by Gene Wolfe
Something grasped my ankle. I kicked vigorously, and freed myself. The opaque waters hid my attacker. Warily I resumed my swim. Again the grappling, gentle but insistent; I turned, lunged below the surface, and rose with a prisoner. He struggled at first, then lay still and looked at me with neither fear nor anger—as if to say, “What now?” It was a boy. His hair, the green of seaweed, was fine and silken; long like mine, but loose instead of bound in the usual fillet. I tried to hide my surprise.
“I was playing that you were my father,” he said.
At twenty-five I could hardly imagine myself the father of a boy who looked about twelve, though with current marriage customs, a bride at twelve, a groom at fourteen, it was not unthinkable.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he said. “I followed you when you swam ashore—and waited.”
I released him and treaded water. “No, I don’t mind. But what is my part in the game?”
He showed not the slightest fear of me. “Oh,” he said. “To give chase, which you did splendidly. And then to talk.” He pointed to the island. “Over there. You will be more comfortable.”
I drew myself onto the steps and gave him a hand. He hesitated. “I want to stay in the water.”
“Nonsense. Then I will have to talk down to you.”
He took my hand and thumped beside me. I understood his hesitation. His boy’s body ended with the tail of a fish, green, sparkling and sinuous. In the waters around Hesperia, Tritons were as rare as hippocampi and, in fact, almost extinct. Thus, I had not suspected his identity even when I had seen his hair.
He looked uncomfortable and shyly edged toward the water.
I touched his shoulder. “We haven’t talked yet. I think we have a great deal to tell each other. Do you know, I have always wanted to be a Triton. I love to swim, but my legs get tangled in the water.” To show what I meant, I twisted my legs and floundered over the stairs.
He laughed for the first time. “Yes, I see what you mean. But on land my tail gets tangled!”
“We’ll trade sometime. But now you must tell me your name.”
“Astyanax. I got it out of Homer. A sailor once told me about Prince Hector and how he had a son, Astyanax, whom he loved dearly. Hector hated to go to war because he had to leave his son. He tried not to frighten him with his flashing armor. I thought that if I named myself Astyanax, perhaps I would find a Hector.”
“You have no parents?”
“I lost them in a storm and never found them again. That was three years ago.”
“You’ve been alone since then?”
“Sometimes I follow ships, and the sailors toss me grapes. I have to be careful, though. Some of them want to catch me to show in the ports. What’s your name?”
“Arnth,” I said, “though often I am called Bear.”
“Ah,” he said. “You like to rummage—in palaces and such. Like a bear on the prowl.”
“And then I curl up and sleep.”
“Indeed, you have sleepy eyes. I will certainly call you Bear.” He paused. “Were you looking for Circe?”
“Circe, the enchantress?” I cried. “Is that who lived in the palace?”
“Yes, but you are much too late. A hundred years ago—so the dolphins say—a galley came for her, rowed by pygmies. Bears and rabbits, gathered to say goodbye. She smiled at them and spoke a few words—multiply, don’t eat each other, and that kind of thing. When she boarded the galley, a black boy fanned her with ostrich feathers, and a crimson canopy shielded her from the sun. One of the bears—you will love this part—jumped into the water and swam after her, but she waved him back and disappeared into the misty south.”
“Did the bear get back to shore?”
“Oh, yes. His friends helped him up the stairs. He became, in fact, something of a hero.” He hesitated and smiled sheepishly. “I made up the bear because I thought he would please you.”
“It was a charming touch. But tell me more about Circe. Was she still beautiful? Odysseus knew her many centuries ago.”
“The dolphins say she was like the sun, white and burning. When she left it was the sun sinking into the sea.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“Beyond the Pillars of Hercules.”
“North to the Isles of Tin?”
“South along the coast of Libya.”
“How far?”
“Who knows? To the land of the Gorillae, perhaps.”
My senses reeled. Libya, the continent of mist and jungles, pygmies and giants, griffins and sphinxes, and yes, the hairy, horrible Gorillae. The Phoenicians claim that a Tyrian captain once sailed through the Red Sea and around the continent from east to west, but who can believe such a boast? Whether, as Homer thought, the earth is flat and surrounded by the stream of Ocean, or whether, as the Ionians think, it is shaped like a cone or a sphere, a voyage around Libya is like searching for the Golden Fleece—without the help of Jason.
He looked at me wisely. “You will go to find her?”
“To look for her, perhaps.”
He shook his head. “I wish you were Greek instead of Etruscan.”
“Why?”
“Because I would like to go with you, but you are too sad. Like most Etruscans.”
“Etruscans sad?” I protested. “Our robes are as gay as flowers. We dance and sing even at funerals, and paint our tombs with banquets and chariots.”
“Ah,” he said, “but your eyes are sad. They give you away.”
It was true, of course. In the polished bronze of a mirror, the eyes which met my stare were dark and slanted, like those of my ancestors, the Lydians, and old with accumulated sorrows, with the weight of dead cities, buried and moldering, of battles and tortures and beautiful shameless queens who smiled and shook poison from rings like golden spiders.
He saw that the truth had hurt me. “Except for your eyes,” he added, “you look like”—he searched for words—“a well-kept farm! There is plenty of meat to hide your bones, and your cheeks are as red as apples. Your eyes, of course, don’t belong to the farm. They belong to the woods.” His tail sparkled greenly with drops of sea-water, but his chest and shoulders were as pale as foam. Translucent skin traced the delicate bones of his face, and his green, deep-set eyes looked faintly shadowed, as if he were tired or a little hungry.
I ran my hand through his hair. “Astyanax,” I said, “I must leave you soon. But first come aboard my ship and dine with me.”
He hesitated.
“I am not going to steal you.”
“Perhaps you should.” He plunged in the water. “Hold to my tail,” he called. “I will give you a ride!”
When we reached the side of the ship, the crew and the captain crowded the bulwarks. They threw us a rope and Astyanax, using his tail for propulsion, clambered up the side. When I reached the deck, I found him surrounded by sailors. Three of them, adolescent brothers who swaggered like old salts and went by the name of the Black Rats, eyed him with rudeness.
“You may touch my tail,” he said with dignity. “Everyone wants to.”
The Black Rats snickered in unison and one of them said, “Not us, boy. We can look.” White, thin, with soiled black hair and dirty faces, they resembled unwashed turnips.
“You are wise not to touch him,” I snapped. “Your dirt might rub off.” Vanishing into the cabin, I returned with a bunch of grapes and a rhyton of mild red vine. Astyanax emptied the vessel with a single rapid gulp.
“Drinks like a fish,” the one-eared sailor muttered, but Astyanax ignored the remark and crammed his mouth so full of grapes that he looked like a field mouse gorging himself on grain. All the while, he peered around him at the fixtures of the ship, its furled yellow sail, its wicker cabin, and its deck of Etruscan cypress.
“The goats of Amphitrite are starting to kick,” said the captain impatiently, pointing to the white-capped waves which had begun to slap the bow. “It is time to sail.”
Astyanax ate more slowly. “I would like
more grapes,” he said when he had finished the first bunch.
I handed him another bunch. “You must take these with you.”
“I want to join your crew,” he announced.
“It isn’t my crew. I am just a passenger.”
He turned to the captain. “Is there room for another passenger? I can fish and mend sails to pay my passage.”
“Can you stay out of water for days at a time?”
“No,” he admitted. “I dehydrate.”
“Well, then, you can’t be a passenger. Over the side now. The goats are impatient.” Indeed, the ship was rocking from side to side as if she were being slapped by a Cyclops.
He wriggled across the deck. I knelt to lift him over the bulwark. He shook his head. “My tail is adequate.”
Poised on the bulwark, he turned and looked at me. “Thank you for the conversation,” he said, and before I could tell him goodbye, he hit the water.
I helped the men lower the sail—I felt a need to keep busy—and the Turan cut through the goats like a wolf through a flock. I will not look back, I thought. If I mean to find Circe, how can I encumber myself with a fish-tailed boy who eats like a whale?
However, I did look back, sneakily, like a fox that has stolen a pullet. The island had dwindled until the red columns of the palace seemed slender wounds in the white immaculate walls, and yes, Astyanax followed a few hundred feet in our wake. He raised his hand and called, “Bear, goodbye!”
“Lower the sweeps!” I shouted. The sailors looked at the captain, and the captain looked at me.
“Has the moon possessed you?” he growled. “There is nothing to stop for here.”
“You can double my fare,” I said. “I am taking on a friend.” I seized a sweep, a long wooden oar with a blade of double width, and thrust it into the sea. The ship veered sharply to the right.
“Oh, very well,” grumbled Vel. He lowered a sweep on the starboard and returned the ship to its course, with speed considerably reduced.
Astyanax soon overtook us. I threw him a rope and he climbed, laughing, into my arms. I heard him mumble a name.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“Hungry,” he said. “I lost my grapes.” I think he really said “Hector.”
I did not suspect the difficulties—dangers, I should say—which hunched like sphinxes along the road to Circe. The trouble started almost at once—not Circe’s part in it; not yet, anyway. I had paid the captain for Astyanax’ passage, and the Triton had kept his promise to fish for the crew. But Vel was not appreciative. First he complained that the fish were small and bony. “Fit for him, perhaps. Not for me.” Then he said, “Tritons are Greek, not Etruscan. How do we know he isn’t spying for pirates?” The mood of the captain soon infected his crew. The Black Rats, petulant as well as soiled, began to grow insufferable. When Astyanax stretched on the deck to take a sunbath, one of them stepped on his tail and then made the limp apology, “Mistook him for a hawser.”
“It looks,” I said to Astyanax, when the Rat had crossed the deck, “as if we may have trouble before Agylla.” Located close to Caere, my home, Agylla was the port where we hoped to find ship and crew to begin our search.
“Don’t worry,” said Astyanax, pointing to a rare white dolphin in the wake of the Turan. “Her name is Atthis. She has been following us ever since Aeaea. A ship with a white dolphin enjoys good luck.”
The luck, it seemed, belonged to the ship and crew but not her passengers. A week after our departure from Aeaea, Astyanax woke me in the middle of the night. I heard him thump noisily onto the floor of our cabin—cabin? It was little more than canvas stretched over timbers, but at least it gave shelter and privacy.
“Are you going for a swim?” I asked.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
I was well aware that the thump had been deliberate. When he woke in the night, he liked conversation. “Can’t you wait till morning?”
“By then my tail will be stiff.”
I climbed out of bed and threw a cloak across my shoulders. “I’d better go with you and ask Vel to lower our speed. You might lose us in the night.” The vessel was dark except for the fitful burning of a torch enclosed in a dried bladder. It was not usual for ships to sail at night; much more often they dropped anchor in convenient coves and waited for the coming of Thesan, the Lady of the Dawn, whom the Greeks call Eos. But the weather was clear and Vel preferred the sea to the doubtful refuge of a coast which belonged to the Greeks.
With Astyanax in my arms, I stepped from the cabin. Most of the crew was asleep beneath a thick tarpaulin, but Vel and the one-eared sailor, huddled at the prow, were talking and motioning. I waited in the doorway. Something in their tone, a hushed excitement, a hint of conspiracy, warned me to pause and listen. The wind brought words in ominous snatches.
“In Graviscae,” said the one-eared sailor, “…slave market…sell him on the block…Tritons are rare…good price.”
“What about his friend?…can’t sell freeborn Etruscan…”
“Brand him…pass him off as criminal condemned to slavery…”
At first I wanted to laugh. Sell us into slavery? Incredible! My second thought was less reassuring. My travels had never led me to Graviscae, but the captain, no doubt, was known in the port. If he wished to sell us into slavery, who would believe that the Triton did not belong to Vel, and that I myself had begun the voyage as a passenger? In truth Astyanax would bring a handsome price. I had seen a centaur, trapped in the hills, sold to a troop of traveling acrobats who wanted him in their show. As for myself, sleek rather than brawny, I was hardly fit to become an acrobat, field hand, or gladiator, but I knew that Etruscan ladies, bored with their husbands, sometimes bought slaves for purposes other than work. After I was sold, I might convince my master (or mistress) of my true identity, but Astyanax by then would have gone to a different master and I might have lost him for good. The thought of that sea-loving boy as a slave appalled me.
The wind rose to a whistling howl. I did not hear when they meant to take us captive. I stepped back into the cabin and sat on the couch to think.
Astyanax spoke with more excitement than fear. “We shall have to swim for it, Bear!”
“We’re a good ten miles from shore. I can’t swim that far.”
“Not even if I push?”
“Not even then.” I deliberated. “But there’s always the dinghy moored to the stern.”
“Isn’t it a bit—well, undignified? As if one were skulking to safety.”
“Skulking or not, the dinghy is our best chance.” Once ashore, we might fall prey to the Greeks, but even they were preferable to Vel and his Black Rats. I secreted a dagger in my loincloth. Everything else—my chest, my sandals, my sword, even my money pouch—I would have to leave in the cabin.
“What shall we do for provisions?” asked Astyanax, eyeing a bunch of grapes on a table beside the couch.
“Go hungry until we reach the shore.”
He crammed his mouth with grapes.
I lifted the canvas and peered on deck.
“All clear?” he whispered.
“All clear.”
The sides of the cabin hid us from Vel and his friend at the prow and also the navigator manning the sweep at the stern. I gave Astyanax my knife. A strong swimmer, he could match the speed of the Turan and cut the cord which held the dinghy. He clung to my back as I crept under the canvas. At the edge of the ship, I held him over the bulwark and let him slide from my hands. The wind and the waves muffled the sound of his dive. I dove after him. The hull diminished like a black, retreating whale and left me in foam and the almost-darkness of a sickle moon.
By now Astyanax had cut the dinghy’s rope. Still in the water, he thrust the little boat in my direction. I clambered over the edge and gave him a hand. The vanishing ship had left a faint white trail, as if the Lady Moon had walked with phosphorescent sandals.
I slid my fingers along the bottom of the boat. The boar
ds were moist with sea-slime. “There’s no paddle,” I sighed. “We’ll have to trust to the current.”
“Why don’t I push?” He readied himself to dive.
I reached to stop him. “No!” I cried, sensing danger. Perhaps I had seen a movement under the waves.
“But I live in the water,” he protested. “I’m not afraid—“
The sea exploded beside us and a white shape arched above our heads. I ducked and shivered as water showered my neck.
“Atthis!” shouted Astyanax. “I’ll ask her to give us a shove.”
I peered at the water. Low, choppy waves tossed in the feeble moonlight. “Are you sure she’s friendly?” I asked.
As if to answer my question with a resounding “No,” the end of our dinghy shot into the air and Astyanax and I rolled like peas from a pod. The boat slid under the surface and reappeared, capsized and low in the water.
We clung to the keel. Atthis circled us with rapid, lessening loops. It was hard to tell her intention: if she meant to attack or wished to atone for throwing us into the sea. I felt her smooth white snout brush against the soles of my feet, inquisitive, exploratory, as if to examine my skin, feel my pulse, fathom my thoughts. My thoughts at the moment were not charitable. I will kick her, I told myself, if she touches me again. Then I remembered the shark-killing teeth behind her impassive face.
The men on the Turan had seen our accident. The ship had turned and now she bore down on us like a great black Harpy.
“Swim for it,” I pleaded with Astyanax. “They’ll never catch you.”
“Bear,” he reproved, “you don’t expect me to leave you?”
“They won’t hurt me. It’s you they want.”
“We will think of a way to outwit them.”
I gave him a shove from the boat. “Astyanax, go!” He clung to my hand with thin, tenacious fingers. Defeated, I drew him beside me and cradled him with my arm. “Well, then, we shall face them together.”
Vel shouted from the deck. “We’ll run you down unless you surrender peaceably. Both of you.”