Thrice Bound

by Roberta Gellis

  Other times she had been a bit irritated by Kabeiros' comments, which tended to point out what he felt must be exaggerations on Ottah's part—and she had said so. But she had never left him out of her thoughts or ignored his remarks. Lying in bed, listening for Kabeiros' scratch or short bark at the door, Hekate had asked herself what this attitude meant. When (she wouldn't let herself think `if') Kabeiros had control of his shifting again and could live in the world as a man, if they were to live together, would he want all her attention? Would he object to her having friends of her own? Would he grow sullen and angry every time she enjoyed another man's company?

  She fell asleep at last without ever hearing a sign from Kabeiros. He didn't return until she was up and dressed and eating the breakfast the little maid set on the table. The girl had looked about for the big black dog and asked where he was, and Hekate had snapped at her that he was about his dog's business, which was none of her affair. She had felt guilty but too ill-humored to apologize.

  The child was very fond of Kabeiros. She had been terrified of the huge dog when Ottah first brought her to serve Hekate, and Kabeiros had put himself out to win her trust, wagging his tail and pressing his head against her hand very gently so that she could pat him. Her first lesson about the household in which she was to serve was that she didn't need to fear the black dog and she had come to love the creature. Now she always made sure his bowl was full of water and asked if she should prepare food for him.

  It was the maid who opened the door when he scratched and he stopped halfway in to lick her cheek, which made her giggle. If he glanced at Hekate, it was too quickly for her to see and she said, "Where the devil have you been?"

  The little maid laughed as she always did when Hekate spoke aloud to Kabeiros, but this time Kabeiros did not reply under cover of the maid's amusement. He leapt up on the divan, turned once around, and went to sleep. The maid made no comment on that. Her second lesson had been that the black dog was never reprimanded. He went where he liked, lay where he liked, and if he chose to rise up on his hind legs, put his forepaws on the table, and snatch a tidbit from Hekate's plate, even that was not criticized.

  Hekate was so annoyed that she pushed aside the remains of her breakfast, took her cloak, and left the apartment, slamming the door behind her. Outside she went down a few steps and then hesitated, listening for Kabeiros to tell her to wait or, if he still was not speaking to her, for a scratch at the door or a bark to indicate that he intended to accompany her, but no peace token was extended.

  Fuming, she went down the rest of the stairs and headed for the market. She had intended to rent a stall as soon as she knew the Wave Leaper would remain in port in Heraclea but somehow she hadn't done it. Instead she had accepted with pleasure Captain Ottah's invitation to go about with him as he negotiated for new cargo, sharing meals with him and talking of the advantages of trading for oneself or carrying goods for others.

  She found the talk and expeditions of such interest that they reconciled her to wearing the body of the crone. No one looked askance at her keeping company with the captain as they would have done had she been a handsome young woman. The bailiffs and shipping factors all called her Mother and addressed their most persuasive arguments to her, assuming she must be old and wise in trade for the captain to bring her with him. She and Ottah laughed heartily together over the mistake, but sometimes it was useful when different aspects of a cargo were presented to her and to him.

  Her mind was so busy with past pleasures that she passed unseeing along the stalls, starting when a hand caught her arm and a market warden called out to her. He remembered her from an earlier examination of rental possibilities because he had had a terrible cough when she spoke to him, for which she had given him a remedy. That act of kindness was now repaid; there was a stall open—the holder had fallen sick and abandoned it—that would suit her perfectly.

  She was indeed satisfied with what was shown to her—a small but weathertight shed in which she could store her goods and even see to a client if the weather were inclement, and an outside apron of dirt packed so hard that even the rain of the previous night had done no more than slick the surface. Hekate contracted for the space at once, fishing in her thin purse for a few coppers to hold her right until she could return later in the day with the rental and fee.

  She felt surprisingly pleased with the transaction, and hardly regretted that it would curtail her time with Ottah. It was only when she was on her way back to her rooms, thinking how pleased Kabeiros would be, that she realized she had rushed out to rent market space to pacify the hound. Her desire to pacify him when it was he that had made the quarrel by being totally unreasonable, annoyed her so much that she didn't tell him what she had done. And he annoyed her still more when she came in; he didn't speak but lay on the divan, only the dog showing, nothing of the shadow man.

  Even angrier than before, Hekate changed to her best gown—not that any gown could do much for the crone, bent and hollow-chested as she was—and went out to dinner with Ottah and the crew. She was sorry the moment she stepped out of the house. Heraclea was not a particularly dangerous city, but dockside was not perfectly safe either, and she was accustomed to having the protection of the black dog.

  No harm befell her, however, and Ottah saw her home. She told him about renting a stall and when he offered any support she needed, thinking she sought clients because she needed living expenses, she assured him it was more to keep up her practice in healing than any need. He was regretful that she would not be available as a companion, but admitted he had little more to do. His cargo was sold and, by his reckoning, his hold would be full for the spring voyage.

  When they reached the house, Ottah looked down and then up at her in surprise and asked about Kabeiros. He had not noticed until then that the dog was not with her, simply assuming he was. Hekate made some excuse, she didn't remember what, because she was busy fighting a terrible temptation to shift to the woman and to go home with Ottah, leaving Kabeiros to wait and worry.

  Almost, almost she yielded. Only the thought of the long explanations, of the admission that she was a real sorcerer and knew a lot more than healing spells, of the real chance that Ottah, Egyptian or not, would withdraw from her in horror when he learned she was Gifted, a shape-shifter, held her back. So she said her usual good-night and went up the stair. The heavy key that hung at her belt opened the door, but she didn't even glance toward the divan. She went through to her bedchamber and went to bed.

  The next morning, to her infinite surprise, not only was Kabeiros sitting in his usual place, but the shadow man was present . . . and he was hardly a shadow.

  *Kabeiros!* she exclaimed, silently because the little maid was scurrying about with dishes and platters. *You are almost real. You look as if I could touch you.*

  *Not real enough, unfortunately,* he said, with a smile that twisted the lips of the shadow but lacked mirth. *I was thinking last night that my trouble might be within myself, a result of lack of trying to be a man.*

  *I can't believe that! You must have tried to shift.*

  She was eating as she spoke, holding out a tidbit to the dog as she often did. The little maid noticed nothing strange.

  *Did I?* Kabeiros asked doubtfully. *Shifting had always been so easy. Like breathing. I thought `dog' or `man' and I was dog or man. I didn't think how. I just was. And when I tried to shift and I couldn't . . . I do remember the terror that seized me. I remember trying again and again and being more afraid each time I failed. But I don't remember asking why I couldn't shift or looking within myself to see what was wrong. My friends tried to help, but they didn't really know any more than I did and I soon fled and became more and more the dog, until I came by accident to the caves of the dead . . . and became a man.*

  *I don't know.* Hekate's eyes lit with enthusiasm. *There's no sense blaming yourself after all this time. Who knows what really took place? But we can work on it. Perhaps if I lend you power—not that you need power but more mi
ght do the trick—you will be able to change. We can do that between clients. Few will come these first days, until my reputation has a chance to spread. We will have time.*

  *Clients? And are you sure the market will be a good place to work? What if I do change to a man right there where everyone can see?*

  *I have a shed and it has a door. I can pretend to be working with my herbs, preparing potions.*

  *You have a shed?* His mind echoed the words as it had previously echoed "clients."

  Hekate blushed a trifle. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. When I went out yesterday I went to the market and I rented a stall. There are two or three moons more before the weather clears enough for sailing and I have done no healing for a long time. I need to practice my skills because, as you have told me and Ottah, too, no spells are allowed in Greece. I bet they will have witch-smellers about, too. I need to cure without witchcraft.*

  She had practice in plenty in the moons until the Wave Leaper sailed, except for the first few days. These she devoted to Kabeiros while she pretended to mix herbs and compound salves. First she tried to pour power into the hound, but he was as resistant to outside transference of power as he was to spells. Foiled of the most direct route, she tried to teach Kabeiros to draw power from the blood of the earth. He could smell it and she was marginally more successful in this attempt. If he walked the blood-lines, he could draw some power through his naked paws. It was enough to allow him to sustain the less shadowy appearance of the man, but did not come near feeding enough to the draining spell to make the man real. Last of all, Hekate tried to enter the dog, find the organ that ruled his ability to shift and pick the draining spell from it, thread by thread if need be. That, too, failed. She could no more penetrate the hound than could a spell.

  After that failure, the dog was silent and only a dog. Hekate pleaded with him not to give up hope, blaming her own lack of skill and knowledge for the failure, but her voice trembled with fear. She knew she was lacking neither in skill nor in knowledge. When she had arrived in Colchis, perhaps, but she had grown enormously in the years she had spent there. She had freed herself from Perses' compulsion not to use magic; she had learned to use high magic as well as low; she could create spells, weave them together, take them apart, bind them, make them immortal. Yet she could not penetrate the dog's shields.

  For a ten-day she might as well have been pleading and reasoning with a true hound. Then she remembered that she didn't know everything. The dog was not impervious to all magic. With hope in her own voice and face, Hekate reminded Kabeiros that Medea in serpent form, had reached past the dog's defenses, whatever they were. The princess had used her Gift for that. True, her spells as a human sorcerer were as ineffective as Hekate's own, but the serpent's Gift had reached inside the hound, found his power and the draining spell that spoiled it . . . and had nearly killed him.

  *Hold on. Hold on,* Hekate begged. *As soon as spring comes we will be on our way to Olympus. The gods are greatly Gifted. Think. If Hephaestos could build the palace at Colchis when he was little more than a child, his Gift as an artificer is near incredible—and he was only one of the minor gods. Surely among the great ones, one will have a Gift that will free you.*

  *Perhaps,* Kabeiros replied, but his voice was dull.

  Hekate would have been in utter despair, except that she was soon too busy healing, and Kabeiros was roused from fading into a dog's uncaring by the need to watch her clients, to listen to what they said to each other and report that to Hekate. She was not a teller of fortunes and didn't care about the clients' private lives but, strangely enough, they would often tell a fellow sufferer of symptoms they would not describe to their healer.

  Hekate's success was not totally owing to skill and good fortune. Some of it began with a new favor from Ottah, who sent members of his crew and others to her. Seeing her stall crowded, local people began to come out of curiosity and soon out of need. It was not surprising, then, as the year turned toward spring, and she told her clients she must depart, that there were pleas and protests. She calmed those by leaving recipes for certain potions and salves with several healers she had learned were skilled and honest.

  To one woman, whose eyes told Hekate more than the woman knew herself, Hekate came on the evening before Wave Leaper sailed and brought a half-dozen healing spells for deep troubles that salves and potions would not touch. She told the woman how to practice the spells and how to test them.

  Hekate would have been horrified to learn that when she was gone, the woman set up a shrine at the crossroads in the market and worshiped Hekate. When others laughed, she insisted that a goddess had visited Heraclea. They laughed less when her healing spells, taught her—she never failed to say—by Hekate, worked wonders. The woman spread the spells among her sisters and daughters so that more worshipers were drawn to the shrine. They came as dusk faded to darkness because that was when Hekate had come to her first disciple. As in legend, the goddess had moved on, but the worship persisted and spread.

  Hekate knew nothing of that. Her heart and mind reached only toward Olympus. Perhaps her desire was strong enough to magic the weather. The long voyage to the Bosphorus was swift and sure. A following wind, not so strong as to whip up huge waves but strong enough to drive the ship forward at a good pace, never failed. It died just enough every evening to allow them to beach Wave Leaper without difficulty, and blew again the next day. It even shifted to southerly when they needed to stand out to sea to avoid the Symplegades and turned westerly again when they needed to come back to shore.

  At Cyaneae Ottah tried to convince Hekate to continue on with him. If she merely wanted to see new people and new things, he said, she would certainly do so if she came along on his voyage, for which he would demand no fare. Wave Leaper would be taking the northern route along the coast of Thrace and the land of the Getae to Olbia and then south. She had never seen those lands, had she?

  She refused him gently, laughing and saying he might not have seen the last of her, she might yet return to the shores of the Pontus Euxinus. First, however, she had to go to Greece. And when he protested that would be dangerous for such as she, she shrugged and told him her goal was one place where magic must be welcome—Olympus.

  "No, no," he begged. "You are old, but you are very strong and won't die soon. I know what you desire. Because you are a witch, you think you can win immortality in Olympus, but it's a vain hope. You'll never find the place, and even if you do, the gods don't so easily give up their secrets. And they are known to punish the audacious."

  She shook her head. "I've no such foolish dreams," she said. "It's for Kabeiros that I go." She shrugged and put her arm around the unresponsive hound. "He wasn't always a dog. He is bespelled . . ." Even to Ottah and in the last hours before separation, she wouldn't admit Kabeiros was a shape-shifter.

  "I knew he was more than a dog. I knew." Ottah sighed. "No one is bound to a dog as you're bound to Kabeiros."

  "Nor have I been completely honest with you about more than my lack of a younger son in Byzantium. I have no sons at all, and didn't come from Sinope but from Colchis."

  "Colchis! I have heard tales . . ."

  "Too many are true. If you don't have to make port there, don't. But even in Colchis, and it was a city of sorcerers, there was no one who could set Kabeiros free. There are only the gods of Olympus left."

  She said it softly, looking anxiously over her shoulder at Kabeiros, who had walked away to lie down on some folded blankets. His eyes were closed and there was no sign of the shadow man. He was not totally withdrawn into the dog. He came alert quickly when there was doubt or danger, but he hardly spoke—no more little caustic comments or seemingly sober remarks really designed to make her laugh when she shouldn't. More than her heart ached. She kept seeing the man, almost real, and her body ached for him, too.

  Ottah saw the inflexible determination in her. He wondered if the dog had been a brother or a husband or, even though she had denied children, a son. He told her first wha
t his route would be and where, if she decided to return, she could leave messages for him or meet him. Then, sighing, he went with her to the caravanserai and helped her make arrangements to start her journey west.

  CHAPTER 19

  Winter was closing in on Greece by the time Hekate and Kabeiros reached their goal. Kabeiros the man surfaced again as they set foot on his homeland, and as she gathered her bundles, he began to warn her about how to behave. Fortunately they came ashore at Heraclea, on the border between Thessaly and Pieria. When they had heard the name of the final port, both agreed at once to sail on that ship; it was a good omen Hekate felt for the same safety and ease of travel they had had since leaving Heraclea in Bythnia.

  Added benefits appeared once they docked. Heraclea was a large enough port to have shops that supplied anything a traveler could want, but small enough not to be either a sink of iniquity or a major focus of the king's authority. It did have a local lord, but his port officer knew he would not be interested in an old woman, who carefully husbanded her few pieces of copper. If the officer had followed her, he would have seen her bartering for a heavy woolen blanket rather than a fur-lined cloak and thick-soled, tall, leather huntsman's boots.

  The large, strong dog might have been of more interest to a lord who enjoyed the hunt, except that it slunk along behind the old woman with its tail between its legs. A single glance showed the official it had no disposition to fight and didn't even chase rats. At first it didn't occur to the lord's officer to wonder how the poor old woman fed a dog of that size. He might have accused her of stealing when the thought did come, but they were gone from the town by that time and he had heard no complaints about them.

  A number of the merchants from whom Hekate bartered goods were horrified at the thought of an old woman setting off to travel in the winter. She pacified them by naming the nearest inland village—Kabeiros had discovered the name for her and the names of some people who lived there. The place was only a day's walk distant, even for an old woman, and she said she had family there waiting for her. Then she and Kabeiros left at night, Hekate having artfully arranged some of her worn summer clothing over the heap of straw on which she would have slept. Last, she stole a small, sturdy mule, leaving more than its worth in twists of silver.