Black Ships

by Jo Graham

  “Stop yelling at me!”

  “I am not yelling,” I screamed. “You stop yelling!”

  “I’m not yelling,” he yelled back. “I’m screaming.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  “Yes, I am!”

  From over on shore, Kos’ voice rose in a sleepy shout. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re yelling or screaming, but cut it out so I can sleep!”

  I looked at Xandros and he looked at me. And at the same moment we both started laughing. And then it was impossible to stop. I was laughing and crying and sat down on the deck at the stern.

  Xandros sat down beside me and put his arm around me. “Pregnant women are strange,” he said.

  “Don’t you dare patronize me,” I said, sliding closer to him.

  “I’m not patronizing. I’m just saying.”

  “Then just don’t say.”

  “Fine.” He put his head on my shoulder. His dark hair was damp and fine against my face.

  After a moment I took his hand and folded it in mine. “Oh, Xandros.”

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I just love Neas too.” His hand was warm around mine. We fit together. We always had.

  “Well. If that’s how it is.” There was no resentment in his voice. Of all people, he understood.

  “You love Neas,” I said. I could hardly imagine him without that love, without Neas as his star to steer by, constant as any constellation.

  He nodded. “Always. But you know where that goes. Exactly where it’s always gone.”

  “So we console each other. Is that enough?” I wondered. I could belong to no man, be no man’s wife, and never felt the lack of it before. But I should feel the lack of Xandros, feel his absence as keenly as a wound.

  Xandros turned his hand in mine, the same shape, the same color of hands, like my own made male. “Enough for what?”

  “For happiness,” I said.

  Xandros lifted his head. “I have no idea what that even means. I just get through each day. And you and Neas keep telling me that we’re going to come out of all of this, but I can count. Our numbers keep getting smaller and smaller. I don’t see the future. Right now I can’t see any future. And now you tell me there’s a child.”

  “Xandros,” I said, and took his face in my hands. “Trust me on this one thing. If I had seen death before us, if I had seen this child’s death, I would never have left Egypt.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly,” I said. “I thought about it. But I came.”

  “And now what?” he asked.

  “We wait for a sign,” I said. “She will send one.”

  Xandros shook his head. “That’s madness.”

  “That’s faith,” I said. “I’m in the business of believing in oracles.”

  He leaned down again, one hand touching my stomach very lightly. “When?”

  “I told you. In the summer. When Sothis rises.”

  “Four moons?”

  “Yes,” I said, and smiled. “You’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  “I didn’t want to know,” he said.

  “I know.”

  He did not look up at me, and I couldn’t tell if the tears were only in his voice or also in his eyes. “I can’t keep you safe.”

  “I know you will try,” I said. “And that’s all anyone can do. But think of it like this—if my Lady can’t keep me safe, how could you?”

  Xandros laughed, and there was something looser in the sound, as though something in his chest had eased. “I keep doing this. Loving people who are god-touched.”

  “I know you do. Perhaps you should ask yourself why.”

  “Now you are counseling me again.”

  “It’s a habit,” I said, and pressed my face against his hair. “Xandros, keep me human. Call me by my name.”

  He raised his head. “Gull,” he said. “You are Gull.” And he laid his lips to mine.

  WE WOKE to death. A wail went up from Seven Sisters, the formal funeral wail that accompanies death. Xandros and I sat straight up, and then he ran on deck.

  Could Wilos have fallen overboard? I wondered. Yes, he was only six, but the boy swam like a fish and the seas were perfectly calm.

  Xandros was already on the point of the prow when I came on deck. He called across the water, “Who is it? Who has died?”

  Lide answered him. “Lord Anchises,” she said.

  “He died on the sea,” I whispered. “In sight of the mountains of Scylla.” I looked up at Xandros. “Let me get my veil and we’ll go across.”

  They had laid him out amidships, his hair combed about his shoulders. Lide stood by him, a veil over her hair.

  “What happened?” I asked Lide, for there was no mark on him.

  “His heart stopped in the night,” she said. “That is all. He was an old man, forty-six years old.”

  Wilos came and stood beside the bier. He said nothing, his light hair catching the first rays of the sun rising out of the sea in an aurora of gold.

  “Prince Wilos,” I said. “Your grandfather was a great lord of the antique kind there will be no more of. Honor his memory.”

  He looked up at me. “Prince?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You are a prince. You are a Prince of Wilusa That Was, and of a kingdom yet to be. And that is what your grandfather strove for all his life.”

  Wilos nodded, his eyes on the still face. He did not cry.

  In a moment Neas came up from belowdecks. He did not cry either, but his face was red.

  “Sybil,” he said. “And Xandros.”

  “I am truly sorry,” Xandros said, and clasped him wrist to wrist. “If there is anything in my power to do I shall do it.”

  “We will burn him on the beach,” Neas said. His voice was rough, as though he had already shed his tears alone. “And then we will celebrate with funeral games. We will celebrate nine days in his memory.”

  Xandros nodded. “It looked to me yesterday when we were filling the casks that there was good hunting in this country. We will hunt and there will be a proper funeral feast.”

  “If we are staying nine days I’ll get over to the beach,” Lide said briskly. “We can build an oven and a roasting pit if we’re going to stay that long.”

  Neas nodded, his eyes on the near shore, the slopes of the great mountain. “Sybil, will you do what is proper?”

  “I will,” I said.

  WE BURNED ANCHISES that night. The men had found wood, for there were plenty of deadfalls in the forest. Bai took Wilos and several of the boys hunting, and they managed to hit a couple of waterbirds. The men had more luck, and took a young doe. Meanwhile Lide had her oven and roasting pits, and we had made unleavened bread from the grain of Egypt.

  It was a beautiful spring night, warm and clear, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. I stood beside the fire and sang the Descent in a clear voice, then the Greeting. My voice was not choked. I could not cry for Anchises. He had lived to do what he had wanted, and his son would be a king and his grandson after.

  Neas tipped out wine for his shade, and Wilos solemnly cut a lock of his soft hair and laid it on the old man’s breast.

  Anchises had brought his precious grandson out of the fire, out of the ruin of the City. He had succeeded in all he aimed at, and now he rejoined Lysisippa in the land below. I could not cry for him.

  The fire of dry wood caught quick and hard. Kos’ drum came in deep and low. The wind from the beach picked up, and I stepped back lest the whirling sparks catch my veil. Across the fire I saw Kianna in Tia’s arms, leaning back to see better, her eyes as dark as the night sky, following the sparks with her eyes, reaching up as though she might catch them, reaching toward Wilos.

  Lady, I thought, will she serve him as I serve Neas? One day when we are both dead and burned, will she sing the Descent while he pours the libation? May You will that it be so.

  WE WERE NINE DAYS on Scylla, nine days of rest. It was not that we nee
ded the rest so much, but that we needed to remember who we were. It had been many months since the People lived according to our own customs without the clamor of the great city around us, with a cool wind off the sea and the rising thunderclouds in the afternoon. There were no clouds like this in the Black Land, no rain, no deer, no sounds of the sea. This land was new to us, but less strange than the one we had left.

  On the fourth day I came upon Neas alone by the small stream that flowed into the sea. I was startled to see him, and he looked up as though he were equally surprised.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “I was praying,” he said, but he smiled and held out his hand. “But I don’t need to be alone.”

  “For your father?” I asked.

  “For Basetamon,” he said.

  I came and sat beside him on the edge of the stream, my twisted foot stretched out toward the cool water. “That was not the answer I expected,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Well, I suppose not.”

  “Are you glad to leave her?”

  “Both yes and no,” Neas said. “I can’t even begin to explain.”

  I leaned back, looking up at the budding leaves above us, a small tree nodding over the stream. “She sent for me,” I said quietly. “She wanted me to tell her the future.”

  Neas raised one eyebrow. “And did you?”

  “No,” I said. “I could see nothing for her.”

  He sighed. “They marry their kin in the Royal House of Egypt,” he said. “They think nothing of giving a girl of nine to her uncle. And the marriage must be consummated as quickly as possible if there is to be an heir. Her son was born when she was eleven. She conceived before she even showed her first blood. Such things are not done in Wilusa. For an uncle to take his niece when she is still a child would be a blasphemy and a crime.”

  “The gods do not forbid things without cause,” I said. “Often the child dies when the mother is so young, and sometimes she dies as well.”

  Neas climbed down onto the rocks in the stream, picking at the moss that grew there, his face turned away from me. “She was strange and beautiful, as clever as a man, as charming as the moon, and as changeable. One moment she would be playful and the next sad.” He lifted up a piece of moss and examined it as though it were fascinating, his eyes on anything but my face. “One day she would embrace me with ardor and the next curse me and send me from her. She would call me barbarian and pet me as though I were one of her cats, showing my manhood to her servants and handmaidens and showing how it stood in her hand like a goat’s, and the next moment she would tell me that I was her soul and that she loved me above all others.” He shook his head and looked up at me. “I don’t understand it.”

  “Neither do I,” I said, and my voice was even though my heart was chilled within me. “Sometimes women are so. Often it is when there has been some great hurt, but I know no help for it except time and kindness.”

  “I tried to be kind,” he said. “Not just because she held all our fates in her hand, though she did. But she was beautiful and stricken, and I thought that perhaps...” He stopped. “Did you know that she threatened you?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She threatened all the People at the end. She said that she would not allow me to love someone more than her. She asked me if I would love her still if she had Wilos killed, or my father, or you or Xandros or Amynter. I said that I would, but I would never look upon her again without tears, and, Sybil, you cannot imagine the fear that took my heart!” Neas looked away from me. “She cried and said that she would never do it. That it was lover’s folly for her to be so jealous. But how could I be certain? She had the power to do it. And she liked hurting me to see if I would love her still.”

  Anger boiled in me. If I had seen Basetamon I should have broken all my oaths to shed no blood. But that was not what Neas needed to hear, so I said nothing.

  “She said I had too much pride, and she would break it. And so she would have one of her servant girls torment me. And then she would slap the girl and send her away, hang upon me with tears and sorrow. Then she would be as calm and as clever and as quick as her brother, sitting in council as though she were Pharaoh. She would praise my wits to the generals and bid them obey me.”

  I reached toward his shoulder and saw him flinch, then deliberately allow me to touch his arm. I pulled my hand away. “Neas,” I said, “Basetamon did much wrong.”

  “She did not mean to,” Neas said. “She was haunted and spirit driven. And she was sad.”

  “Yes,” I said, striving to order my thoughts. “But she still did much wrong. And you were wise not to trust her with the lives of the People.”

  He nodded. “I know. Each moon she went farther and farther. I don’t know where it would have ended.”

  “It ended with you leaving,” I said. “As was wise. What healing the gods may send her will come in their own time.” I put my arm around his shoulder, feeling him tense like Tia, holding him as though he were Tia. “And they will send it to you as well. My dear prince, you have done everything that you could.”

  “I wish I were not a prince,” he said.

  “I know,” I said. “But in that you have no choice. The gods have given the People into your hands, and you have held us all together and kept us safe. You are our king.”

  “I know,” he said, and bent his head.

  “You know that you must be, don’t you?” I asked quietly.

  Neas nodded. He looked at me and his eyes were dry. “Yes. There is no other way.”

  I sighed, thinking of what must come, and what I must do. “What do you know of how kings are made?”

  “There has never been a king of the People in my lifetime, since Priam was killed when I was a child. I know there is something, some sacred mystery, but I do not know what.”

  “You told me on the Island of the Dead that you felt like Theseus running the turns of the labyrinth, remember? That’s an old story, and a true one. All kings must descend to the Underworld, into the realms of sorrow and grief, to Death’s doorstep. If She judges them worthy, they return. Otherwise, they are swallowed up by the realms of Night.” I looked at Neas, and took his hand. “Two companions may come with him to face the Shades, and Ariadne, Her Handmaiden, will guide him. But sometimes long before the hero ever walks into Night’s Door he begins the long road that goes to the Underworld. He knows death and defeat and sorrow uncalculated.”

  “He runs the labyrinth,” Neas said. “And I have run. And always you have guided me, and Xandros has been my true companion.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And when you make that descent in truth, we will be there. You will not face the Shades alone. When you return, you will not be king alone.” It took no oracle to say what Xandros’ choice would be—he would go to the very depths of the Underworld for Neas, faithful as always, never counting the cost.

  Neas nodded, and his face was taut but not fearful. “And Wilos? Will he someday have to face Night’s Door?”

  “If he is to be king,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I could not wish that on any man, much less my own son.”

  “Dear Neas,” I said. “You cannot fight your son’s battles for him. He will not be a little boy, but a grown man with his own sorrows and his own victories. And he will not be alone. Perhaps Kianna, or some child still unborn, will guide him or walk beside him as a true companion.”

  His eyes slid to my middle. “Ah, I thought so. Does Xandros know?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He had better do what’s right,” Neas said.

  I laughed. “You sound like I am your daughter!”

  “You are my friend,” he said, and clasped my hand wrist to wrist as though I were a captain and a man.

  I squeezed back. “Yes,” I said, “and shall be to the world’s ending.”

  Together we walked back to the People.

  WE SAILED from Scylla on a beautiful spring mornin
g, leaving the ashes of our fires on the beach where the waves would wash them away.

  The weather didn’t hold. We followed the coast north, flanking the smoking mountain and coming toward the straits where the Shardana had told Xandros that the island of Scylla almost touched the mainland. We were in sight of the straits when the heavens opened and all the rains came down.

  Xandros tied himself to the tiller, and I sat in the bow cabin with Tia, Polyra, and her son, Kianna on my heaving lap. Kianna kept up a low, steady whine to make sure we understood that she didn’t like it at all, stopped only when her mouth was actually plugged by her mother’s breast.

  After a while I thought I would surely be sick. I went on deck and met Kos coming down the ship.

  “Get back inside!” he yelled over the wind.

  “In a moment!” I said. “What are you doing?”

  Kos leaned close to me so that I could hear him. “I’m going up on the bow to yell across to Seven Sisters! We can’t row into this! Our oarsmen are exhausted and we’re not making any way. We need to turn and get the wind behind us.”

  “We won’t make the mainland then!” I yelled.

  “Lady, at this rate we just need to make Scylla! We’ve got to get out of this! Sooner or later we’re going to take one of these waves broadside!”

  I nodded. “I’ll go back in.”

  I heard him yelling across and related to the others what was happening. We felt the ship turn, the chant change as we turned downwind, the song stop as the sail rose halfway and the wind caught it. A moment later I heard Bai’s oar coming into the rest position outside the door.

  I stuck my head out again. Bai was leaning on his oar, his head hanging and the rain running down his bare back. The old arrow scar stood out pale on his chest. “We’ve turned?” I asked.

  He nodded. “We can’t keep it up,” he panted. “We’ve got to turn back.”

  Night came while we let the winds push us. It wasn’t the worst storm I had seen, but at dawn when I came on deck to rolling seas and scudding clouds I saw a familiar mountain off to my right, the familiar shape of a headland and beach.

  I went up the ship and stood beside Xandros, taking him watered wine.