Snakehead

by Ann Halam

  “Now I am free,” said Andromeda, standing there in her shipwreck rags.

  She glanced from side to side, looking like a real, snotty highborn princess for the first and only time in our aquaintance. “Someone bring me some clothes!”

  Someone brought her a gold-bordered mantle, in a hurry.

  Then Cassiopeia said her own prayers of thanksgiving, and burned incense while Andromeda and I stood by. There was cheering and singing going on outdoors. I thought we should get out there and have flowers thrown at us, be sprayed with wine, celebrate. But we were not yet out of trouble. The priests had been organizing something. A group of them had scurried off into the inner courts as soon as we reached the temple. Suddenly they reappeared, with a gaggle of old women swathed in white, their heads tied up in bindings brow to chin, as if they were corpses. The big fat priest prostrated himself before the queen, which gave his cohorts a chance to form up and block our exit. He heaved himself upright, looking pleased with himself, and began to make a solemn speech, with holy gestures.

  “Speak Greek,” snapped Cassiopeia.

  “The noble princess Andromeda may not leave our precincts, Great Queen. She is dedicated to Baal-Melqart, who has spared her to spend her life in his service.”

  That was a bad moment. Andromeda looked stunned, completely taken aback. I thought they could do it. The priests could keep her here; it was sacred law. And I was helpless. I couldn’t fight our way out. It would be sacrilege.

  For a moment the queen felt the same. I literally saw the blood drain from her face, leaving the dark skin gray. Then a light dawned in her beautiful eyes. She smiled, most graciously. “I’m afraid that’s an honor Andromeda is not free to accept.” And she turned to me, to my amazement.

  “My daughter is betrothed to Perseus, son of Zeus.”

  “I am?” said Andromeda. “When did that happen?”

  “Earlier,” said the queen firmly. “You are promised in marriage to the hero who tamed the earthquake. This is the will of the Gods, and you may not refuse.”

  “I’m sorry.” I’d forgotten all about it, but now I remembered, and I was scared. “Andromeda, I can explain, I was in a hurry, I had to, to, you see …”

  “Of course, noble Perseus, I accept. A princess has no choice in whom she marries. I shall gladly obey my royal mother.”

  The priests saw that they were defeated. I was blushing hard, and Andromeda’s black eyes were gleaming with pure wickedness.

  There was a big to-do out in the precinct. Kephus rushed into the sanctuary, hustling along with him a younger man, who was also wearing fancy-dress armor. A bunch of shiny soldiers clattered after them and clashed their swords in salute.

  “Andromeda!” cried Kephus, spreading his arms wide. “Thank the God you’re safe! This is wonderful news! We had not dared to hope!”

  “It is sometimes the way of the Mighty Ones,” intoned the chief priest. “The willingness is all. Sincere submission to the will of the God, as it is revealed to his priests, is sometimes all that is required. Submission, and of course a very substantial offering, which is yet to be negotiated …”

  Cassiopeia gave him a dirty look.

  “Yes, yes,” broke in Kephus. “Now, Andromeda, you remember Phineus, don’t you? Your fiancé? Before this thing with the earthquake God blew up?”

  “I remember Phineus,” said the princess, with a brief glance at the warrior. “I remember you favored him, Daddy. It didn’t get further than that….”

  “Kephus …” The queen tried to shut him up. “This is not the moment.”

  The king turned on her. “This is the moment! Your Majesty, with the greatest respect, right now your daughter’s a rejected sacrifice. She can’t remain unmarried after what’s happened. If you let them, the priests will have her locked in a convent before sundown. We have to take this very good opportunity….”

  Phineus, in his flashy armor, was looking ridiculously hopeful. Cassiopeia was looking daggers. Andromeda was plain exasperated. There was a mad rumor, afterward, that said I came to blows with Andromeda’s so-called fiancé. Or else I turned the Medusa Head on him and his pals, and reduced them to garden ornaments. All nonsense.

  All I did was stand there. I may have set one of my hands on the sheathed harpe. They didn’t know about the Medusa, but they all knew (or they thought they knew) that I had the power to still an earthquake.

  “Father-in-law,” I said politely. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  We had to let them marry us before we could get away from Haifa. Cassiopeia wanted a huge wedding, but we wanted to make it fast. We compromised. The palace secured us a westward passage on one of the last ships of the season, and we did the full royal wedding, shorter version. The best part was when we rode around the city in a chariot, dispensing coin to the populace. We enjoyed that, especially because, as was the custom, this largesse came out of the priestly coffers. The rest was endless tedious ceremonies: hours of standing around weighed down by gold-crusted robes, and choked by incense.

  After the wedding itself we were escorted to our nuptial chamber by about fifty ladies and gentlemen of the court. They stayed the whole night. Everything’s public, for Phoenician royalty. In a way it was a kindly custom. It was supposed to let two people who’d never met before get aquainted, before the bride was taken away to a country she’d never seen, to live among strangers. We all sat up and talked.

  * * *

  The next morning we stood on the deck of our westbound ship while the rowers pulled out of the harbor. Andromeda stared and stared as the city diminished, her dark face set and still. I knew she was thinking of the injustice and cruelty that would continue, and there was nothing she could do.

  “Maybe we’ll come back.”

  “No,” she said with finality. “I don’t think so.”

  The towers of Haifa grew smaller until the anthill palace was a jagged white smear, and we could no longer see the rock of sacrifice. The sea was all around.

  The ship was the Panagia of the Minoan Line. Panagia means “All Holy,” a Greek title for the Great Mother. The sailors called her “Our Holey one.” She wasn’t unseaworthy, in spite of this jibe, but she was a battered old lady, unwieldy under sail; and the rowers were no Argonauts. We had two cabins and a stateroom, as befitted our rank. In fact, we had the ship to ourselves, aside from the captain, his sailors and a few marines; it was very late in the season for passengers. We spent our days sitting under a rather tattered purple awning outside our cabins, wrapped in rugs, talking or just watching crowds of silver drops slither down the tarnished tassels of our canopy. There were no storms, but it rained a lot. I told her that I’d remembered what was really going on when I was with the Gray Sisters. How she’d been left stranded in the wild sea with a quivering, useless hulk, helpless as a baby. “How did you survive that? I just can’t imagine.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” she said. “You were telling me what to do. I knew you were in that other world, and you were fighting for our lives too.”

  She took my hand, and I turned so that I could look into her face.

  “I was going to die, and it was just,” she said. “It was my choice. Then I rode Pegasus and I saw everything differently: I saw the power of the flying marks, and what they might mean to the world. But now it’s as if nothing was really mine. I went through all that fear and shame. I was chained to the rock because Athini and Poseidon had quarreled. Everything that happened to me was the way they made up. I know it’s not the whole truth, but it rankles.”

  I nodded. I felt the same.

  “I thought I had the Supernaturals fooled,” I said. “I didn’t know why they’d given me that horrible task, but I was going to beat them at their own game, and use the Medusa Head to save your life. You were saved by what I did, and I should be satisfied. But I keep thinking, Why couldn’t they just tell me?”

  “You saw the Medusa’s face in the shield,” said Andromeda. “I leapt into the sky with Pegasus. It’s like pictur
es in the fire, pictures that tell eternal truths. Maybe they told us what we were doing, the only way that they can speak to mortals. And we know what we did, though we can’t put it into words. But we aren’t there anymore, in the world where eternal truths are things you can touch.”

  “And now everything seems flat and thin.”

  “Not everything,” said Andromeda, and grinned at me.

  I pulled her close, burrowed my chin into her scented hair and held her tight. I could forgive the Supernaturals for pushing me around, as long as it ended like this.

  “What did you do all day, when you were a princess? Was it all ceremonies?”

  She laughed. “No! I had my weaving, and my household duties. But mostly I studied: for many hours, every day, with my mother, with my teachers and alone.”

  This made me uneasy. “Did you like that?”

  “Yes, I did. But I won’t miss Haifa, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She sat up and gripped my shoulders, fiercely. “I only came to life when I met you.”

  We might have wished the voyage could go on forever, except that we longed to get home, and be married properly. We had decided the wedding in Haifa didn’t count. We didn’t want those priests to have anything to do with something so important. We wouldn’t be married until we stood together, in the Sacred Enclosure in Seatown, with our friends around us. We talked a lot about that day, and about our friends, and less and less about the immense things we’d been part of, as the rainy days went by. The otherworld would never fade from our minds and hearts, but we had to deal with what lay ahead, and we were anxious for our friends and family on Serifos. Had the king been content to leave Dicty’s people alone, once I was out of the way? We were afraid that was too much to hope for.

  We reached Paros on a calm evening, and the captain said a fond goodbye. He was puzzled by two royal Phoenician passengers, traveling without a single attendant; but we’d brought him good luck. Not a breath of contrary wind, not so much as one white storm-horse cresting the waves. It was unheard of at this season! The Ocean God had smiled on us indeed…. It was dark when the Panagia’s boat delivered us to the dock. The Mother Temple of Paros Port was a blaze of lights: people were celebrating the new moon of the eleventh month. We’d left our baggage to be unloaded with the Panagia‘s cargo the following day; we were traveling light. I reached over my shoulder to touch Athini’s shield. I checked that the drawstring purse was still at my belt, along with the harpe. The winged sandals had disappeared overnight, when I was staying in the Men’s Palace.

  “Still there?” murmured Andromeda.

  I nodded.

  We’d managed to pick up some news from Serifos on the last stages of our voyage, and it wasn’t good. We didn’t know what kind of reception committee might be waiting. There was no crowd to hide us on a rainy evening at the start of winter. We wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, shadowing our faces: we didn’t want to be recognized. I knew of a taverna where we should find friends, and information we could trust. I looked from right to left, and something hit me like a rock in the midriff.

  “Perseus! Perseus!”

  It was Kefi.

  Our mule boy saw that it was Andromeda with me, let go and grabbed her instead. “Kore! Kore! I thought you were dead! Dead like a rat! But Papa Dicty told me to meet every ship from the east and I did, and here you are!”

  “Is the boss all right? What’s going on at home?”

  But he wouldn’t say another word until he’d dragged us to a hole-in-the-wall food shop in a dark alley: just a couple of tables lit by one smoky lamp. A fat old woman sat knitting behind the counter. There was no one else in the place.

  “What’s the matter with going to the Sea Urchin?” I asked.

  The Sea Urchin was the taverna where we had contacts.

  “Not safe!” cried Kefi, shuddering violently. “Not safe! Nowhere’s safe. The king knows you’re on your way.” He stared at us, wide-eyed. “Terrible things, terrible things are going on! We’re at war!”

  Andromeda and I felt the grip of fate closing over us again.

  * * *

  Kefi told us that the boss, my mother and the rest of the household had been “all well enough” when he last saw them, four days before. But he broke down in tears when we pestered him with questions, so we couldn’t find out the details. He’d been sent to Paros to intercept us at the dock, he said, because the boss knew we would arrive here, and “bad Paros people” might deliver us to king Polydectes. The fat woman in the food shop, whom Kefi called Aunt Noussa, had been letting him sleep under a bench. She insisted on giving us bread and sausage, and a jug of watered wine. Then Kefi took us up the shore by paths through the dunes, for about a mile. Bozic the smuggler was waiting there with his caïque. He said he’d take us to Serifos, and try to put us ashore safely.

  “Then I’m off. Got things to do. You understand, great lady, noble Perseus?”

  I understood. Our secret ally, who’d been our lifeline through the truce, wasn’t going to risk his neck in open war. I didn’t blame him, but it wasn’t a hopeful sign.

  The wind was with us. We sailed by Antiparos and Sifnos, keeping clear of any vessel we spotted. In the gray dawn, the lights of the High Place were like a bundle of stars, clearing the western horizon. Then we saw tiny pinpoints all over the holy hill, the watch fires of an army. Seatown waterfront was completely dark. It looked strange: there were so few masts in the harbor, and there seemed to be gaps in the skyline I knew so well. Bozic, who was managing both the sail and the steering oar, changed tack. We signaled, and moved slowly across the mouth of the harbor bay against the wind, past the headland and across the mouths of the dark inlets. We made our signal light again, keeping a healthy distance. At last, we saw a light in reply. Someone was on the rocks at the mouth of the third inlet, sweeping a torch to and fro: one, two and a pause; one, two and a pause. It was the right response, agreed upon long ago. But who was wielding that torch? It was just light enough for us to see each other’s faces. Bozic looked at me, and shrugged.

  “It’s the signal,” I said. “Go in, closer.”

  Kefi flung himself into the bottom of the boat, and lay there whimpering. I crouched by Andromeda, ready to duck if I heard arrows, my hand on the harpe. The figure on the reef had quenched his torch, and was waving something like a white flag. I saw the splashes of red, blue, yellow….

  “Honest colors,” breathed Andromeda.

  It was Aten, wearing his customary white kilt and nothing else in spite of the cold, and not a sleek black hair out of place. Bozic brought the caïque alongside the rocks, silently. The sail lost the wind and fell loose. Andromeda stood up and uncovered her head. “Welcome back, Princess Andromeda,” said our imperturbable Egyptian, bowing to her gravely. “You too, Perseus.”

  “What’s the news?” I demanded.

  “Not good,” said Aten, folding the piece of weaving Andromeda had given to Anthe, and tucking it in his belt. “But not bad. Is Kefi with you?”

  “I’m here! I’m here!” cried the mule boy. He scrambled onto the side and leapt. Andromeda and I followed with more care, and the caïque slipped backward. Its dun-colored sail and drab paint were soon invisible in the dawn mist.

  “We have lookout points here on the headland and on West Hill,” said Aten. “We saw you, and a runner has been sent to the boss. Everyone is in the Enclosure. I’ll take you there; the men can spare me for an hour.”

  “What happened to Seatown?”

  “Too much for me to tell.” Aten’s breath hissed. He swooped on something that Kefi had picked up: a hollow wooden tube, like a flute with no stop holes.

  “I’ll take that, Kefi.”

  “What is it, Mr. Egyptian?” the mule boy asked nervously. “Is it magic?”

  “No, it’s a weapon. Don’t touch the darts, they’re poisoned. And I wish you would remember I’m a Peruvian.”

  On the headland we found Aten’s lookout team, hidden among the rocks. They greeted us with joy, b
ut Aten quickly led us onward.

  “It began as soon as you were gone, Perseus,” he said. “Trouble, just trouble at first. There were fights on the waterfront, and attacks on property: on my farm among other places. We knew what the king was up to; we handled the incidents ourselves, as quietly as possible. But the king said the boss must accept High Place troops in Seatown, because of the unrest.”

  “And the boss refused.”

  “Of course. Then there was the hostage raid. But you’ll hear about that.”

  We could see the whole of Seatown now, lying very still. It looked so small, so humble and helpless after the towers of Haifa. There was a pall of smoke over the gaps I’d noticed from the sea. Aten touched my shoulder and Andromeda’s, motioning us to get below the horizon. Kefi was already crouching low.

  “Be careful to stay in cover until we reach the fence. They have archers, and a big siege catapult, maybe more than one. They’ve been bombarding the town with Greek fire.”

  “Great Mother,” whispered Andromeda. “Are there many dead?”

  Greek fire is made of oil and pitch, with some added ingredient to make it stick like glue. A bolus dunked in the stuff and set alight is deadly for the full range of a military catapult. It clings, and it burns just about anything. It is outlawed.

  “Not many,” said Aten calmly. “And he has respected the sanctuary, so far.”

  The Enclosure was right under the High Place, well protected by a shoulder of the hill, but the people were taking no chances. There was a team of men and women in all kinds of makeshift armor out with buckets, drenching the fence. The morning-glory vines had withered, or been stripped clear. I looked up at the hillside, where the brambles had ripped me to bits after Polydectes’ party. Everything was brown and wintery now, except for the black swathes of fire. “I’ll leave you,” said Aten. “I have to get back. Tell Dicty all’s well enough, no sign of troops moving in the east.” Kefi ran to a man in armor: hardened leather with metal plates sewn onto the breast and shoulders, shin protectors and armguards. He came hurrying over, dragging off an antique helmet with a crest of moth-eaten horsehair. It was Palikari.