Free Odysseus in the Serpent Maze by Robert J. Harris

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,”