Black Ships

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Black Ships Page 9

by Jo Graham


  “Because the gulls are nesting,” I said. “See? They will not nest where there is no fresh water to be found.”

  We climbed up together. There was a tumble of stones, old ones, worn and shaped, with bits of shell in them. Some looked as though they had once been squared. Nearly at the top, there was a green hollow, and a small spring that trickled from between the stones. The gulls screamed at me and beat at us with their wings.

  “We will not disturb your nests,” I said aloud, “or anything of this island that does not belong to us. We know you are the creatures of the Lady of the Dead.” I knelt beside the water. “Great Lady,” I said, “this water comes from Your holy places beneath the earth. Grant that we may fill our casks and have water for the People.” I took a sip. It was sweet and fresh and cool as a mountain stream, as sweet as Her assent.

  “We will fill our casks here, Neas.”

  HER MERCY

  In the end, we were three days on the Island of the Dead.

  At first, most of the men were reluctant to set foot on the island. Even when Neas came back to the ships and explained that there was water, I saw the eyes rolling and the motions to avert evil.

  “I spoke to the Lady of the Dead,” I said, “and asked Her for water. She sent Her birds to show us where it was, a sacred spring as clear and as pure as any in the world. We may fill our casks as long as we disturb no living thing on the island that is Hers.”

  After this there were some who would come ashore, and they began loading water for Hunter and Seven Sisters first.

  By the end of the first day we had just begun loading clean fresh water onto Dolphin and Pearl when a sail was sighted. There was a flurry of movement, oars unshipped, sailors recalled from the island. Seven Sisters and Hunter ran out, preparing to meet and delay the newcomer as long as possible. We heard their cheers coming back over the water. It was Winged Night, and she had all of Menace’s people aboard.

  As twilight came the three ships returned to the island and we heard their story. Winged Night had ridden out the storm, seeing other ships in the distance, but essentially alone. At dawn on the second day, as the storm was abating she had come upon Menace, near foundering with her decks awash. She had closed on the sinking ship and lying alongside had taken all her people off with ropes, except for one woman who had fallen in the sea and drowned. Menace was lost, but twenty-one sailors, five women, and four children were saved. The loss of the ship was hard.

  “Ships may be replaced,” Neas said, “but the blood of our People is spread thin. We cannot spare even one, even the smallest child, and you have rescued thirty who would otherwise have been lost. Tonight we will honor the crew of Winged Night.”

  Amid the reunions, he drew me aside. “We will have to be several days here. Is that well with your Lady?”

  “It is,” I said. “If She had not meant for us to find refuge here, She would not have let Her sister bring us to Her doorstep. I have seen no sign that She is displeased.”

  “The beaches are broad and the water shallow over a sandy bottom. There is water aplenty. No man comes here. We must stop a day or two, heal our hurts, and find room for Menace’s people on the other ships. Also, perhaps Lady’s Eyes and Swift will join us.” He did not mention the fishing boats. One doesn’t speak of ill, as that may invite it, but as time passed it seemed more and more likely they were lost, especially since Menace had been overwhelmed. She had been one of the newer warships, if not the largest.

  So we stayed. That night Neas lit a bonfire, and the men paid tribute to the courage of Winged Night’s crew with the best wine of Pylos. Drums and flutes were produced, and before long there was singing beneath the almost-full moon, the long line dances weaving around the fire, singing familiar songs of home. In their rhythm I heard the echo of the flax slaves. This was where they had come from, the songs they had sung as they worked, sounding of sorrow and loss. I heard them now outpouring relief and release.

  Tia did not dance, but she stood near the fire clapping the dancers on, a wine flush on her face. Kos pirouetted in a circle and then threw his arm over Xandros’ shoulders, shouting out the words at the top of his voice. Bai could not dance. He took a few steps and nearly fell. Tia saw and helped him sit, near enough to the fire to sing, but not to be trampled on. He spoke to her. Words of thanks, I thought. Her flush rose higher. He looked up, patted the ground beside him. She hesitated, then sat down on his left, the width of a man still between them. But she smiled.

  I turned away. I will go out from the dance, I had said. And none shall call me beloved. It had not seemed hard at the time.

  And now what should I dream of? A prince’s courtesy, smiles and trust that were for his oracle, not for me?

  Instead I found myself thinking of a lean, smooth form darkened by sun, of Xandros’ still, deep eyes.

  I walked away from the crowd on the beach, drawing my mantle about me, walked down toward the inner lagoon with its dark water and secrets. No one followed. I followed the lagoon around until I found a place where a tumble of rocks spilled down into the water, perhaps part of the fallen wall of some great palace that Neas remembered. I sat there on the rocks under the moon, wrestling with my heart.

  Great Mistress, I said, it is not that I do not love You more than life. Or that You are not mother and father both to me. But as Cythera said, my body is a young woman’s. Is it so odd that I should be moved by a man of my people?

  There was no answer except the quiet lapping of the waves. The reflections of moonlight on the water rippled across sunken doors and windows. No bones remained, just the skeletons of houses waiting underwater, reminders of what had been. The water was shallow. The houses were deceptively close, as though you could simply wade out and walk those streets, step into the Land of the Dead.

  What had I forgotten when I crossed the River? Had I lived in those houses, slept behind those windows? I could not help imagining a palace with red columns, a great soft bed where I lay entwined with warm arms, golden stubble against my breast, my hands against his shoulders, doomed lovers on the last day of the world.

  But the world is not ended, She whispered in me. The world ends, and begins again. That is the Mystery, if you have courage to follow it.

  I belong to Death, not to beginnings, I said.

  Ah, She said.

  I heard then the scattering of small stones, as though someone else was climbing up the rocks. I waited to see who it would be, not certain which I wished it to be.

  It was Tia.

  I sighed.

  She startled when she saw me and almost fell. “Lady! I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  “You didn’t expect anyone to be here,” I said. “You have walked apart, and wanted solitude. I will go.”

  “No,” she said. “Stay.” Tia looked away, out over the sea. “There is something I...”

  “Sit beside me then,” I said.

  She folded up next to me, her knees hugged tight to her chest. “I know that there are things...I mean, if you think...”

  I looked at her, waiting for her to go on.

  “There are things that can stop a baby, yes?”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “I don’t...I can’t...Kos doesn’t know yet, but he’ll wish me dead when he does.”

  “Kos will do no such thing,” I said. “You are blameless in this, as are all captives. He loves you dearly. He risked everything to find you and rescue you. Kos will never turn away from you.” I had seen enough of the man to know this, the love and relief on his face in Pylos when he saw his sister alive against all hope.

  “I dishonor him,” Tia said.

  “You do not,” I said. “Are you certain it is so?”

  “I think. It’s been a long time since my courses.”

  “Let me see,” I said. “Lift your tunic. I will touch only your stomach.”

  She flinched, but did as I asked.

  “Lean back a bit.” Tia was so thin that her hip bones were sharp, but there was a l
ittle pooch of flesh that should not have been there. Under my hand it was firm, as hard and as solid as muscle, rising four finger widths above the bone of the pelvis. I pressed gently, and it was firm. “Yes,” I said, “you are with child. How many moons since your courses?”

  “I don’t know,” Tia said. “Since I was on the boat to Pylos, I think. Three, maybe four moons? Can you stop it? My mother once said that there are herbs?” Her voice was hopeful.

  I shook my head. “There are, but I have none of them. And even if I did, I could not give them to you now. You are too far along. They could kill you.” I moved my fingers, pressing a little, and felt it, the faint flicker of movement, almost imperceptible, the movement of a child with many months still to go before breathing air.

  Tia bit down on her lip. “That might be better.”

  “It would not,” I said. “Tia, look at me.”

  She did, and I did not see what I feared, the real desire to die. “I can’t tell Kos,” she said. “But sooner or later even he will know.”

  “He will know,” I said. “And it will be well. Kos would never do you harm.”

  She bent forward over her knees. “Everyone will know. I want to just be rid of it. And you are telling me I must bear it.”

  “All these women here know what it is to be prizes of war, even the few who escaped from the City. There are many who have borne the child of their captor. None will blame you or consider you without honor. You remember what Prince Aeneas said earlier?”

  She looked up at me and shook her head.

  “Every life of the People is valuable. Is irreplaceable. Including yours.”

  “Even the smallest child,” she said. “But Sybil, I do not want this child! I will look at it and hate it. I will cast it into the sea. I will wish it never born, or dead. Tell me that when it is born I can leave it in some deserted place.”

  “No,” I said. “You cannot.” And it was Her implacable mercy that spoke through me. “Her hand is upon it.”

  “It will die?” she said.

  I reached forward and put my hand on her stomach again. “The child is a daughter,” I said. “And if she lives, she belongs to the Lady of the Dead.”

  I had dreamed on the boat, sitting next to Tia, of a girl in black with long red hair, a place with young olive trees, of Death speaking to me through pomegranate lips. Those, perhaps, were always Hers, but not the freckled hands, thin and fair like Tia’s, but spattered with gold. Those belonged to a real girl. “She is the granddaughter of Iaso the boatbuilder, and when she is weaned you will give her to me to be my acolyte. I will raise her as a daughter to the Shrine, and she will be Sybil when I am gone.”

  “You will take her?” Tia said. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said. I drew her tunic down. “I will take your child. She will have honor and a place. It is so.”

  You are not alone, She had said. I did not carry Her alone. There was also this tiny scrap of life with the capacity to hold Her, She Who Would Be Pythia after me.

  “You’ll tell Kos this?” Tia asked.

  “I will tell Kos,” I said. “I will help you tell him if you wish. But he will not be angry at you, no matter how much he curses the Achaians and vows dire vengeance upon them.”

  IN FACT, he didn’t. Tia and I sat with him on the rocks the next day, while Dolphin, Winged Night, and Pearl spread nets behind them and fished offshore as though they were little fishing boats, not warships. Feeding this many people took a lot of food, and if we were forbidden the gulls’ eggs on the island, we were not forbidden the fish offshore.

  What Kos did was cry and beg Tia’s forgiveness that he had not protected her. He had been away at sea. Their parents had been killed, and a younger brother still at home. Tia’s baby nephew had been taken from her arms and killed in front of her. She had been watching him while his mother was at the market, a sister older than Kos who was missing and whose fate was unknown.

  “I should have been there,” Kos sobbed. “I should have died rather than let this happen to you.”

  “If you were dead,” I said gently, “who should care for Tia now? Who should support her and the child she carries? She needs her living brother.”

  “It is my fault,” he said. “Tia, dear sister.” He cried against her neck while she held him and cried too.

  “It’s not your fault, Kos,” she said. “I know you’d have done anything to keep this from happening. It is my fault. I should have run. I should have done something else. I dream it over and over. And every time I stand there frozen and do nothing.”

  “There was no place safe,” he said. “Where would you run to?”

  I let them cry before me, alone on the rocks with the wheeling gulls. “You are together,” I said. “There is nothing you can do now for your family, except live. Live as your parents would have wished, and take care of each other.”

  “That’s all any of us can do,” Kos said. “Take care of each other.”

  “We are all one kindred now,” I said. “Sea people and horse people, Lower City and Citadel. We must act as one kindred, bound in honor and love.”

  Kos wiped a tear from his sister’s face. “This baby is the last of our line. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and not do anything foolish. Mother wanted a granddaughter so badly. Remember how she was when Kianna was pregnant? Everyone kept wishing her a boy, but Mother kept wishing for a girl?”

  Tia was laughing and crying at the same time. “She did. That’s exactly what she did.”

  “I promise I’ll take good care of both of you,” Kos said. “Until it’s time to give her to the Lady, as Sybil says.”

  “She will be my acolyte,” I confirmed. “She will be a daughter to me.”

  WHEN I WAS DONE with them the sun was high and I was thirsty. My head was aching. I did not go back to the camp. There were too many people who needed something, who wanted a word just now. I went apart, toward the spring, my head hurting so badly that all I wanted was to lie down in the shade of the stones, in the dark.

  “Sybil?” Neas said. “Where are you going?”

  “I am going to pray,” I snapped.

  “Oh.” He drew up short. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, remembering my duty. “How may I help you, Prince Aeneas?”

  He came up and stood before me. “That was well done,” he said.

  I shrugged. “These are not hurts I can heal. Only time, and the favor of the gods. And some of these breaches will never be mended.”

  He looked down at me. “What if the child is a boy?”

  “We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

  Neas raised one eyebrow. “You do not know?”

  “I think,” I said. “I think that I have read Her signs rightly. But one can never be certain.”

  “You seemed certain in Pylos.”

  “That is the kind of holy mystery that comes on one perhaps once in a lifetime, to be the vessel for Her will so completely. I cannot hope for that guidance again.” I looked out across the sea. “She Who Was Pythia taught me that we must ask for Her guidance, and use our eyes and our hearts when Her will is not plain. I do as best I can and hope that I do not err, or fall into folly and hubris.”

  “More or less like being a prince,” he said.

  “Perhaps, Prince Aeneas.”

  “Neas.”

  “Yes.”

  “Go apart, then,” he said. “I will see that no one disturbs you at the spring.”

  “They will disturb you instead,” I said. “Is there no one in whom you confide? Xandros?”

  Neas looked away. “Xandros is my friend,” he said. “A good companion, and one whom my heart trusts. But this lies between us now—that my child lives and his are dead.”

  I caught my breath. “I did not know that he had children,” I said.

  “He had two daughters. A little girl who was three years old, and a baby just learning to walk. They were killed because they w
ere too young to be useful slaves. His wife put up such a fight when they went for the girls that they had to kill her too, even though she would have been a valuable prize.”

  I turned my head away. “But your son lives,” I said, it catching in my throat.

  “He was four, not three,” Neas said, and his voice shook only a little. “He hid while they raped and killed his mother. My father found him and got him from the house before it burned over his head. I was too late returning to Wilusa with the fleet. If we had been there, it would not have been.”

  “Now you sound like Kos,” I said.

  “Kos was not in command. I was.” His voice was harsh. “The responsibility is mine.”

  “No,” I said tightly. “That rests with Neoptolemos. He is the one who raised a fleet in Pylos, who incited young kings to war. He is the one who was greedy for gold and the women of other peoples. I watched him. I saw him at the feasts, speaking of glory and treasure, kindling ambitions and desires. I stood as close as I am to you, and I watched him. I know precisely where the responsibility lies.”

  I took the prince’s hands. “He wanted slaves to sell in Millawanda, the Free City. They stopped on the way back to Pylos and sold many slaves. That is where many of our people are. Others were taken to Tiryns, but if you have seen Tiryns of the Mighty Walls towering over the plain of Argos you will know that there is nothing we can do to assail them. But in Millawanda we may yet find some of our lost people and free them somehow.”

  “We raided Pylos because it was what I could think to do,” Neas said. “There were men of Pylos who burned Wilusa, and we knew that it did not have great defenses. I could not think what else we could do, besides try to restore some of our folk, and to give us vengeance for so many things.” Neas dropped my hands. “But I am a man of twenty-two, not a boy to run aimlessly from place to place. And my desire for blood is not so great that I would take us all out in a blaze of glory to restore things that cannot be restored.”

  “Nothing can restore the dead to you,” I said gently, “not this side of the River.”

  “I know,” he said. “Yet I feel like Theseus, running madly through the coils of the labyrinth, with horrors following at my heels, and every twist bringing me a new dreaded sight. I dream, and it pursues me. I am sunk so far in horror heaped upon horror that I cannot taste wine or see the sun above. The world has ended. And I don’t know why I yet live.”

 

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