Mystic Isle

by Patricia Rice

  Admittedly, she’d dared think the same, but his bold acknowledgment stunned her. His bare hand on her flesh tingled in an enticing manner that she very much desired to explore. The part of her that longed to be a woman preened knowing that a brave, strong leader of men had chosen her above all others. The part of her that had studied human behavior since childhood laughed and approved his aggressive approach.

  Her too-human heart was annoyed that he did not express desire or affection but only the practicality of leadership.

  The core of her that was committed to the goddess shook her head in sorrow. “You do not understand,” she said sadly. “The goddess only speaks to a chosen few. We live our lives in chastity hoping to be among the chosen. If one of us forsakes her vows, then she forsakes any chance of receiving Aelynn’s visions. At the moment, we have no other Seer among us besides me, unless one of the children manifests such an ability. And even then, it will be years of training before she can take the position of priestess. If all my women choose to give up their chastity, there is only me to receive Aelynn’s words.”

  Nautilus gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. He seemed grim and unbending, but she did not fear him. Perhaps she was growing accustomed to his touch.

  “I have lost all that I thought was mine,” he said in a deep growling voice that penetrated her insides with his determination. “I want sons. I have worked hard to earn a place of respect and a wife to warm my bed. My gold is worthless in this place, but I would surrender it all if you would agree to be my wife. If you cannot, then I must return to Greece and salvage what I can.”

  Her heart nearly failed. She had known she was not meant to be like other women, to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, children, the love of a man. But physically knowing that she surrendered this man she desired above all others caused heart-rending anguish.

  Worse, she cringed at the thought of leading the island without him. She hadn’t realized how very much she depended on his experience and leadership, translating what she did not yet understand, commanding where she could not. She needed time to learn these new circumstances, and the captain would be a partner she could respect.

  Hiding how she was dying inside, she bravely lifted her chin. “I dare not ask you to give up your dreams. I am not even certain that I can commit to another for the sake of the orphans. I am waiting for Aelynn to guide me.”

  His big hand spread across her cheek, exuding the warmth and strength she expected from him. She could almost feel his disappointment, which fed her sorrow and her pride at the same time. Not a sensible combination, she recognized. She’d been abandoned by her family when she began having visions. In her loneliness, she longed for a human touch . . . and to be wanted.

  “We are human. You are human,” he insisted. “How can Aelynn deny you the pleasures of what we are? You do realize the women who say they are committing themselves to the goddess and each other are simply finding pleasure in other women instead of men? It is only human to seek companionship, to love another more than one’s self, enough to raise children and hope for a future. How can a goddess deny this comfort to her priestess?”

  “Alexandra was an excellent priestess, far better than me,” Tasia whispered, leaning into his hand for just this one moment of weakness. She longed to claim his reassuring support for her own, to have his hard male flesh stroking her, sharing his strength. “She did not need a man to aid her. We cannot devote our lives to two gods, and husbands demand our service.”

  “I won’t accept that,” he said angrily. “Pray to your goddess. Ask her if you cannot learn what it means to be touched and loved, as you deserve to be. To do otherwise would be a waste of all you are.”

  Her all too human heart yearned to believe him. As he walked away, a single tear crawled down her cheek, a tear she had not allowed since the day her parents had left her behind. It was weakness to mourn what she could not have, but it was weakness, too, to allow her heart to be torn from her chest and carried away by this mortal male.

  Chapter Seven

  With his future at stake and with no better outlet for his physical energy, Nautilus climbed the volcanic mountain to gain a view of the vast extent of their new home. The island was worth fighting to keep, he concluded, observing the rolling expanse of lush trees and fields, hills and valleys on this side of the mountain. In time, they would need to explore the other side.

  But first, he had to find a way to avoid fighting the priestess over keeping the island in a sane manner that didn’t include ill-advised goddesses who would deny a beautiful woman—and himself—the opportunity for a family and happiness.

  His conflict unresolved by his observations, he stomped back down, wielding his sword to cut back the jungle to create a clear path. He was a soldier, a sailor, a leader of men, not a merchant or farmer. He would have to earn his way on the sea. Still, he wanted a home of his own and a family waiting there when he returned from his journeys.

  Perhaps he should look at the other maidens.

  At the bottom of the mountain, as he pushed his way through banana tree fronds, he heard sobbing. He halted, and with an ear attuned to the calls of whales, located the source of the piteous cries amid a circle of flowering vines.

  Pushing aside the vines, he recognized the black-haired brat who had nearly burned down the isle. The women had cut the scorched strands of the child’s hair when they’d treated her. Her bowl-shaped haircut hid still healing burns.

  “What are you doing away from your bed?” he asked, crouching to examine her burden.

  “I got better fast,” she said defensively. “Althaia did not ask me if I was well.”

  The child cradled a bedraggled and limp ball of feathers in her arms. He studied it with interest, and she glanced up with tearful hope. “Can you save her? I truly did not mean to kill her. I only wished to help.”

  That had been her excuse for setting fire to the island, too.

  Frowning, Nautilus crouched down to examine the filthy creature. He had not bothered to learn the names of the sea birds that followed his ships in hopes of fish guts. He’d merely cursed their poop on his clean decks. He’d have broken the bird’s neck and flung it into the sea had he stumbled upon it.

  But the child’s hope and tears touched his crude heart. He lifted the bird’s head, received a jerk of reproof in return, and decided the creature still lived—perhaps as magically as the child. He’d never seen any person recover so quickly from burns. “She’s not dead yet. Shall I carry her back to your Healer?”

  The girl nodded. “She is big and weighs too much, and I think I broke her when I tried to pick her up.”

  The gray-white bird was indeed huge, as large as the child. Nautilus removed his chiton as he had once before for the child and formed a sling so he wouldn’t maim the creature more. Tying the sling over his shoulder so the bird flapped and struggled against his back, he offered a hand to the girl. “Khaos, am I right?”

  She wiped her eyes, took his hand, and nodded diffidently. “They will want you to take me away on your ship,” she whispered. “I have no gift for anything except trouble. I wanted to take care of the bird all by myself so I wouldn’t cause more problems.”

  Nautilus had to chuckle. “As far as I’m aware, all children are nothing but trouble. I once almost burned an entire ship. Sometimes, our curiosity is greater than our common sense.”

  She gaped at him. “Really? But Kalysta is always so good. She never gets yelled at. She studies and does as told, and Daskala loves her more than me. No one will want to adopt me.”

  “Did Lady Tasia tell you this?” Nautilus asked, fairly certain the priestess who had nearly died for the child would never have said such a thing.

  “The priestess needs helpers, not troublemakers. That’s what Daskala says,” Khaos said sadly. “I am to stay on my bed and not cause any more trouble ever again.”

  Nautilus snorted. “We will talk to the lady about that. I can see you are not one to follow orders.”
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br />   They reached the clearing where the men had erected a temporary palm-frond shelter for the women. The oven that had been built for baking bread now filled the air with delicious aromas with the grain from their supplies. Women stirred their evening meal over a fire. Children played in the sand.

  And Lady Tasia was anxiously counting heads. His body responded instantly, not just to her beauty but to her concern for the littlest among them. A woman like this deserved children of her own—he desperately wanted them to be his children.

  Her relief at seeing them approach quickly turned to sternness. She strode in their direction. Seeing the bird he carried, she rolled her eyes, and gestured for them to follow her down a separate path.

  “The bird needs a Healer,” Nautilus said with amusement. “And the child needs a Keeper.”

  For a moment, maternal concern softened the lady’s expression. But the stern priestess was the one who spoke. “Althaia is this way. We will leave the bird with her. But if Khaos is well enough to wander off yet again, it’s time we talk.”

  The girl clung more tightly to Nautilus’s hand. He could no more deny her than he could give up wanting the priestess. He squeezed her small fingers. “I would like to be part of that talk, please.”

  Lady Tasia looked surprised but warily nodded agreement. “I don’t know what knowledge you might have of children, but I suppose we should learn to work together.”

  They left the weakened bird with a puzzled Althaia. The priestess led them back to an opening in the hillside and gestured for them to enter.

  “I’ve explored and found a way into this mountain with the odd walls,” she explained. “I thought it might provide shelter during a rainy season. But for now, it’s wonderfully peaceful.”

  A beam of sunlight entered from a fissure, and someone had fashioned a bench from an old tree trunk. Using a torch she’d carried from the cook fire, the priestess lit a pile of kindling, and the smoke naturally rose through an unseen opening. Nautilus admired the high ceiling and spaciousness of the chamber . . . and the privacy.

  “Now, sit here and explain yourself, Khaos,” Lady Tasia said, pointing to a low stool. “Start with why you set fire to the bluff.”

  “Because the ships needed a beacon,” the girl said as if that were obvious. “And I’d just learned to start a fire and thought that would guide them home.”

  Nautilus leaned against the cave’s wall and admired how the lady gracefully adorned a crude bench as if she sat upon a throne. He bit back a laugh at the child’s explanation and waited to see how the priestess would respond.

  She didn’t take the tack he expected.

  “You knew the ships were near?”

  “Yes, of course. I could hear them in my head, the sailors were so worried and tired. I thought I’d help.” She sniffed and wiped a dirty cheek with the back of her hand. “I did not mean to harm you, my lady, honest. I would do anything for you. I thought you’d be happy to see the captain home.”

  In her head? The child had heard him in her head? Or his sailors? By Hades . . . Nautilus clenched his teeth and kept silent.

  Lady Tasia didn’t seem surprised. “Can you hear the captain now?” she asked.

  Khaos shook her bobbed hair. “I can hear no one in here. It’s like a magic circle. I like it. The camp is very noisy, always a loud babble, so it’s hard for me to think. But the people on the ship . . . They were all so worried, I could sense that above all else. I couldn’t hear what they said, exactly. I usually can’t, so it’s confusing.”

  The lady gently lifted the child’s chin to look directly at her. “You can hear me speak now, can’t you?”

  The child nodded. “It’s easier in here, where it’s quiet.”

  “So the captain isn’t causing any noise in your head?” The lady shot Nautilus a look that warned him not to say a word.

  He was too puzzled to even think about speaking.

  “Outside, the captain buzzes with too much thinking,” Khaos said, eager to explain herself. “He is like a happy hive of bees, although I think he’s not so happy now. I do not understand much. In here, I cannot hear him. Am I in trouble again for hurting the bird?”

  “How did you hurt it?” the lady asked, wiping her thumb across a grimy cheek to remove a tear before releasing her.

  “It was stealing Myra’s bread, so I tried to shoo her away. But her wing was dragging and couldn’t flap right. She got caught up in branches and fell, and I think I made her hurt when I tried to fix her,” the girl said sadly.

  The lady sighed and ran her hand through her own hair. She glanced up to Nautilus, as if he could understand more. Impatient with her strange interrogation, he removed himself from the wall and lifted the child into his arms. She was not small, but Khaos buried her face in his shoulder as if she were a toddler. He stroked her short hair.

  “Am I understanding that she can hear ships from a distance but can’t hear people when they are next to her?” he asked.

  The lady rose and stirred the fire. “She hears thoughts. Can you imagine what it must be like surrounded by the cacophony of so many people thinking all day? No wonder she keeps roaming off on her own.”

  “That makes no sense,” he argued. “One cannot hear thoughts. Perhaps she has some hearing weakness.”

  The lady shrugged and met his gaze without wavering. “It is possible she has some hearing impairment, too, but the one in her head is causing the most difficulty. Khaos, can you hear me speak now?”

  The child on his shoulder nodded but didn’t unbury her face.

  “If we make a bed for you in here, would you be more comfortable?” the priestess asked.

  The girl’s head jerked up, and even Nautilus could read the wonder in her eyes. “You would let me stay here? With you? You will not send me away?”

  “Of course I won’t send you away, foolish child!” Lady Tasia came close enough to brush hair out of the girl’s eyes. “You are precious to me and to Aelynn. We simply need to find a way to teach you to think before you act, and it might help if you could hear us speak.”

  Khaos reached for the lady, and looking uncertain, the priestess reached out to take her weight into her slender arms. The lady had to crouch down to steady her awkward burden, but she hugged Khaos’s sturdy body.

  Nautilus had to close his eyes against the pain of loss. Even though the lady had never known a mother, she would be a perfect one. Even if Khaos was making up her wild tale, the lady would no doubt understand why and how to correct the tale-telling. She should be rocking a babe of her own. Of his. How could a mere soldier persuade a goddess to give up such a treasure as her priestess?

  He couldn’t. He had just seen why the island inhabitants needed a priestess who understood what they were and accepted them for all their differences. He hung his head in despair.

  He’d only realized he had a heart after it was broken.

  Chapter Eight

  Not entirely regretting the loss of her private hideaway but regretting the unhappiness she’d perceived in the brave captain’s face, Tasia sent Khaos to gather her bedding from the camp. Perhaps the goddess consoled Tasia’s loneliness by sending her a troubled child to raise.

  But a child wasn’t the same as having Nautilus with whom to share her concerns, Tasia realized over the next days. Newly aware of the temptation offered by his strong hand, she tried to avoid physical proximity to the captain.

  Fortunately, he was busy repairing the damaged galley, so she need only avoid the harbor during the day. After a few evening meals watching him sit beside a different acolyte each night, Tasia found excuse to retreat early to her lonely cave. She should be happy that he could look to others, as she could not. Knowing he could switch so easily to another did not make her happier.

  She knew he sought a wife. She had ordered the men to court her maidens. She couldn’t object when he did as told. She could only suffer the pangs of the damned.

  It was blunt Gaia who finally dragged Tasia from her hiding place o
ne evening, leaving a sleeping Khaos unattended.

  “I will send one of the students to watch over her,” Gaia said when Tasia objected. “But you must see this, and stop it, if you can. Even Captain Nautilus seems uninterested in intervening.”

  “If it concerns the men, then it is not my place to interfere,” Tasia argued as Gaia led her through the center of their growing village.

  A student obligingly raced up the path to keep an eye on Khaos while Gaia led the way through the jungle to the bachelor’s quarters.

  “It is not just about them,” Gaia admitted with embarrassment. “Georgós and Heron are fighting over me.”

  Tasia stumbled to a halt and studied her gardener’s expression. She had expected the earthy Gaia to be among the first of her maidens to consider marriage, but she had thought to be consulted first. “You have given them permission to court you?”

  “They did not ask permission,” Gaia said dryly. “I have spoken with both of them over meals, that is all. Georgós is from a farming family, and he’s interested in helping me grow grain and vegetables. I like him. But Heron is his senior and thinks he should have first choice, or something like that. I do not understand these male creatures.”

  “Nor do I, but fighting for your hand is not what I envisioned. It is your choice, not theirs.” Tasia started back up the path. She could hear the shouts of encouragement now . . . and the clash of steel.

  She would put a halt to this nonsense at once.

  In the clearing where the men had formed their encampment, a fire burned. A circle of sailors surrounded the clearing. And in the center, two strong, half-naked men wielded mighty swords.

  “I must admit, they are impressive animals,” Gaia said with a sigh.

  Bronzed skin wet with perspiration gleamed over straining muscles as the pair feinted and swung and dashed about the fire.

  Perhaps she ought to be horrified that men turned against men on Aelynn’s peaceful shores, but she knew these men now. No blood flowed—yet. They were disciplined soldiers. Fighting was second nature to them. And their leader would not willingly lose good men.