Enchanted Fire

by Roberta Gellis

  Perhaps some relaxation or some new tension in her body as the thoughts passed through her mind gave him some signal. He kissed her cheek and her temple and said, “Eurydice?” very softly. His shaft was harder and hotter now, but he made no attempt to thrust it against her. Eurydice sighed and turned her head toward him. Their lips met.

  Half asleep, dull with fatigue, and still fearful of allowing passion to grip them lest it change again into something monstrous, they made a long, lingering process of the act of love. Orpheus took a long time to raise Eurydice’s gown to fold it back and tuck it so that it would not come between them or make her uncomfortable. Eurydice lingered almost as long over Orpheus’ tunic, although it was much shorter and was hardly in the way as it was. She used it—as Orpheus had used her gown—as an excuse to stroke and fondle. But she found herself happier and more eager when he did not moan and thrust against her caressing hands. Then, at last, her nether lips began to fill and moisten. Still, her impulse was to smile, perhaps to kiss the little standing man who twitched and swelled between her fingers.

  Although she had no time to follow that impulse, her teasing having brought Orpheus (and the standing man) to a need for action of their own, he did not rush to enter her once he was positioned. He slid himself along and between the nether lips, letting only the head enter, stopping altogether with the tip of his shaft just being kissed by that second mouth while he fingered her breasts and tickled her throat and ears with his lips. Oddly, though there was an aching emptiness eager to swallow him and her need made her breath rattle in her throat, Eurydice was not impatient. She only thrust upward toward him infinitesimally to hint her desire; she did not, as she had the night before, grip him with her legs and force him into her.

  With each little thrust, a tiny bit more of Orpheus’ shaft was engorged. Eurydice knew she was doubtless rising a little higher each time, but she was also sure he was dipping deeper on his own. She knew too that her fulfillment would come as soon as he began to thrust in earnest, but she was willing to let him play, to increase his pleasure—and her own. As inevitably as the rising of the sun, which first seems to peep shyly over the horizon and then leaps up into the sky, the movements that had been almost timid suddenly increased in momentum and authority. And, as she had known would happen, Eurydice’s joy came at once in a pulsing flood that nearly deprived her of her senses but was never so acute that she had to dig her nails into Orpheus or bite him to keep from screaming.

  When her head stopped swimming, Eurydice realized that Orpheus’ climax must have occurred at the same time as hers. He was lying still, either too tired to slide off or enjoying their mutual warmth. Warmth? She had not really been warm since the previous night.

  “I am warm,” she breathed.

  “Are you?” Orpheus asked with a strange intensity, almost anxiety. He lifted himself off her then, pulling down her gown and trying to straighten the cloak around them.

  She laughed, whispering again, “I am warm.”

  Orpheus drew her close and said, “You were so cold every time I touched you—and clammy as a corpse.” He shuddered, tightened his grip even more. “I prayed. I prayed to Aphrodite for you.” His voice drifted away uncertainly and then he added, “I thought she would be the closest to the Lady of whom you speak and she is very kind and—and accepts the kind of sacrifice we made.”

  “Did you really pray for me?” Eurydice asked, kissing him with an intensity bred equally of gratitude and of guilt for having believed he wanted her Power diminished.

  “Well,” he said between chuckles when she freed his lips, “as long as I was able to think, I did. But Aphrodite is one who would understand that one’s mind tends to wander under the circumstances. She would not—” He broke off to yawn hugely and went on, his words slurring. “Gods, I’m tired. We’ll have to walk on now, or I’ll fall asleep.”

  Around her own yawn Eurydice said, “I don’t know if I can walk right now.” Her eyes closed. She forced them open. “Must we go to the inn tonight? We have often slept away. No one will think that strange.”

  “Not the inn, the rivermouth,” Orpheus mumbled.

  “Rivermouth?” Eurydice murmured to herself.

  Orpheus had gone boneless beside her and begun to snore. Then she remembered Jason and the fleece and Medea, but they had all become very unimportant. She was warm inside and out—she was in Orpheus’ arms.

  “Not until midnight,” she sighed sleepily, and let her eyes close.

  In fact, it was because the warmth within could not completely keep out the cold without that they did wake well before midnight. Both were much revived and Eurydice, with apologetic appeals to her Lady and to Lady Aphrodite, too, for taking forgiveness for granted, used her Finding sense to take them through the wild lands directly to the rivermouth. There they found the embers of a fire, still glowing, and on a flat stone near the hearth the image of two ships.

  “They could not wait,” Orpheus said, straining his eyes out to sea.

  “Would you have changed your mind and sailed with them?” Eurydice asked.

  “I do not know. Not because I wished to go, but if they are in danger, I wish I could be there to give them the beat for rowing. I am worried about them.”

  “With Medea aboard? I am worried about Aietes. He may not be perfect, but I think he deserves better than being drowned by his own daughter.”

  Orpheus was silent for a moment, and then said slowly but in a more relaxed voice, “I do not think she has Power enough for that.” He hesitated again, then went on, “No, but now I think I understand what I overheard one day. She was trying to convince Jason to bring the fleece back to Colchis rather than have the Argo meet them, as he actually did, and she said that if he sailed from the harbor and her father pursued them, she would cut into pieces a simulacrum of her little brother Apsyrtos and strew the pieces behind them. Aietes would pause to find and take up the pieces so he could bury his son and not be haunted by him, and thus they would have time to escape. Likely, that is what she will do.”

  Eurydice made a wry mouth. “Let us just hope that she did not have poor little Apsyrtos concealed in the wood and really cut him apart.”

  “Eurydice!” Orpheus exclaimed. “She is not so much a monster as that.”

  “I hope not,” she replied, “but usually one sorcerer can tell another’s simulacrum from the real thing.”

  She looked out to sea, sending a Finding out. The ripples spread and spread but never touched what they sought and Eurydice suddenly cut the thread that coursed the ripples. It was better if she did not know whether she had not Found because Apsyrtos had never been aboard the Argo or because he no longer was. She shuddered.

  “You are cold,” Orpheus said anxiously.

  Eurydice looked up and smiled. “A little, outside. Not within, love. Perhaps Lady Aphrodite interceded for me. It is too late to go to the inn now. Let us build up the fire and sleep until morning.”

  Orpheus’ concern and the upwelling of warm assurance that came with the words she had spoken made her happy. Jason and his quest were gone. She and Orpheus were free. A delighted certainty that all would now be well grew in her.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The events of the next day only increased Eurydice’s confidence. She was greeted with all the innkeeper’s normal indifference when she arrived in the morning, and when she came down with her packed bundles, he showed only a little surprise. They had been good lodgers, he said, as she settled what she owed, and he and his wife would be glad to see them again any time. She replied appropriately with her most sincere thanks. That was nice to hear; and it meant that the king’s men had not been seeking them.

  The score was honest and she paid without argument and gestured to a porter in the courtyard to help carry her goods to the harbor. When she arrived, Orpheus had already hired a boat to take them across to the south bank of the river. Once there, the anxiety that had kept Eurydice tense even though Colchis town showed no sign of any excitement
faded away. She was not in the least surprised when Orpheus’ first question brought news of a caravan almost ready to depart for the cities of Heniorhi. Next, they were warmly welcomed by the leader of the caravan and provided with excellent horses, a tent, supplies, and a pack mule, all at a most reasonable price. A father and son could not leave as they had intended. The chief merchant would take their goods into his care, but their mounts and the pack animal would have been a charge on them, the supplies a dead loss.

  Orpheus haggled enough not to seem a fool, but the price was so good he felt guilty. When they were adding their belongings to the load for the pack mule he looked suspiciously at Eurydice and asked severely if she had been meddling with the merchant’s mind.

  “Not I,” she assured him, laughing heartily “Perhaps my Lady—or yours—wishes us gone from here. For me, I do not care whether we leave tomorrow or a moon from tomorrow. I do not think it would be wise to live in Colchis, but as long as I do no magic and you do not play, I think we are safe enough.”

  “This is all too easy,” Orpheus grumbled. “Something is bound to go wrong.”

  Only nothing did go wrong. The caravan was just as the merchant said. The other members of the party were honest, pleasant people. They were delighted to have a bard of such sweet power to make their evenings joyful; and they were grateful to Eurydice for small Healings and Findings. Moreover, they paid in good coin for both. Even the weather cooperated. By the time they reached the turn-around point in Gordyle, the members of the caravan had come to know each other well and the merchant nearly wept when Orpheus and Eurydice said goodbye—but he recommended another caravan leader who was going west to Mosynoeci.

  It was more of the same or, perhaps, even easier. The merchant’s recommendation assured them of a warm welcome, and they were hardened travelers. There were a couple of bumps: The weather was growing colder and more stormy and several days were spent huddling together for warmth in their tent while a wild wind tore at the bindings and made the sides snap and rattle. And once, while they were gathering up the wreckage caused by such a storm, they were attacked by either bandits or tribesmen from the interior. It was nothing new to the caravan master or most of those who traveled with him. They drew their weapons and defended themselves lustily. That Orpheus joined them in fighting off the attackers and that Eurydice healed all their hurts made the pair that much more valuable.

  In Tripolis, the end of his route, the caravan master asked Orpheus if he would consider making the journey back to Gordyle with him and offered quite a generous payment. As one, Eurydice and Orpheus shook their heads—but for different reasons. After nearly three months on the trail, Eurydice was getting tired. She wished to press forward to reach a city large enough to be considered as a permanent home. There she could claim weariness and ask to settle for a while, and they could test the temper of the king and the people. If it was good, perhaps Orpheus could put down roots somewhere other than a Greek village.

  As if her thought had drawn the words, Orpheus said, “I cannot. I am taking my wife home to my village in Greece.”

  Spoken aloud, the statement gave Eurydice a shock, but she put it aside. As long as they were traveling west, he would naturally assume they were heading for Greece, and it would be useless to protest. It would be soon enough to speak of making a home elsewhere when they had a comfortable place to stay.

  They were not quite so lucky in finding a new caravan this time. The merchant did have another to recommend, but he was on the trail and it would be weeks before he came in. They found a room in a widow’s house and Orpheus went daily to the caravanserai to speak to those who arrived. He sang also, as much to keep his hand in as to earn metal—he had gold enough from the courtly gifts he had received in Kyzikos and Colchis but did welcome the copper and silver he earned in the drinking houses and on the streets. He was careful to hold back his full skill, painful as it was for him, mindful of arousing the acquisitiveness of his listeners. Nonetheless, in a few days a grandly dressed messenger arrived at the inn with an invitation to sing for the king of Tripolis.

  The king was an old man and melancholy. Orpheus could not resist soothing him. The next day they moved to the palace, grand in comparison to the houses of the common folk, but little more than a hovel when compared with Aietes’ palace in Colchis. They stayed a little more than a moon. Although Eurydice did not think Tripolis was suitable for permanent residence, she was delighted that Orpheus did not seem at all restless. Little by little the weather started to improve; spring was on the way. And in another week came a ship from Pelomonium. News of the sweet singer of Tripolis had come to the king of Pelomonium and he wished to taste the joys Orpheus could offer.

  A week of gentle persuasion reconciled the king of Tripolis, although it woke new doubts in Eurydice. Prominent among the reasons Orpheus offered for releasing him to the king of Pelomonium was that he would soon have gone in any case. “I must go home,” he said. “It is very long since I saw my village in Greece, and it is time to bring my wife home.”

  More worrisome was that Orpheus insisted on selling the horses and camping equipment. It was sailing season, he pointed out. They would do better and be more comfortable by taking ships. A year earlier, Eurydice would have argued that horses were safer, more reliable, but the voyage on the Argo had changed her. They would move faster and be more comfortable aboard ship—but she did not wish to move faster. This time she said plainly that she had no desire to go to Greece and that they were living well as they were. Orpheus smiled sweetly and said she was a silly woman. She would love Greece when she got there.

  It was an unanswerable argument. She could not prove, after all, that she would be rejected and endangered. He did know the people of his village, and she did not. And nagging at him made him large-eyed and very unhappy, but no less insistent that she would like Greece, that his people would accept her, and that it was unfair to reject a place she had never seen.

  In any case, there was no immediate need to worry. They spent another moon at the court of the king of Pelomonium.

  By then even the fitful spring storms were over. Eurydice was surprised that Orpheus seemed content, but she had been as deceived as the king. With the enthusiastic assistance of the royal bard he had displaced, every ship that came into the harbor was investigated and one early morning, quite without warning, Orpheus packed his own possessions, told Eurydice to pack hers, and walked out of the palace to board a ship bound for Salmydessus.

  Eurydice could scarcely contain her delight. She and Orpheus had both loved Salmydessus. It was a great city of diverse people; the king was well disposed to them, would probably protect them even against the will of his people should that be necessary; and it was the city in which they had first come together. How well she remembered their lodging behind the quiet inn not far from the waterfront.

  It was high summer before they arrived, and they did not go to the lodging behind the inn but up to the palace. Phineus greeted them with open joy, told them that he had had word from Jason, who had passed through the passage of the Bosphorus a few months earlier. He had not seen them; Jason had only sent a messenger to ask if his men had ever returned, and if they had to ask whether they wished to join the ship again. They had not returned, Phineus said, but he had Seen that they had pursued the harpies so far west before they could dispose of them that they had decided not to try to make their way back.

  Phineus begged them to stay for as long as they liked, and this time Eurydice thanked him and agreed before Orpheus could say anything. They were provided with a fine apartment, most comfortable if not as lavish as the one provided in Colchis, and also provided with every freedom. Orpheus was invited—but not expected—to sing. Eurydice was free to practice her art and use her Gifts as she pleased. Phineus was an interesting and interested host. He wanted to hear everything about their adventures—but Eurydice could not help noticing that he never asked about Medea and almost winced each time her name was mentioned.

 
A moon filled and waned, then another. Orpheus sang not only in Phineus’ court but at the homes of his nobles for weddings, for greetings and partings. He was generously gifted. After careful investigation—Eurydice did not wish to arouse the enmity of her own kind, even if she did have the king’s favor—she rented space for a booth in the central marketplace, not the one near the inn where they had lodged but a larger, busier square. She was soon doing a brisk business and also being well paid. Remembering Kyzikos, she did her best to avoid distraught mothers, but the few children she did Find had genuinely wandered away—or run away. That did not make the mothers less grateful. Her reputation spread and she began to notice a few sour looks among the other Gifted.

  Nonetheless, by the waning of the second moon, Eurydice was ready for a further experiment. There was sufficient metal stored away and goodwill and ample signs that their prosperity would continue. All she needed to decide that Salmydessus was the place she wished to live was the assurance that sour looks would be the worst things cast at her when she was no longer living in the palace under the protection of the king. Thus, one night when Orpheus had returned from a great dinner at which he had entertained, wreathed not only in flowers but in gold, Eurydice said casually as they were undressing for bed, “We are very comfortable here, and Phineus most generous, but do you not think it is time to look for a house for ourselves?”

  “Look for a house?” Orpheus echoed, pausing in the act of pulling his tunic over his head. “Whatever for?”