Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 5

by Eric Flint

  "'Lo, Cassie," said the little girl, jumping to her feet and rushing to hold the woman's hand. The little girl chattered as the woman led her out into the courtyard. Like all children, she followed the woman without noticing where they were going. That changed when she found herself up on the citadel wall, as this was forbidden territory. She could smell and hear the sea but, no matter how she stretched, she could not see the ocean over the crenulated defences. Further along the wall, a wooden platform had been erected on which stood a pair of spearmen and two ladies, one dressed in the robes of a priestess and the other, in the rich, purple clothes of a queen.

  "Mama," the little girl yelled and tried to run to the platform but the young woman held her back.

  The queen looked around in alarm. "What's she doing here?" The queen tried to leave the platform but the spearmen grabbed her, one on each arm.

  The spearmen looked at the priestess, who nodded. They seized the queen tighter and threw her off the citadel wall to the rocks far below.

  The little girl screamed and screamed and screamed but the priestess and the young woman exchanged cruel and triumphant smiles.

  * * *

  "Gently, you sons of bitches, nose her in gently," said the ship's captain, holding himself rigidly upright as the deck pitched.

  The rowers dropped their oars back into the water with a splash. They braced themselves and pushed back to brake the ship, noticeably slowing the galley. It slewed slightly in the water as the starboard oars bit just that little more deeply than those to port. The helmsman threw his weight against the steering oar, swinging the bow back into line.

  "Quite right, Captain," said Perseus. "We don't want any accidents or you might get a closer shave than you need."

  Perseus spoke in Kretan, the common language of the islands, with the languid drawl of an Achaean aristocrat. He held the edge of his bronze sword against the captain's throat.

  The captain swore, but not too loudly. "Should we ever meet again," he began.

  Perseus interrupted him. "I will kill you on sight. Be thankful that this island was nearby, Captain, otherwise, I would have had to kill you and all the officers and try to navigate your ship myself. I hate sailing," he added.

  The captain twisted his head around to look Perseus in the face. From his expression, the man was trying to work out whether he was joking. Perseus snatched a glance behind and braced himself as it wouldn't do to accidentally cut his hostage's throat before the man's usefulness was expended. As it happened, contact with the shore was reasonably smooth, the bow mounting the beach with a smooth hiss as momentum pushed the ship up the sand.

  The rowers looked at each other uncertainly. Normally, they would have jumped overboard to pull the ship higher up the beach but the situation was hardly normal.

  "Sit still, boys, and I will release your captain at the tree line. Remember, one wrong move and I kill him," Perseus said, menacingly.

  "Do what the bastard says," said the captain, urgently.

  Perseus lifted the man one handed out of the ship's bow and onto the shore. He backed up the beach, careful to keep his hostage in front of him as a shield. The vegetation came close to the water's edge so he did not have far to go. He stopped just within the trees.

  "Remember your promise," pleaded the captain.

  "An Achaean prince always keeps his word," said Perseus, loftily, as it never hurt to play up the heroic image a little. Who knows, someone might even be foolish enough to believe it. He reached down to the captain's waist and pulled free a pouch. "Mine, I think," he said.

  The captain twitched but calmed down when Perseus pressed the sword harder into his throat. "You cheated," protested the captain.

  "True," Perseus admitted. "But so did you so I thought it was a house rule. Goodbye, Captain." He forced the man's head down. The captain tensed and shut his eyes but Perseus laughed and kicked him out onto the beach before vanishing into the trees.

  "Kill him," yelled the captain.

  Arrows flew, one embedding itself into a tree trunk over Perseus' head and another glanced off the shield slung across his back, but mostly the missiles flew wide. He walked briskly for thirty paces or so then stopped. He leaned against a tree and took his boar's tooth helmet off so he could hear clearly. An argument raged down on the shoreline with the captain wanting to organise a pursuit but the sailors would have none of it. They lacked the stomach to chase after a heavily armed Achaean hero in a forest as they knew it would go ill with the first ones to find the fugitive.

  Perseus waited patiently until he heard the ship launched then he walked back to the beach to check that all the sailors had gone. He had no intention of being murdered in his sleep by the old raiders' stratagem of a secret shore party left behind while the ship ostentatiously sailed away. The vessel was already far out to sea when he reached the beach and it was evident that he was quite alone.

  He sat on a rock to consider his options, opening the captain's pouch to count his spoils. The pouch contained "fingers" of bronze, a few twists of gold and a ring of dubious silver but the jewels were disappointing: small garnets, indifferent carnelians and some bright blue stones that looked like lapis lazuli but which, on closer inspection, turned out to be dyed faience. The forgers of Egypt particularly specialised in faking jewels from glass beads. The best piece in the pouch was the necklace that he himself had given the captain in payment for passage.

  He enjoyed the stability of the land as he was a poor sailor. The sun warmed his skin and sent light skittering off the surface of the sea. He sighed, picked up a stone and tossed it into the sea where it fell with a plop, and was swallowed up immediately. He had no idea at all where he was. Somewhere, there would be a small harbour for fishing vessels and coastal traders—even the meanest island boasted that. He could choose a direction at random and start walking around the coast but, given the indented nature of Aegean coastlines, it was likely to be a long hike. He decided to walk inland instead as the island was hilly and he should be able to find a vantage point from where he might search for human habitation.

  A breeze stirred along the water, curling around him, cooling his skin and bringing the smell of cypress from the island's slopes. He could smell nothing man made, no wood, no smoke, no human smells at all. He stood up and attached his helmet to his sword harness then he strode purposefully back into the trees across ground that was dry with large areas of bare earth and scrubby bushes. He walked for some little time before he fancied that he heard the ring of a goat's bell in the distance, but it never came again so maybe he had imagined it.

  Soon, he had a more pressing need, water. You can smell water, if you need a drink badly enough and he was very thirsty, so he sniffed the air. He turned right, following a faint scent even though it took him far uphill.

  The island was silent, except for the faint rustle of trees stirred by the wind and the occasional bird cry, so he heard the stream long before he saw it. He also heard a woman scream and his sword came free with a metallic hiss. He ran toward the sound, further cries guiding his steps, until he burst upon the scene, sword raised. There, he doubled up with laughter.

  Satyrs surrounded a young woman who beat ineffectually at them. The diminutive goat-men danced in a ring around her on their unsteady, backward-pointing legs, taking turns to dart in close to stroke her hair and body. As fast as she swatted one away, another took its place.

  The girl was clearly not an islander as she was far too tall, with hair blacker than a raven's wing and smooth pale skin. She also wore an expensive, white, shining dress made of linen rubbed and washed in perfumed oil, indicating that she was someone special.

  "What are you doing, Princess?" he asked, in Achaean. He tended to call all noble women princess—actually, he tended to call tavern girls princess as well as, in his experience, a little flattery was never wasted on the fairer sex.

  "What does it look like, oaf? Do something. Ow!" she replied in the same language. A satyr sneaked in to pinch her bottom while sh
e talked to Perseus. She dealt the goat-man a vigorous clout around his pointed ear that knocked him over.

  Perseus laughed until he cried, placing her immediately by her accent. She was Maryannu, a descendent of the charioteers that had conquered their way down the Lebanese coast. They were cousins to the bronze-clad Achaeans who had turned west into the Aegean when the Maryannu clans had driven south, lured by stories of the wealth of Egypt. He bypassed the scrum to drink deeply out of the stream, splashing cold water onto his face and neck and gasping with enjoyment at the shock.

  "Pass me my wand, you idiot," she said, pointing. A slim length of hazel poked from a pack lay by the stream. The creatures must have surprised her while she drank.

  "This wand, Princess?" he asked, pulling it from her belongings.

  "Of course that wand!" she said.

  He slapped two of the creatures away and passed her the polished wood. She raised it over her head and chanted something softly in Maryannan. The wand described an arc, sparkles trailing in the air behind it. He smelt acrid fumes, like those left in the air after a thunderbolt and fear spread like a contagion among the satyrs who fled squealing. One tripped over Perseus' foot and it rolled in front of him, terror in its eyes. It scrambled along on all fours before vanishing into the bush.

  "What did you do to them, Princess?" he asked, amused.

  She smoothed down her dress with a fluid motion. "I made them see that which they most feared." The princess shrugged. "I've no idea what that might be."

  "A lion, maybe," he said, thoughtfully. It took considerable magic power to weave an illusion so real with just a few passes of a wand.

  "Thank you for all your help," she said, making a final, and quite unnecessary, adjustment to the hang of her clothes.

  "My pleasure, Princess," he replied, ignoring her sarcasm. "I suppose that you really are a princess?"

  The girl elevated her nose a little higher. "My father is King Cepheus of Joppa. And you are?"

  "Prince Perseus, at your service lady," he said, bowing.

  "Prince Perseus of where?" she asked.

  "That's a little complicated," he said.

  "I see," she replied, lifting an eyebrow.

  He doubted that she did, but he let it pass. She hefted up her bag and started up the hill.

  "Where are you going?" he asked, falling in beside her.

  "And when did that become your business?" she replied.

  He laughed. "I'm just making conversation. It is a little unexpected to find a princess of Joppa roaming around alone on the islands."

  She turned and faced him, hands on hips, dark eyes flashing. "You don't believe me do you?"

  "Oh, I believe that you are a Maryannu lady, no one else would mangle Achaean quite so prettily, but a princess normally has a retinue."

  "I did have a retinue but I lost them." She actually stamped a foot.

  He pulled a branch back for her to pass. "That seems careless. How did it happen?"

  "It was the first night after we landed. A spearman woke me saying that we were being attacked. There was a lot of yelling in the dark and Mattra, that's the commander, told me to run into the trees so I did, but no one came after me. I looked for my men in the morning but they were gone."

  "Dead?" he asked.

  "Just gone, leaving me alone" she said.

  She was making an effort to be brave but he saw her lower lip quiver. She was by no means as assured as she pretended.

  "I suppose we could travel together," he said, gallantly.

  "I suppose we could, if you are going my way." She spoke formally, but she flashed him a smile of gratitude.

  "Which is your way?" he asked, surveying the countryside.

  "Up the hill but I am not supposed to tell you any more," she said. "I am on a secret mission."

  "A secret mission, no less," said Perseus, smiling.

  "Now you are laughing at me," she said, biting her lip.

  "Perhaps just a little, Princess, but you look so solemn." He held up his hand in supplication. "I intended to climb the hill a little higher anyway so we may as well go together for the company."

  They moved through the heat of the late afternoon and as they walked she chattered non-stop about the landscape, life in Joppa, and her family, until he soon thought that he knew a great deal about her. Normally, he found chattering women irritating but she was pleasant company, if charmingly naïve, so he enjoyed the journey, rather to his surprise. The trees thinned out to be replaced by bushes and, before long, the sun was low on the horizon.

  "We should make camp for the night," he finally said. "Do you have any food?"

  "A little bread," she replied. "You have brought nothing?"

  "I have this," he replied, unlooping a strip of linen from his pouch. "Wait here for me and be very quiet."

  Mercifully, she sat down without arguing. He stooped and picked up a round stone that he placed in the centre of the strip of cloth. He walked silently to the edge of a clearing and waited for rabbits emerging to feed as the sun set. A movement caught his eye and he whirled the stone over his head and released, the missile making a clean kill. Perseus retrieved his game and retraced his steps, dropping the dead animal in front of her.

  "Clean the bunny, lady, while I get a fire going." He pushed a dagger into her hands. Perseus skilfully kindled the fire but when he looked up, she was still poking tentatively at the rabbit with his knife. "You haven't got very far with that," he said.

  "I don't know how to, Perseus. I'm not a scullery maid."

  He was about to scold her for her arrogance when he realised that she was almost in tears. She really had no idea how to prepare food. Taking the knife, he quickly cleaned and skinned the beast, showing her the technique. He fixed the meat on sticks to roast over the campfire before settling down beside her.

  "That man who was captain of your bodyguard, Princess."

  "Mattra?" she interrupted.

  "Yes, Mattra. Known him long?" he asked, casually.

  "All my life," she replied. "He was often the spearman on guard outside my door in the palace."

  "I see," he replied, neutrally.

  "How did you get that scar?" she asked, pointing. "It looks like a thunderbolt."

  "I had an accident when I was young." He rubbed his forehead self-consciously. "I have no idea when it happened. My mother said it was the price we paid the Gods to escape Argos."

  "Where did you learn to use a sling?" she asked.

  "I learned from the shepherds of Seriphos. My mother, Danae, was exiled there and the king, Polydectes, married her. A princess of Argolis is a prestigious consort for a minor king and mother's options were limited so she agreed to the match. Unfortunately, Polydectes acquired me as an unwelcome addition to his household so he encouraged me to spend as much time as possible up in the hills with the flocks."

  He rotated the sticks to cook the rabbit meat evenly.

  "I decided to travel abroad once I reached my maturity. The king was so delighted that he actually gave me gold to speed me away."

  "Polydectes was not your father then."

  "Good grief, no." He shared the rabbit out. They were both hungry and devoted themselves to the meal but, once it was over, she wanted to talk.

  "So who was your father? I sense a palace intrigue," she said, stretching her legs out languidly.

  He found himself looking at her slender outline through the long dress, which shone red and orange in the firelight. A whisper of wind carried a hint of perfumed oils from her body.

  "Zeus," he replied, succinctly.

  She laughed.

  "No, really," he said. "My grandfather, King Acrisius of Argolis, had shut my mother up in the palace as a punishment, when Zeus came to her as a shimmer of gold in the air and I was the result."

  "So who was your father really?" she wheedled.

  "The Argolis has dual kings and the other one was my grandfather's brother, Proteus. The reason that my mother was in disgrace is that she had been ca
ught in bed with Uncle Proteus, so you work it out, Princess."

  "You Achaeans have such deliciously convoluted family scandals," she said, giggling.

  Her face shone bright in the flickering firelight.

  "It's late," he said. "We should sleep."

  They settled each side of the fire, which flickered low. An animal howled somewhere out on the island startling her. She shot over the ashes and snuggled close to him.

  "I'm cold," she said, defensively.

  He rolled over and put a strong arm around her. "Sleep well, my lady," he said.

  She fell asleep immediately but he lay awake a little longer. She smelt fragrant from the perfumed oils rubbed into her hair and skin. He breathed her scent in deeply, identifying hyssop, cypress and sweet sage. She snuffled gently and snuggled close to him, her body warm against his.

  He was not unduly concerned with wild animals. He slept lightly, from long experience of the wilderness, and his bronze sword was close by his hand. He drifted into sleep with her scent in his nostrils, making him dream of exotic palace ladies, hearing the clang of their jewellery, the tapping of their boots on the stone floors and smelling the rich scent that followed them.

  * * *

  In the morning, Perseus found a rocky outcrop that gave him an unrestricted view over the trees so that he could see along the entire arc of the coast but there was no sign of human activity.

  "What are you looking for?" the princess asked, from the bottom of the rock.

  "A village where I can find a boat," he replied.

  "The only one on the island is over there," she said, pointing in the opposite direction to the path they had taken.

  He jumped down and glowered at her.

  "Well, how did you think that I got here?" she asked, defensively.

  "I didn't like to ask. You being on a secret mission," he said, sarcastically.

  "You could stay with me," she said, hesitantly. "In return, I could give you passage on my ship."