Castor spoke up before his twin could answer. “Stop making a fuss over nothing, Helen. These men will protect you, not steer you.”
“That’s right, Lady Helen,” the taller of the two said. “We’re your shadows, not your sheepdogs. Go anywhere you want.”
I gave him a sweet, innocent smile. Then I barked at him.
The soldiers and I watched my brothers enter Apollo’s temple. Then the taller one asked me where I’d like to go.
“I want to see Milo,” I replied. “He’s going to come with me while I look around Delphi.”
“Milo?” the other soldier echoed as we left the sanctuary grounds.
“You know, the little Calydonian,” his comrade said. “How stupid are you? It’s not like he blends in with the rest of us. A good lad, but fretful. He was up half the night worrying about how he’d ever know whether Lady Helen would need him to run errands for her while we’re at Delphi.”
“Is that right?” I asked.
The soldier nodded. “Yes, Lady Helen. It was a great kindness you did, freeing him from slavery, but now gratitude’s made him enslave himself to you. You’ve got a fine servant in that boy.”
“Not forever,” I said. “Right now there’s no choice about it—he’s got no family, no way to feed himself—but once we get home I’ll apprentice him to one of the palace craftsmen. Then he can live his own life.”
“A jug of wine says he’ll only be happy if he can live it close to her,” the first soldier muttered to the other, but when I demanded he repeat his words to my face, he claimed he’d said nothing at all.
My sheepdogs took me to the place where Milo was staying along with some of their companions. Even if the senior priest wanted his cousin’s inn alone to get our business, it wasn’t big enough to accommodate all of our Spartan guards together, so they’d split up into smaller groups staying at a handful of different lodgings.
As soon as Milo heard I had come for him, he ran out of the inn, overjoyed. “Lady Helen, are you well? What do you need me to do for you? How can I serve you?”
The soldiers escorting me snickered over his eagerness, until I silenced them both with a look colder than the snows of Mount Olympus. “Well, Milo, are you ready to get that cloak I promised you?” I asked.
“Cloak?” Of course he didn’t know what I was talking about, but he didn’t have to. After only a moment’s hesitation, he raised both hands to me, bowed his head, and said, “Whatever pleases you, Lady Helen.”
I walked through the streets of Delphi with one soldier ahead of me, one behind me, and Milo at my side. The day was new, but the city was already bustling. The crowded streets with all their noise and commotion were still annoying, but now that I’d had a good night’s sleep they were also exciting and challenging. I felt as if Delphi herself were calling out to me: Come and know me if you can! It takes a special kind of person to learn my secrets. Are you strong or nimble enough to fight through my crowds? Are you smart enough to find your way through my streets? Are you wise enough to deal with any peril or adventure I might choose to throw across your path? I am Delphi, and I dare you to conquer me!
And I am Helen of Sparta, I thought. I’m your match, just wait and see. But first…
First I’d have to slip away from my sheepdogs.
The two Spartan soldiers escorting Milo and me were puzzled by my intention to get him a cloak, and they didn’t hesitate to say what they thought of the matter.
“A cloak?” the taller one remarked from behind me. “In this weather? That poor lad’s going to sweat away to nothing!”
“You know how cold the nights can get back home,” I said. “He doesn’t have to wear it now.”
“Then I can’t say it makes sense for him to get it now, Lady Helen,” the soldier ahead of us put in.
“The palace women make better cloth than any of this foreign stuff. A Spartan cloak for Spartan weather, that’s what I say.”
“The palace women aren’t here, and who knows what the weather’s going to be like on the road home?” I pointed out. “I want Milo to be prepared.” I paused at a place where two streets crossed and tapped my chin. “I wonder where the marketplace could be?”
“Everywhere, from the look of things,” the shorter guardsman said.
He was right. The whole city of Delphi teemed with buyers and sellers. It didn’t take us long before we found a house with piles of cloth displayed on a long bench just outside the door. The instant that I touched the first one, a fat, gap-toothed woman swooped down on me.
“Little girl, who gave you permission to—Oh!” She bit off her words the moment that she noticed how well I was dressed, to say nothing of the two guards attending me. Her expression transformed from sour to sweet with stunning speed.
“Ah, noble lady, I see that you have a keen eye for quality,” she cried. You won’t find better cloth anywhere in Delphi—warm in winter, light in summer, tightly woven, and proof against wind and rain. And just look at those colors!”
I did. They were all drab grays and browns. I held the first cloth up to the sunlight. If that was what she called a tight weave, so was a fishing net.
“I want a cloak,” I told her, tossing the cloth aside. “Something long and heavy. It’s for him.” I nodded at Milo.
“Of course, just as you wish, I have exactly what you want, wait right here,” she chattered. “I’ll bring out the best I have, something worthy of the noble lord.” She raised her hands to Milo in a gesture of reverence before ducking back into her house.
“‘The noble lord’?” the tall guard repeated, incredulous. He and his companion snickered. Milo looked miserable.
“Ignore them,” I told him, speaking low. “I promise you, before today is over, you’ll be the one laughing at them.”