Enchanted Fire

by Roberta Gellis

  “He will be overjoyed,” the spokesman said, bowing. “I will go and tell him, if I may.

  “By all means.” Jason bowed in return and stood watching for a little while as the scia-Kyzikos strode off into the crowd of the busy dock area.

  “Scia-Kyzikos?” Jason said to Eurydice when he came aboard again. “Did you not tell me that the land is Kyzikos, the city is Kyzikos, and the king is also Kyzikos. Is the man mad with hubris that he gives his land and his city his name and even his servitors are called ‘shadows’ of his name?”

  “Oh, no,” Eurydice answered, without thinking. “It is just the opposite. I do not know what this king’s name was before he came to the throne, but when he began his reign he gave up that name—so that his family could have no claim on him, you see—and became Kyzikos. It is to humble his pride, not to increase it, to teach him that he is only part of the state, which is eternal, not like all those mortals, also named Kyzikos, who are no more.”

  Jason’s brows had climbed almost to his hairline and he cocked his head as he asked, “And did the patron who lost his ring tell you this also?”

  Eurydice could have kicked herself for her stupidity, but there was no sense in compounding it. “No,” she said, trying to look surprised. “I learned that when I was still in school.”

  “What an excellent school,” Jason remarked, smiling faintly.

  “It was, indeed,” Eurydice agreed as calmly as she could. “We were taught the customs and history of most of the lands with which our people traded.”

  “Even women?” Jason chuckled, as if he had caught her in a trap.

  Eurydice blinked. “Women? What does it matter? A woman engaged in trade must know just as much as a man so engaged.” Then she threw back her head and said, “Ah! Now I understand why you thought what I told you was strange. I remember that in Greece women are kept housebound and ignorant. It is not so in Thrace. Girls can attend the same schools as boys.”

  “Ah, I see.” Jason nodded, but he did not look convinced. Nonetheless, he did not press her further on the subject. Instead, he asked, “Is there anything else you learned in this school that might be of help?”

  “I do not know,” Eurydice replied. “It was some years ago, and I cannot simply call the lessons to mind. If a question arises, like Kyzikos’ name, perhaps an answer will come to me, but I cannot promise anything…and I hope I do not mix one lesson with another and remember the wrong thing.”

  Jason stared at her, then shrugged. “Still, your memories, no matter how dim, are better than nothing at all. You will come with us—Idmon, Mopsus, Tiphys, and Orpheus, of course—if Kyzikos summons us…and if women are permitted.”

  “Like this?” Eurydice breathed faintly, gesturing at her ragged cloak and mended tunic.

  “If we are summoned at once, we will get you another cloak and tunic.” He lowered his voice and grinned. “Hylas’ are best and will fit you best, but if there is time enough, Orpheus can take you into the town to buy something more suitable.”

  “Thank you,” Eurydice said.

  Jason turned away, gesturing for Idmon and Mopsus to come with him, and Eurydice, suppressing a sigh of relief, went to collect the mending she had finished. She piled as many of the garments as she could carry, Heracles’ himation on this top, into her arms and went to find the owners. To her delight, Hylas was absent when she found Heracles and handed him his garment, showing him the mended place.

  He smiled at her, and said, “That is good as new, and I am glad to have it,” He then reached into his pouch and drew out a small copper ring, “For your trouble. I thank you.”

  “And I thank you,” Eurydice replied, smiling also. “I wish I could refuse your gift—”

  “What gift?”

  Hylas’ shrill cry, made Eurydice raise her eyes to heaven and wish she had snatched the ring and run away, but Heracles had already turned to Hylas. He held the ring so the boy could see it, but withdrew it when Hylas reached for it, shaking his head.

  “No,” he said gently. “You called it ugly and refused it when I offered it to you. I thought it was surely a price you would not object to paying to save your lovely fingers from being made sore by needlework, which you hate.”

  “It is too much, far too much for setting a few stitches,” Hylas whined, turning his back on them both.

  “Perhaps,” Heracles said, pressing the ring into Eurydice’s hand and then touching the back of Hylas’ neck, “but not too much to save you trouble, dear boy. And now,” he went on, nodding a farewell to Eurydice, “I will not have to buy another himation, so I will be able to find a ring you will like better.”

  Eurydice bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing over how accurate Orpheus’ prediction had been that Heracles would appease Hylas by telling him he had given the mending to Eurydice to save his darling from pricking his fingers. But as she hurried down the gangway to the man farthest away for whom she had a finished garment, she wondered how so good and kind a man as Heracles could be so blinded by surface beauty to the ugliness beneath. Why in the world did he cling to Hylas when Polyphemus, who was almost as beautiful and was a nice young man besides, had so much more to offer him?

  The thoughts were interrupted by needing to return his tunic to Polydeuces, who gave her a piece of silver wire, and by listening to the twins tease each other about how the tunic had been torn and whether Castor was ultimately responsible. Several of the other men who had left clothing with her had come, partly to join the argument and partly to gather up their mended garments. That activity also brought the others for whom she had finished work. That they were all together encouraged their generosity so that Eurydice returned to her usual place in the stern with a satisfactory handful of copper pieces and even a few silver bits. She was enormously pleased with her earnings despite the fact that she had often taken as much or more for a single spell. The novelty of being paid for the work of her hands rather than the power of her Gift delighted her.

  She was, thus, somewhat disappointed by the fact that Orpheus seemed less than equally delighted when she showed him her spoils and said she thought it would be enough to purchase clothing. His frown made her ask anxiously, “Did I do wrong to take the metal? I did not ask, they gave. You never said I must refuse. You even advised me to go to Heracles first, because he would surely pay me.”

  “It was not wrong, of course,” Orpheus said rather irritably. “I would have told you if it were wrong, but I also told you I would gladly buy you a gown and a cloak when we came to a town where we could seek them.”

  Then it burst upon her that he was not displeased with her earnings but had wanted to give her a gift for which she would be grateful and was annoyed by being deprived of the opportunity. At the back of her mind, she knew that two days earlier she would have been furious with him and chidden him for wanting to dominate her. Pushing that knowledge away, she smiled and thanked him and said only that she was glad to be able to spare his purse since she had enjoyed being occupied with mending while they sailed, and she asked if he would accompany her into the town.

  “Yes, I will,” he said, also smiling now. “I remember that Jason said I was to take you—unless he changes his mind after the scia-Kyzikos returns with his message from the king.”

  Jason did not change his mind, however. In fact, he came to speak to Eurydice soon after the scia-Kyzikos had brought an imitation for Jason and his companions to take their evening meal at the palace. He told her that King Kyzikos’s messenger had said she would be most welcome to his master and asked if she could recall anything about Doliones’s customs of hospitality.

  She thought for a moment, then said, “Yes. Men do not wear armor as Thracian men may to do honor to their host, and if you wear a sword, you will not be allowed to carry it into the hall.”

  Jason nodded, but his eyes moved to Orpheus and he smiled. “I do not imagine they will consider a cithara a weapon.”

  “Nor is it,” Orpheus protested. “To create good wil
l harms no one.”

  “But it is a powerful defense,” Jason said, still smiling.

  Orpheus laughed. “In that sense, perhaps.” He heard a small sound from Eurydice and added hastily, “Since my role and Eurydice’s are set already, you will not need me when you give out the men’s duty, will you? I would like to take Eurydice into the city and find her something more suitable to wear to a king’s banquet.”

  “By all means,” Jason replied, holding Orpheus’ eyes for a long moment.

  Orpheus did not connect the expression with Eurydice, except in the sense that he assumed Jason was warning him not to allow her to dally too long. He connected it with the council Jason had just called to decide what safety measures should be taken to secure the Argo, and he mentioned that to Eurydice, as they made their way down a broad avenue that led first to the market and then to the palace. They should, he said, keep their eyes and ears open for hints of danger to ships left with few crewmen.

  She said she would but thought it unnecessary. “It is the safety of this city for all that brings traders to it from east and west. I believe there is an active guard to ensure peace and safety inside the city and even all along the coast.”

  Yes, Orpheus thought, but that guard could be the danger in itself. If they were the peacekeeping force in the city, who could say them nay if they should enter a ship and seize it. But the idea seemed more and more farfetched as Eurydice went from stall to stall, first purchasing a comb, then several skeins of thread, after some spirited and sometimes acrimonious chaffering, and finally asking for a ready-made gown and cloak. At each stop Orpheus took the opportunity to ask a few questions of his own.

  He found the Doliones to be cheerful and friendly. They scoffed at the idea that any raiding ship could pass through the king’s galleys or that any ship in Kyzikos harbor could be stolen by any other means. Moreover, it was clear from their indifferent attitude or pleasant remarks when patrolling guards went by that to them, at least, their peacekeepers were no danger. It did not prove that they were honest with regard to strangers, but Orpheus did see many, many different styles of dress and hear many different accents in the market and all the strangers seemed at ease and unafraid. He asked, finally, while Eurydice was adoring a deep red gown of some shimmering fabric embroidered in gold, whether it was safe to be abroad in the streets at night.

  “No more and no less than any other city,” the merchant said, his eyes on Eurydice, who stroked the beautiful fabric lovingly. But when she sighed and laid down the garment to examine a much plainer gown made of a coarser cloth, he added, “Kyzikos has its share of thieves, like any other place. One must be on one’s guard, of course, but the real trouble is the accursed Gegeneis.”

  “I am a stranger,” Orpheus said, meanwhile gesturing to the merchant to wrap up the red gown.

  At first the man was puzzled and then he understood that Orpheus wished to give the gown to the woman he was accompanying as a surprise. He nodded, then sniffed, and under the pretense of carrying the garment to a less exposed place so that fewer would finger it, he rolled it into a coarse cloth.

  “Who are the Gegeneis?” Orpheus asked, opening his purse and removing three small chunks of silver.

  “They are a tribe from the wild areas in the inland of the peninsula who periodically come down to raid the city,” the merchant said, vigorously shaking his head and double tapping his finger on each of the pieces of silver.

  Orpheus shook his head equally vigorously and tapped once on one of the three pieces, saying, “Cannot your king summon an army and kill them or drive them away?”

  “Oh, he did so some years ago,” the merchant said, shaking his head again and double tapping on only two of the silver bits. “We thought we were done with them for good, until last month when they descended on the eastern part of the city.”

  “Was the guard not able to fight them off?” Orpheus asked, pulling another two bits from his pouch and offering them on his open palm to the merchant.

  The merchant reached for the silver, then drew back his hand and shook his head, and finally picked up one piece and laid it down again. “They did drive off the Gegeneis, but we know the raiders are still there and have enough men to raid again. A very close watch is kept for now. When the storms come and trade is slow, the king will march on them again in force.”

  Before he had finished speaking, Orpheus had given him the extra piece and had the coarse-looking bundle tucked high under one arm where it was hidden by his cloak. By then Eurydice had settled on a very simple pale yellow gown and a soft, amber colored cloak. Her bargaining session with the merchant was much livelier than Orpheus’, and twice she walked out of the stall, only to be called back by the merchant, who was ready to make concessions after his profitable initial sale.

  It was time, Orpheus judged, to return and was pleased when Eurydice seemed almost as eager as he to get back to the ship. He praised her for her unwomanly restraint, which made her laugh heartily and point out that she had no more metal, not a single twist of copper wire, and besides wanted to try on her new finery. The only thing she had left to desire, she said with a sigh, was a hot bath with decent perfumed oils. Orpheus tchkd at his own foolishness in forgetting the feminine desire to wear a new garment at once. Then he said that he would be delighted to supply the bath oil—and turned aside to find a vendor even as he spoke. Jar in hand, laughing, he offered himself as scrubber, giving her an exaggerated leer.

  Thrilled, not so much with the oil as with the light-hearted offer, which was clearly a proposal to play and not to make a hand-fast bond, Eurydice snatched the oil from his hand. Also laughing, she thanked him fervently, and then, brows lifted, said she would make the other arrangements for herself. She was, despite the laughter, delightedly considering asking Orpheus to do just what he suggested. If she saw an inn and could rent the use of a bath in exchange for a spell, say for hot water, she had every intention of inviting Orpheus to accompany her on the grounds that it was not safe for a woman to visit such a place alone. But she never had the chance.

  As if he guessed what was on her mind, Orpheus pointed to the westering sun and hurried her on. Although she was troubled a little by this seeming withdrawal, Eurydice did not protest. A bath might not take long, if one was in a hurry, but what might follow scrubbing her should not be rushed. She stifled a little sigh. Perhaps it was for the best. If Orpheus was as tender and thoughtful a lover as he was a person, and she developed a taste for what he offered, she would doubtless think about it. The crew would most likely “smell” her desire, and there would surely be trouble.

  She would have said as much to Orpheus, but as they came aboard, Jason called out to him, desiring to hear what news he had gathered. To Eurydice it was far more important to make a place to clean herself thoroughly and dress. She did not even glance at Orpheus as he went forward to the prow.

  “There was not much,” he said to Jason. “The only danger anyone spoke of was the Gegeneis.”

  When he explained, however, Jason only shrugged, not so much dismissing the threat because he had not heard it from any other source, but because it seemed to have little relevance to them. But when Orpheus spoke of his good opinion of the Doliones, Jason agreed heartily. He had himself sought out several ships’ captains, some who had come often to this port, and received the same information.

  “Then we will all go to the palace?” Orpheus asked.

  Jason shook his head and explained that he did not think that wise. The Argo was a special ship and he had no intention of leaving her totally unprotected. In addition, although he had accepted the invitation to dine with smiles and thanks, he felt it would be foolish to bring his entire crew with him. For one thing, he had at least thirty more men than usually shipped on a merchantman, which might strain the king’s hospitality; for another, most of the young men of the crew wished to see the town, especially the rowdier taverns, rather than be on their best behavior in a court. Last but not least, Jason wanted a reserve for
ce to mount the threat of a bloody rescue in case Kyzikos was not as open and innocent as he seemed and proposed to take his guests prisoner and hold them for ransom.

  “I should have known better than to ask,” Orpheus said, adding, “It is almost time. I had better go and dress.”

  Jason nodded and Orpheus hurried away, not to dress, but to make his way to the stern where Eurydice had hung one of the blankets to shelter behind while she washed and changed.

  “Do you not need a scrubber?” he whispered at the corner of the blanket.

  “Not aboard ship with fifty men watching,” Eurydice whispered back, delighted that Orpheus had brought up the subject himself and that she could make clear why she did not accept.

  Orpheus, who had not been certain what her response had meant when she took the oil, was so elated at the implicit promise in her reply that he almost forgot to pass to her the gift he had bought in the hope of tempting her. It was all the sweeter that he had had the promise before the gift was offered.

  “Well, then, I have brought you a towel,” he said. “Put out your hand and I will give it to you.”

  “I can use my old tunic,” Eurydice said, suspicious that he might seize her and pull her out all naked.

  “You will like this one better,” Orpheus insisted.

  Readying a spell that would sting his hand and make him release her, Eurydice reached around the blanket. A bundle of coarse cloth was pressed into her hand, and she was allowed to draw it back behind her shelter without any interference. Even as she turned to lay it down on a pile of leather sacks, she realized it could not be a towel. She dried her hands hastily on the rags she had been wearing before she made contact with Orpheus and opened the package. Her eyes widened and she gasped with delight. The first unfolding of the coarse covering showed a glimpse of the shimmering fabric of the red gown she had coveted.

  “How did you know how much I wanted it?” she whispered, sticking her head around the blanket. “You shouldn’t have. I will never be able to—”