Orpheus shifted in his bed and Eurydice hastily withdrew her eyes, fearing that he would feel her attention. She did not want to unsettle his acceptance of her refusal to couple with him—or did she? Was she unwilling?
He was not nearly as perfect a specimen of manhood as most of the crew. They were all handsome and muscled as to almost be caricatures. But Orpheus was greater than all of them, not so much because he could turn them all to stone with his music, but because he would not. Eurydice smiled. He had something else, too—a kind of innocence. She believed now that he had never intended to use her, that the idea had not even entered his mind before she had accused him.
Her lips pursed. That was not very flattering. She glanced at him and away again. Should she change his mind about that? Shame! she told herself. That would be a heartless and disgusting thing to do, if she did not want the man for himself. Even setting aside the music… No, that was ridiculous. One could not set aside such music.
Well, then, did she want the man, music and all? She turned restlessly. She was not ready to answer that question. Her body had tensed as if she were being tested and had to find an answer, but after a moment it relaxed and she nearly laughed aloud. There was not the slightest need to answer the question now. She would have tomorrow and tomorrow, many tomorrows, to make up her mind. She did not need to decide, after all, until they reached Colchis.
A few minutes later Orpheus moved again. Eurydice did not notice. She had had an exhausting day, not physically, for she was hardened to physical exertion, but a day full of anxiety mingled with hope, which was more tiring. Having reminded herself that she was, at least for the moment, safe and could look forward to tomorrow, perhaps many tomorrows, with confidence, she had quickly fallen asleep.
From his new position Orpheus had only to turn his head to see Eurydice. The starlight was not enough to make out her features, but it showed him her small body curled even smaller under the blanket. Poor little thing, she was cold. Perhaps he should have chosen a place for her by the fire, but he had thought the night warm enough. He had forgotten that small people are chilled more easily. Guilt made him irritable. Idiot woman, he thought, if she was cold, why did she not say so?
Before the thought was finished, he felt himself flushing because he knew the answer. Believing what she did about his intentions, she could not mention being cold for fear of the method he might suggest to warm her. His ears felt hot—and not only his ears.
Resolutely he turned his back on Eurydice. If he felt lecherous, it was her fault, all hers. He had not even thought of coupling until she accused him of planning to do so. In fact, until she had said she would not share his blankets, he was certain it would be years before he felt the smallest interest in a woman. On Lemnos if it was not one creeping into your bed and playing with you until you woke ready, it was another, naked and beckoning, waiting for you on a path you thought safe. After nearly a year with ten to twenty women to a man, he would not have believed any blandishment could stimulate him.
The word “blandishment” made him choke back a laugh. What Eurydice had offered were certainly not blandishments, verbal or physical. A new surge of need took him by surprise for the thoughts of Lemnos had cooled his mind and body. But that was mad! He could not want a woman solely because she did not want him.
Well, no, not solely for that reason. When she was not infuriating him, she was…interesting. She was very different from Greek women, particularly from the girls in his village among whom he would eventually seek a wife. They were tall and fair, not tiny little blackamoors; they were strong of body, not frail and quick as birds; and they kept their voices soft and their eyes carefully downcast. It was very hard to know what one of the village girls thought—if they thought at all beyond weaving and sewing. Eurydice, however… Eurydice’s bold black eyes watched everything, every expression, every gesture and movement of body, and there was no difficulty at all in knowing what she thought. She said what she thought far too clearly! Eurydice was a bold bawd.
No, not a bawd, Orpheus thought contritely. She certainly had not invited the attention of any of the men. Bold as her glance was, there was nothing at all provocative in it. And she had said from the beginning that she was selling information, not her body. Orpheus grinned. A minx she was, but not a bawd. He wriggled his shoulders against the padding of leaves and grasses, savoring his comfort—she did think and had some good ideas, too. The thought spun away as he drifted toward sleep, but surfaced again for a moment—they would discover tomorrow just how good her ideas were. If he could teach her to be—no, to appear—more modest. Orpheus smiled and slept.
* * *
Eurydice woke to see the bulk of the black ship looming over her, and suddenly the reality of departure, perhaps forever, from her native land tightened her chest and closed her throat with panic. Once on board that ship, she would be utterly at the mercy of these strangers. Yes, she could protect herself for a while, but not for very long, and her use of Power against them could only drive them to greater excesses when she was drained. She had experience with that reaction.
She did not have to go. She could disappear into the forest. Jason had said he wished to leave. They would not bother to seek her, and even if they did, she could use the look-past-me spell. That would harm no one, and… No, she could not use any spell. Idmon or Mopsus would sense it. Her heart fluttered, stopping her breath. She was trapped.
Eurydice twitched in an involuntary response to the desire to leap up and run away and hide, and Orpheus’ beautiful voice came from behind her. “You are awake. Good. The tide is at its lowest ebb and will soon be turning. When it is in, we will float the ship and leave. You had better get up to wash and…ah…do whatever else is needful.”
The band terror had locked around Eurydice’s breast was unlocked by that last phrase. It was impossible to be terrified by a man who danced so gingerly around the word “piss.” She turned and sat up and could not help smiling at him, obviously just himself awakened for his hair was all tousled and he yawned widely. But the ship loomed just beyond his shoulder, pitch-smeared sides black and threatening.
Obediently Eurydice rose, shook out her blanket, folded it and took the few steps toward Orpheus’ pallet to hand it to him. He did not seem to notice her, scrabbling in a kind of pack he had used as a pillow. He looked up before she had grown angry, however, and held out a drying cloth.
“Here,” he said, “you will need this.” Then he added in an aggrieved voice, “No, do not give the blanket to me. Roll it with the other and with the cloth. Those are yours. I have enough to carry without adding your things—” he patted the cithara case. “But you can stow your bundle with mine once we go aboard.”
The generosity, covered by the querulous tone—so that she would not have to thank him—brought a lump to Eurydice’s throat. Before she could swallow it and find her voice, perhaps even burst out with her fears, Orpheus threw back his head, sniffed, and got to his feet.
“The cooks are at work,” he said, grinning. “I’ll go and wash and then get us something to eat.”
His departure left her free to flee since they had settled some distance away from most of the other men, who had lain down closer to the fire. Perversely, the freedom reduced her impulse to run away. She laid down the blanket and looked back and up at the ship. It loomed just as large and black, but it was less ominous. It had been there all the previous afternoon, of course. She had even been aboard twice, once when Orpheus sought out clothes for her and again—she felt herself flush slightly—when she had misunderstood his kind intentions for intentions of another kind.
The behavior of the men also reduced her fears. It was very hard to continue to regard them as fearsome strangers. They were joking and shouting as they shed their clothing, pushing each other into the water, then those who had been pushed in pulling their attackers in with them, all shrieking over the cold, and splashing vigorously as they washed. Jason came down the stern ladder as she watched, dropped his cl
oak, pulled off his chiton, and joined the crowd of naked playful men. Men? They were more like rowdy boys.
Actually, she thought, watching with a purely aesthetic pleasure, they were more like animated works of art, some larger, some smaller, but each so smoothly yet heavily muscled, each in such perfect proportion. Her eyes leapt from one to another until they found what she had not realized she was seeking, the first slight imperfection—Orpheus’ hands. Not that they were not beautiful, long-fingered and graceful, but they were too large and he was not so broad-shouldered as the others, although his hips were lean enough and his thighs strong, and…
Eurydice turned away abruptly, aware that her pleasure was becoming more personal and less aesthetic. Besides, she was afraid that Orpheus’ head had begun to move toward her. Eurydice got up and walked rapidly away toward the other end of the cove. Then she shrank in on herself a little and glanced fearfully over her shoulder. If Orpheus had noticed her watching, had others also seen her looking at their naked bodies? They would regard that a wanton invitation, surely. But no one seemed to be looking in her direction.
The curve of the beach soon brought her to a position where the bulk of the Argo hid the men from her, and thus her from the men. She relieved herself quickly, but she could not bring herself to strip and she only laid aside her cloak, tucked her chiton up into her girdle and found a rock pool where she washed her feet, hands and arms, and face. She had done a much more thorough job of cleaning herself after Orpheus had left her the previous day, scrubbing herself and her tattered gown with sand before she donned the clean chiton he had given her. She wondered if the gown were still spread over the bench where she had left it to dry. If she went, she could ask about it.
If she went. There was nothing at all to stop her from slipping away. No one seemed at all interested in her, and once the tide came in they certainly would not delay their departure to look for her. She had forgotten that the huge ship—and the Argo was huge—had been beached at low tide so it could be refloated with little effort at high tide. Since the tides were once in twelve hours and sane men did not sail at night, when they might stray away from the sight of land and be lost on the trackless ocean or strike a reef hidden by the darkness, if they stayed to search for her they could not leave until the following day. So she had nothing to fear if she stayed—except Baltaseros and the townsfolk in Cobrys, who had wanted to sacrifice her and the priestesses, who might still be searching for her.
Shivering, Eurydice began to dry herself. Between two terrors, which did one choose? That which is less certain, she decided. She knew what would happen if the priestesses, the folk of Cobrys, or Baltaseros and his minions caught up with her. The priestesses would only immure her for life; the folk of Cobrys would kill her quickly, a knife in the heart or the throat; Baltaseros… No, she would not even think of what he might do to her, whereas the worst the men of the Argo would do would be to rape her and abandon her at the next place they beached the ship. And the likelihood was they would not harm her at all. They wanted to go to Colchis, and only she knew that Phineus of Salmydessus was the man who could tell them how to get there.
Without allowing herself time to raise more doubts, Eurydice went back to where she and Orpheus had slept. Avoiding thought, she busied herself with folding Orpheus’ blanket and laying the cithara case carefully on top. Then she emptied the grass and leaves from the pallets and shook them as clean as she could. She had started to roll the old blankets together when a shadow fell across her and she jumped and looked up apprehensively. Orpheus, both hands full, was laughing down at her.
“And you called me stubborn,” he said. “Did I not tell you to take the blanket you used?”
Relief gave Eurydice an almost irresistible urge to leap up and kiss him. Instead, she widened her eyes in a patently false expression of innocence and murmured in a little-girl voice, “But you said I should use it because you did not want your good blanket full of sticks and leaves—” However, when she saw the uncertainty, almost anxiety, on his face, she felt ashamed of teasing him and laughed too. “No, I forgot. I was just rolling up the two nearest.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “I would soon have run out of excuses for you to keep the warmer one, and you need it. I saw last night that you were cold.”
Eurydice did not remember feeling cold, but she was oddly pleased that he had been watching her. “How can you ‘see’ a person is cold?” she asked, smiling and taking the portions of food from his hands. “Here, we can sit on the rolled blankets.”
“You were all curled up in a knot,” Orpheus replied, seating himself and taking the bowl of cooked grain seasoned with salt, bits of dried fruit and nut journey cake, and small pieces of the past night’s roast meat, which she handed back to him.
“I think that is just the way I sleep,” Eurydice said. “I don’t remember feeling cold.”
She could have told him that there are many things other than cold against which a body curls into defensive posture, but to name the horrors from which she had fled might make them real again, so she only smiled, shook her head, and addressed herself to her breakfast. She had barely finished scraping out the tasty mush and licking her fingers clean when Jason called aloud that the tide was turning and all must make ready to leave. Eurydice jumped up nervously, again unsure of whether she should make a dash for the forest or go aboard.
“There’s no need to rush,” Orpheus said. “Do you want more breakfast? The cooks will be passing out the leavings in the kettles before cleaning them. I can get another portion for you.”
The pleasant indifference in his voice calmed her. “No. I have had enough. Thank you. Will you have more, or should I clean the bowls?”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked. “You have been kind to me and you fetched the food. It seems only reasonable for me to do my part of the chores.”
“Very well,” he agreed quickly, then added with a grimace, “I hoped you would offer. I hate to scrub anything with sand. It does something to my fingers.”
Eurydice glanced at him sidelong as she took the bowl. He was painfully honest, she thought, and she would do well to be equally honest—or as honest as she could be. This was a man who would make many allowances but not forgive a deception.
“I do not mind,” she said. “In fact, I would be glad to do any small task for you that I could. I told you I would not share your bed, and yet I would like to—to have the other men believe I am your woman. I would be safer, I think.”
He looked surprised, then nodded. “Very well. That was well thought of. Not that I believe any man in this crew would try to force you, or that Jason would permit it, for he will keep his promise that you arrive in Colchis unbruised and unused, in no worse state in heart and mind than when you boarded the Argo. But if the men believe you are already committed to me, they will be less inclined to try to win your attention or to quarrel with each other about doing so.”
Feeling very pleased with herself, Eurydice went down to the shoreline to clean the bowls. She did a good job, not hurrying, aware of the men shouting to each other in the background. When she returned, Orpheus, the cithara case, and the pack from which he had taken the drying cloth he gave her were gone. Her throat closed on a cry of panic, of fear of being left behind. In the next instant, she realized the ship was not yet surrounded by water and saw two rolls of blankets. She drew a deep breath and shook her head at her foolishness. One moment she was terrified of boarding the ship and the next she was equally terrified of the ship leaving without her.
The memory of her feeling of loss and abandonment made it much easier for her to shoulder the blanket rolls and carry them to the ladder that went up to the ship’s stern. She could not carry both up at once and her confidence was shaken a little by the organized chaos aboard. Some men were drawing out long oars from their resting places and fastening them into their leather locks while others returned to stowage stores brought ashore for t
he night and still others busied themselves around the mast and yards. Nonetheless, Eurydice was certain now that she feared being left more than she feared being aboard, so she went down and got the second blanket roll. Then her courage failed; she could not make herself push her way past the busy men to stow the blankets in the prow from where Orpheus had taken them, so she sat down on the blanket rolls, making herself small in the corner opposite the great steering sweep and watching for Orpheus.
Chapter Four
Eurydice grew calmer as the men hurried about their business without paying her the slightest attention. That calm was replaced by acute anxiety when, quite suddenly, nearly all the men rushed to the stern of the ship. Her anxiety was not for any fear of being attacked. It was quite clear the men were not in the least interested in her—if any had even noticed her; all were concentrating on getting down the ladder to the beach. The haste with which they left the ship, and that Orpheus was not among them, nor Jason, frightened her. And then the ship moved!
Eurydice gasped with terror, but before she could leap to her feet and run to the ladder, she heard the most compelling, the most beautiful voice, loud yet pure and clear as a mellow horn, sing out, “Make ready. Places all.”
Orpheus stood in the prow, facing the stern. Jason stood a few steps behind, his back to Orpheus, leaning over the prow and watching the water, which Eurydice could now hear lapping around the ship. She put her fingers to her lips in a gesture of embarrassment; she hated to behave stupidly, even when no one had noticed her silliness. Naturally the ship had moved. The tide was almost full and the prow must be afloat. Eurydice stood up and looked over the stern.
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