Enchanted Fire
Page 27
“And we,” a young oarsman with his arm over Zetes’ shoulder said, “can go along the docks and ask if anyone knows of or has a cargo that could be used to bind…ah…pieces of wood together.”
“Better say parchment, that is closer to skin,” Idmon suggested.
Once the idea of using physical means had sunk in, many other devices were devised, and in no long time the crew had dispersed to seek among the shops and the docked ships for the diverse supplies they would need. By sunset, they had the makings of a variety of traps and Jason had to choose whom he would take and who would remain behind to guard the ship. Although everyone wanted to go—partly for the adventure and partly because it was likely those involved in his rescue would be well rewarded by Phineus—those ordered to remain with the ship would not be much put out. They would be spared the danger, not that any cared for that. Jason would see that they received some share of any reward Phineus distributed. And furthermore, when they were not on watch, there would be the delights of wine and women and other sport to be had in Salmydessus, a port accustomed to servicing sailors from far places.
Orpheus was the first to be relegated to remaining with the ship. He did not, to Eurydice’s pleasure, seem to object in the least, until Jason seemingly as an afterthought, said that Eurydice might as well come with the rescue party to Heal the nasty wounds that might be inflicted.
“No,” Orpheus said. “Or, at least, if she goes, I go, too. I will stay away from Phineus and not sing a note, if that is your order, but Eurydice is my woman and will not go into danger without me to protect her.”
“She will not be going into danger,” Jason growled. “And she will have half the crew to protect her. Did you think I would send her to attack the harpies?” But before Orpheus could answer, he went on, “Never mind. Let her stay here. From what Idaia said, unless they actually rip out a man’s throat or stick a claw through his eye into his brain, the wounds the harpies deal are not fatal. Eurydice could not Heal a mortal wound, and she can deal with any less serious when we return.”
Eurydice did not care a pin whether she went or stayed. So long as Orpheus was with her, she would be content with any plan he approved. What made her warm with delight was his determination not to be parted from her. That pleasure was increased when Orpheus worked his way out of the group of men still surrounding Jason, drawing her with him.
“Would you be afraid to go back to the inn by yourself?” he asked in a murmur that barely reached her ears. “It is not yet dark, and I think you would be safe. See if you can rent the room we had last night.” He pressed some metal pieces into her hand. “Wait there for me. I will come as soon as I can.”
Eurydice was so thrilled by Orpheus’ care for her that she did not even feel like laughing when he asked if she would be afraid. She knew she was better able to defend herself than he was, but all she said, in an equally low voice and with a tender smile, was, “I am sure I will be safe, but what if the room is rented already?”
“Then rent it for two or three nights from the next day. The woman will let you wait in her house for me, I believe. Or perhaps we will find another place. If worse comes to worst, I can always take you back to the ship. It will not be so bad if we know that tomorrow we will have what we desire.”
They exchanged a brief kiss and, influenced by Orpheus’ secretive manner, Eurydice slipped quietly over the side to the dock and moved carefully through what shadow and shelter she could find until she was out of sight of the ship. As she hurried along, what thoughts she had were concerned with whether or not the room would be available. Mostly, she did not think at all, being wrapped in a mindless contentment. Only after she discovered the room was free and paid for that and the next night’s lodging, did she begin to wonder why Orpheus had been so furtive, and why he had not come with her. She decided finally that he wished to conceal either the consummation of their relationship or the place they were staying from the other men.
The notion contented her while she crossed the courtyard to the inn and ordered a meal, which she carried up to the room, expecting Orpheus at any moment. He did not come, however, and she began to rethink the reasons she had given herself for his sending her away. They seemed ridiculous on second thought, and the notion seized her that he wished to argue Jason into taking him along and did not want her to know. She ate her share of the meal then, appetite whetted by rage, and sat waiting. When it grew dark, she lit the lamp he had brought to the room the night before. More time passed. Eurydice removed her clothes, hung them from pegs on the wall she had not noticed on that first night, and got into bed—but she did not sleep.
“Well,” she said when Orpheus appeared, not long before midnight, “did you succeed in your purpose?”
“We both did, it seems,” he said, shedding the cithara and laying it on the table.
When he began to take off his tunic, Eurydice pushed herself upright. “Do not you dare!” she spat. “If you are going with Jason tomorrow, you are not welcome in my bed!”
“Going with Jason?” Orpheus paused with the tunic half off, then rid himself of it. “Of course I am not going with Jason. You heard him say so himself. Whatever gave you the idea that I was?”
Eurydice blinked. “Was that not why you sent me away? So that I would not interfere when you tried to convince him to take you?”
Orpheus laughed and finished undressing. “I sent you away because I did not want you to end up going with Jason.”
“I am not that devoted to Healing,” Eurydice said with raised brows. “I am drawn to a hurt that is near me, but not those several leagues away. Why should I go with Jason?”
“Because he gathered you up and carried you off.” Orpheus shrugged. “I do not say he would have done it, only that he yielded too quickly, too easily, when I opposed your going. Jason is not one tamely to yield what would suit his convenience. It made me uneasy, and rather than have bad feelings between us, I set you out of his reach.”
He came to the bed and Eurydice opened her arms to him. “Why are you so late?”
He smiled slowly. “When he sees me, he ‘knows’ you are not far. I let him see me until all were bedded down and asleep—then I left. Idmon was on guard. He knew you were long gone and did not stop me.”
“You forgot to blow out the lamp,” she said softly.
“Never mind. I like to see what I am doing,” he murmured between pressing his lips to her neck and the cleft between her breasts, and finally to the rose-brown nipples.
* * *
That was the beginning of another overactive night, which Orpheus commented on when they woke, sluggishly late, the following morning. “I am not,” he protested, groaning as he stretched, “a satyr. I swear to you that before we met, I scarcely coupled once a month, and certainly not three times a night, two nights running.”
“Well, my case is stranger than yours, because before we lay together, I loathed coupling. I found it ugly and disgusting—and it was not always the fault of the men. Some tried to please me, I think.” She rubbed a breast gently. “Orpheus, I am sore all over, and I cannot think how it happened. I do not remember you hurting me.”
“I will kiss the places that hurt and make them well,” Orpheus said, his voice all milk and honey as he turned toward her.
“Oh no, you will not!” Eurydice laughed and slipped out of bed. “If you start that, I will end up more sore than before, and I might not be able to get up at all.”
“Nor I,” he confessed, chuckling. “In fact, I am not sure I can get up now. But since you are already starting to dress, will you not go over to the inn and get us breakfast. I think the smell of food will give me new strength.”
She laughed again but was hungry enough to go gladly, taking with her the empty dishes—again emptied in the middle of the night because Orpheus had eaten aboard the Argo and not touched what Eurydice had left for him, until they had both worked up a new appetite. She was prepared to scold Orpheus if she found him asleep, but he was dressed and
wearing the cithara when she returned. Over the meal they discussed what to do, since Orpheus was not on duty until sunset, and agreed easily on exploring the city.
Before they left the house, Orpheus told the woman that they would not sleep there that night but wished to take the room for the night after. When Eurydice scolded him for extravagance, saying the Argo might be gone by then, he smiled sensuously and said the chance they could be together was worth any price, and they would have ended up in bed again had the woman not been with them. Both were truly sated, however, and the urge passed as soon as they were out on the street.
They found the city fascinating, full of goods they had never seen before, all decorated with strange designs. Those items all came from the east, they were told, and they looked at each other and smiled, delighted with the notion that they would see those places. They made a few purchases, too. Eurydice found some exquisitely carved amulets that had lost their spells of love and were thus inexpensive, and Orpheus was attracted by several plectrums of material he did not recognize, and by gut and hair strings of fine making.
The purchases seemed almost like gifts to them, for both made more in accidental employment of their arts than they paid for the items. Eurydice, having fallen into conversation with the woman who sold her the spent amulets, mentioned she could Find and was approached as she left the stall by a man who had lost a pouch containing a valuable tablet of trading records. She Saw it as soon as he mentioned it, fallen to the floor of the place where he had dined and kicked, she assumed, under a bench near the wall. They went with him, and the tablet was discovered lying where Eurydice said. The merchant then pressed metal into Eurydice’s hand and bade the innkeeper to give them, on his account, any dinner they desired.
Having eaten of the best, they were about to leave when a large party celebrating the successful return of a venture ship came in. One man saw the cithara case on Orpheus’ back and offered to pay him for a song or two to gladden their meal. Orpheus exchanged a glance with Eurydice, who was greatly amused at the idea of the voice that spellbound kings being lifted in a tavern.
“Why not?” Orpheus said, and uncased the cithara.
He sang of the beauty of ships, of the dolphins that play in the deep, of the dangers of voyage and the joy of homecoming. After the first few notes, the celebrating party fell silent; the inn fell silent. No one lifted a bite to his mouth, no one drank from his cup. Even the innkeeper stood with suspended pitcher, no cup of wine being poured. When the song was done, the silence remained for a long moment before the whole place burst into an uproar.
Copper flew through the air, and silver too, landing on the case of the cithara on Orpheus’ table and on the floor near him. Eurydice hurried to pick up the pieces. In a way, they were more useful than the heavy gold with which Kyzikos had rewarded him. The gold was so valuable that one would have either to break it up into small pieces or find a buyer rich enough to purchase the whole piece. In either case, part of the value of the piece would be lost in the exchange for trade metal. The copper and silver offered by these more humble listeners could be used directly.
The cacophony of praise and pleas for more songs died as Orpheus stood and held out a hand, palm upright to quell the noise. “I hope I have given pleasure,” he said, “but all of you have other affairs, and I must soon be elsewhere.”
Eurydice had taken the cithara from Orpheus’ hands and pushed it into its case as soon as he stood up, implying he would sing no more. She had been greatly amused by the rapt attention, pleased by the generous rewards from folk who could afford a silver piece far less than Kyzikos could afford the gold he had given. The passionate pleas for more music, however, alarmed her and she began to suck in Power from the emotions, from the air, and from the earthen floor. Bending over the cithara, her body hid her gesturing fingers; the low murmur of her voice was lost in the shouting of the crowd. That stilled when Orpheus stood and raised his hand. They listened while he spoke, but when he reached for the strap of the cithara, one man cried, “No!” and Eurydice raised her clenched hands, opened them, and flung the invisible contents broadcast around the room. Everyone froze.
“Thialuo,” she whispered, touching Orpheus’ arm.
He opened his mouth to answer the man who had cried “No” but never spoke, having taken in the utter stillness around him. Open mouthed, he stared around, but Eurydice gave him no time for a careful examination, pulling him insistently toward the door.
“What did you do to them?” Orpheus muttered, horrified.
“I froze them. Hurry.”
“No,” Orpheus cried, at last resisting her pull. “You must free them as you freed me. You cannot—”
“I do not need to free them,” Eurydice snarled, swinging around behind him and pushing him violently, so that he stumbled out of the door. “The spell will not hold them long, why do you think I was telling you to hurry, you fool!” She glanced back. “Some are moving already. Hurry.”
Orpheus allowed her to pull him down the street and then into the nearest cross lane. There he stopped. “Where are we going? If that spell does no harm, why are you in such a hurry to be gone?”
“So that no one will come after you.” She shivered a little. “You are so wrapt in your singing, almost as enchanted as those to whom you sing. I love your music also, but I am partly protected, and I was watching the faces in that crowd. None have ever heard anything like you before. Some, I think, would have used violence to keep you from going, to make you sing again, and again.”
He shrugged and began to walk down the cross lane again. “I have dealt with too much interest before,” he said, then, suddenly, he chuckled. “But I must admit that yours is the best and quickest way… Are you sure no one can be hurt by the spell?”
“Of course I am sure. Do you think I wanted a hue and cry around the city for an evil sorcerer? Likely they would have blamed you too, since you gave them pleasure and then disappointed them when they wanted more. In the temple the priestesses used to argue whether the spell was beneficent rather than neutral, since it adds the time one was ensorcelled to the end of one’s life.”
“You mean those people will live longer by whatever time they spent frozen?”
“So the priestesses believed.” Eurydice giggled. “They decided, finally, that the spell could not be considered beneficent—first, because it exchanged time at an earlier part of life for time at the end when one was aged and might be ill or in pain and, second, because one was not conscious during the time one was frozen so that one did not really gain any time.” She grinned. “They did talk!”
Orpheus stopped so suddenly that Eurydice passed him and had to turn around. “You mean no one in the inn will remember anything after I lifted my hand and said I must soon be elsewhere?”
“No. Is that important?”
“Do you not realize that to their senses, I will have said I must go elsewhere—and then disappeared?”
“Are you afraid they will think you Gifted and hunt you?” Eurydice asked faintly.
“No, of course not.” Orpheus began to laugh. “Doubtless they are already telling each other that I am a god. I have had it happen to me before. How they will excuse the very substantial noon meal I ate, I have no idea. But I doubt anyone will try to look for me.”
“But Orpheus,” Eurydice said, wide eyed. “If they describe you, we will either have people chasing us or running away. We might just as well go back to the ship at once.”
“Oh, no.” He laughed again. “How do you describe a god? I will have become taller, blonder, more beautiful. My face will shine so that they could hardly make out my features—they have to say that because no one bothers to look at a minstrel closely enough to describe him. I will have become in every way so much grander than I am that no one will look twice at the real Orpheus.”
“Except for the cithara.” Eurydice frowned, then nodded briskly. “Well, I can fix that. I will put the look-past-me spell on it and no one will notice it.”
She shrugged, cursing herself for forgetting, because she loved him, that even Orpheus would distrust a powerful witch. She hid a shiver and said, in a voice she tried to make indifferent, “The look-past-me is not a great spell nor anywhere nearly as difficult as invisibility. To become invisible, one must bend and mirror light—no, that is beyond my skill, very difficult. Look-past-me is only a simple aversion spell. But Jason would have thought as you do.”
“I do not think any ill of you, beloved.”
“In any case,” Eurydice went on, ignoring what Orpheus had said because she did not believe him, “Jason would never have let me on the ship if he feared me, so I made myself less, yes. But there is little to fear from my Power—and I am not lying to you, Orpheus. What Idmon said of me back on the Chersonesus was true. All I can really use are defensive spells—the look-past-me, the freezing spell.” She hesitated, then went on slowly. “I do know ‘great’ spells, but I will never use them. First, the Power I would need to launch such a spell would probably drain me to death. Second, those spells are for war or terrible catastrophe. What good would it do me to set a whole city aflame or let loose a whirlwind, most especially since I would certainly be caught in it myself.”
Orpheus grinned. “I am relieved to hear it, since I would certainly be close enough to you to be caught in the disaster myself.” Then he frowned, looking uneasy. “I would not be so honest with Jason.”
“You need not fear me!” Eurydice exclaimed. “I am quite sure he would like to ‘own’ someone who could set loose a whirlwind—not that he would be likely to order it done—but as a kind of mark of his greatness.”