Snakehead

by Ann Halam

  “What about me?” wondered Andromeda. “Would you give me a berth? Though you know where I’m going?”

  “I’d rather not,” said the great man.

  I had the strange feeling that he’d done his level best for us. We told him thank you and goodbye, and the lighter took us to the quay. “Hera,” said Andromeda.

  “Hera,” I agreed bitterly.

  The shrine in Taki’s office, which he’d made sure we noticed, was dedicated to the Goddess Hera. He was a Hera worshipper: a devotee of my Supernatural father’s estranged wife, whom Zeus had told me I must avoid at all costs. Not that I’d needed the warning. I knew from my mother that lady Hera would do anything to spite Great Zeus’s plans, especially if one of his mortal “girlfriends,” or half-mortal children, was involved. Somehow, through a dream or an omen, she’d ordered the lord of the Middle Sea’s shipping to stop me from leaving Serifos. And he had obeyed.

  “I was sure he worshipped Afroditi,” I muttered.

  But my father had warned me against Afroditi too.

  We left the chests to be picked up later. Neither of us ever wanted to see them again.

  The boss said, “Taki. I knew it,” and retired to his furnace yard. He could be heard banging things savagely in there, through the long, hot afternoon. Palikari and Anthe had a perverse scrap, with Pali defending Hera, and Anthe snarling about the Supernatural First Lady’s witless attitude: Why doesn’t she just leave him, like a normal person would? Why doesn’t she have her own collection of human boy toys? Moumi tried to make peace, and made things worse. Andromeda and I sat by the banked-down summer hearth. There was nothing left to say, so we said nothing. I listened to the sounds of Koukla wheeling a cart of laundry, slapping out wet table linen, shouting for Kefi to stoke up the outside stove so that she could heat her smoothing irons. Ordinary life, going on …

  The tenth month had seemed a long way off when Andromeda had agreed to come with me, at least part of the way. It wasn’t so far off now. She didn’t have to say it: I knew she couldn’t wait any longer. She must leave; I was trapped. Our parting was no longer somewhere ahead, out of sight. It was here.

  In the end I went to my room and lay there, my choices going round and round in my mind. The winged sandals. Could I use them to leave Serifos? Would Hera prevent me? Could I fly along beside Andromeda’s ship to Haifa, and fight the priests? I did not doubt my own destiny, but I couldn’t get past the idea that we must part, here and now. I would get off the island somehow, but it would be too late. I would reach Haifa with the Medusa Head, too late….

  I woke in the dark. I’d fallen asleep, and someone was climbing noisily through my window. Luckily, I didn’t leap onto the intruder. I struck a light first. It was Kia from the Yacht Club. She sat on my floor in a heap, her pretty brown hair all over her face. She was wearing a yellow singlet smeared with tree bark, and a little purple sailor’s kilt that didn’t leave much to my imagination.

  “Kia? What are you doing in my bedroom? Are you drunk?”

  “Hee hee hee. In your dreams, lover boy.” She parted her hair and grinned at me. She didn’t look all that drunk. “Yours is the only room with a window on the street.”

  “I know. I planned it that way. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m the best tree climber, and we didn’t want to wake the house.” She stared at the harpe, which was unsheathed in my hand. “What is that? We’ve got a surprise for you. A ship! Come and let the boys in. They’re hiding in the alley.”

  “It’s a Chaldean dagger. I’ll get the boss….”

  “No! Don’t wake the grown-ups! You have to let us explain.”

  She insisted on waking Anthe and Palikari, then Anthe ran to fetch Andromeda. Pali and I went with Kia, down to the kitchen yard. Niki and Gliko, the lads from the Twelve Islands who had been flirting with my girl at Polydectes’ feast, sneaked in from the alley with a covered lantern. We gathered behind the wellhouse.

  They’d found us a ship. The captain had agreed to take us, but on the quiet.

  “He doesn’t care about the great Taki,” hissed Gliko. “Only we do, so we’d like our help to be a secret, if you don’t mind.”

  Andromeda nodded eagerly, without a word.

  “Done!” I whispered. “But why can’t we wake the boss, or my mother?”

  “Er, we’re not sure. Your friend said just to tell you two.”

  “What friend?”

  “He says this ship won’t be stopped by contrary winds,” broke in Niki. “Which Someone might be trying to arrange. She’s manpowered. The captain’s an Achaean.”

  Manpowered: I knew what that meant. “You mean she’s a warship.” My hope plunged again: I might have known this was too good to be true. “I know why warships take on stray young men, Nik. Are you sure this captain isn’t going to press-gang me into service with the Achaean fleet?”

  “It’s not like that! It’s more mysterious than that!”

  “You have to come now,” Gliko insisted. “The Argo, that’s her name, will be long gone at dawn. Your friend says some of the crewmen have been doing a little night hunting, er, for deer, so they’d rather be away before daylight.”

  “There are no deer on Serifos. We ate them all, hundreds of years ago. You mean the ‘Achaean captain’ is raiding our herds. Who is this ‘friend’?”

  The kids seemed puzzled. “Dunno,” said Gliko. “Didn’t get a straight look at him.”

  “Perseus,” breathed Andromeda. “We’re wasting time!”

  We hugged Pali and Anthe. I had the Supernatural loot on my back, and a wallet with a few necessities; she had her bundle. We took nothing else. The Yacht Club kids led us to the end of the waterfront and onto the headland path. We passed the inlet where I had met my father, and climbed down into the next bay. I saw the ship, long and black against the starry horizon, riding without lights (a pirate trick). She definitely looked like a warship. But there was something strange about her….

  A small boat was waiting. The kids came no farther; we crossed the sand alone.

  “Great Mother keep you both,” called Kia softly. “Hey, if you don’t like the company, jump ship at the first port! That’s what I always do.”

  The figure in the boat tossed back his cloak. I saw Hermes’ bright, glimmering face. “Who is it?” whispered Andromeda, gripping my hand. “Do you know him?”

  “This is Hermes,” I said. “He’s my half brother, and he really is a friend.”

  The courier of the Gods rowed us out into the calm, his oars shattering reflected starlight. “Now, this ship. We borrowed her from, er, somewhere else. The Argo is fast. At this season, with the ships of your times, you’d never make it now by natural means. So we had to cheat a little. The young people won’t remember me clearly. It was better your mother and the noble Dicty didn’t know. It would have added to the confusion.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a little tricky. The captain’s name is Jason. He’s a freebooter, a bit of a pirate. He’ll get on your nerves, but try to keep your temper. One other slight difficulty: he’s agreed to take you, but he’s supposed to be a friend of Hera’s. So watch out for that.”

  We were expected: a rope ladder came tumbling down the black hide of the ship. She was riding strangely low, and the oars were ranked on two decks. I’d never seen that before.

  “Just one more thing,” said Hermes. “Keep clear of a fellow called Heracles, if you can. Big bloke, lot of hair, wears a lion skin sometimes.”

  “Why him in particular?”

  “He’s your great-grandson. It would be complicated.”

  We stood together on board the black ship. “Is this how it feels to meet the Gods?” asked Andromeda, wide-eyed in the dark. “Perseus? Are we in the other world now?”

  “No,” I said. But I wasn’t sure. “Yes … I don’t know.

  It’s different.”

  We were taken below. The pirate, outlaw or possible press-gang captain was a brawny Acha
ean, almost as tall as me, his yellow hair bleached whitish by the sun, cut short and sticking up in spikes. His eyebrows were the same color as his hair, and so was his beard. He wore flashy topaz earrings, a pair of trousers made of canvas with ragged holes in the knees and a white singlet fastened on both shoulders with gold pins. He obviously thought he was the king of style in this getup. I took an instant dislike to him.

  He met us in the well between the rowing benches, explaining grandly that the Argonauts were a band of brothers, and the captain didn’t have a private cabin. When he’d taken one look at Andromeda, he lit an extra lantern, all the better to ogle her.

  “So you’re Perseus, the massive hero, beloved of the Gods.”

  We couldn’t see the rowers: there were screens on either side of the well. But we could hear the pumping, pounding, regular thunder of the beat, over a slamming sound I couldn’t identify. (It was the sliding benches—a new invention, I found out later.) It didn’t seem as if anything human could be making that noise.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” I shouted (there was no chance of normal conversation). “They asked me to do an errand. Not much to it.”

  “I like your attitude! Thanks muchly for the meat supply your foster dad’s island is kindly providing, by the way. And gorgeous here is your girlfriend?”

  Andromeda gave him stare for stare, which he did not like.

  “We’re traveling together. She’s a friend.”

  Jason grinned. “All right, I’ll mind my own beeswax. Many of us on board the Argo have left some kind of hell behind us. Let’s get to the man talk.” He spread his arms. “Welcome aboard, Perseus, son of Great Zeus! Glad to have you on the team!”

  He would have hugged me, but I dodged. “On the team?”

  “Well, yeah?” said Jason. “What did you think? You’re a son of Zeus, you don’t have to audition, lad. We have fifty oars on the Argo. Fifty, how about that? In a custom shell, only one in the world. She’s unbelievably powerful. You can take a backup seat on the top shelf next shift, try our style. You’ll earn your own cushion in no time, I’m sure.”

  Thunder, thunder, slam, slam … So this was the secret of the Argo’s speed. Fifty oars, in a designer hull. A rowing bench meant slavery to me. The worst kind of slavery, where the only way you get free is by dying. It was the horror of modern war: feeling the shock of battle, not knowing what was happening, going to your death trapped below deck without ever striking a blow. I forgot I was supposed to humor this guy. I didn’t care if the crazy Argonauts were doing it for fun, the idea of joining them was repellent.

  “You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not here to join your crew. We’re asking for a passage to the port of Parga. It’s on the northwest coast of the Greek Mainland. I was told you’re willing to take us?”

  Jason was staggered. “You don’t want to join us? You can’t be serious! We’re the Argonauts. We’re the future of the human race!” He swung back his elbow and fisted the air a couple of times, in what was probably the crew salute. “Manpower! Manpower!” He grinned. “Scared of showing yourself up? Well, one of you has to work for your keep. I don’t take passengers.” He leered at Andromeda. “Beauteous babe, if you can’t handle a bireme oar, you’d better persuade hunky here. Or it’s over the side!”

  I would have to do it, and just hope to Great Mother this clown would remember I hadn’t signed up for life…. But wise Andromeda saved me.

  “He can do better than row,” she said. “He can cook.”

  Jason’s stubby white eyelashes quivered. I hadn’t noticed how much he looked like a smug, sleek, bronze-hided pig. He folded his arms, deep in thought. “Hmm. The cook quit, and the cooking rotation isn’t working out….”

  His brow clouded; he looked puzzled. “Hold on. Did you say Parga? We weren’t heading north….” Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Hey, it’s an adventure! Strange, spooky things are always happening to us. We’re the Gods’ favorite playthings. We have our secret objective.” He tapped the side of his piggy nose, and winked. “But we’re in no hurry. We don’t care where we go, as long as there’s a fight to be fought, or a feat to be accomplished. We’ll take you to Parga, why not?”

  I knew the Argo was god-touched. I could feel it. More than touched, she was rotten with it. But Jason was mortal, I could feel that too. He was being used, and I needed to know how much he understood.

  “Do you know why you were brought here to pick us up?”

  Jason grinned. “Oh yeah. I know all about it, now I think. You fell foul of Hera, and I’m her blue-eyed boy. Is that worrying you? So what! Me, I love living on the edge. She has a huge crush on me, bless her. She’ll forgive.” He leaned over to nudge me in the ribs. “It’s a toss-up, eh? Offend one of them, please another. Between you and me, I’d back Great Zeus against his old lady, any day of the month.”

  I didn’t like being nudged. “How long will the trip take?”

  The captain became a different person. He frowned, and consulted a metal instrument on the center post. He opened a locker, pulled out a scroll and spread it wide. It was an exquisite sea chart, like no chart I’d ever seen. I saw my Kyklades, and the Mainland coast. I had a glimpse of the shocking distances—before Jason glowered at me and adjusted his fleshy arm and shoulder so that I couldn’t see the inked lines.

  “Hmm.” He muttered, and measured with the first joint of his finger.

  “‘Bout five, six days. Can you live with that, great Perseus?”

  Yiannis had said twenty days or more. Wow.

  “We can live with that,” said Andromeda.

  The Argonauts were gentlemen adventurers. They had no servants as such, and did their own chores. The hired cook had been their one concession, and he’d been badly missed. A constant supply of hot food for the rowers was part of their speed formula. We worked in a tiny shack above decks, forward of the steering-oar housing, grandly called “the galley.” It was nonstop, and boring too. Grilled meat and flat bread, grilled meat and flat bread, in immense quantity, morning, noon and night. Seasonings? Fruit? Vegetables? Forget it. The Argonauts never went to market, on principle. They carried no trade goods (though they were well supplied with coin), and picked landing spots where there wasn’t a town or a farm for miles, so that they could pretend the country was uninhabited, ruled by monsters, plagued by witches: any excuse for thievery.

  It was no wonder the ship felt god-touched. Jason had a high proportion of half-mortals on his team: sons of Gods, sons of nymphs, even of the North Wind. Some of them ignored our arrival; they just took the food and ate like starving machines. Some were friendly: Castor and Polydeuces, the twins who had two fathers; one mortal and one a son of Zeus; Orpheus the musician; Atalanta, the only sister in this band of brothers. Some, like the great brute called Heracles, whom I’d been warned to avoid, seemed to be completely in a world of their own.

  None of them questioned who we were or why we were on board. Jason had called me “son of Zeus,” but Hermes must have told him that. The others knew nothing. What was stranger was that we didn’t know them. We’d never even heard of Orpheus, and he was amazed at that (although for an artist of genius, he’s not vain). I began to think it was a good thing, for this particular voyage, that they avoided the ports. The heroes of the Argo might have been very strangely surprised by what they found there.

  There was another “deer-hunting” raid two days out of Serifos, but we didn’t dare to go ashore. We were afraid we might never get back on board if we once stepped on mortal earth again. Either the god-touched black ship would vanish, or else we would.

  We spent our free time on the roof of the galley, haunted by the everlasting slam-swoosh-thump, slam-swoosh-thump of the oars, watching the sea and sky. Andromeda had copied down my instructions onto tallyboards before we left Seatown. She read them to me, and we tried to make sense of them, without our family’s distracting comments. Find the Graeae. Get them to tell me how to reach the Stygian nymphs. Get the Stygian nymphs t
o tell me the special route to the Garden of the Hesperides, located somewhere in North Africa. Kill the Medusa, without looking her in the face. Get away very quickly with the grisly trophy.

  Either I’d forgotten more than I remembered, or a lot of information was missing.

  “How am I supposed to sneak up on the Gorgons? They can’t be blind, if they can look at people and turn them to stone.”

  “Maybe they look at people by accident. But they’ll hear you.”

  “Unless they’re deaf. But how do I escape, after I’ve killed the Medusa, even with winged sandals? The other two have wings, and I can’t kill them.”

  “Perhaps they have wings but they can’t fly,” suggested Andromeda. “Like ostriches.”

  I didn’t know what ostriches were.

  “They’re very big birds, with legs longer than Atalanta’s. They can run faster than horses, but they can’t fly. Perseus, try to concentrate. What about the Head itself? How do you carry it if it’s dripping poisonous blood? How do you manage never to look at it?”

  “How do I keep it from looking at innocent bystanders?”

  Sometimes the Medusa Challenge seemed like a ghastly joke.

  I loved to hear her voice and to watch her. I felt that shiver down my spine again as her eyes, her mind, turned the flying marks back into meaning. I’d pore over the boards, fascinated by those dancing signs. “Do you think you could teach me to read?”

  “Maybe,” she said sadly. “If we had time.”

  When darkness fell, we stayed on the roof; we had nowhere better to sleep. The Argo‘s huge oars beat onward, remorseless, mechanical as a waterwheel. The Argonauts had a mast and kept it stepped, but they never raised the great square sail unless there was a steady breeze in exactly the right quarter, and rarely even then. Not one of them, not even the captain, was much of a sailor, in the normal sense. Which made it all the stranger to be traveling so fast, at summer’s end, when any normal sea journey was faltering, losing days to calm and fretful squalls.