Voyage of the Snake Lady

by Theresa Tomlinson

  “But you are my oldest friend,” she whispered, kneeling down beside Centaurea and taking her hand. “You are the only one left of our little group that rode south to rescue Iphigenia.”

  Centaurea smiled and squeezed Myrina’s hand. “What an adventure that was, eh?” She looked up at Iphigenia. “And worth every risk!”

  Iphigenia smiled down at her.

  Centaurea shook her head. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself—it’s a fine idea. Listen, Snake Lady . . . I may be getting older, but I am no fool—your sea voyage will finish me off, for sure. This way I may live, and live with honor. Ida will make a fine Moon maiden for me to train, and when I die she shall take my place, and in her turn she will train others. We cannot all live here on this tiny island—we would soon be discovered and destroyed—but a few of us, hidden away, may well manage. It will mean that our ways will live on here in secret.”

  Myrina was running out of arguments.

  “I trust these islanders,” Centaurea told her firmly. “I trust them completely. And you, Myrina, are quite capable of leading the Moon Riders without my help. You have Iphigenia and all your loyal friends.”

  Myrina saw how Centaurea’s voice grew stronger as she spoke; her will to live was returning as every moment passed and the idea gripped her.

  Myrina turned to Iphigenia. “What do you think?”

  The serene face of Agamemnon’s daughter brightened with amusement. “I think you have your answer clear enough,” she said.

  The following day a steady southerly wind blew down from the mountains; it blew across the island, making all the fishermen’s sails flap and belly northward across the sea.

  “This is your moment,” Ida’s father told them. “This is a blessed wind and you must set sail at once. Neoptolemus will soon be heading back this way and you will ensure your safety and ours by leaving now.”

  Myrina nodded and gave the signal to leave. Though the idea of sailing northward had been all her own, she was now very sorry to depart from this place of peace and safety. Centaurea was carried down to the beach on a litter, and Myrina saw that her color had already improved. Her voice was now strong and purposeful as she gave orders to the new devotees who crowded around her, running to obey her every command. She cheerfully hugged her departing friends and gave them the priestess’s salute.

  “Well, well,” Myrina murmured. “Perhaps this was meant to be.”

  “Look at their faces.” Iphigenia pointed out the satisfied smiles that appeared all about them. The islanders were well rewarded, now that they had their own priestess.

  Myrina acknowledged that she was right. She touched Iphigenia’s arm. “Thank goodness I still have you.”

  She strode aboard the Apollo with her crew, each Moon Rider well armed with a strong new bow, a full quiver at her side, a sharp gutting knife in a sheath at her belt. Iphigenia went aboard the Artemis, for the fishermen had insisted that each ship must have a captain: in the chaos that might come from fierce wind and waves, each crew must take orders from just one voice.

  The teams of oarswomen rowed away from the land, while their friends began to unfurl the brail sail to catch the favorable wind. The Artemis moved ahead a little, for just as they were unfurling the sail aboard the Apollo, Myrina spied a small fishing boat rowing fast toward them from the west. A red scarf fluttered as though in warning and Myrina did not know whether to hasten away or wait to see what this might mean. Then, as she hesitated, she saw that it was Kora who was waving to her from beneath the red streamer.

  “Wait!” she cried. “Hold the sail! Hold the oars! Drop anchor!”

  While the Artemis headed steadily north, Myrina slipped a rope over the side and hauled Kora aboard the Apollo.

  “Take me with you!” Kora demanded.

  They saw that the strong woman was trembling.

  “Of course you may come if you wish it,” Myrina assured her. “But what of your man and your little ones?”

  “Gone—all gone!” Kora whispered. “Slaughtered in the young Ant Man’s wake. Our crops and huts are burned to the ground. I come with you and you must not wait!”

  “With all your skills we will be ten times better off,” Myrina told her. “There can be nobody more welcome than you. But . . . I am so sorry you have lost your family.”

  “Unfurl the sail! Get under way!” Kora told her, brushing away sympathy. “A horseman came riding fast down the coast, crying out a warning. The Ant Man’s warships are returning from the east.”

  Myrina gave the order at once and the sail bellied out to catch the wind; only then did Kora allow her to take her into her arms and hug her tightly.

  They sailed north for two days with a steady wind behind them. Myrina tried to be calm, but she had never been so far away from any sight of land and she found it frightening to sail on and on and see nothing but waves.

  She longed to ask Kora’s help, but once they were under way the fisherwoman had became very quiet and withdrawn. They all respected and understood her grief, and Myrina dared not allow her thoughts to be drawn away from the sight of the moon and stars at night, the direction of the wind and pathway of the sun each day.

  On the fourth day the wind changed so that it began to blow from the north. They managed to furl their sails carefully and take up the oars, though it was hard work rowing into the wind. They battled onward, the Artemis still leading and the Apollo struggling on in her wake. The women’s newly gained seamanship was tested and proved worthy, but on the evening of the fifth day the wind grew stronger and the waves sent the two vessels tipping fiercely up and down.

  Myrina was so worried that, whether the woman was grieving or not, she went to Kora and begged her to get up from beneath the gunwales where she lay and help her.

  “One captain only aboard,” Kora told her sullenly.

  “There may be only one captain, but this captain needs help!” Myrina bellowed.

  “I told you that this sea was treacherous! This is the Inhospitable Sea!” Kora shouted back, but she got up with the faintest of smiles and marched to the prow. She pointed out a red streamer, just visible in the gloom, flying from the yardarm of the Artemis, still ahead of them.

  “Look,” she cried. “Iphigenia signals that she will lift the oars and try to sit it out. We should do the same!”

  “Lift oars!” Myrina shouted. “Drop anchor!” At once the oarswomen obeyed her. Akasya and Coronilla prepared the heavy anchor to be dropped over the side, but just at that moment they heard a shocking crack that seemed to come from the direction of the Artemis. It was so loud that the sound carried over the heaving waves and reached their ears above the roaring of the wind.

  “Maa defend us from these winds!” Even Kora could not maintain her confidence, as they saw that the mast of the Artemis had crashed down onto the deck, smashing a great gash across the gunwales.

  “We must go to help them,” Myrina cried. “Lower the oars! Kora—you are captain now—we need your skills!”

  Coronilla and Akasya left the anchor and hauled with all their strength to swing the great steering oar around. The oars creaked and groaned as they battled once again with the furious waves. Kora bellowed orders, while Myrina stayed silent as she struggled down toward the prow, ready to help when they neared the stricken vessel. Iphigenia threw them a rope from the stern, and as soon as the two vessels were lashed together prow to stern, Myrina started pulling her friends aboard. The women from the Artemis swarmed over the gunwales, wildly grabbing the offered hands of their friends in the Apollo. Suddenly, another lurch of the damaged vessel sent the broken mast crashing through the thwarts so that the wild waves rushed in, and in no time the lower middle deck was filling up fast.

  “Where is Iphigenia?” Myrina cried.

  “There!” Kora yelled and pointed.

  Myrina’s heart sank when she saw that Iphigenia had gone back to the prow to check that there was nobody injured who might need help.

  “Come down here now!�
� Myrina screamed at her. “Curse her dutiful ways! You must come now!”

  But suddenly with another crash the heavy broken mast appeared to split the deck completely in two and Iphigenia was trapped on the far side and carried down into the dark swirling water.

  “No! No!” Myrina howled.

  Coronilla was at her side, the two of them still holding the rope that had lashed the broken Artemis to safety.

  “We must let go!” Coronilla shouted at her.

  “No! No!” Myrina cried. “I cannot lose her!”

  The broken half of the Artemis that was still fastened to the Apollo filled with water fast, the weight of it dragging the Apollo over dangerously to the side. Myrina’s hands were bleeding and torn, but still she clung to the rope that held the sinking, smashed stern of the Artemis. She stared out into the wild darkness after her friend.

  Kora strode across the deck and put her own strong hands over Myrina’s clenched fists. “You must let go, or we shall all be lost.”

  Coronilla let go of the rope and then at last Myrina opened her bloodied hands and let it tear through her palms into the sea.

  Chapter Six

  The Inhospitable Sea

  “COME, TAMSIN NEEDS her mother.” Akasya took hold of Myrina and pulled her away from the gunwales, dragging her along toward the greased-felt tent they’d rigged up on the lower deck to give some small shelter. Tamsin was crouching there with Phoebe; both girls were silent, their eyes wide with fear. Myrina crumpled down between them as they both put their arms about her. She lay there, clinging tightly to them both for a few dreadful moments, but then she tried to struggle to her feet again. “I am captain, I must give the orders!”

  “No,” Akasya told her. “Kora is captain for now. You rest. Kora has seen that we are close to land!”

  Myrina felt as if her head was full of wool. “Then we have crossed the sea?”

  “So it seems! There’s land on either side of us! We struggle through a narrow passageway and Kora will try to run for the shore.”

  The ferocity of the storm continued and the ship swung violently through the darkness. The decks were crowded now with those who’d been saved from the Artemis. The women crouched together, quietly gritting their teeth against the wind and rain, each one trying to hold onto the thwarts or the gunwales. To the west for a few moments they glimpsed the distant lights of a city, but the Apollo was soon carried violently away from that glimmer of hope on into the wild darkness beyond.

  Kora’s sharp orders kept them calm, but at last, as they struggled to hold a course, one huge wave sent the Apollo lurching sharply up and then down, shaking the mast loose from its base. There was another sickening crack, as the mast and yardarm crashed down through the deck, just as it had on the Artemis; it caught Myrina a sharp blow on the head. Black darkness flooded her mind as raging water swamped them, flinging women and girls wildly in all directions, sucking them down into its depths.

  Myrina became aware that she was cold, numbingly cold; so cold that it did not seem worth even trying to open her eyes. Perhaps it was best to just slide slowly back into the numb, comforting blankness again. She lay there for what seemed a long while, all energy spent, strangely contented; perhaps she could just stay here and sleep forever.

  Somewhere in the distance she could hear a young girl sobbing. The sound disturbed her enough to make her wonder why the girl’s mother didn’t soothe her; but then with a faint sense of alarm the thought pierced through to her brain that she knew that cry. She began to understand that she herself might be the mother of the girl, and painful though it was, she ought to get up and soothe her daughter.

  At last with a huge effort she managed to open her eyes. Bright light sent a sharp pain shooting through her head, so that she quickly snapped her eyelids shut again. When she tried once more, the assault of the light was not quite as powerful, but she still could not focus properly. She blinked hard, shifting the gritty crust that had formed, and at last her eyes began to work again. She was covered in wet sand and seaweed, and there were other sandy, weed-strewn lumps around her that might be her companions. She still had her quiver strapped to her thigh and her knife in its sheath, stuck in her belt.

  “Oh Maa!” she whispered. “Where have you brought us to now?”

  The sobbing came again and she managed to lift her head, turning blearily in the direction the sounds came from. Tamsin was there and the hopeful thought came to her that if her daughter was sobbing, then she must be alive. Myrina pushed herself up on her palms for a moment, and before her arms gave way she managed to see that Tamsin was crouched farther up the beach, hunkered down beside a rock, her hair matted and wild but her lungs good and strong.

  Tamsin was silent for a moment as her mother flopped down again into the gritty sand and seaweed, but then the young girl let out a long, lonely howl of distress that sent energy shooting through Myrina’s veins. She pushed herself up again and this time she managed to struggle onto her hands and knees. “He—here,” she gulped. “Snake Mother’s here! Come to me . . . Little Lizard.”

  Tamsin scrambled to her feet at once at the sound of her mother’s voice. She ran to her, arms spread wide. “Snake Mother,” she cried. “I thought you’d gone!”

  “No, no,” Myrina gasped, hugging her so tightly that the wet sand that covered them both grazed their skin. “Where’s Phoebe?”

  “I don’t know.” Tamsin shouted it, as though her mother were stupid to ask.

  The noise they made seemed to rouse those about them; almost at once the sound of groans and coughing filled the beach. Vague lumps of soggy sand moved and shuffled, women struggled to their feet and shook themselves, until familiar shapes appeared from the gray featureless grit, though some of the lumps did not move at all.

  Myrina looked about her desperately. “Akasya, is that you? Where is Coronilla?”

  Akasya looked about wildly. “Coronilla!” she cried.

  Tamsin took up the cry. “Coronilla!”

  A hump of sand farther up the beach moved a little, then Coronilla rose to her feet, shaking herself like a dog. “Don’t worry,” she growled. “You can’t get rid of me.”

  Akasya ran to her, smiling.

  Myrina spied a large sand lump down by the sea that moved and struggled, trying to roll over. She ran to help. “Kora—thank goodness! What happened?”

  The fisherwoman sat up in a shower of damp sand. “What happened? What happened? We ran ashore!”

  “Where’s our ship?” Myrina asked.

  Kora struggled to her feet. She shook her head and pointed to the wreckage that littered the beach and floated in the sea. “It broke up, you stupid woman! It could be worse—Maa has a rough way of dealing with folk.”

  Myrina might have smiled if her mouth had not been so stiff and numb. Kora’s rugged words raised her spirits better than any soothing could have done.

  “At least there are no warriors in sight.” Myrina scanned the landward horizon for movement.

  “Huh!” Kora huffed. “No one but us is crazy enough to claim this desolate spot!”

  Kora tried to rouse the inert lump by her side. “Vita! Vita! Come—wake up, honey!”

  There was no response.

  Kora looked at Myrina and shook her head, her expression grim. “This girl is the same.” She had tried to pull a young woman to her feet.

  “Phoebe! Phoebe!” Myrina shouted, desperate now to see her niece safe.

  A small figure emerged from behind a rock, dragging a broken ship’s timber. “M-making a fire.” Phoebe struggled to speak. “G-got to get warm! I found your drum, Snake Lady, and your bow!”

  Myrina almost wanted to laugh as she hugged her. “Right idea, Young Tiger!” she told her. “A fire’s what we need most, but wet wood’s no good.”

  Only then did she really look around her to see what might be scavenged in this land. They were on a wide beach, and though it was covered with wreckage from the Apollo, none of it would burn until it was dry. Myrina
swung around and put her hand up to shade her eyes. The land was low and featureless, a desolate marshy grassland, with no sign of habitation. A copse of plane trees in the distance might provide some dry fuel and shelter.

  She pointed it out to Kora. “We must get ourselves warm or we’ve no chance.”

  Coronilla and Akasya had set to work at once to organize the survivors; now they pointed out two young women, waist high in the water. “Snake Lady!” Coronilla reported. “Leti and Fara are wading into the sea to fetch what they can from the wreckage, but we have women with smashed arms and legs and grit and water in their lungs—they must have rest and warmth. We must find some kindling somehow.”

  “Up there—where there’s trees!” Myrina said. “And we must search for our weapons and gather together all we can.”

  Akasya nodded and held out her hands to Phoebe and Tamsin. “Come on, all the girls—we will walk fast to warm ourselves, then find dry sticks to turn until we make a flame.”

  Myrina let Akasya go ahead with the girls, then she dragged the two bodies that were closest to her away from the sea and laid them side by side beneath a small, stunted tree, thinking sorrowfully that they must find wood for a pyre as well as warmth. “But we must save the living first!” she muttered, as though giving herself instructions.

  Then she went back to the water’s edge to help those who were injured. “Go up to that copse,” she ordered. “Huddle together! Give each other warmth! We will find kindling as soon as we can.”

  Wood was not plentiful in the marshy grassland, but among the group of windblown trees the girls managed to scavenge enough and at least what they found was dry. Akasya pointed out dry animal dung that would burn. A clear stream ran through the copse. Tamsin and Phoebe found dry sticks and shaved sharp points on them. They set them turning on dry logs, rolling them between their palms until their hands were sore. But their hard work was at last rewarded with a skein of smoldering, sweetsmelling smoke, then sparks and flames. They carefully fed the flames with dry kindling, and the freezing, soaked women who slowly gathered beneath the trees smiled with relief and held out their hands to the fire.