Black Ships

by Jo Graham

  “The chanter?”

  “The rower who sets the pace with the song. It has to be with the ship’s movements when she’s maneuvering. Otherwise the drum is fine, if it’s just going forward in a straight line.”

  I remembered the differing songs, the way they wove in the orders for turns. “I see,” I said. “And how did you become captain?”

  Xandros shifted. “The same man can’t stay at the tiller all day. It’s too tiring. I learned the orders for maneuvers and when to use them, so I took a turn at the tiller so the captain could rest. He was killed.”

  “Getting out of the harbor,” I said, remembering my dream. “He was hit with a fire arrow.”

  “Yes. I took the tiller, and later Neas made me captain.” His voice dropped a little. “I can’t imagine what my father would say, that I’m the captain of a warship. The last resort, of course, if the sons of fishermen captain ships like Dolphin.”

  “She’s a beautiful ship,” I said.

  “The most beautiful ship in the fleet,” he said. “One of the newest. She’s alive.”

  “Yes,” I said. Everyone knows that ships have spirits. “Tell me about her,” I said. And he did, until he and I both slept.

  THE NEXT DAY was hot. We continued southeast along the coast, a little farther out to sea because here the beaches were rocky. By midday the sun was scorching, and the reflection off the water hurt my eyes. There wasn’t a breath of wind. The sailors rigged the sail flat over the forward deck to give the rowers some shade, and the children played listlessly in the shadow of it. Xandros had the rowers alternating benches, so that only half the oars on each side were in the water at once. It cut our speed in half, but half the men could rest at a time. They could not go on, hour on hour, in that heat.

  My black robe seemed to trap the heat. I pulled it up in the belt, so that my legs were half uncovered, and pinned my hair away from my neck, but still the sweat crawled on me.

  Xandros took turns at the tiller with another man, the burly man with a healing cut across his face, whose name was Kos. When Kos took the tiller, he came down and sat in the shade a moment. His shoulders were brown with sun, and like everyone else he reeked. I handed him the dipper for one of the water barrels lashed along the inside of the rail, and he drank thirstily.

  “It’s hot,” I said. This was more than obvious.

  He nodded shortly, the water dripping off his chin. “And we need to stay close in to land, so we can put in if we need to. Neas doesn’t like it either.”

  “Doesn’t like what?” I asked. I had heard the shouted conversations a while ago, but there were always shouts back and forth between the ships when we rode close together like this.

  “The sea,” he said. “Look there.”

  I saw nothing and said so.

  “There is no wind,” he said, “and yet the sea is disturbed and the waves are running a hand span below the oar ports. And there is a haze on the horizon. A storm is building where we cannot see it, and we must be able to put into a good shore before it breaks. See, there is Seven Sisters ahead and farthest in shore. Neas is looking for a place. But these beaches are too rocky. We will tear the bottoms out if we run in.”

  He was right. An hour or so later, before the sun had begun to dip, we saw the clouds piling up on the horizon, white and billowing and deceptively far away. Shoreward, cliffs marked the edge of the land.

  Dolphin was meeting each wave, but the spray was flying up and soaking my feet fully the height of a man above the surface of the sea. The air seemed thick.

  There was a shout ahead from Hunter, as far ahead as Seven Sisters but to the seaward of her. I squinted, holding up my hand to see what they had seen. White on the sea. Like a gull’s wings.

  Ships. Several at least, some that I knew. I had seen them often in Pylos at the Blessing of Ships. And one in front with her sail set, running toward us on a wind that did not touch us yet, the Chariot of the Sun. “Neoptolemos,” I said.

  I turned, yelling as I went. “Xandros!”

  By the time I reached the stern, Seven Sisters had seen them too and was turning away from the shore, falling in line beside Hunter. Xandros had the tiller back, and Kos was on the prow.

  The sail was unstretched from where it had been, and two men were hurriedly putting it back to the mast.

  “All oars in on the stroke,” Xandros shouted.

  The second pairs of oars hit the water, and Dolphin surged forward.

  “Pick it up,” Xandros yelled. “We need to catch Seven Sisters.”

  The drumbeat increased, like a racing heartbeat.

  One of the women smothered the cooking fire in the brazier amidships. The children leaped about like startled birds.

  Dolphin gained on Seven Sisters and Hunter. Kos shouted across. I couldn’t hear what Neas said, but Kos did.

  “He says pass the word back that the fishing boats are to set all sail and run before the wind, putting as much distance between them and the Achaians as possible. Swift is to go with them for escort, since she’s the smallest of the warships and the closest back in the line. We are to go forward between Seven Sisters and Hunter. Pearl, Menace, and Cloud are to be behind us, and Winged Night and Lady’s Eyes are to spread out to the seaward to come down upon them to ram.”

  Xandros shouted the orders back to Pearl, three ships’ lengths behind us, a fragile link in a chain across the ocean.

  Then he looked at me. “Get the women and children under cover in the stern or bow before we get in bow shot.”

  I went forward and did so, sending most of them into the larger cabin at the stern. Kos’ sister, who was the thin girl from the kitchens at Pylos; the boy from the fishing boat, and his mother crammed into my cabin. We would all just fit. It was stifling hot.

  The sound of the oars, the creaking of the ship, the drum, and the voices above were almost paralyzing.

  Two days ago I had felt no fear. Now I felt it. I was shut in this cabin with nothing to do, while Death bore down upon us. I had no doubt that the men of Pylos had come to pay us for the raiding of their shores. Neoptolemos did not even need that pretext.

  The ship shuddered. We were coming about. I could hear the shouted order for left side double quick.

  Those men had been rowing in the hot sun all day. They must find the strength to row twice as fast, to stay with the drum. Quick thunking noises and a scream. They had peppered the foredeck with arrows. Those thuds were the arrows striking the boards above our heads, the scream meant someone was hit.

  Splashing. Shouts.

  Kos’ sister huddled in the very point of the prow, her hands in her mouth to stifle a scream. The other woman bent over her son, as though putting the fragile barrier of her body between him and the arrows above.

  “Do you hear what they’re doing?” I said.

  “I heard the captain just now,” she said. “We’re to pass close between two ships.”

  Thunks again. Another volley of arrows all down the side of the ship. Dolphin bucked. Had we crossed someone’s wake? There was no way to make sense of the battle from down here.

  A scream and a whimpering cry from almost outside the door. One of the rowers in the first tier, I thought. I had seen those men this morning, but I did not know their names.

  It was only a little distance, not even the height of a man, from the cabin to the first tier. I could pull him inside in a moment and see what could be done. Kos’ sister was near. I met her eyes. “We can get him in,” I said.

  You must not shed blood nor see it shed.

  This time it was easier to disobey.

  I opened the door and we darted out.

  It was the first man on the right side, with an arrow through his shoulder. He had fallen in the space between the benches, his oar hanging loose in the port, fouling the one behind it on each sweep. His face was set, his teeth clenched.

  I grabbed his right arm, the one without the arrow through the shoulder. “Get his feet!” I shouted. She did.

/>   “No,” he whispered.

  “Be quiet,” I said. “We’ll get you inside and you’ll fight another day.” The girl dragged him and I half lifted. It must have hurt awfully, but it took only a moment to get him inside. The young boy’s mother looked up, the rower’s head falling almost in her lap.

  “Here, now,” she said, lifting his head up and turning his shoulder so she could see it.

  I started back to the door.

  “Where are you going?” the girl said.

  “The oar has to be moved. It’s fouling the stroke,” I said. “There are no men with hands free to do it.”

  I darted back out, low in the shelter of the rower’s rail, but still the wind hit me. It had picked up, cold and laden with rain. The storm was almost on us.

  “Left side on the mark!” Xandros yelled. The left side oarsmen pulled their oars out, causing a turn to the right. He was completely exposed up there at the tiller, not even a shirt between him and arrows, or a leather breastplate such as Neas wore. In the shelter of the rail I couldn’t see what he saw, could see nothing of the battle or the sea.

  He saw me moving and nodded fractionally. The oar was fouling the stroke, and the left turn was awkward and slow, with two oars out of ten not pulling. I crawled across the deck and closed my hands around the handle. I had no idea they were so heavy. It took both hands to pull it up, dripping through the port, and ship it in what must be its usual place.

  We met a wave head-on, splashing up over the prow and the rail. The seas were getting high.

  There were shouts out on the water. I didn’t know the voice, but the tongue was Wilusan.

  Xandros nodded. “On the mark!” he yelled. “Prepare to set the sail! Right side on three! Left side skip the beat!”

  The chanter took up a different song, and the clouds reeled overhead as we turned sharply again, the wind behind us now, blowing straight down the ship. There were no arrows. We must be temporarily out of range.

  On Xandros’ mark the sail went up. It caught and filled, billowing out white against the black clouds behind us, the dolphin leaping red on white.

  The ship surged forward.

  “Keep the stroke!” Xandros yelled. Under oars and sail both? That would be our maximum speed.

  I turned and went back in the cabin.

  The boy’s mother was drawing the arrow while Kos’ sister held his arm still. Her face was white, but she was crooning, “Be still. Just for a moment. Be still.”

  The arrow came out in a great rush of blood. The man moaned and his head rolled to the side.

  “Is he dead?” the boy said in a hushed tone.

  I put my hand to the side of his neck, felt the strong beat pulsing there. “No,” I said. “He’s passed out from the pain. Let me see the wound.”

  “Salt water,” said the boy’s mother. “Salt water to clean it.”

  The girl went and got some.

  I looked at the wound, washing the blood away where it welled. Skin and muscle torn, a whiteness at the bottom and one sharp chip of bone. I pulled it out. “It’s chipped his collarbone,” I said, “but I don’t think the bone is broken through. He’s breathing well, so it’s not in the lung, and too high for that I think. If we can stop the bleeding, he should mend.”

  “Pressure,” the boy’s mother said. “Clean cloth and pressure till the bleeding stops.”

  We took turns holding it tight against him while the ship tossed and bucked. The light was gone. It was dim twilight in the cabin, too soon for natural twilight. There was a surge of sound, like a great roaring. It was rain.

  I went to the door and looked out, then slid out and shut it behind me.

  The rain beat down in sheets. The sodden sail held the wind and strained at the ropes. The oars were all shipped now, the drum silent. When I stepped out of the shelter of the prow the wind lashed at me, and it was hard to stay on my feet. I made my way down the ship between the rowers. Some of them were nursing minor hurts. Most sat with their heads down, like horses who have run their race and worn their hearts out in sight of the finish line.

  Kos and Xandros were both at the tiller. I clung to the rope steps to the afterdeck and climbed up, ignoring Kos’ hand.

  All about us the horizon had closed in, leaving us alone amid mountains of green water. Each wave splashed up over Dolphin’s prow, sending a plume of foam into the air, but she shed water like her namesake. In the back, three men were bailing.

  Far out to our right I could see another ship. It was Winged Night. I could see the black wings painted on her spread sail.

  “Is Bai all right?” Xandros shouted.

  It took me a moment to realize that Bai must be the rower. “The arrow was in the shoulder, not the chest,” I said. “I think he’ll make it.”

  “Good,” Xandros said. It was taking two of them to keep the rudder straight.

  “Where is everyone else?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Xandros said. “Neas told us to pass straight through and take their worst, then run on with the wind behind us. The storm came up fast. Any prayers you have right now to the Lady of the Sea would probably be appropriate.”

  The clouds gathered down like omens, like the anger of the Lord of Storms.

  THE ISLANDOF THE DEAD

  The storm and night both came down on us. Bai, the wounded rower, woke dazed with pain and vomited in my lap. The girl was seasick as well, and it wasn’t long before the cabin stunk. I couldn’t blame them for their illness. The ship rose and fell so violently that sometimes I bumped my head on the down swell. Night came, and we huddled there in the dark. We did not dare a light with the movement of the ship, even if one of us had been able to go all the way aft to get fire. If there was still a spark in the brazier, which I did not know.

  Sometime after full dark two of the rowers came in to join us, dripping with rain and shivering.

  “The captain told us to get some rest so that we’d be fresh later in the night,” one of them said. “How’s Bai?”

  He was sleeping, or perhaps passed out again, but there was no fever.

  Six of us huddled there in a cabin that tapered from a hand span at the front to the height of a man at the back, a cabin only a little longer in length than my height, and only tall enough for me to sit upright.

  We did not speak. The only one who could lie down was Bai, and that with his head in my lap and his feet at the point of the prow. The child fell asleep on his mother’s lap. He, at least, was not sick.

  One of the rowers smiled. “He’s got a sailor’s stomach. The captain will promise him a bench at this rate.”

  His mother didn’t quite smile. I could hear her thought as clearly as if she’d spoken it aloud—that at this rate we would be putting children to the oars soon enough.

  Kos’ sister was shivering. She came and sat next to me, and I put my mantle around her. “Are you all right?” I asked quietly.

  “Just cold,” she said. She was shaking, but her body shrank from contact with mine. She was only a few years younger than me and very pretty. I had no doubt she’d received a warm welcome in Pylos.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Tia,” she said. “Daughter of Iaso, the boatbuilder. Kos is my older brother.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment in the dark.

  It is like this always in Her service. Things swirl around and sometimes we can see the patterns, like Her hand on my sleeve, the faint whisper of the future, the past.

  Sometime in the night the rowers changed their shift. Two more wet, exhausted men came in. One of them was Bai’s friend, and took over his care. Bai wakened and took some water. There was still no fever as far as I could tell, and the bleeding had slowed to a seepage beneath the bandage when his arm was moved.

  The night would never end. I thought that I would never sleep, but I did, slumping half sideways against Tia.

  I dreamed that I stood on a hillside with a brown river beneath me, young olive trees sleeping in the sun on
the slope below, vines stretched in orderly rows. A girl stood beside me, her hair like flame, her black tunic blowing in the breeze. Her skin was fair, but her eyes were as dark as caves beneath the earth. I knew Her.

  “Great Lady,” I said. “I do not know Your purpose. And I have seen blood shed against Your laws.”

  “You have obeyed Me,” She said. She stretched out one white hand, skin flecked golden in the sun. “You have answered My purpose.”

  “To carry You within me to where You wish to go. But Lady,” I faltered, “this burden is too great. I do not know the things I need to know. I can’t carry You alone.”

  She turned and smiled, lips as red as pomegranates. “You aren’t alone.”

  I woke to the tossing of the ship. It seemed a little lighter than before.

  I extricated myself from the others and slipped out the door.

  The rain was falling in squally patches, and the sail strained at the mast. Dawn was coming, and I could barely see the length of the ship. I could see enough to know that Xandros was still at the tiller, tied on with a length of rope. Living or dead, he could not leave it.

  I thought about crossing the deck, but a great wave came onboard, nearly sweeping me off my feet. I fell beneath the rower’s bench. Salt water broke over me. I dragged myself back up and back into the cabin. There was nothing I could do.

  Midday came, and the storm was worse. We were tossed about. Each time we wallowed deep into a wave I wondered if we would rise again. Water dripped in from the chinks in the boards above, and we began to bail some out the door to where three of the rowers were bailing, lashed with ropes to the rail. All the food was aft except for some olives, but no one wanted anything enough to go aft. There was water in my water bag still. The girl could not eat, and Bai did not want anything but water. I wished for bread but there was none.

  Someone banged on the door. It was one of the rowers, calling the two who were resting. “Come out. We’ve got to get the sail in. The captain says it’s useless, and it’s going to tear away in this wind.”