Geraldine McCaughrean's Blog, page 13
June 8, 2014
Hi Mrs. McCaughrean, I made the "films I'd like to make" photoset for The White Darkness you reblogged and asked about :) I'm astonished you've seen it and please, absolutely feel free to do with it what you will. I made it a couple years ago and only wish
I feel v privileged (not to mention thrilled) to know of a reader who thinks so well of my books and takes the trouble to say so. Thankyou. Geraldine x
April 22, 2014
pendragonness:
Films I’d like to make: The White...
:
The White Darkness
Original story by Geraldine McCaughrean; Fourteen year-old Symone has been fascinated by Antarctica all her life, so when her uncle takes her on a trip to the icy country, it is everything she’s ever wanted to do. Except that her uncle’s plans are not entirely what they seem, and soon Sym is torn between understanding difficult things and making difficult decisions, all with the companionship of long-dead Antarctic explorer Titus Oates, who still exists only in Sym’s mind.
With Maisie Williams as Sym, Toby Kebbell as Titus Oates, Ewan McGregor as Uncle Victor, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Manfred Bruch
"I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while now - which is ridiculous, since he’s been dead for 90 years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I’ll be dead too, and then the age difference won’t matter."
Hello Pendragonness! Thank you very much for your kind words about White Darkness- so very glad you enjoyed it. My daughter found your beautiful artwork and emailed it to me and I liked it so much I wondered if I might use it on my website? The White Darkness was one of my favourite books to write and it’s wonderful to know people are still reading it. (I particularly agree with the choice of actress for Sym although I know my daughter would be furious if they let someone else play her!)
Lots of love, Geraldine x
September 26, 2013
A Thousand Kinds of Ugly: The Online Novel
The online serialisation of a novel by award winning author Geraldine McCaughrean
(Now you can read the chapters in the right order!)
September 7, 2013
Chapter Four: The Dryopes
As a crocodile revolves around its prey, dragging it down to devour in the dark, so Hylas was spun through a vortex of hair and limbs and spiralling bodies. Once, the water jug struck him on the temple and knocked a plume of bubbles out of his nose. He pursed his lips, clenched his eyes shut. His lungs burned with the dying embers of his last breath. He was drowning at the hands of water nymphs � could not even open his mouth to plead for his life without letting death in. Purple lights spangled in his eyes.
Then two hands held his head, a mouth covered his mouth, and a girl was kissing him. What eleven year old boy has not wondered about the kissing thing? The bottom of pond, though, did not seem a good place to experiment.
Suddenly, he was crammed through some narrow entrance and up. His face broke surface and he opened his eyes to find himself in � what? - a beaver’s lodge? A cave? Its walls were lined entirely with caddis larvae and the shining shells of living, moving water snails. His eyes strained after other sources of light, but found only the glimmer of eyes very close-to, as faces took it in turns to kiss him. They were very friendly girls, but you know how it is with kissing: a covey of aunts, an ambush of cousins: kissers need to know when enough is enough.
“But you are so beautiful!� the girls protested as he clambered from ledge to ledge of the lodge, trying to get away from them.
“Irresistible!�
“My turn!”�
“Got to have you!�
This business of ‘beautiful’…� Hylas was no stranger to it. Yellow clothes attract ladybirds, so Hylas attracted stares. Wherever he went, women in market squares would break off from haggling and watch him go by. Gossips on their doorsteps would fall silent and gaze after him, in perfect agreement.
What a beautiful child!
Beautiful!
It was awful.
Pregnant women stopped him and said they hoped their unborn children would turn out as lovely as him. Artists begged to paint him, sculptors to carve his likeness. Hylas tried grubbying his face and wearing a hat. But total strangers would tip the hat back on his head and lick the corner of a scarf to wipe him clean.
Skin like peaches, look.
And what eyes!
Shame to hide all those lovely curls.
So embarrassing.
The water nymphs were carrying the thing to new heights � well, depths. He smiled as pleasantly as he could. He told them thank you, but that he was needed � his water jug was needed � and he had to go. “If it’s a sacred pool, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Is it? Sacred?�
The nymphs only pursued him around the cave laughing and shrieking and snatching at him with their water-wrinkly fingertips. Even the gills in their armpits seemed to blow him kisses.
A note of desperation crept in: “I’m armour-bearer to Heracles the Hero! I have duties! I have to go now. You have to let me go.”� But either they had not heard of the most famous man in the world or Heracles� fame only added to their excitement. The white limbs wreathing his legs and arms took on an eel-like horror. Hylas drew himself up into a ball. Their shrilly, silly giggles pecked at him.
And then: “You could almost be a Dryope yourself.”� It was a lower, languid, liquid voice more pleasant on the ear, and it fetched off the clinging, lamprey women and their kissing, smiling mouths. The most sober � and most beautiful � of the nymphs spoke from the other side of the pool, leaning her elbows on the rocky shelf behind her. “Look at you. The nose. The forehead. I expect that is why we Dryopes find you so attractive. A face like our own. People are so vain, aren’t they?”� The nymph sighed. “Ah well. It cannot be helped. Love is a beast: it falls on us and tears us in pieces. We have no choice. One look and we loved you insanely. You must not think of leaving.�
It was impossible to judge their age - water nymphs have a rangy, underfed, streamlined thinness � but he supposed they were older than he: a thousand days, perhaps. Or a hundred years.
“My master will be looking for me. He can’t manage without me.”� Even from underground, underwater, he could hear the thud of an axe on wood.
Later, after the chopping stopped, his own name came dripping down from above, like rain through a roof: “Hylas! Hylas!”� He shouted as loud as he could, but his voice was boy-sized and high: it bounced back at him off the shimmering roof. The water nymphs laughed � not spitefully or gloatingly; they just found his every move enchanting. He could not make them understand, could not make them listen: how can a boy be separated from his master? Far from home, in a woodland pond, how can a boy live out the rest of his life on a diet of sticklebacks and kisses? He had been safe with Heracles. Heracles had kept him safe ever since� ever since� well, as far back as memory went. He could not possibly be related to these shine-wet nymphs� and even if he was, friendship is thicker than pond-water.
“Heracles will find me! Heracles will come! Then you’ll be sorry!� he insisted, every day and every night.
But the days and nights went by indistinguishable. His suntan faded, and instead of shouts, silence seeped through the roof. His fingertips turned pruny. So did his heart.
Only one option was left � to escape from the pool and find his master before Heracles sailed away, before he gave up his armour-bearer for dead. So the next time the Dryopes prepared to leave the lodge and swim up to the sunny surface of the pool, Hylas asked to go with them. “I need some light,� he said. “My eyes are thirsty.�
“That does not matter,� said their leader. �We can see you perfectly well.�
“We can fetch you whatever you need,� the others insisted. “What do you want? You only have to say.�
After a day or two more, Hylas had grown annoyed as well as desperate. “All right. I am ready to choose now.�
“Choose?�
“A wife,� he said. “But I need to be able to see you all, to make my choice.�
“But we love you. You belong to us all,� said the leader, with an air of menace.
“Thank you. But in my country a man can only marry one wife.�
For the first time, the Dryopes looked away from him and at each other. A dozen spines stiffened. A dozen fluked feet splayed. Languid as a rule, the Dryopes began to make sharp, darting rushes to and fro across the pool. Squabbles broke out between them � a slap here, a scratch there, a baring of sharp little otter teeth. Their playful games of tag became less friendly � hair was torn out, ears bitten.
“But you are not in our own country now,� said the fairest. “Marry us all. A wife for every day of the week.�
“That’s only…�
“Here we have twenty days a week,� she said in a voice that forbade argument.
“Impossible,� said Hylas. “Let me compare you in the daylight.�
Again they wound him round in hair and the cold slipperiness of their skin, whirling him through a vortex of bubbles and fright. Beneath their flesh they were as bony as hake. Squeezing him out of the lodge, they dragged him ungently upwards to the pond above. The sunlight piercing the surface fell into his eyes like a flight of arrows. The pupils of his eyes shut down; his lids tried to close. But if he was temporarily dazzled, so too were the Dryopes. So, seizing the advantage, he made blindly for the shore.
Magic altered the depth of the water; fathoms more unfolded whenever the Dryopes wished them to. Not until he reached the submerged tree roots near the shore did his feet find purchase. But a moment later hands and flukes were among the tree roots too, and the nymphs were catching him.
“Choose me, Hylas! Choose me!�
“No, me! Look at me, I’m prettier!�
“He is trying to escape, you fools!� called the commanding voice of their leader. And she came speeding across the pool, submerged but for her flukes, which broke the surface like the dorsal fins of shark.
�Give me your hand, quick!� Another female voice; another someone wanting to stake her claim. Hylas crooked his arms through the tree roots and called for Heracles as loud as his lungs would let him.
But the voice had come from above � from among the branches of the trees that overhung the pool. The girl in the branches began to pelt the water nymphs with twigs, pine cones, crab apples, birds eggs, owl pellets - anything that came to hand, as she climbed down to grab him by the scruff of his tunic.
The Dryopes tried to drag him back down, shredding his tunic with nails and teeth, but the farther their bodies rose from the pool, the less strength was in their skinny arms. Thrashing their flukes, they all but stood on the water, squealing, but Hylas was in his own element now and he had help. The steam of magic rose in plumes off the surface of the pond, but Hylas was in the overhanging tree now, and climbing like a squirrel.
August 30, 2013
Geraldine McCaughrean's Blog
If you’d like to read Thousand Kinds of Ugly from the beginning, here is the link for all the tagged posts so far. Enjoy!
Chapter Two: Ugly
Hylas had all the virtues of a good squire. He was polite, presentable, kept out from under people’s feet, did not draw attention to himself, and he could cook. He knew to offer Heracles meat at sunset but only barley-cakes at noon and never to serve him wine. The other Argonauts were even now broaching a clay tub of wine, but of course Heracles did not drink alcohol, never drank it, had never drunk� well only that one, never-to-be-spoken-of time. So Hylas lit a cooking fire, checked the ground for ants� nests, piled up leaves for the hero to rest on, and fetched two jugs from the ship. The river water was brackish and undrinkable, so he set off to find a freshwater spring.
Behind him, he could hear the stories beginning. The Argonauts were pooling memories, pulling the latest story straight between them. One thing they would all agree on: the joy of the fight. Hylas� mouth ran dry again just remembering.
It was no distance to the spring. At first he watched out for six-armed giants or lurking snakes or Hydra� but the woods were so sun-dappled and stippled with flowers that such things seemed fantastical. He could hear Heracles� axe at work already, chopping down a pine tree to fashion into an oar. The tree tops were full of woodpeckers, felling timber of their own on a tiny scale. He could hear them but, try as he might, could not spot a single one among the branches. A boy could lose himself in such a place. Such a beautiful place. All he had to do was keep walking � not go back to the camp. Just walk on and on until all those invisible threads broke: duty, friendship, obligation, gratitude. If he walked far enough � snap! � and there he would be: not an Argonaut or an armour bearer, not a trainee hero, not Heracles� special boy � just Hylas. On his own. Alone. Free to be a coward; free not to go on a single adventure or quest ever again. He looked down at the jug in his hand. He should at least fetch his master a last jug of water. Shouldn’t he?
He was trying so hard to decide that he almost stumbled into a pool.
Pegae Spring was clear and deep, its water delicious out of a cupped hand. The brink was muddy, though, so Hylas lay on his stomach and reached out as far as possible, rather than scoop up dirty water. There was movement - must be fish � and weed streaming, which was strange in a spring pool. A reflection mirrored his face too� except that his hair seemed to have grown awfully long and swirling.
Then a hand closed over his wrist � a small, cold, wet, slightly wrinkled hand. He tried to wriggle backwards, but the mud was slippery, the fingers round his wrist held very tight. He tried to prise them open with his other hand, but it was a stupid mistake. More fingers, more hands reached out of the water and closed around both wrists, his elbows, his hair, his neck. The water shoaled with pale faces: not pondweed, but tresses and hanks of hair billowing about the skin of his arms. Hylas arched his back and screamed: “HELP ME!�
Then the water engulfed his chest, his chin, his face, and everything was water.
Heracles had hacked most of the branches off the pine tree’s trunk and was carrying it back towards the camp when Polydectes came running, sandals skidding on the moss. “Hylas! It’s Hylas!� Heracles dropped the tree with a thud that set a hundred woodpeckers rattling off their roosts. Polydectes leaned on his knees, breathless, avoiding Heracles eyes. “Heard him shout! Shout for help! I ran� a spring� found the jug…� Not a sign.”� He led the way back to Pegae Spring, pointed out the single jug lying on its side.
There was no evidence of a struggle. No blood. The peaceful, welling swash of the pool put tragedy out of the question: it was not deep enough for a boy to drown � barely as deep as the hollow in the back of a shield.
�Hylas? Hylas!� bawled Heracles, his voice making the trees shudder, berries drop from their stalks. �Where are you, boy? Cry out!�
For an hour - for three - he ran the length of the wood and beyond, calling. Night itself could not smother the noise. - �Hylas! Hylas!� - It woke people in the seven villages of Mysia and fetched them out of their beds, mattocks and sheep-crooks in their hands, fearing attack.
Heracles was a more desperate sight than cattle-raiders, one hand in his hair, one gripping his club, bawling at them to “Find Hylas! Find him! …a little boy - eleven years. A boy!� Behind him trailed two dozen over-muscled men calling to him to call off the search until morning.
The locals were willing enough to join help look: a lost child is a terrible thing in any wood or clearing of the world. They had heard tell of the Mighty Heracles, too, of course. Everyone has. They had just never expected him to burst into their lives like a runaway bull, waking their babies and frightening the goats. They willingly joined in the general chorus of shouting: “HYLAS! HYLAS!� and kept it up till morning.
But they found nothing. Trappers� nets, birds� eggs, wild pears. But no boy. The skulls of foxes, the sets of badger, balls of hedgehog sharp as fright. But no boy.
Jason began glancing over his shoulder, anxious to get back to the ship. Heracles meanwhile was rounding up children. At every house he called them to him, until he was festooned with children, little ones on his shoulders, in his arms, while the older ones hopped and jumped along behind, trying to stretch their strides to the length of his. At the last village, he put the children in the largest of the huts.
Hostages.
”No one stops looking until my boy is found,� he told their parents, piling brushwood roof high around the hut. “Hylas! Hylas!”� And away he went again, kicking up the undergrowth, shaking the branches of the trees as if Hylas might come tumbling out of them, a windfall.
Jason felt the reins of leadership slipping through his hands. He was leader of the Argonauts; he was captain of the Argo. Somewhere, on another shore of another sea, a golden fleece hung from a tree waiting to be claimed, and his fingers itched for it. Fame and lives depended on the quest of the Golden Fleece.
“Enough!� he said, after three days more. “The boy’s lost, Heracles. Bears ate him. Or he fell into a river. Maybe he just ran off: there is no telling with boys. I know how fond you� we all were, but…� Leave it. The Quest cannot wait. The Argo sets sail at dawn.�
The rest of the crew drew back. They had seen Heracles when someone tried to thwart him. Some called it temper, some madness; either way, people got killed. The day he had turned up and volunteered to join the crew, Heracles could have taken the Quest clean out of Jason’s hands and no one would have dared to gainsay him.
“Two more days,� said Heracles. “Two more!�
“Let the hostages go, Heracles. Give it up.�
“But this is Hylas we are talking about! My little Hylas! You know how I love that boy! Please, Jason! One more day!�
The Argonauts scuffed their feet. This was worse. They understood fist fights, violence. But to see the Mighty Heracles kneeling, pleading, weeping: it was not the stuff of legend. Tears are for women and old men.
“The Argo sails at dawn,� said Jason. “Let’s get some provisions aboard.�
At a greater distance still, the peasants of Mysia stood in silence, watching to see if Fate would give them back their children. They trotted behind the Argonauts back to the beach � even carried their armour and water jugs.
“I’m not leaving,� said Heracles implacably. “I won’t give up till I find him.�
Some said Jason did not try hard enough to persuade him. The crew were split between those who wanted to stay and search, those who wanted to be on their way. No one supposed for one moment that Heracles would relent and give up looking.
So that is where they parted company; the Great Adventure and the Great Adventurer. As the rowers leaned to their oars and the Argo drew away downriver towards the sea, Heracles was left on the shore. He did not watch them go: he had already turned back towards the wood - “Hylas? Hylas! Where are you, boy? Well? What are you people staring at? Keep searching or I’ll light that brushwood!�
Only the woods held their peace. The woodpeckers had stopped knocking their thick skulls against the unforgiving trees. They and the trees had watched, unmoved, the Argonauts come and go: a wave of Legend washing ashore and then out again to sea.
August 25, 2013
Chapter One: Lost
Seen from the shore, in the sun’s dazzle, the Argo was no more than a black arrow fletched with a feathery wake. But aboard her, heaving at her oars were forty of the world’s finest: heroes to a man. Their armour was piled up in the ship’s well, their trophies hung from her mast. Now the Argonauts were competing to see who could heave on an oar for longest without tiring.
It was Hylas� job to take them water when they called for it. Several times, he wanted to help himself from the jug. Fear leaves a boy’s mouth dry. But that’s all to the good. That way he can’t muster the spit to say: “I’m scared.�
Back there, none of these men had felt a moment’s fear, so how could Hylas confess to it? Back there, the battle with the six-armed giants had left his heart slamming, his mouth as dry as sand. back on Crete, the business of the metal man�
Luckily, the rowing contest kept everyone from talking about it for a while. The Argonauts had a way of chewing over an adventure afterwards, hanging their battle trophies in the rigging, reliving the victory blow by blow. Orpheus would make up a song about it, and Jason would inform the carved ship’s prow, in the same way peasant women tell any news to their bees. But Hylas did not even want to think about it. He did not want to be reminded of the sweat in his palms, the weakness in his thighs. When he was older, he would be braver, of course, and then it would be easy. One day he would be as brave as Heracles�
If the monsters didn’t get him first.
The wind had died. The sail was useless. To find out who was the strongest rower in the crew (as if they didn’t already know), the Argonauts rowed without stopping, sea mile after sea mile. One by one each man reached his limit and fell forward over his oar. Finally only Jason and Heracles were left rowing. The veins in Jason’s neck were standing out like the ivy on a post, and he started to faint, eyes rolling upwards in their sockets, hands slackening…� Heracles was bound to win (as everyone had known all along).
Then suddenly, Heracles� oar broke with an almighty crack � it sounded as if the keel had snapped � and the great man was lying on his back in the bilges with his legs in the air.
Laugh? The rest of the crew whooped themselves sick, - even Heracles saw the funny side of it. But to Hylas there was something fearful about that jagged black stump of the oar casting its shadow across the fallen man. It made his head spin, his eyes roll upwards in their sockets�
“I am always telling you, boy: wear your hat in the sun!� called Heracles.
On shore, a pelt of pine trees rose up behind woods of a paler green rattling with woodpeckers. There would be shade, and firewood for cooking. A river estuary opened to them, and they moored upriver. Hylas lugged his master’s club and weapons ashore and went back for the axe. Despite Hylas being his ‘armour-bearer�, Heracles did not actually wear armour, as such � not since killing and flaying the Nemean Lion. A lion pelt was softer on the skin, he said, more flexible in a fight, and much more comfortable to sit on. It made a better blanket, too, than metal-studded leather.
The weight of the axe nearly defeated Hylas: the thing was bigger than he was. But he would not ask help: the Argonauts were so weary after the rowing contest, it was all they could do to climb ashore with the mooring ropes in their blistered hands. What he lacked in courage, he was determined to make up for in hard work. So Hylas rested the haft against the ship’s side and tried to lever the massive axe-head up off the deck.
A hand came over his shoulder and lifted it as easily as a fishing rod. “What did I tell you about lifting, mouse?� said Heracles. “Bend you knees and keep your back straight. Look, I’m away to find the makings of a new oar.”� He lifted Hylas with the other hand and carried him inshore. “Then a bite, a sup, a story: what say? I could eat a boar.”� His voice was so loud that ducks on the river dived underwater in alarm, and butterflies rose from the bushes on the other bank. His touch was gentle, though, as he ruffled Hylas� hair.
The massive volume of his own voice had made Heracles slightly deaf. Hylas did not like to put his master to the trouble of trying to hear his small, boy’s voice, so he did not often reply when spoken to. But he was sorry, afterwards, not to have said something.
Anything.
Goodbye, for instance.
A Thousand Kinds of Ugly: Preface
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
Preface
At the navel of the world
For tens of years, Pythia the Oracle sat up there, like a roosting chicken. There, at the centre of the unknowing World. On the summit of a bronze tripod she passed her days and nights, her weeks and months, come heat, come cold, come wind, come pigeons.
The veins crimped in the crooks of her knees; her legs buzzed with pins-and-needles (on the days they felt anything at all), while the smoke issuing from the ground wreathed her round with the stench of rotten eggs, and took away her sense of smell and taste. Prophecies afflicted her, making her stomach gripe, and giving her asthma, too. Amid the smoke, words funnelled upwards through her body like termites, swarming.
Once in a while, she sensed some huge upheaval coming � a war, a murder, a curse � and wanted to pitch herself aside before it ripped through her: a volcanic eruption of bad news through the crater of her body. But duty kept her there, impaled on her bronze tripod: Fortune-teller to a frightened world.
Pythia had always wondered how it would feel if, one day, one particular prophecy fumed up out of the stony ground and caught her in the rump: a prophecy about the Oracle of Delphi; a prophecy about her.
Today she felt it.
One moment all the pictures, words, sounds, feelings were in the barren ground, the next they were loose inside her:
� a girl, a boy, a monstrous army, the Delphic�
the one prophecy she had always dreaded.
So, quite simply, she got down. Before it could take shape � while it was still just a smear of colours and noise and bad smells, Pythia the Delphic Oracle got down in the only way she could. Tilting her body, she capsized her tripod. Her puny, wasted legs would not unfold to break her fall, and she landed painfully hard - had to drag herself, using only the strength of her arms, out of the speaking smoke
� a place under the ground� a mountain piercing the clouds�
trying to shake the words out of her hair as she went. Asthma clutched tight hold of her windpipe and she wondered if she might die then and there, on the ground; at least she would not know, would not feel the knowledge embed itself in her skull like a pebble from a slingshot.
She had seen what that did to people. They thought they wanted to know what life held in store for them � thought it would help them be ready�. But that was before she told them: their Certain Unavoidable Future.
Pythia scrabbled as far as the bushes. The gods must not see her deserting her post! They would never allow it. What master tolerates a runaway slave to escape unpunished? So, in terror of the blades of sunlight slicing through the silvered clouds, she lay there among the scrub and thistles, still able to see wisps of prophecy curling out of the ground.
Of course she wanted to Know. What would that prophecy have said? What had she missed hearing? Just what did Fate have waiting for her? But she had warned enough poor fools: Don’t ask! Better not to know! She took her own advice now and resisted the whispering smoke.
Though the circulation came back to her legs - a roaring, prickly pain - the use of her legs did not; the muscles had shrivelled. So, with a broken branch, she hooked and dragged the fallen tripod into the bushes too, and used it to fashion herself a pair of bronze crutches.
Then she set off to beg her way through the world. She deliberately avoided choosing which way to go. Let the Future take her where it inevitably would.
Just so long as it did not tell her in advance.
August 23, 2013
Chapter One: Lost
Seen from the shore, in the sun’s dazzle, the Argo was no more than a black arrow fletched with a feathery wake. But aboard her, heaving at her oars were forty of the world’s finest: heroes to a man. Their armour was piled up in the ship’s well, their trophies hung from her mast. Now the Argonauts were competing to see who could heave on an oar for longest without tiring.
It was Hylas� job to take them water when they called for it. Several times, he wanted to help himself from the jug. Fear leaves a boy’s mouth dry. But that’s all to the good. That way he can’t muster the spit to say: “I’m scared.�
Back there, none of these men had felt a moment’s fear, so how could Hylas confess to it? Back there, the battle with the six-armed giants had left his heart slamming, his mouth as dry as sand. back on Crete, the business of the metal man�
Luckily, the rowing contest kept everyone from talking about it for a while. The Argonauts had a way of chewing over an adventure afterwards, hanging their battle trophies in the rigging, reliving the victory blow by blow. Orpheus would make up a song about it, and Jason would inform the carved ship’s prow, in the same way peasant women tell any news to their bees. But Hylas did not even want to think about it. He did not want to be reminded of the sweat in his palms, the weakness in his thighs. When he was older, he would be braver, of course, and then it would be easy. One day he would be as brave as Heracles�
If the monsters didn’t get him first.
The wind had died. The sail was useless. To find out who was the strongest rower in the crew (as if they didn’t already know), the Argonauts rowed without stopping, sea mile after sea mile. One by one each man reached his limit and fell forward over his oar. Finally only Jason and Heracles were left rowing. The veins in Jason’s neck were standing out like the ivy on a post, and he started to faint, eyes rolling upwards in their sockets, hands slackening…� Heracles was bound to win (as everyone had known all along).
Then suddenly, Heracles� oar broke with an almighty crack � it sounded as if the keel had snapped � and the great man was lying on his back in the bilges with his legs in the air.
Laugh? The rest of the crew whooped themselves sick, - even Heracles saw the funny side of it. But to Hylas there was something fearful about that jagged black stump of the oar casting its shadow across the fallen man. It made his head spin, his eyes roll upwards in their sockets�
“I am always telling you, boy: wear your hat in the sun!� called Heracles.
On shore, a pelt of pine trees rose up behind woods of a paler green rattling with woodpeckers. There would be shade, and firewood for cooking. A river estuary opened to them, and they moored upriver. Hylas lugged his master’s club and weapons ashore and went back for the axe. Despite Hylas being his ‘armour-bearer�, Heracles did not actually wear armour, as such � not since killing and flaying the Nemean Lion. A lion pelt was softer on the skin, he said, more flexible in a fight, and much more comfortable to sit on. It made a better blanket, too, than metal-studded leather.
The weight of the axe nearly defeated Hylas: the thing was bigger than he was. But he would not ask help: the Argonauts were so weary after the rowing contest, it was all they could do to climb ashore with the mooring ropes in their blistered hands. What he lacked in courage, he was determined to make up for in hard work. So Hylas rested the haft against the ship’s side and tried to lever the massive axe-head up off the deck.
A hand came over his shoulder and lifted it as easily as a fishing rod. “What did I tell you about lifting, mouse?� said Heracles. “Bend you knees and keep your back straight. Look, I’m away to find the makings of a new oar.”� He lifted Hylas with the other hand and carried him inshore. “Then a bite, a sup, a story: what say? I could eat a boar.”� His voice was so loud that ducks on the river dived underwater in alarm, and butterflies rose from the bushes on the other bank. His touch was gentle, though, as he ruffled Hylas� hair.
The massive volume of his own voice had made Heracles slightly deaf. Hylas did not like to put his master to the trouble of trying to hear his small, boy’s voice, so he did not often reply when spoken to. But he was sorry, afterwards, not to have said something.
Anything.
Goodbye, for instance.
August 15, 2013
A NEW DEPARTURE - A THOUSAND KINDS OF UGLY
I have decided to put my blog to good use and publish a book on it in instalments! Well, if it was okay for Dickens�
Free, gratis and for nothing. You won’t find it on sale anywhere, I’m serving it up in bite-sized morsels, just for you.
It’s called1000 Kinds of Ugly, and its hero is Hylas, armour-bearer to Heracles. According to Greek mythology,Hylas went with Heracles to join Jason’s Argonauts on their quest to find the Golden Fleece - but got lost on a trip ashore. FranticallyHeracles searched for him, travelling far and wide, leaving countless stories in his wake.
But what wasHylas doing meanwhile? This is the story of his efforts to rejoin his master. It’s also about the thousand kinds of ugly he meets along the way. Before long, he finds himself - against his better judgement - on an entirely different quest - one that’s a threat to the gods themselves.
I’m hoping you’ll join him, here, on this blog, in a couple of days� time.
Geraldine McCaughrean's Blog
- Geraldine McCaughrean's profile
- 314 followers
