Black Ships (27 page)

“Your Majesty,” I said, seeing suddenly a door opening, “will you not come to Sais as well? Will you not bring Prince Aeneas so that he may do deeds of valor for you? To be worthy of you he must be great in war, the desert falcon you have named him. Let him demonstrate to all that he is worthy of the honors you have given him.”

She turned. “Really?”

“Really, My Lady,” I said. “I know he feels unworthy of you, as I have said. Please grant his pride the chance to do deeds of valor in your name that may be inscribed on the walls of your tomb for all eternity!”

Basetamon smiled. “He would do this for me?”

“Only for you, Your Majesty,” I said.

“Then we will go,” she said. “We will go to Sais.” Reaching beneath the cushions she pulled yet another bag out and pressed it into my hands. “Take these and use them well.”

I looked inside. One bag was filled with myrrh and the other with frankincense, enough to burn a king. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said. Valuable as it was, I took it with a shiver and could not help but feel it an ill omen.

W
E SAILED
for Sais. Neas did not go on
Seven Sisters,
but on the great barge belonging to Basetamon. He did indeed go to Sais at her side.

It was a pleasant journey. Our ships were crowded, for our people had accumulated many goods in Memphis, and it was more like moving households than ships of war. But half, I reminded myself, would stay in Sais.

Xandros had spoken with Amynter. Amynter did want to stay in Egypt in Pharaoh’s service. When he heard that Neas would release him from any oaths to him, he was happy indeed, though he loved Neas well.

“My luck is out,” he said to Xandros as we stood on the bow of
Dolphin
in the evening as we all paused along the bank of the Nile. He shrugged. “A man’s got only so much luck in his life. I’ve used mine on the sea and in war. And I’ve got my boys to think of. It’s time for me to stay. I’ll patrol this summer for Pharaoh, but then I’m leaving the ships. I’m going to get married and be a tradesman instead. It’s not too late to learn a new trick. Let the boys go to war if they want. I’m done.”

Xandros clasped his hand. “I understand. My time isn’t yet, but I understand.”

“Just get out in time,” Amynter said. “I know too many good men who pushed their luck.”

“I’ll remember that,” Xandros said, and smiled.

Maris would go. We thought all in all we should have three ships and a little more than a hundred men, with perhaps twenty women and twenty children in the lot. More of the married men would want to stay.

“So few,” Xandros said, and put his arm around my shoulders. Together we watched the sun setting beyond the walls of the western desert, the river flowing remorselessly northward. We had no privacy, as there were five people in the bow cabin, but that meant that he had less chance of seeing me unclothed. I was wondering how much longer I could say nothing. Even in loose clothing it would become obvious soon. Neas hadn’t noticed, but he was also considerably distracted.

“So few,” I said. “But enough.”

We didn’t speak of it further. It wasn’t time yet.

W
E WERE FOUR DAYS
in Sais. On the fifth night, a night with no moon, Xandros went round the sentries and the port watch. He told them that we were taking three ships on patrol downriver, as there were rumors of Libyans massing on the bank of the westernmost branch of the Nile as it flowed through the Delta and into the sea. This seemed reasonable enough. Three ships was a patrol. And we had patrolled before.

By night we loaded the ships—all of our people who were going and all of our goods. Rowers bumped into one another in unfamiliar places. Not all of any ships’ company meant to go, and some of
Hunter
’s and
Winged Night
’s men wanted to come. So there was confusion in the darkness.

I stood beside
Dolphin
in the night, helping Tia aboard with sleeping Kianna pressed to her shoulder. Bai swung their bundles up and held the baby while Tia climbed. I smiled at him.

“Do you remember, Lady?” he said quietly. “When we left Byblos, when she was born?”

“I do,” I said. “I remember how you brought Tia a warm cloak.”

“And the boy,” Bai said. “The one who was lost.”

Both of us looked back up the dock to where Xandros was talking with Amynter, taking his leave.

Aren brushed past them and came up to me. “I’m not going,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m not going,” Aren said. His jaw was set. “I don’t belong there, and I’m not going.”

“Aren...”

“Pythia,” he said, “you know I don’t belong with you. I don’t belong where you’re going.”

“Aren, what will you do? I can’t just leave you here.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “I am the son of Triotes, and a man. I will stay in Pharaoh’s service.”

I looked at him, thinking of words. I had not thought of any when Xandros came down the dock. “Now,” he said. “Neas is here. He sneaked off from the palace, but he may be missed at any time. We need to go now.”

“Good-bye,” Aren said.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” he said, and embraced me. “Good fortune, sister.”

I had always known he walked a path different from mine. “Good fortune, my brother,” I said.

Xandros came aboard and went back to the tiller. It was Bai who reached down for my hand and helped me aboard.

“Good-bye,” I whispered, and this time I knew it was forever.

Aren had already run back down the dock as we put off.
Pearl
went first, followed by
Seven Sisters. Dolphin
was last from the dock. We coasted by
Winged Night
and
Hunter,
tied up safe at their moorings. The river rocked us gently.

Past the silent docks of fishermen, past the wharves where the grain barges unloaded, we slid along in darkness, the sound of our oars quiet and beating like a heart. There were no shouts of challenge as we slipped past the Egyptian warships at their moorings. Behind me I heard Xandros call a greeting to a sentry, his Khemet smooth and fluid after a year.

“Good hunting!” the sentry called.

“Thanks!” Xandros replied. “We’ll kill some Libyans for you!”

I went aft to stand at the tiller beside him. His hair was unbound and I watched his hands on the tiller, steady and firm. Ahead of us,
Seven Sisters
left a white wake in the water.

Xandros chuckled softly.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m thinking that once in a while I’d like to leave a port in broad daylight with nobody after us,” Xandros said.

I nearly laughed. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Behind us on the broad terraces of the palace there was a sudden flare of fire. Almost at the same time I heard the drums start on
Seven Sisters.

“Pick up the beat, Kos!” Xandros shouted. “Time to get moving!”

Our drums picked up, racing ahead.

“Right side skip the stroke!” Xandros yelled, and the right side oars hovered in the air while the left ones dug, turning us into the channel for the westernmost branch of the river, putting us midstream. We bumped a little as we crossed
Seven Sisters’
wake. The fire behind us was now obscured by date trees and palms that came down the riverbank. I could still see it faintly through the leaves, but Sais was well behind us.

“Pull!” Xandros yelled. “Keep it up!” He glanced at me. “We’ll keep our best pace for a bit, just to put some distance behind us. I don’t know what that was about. It may be nothing to do with us. But there’s no point in taking a chance.”

I nodded.

Night slid past like the walls of the Delta, tangled trees and undergrowth, reeds taller than my head. When dawn came pink and white over the river, the channel had narrowed to the width of two ships, with shallows on each side, and we slowed. Down the ship Tia and Polyra came out of the forward cabin and began taking skins of beer and loaves of flatbread to the rowers, who ate in turns. Ahead of us,
Pearl
and
Seven Sisters
slowed but didn’t stop.

“How far is it to the sea?” I asked.

“A day,” Xandros said. “We’re going as much west as north right now. We’ll come to the sea several days sailing west of Tamiat, the Delta is that broad.”

“And then?”

“North across the sea,” he said, gratefully taking a loaf of bread from Tia and biting into it without leaving the tiller. “That’s where the Shardana live. There are several big islands, they say, and more mainland. They say it snows there, like on the highest mountains at home. And that there are forests so huge that you could walk for a moon without coming to the other side.”

I tried to imagine it. But mostly what I saw was Egypt slipping away, the Black Land passing behind me, becoming the past.

“You didn’t want to leave,” he said.

I shook my head. “No.”

“You didn’t have to come,” Xandros said.

“Yes, I did.” I hardly knew how to begin to explain the reasons to him. But he would probably understand them anyway.

He gave me a sideways smile, his hands busy on the tiller. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Xandros,” I said. “Only you would think to say so.” I perched on the rail beside him. Small as I am, my feet didn’t quite touch the deck.

“All those scrolls. All that forever.” For a moment he sounded almost wistful.

“They will be there,” I said. “If there is one thing I learned in the Black Land, it is that it will not change soon.”

“I thought it was another thing you learned,” he said, cutting his eyes at me to see if I would laugh.

“That too,” I said, and kissed him.

“Never distract the helmsman,” Kos said, coming onto the rear deck. “Xandros, if you’re going to pay no attention, let me take the tiller.”

Xandros gave it over to Kos and sat beside me. Together we watched the sun rise out of the Nile in our wake.

THE PRISON OF THE WINDS

T
o my astonishment, we had an easy passage. Even though it was early in the year, the sailing season just begun, the seas were calm and the weather was warm. The winds were light and variable, and while they did not hasten us northward, neither did they hinder us.

In twelve days we came in sight of land off to our left, a great mountain rising out of the sea, its heights ringed in smoke and cloud. I stood on deck with Xandros, and we watched the land come nearer while he held a steady course and Kos stood by the sail.

“I would guess it’s the mountain they call the Prison of the Winds,” Xandros said. “The Shardana told me it’s the greatest peak on the island of Scylla.”

“How big is the island?” I wondered. The shore before me seemed to spread and spread.

“Big. As large as the mouths of the Nile, they said. It’s the biggest island.”

“I wish they could have drawn it for you,” I said. “In Egypt they had drawings of the river and of the shores of the sea with names marked upon them and pictures of the inhabitants of all lands.”

Xandros raised an eyebrow. “Did they have a drawing of the islands of the Shardan?”

“They didn’t go that far,” I said. I refrained from saying that they hadn’t seen any reason for them to. Nothing important ever happened in the Shardan lands.

That night we pulled the ships in close to the beach, and sent men ashore. There was no village or settlement nearby, so we took the opportunity to fill our water casks where a stream came down to the sea. Most of the People were glad of the chance to sleep on land, and for the first time in many days Xandros and I had the cabin to ourselves.

I took a great deal of time moving things around and rearranging sacks of food and baggage, while Xandros lay down. It was dark, but I knew he was waiting for me, and when he stretched out a hand and laid it against my back I knew that it was time.

I knelt down beside him. “Xandros,” I said. “There is something I must say.”

His hand stilled on my back. “About Neas? Now that he’s free?”

“No,” I said. “No, not that.”

“What, then?” His voice was even, waiting for a different blow.

I knelt in the dark, his hand on my back. “There will be a child,” I said. “In the summer, when Sothis rises.”

“Ah,” he said very softly. Then he rose and went out of the cabin. I heard his feet going down the deck.

After a moment I got up and followed.

Xandros was standing at the stern, leaning against the tiller and looking out over the calm sea. He did not look at me. “You’ve known,” he said. “You’ve known for a long time.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You should have stayed in Egypt,” he said. I could not read his expression.

“I knew you’d say that.”

The waxing moon was rising, making a path of light across the waves. I did not try to touch him.

“I can’t keep you safe,” he said, and his eyes were distant, as they had been after the storm, after Ashterah was lost. “I can’t keep the child safe. I have nothing.”

“I need nothing from you,” I said.

Xandros turned, and his eyes were blazing. “Do you ever need anything from anyone? You sit wrapped in your preternatural calm, like you’re watching us all from far away, like amusing little insects! Don’t you actually need anything? Do you ever actually care?”

“Of course I care,” I shot back. “You of all people should know that.”

“You don’t act like it,” he snapped. “You don’t act like any of us matter to you.”

“You mean I don’t act like I love you,” I said. My hands were shaking now, not with Her presence but with anger.

“No, you don’t!”

“Well, you don’t love me either!” I yelled. “You love Neas, and that’s fine. I understand that. You never pretended that it was me. But if it’s not me, gods take me if I’m going to be the one who cries and chases after you! I don’t need you, and we’ll get along fine without you!”

“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.

W
E 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.

W
E BURNED
A
NCHISES
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.

W
E WERE NINE DAYS
on Scylla, nine days of rest. It was not that we needed 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.”