Black Ships (10 page)

“Sybil?” Neas said. “Where are you going?”

“I am going to pray,” I snapped.

“Oh.” He drew up short. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, remembering my duty. “How may I help you, Prince Aeneas?”

He came up and stood before me. “That was well done,” he said.

I shrugged. “These are not hurts I can heal. Only time, and the favor of the gods. And some of these breaches will never be mended.”

He looked down at me. “What if the child is a boy?”

“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

Neas raised one eyebrow. “You do not know?”

“I think,” I said. “I think that I have read Her signs rightly. But one can never be certain.”

“You seemed certain in Pylos.”

“That is the kind of holy mystery that comes on one perhaps once in a lifetime, to be the vessel for Her will so completely. I cannot hope for that guidance again.” I looked out across the sea. “She Who Was Pythia taught me that we must ask for Her guidance, and use our eyes and our hearts when Her will is not plain. I do as best I can and hope that I do not err, or fall into folly and hubris.”

“More or less like being a prince,” he said.

“Perhaps, Prince Aeneas.”

“Neas.”

“Yes.”

“Go apart, then,” he said. “I will see that no one disturbs you at the spring.”

“They will disturb you instead,” I said. “Is there no one in whom you confide? Xandros?”

Neas looked away. “Xandros is my friend,” he said. “A good companion, and one whom my heart trusts. But this lies between us now—that my child lives and his are dead.”

I caught my breath. “I did not know that he had children,” I said.

“He had two daughters. A little girl who was three years old, and a baby just learning to walk. They were killed because they were too young to be useful slaves. His wife put up such a fight when they went for the girls that they had to kill her too, even though she would have been a valuable prize.”

I turned my head away. “But your son lives,” I said, it catching in my throat.

“He was four, not three,” Neas said, and his voice shook only a little. “He hid while they raped and killed his mother. My father found him and got him from the house before it burned over his head. I was too late returning to Wilusa with the fleet. If we had been there, it would not have been.”

“Now you sound like Kos,” I said.

“Kos was not in command. I was.” His voice was harsh. “The responsibility is mine.”

“No,” I said tightly. “That rests with Neoptolemos. He is the one who raised a fleet in Pylos, who incited young kings to war. He is the one who was greedy for gold and the women of other peoples. I watched him. I saw him at the feasts, speaking of glory and treasure, kindling ambitions and desires. I stood as close as I am to you, and I watched him. I know precisely where the responsibility lies.”

I took the prince’s hands. “He wanted slaves to sell in Millawanda, the Free City. They stopped on the way back to Pylos and sold many slaves. That is where many of our people are. Others were taken to Tiryns, but if you have seen Tiryns of the Mighty Walls towering over the plain of Argos you will know that there is nothing we can do to assail them. But in Millawanda we may yet find some of our lost people and free them somehow.”

“We raided Pylos because it was what I could think to do,” Neas said. “There were men of Pylos who burned Wilusa, and we knew that it did not have great defenses. I could not think what else we could do, besides try to restore some of our folk, and to give us vengeance for so many things.” Neas dropped my hands. “But I am a man of twenty-two, not a boy to run aimlessly from place to place. And my desire for blood is not so great that I would take us all out in a blaze of glory to restore things that cannot be restored.”

“Nothing can restore the dead to you,” I said gently, “not this side of the River.”

“I know,” he said. “Yet I feel like Theseus, running madly through the coils of the labyrinth, with horrors following at my heels, and every twist bringing me a new dreaded sight. I dream, and it pursues me. I am sunk so far in horror heaped upon horror that I cannot taste wine or see the sun above. The world has ended. And I don’t know why I yet live.”

“You live,” I said, “because you are fortunate, because you are clever, because some god favors you. You live because these people need a leader. Because the world ends and then begins.”

“If it is the will of the Lady of the Sea,” he said, “it is a bitter kind of favor.”

“The favor of the gods is often thus,” I said.

“I think we must go to Millawanda,” he said. “While we cannot assail the place, we may be able to buy the freedom of some of our people with the plunder of Pylos.”

Which in turn was plundered from Wilusa,
I thought.
A vast chain of piracy across the sea, where honest merchants do not dare to go, as they did when She Who Was Pythia was young. Each year more fields will lie fallow, fewer boats fish the sea, fewer children grow healthy and strong. How am I to raise up dead men to plow fields that are fallow, to strip brush and plant young olive groves? I am a woman of seventeen. I am ten years in Her service, but if She Who Was Pythia had no answers to these questions, how am I to find them?

“Also, I had spoken of this to Jamarados and Livo, who is
Swift
’s captain. If they cannot find us on the seas and they aren’t foundered, perhaps they will take
Lady’s Eyes
and
Swift
to Millawanda.”

“Then it is to the Free City we must go,” I said.

“But after that, I know not,” he said. “I can see no farther than the next curve of the labyrinth.”

I smiled. “Then you must do as Theseus did and follow Ariadne’s thread. For there are passages through the dark places that are well known to us who are raised in darkness and have nothing to fear there.”

Neas looked at me. “That is what that story is about, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my prince, it is,” I said. “All kings must make that descent before they are crowned, all true kings in the old stories. Sometimes it is omitted today, in houses that have offended Her. But I should not speak of that.”

The blood of Iphigenia spilled at Aulis did not touch him, and he needed no new horrors today. Of that, at least, his house was clean.

“To Millawanda, then,” he said. “But I think we should wait one more day here and rest. We can hope that
Swift
and
Lady’s Eyes
will come, and even if they don’t the men need rest.”

“Rest and hope,” I said. “We will pour libations to the Lady of the Sea and thank Her for Her grace, and to the Lady of the Dead, who lets us squat on Her doorstep.”

“A day of rest,” he said. “We will eat the fish that Xandros is catching and have games on the beach in honor of the Divine Sisters. Footraces at least we can manage. And contests of swimming.”

“On the ocean side,” I said. “Let us not disturb the Dead City by diving for its treasures.”

“No,” he said. Then he smiled at me. “Thank you, Lady. My heart is lighter.”

“Burdens shared are halved,” I said, and smiled at the old saw, still true enough. It was true that my headache was better.

THE PIRATE CITY

W
e were three weeks on the way from the Island of the Dead to Millawanda. The last, dreamy, drowsy days of summer were on us, hot and still. Most of the time there was no wind, and we had to go under oar. In the afternoons, thunderstorms often came up and we ran into the nearest beach so that we would not have to ride out the worst of them, though if there was no island at hand we would run before the storm, letting the winds hasten our way to the Free City.

One afternoon like this Kos was at the tiller and I stood at
Dolphin
’s prow. The wind of our passage washed over me, cooling me after the heat of the day. The sea was turquoise. In the distance, far off to our right, some island I did not know glimmered like a jewel in the Aegean.

Xandros came up beside me and leaned against the rail, bending over. “Ah, there he is,” he said, smiling.

I looked down. A shadow raced just below, more than the length of a man. A dolphin was riding in our bow wave.

In a moment his nose broke the surface, an old dolphin, his face seamed with scars. He seemed to smile up at Xandros.

“He’s been with us for four days,” Xandros said. “The same old fellow.”

“He looks like Kos,” I said, “with the scar.”

Xandros laughed. “He does, doesn’t he? Perhaps he looked like Kos before.”

“Before?” I asked.

“In Wilusa and in the islands they said that dolphins were the souls of sailors lost at sea. That’s why they escort our ships. And that’s why they must never be harmed. They might be our kin or our friends.”

The dolphin made a long leap out of the wave, gleaming over the surface and plunging in just ahead of us. In a moment his shadow was beneath us, riding on our momentum across the sea.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I do not know the mysteries of the Lady of the Sea.” I watched the dolphin rise and fall, always within our slipstream. “Xandros, why do people call Neas the Beloved of the Lady of the Sea? Why does he say he’s under Her protection? And why is he a prince and our leader when his father is living and here, and he’s not?”

“The first part’s easy to answer,” Xandros said. “He’s Her son. Neas is the son of Aphrodite Cythera. Of course She looks out for him. What mother wouldn’t? The last part’s more complicated. It’s a long story.”

“Tell me,” I said. “While you are resting from the tiller.”

Xandros smiled and leaned on the rail, then sat with his legs dangling toward the water. Droplets of water splashed up on his feet. “Sit down, then. It’s a long story.”

I did.

“In my grandfather’s day, when King Priam was young and his reign was still uncertain, he married a girl of the old nobility, a girl of the shore people who were here before Priam’s house ever came to Wilusa. She bore him three daughters, and died of the third. He remarried, this time a niece of the Hittite emperor, who brought a great dowry and cemented the alliance. She had many children, including Hektor; Alexandros; and the twins, whose names are known to many. The daughters of his first wife were honored, but obviously were not going to be mothers to Priam’s heirs with so many sons of Hekuba. The middle daughter died of a fever when she was a child. Kassandra, the youngest, was given to the Shrine of Apulion, the Lord of the Bow, who favored Wilusa above all other places. She was our Sybil, like you.”

Xandros glanced at me. “I have heard of her,” I said. “And how she was brought to Mycenae as Agamemnon’s captive.”

Xandros nodded. “The oldest daughter was called Lysisippa. She was given to the Shrine of the Lady of the Sea, the most holy Shrine. There is a sacred place where the river flows out of Mount Ida. It’s a grotto five times the height of a man, where passages go back into the very roots of the mountain, glittering with water and shining stone.”

“A very great Mystery,” I said.

“A very holy place,” he said. “Where the waters of the world are born, and sacred both to Aphrodite and to Her Sister.”

“A womb,” I said. “And a grave. No wonder this is the most holy place of the People.”

Xandros agreed. “It is the most holy place. And it is at the feet of Mount Ida, a day’s walk from the City. Anyway, it was to that Shrine that Lysisippa was given, as it is the oldest and most honored, and she was Priam’s eldest child.”

The dolphin rose out of the water again, his head nearly brushing Xandros’ feet.

“Since you’ve never seen Mount Ida, Lady, let me tell you that it is very green and rich, with pastures wide and lush enough for every horse in the world. When the rains begin and the land greens, before the foaling season, the houses of Wilusa take all the horses, especially the broodmares, up onto the slopes of the mountain, where the grass is new and tender, and the heat and flies will not disturb them. Thus the Horse People have done since they came to Wilusa. Anchises was a younger son of one of the noble houses, and went with the horses and cared for them, because the great horses of the Troad were the source of all our wealth.”

“Ah,” I said.

“In that day they say he was very fair to look upon, tall and straight, a young man of sixteen. Lysisippa was ten years older, and already Cythera by then. So she had all the majesty of her rank, and all the beauty that Aphrodite spends on Her priestesses. Anchises looked upon her, and his heart was moved. From that moment on there was no woman in the world save Lysisippa.”

“As sometimes happens,” I said.

“He was not of rank to have had her, Priam’s eldest, and himself the younger son of a lesser house. And in any event, she was Cythera and could be no man’s wife. But he wooed her anyway. He composed songs to her that he sang in the pastures at night while the horses grazed. He made a vow to Aphrodite that he would be forever true to her, and never so much as touch another woman while he lived. And at last, Aphrodite Herself was moved by his prayers. Lysisippa came to him at night as he watched his horses, and lay with him on the slopes of the sacred mountain.”

“Surely that is permitted to Cythera,” I said.

“It is,” Xandros said. “When the time came for Anchises to return to the City, not a day passed that he didn’t speak of Lysisippa, to the weariness of all about him. And when foaling season came again he returned to the Shrine like a swallow to its nest. He kept this up two years. By now his father wanted him to marry. But he told them all that to do so would be the gravest blasphemy, as he had sworn an oath to the Lady of the Sea that in his life he would touch no other woman save Lysisippa.”

“What did his family do?” I asked.

Xandros shrugged. “What could they do? He remained unmarried, and spent as much of each year as possible at Mount Ida, until the war came. Neas was born to Lysisippa the summer after Prince Alexandros brought the Achaian queen as a prize of war, so when the time came for him to go out from the women and live with his father, the City was besieged. He did not go that year. I was born then, when my mother was gone to Kaikus as a refugee. The Lower City had already been taken and burned, and those who could go had gone.”

“Is that far?” I asked, knowing nothing of the area.

“Far enough.” Xandros looked at me and smiled. “Far enough for a woman nearly ready to give birth, with her home burned and Achaian raiding parties everywhere. But she did not die. Nor did she speak of it much. I was born when she had been only a few days in Kaikus.”

The dolphin rose again, nearly under my feet this time, flirting with the ship’s prow, a knowing expression on his face.

“So Neas remained at the Shrine all that year. And all the next as well. The City fell, and all the children of the royal house were killed, even the infants who were thrown from the walls.” His voice was tight, and I knew that he thought of his own daughters. Xandros did not look at me. Instead he fixed his dry eyes on the sea. “After that, for months there was no rule, and little food. Some who escaped the siege starved that first year. Lysisippa kept him at the Shrine, and he escaped that fate.”

“Long past the age when he should have gone away from the Mysteries,” I said, and I understood better.

“Yes,” Neas said. “But the Lady of the Sea loved him as Her own son. He played in the sanctuary at the foot of Her throne. He had no fear of Her displeasure, any more than any well-loved son fears his mother. He was more than six years old when he came out of the Shrine and went to his father in Wilusa and was known as the son of Anchises.”

And how should she send him out?
I thought.
It is proper and fitting, but to send a young child into war and starvation is not in any mother. And clearly the Lady did not object.

“Since then, he has always had the favor of the Lady of the Sea,” Xandros said. “No man on any ship he captained has ever been lost, and no ship under his command has foundered, unless you count
Menace,
which was far from him at the time. He is lucky. Blessed. If it can go well for him, it does. If She can stretch forth Her hand and help him, She does.”

“To lead him through the storm and to the Island of the Dead,” I said.

Xandros nodded. “Or wherever else. When he came to Wilusa, everyone knew he was Lysisippa’s child, and that he was the last of the line of Priam. But he was six years old. The People could not be governed by a child at a time like that. So the lords and captains who had survived formed a council, and it ruled in Wilusa until now. He was known as Prince Aeneas out of respect, but he made it very clear when he was a youth that he had no desire to overturn the rule of the council and make himself king, and that instead he would abide by their wisdom.”

“That is wisdom indeed from a youth,” I said. “Especially one who is favored by the gods and has every advantage of beauty and courage. Most would not resist the temptation of power and the blandishments of people with something to gain.”

“Neas is not like most men,” Xandros said. “He is the one who has always done everything right.”

And yet it has availed him little,
I thought.
He was away with the fleet when the City was burned. He could not save his wife, whom he loved. His son looks at him out of great haunted eyes, like the rest of the children here. He cannot fight without losing men who cannot be replaced and there is nowhere to run. He cannot keep honor with his father and yet guard the lives of the People. There is no choice he can make that isn’t wrong. The favor of the Lady of the Sea is little enough to go on in this labyrinth.

“You will follow him, whatever his choices may be?” I asked.

Xandros looked up, surprised at the question. “To the ends of the earth,” he said.

I looked away, out to sea. No man had ever looked at me the way Xandros looked when he spoke of Neas. And why should he not? Whether they were lovers in truth, or if it had merely been the kind of friendship that develops between youths and dissipates when bridal beds and children come between, the feeling was there. Love cannot be controlled any more than the sea can be. Now and forever, his heart was given.

S
EVERAL DAYS LATER
we came to the Pirate City, Millawanda, that the islanders call the Free City. Three generations ago it had won its freedom from both the Hittite emperor and the Great King of Mycenae, that Atreus who was Agamemnon’s father. Since then it existed between, keeping its sovereignty from all nations, a city-state allied with neither power.

All the nations of the world traded here. Coming into the great bowl of the harbor, surrounded by the square Hittite fortifications with their heavy towers, we saw ships from every land. There were Kretan ships, many oared and swift, Achaian ships from half a dozen places, the swift dark ships of the islanders from Lazba with the eyes painted upon their prow that were like to the Wilusan ships, broad-beamed Tyrian merchant ships with two sails, and even the slender Egyptian ships, their lanteen sails looking odd to me.

In the bow, Kos gave a great shout and Xandros and I looked to see where he pointed.

At one of the great wharves that jutted out from the land rode
Lady’s Eyes
with
Swift
beside her. In her shadow were tied all three of the missing fishing boats.

From
Seven Sisters
a mighty cheer rose, cutting through all the noise and bustle of the harbor. It resolved into words. “Ae-Ne-As! Ae-Ne-As! Ae-Ne-As! Aphrodite Cythera!” The luck of the beloved of the Lady of the Sea had held again.

Our ships came alongside the wharf, and our people rushed together in a great wave, embracing and calling out to one another. Jamarados, the captain of
Lady’s Eyes,
clasped Xandros in a great hug. I remembered that Xandros had served there, before
Dolphin,
as Kos now served with him.

Neas leaped onto the wharf, clasping the fishing boat captains about the wrist, embracing them like brothers.

“We had thought you lost,” Jamarados said to Xandros. “We thought we were all that was left.”

“We thought you lost as well,” Xandros said. “And I’m glad we were both wrong.”

I
T WAS NIGHTFALL
before we had sorted out everything, and Neas had paid the port fees so that we could dock with the other ships. They are careful about things like that, in the Free City. In most places merchants would think twice about demanding payment from a man with eight warships, but in Millawanda they do not. If you do not pay, then the port is closed to you. No man will sell you stores or trade with you. If your crew decides to take things into their own hands, the city has a watch maintained by its prince and a council of merchants. At need they can call forth some hundreds of men all sworn to protect the property of the city, so they have no need to fear any but the most well-armed war expedition. Several adventurers have discovered this to their loss. Even Neoptolemos would not be foolish enough to try the patience of Millawanda.