by Jo Graham
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He took one hand from the tiller and pointed ahead. “There,” he said. “That smudge on the horizon is a small island.”
“I thought those islands off the coast had no water,” I said. “That is why the men of Pylos do not stop there.”
“They don’t,” he said. “But that’s where we’ve left the rest of our people.”
“The fishing boats,” I said. “You did not bring the fishing boats into Pylos.”
“No. Nor the women and children that we had with us. We will beach the ships for the night there and continue in the morning. Also, Dolphin, Hunter, and Pearl have stores from Pylos, which must be shared out among the ships.”
I nodded. I wondered how much they had brought aboard. I had been busy with other things in Pylos.
I looked up at him, and realized I was not looking far. Like me, he was small and dark, light but well muscled. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Don’t you know?” he said with a wry smile.
“Death knows everyone’s name. But I am not Death now, only Pythia.”
“Xandros,” he said. “Xandros the son of Markai.”
I did not know the name of his father. “Are you a prince of Wilusa?”
He laughed, and adjusted the tiller again. “No, Lady. I’m a fisherman. Neas is a prince.”
“Neas?”
“Prince Aeneas. The captain of Seven Sisters. He’s our commander now. He’s the only one of the royal house left. Well, him and his son, but the boy’s not but four.”
“How did you survive?” I asked.
His eyes darkened. “We were away up the coast when the Achaians came. We came back as the city was burning.”
Xandros looked out to sea, to where the foremost ships were coming about, their sails lowering, as they turned the end of the island. “We landed and did what we could. There were a few fishing boats in the Lower City that had not burned, so we got everyone we could onto them and ran out, just as Neoptolemos got back from chasing some Tyrian merchants who had escaped. We got five boats away, but one foundered the next night, and one was so badly damaged we had to leave it on one of the islands. We’ve overloaded the warships, but they’re seaworthy.”
He looked ahead. We were not yet abreast of the island, but he saw something that I did not. “Stand by to drop oars!” he yelled. “Make ready with the sail!”
Men scrambled up from where they had been talking and resting. Two went to either side of the mast, to the bottom of the sail. The others went to the oars, removing the blocks from the ports and lifting out the oars.
Now we were nearly abreast of the island. Ahead of us, five ships had turned. To our left, a flurry of activity on Hunter’s deck told that she was doing the same thing. The oars went out through the ports, held parallel to the surface of the sea, the narrow side of their paddles to the wind.
“Your pardon, Lady,” he said, and gestured me out of the way. I stepped aside, against the railing on the right side. It was almost full dark now.
“Bring in the sail!” he shouted. The great white sail collapsed downward, the men fighting it into restraining ropes. Our momentum suddenly checked.
“Left side on the count of three!”
Down among the rowers another man’s voice took up the rower’s chant.
All the left side oars swept forward and bit as one, blades flashing as they turned in the air.
“Hard over!” Xandros yelled, and put the rudder as far as it would go, the muscles in his arms straining against the water.
Dolphin turned neatly to the right, slowing and bouncing a little as she crossed the wake left by Swift.
“Right side on the mark!” he called again.
As the left side oars left the water and then bit again, the right side swept forward and joined them in perfect time. We continued on, a full quarter turn off our original course. Behind us, I heard the rower’s chant start on Seven Sisters and knew they were about to do the same.
Xandros grinned at me. “Not seasick, are you?”
“No,” I said. “Should I be?”
“Ever been on a ship before?”
“No,” I said.
We were gliding into the island now. It was low, just a sandbar above sea level, with some scrubby trees clinging to life and providing some shelter. On its white shores were three old fishing boats, drawn up with their nets spread to dry. Above them, at the edge of the trees, there were people and shelters, awnings spread to catch the dew and fend off the midday sun. A fire leaped and shadows moved around it.
“On my mark!” Xandros yelled.
We glided toward the shore, sand glimmering ahead.
“On three, ship!” The oars lifted from the water at once, droplets falling, and turned in the air, side on.
“I’d hang on if I were you, Lady,” he said.
I grabbed the rail behind me as Dolphin’s prow slid onto the beach with a shock. I didn’t fall. Oars were brought in as the two men who had handled the sail jumped over, guiding the ship a little farther up the beach. A stone’s throw away, Seven Sisters glided into her place.
Now the oarsmen leaped down, pulling the ship farther up the beach with each incoming wave. Xandros jumped over the side, crossing around the prow and back, assuring himself that Dolphin would not drift off.
I went up to the side and looked over the rail at the oar ports. It was a drop of nearly my height. Xandros was below. “You’ll have to jump down, Lady.” He was standing thigh deep in water.
I swung my legs over the rail. I had not noticed that my feet were crusted with blood.
“Jump,” Xandros said encouragingly. He reached his arms up. “I’ll steady you.”
I jumped. The cold sea water was a shock, splashing nearly over my head, as clear and as light as rain. It felt wonderful. Xandros grabbed me about the waist. “Careful,” he said. “Do you swim?”
“I swam in the river when I was young,” I said. “Never in the sea.”
A wave came in, splashing me to the chin. I scrubbed my dirty feet in the clean white sand. Then I followed Xandros up the beach. Already men were swarming back onto Dolphin, passing down jars and amphorae from Pylos, the stores to be shared out.
A child came running down the beach and caught one of the women who had been a captive in Pylos about the waist, a boy of nine or so. The woman went to her knees in the sand, clutching him to her, her words incoherent.
“He was one of the fishing boat children,” Xandros said, and there was a catch in his voice. “Some of them drowned when the boat capsized getting out of the harbor. That one was a good enough swimmer. He made it to Dolphin. But he had no family.”
“Do you have a family?” I asked.
I couldn’t see his face in the dim light. “They’re dead,” he said. “Killed for the pleasure of watching them die.” Xandros turned and walked back to the ship to help with the unloading.
I walked up the beach. It seemed odd to hear so many people speaking the language of Wilusa. Then I realized what was strange. Until today I had never heard it spoken by a man.
Their prince saw me walking and came over to me. “Pythia, I must talk with you.”
“I am here,” I said.
He drew me a little ways from the others. “We must light a pyre for the two men killed today. We have brought their bodies from Pylos, but we must pay them honor tonight, because tomorrow we must sail. We are too close to Pylos to remain once Idenes’ fleet returns. I will need you to do what is proper.” He stopped. “Today has given us hope that some of us may be reunited on this side of the River, and it will help if you can do this. It will do people good to see these rites done as they should be, not in the haphazard way we have since we sailed.”
I nodded. “Of course this can be done. I will need help building the pyre, and it will be hard to find enough wood on this island. But it can be done. And I will say the words that are right and proper. You will address their shades, Prince Aeneas?
”
He nodded. “I will do it. I have done it before.”
Three men gathered wood and we heaped it for a pyre, across first one way and then the other to build a proper bier. The two men would lie on it together, like brothers. I arranged their limbs as well as I could, for the stiffness was setting in. It was well to do it now, given the heat of the days. There was wine to pour out in libation, the best of Pylos’ vintage, but I had no herbs or resins except the ones for the brazier that induce visions. We would have to do without. I went apart a little and straightened my dress, and repainted my face with the white and the black. I had enough paint for a while, but I should have to make more. The charcoal is easy to find, but the chalk must be rendered with fat carefully. It would be difficult to replace.
While I was apart they had assembled around the bier, quietly, respectfully, for the most part. There were four hundred or so in all, all the people left of Wilusa. When I appeared beside the bier some of the men stepped back. They had seen me in Pylos, but did not know that I had come.
I spoke the words that are right, the Calling of the Descent and the Lady’s Greeting. Sothis rose clear and bright out of the sea.
Prince Aeneas cleared his throat and leaned forward. He touched the torch to the wood. It took some little while to catch. Then he addressed their shades, telling them that they had fulfilled all their oaths in life, that they were revered and praised by their People.
He looked out at the crowd, this ragged bunch of pirates, and I saw what he saw. “My friends, your sacrifice has brought back two score of our blood, reunited our families, given these women back into loving arms, restored these children’s mothers. If you are waiting beside the River, may the ferryman be swift, knowing that he carries heroes who have given their blood for the blood of the People.”
I saw their faces in the firelight. So many young and so few old, so many men and so few women. Clothes that were tattered and could not be replaced without looms. And how can one weave on a ship? Where would the flax and wool come from? How long could we live on stolen food with no fields to plant? We could not live on fish alone.
The fire leaped. I raised my hands in praise and farewell. Two of the rowers started with their drums, a steady beat that got faster. There were flutes then, and the other drummers joined in. I stood still while they began a long, slow dance about the fire, the acrid smoke rolling over us with the smell of burning flesh. I had not seen this dance before, majestic and slow, yet as wild as the storm. Faster and faster, whirling their pain and feeling away, under the wheeling stars. Sparks flew and vanished in the air. I felt dizzy again, and sat down on the sand at the edge of the trees. Faster and faster. Sparks whirling up into the air.
“What do you see?” Aeneas said gently. He had sat down beside me.
“Sparks,” I said. “Sparks flying from an altar. You will raise an altar at the other end of the world, at journey’s end beyond the sea. There are many roads between here and there, and not all of them are kind. But some of them lead to this city you must build.”
“A new city?” he said.
“You have said it yourself,” I said. “Wilusa is lost. We cannot live upon the sea. So we must build a new city far from our enemies.”
I shivered. Her hand on me was too much. I had not eaten since yesterday evening, and She had worn me like a cloak.
Aeneas drew his own mantle around me. “You should rest,” he said. “I do not know what battles you have fought today.”
“I am all right,” I said. “Though perhaps you are right that I should eat something, Prince Aeneas.”
“Come to the fire where they are cooking,” he said, drawing me to my feet with his hands. “There is fresh bread from Pylos, and a stew of lentils with greens in it. And fresh fish roasted above the coals.”
My mouth watered at the sound of it. Behind me, some of the dancers were lamenting, their cries mingling with the drums, calling encouragement to the two men who must find the River.
“I should stay until the fire dies,” I said.
“You can come back,” he said.
I was a little unsteady on my feet. “As you say, Prince Aeneas.”
“Call me Neas, as my men do,” he said. “And give me your hand. How will it look for the Avatar of Death to fall flat on her face?”
I stifled a laugh. “Not so well, in truth.” I took his hand and let him lead me to the fire.
ON THE WAVES
We slept on the beach that night. I woke cold and cramped and went to join the knot of women who were tending the fire. They drew back from me and did not speak, and I did not know what to say. I had never been much in the company of women except for those of the temple, and since the accident that broke my leg, I had not really had friends, girls who were my age. Perhaps it was because I was set apart by my dedication. Perhaps it was because I would never be a wife or the mother of a family, and since those things are women’s life, we had little to talk about. So I did not know what to say and sat there silent and still.
At last one who had known me in childhood reached out and gave me some of the bread from yesterday that they were eating. “She was Gull,” she said. “Her mother was a boatbuilder’s daughter in the Lower City. I remember her well. She died of a snakebite several years ago. Her mother gave her to the Shrine when she was a child.”
Several of them shifted then, looked at me less suspiciously. I took the bread. “Thank you,” I said. “I remember you from when I worked the flax as a child. Your name is Lide. You had a little boy.”
“He is here,” she said. “He’s nine years old now. And I have a younger son too. I never thought our people would come.”
“They have come too late for my mother,” I said. “And for so many. Eighteen years is a long time.”
“Are you so young then?” one of the women asked, a light-haired girl younger than I. “I thought you were very old.”
“She is very old,” I said. “I am not. My name was Gull, but now it is Pythia.”
“Is it true that you called down winds from the sky and struck the Achaians dumb? So that they didn’t resist our men at all?” she asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “There was a truce.”
Lide nodded. “That was well done. Otherwise many more men would have died before it was over, and we by the flax river might not have been saved, because who would have known where we were or how to send for us?”
“Did everyone come?” I asked.
She shook her head. “There were four who wanted to stay with men they have there. They stayed, and their children too. But all the women who were taken in the war this summer came.”
That did not surprise me.
WE SAILED at full morning, leaving the ashes of the pyre on the beach. As we were preparing to leave, Aeneas came to me. “If it suits you, Pythia, it suits me well for you to remain on Dolphin. Space is tight on the ships, and Xandros is the only one with a private cabin for you. He has given you his cabin in the prow, and he will sleep with the other sailors. I should give you mine on Seven Sisters, but...”
“I know,” I said. “You have your son aboard, and you must have a place for him.”
He nodded. “Is that well, then?”
I agreed, thinking it easier to continue on Dolphin rather than start over on some other ship.
We went south along the coast all that day, passing villages I knew the names of, villages that owed arms and service to Pylos. Before darkness we crossed the gulf and the shores beyond were lands I didn’t know.
Much as he disliked it, Aeneas brought us in to land on the mainland. There were no islands that were suitable, so the best we could do was a stretch of beach that was sandy and not right next to a town.
This night was very different. The fires were kept low, and the men took turns in arms around the camp, watch and watch alike, all night long. The men of Hunter had the first watch, and did not sit down to eat. After moonrise, when everyone was stretching out on the sands to sleep, the
men of Lady’s Eyes took the watch. Pearl’s crew would relieve them before dawn.
I wasn’t sure where I should be, so I stretched my mantle on the sand near the others from Dolphin. I lay on my back and looked up at the moon, still waxing and growing brighter each night. It was strange to sleep this way, on sand under the open sky. The ocean was very loud, and all around me were the noises of a great crowd of people, snores and the occasional cry of a child, whispers, shuffles. I had slept for years in the darkness of the caves, and to sleep like this under the sky was both bright and strange. I rolled over, trying to block the moonlight with my mantle.
Xandros was a few feet away. He was not sleeping either. I could see the bright gleam of his open eyes. “You’re not tired?” I whispered.
“It’s hard to sleep on a strange shore,” he said. “When any minute the men of this place might fall upon you.”
“So why don’t we sleep at sea?” I asked.
“It’s dangerous,” he said. “We can’t anchor except in shallow water, and if we don’t we might drift apart in the night. We can’t have fires except in the braziers on the warships. There’s no water for washing. And people need to move about, relieve themselves. But we’re vulnerable on land.”
I heard the soft shuffle of Lady’s Eyes’ men patrolling slowly around the edge of the camp. “Wouldn’t it be hard to attack a camp like this with the moonlight this bright? The sentries would see you. Wouldn’t a moonless night make more sense?”
“It would,” he said, “but people don’t always make sense.” There was something in his voice that was amused. “Did they school you in war at the Shrine?”
“No,” I said. “They taught me how to look at the world and see what is plain before me.”
“I meant no offense, Lady.”
“Were you schooled in war, then?”
Xandros shrugged, as much as one may while lying down. “I was a fisherman, and I went to sea with my father when I was old enough to be a help, not in the way. When I grew from boy to youth, my father talked to his friends and kinsmen, and they found a place for me on one of the warships, a rower’s bench on Lady’s Eyes. After a few years I moved to Dolphin and became the chanter.”