But Mentor was now hovering over Helen, his hands waving in the air, as if he wanted to comfort her and didn’t dare try. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Princess, are you all right?”
“Of course I’m not all right,” Helen screeched. “Bad enough to be abducted by brigands. But then to be manhandled by a misshapen goat! Did you plan this as a joke? Did you?”
Behind her Penelope shrugged and put her hands into the air as if to say, Even I can’t solve this one.
“Silenus has a boat,” Odysseus said quickly, as much to silence the screeching girl as to inform her. “We’re going to use it to get off the island and escape the pirates.”
“A boat?” Helen looked over her shoulder at her cousin, who smiled soothingly. “Why didn’t you say so before?” She stood and smoothed down her skirt. “Take me there at once.”
“Follow Silenus,” Odysseus instructed the girls. “Mentor and I will bring up the rear.” He handed the krater to Silenus, gave the knife to Mentor, and took the club from Penelope. “In case we’re found,” he said to Penelope. “That’s how boys plan ahead.”
Silenus hoisted the krater on to his shoulder and took off at a run. Hand in hand, Penelope and Helen went after him.
But Mentor turned, his lips tight together, a sure sign he was furious. “How could you let that brutish thing lay a hand on her?”
Odysseus sighed. “Whatever happened to ‘thank you’?”
“He’s a hairy, smelly satyr, Odysseus. Whatever were you thinking?”
“That hairy, smelly satyr took care of me when I could have died on the beach. That hairy, smelly satyr helped rescue you at great risk to himself. That hairy, smelly satyr has a boat.” Odysseus’ voice had got cold and old.
“What if he—”
Now Odysseus began to redden himself. “If you’d come when I told you instead of mooning over that vain little piece of Spartan honey cake, we’d be clear to the other side of the island by now.”
“Mooning!” Mentor’s face went grey. “I never—”
Odysseus put his hand over his heart and in a high whisper said, “Oh bea-u-te-ous maid, my heart flutters like the wings of a dove.”
Mentor took a deep breath. “She can’t help it if the gods have blessed her with surpassing beauty.”
“I wish they’d blessed her with surpassing wisdom or a surpassing sword,” Odysseus said.
Mentor pouted. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s been very nice since she found out that I’m a prince.”
Odysseus said softly, “But you’re not a prince, Mentor.”
“Do we have to tell her?”
Odysseus didn’t answer, but with a lift of his chin signalled Mentor to hurry on after the satyr and the girls.
“Hush,” the satyr said suddenly. His sharp ears had picked up the sound of the pirates. Abruptly he changed direction, and the others followed him into a deep hollow, where they crouched shoulder to shoulder. Pulling a ragged bush down to cover them, Silenus put a finger to his lips.
Penelope was pressed up against the satyr as a kind of shield for her cousin. She made a valiant effort to hold her breath against his stink.
Helen whispered, “I’ll never be clean again as long as I live.”
“Shut up,” Penelope said, managing to sound fierce and comforting at the same time. “Once we’re back in Sparta, you can bathe in asses’ milk every day.”
Just then they heard the pirates on the path, and they shrank even farther back into the hollow.
“How can anything that fat vanish into thin air?” asked one.
“It’s more than I can fathom,” said another.
“Come, let’s return to the ship. That Spartan spitfire is still worth more than any goat-man,” said a third,
The first one replied, “She’d better be. If the captain hadn’t had her gagged; I wager he’d have had to throw her over the side or face a mutiny.”
They laughed.
“Did you hear what she called Memnax …?”
Their voices faded as they disappeared back around the bend of the path.
As soon as they were gone, Odysseus and the others climbed out of the hollow, pulling twigs and brambles from their clothes and hair. But Helen refused to move another step.
“I’m tired, dirty and unhappy,” she said. “I have been mauled, laughed at and slandered.”
Exasperated, Odysseus snapped, “Will you shut up and get going, princess? Once those pirates find that you and Penelope are gone too, they’re going to be all over this island. Do you want us to be caught?”
Helen’s eyes got narrow, and she glared back at him. “You rude, exasperating pig herder. I don’t know how Prince Odysseus puts up with you, but my father will know how to deal with your insolence.”
Odysseus was in no mood for games. “I am Prince Odysseus,” he informed her. “And he”—he turned to glare at Mentor for a moment—“he is my companion, Mentor.”
Unbelieving, Helen turned to Mentor who nodded and lowered his eyes in shame.
“Well …” she said, then she flounced off after the satyr.
Penelope just laughed and shook her head.
“You knew all along,” Odysseus whispered.
“I guessed.”
“And didn’t tell her?”
Penelope shrugged. “Sometimes even a Spartan has to have some fun.”
The satyr led them on tiny tracks that switched back again and again until at last they emerged into a small cove where a tiny two-man fishing skiff was sheltering under a stand of willow.
“There!” he said proudly. “The boat.”
The hull of the skiff was crudely patched with wood and bark; the spindly pinewood mast looked scarcely strong enough to hold one of Helen’s skirts, much less a linen sail.
“I’d sooner go to sea in that krater,” Mentor said, pointing to the water jar.
“Where are the oars?” asked Helen.
“Is it supposed to haaaave oars?” The satyr’s face collapsed in on itself with disappointment.
“How will we steer it?” Odysseus asked.
“I’ve paaaatched up the sail,” said Silenus. “The wind can taaaake us where we will.”
“Not unless you can tell the gods which way the winds should blow,” Mentor said.
Penelope cocked her head to one side, considering. “Really, we don’t have any choice.”
“Of course we have a choice,” Helen said firmly. “We can always go back to the pirates.” She turned from them in a swirl of skirts. “They have a proper boat. And they don’t smell like they just climbed out of a dung pile.”
“Let her go if she wants,” Odysseus said. “We haven’t the time to argue with her.”
Penelope turned on him. “For a hero you have an awful lot to learn about courage,” she said. “I wouldn’t abandon you to those cut-throats just to save my own life.”
“My … own …” Odysseus sputtered and then, realising he had no answer to what Penelope had just said, closed his mouth into a thin, firm slash. He walked over to the little boat and put his shoulder to the hull and began to push it towards the water.
“Wait!” Penelope cried. “The water jar!”
Silenus galloped to the boat and snugged the krater down next to the mast.
Mentor waded into the water and started pulling the boat from the water side.
Soon the little craft was afloat.
Odysseus called over his shoulder to Penelope. “You two girls, get on board. Now.”
Helen dug in her heels and shook her head, but Penelope took a firm grip on her arm.
“Just think how angry those cut-throats will be when they find we’ve escaped, Helen,” she said.
Helen sighed, torn between pride and good sense.
“Come on,” Penelope urged. “You know this boat is our best chance of seeing home again.”
“Yes, that’s what’s so horrible,” Helen said.