Shield of Thunder

by David Gemmell

  Piria knew that Paleste had been dear to Andromache and saw the shock register on her face. Her head dropped, and she was silent for a while; then her expression hardened, and she looked up at the high priestess, her green eyes glinting with anger. “Even so I will not go. No man has the right to demand that a priestess quit her sacred duty.”

  “These are special circumstances,” said the high priestess, her tone uncomfortable.

  “Special? You are selling me for Priam’s gold. What is special about that? Women have been sold since the gods were young. Always by men, though. It is what we have come to expect from them. But from you!” Andromache’s contempt filled the room like a seething mist, and Piria saw the high priestess blanch. She expected an angry response. Instead the older woman merely sighed.

  “It is not just for Priam’s gold, Andromache, but for all that gold represents. Without it there would be no temple on Thera, no princesses to placate the beast below. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could ignore the wishes of powerful men like Priam and do our duty here unmolested. Such freedom, however, is a dream. You are a priestess of Thera no longer. You will leave tomorrow.”

  That night, as they had lain together for the last time, listening to the breeze whispering through the leaves of the tamarisk trees, Piria had begged Andromache to flee with her. “There are small boats on the far side of the isle. We could steal one and sail away.”

  “No,” Andromache said, leaning down and kissing her tenderly. “There would be nowhere to run, my love, except into the world of men. You are happy here, Kalliope.”

  “There can be no happiness without you.”

  They talked long then, but finally Andromache said: “You must stay, Kalliope. Wherever I am, I will know you are safe, and this will strengthen me. I will be able to close my eyes and see the isle. I will see you run and laugh. I will picture you in our bed, and it will comfort me.”

  And so, her heart seared, the woman now called Piria had watched the ship sail east in the morning sunlight.

  Despite her sorrow she had tried to immerse herself in her duties, in the prayer chants and the offerings to the Minotaur rumbling beneath the mountain. The days had ground on, bleak and empty, through the winter. Then, in the spring, old Melite had collapsed while gathering crocuses and white lilies for the midday ritual. They had carried her to her room, but her breath was rasping, and all knew that death was not far off.

  Piria had been watching beside her, late in the night, when the old woman had sat upright in her bed, her voice suddenly rich and strong. “Why are you here, child?” she asked.

  “To be with you, Sister,” Piria replied, putting her arms around the old woman and easing her back onto the pillows.

  “Ah, yes. On Thera. Where is Andromache?”

  “She has gone. You remember? To Troy?”

  “Troy,” the old woman whispered, closing her eyes. She was silent for a while; then she cried out, “Fire and death. I see Andromache now. She is running through the flames. There are savage men pursuing her.” The old woman began waving her arms. “Run!” she screamed.

  Piria grabbed at a flailing hand. “Be calm, Melite,” she said. “You are safe.”

  The dying priestess opened her eyes, her body tense. Tears began to flow. “Wicked, wicked men! Doom will find you. The Minotaur will devour you. He will come with great thunder, and the sky will darken and the sun vanish.”

  “What of Andromache?” Piria whispered. “Can you still see her? Speak!”

  The old woman relaxed and smiled. “I see you, brave Kalliope. I see you, and all is well.”

  “You see me with Andromache in the flames?”

  Melite spoke no more. Piria looked into the old woman’s eyes. She was dead.

  Alone on the beach Piria blinked away the tears and shook her head. Was it a true vision? she wondered now. Did it mean she was destined to rescue Andromache from evil men? Or had the dying old woman merely meant she could see her sitting by the bedside?

  She sighed. Too late now to question it or the reckless decision she had made as a result of it. The night of Melite’s death she had gathered a few golden trinkets and some food and set off for the north of the island, where she had stolen the small sailboat.

  Piria saw the portly figure of Odysseus walking along the strand, angling away from the ship and from the crew, his head averted from her. She knew he had been avoiding her, and on an impulse she stood carefully and then climbed down to the beach. By the time she reached him, Odysseus was kneeling, intently carving a face in the sand with his knife. He looked up, saying nothing, his face unwelcoming.

  For a moment she was silent. Then: “Why did you try to rescue the pig?” she asked.

  He raised his eyebrows as if he had expected a different question. “Circe told me the other pigs would follow Ganny. We needed him to control them.” He stood up and, after cleaning it on his grubby tunic, replaced the blade in his belt. Then he scuffed the sand with his foot, brushing away the carved face.

  “Yet you got them off the ship and into their enclosure without him.”

  There was silence between them again. Odysseus seemed tense, his normally bluff demeanor still and watchful. Piria feared he had already decided to betray her and was feeling guilty.

  “I wanted to thank you,” she said, forcing a smile, “for accepting me as Piria. And for giving me passage on your ship to Troy.”

  He grunted noncommittally.

  “You knew of Kalliades before you met?” she asked him.

  He looked at her then. “Yes, I knew of him. He has a reputation as a fine soldier.”

  “He and his friend rescued me from pirates, from certain torment and death, for no thought of reward.” The dark fears within did not believe her words, but she pushed on, anxious to sway the Ugly King. “He is a man of courage and one to be trusted.” She looked into the king’s eyes. “There are few enough like him here on the Great Green—this sea of scum.”

  He said nothing, so she nodded and started to walk away. Then she turned.

  “Are you such a man, Odysseus?”

  He was saved from answering by a sudden commotion in the pigpen. Piria turned to look. The pigs were squealing and grunting anxiously, and many of them had raced to the seaward end of the enclosure, where they were tearing with their trotters at the dry brushwood.

  Then the ground began to shake. Piria was pitched sideways. Odysseus caught her and held tight to her as rocks rumbled down the hillsides. The sea began to roil, then drew back from the beach in a sudden rush, building into a huge breaker that swept forward, surging around Odysseus and Piria and up the beach. The cookfires were washed away, but the main blaze, on higher ground, escaped the flood, as did the pigpen. The Penelope had been lifted on the first wave and carried deep onto the beach.

  Large waves pounded the shore, but the ground stopped shaking. The pigs were squealing in panic now. Cursing, Odysseus strode over to them, Piria beside him.

  “Be quiet, you pox-ridden cowsons!” he bellowed, and the pigs fell silent, shocked by the sudden sound.

  In the stillness a distant squealing could be heard, borne faintly from the sea on the night wind.

  “There!” One of the men pointed out across the water, and, straining her eyes, Piria could just make out a small black dot as it crested a distant white breaker in the moonlight.

  “Ganny,” Odysseus breathed. “By all the bastard gods…”

  He flung off his jeweled belt and sandals and raced into the waves. With a curse, Bias ran after him and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “My king, don’t do this!” he shouted, his voice diminished by the sound of the breakers. “The waves will throw you against the rocks. You’ll be killed.”

  Odysseus shrugged him off without a word and waded into the surf. Cursing loudly, Bias followed him. After a moment’s hesitation two more crewmen went after them.

  The pig was being swept in fast, and as it came closer, Piria could see it was exhausted, its legs flai
ling weakly as it was flung up and then spun around on the spume. There was a line of black rocks far out from the shoreline, and Ganny was being hurtled toward them. The pig’s cries were weakening, and Piria feared it was dying.

  To have swum all that distance, following the ship with hope in its heart…

  Odysseus had half waded, half swum to the jagged line of rocks and was clambering over them, battered by the waves. The other men joined him, struggling, and Piria could see that their strength was being tested by the force of the sea. They moved along the rocks, hoping to cut Ganny off as he was swept toward them.

  A great wave hid the black pig, then Piria spotted it again being borne toward the edge of the rock on which Odysseus stood. As the next wave lifted the beast, Odysseus hurled himself headlong into the sea, his body striking Ganny and deflecting his course. A second wave crashed over them both, and man and pig disappeared into the spume. When they reappeared, they were beyond the line of deadly rocks.

  Bias and the other two crewmen dived in after them, and for a while Piria could make out nothing. Then she saw the two crewmen carrying the exhausted pig to shore, Bias and Odysseus wading through the surf behind them.

  The animal was laid down on the sand near its fellows, which fidgeted, grunting, in their pen, craning anxiously for a look at their friend. Seawater was dribbling from Ganny’s mouth, and he was breathing shallowly. His trotters moved weakly, and the crewmen were uncertain what to do.

  Odysseus was visibly weary, water sluicing off him onto the sand. He was cut and bruised, and there was a long abrasion on his forearm where he must have fended off the rocks. He stood over the pig and sighed.

  “He needs rest and warmth,” he said. “Place him near the fire.” He pointed at Leukon and growled, “Give him your cloak. This is all your fault, you moron.”

  The blond crewman quickly doffed his yellow cloak and knelt to wrap it awkwardly around the stricken beast. Odysseus turned away and limped toward the Penelope. As he passed her, Piria heard him mutter, “Stupid pig.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ROYAL PRIESTESS

  Kalliades was sitting alone, away from the fire. The sea was calm again, but the night was cool, a chilly breeze whispering over the rocks. Most of the crewmen were asleep. He glanced up to where Piria was sitting, huddled against a rock that shielded her from the wind. He was about to walk over to her when he saw the big black man Bias carrying firewood to where she sat and lighting it with a brand from the main campfire. Then he brought her a blanket. Kalliades wished he had thought of that.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back against a rock, his thoughts somber. Then he heard movement behind him, and his heart leaped, for he thought it might be Piria come to sit with him. Opening his eyes, he saw the stocky figure of Odysseus. The Ugly King sat down beside him.

  “There is something about the sea at night that makes a man feel small,” he said.

  “I feel like that when I gaze upon mountains,” Kalliades told him.

  “Ah, that’s because you are a landsman. You are right, though. The seas and the mountains are eternal and unchanging. We are just here for a little while, and then we fade into the dust of history.” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “So tell me, what happened that night in Troy?”

  It was innocently asked, but Kalliades felt his stomach tighten. Odysseus knew, then. Kalliades felt suddenly foolish. The previous day on the beach he had spoken of fighting against Argurios. That had been a stupid slip of the tongue. What now? he wondered. There was a Mykene garrison on Kios. Would that be Odysseus’ plan? Sell them for Agamemnon’s gold? He saw Odysseus looking at him intently and realized he hadn’t answered the man’s question.

  “We lost,” Kalliades said curtly. “Shouldn’t have. We were led by a fool.”

  “How was he foolish?”

  “I have no wish to talk about it,” Kalliades said. “What do you intend to do with us?”

  “Oh, stay calm, lad. I don’t intend to do anything. As far as I am concerned, you are merely passengers.”

  “You are not interested in Agamemnon’s bounty? I find that hard to believe.”

  Odysseus chuckled. “To be honest, it crossed my mind. Unfortunately, I have a gullible crew. So you are free to do as you please.”

  Kalliades was intrigued. “How does their gullibility affect your decisions?”

  “It was pointed out to me that you and your friend are two fine heroes who risked their lives for a woman they didn’t know. In short, the kind of men I tell stories about. So, much as Agamemnon’s gold would have been welcome, I must forsake it.”

  Kalliades said nothing. He doubted that the wishes of the crew would have any real effect on Odysseus’ decisions and recalled the words of Sekundos about the contradictory nature of the man.

  Then Odysseus spoke again. “Are you ready now to tell me why your general was foolish?”

  Kalliades’ mind drifted back to that blood-filled night, and he heard again the cries of the wounded, the clash of swords, and the grinding of shields. He saw once more the mighty Argurios holding the stairs, the dread Helikaon beside him. “Why foolish?” he said. “He let the enemy dictate the strategy. Once we’d stormed the walls of the palace and were fighting in the megaron, Argurios pulled his men back to the great staircase. Then he and Helikaon stood there, as if daring us to attack them. We had greater numbers. We should have taken ladders and scaled the gallery above the stairs. Then we could have hit them from two sides. But we didn’t. We just kept trying to defeat the two heroes. On the stairs our greater numbers counted for nothing. Then Hektor came, and it was we who were surrounded.” He talked then of how Kolanos had tried to bargain for his life by offering to betray Agamemnon and how King Priam had refused him. “I still don’t understand it,” Kalliades said. “The king we sought to kill allowed us to live, and the king we sought to serve ordered us murdered. Perhaps you can make a story out of that, Odysseus.”

  “I expect that I will one day.”

  “And what of Piria?” asked Kalliades. “Is she also free to do as she pleases?”

  “You care for her?”

  “Is that so strange?”

  “Not at all. Merely a question. But to answer yours, yes, she is free to do as she wants. She will not stay with you, though. You realize that?”

  “You don’t know that, Odysseus.”

  “There are many things I do not know. I do not know where the wind begins or the sky ends. I do not know where the stars go in the daytime. But I know women, Kalliades, and Piria is not a woman who desires men. She never was.”

  “Where do you know her from?”

  Odysseus shook his head. “If she has not told you, lad, then it is not for me to say. But to be close to her is to court danger.”

  “She has suffered enormously these last few days,” Kalliades said. “Her hatred of men is understandable. Yet I think she likes me.”

  “I am sure that she does. Like a brother,” Odysseus added. “I shall see her safely to Troy. Once there, however, she will be in great peril.”

  “Why?”

  “Like you, she has a price on her head—many, many times greater than yours.”

  “Why tell me this?”

  “I like her,” Odysseus said, “and I think she will need friends in the days to come. Loyal friends.”

  “Do you know why she is heading for Troy?”

  “I believe I do. There is someone there she loves—and loves deeply enough to risk her life for.”

  “But not a man,” Kalliades said softly.

  “No, lad. Not a man.”

  Odysseus rose and walked away from Kalliades to the brushwood pigpen. The beasts were sleeping, huddled together on the landward side of the enclosure. He glanced back to the main fire, and saw Ganny, the yellow cloak stretched over him. The pig’s head came up, and he looked at Odysseus. The king strolled over to him. “You’re a lucky fellow,” he said softly. “The waves from that quake were what brought you in. Perhaps the
gods love you.” Ganny gave a soft grunt, then fell asleep again. Odysseus smiled. “Stupid pig,” he said fondly. “I shall speak to Oristhenes and ensure you end up on no man’s table.”

  And now you are having moonlight conversations with pigs, he chided himself.

  Adding wood to the fire, he stretched himself out on the sand, hoping to sleep. Random thoughts fluttered across his mind like irritating bats. The woman Piria, whom he had known as the Princess Kalliope, was a danger to all who came into contact with her. Then there was the Mykene warrior and his lout of a companion. Agamemnon had declared them outlaws—renegades. To help them would undoubtedly earn the enmity of the Mykene king. Odysseus rolled over and sat up, brushing sand from his tunic.

  The enmity of Agamemnon. There was a chilling thought.

  And yet, was there anyone Agamemnon did not hate? Even his friends were only enemies in waiting. Moving to a water sack, Odysseus drank deeply. Bias was sleeping close by. Odysseus prodded him with his foot. “Are you awake?” he said, digging his toe harder into Bias’ ribs. The black man grunted.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, as long as you are awake, I thought we’d sit and talk of old times.”

  Bias yawned and cast a baleful glance at his king. “Why do you never wake anyone else when you can’t sleep?”

  “They don’t get as irritated as you do. It is less entertaining.”

  “They get just as irritated, Ugly One—they simply don’t show it.”

  “I was thinking of keeping Ganny and selling the others. A mascot for the Penelope.”

  Bias sighed. “No you weren’t. You’re just saying that to rile me.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, though.”

  “What? To rile me or keep the pig?”

  “Both have merit, but I meant the pig.”

  Bias chuckled. “I can see that it would be amusing. Yes,” he said after some more thought, “I like the idea.”

  “It is a stupid idea,” Odysseus snapped. “Pigs are sociable creatures. He would be lonely. He’d also stink the ship out.” He glanced at Bias and read the knowing look on his face. “Oh, all right, there is no tricking you tonight. I do like that pig, though!”