“A strange way to punish you,” Hades said.
On the other hand, Persephone did not want her husband to think she was defending Poseidon, which might waken the senseless jealousy he had shown earlier. She shrugged. “I think so too, but he is very envious of you. I have no idea what caused him to follow me today. He has never shown much interest in where I went or what I did before. I thought my mother had told him I had a lover, but the way she attacked him—” She glanced at Demeter, who had turned her head and stopped snoring.
Hades looked from one to the other, ran a hand through his hair, and laughed shortly. “Well, there are your spoils of war. What do you want to do with them?”
She told him about her plans for her mother and he nodded and said they were in luck. One of the ships on which he had purchased passage would leave with the predawn tide.
“Thank the Mother for that,” she said. “As for Poseidon,” she added, “I have no idea what to do with him.”
“I should kill him,” Hades said, and closed his eyes.
The cold knowledge he had buried had risen. He knew that he and Persephone were holding a sauraima—a powerful beast with a long tail at one end and many, many sharp teeth at the other—by that long, flexible tail. He could sense Persephone, gone still and rigid, looking at him, but he could not meet what he thought might be reproach in her eyes.
“I cannot,” he said, between set teeth. “Forgive me, love. Even to insure your safety I cannot kill my brother while he is lying helpless.” He heard Persephone draw a harsh breath, and added hastily, “To delay our escape to let him wake so I could fight him—”
“No!” Persephone exclaimed. “That is insane!”
“Yes.” Hades caught her expression and chuckled. “Particularly since I am not at all sure I would win.” She shuddered and he put an arm around her and pulled her close. “I think I would. Between hunting and moving rock, I am hard and fit, and my sword gets frequent use against beasts and outlaws. I think Poseidon lives an easier life, but—
“But I do not trust him farther than I could throw him,” Persephone said tartly. “You might plan on a fair fight, but angry and humiliated as he would be when you released him, would he fight fair? Or would he summon to his aid his guards and even those sea beasts that can come to land?”
Hades smiled wryly. “There is always that. He has given me cause to know he is not always trustworthy.”
“The passage to the mainland takes two days or more,” she said. “If he is free at any time before we land—we are dead. When I planned to escape, I was sure he would not dare drown both my mother and me because that would draw upon him the vengeance of Zeus and all the mages of Olympus as well as your anger. But after getting his head cracked and being tied up like a pig for slaughter, I am afraid he will be in no mood to worry about future vengeance.”
Hades laughed without mirth. “How right you are. Well, if I took him two days up to the mountains and left him in a cave— No, those bonds are not so tight or so strong; he would get loose before long and it would take me almost as long to get back here as it took me to bring him there. And if I tied him more securely, I might be condemning him to a death far more cruel than just cutting his throat.”
“We must take him with us,” Persephone said. “When we are ashore, you can free him.”
“What will we do with your mother? And we cannot take Poseidon on the ship that leaves tonight. The captain is from Eleusis, but he knows Poseidon. He mentioned meeting my brother when he commented that I was almost as tall, too tall for a native sailor’s sleeping shelf. Even if we bandaged Poseidon’s head so his face was hidden, I am afraid his size and weight would raise suspicion.”
“No one will see any part of him,” Persephone pointed out. “He will go into the lower compartment of the litter. My mother, with her head all bandaged, will go into the top part. But the weight will be a problem. My mother is lighter than I, but no wraith either, and that atop Poseidon— Wait. I have an answer to that also. I will get the man who made the litter to arrange to carry it aboard. You remember I told you that I asked him to make the litter for my sick father who might die?”
“Yes, I remember, but I do not see—”
“I can tell him I have lined the lower compartment with lead. He will believe I have made it ready in case my imaginary father should die on the journey and the weight will be no surprise to him.”
Hades nodded, then sighed. “I hope your carpenter and the ship’s captain do not have time to compare stories. I took passage for myself, my injured master, and his sister. I thought you would have your choice of ages—my master might be young or old.”
“I do not think it matters. Who is there to look for us? Poseidon does not give to any of his servants the kind of power that you allow me or Koios, nor does he encourage them to think for themselves so they can protect his interests even in his absence. Even if Nerus or Neso should notice that my mother and I are missing, they would not institute a search for us themselves; they would wait for Poseidon. So long as the captain does not refuse to take us aboard for some reason of his own, I think we will get away without pursuit.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Hades said, scrubbing fretfully at his beard. “I hope so, but I have this feeling that it is all too easy.”
A few minutes later he was both laughing and cursing over having spoken too soon. Between them, he and Persephone were able to pull the litter away from the wall without any difficulty. It had been made carefully and was surprisingly light and strong. Fitting Poseidon into it, however, was a kettle of entirely different fish.
They got him up on the top bed and opened the panel, but in his bent position there was no way the space would hold him. They could not lay him on his face, because his arms and legs, tied behind him, rose too high and prevented the bed of the upper compartment from seating properly. Nor could they lay him on his side, because his shoulders were too broad. The lower compartment had been designed to hold a corpse flat on its back and be inconspicuous.
Finally, using language that kept sending Persephone into giggles, and complaining bitterly that he thought he had crippled himself, Hades lifted Poseidon out again. Leaving Persephone with a heavy iron pot in hand, in case Poseidon should appear to be breaking loose, he went down to the docks again to a chandler’s shop where he bought some thin, hard ship line. When he returned, breathing rather hard with haste, he pointed out that the sun was about to set and suggested that Persephone go to the market and bring back food, not only for their evening meal but for the voyage.
Having taken a large basket, two covered crocks, two small pots, and a selection of bowls and plates, she set off. By the time she returned, Poseidon had been retied in so intricate a webwork that she insisted on an explanation as she set out their meal.
Hades smiled at her. “I had to think of what he might do if he should come awake, and fix him so he could not. You realize, I hope, that we will not be able to do more than peep at him from time to time, and we not only have to keep him hidden from the captain but keep the identity of the captain and ship from him.”
“Oh, sweet Mother, yes!” Persephone breathed. “I had forgotten about that. He would take dreadful vengeance, and that would be poor thanks from us for being carried safely away.”
She ladled out a savory fish stew and broke pieces off a loaf of bread. For a while both were silent as they ate. Persephone looked at her mother now and again, but Demeter still slept. Soon the last of the light was gone. Hades shut the window and brought three long crystals out of his purse. He set them upright on the table, gestured, and they began to glow. Persephone pulled boiled crabs out of the basket, uncovered a bowl of cooked millet, and poured some savory-smelling sauce over it from one of the pots. Poseidon began to snore loudly. Both looked at him.
“That is one thing I did not consider when I tied him so he cannot move,” Hades said as he wrenched a leg vengefully off an innocent boiled crab.
“I thought you would j
ust wrap him round and round with cloth and rope.”
“Too much rope, and I would not trust any of the cloth in this house against his strength. Believe me, Persephone, he cannot move. If he tries to put his feet flat on the base of the litter and push the top section off with his knees, he will break his big toes, which are tied together and fastened to his ankles—and it is impossible to lift the litter bed without bending his knees because he has no leverage. He cannot move his arms to raise himself or pull off his gag, because his wrists are tied together and fastened to his neck with a line down to his crotch and up his back. If he pulls his hands up, he’ll saw off his balls and choke himself at the same time. That should discourage him.” Hades grinned, “It would discourage me, and I am not nearly as fond of women as Poseidon.” Then he shook his head again. “But short of strangling him, I cannot see how to stop him from snoring.”
“It will not be so loud once the panel is closed, and we can always say it is the injured man who is snoring. Let us hope they do not do it at the same time.” She got up and moved Poseidon’s head. The snoring stopped. “I suppose if he does not move, he will be quite comfortable?” Persephone returned to the table, bending down to kiss her husband as she passed him.
“Well, not comfortable. No one can be comfortable tied and gagged, but I wished to avoid infuriating him more than necessary. You did buy enough food for all of us, I hope. We will have to feed him when he wakes.”
“You sound sorry for him.”
Hades did not reply for a moment and then shrugged. “I am. He was the one in the middle. My father was not so bad in the beginning; he just ignored me until he sensed my Gift. When he knew it would be strong enough to be a threat to him, he tried to kill me. So I was twelve, old enough to understand what was good and what was evil and that I could save myself before I had to escape. Poseidon was too young, only six. All he knew was fear and helplessness. Then my mother had to leave him with the ruler of this island.”
“Poor child,” Persephone said. “Why did Rhea have to leave him?”
“Zeus told me she was trying to save him; she feared that Kronos would trail her and kill the children. But she had to take Zeus because she was still suckling him. Perhaps Poseidon could not understand and felt abandoned. I had made my own life by then. I would have taken them into Plutos if I had known, but in those years we of Plutos were very few, and my powers had not reached their full. Mostly we hid as far from Olympus as we could get, so I heard no word of my mother’s need.”
“Is that why Poseidon carries a grudge against you? Did he believe you had deliberately withheld a sanctuary?”
Hades’s face hardened. “No. That was another matter. I have just thought: How will we let your carpenter know we need him to shift the litter?”
Persephone felt a stab of resentment at the abrupt change of subject. She was not accustomed to being closed out by Hades, who was generally only too eager to share his thoughts and problems with her. Then she guessed that he might be avoiding discussion of something that would make Poseidon even more distasteful to her. She sniffed, but swallowed her impulse to prod him into disclosing what he wished to hide. That would hurt poor Hades and do Poseidon no harm, since she was in no doubt about the sea king’s character without further revelations.
“Cyros made the litter, but he works in the shop of his father, Cyriakos. Their place is somewhere on the docks. Unfortunately I have no idea where, or where they live if they do not live at the shop. Most of their work is refitting ships—that is what Eulimine said. Oh, dear! Eulimine! I never said goodbye… Oh!”
Hades looked up from his careful dissection of the crab he was eating along with spoonsful of the sauce-covered millet. He had heard the change in her voice from controlled irritation, through concern, to revelation.
“Eulimine knows where to find them,” Persephone said. “She recommended them and brought them to me. I was afraid to go near the docks because I did not want to give away my intention to escape, so I told her I was afraid of the rough sailors.” She bit her lip. “She laughed at me, but perhaps she will feel differently at night.”
Hades pushed away his half-finished crab and stood up. “If she is afraid to go alone in the dark, you can tell her I am your father’s servant and I can go with her. Help me get Poseidon into the litter. Then let us cover your mother’s face, bind her hands, and move her to the litter too. Those two will stay as they are for the little time we are both away even if they wake. Then you can come back here and watch them.”
Chapter 23
In the plank shelter built on the stern deck aboard the Thrasus Ichthus, Hades and Persephone sat cross-legged on blankets beside the litter and stared tensely at each other. Both felt as Hades had earlier that night, before they had struggled to get Poseidon into the litter—that the difficulties they encountered had been too easily overcome, and disaster was about to overtake them.
What kept them rigid with anxiety was not all superstition. This little hint and that little suggestion of catastrophe loomed. The first suggestion of trouble was caused by the weight of the litter. Cyros could not lift the front alone and had to fetch his father to help. He had looked from Persephone to Hades, but he had not asked any questions. Nor had Cyros and his father said anything when Hades lifted the rear alone, and they had taken care not to look back at him while they got the burden down the hill; however, from the occasional looks exchanged between Cyros and his father, it was clear they believed the weight was more than a lead lining could create and that they did not really accept the identification of Hades as the “sick man’s” servant.
The resonant snores that had twice started—and stopped when Hades tilted and straightened the litter (almost causing Cyros to drop his pole each time as the additional weight came on him) did not help. Although Persephone had opened the panel and pretended to move her “father’s” head just before Hades shifted the litter, shaking Poseidon, the coincidence of his movement to the actual cessation of the snores was noticeable.
Another cause for concern was that the captain of the ship had looked with too-great interest at the struggle of the men to carry the litter up the boarding plank, and Persephone had noticed how he cocked his head at the thud when the men set their burden down. What he thought they were carrying she could not guess, but his disbelief that the weight was one injured man was plain.
“The question,” Hades whispered, leaning close to Persephone, “is who will do what when?”
His eyes were so black, so brilliant with excitement in the light of the lamp that hung from the low ceiling, that Persephone had to smile. Now that they were together, Hades was enjoying himself. She did not find the question cryptic. She knew what he meant: Would Cyriakos report his suspicions to the guard or the palace, or would his fear of the trouble that might come upon him when she confessed Cyros had made the hiding place keep him quiet despite the hope of a reward for betraying an abduction or smuggling? And if Cyriakos did report them, would the guard act before the ship sailed? Or if they escaped that threat, would the captain’s suspicions induce him to put them off the ship before sailing, or was his greed stronger than his fear of being caught smuggling?
Their great advantage was that neither Cyros and Cyriakos nor the captain had long to consider and reconsider the choices. Hades had set the hour for Cyros to come to Pontoporeia’s house at midnight. That should have put them aboard the ship with considerable time to spare. However, the delay when Cyros found the weight too much and had to fetch his father, and their slow pace down to the docks, had brought them to the Thrasus Ichthus only shortly before the tide turned.
Persephone reached out and put her hand over Hades’s, which held his bared sword. He sat facing the thin plank door of the stern shelter, unlocked because to lock it would serve no purpose when a man could probably kick it down with a single blow. In her other hand she held the bottom of Hades’s staff. It was hard wood and would doubtless break a few heads before the empty core caused it to shatter. Ne
ar the wall of the shelter but well within reach were several sturdy iron pots. They held food but could be used as weapons if necessary.
The captain called; Persephone heard men running about and stiffened. Hades shook his head at her, smiling. “He is ordering his men to cast off the lines,” he said softly. “In only a few minutes we will be free of the dock. After that, it is only the captain himself we need worry about.”
Not long after, when the ship was moving with a longer heave and roll than the sharp jolts caused by the choppy waves in the harbor, he took the staff from her hand gently. “Lie down and try to sleep, love,” he urged.
“It would be better for you to sleep now,” she said. “The captain will not trouble us until we are farther out at sea. If he intends to toss bodies into the water, he does not want them fetching up in Aegina. You will need to be alert then.”
“Yes, but will not your mother wake some time in the morning? You said you wished to talk to her before she saw me.”
Persephone frowned, “True. But you are very tired, my love. You have slept only a few hours in two days. Let us tie a line from the litter to the latch. If we hang two or three cups from the line, well spaced so the movement of the ship does not bang them against each other, they will still make a clatter when the door is opened and they fall to the floor. Then we can both lie down until morning.”
Hades hesitated, plainly worried because the cups would not make much noise when they hit the wooden deck and also concerned about the amount of time he would have between the warning and the attack. Nonetheless, having made the noble gesture and having listened to Persephone’s far more sensible suggestion, he sighed. Carrying that litter had taken more out of him than he liked to admit. His arms felt like lead and his eyelids seemed weighted with half a mountain each.
After looking around the shelter and seeing there was nothing he could use to block the door, he shrugged and nodded. Like Persephone, he did not expect any trouble until they were well clear of the land. She leaned back and reached to where Pontoporeia’s worn mattress and bedding, carried down to the ship before Cyros came to help with the litter, lay rolled behind the pots of food. Hades levered himself to his feet, surveyed the space available, smiled suddenly, and then laid out the bedding right against the door. He handed his cloak to Persephone and lay down quite content.
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