right.