Shadow of Athena

by Elena Douglas

  “Well done—you’re a wonder! We need the gold.” Arion grinned at her, then returned his gaze to the boarding Phoenicians. At his feet, concealed against the hull, was a broken oar the Phoenicians had never gotten around to repairing. He’d also collected some rags and coils of rope tucked into his belt. “Soon now,” he murmured.

  Boatload after crowded boatload rowed to the shore, while one Phoenician stayed on board. To guard us, Arion thought. He watched to gauge how long each rowboat trip took. According to his memory from the first stop, when the last of the Phoenicians were on land, a single shore boat would be rowed back to the ship, leaving two men aboard to stand guard. When the last boatload of Phoenicians left the ship, he’d have to be quick to knock out the remaining guard, bind him, gag him, and hide him before the second man came back.

  While they waited, he kept a wary eye on the man, who crouched at the stern, his back to them, doing something with the canvas that covered the mysterious storage area. Arion’s stomach tightened. Oh, gods, let him not discover Marpessa’s theft! He couldn’t breathe until at last the guard closed the cover. The man stayed where he was, staring at the land. Less than a dozen Phoenicians were left on board. Arion, following his gaze, saw a boat coming back. This would be the last boatload.

  He drew a deep breath. The boat bumped up against the ship. Ready. The Phoenicians crowded into it. One of them shoved off. Less than a stadion separated the ship from the village—enough so that the figures on land were indistinct. He would have to wait until they were almost at the beach and wouldn’t see or hear anything. As the oarsman began rowing, Arion’s fists were clenched, his whole body taut.

  At last the men in the boat appeared no larger than locusts. Now.

  Signaling to Marpessa to stay where she was, he crept up silently behind the guard, lifted the oar, and swung a mighty blow that cracked against the man’s skull. He fell senseless, one of his legs half off the deck. Arion bent and awkwardly rolled him over, shoving him fully onto the deck. He bound his wrists and ankles tightly. The man’s limbs twitched. Quickly, the gag. Arion tied a cloth securely around the man’s mouth, then lowered him none too gently into the hold. Arion glanced at Marpessa and raised a fist to signal success.

  He waited in the stern, ready with his club, for the rowboat to return. As it came closer, he drew in a sharp breath of dismay. Two men were in the boat!

  Then he recognized them. Hamilcar and Barekbaal.

  Every muscle in his body tensed. His hand tightened around the broken oar. “Hsst!” he beckoned to Marpessa. She came running. “Quick! Get Hamilcar to go with you—that way!” He nodded toward the forward deck. “Distract him—I’ll come back as soon as I can. Here!” He handed her his knife and hid the club nearby, ready for Barekbaal. Then, feigning boredom, he strolled a few steps away, leaving Marpessa to meet the men. His stomach knotting with tension, he pretended to look abstractedly out to sea.

  Marpessa slipped the knife under her belt at her back and pulled a fold of her tunic over it to conceal it. Athena, help me! she prayed as she watched the two men scramble up the boarding plank and walked to meet them. Don’t let me have to use this knife! Barekbaal’s face was blank, Hamilcar’s grim. A chill slid down her spine.

  “Hamilcar.” She tried to keep her voice normal, but it cracked with fear. “I must speak to you. About last night.” She pointed toward the forward deck. “Alone.”

  Hamilcar glared at her. With difficulty she forced a smile. “It’s been a—a misunderstanding.” Hamilcar said something tersely to Barekbaal, who turned away. Trying to keep her knees from trembling, Marpessa walked the length of the ship to the bow, glancing only once to see if Hamilcar followed. On the foredeck, she faced him, hiding her fear.

  “Hamilcar—” she said softly, dropping her eyes, trying to look inviting. He stepped closer. She backed away, involuntarily, thinking, Arion, come quickly! He grabbed her, pulled her to him, and clenched his mouth over hers, his loathsome hands groping down her body. Arion, help— But she was on her own. Rage drove her, and she reached for the knife, pushed it with all her strength into his side. It went in only a short way and struck something hard.

  Hamilcar jumped and released her. He gave an angry cry, then a laugh filled with hatred and cruelty. Blood trickled down his side where the knife dangled for an instant, held by its tip only, then clattered to the deck. “You miss!” he gloated, and pulled out his own knife.

  Marpessa shrank back. Arion was creeping up silently. To distract Hamilcar she cried, “Don’t hurt me!” Just as he raised the knife, Arion lunged and swung his club. Hamilcar fell, and Arion, his face contorted, struck him several more times until he was senseless.

  Marpessa couldn’t stop trembling. Arion tossed ropes onto the deck. She crouched down to help him tie the bonds though her hands shook so violently they were almost useless. At last he straightened and pulled her to her feet.

  Pent-up fury filled him. He felt Marpessa’s trembling and took her in his arms, whispering soft words into her hair, as much to calm himself as to soothe her. Then he let her go. “We must hurry.”

  They gathered their belongings and the stolen treasures. As Arion wrapped them in the blanket and bound the pack with rope, he was grimly silent. It was life or death. The Phoenicians would mount a massive search for them. They’d have to swim a long way up the coast and hide until the foreigners gave up looking for them. What to do about the pack? Suddenly his eye fell on the oar he had used as a club. He lashed their belongings to it. He would tow it as he swam.

  When they were ready, he pointed to a deserted stretch of shore with sheltering reeds and trees. “We’ll head there.”

  On the seaward side of the stern deck, where they wouldn’t be seen from land, they lowered themselves down a rope. Arion dropped their pack into the water, then let go of the rope. The choppy water was so icy cold it cut off his breath. He heard a splash behind him and Marpessa’s gasp as she hit the water.

  “Quickly!” he said as they started to swim. “We haven’t much time.”

  XLIV

  THE SHIP FROM HELLAS

  U

  Beneath sullen clouds the water was deep green, almost black. As she sank into the freezing sea, Poseidon’s realm, Marpessa quailed at its enormous depth, where unseen things lurked beneath. Her bones hurt from the cold as she fought her way to the surface. Large waves assaulted her, swamping her face. She couldn’t breathe. Arion was shouting something, but she couldn’t hear. He was in front of her, his dark head bobbing in the surf, and she began stroking after him, fighting the waves. In no time she was exhausted, Arion drawing ever farther away. She panicked, tried to cry out, and a wave splashed her, choking her.

  Arion turned to check and swam back swiftly. “Roll on your back and rest,” he told her, his eyes anxious yet reassuring. As she did so, his hand came up under her head to lift her face out of the water. When her breathing came even, he said, “Don’t fight the waves! Let them do the work.”

  The shore seemed impossibly far, but Arion swam beside her, calming and encouraging her just the way he had soothed the injured Haleia all those months ago when he led them to Troy. I barely knew him then. How everything has changed! Her thoughts served as a distraction from the freezing water and the chore of swimming, and at last the land grew closer. She could see the rocks and black shingle of a beach. Her foot reached down to nothing but icy depth. She started to panic, but Arion said, “Almost there,” and soon her feet found the bottom. She pushed forward and staggered onto land. A wind from the sea gusted. She collapsed on a soft pile of brown grass a short way up the shore, shivering so hard her bones rattled.

  “We can’t stop here—too close to the village.” Arion looked around anxiously, then scooped her into his arms and set her on her feet. He pulled her soaking blanket from his sodden pack, shook it out in the wind, and wrapped it around her shoulders. His hand on her arm, he led her up t
he shore.

  They found a trickling river and followed it upstream through thickly wooded hills into ever-rougher terrain. As they pushed forward, Marpessa wasn’t cold any more. “Just exhausted,” she muttered. “You’re a hard task master, Arion!”

  “I’m better company than Hamilcar!” he retorted.

  After climbing into wilder and wilder undergrowth, they came to a rocky outcropping and clambered to the top. “Look, the coast!” Arion said. “See the Phoenician ship?”

  It was tiny in the distance, but Marpessa shuddered. “Do you think we’re far enough away?”

  “I hope so.” He found them a hiding place in the center of a thicket and tore loose branches to conceal the place where they had crawled in.

  It was late afternoon. Their clothes were still damp, and as soon as they stopped moving, Marpessa shivered uncontrollably. Arion pressed his body close to hers to warm her. There would be no food until they could go safely to the village. At last night fell, and they slept fitfully. Marpessa woke often, hearing noises, perhaps animals stirring or the wind, but she imagined the Phoenicians searching, drawing ever closer. She felt Arion next to her, alert and listening in the dark.

  When daylight came, they crept cautiously from the thicket and climbed the rock. Barely breathing, they gazed out to sea.

  “Look, Arion!” Marpessa cried in excitement. The Phoenician ship was bearing eastward, fading into the morning mist.

  Arion wasted no time on relief. His mind was already on the next stage of their journey. He gathered their belongings, ready to trek down to the village. “We begin again,” he said softly.

  She gave a weak grin. “Aye, and I shall have to be your simple brother again!”

  Although it had looked inviting from the ship, “village” was too grand a word for the collection of shabby huts they found clustered around the shore. There were no temples, no marketplace. A few rough men, working with fishing nets or upended boats, watched curiously as they approached the nearest resident, a grizzled man of middle years.

  When Arion introduced them as brothers from Hellas, the man looked them over, eyes narrowed with suspicion, before replying that he was Thoas, from Megara, as were the others from this place, a recent settlement no more than two years old.

  “How did you come here?” he asked.

  “We’ve left the Phoenician ship,” Arion said.

  This drew a sharp gaze from Thoas, who must have seen the Phoenicians searching. “Why were you with them?”

  “We were told they were going to Hellas.”

  “Indeed!” muttered Thoas. “They were sailing east.”

  “So we found out!” Arion gave a grin that seemed to lift some of the man’s suspicions. Then he asked, “What work do you do here?”

  “Anything and everything. Most have families in Megara they’ll send for some day. We have farms, grazing lands. We look for iron and copper rocks. We fish and dry our catch to trade with the people of this shore. When ships come, Phoenicians and others, we sell our goods to them.”

  “We’re seeking a ship returning to Hellas,” Arion said.

  Thoas scratched his beard. “Not many ships will come before spring. But there is one. The captain is a rich trader, a hard man who dares to sail in winter. He makes short runs between the colonies along this coast. He comes through here now and again.”

  “Perhaps he’ll take us on,” Arion said. “Until then, can we stay and help the settlement? I can do any sort of work.” He cast a glance at Marpessa, who kept her head down, shuffling her feet in the sand. “My brother wanders in his mind sometimes. But I’ll work for both of us.”

  “There are no extra houses,” Thoas replied. “I can loan you materials to build a small lean-to, but you’ll have to repay me with work. Hard work,” he added sternly.

  The day Marpessa saw the ship belonging to the Greek trader Thoas had spoken of, she felt relief. Their life in Heracléa Pontica was hard. Arion had built them a small shelter using one wall of Thoas’s shed, but the boards were thin and the winter wind whipping off the Euxine went right through her bones. There were frequent storms with icy rain. They had neither extra clothes nor the means to acquire them. She saw too little of Arion, for every day in all kinds of weather he did heavy work for Thoas, clearing fields of rocks to create the farmlands so precious to the Greeks, plowing, going far afield in search of suitable lumber for building.

  Thoas, a widower, had a twelve-year-old son named Eurypylos. Since everyone presumed that Marpessa was a boy of more of less the same age, she and Eury spent a lot of time together. Thoas often sent Eury fishing in their small punt or up into the hills to collect rocks with iron, and Marpessa went too. He was a friendly lad who liked to talk, and while she listened, nodded, and managed to smile, she often let his chatter roll over her. Her mind was far away, filled with dark thoughts. Had Hamilcar or the other two Phoenicians died at their hands? She hoped not, and Arion had said likely not. But if they had died, would the gods punish her and Arion for their murder? We were only defending ourselves, she pleaded silently. Those men were merciless predators. Arion had told her he was sure that from the beginning the Phoenicians had intended to kill them. She, who would never hurt an animal, felt little remorse for hurting them. This shocked her. I would stop at nothing to defend Arion, she realized. What a long way she had come from the carefree girl who had roamed the woods of Lokris rescuing orphaned baby animals! She felt years, centuries, older than the boy at her side.

  The ship arrived just after noon when Thoas and Arion were plowing a field at the farthest end of Thoas’s holding. Marpessa and Eury ran down to the shore. It was a large ship by Greek standards but still small enough to be run up on the beach. Marpessa and Eury watched the men haul the ship onto land and prop it upright with timbers.

  “It’s the ship from Hellas,” Eury told her in the superior tone of an expert. “The rich merchant. We’ve collected lots of iron rocks, and he pays well for those. Father will be happy.”

  When Arion returned in the late afternoon and learned that the captain was on the deck, he decided to speak to him at once. He had some silver pieces, hard-won from working for Thoas, but negotiation would be tricky. How would he isolate and protect Marpessa on a small ship with a Greek-speaking crew? As he approached the ship, he prayed, Zeus and all gods, send me an idea. He glanced down the shore, where Marpessa and Eury stood side by side, skipping rocks into the water. Arion had shorn her hair as soon as they reached Heracléa Pontica, and from here she looked every bit the boy.

  The captain was a sturdy man of medium height, his face as brown and tough as leather, the skin pulled tightly over his cheekbones. His narrow eyes, squinting, scowling, looked on the world with superiority, disdain, or disillusion—or perhaps all three. There was something familiar about him that nagged at Arion. He could not think where he might have seen this man before. But the captain showed no sign of recognizing him.

  Arion introduced himself, at the last moment giving his name as Lykaon, “I’m seeking passage to Hellas for myself and my young brother.” He gestured down the shore toward Marpessa and Eury, but the captain did not bother to shift his gaze. “Will you be going to Hellas?”

  “It’s still winter. There are storms, rough and unpredictable.” The captain gave him a hard stare. Arion waited. “As it happens, I do plan to sail to Hellas on this trip.” The man spat. “I do not fear Poseidon, nor any god. If the Phoenicians can sail these waters, so can we.”

  Hubris! Arion thought. The gods punished this kind of arrogance. He hoped they wouldn’t strike the man down while they were sailing on his ship. But he said, “I can pay our way. What will you ask?”

  The captain’s eyes showed a gleam of interest. “Ten pieces of silver.”

  Arion raised his brows in outrage. “A man cannot earn that much in half a year! I’ve only been here a short while.” He reached into his belt and pro
duced a few lumps of copper and three silver pieces of varying size. Two more remained nestled in his pouch. “This is what I’ve earned. This is what I can pay.”

  “No.”

  Arion thought of the treasure Marpessa had stolen from the Phoenicians, which they kept hidden among their meager belongings—enough gold, with any luck, to buy a future. No way was he going to offer them to this miserly captain. He pulled out one more silver piece and stated firmly, “I can offer you this and no more. And I can help with the rowing and any other work.”

  Without committing himself, the captain asked, “Where in Hellas are you bound?”

  Arion hesitated. “Lokris.”

  The man gave him an odd look, and Arion at once regretted mentioning that name. As he quickly prepared to change his story, the captain frowned and said, “You’d be ill-advised to go there.”

  “Why?”

  The captain only shrugged. “Not for me to tell a man his business.”

  I’ll find out later. Aloud, Arion said, “It doesn’t matter. I just want to get around the island of Euboia and land on that coast. It’s to Delphi that we’re heading. To consult the oracle.” He was pleased with his lie. It gave them a reason for traveling that no one would question.

  The captain gave a slight nod. “We will be making stops along that coast.” A pause. “And what of this brother you mentioned? Can he work too?”

  Arion felt a flash of panic. “He’s only a lad, and frail. He has bouts of illness and weakness,” he invented. “On our last journey he spent lots of time lying on his pallet in the hold. In fact,” he added on sudden inspiration, “that’s why we’re going to Delphi, to—”