Fall of Kings (65 page)

He left the steering oar to Oniacus and walked down the length of the ship,
drawn helplessly toward his lover. He made himself pause as if to inspect the
racks of weapons—swords, shields, and bows and arrows—stored beneath the rails.
As usual, thanks to Oniacus’ watchful eye, they were all immaculate, cleaned and
ready for action if needed.

“Where will we beach tonight, Golden One?” asked gray-bearded Naubolos, a
veteran who had sailed on the
Xanthos
since the launch in Kypros and on
the
Ithaka
before that.

“At Pig’s Head Cove or on Kalliste if the east wind is our friend.”

There were shouts and grunts of approval from the men. Even before the war,
the whores on Kalliste had been more welcoming than any others on the Great
Green. Now there were fewer ships sailing these waters, and a galley the size of
the
Xanthos
would receive an enthusiastic greeting.

Helikaon moved on. He checked the great chests holding the
nephthar
balls in their protective cocoons of straw. There were only ten left. He
frowned, then dismissed the problem. It could not be helped. There was a good
chance they would reach their final destination without seeing another ship, let
alone a hostile one.

His feet registered a minute shift in the direction of the ship, and he
looked back along the deck. Oniacus was steering the galley to catch the wind as
it shifted slightly north. Helikaon gazed back the way they had come. There was
no longer any sign of the
Bloodhawk.
The
Xanthos’
greater speed
had left the smaller ship farther and farther behind.

“How are you, Agrios?” he asked a leathery old sailor sitting on the deck
with his back to a rowing bench. The man had suffered a terrible injury to his
arm in a battle off Kios in the summer when a Mykene warship had plowed along
the side of the
Xanthos,
ripping into its oars. Agrios had been hit by an
oar as it whipped back at him before he could get out of the way. His arm had
been broken in so many places that it could not be set, so it was cut off close
to the shoulder. The old man had survived the amputation, and when he was
recovered, Helikaon allowed him to return to the rowing benches, for Agrios
swore he could row as well with one arm as most men could with two.

The man nodded. “All the better for knowing we’ll be on Kalliste tonight.” He
grinned, winking.

Helikaon laughed. “Only if the wind stays fair,” he said.

He walked to the forward deck, aware that Andromache was watching his every
step. She looked wonderful today, he thought, in a saffron robe cut roughly off
at the knees. She was wearing the finely carved amber pendant he had given her,
and the sparks of warmth in the stone matched the fire of her hair.

Her face was grave, though. “You are thinking of Kassandra,” he ventured.

“It is true that Kassandra is never far from my thoughts,” she confessed.
“But at that moment I was thinking of you.”

“What were you thinking, goddess?” he asked, taking her hand and covering her
palm with kisses.

She raised her eyebrows. “I was wondering how long we were to pretend we are
not lovers,” she told him, smiling. “It seems I have my answer.”

Facing away from the crew, Helikaon felt a hundred eyes on his back, and he
heard the lull as the men stopped talking. Then, almost instantly, the normal
chatter resumed as if nothing had happened.

“It seems they are not surprised,” he told her.

She shook her head, her face glowing with happiness.

“Golden One!” Helikaon turned to see Praxos running down the deck toward
them. The boy was trying to point backward as he ran. “There is a storm, I
think!”

Helikaon looked quickly in the direction in which Praxos was pointing, toward
Thera. On the clear line of the horizon there was a small dark smudge. It was
like a storm but not a storm. As he watched, it rose into the shape of a dark
tower. A feeling of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. There was a distant
roll of thunder, and all the crewmen turned to watch the black tower rising
ominously into the pale sky.

Heartbeats passed as it climbed and climbed. Then, suddenly, it was consumed
by a massive eruption of fire and flame, filling the sky to the east. The sound
of the eruption hit them like the noise of thunder increased a hundredfold, like
the deep blast of Ares’ war horn or the crack of doom itself.

“It is Thera!” someone cried. “The god has burst his chains!”

Helikaon glanced at Andromache. Her face was as white as clean linen, and
there was fear in her eyes. She pointed to the horizon, and he looked again. The
cloud of the explosion, spreading swiftly out and upward, darkened the eastern
sky. But it was vanishing mysteriously from sea level upward. Baffled, Helikaon
gazed at the horizon. It was rising as he watched.

With awful clarity he knew what was happening.

“Take in the sail!” he shouted. “Get to your oars now!”

He ordered Oniacus to turn the ship around, and as his second in command
shouted to the rowers, Helikaon grabbed a length of rope from the deck. With his
bronze dagger he sliced it in three pieces. He thrust them at Andromache.

“Get the boys onto the lower deck and tie them securely to something solid.
Then tie yourself down.”

She stared at him. “Why?” she asked. “What is happening?”

“Just do it, woman!” he bellowed at her.

Pointing toward the high horizon, he addressed the crew. “That is a wall of
water coming toward us, as high as a mountain! It will be upon us in moments. We
must all tie ourselves down. Anyone who is not securely tied will die! We will
row straight into the wave, and the
Xanthos
will climb it! It is our one
chance!”

Now they all could see it for what it was, a dark line of horizon much too
high in the sky, coming toward the ship with the speed of a swooping eagle. In
front of it was a huge flock of gulls, flying frantically away from the great
wave. As they passed over the
Xanthos,
the sky darkened, their screams
beat on the men’s ears, and the thrashing of their wings created a wind that
rocked the ship.

Rowers were at their benches, rowing for all they were worth to turn the
great galley around. The other crewmen were tearing down the lines, cutting
lengths for themselves and the oarsmen. All kept glancing fearfully as the giant
wave bore down on them.

Helikaon grabbed some rope and ran to the aft deck, where Oniacus needed all
his strength to brace the steering oar to one side. The
Xanthos
was
turning in a tight circle. Helikaon lent his strength to the oar and took
another swift look at the wave. It was mountainous and getting bigger by the
moment, filling the whole of his vision. Can the ship climb it? he asked
himself. All he was certain of was that it must not hit them beam-on. It would
destroy the galley in a moment. Their only hope was to steer straight into it.
The oars and the wooden fins Khalkeus had bolted to the hull would keep the ship
stable.

“We will tie the oar centrally,” he told Oniacus, “but it will need the
strength of both of us as well to keep it steady.”

“If we can do it at all,” his friend replied grimly, his terror palpable.

The ship was heading into the wave now. Helikaon cut the rope in half, then
looped half around his waist, tying it to the side rails. He did the same thing
for Oniacus, who was holding the oar in a death grip.

“The
nephthar,
Golden One!” he cried suddenly. “What about the clay
balls? If we survive this, they will be smashed and broken.”

Helikaon looked up to the wave, which was nearly upon them. “They will be
washed away,” he shouted. “That is the least of our worries.”

The prow of the ship began to rise as the swell in front of the wave reached
them. All along the deck Helikaon saw the wide eyes of terrified men leaning
into the oars, horror at their backs, rowing like men possessed.

“Row, you cowsons! Row for your lives!” he bellowed at them.

The wave hit them, and Helikaon felt the whole ship shudder as if she were
snapping in two. Then there was a hideous groan, and she started to climb. It is
not possible, he told himself. The wave is too high. He fought down the panic in
his chest. If any ship can do it, the
Xanthos
can, he thought.

Then they were underwater. Helikaon could see nothing but swirling sea all
around, and he felt the air punched out of his chest as the galley lurched to
one side, throwing him against the steering oar. He was tossed about like a rag
doll, concentrating only on keeping his hands to the oar, holding it tight,
feeling Oniacus’ hands there, too. It was impossible to steer. All they could do
was hold on tight and try not to drown.

For a moment he emerged from the water and caught a terrifying glimpse of the
ship suspended vertically above him, the oarsmen rowing like madmen, though most
of the oars were out of the water. Then the sea came over his head again, and
all he could glimpse was the blue and green of its depths.

The ship lurched and spun, pitched and heaved. It went on so long that
Helikaon thought it would never stop. He no longer could tell which way was up
or down or if he was rising in the sea or sinking through the depths. He could
not tell if the hideous sounds in his ears were those of the ship groaning, the
men crying, or his tortured lungs screaming.

Suddenly there was air to breathe again, and he quickly took a breath, ready
to plunge deep again. But he realized they no longer were underwater. The ship
had crested the great wave.

For a instant he feared that he was falling, that the ship was plummeting
into a deep trough behind the wave. But looking ahead, he realized there was no
hideous drop, only a gentle slope. It was as if the great-hearted
Xanthos
had climbed a giant step in the sea. Helikaon leaned over and vomited up a
stomachful of seawater.

He looked along the deck. Nearly half the rowing benches were empty, the
oarsmen claimed by Poseidon. Many of the men were hanging, drowned or
unconscious, from the ropes tying them to the benches. The mast had been ripped
away, as had most of the rails and many of the oars.

Oniacus lay on the deck beside him, half-drowned, one arm hideously
dislocated from its socket. Helikaon started to untie his ropes, dread in his
heart. He had to find Andromache and the boys. If he had nearly drowned on the
top deck, how could anyone still be alive lower down in the ship?

He felt a hand on his arm. Gray-faced with pain and shock, Oniacus had pulled
himself up; he put out his good hand to stop Helikaon from untying himself. He
pointed ahead of them, terror in his eyes.

“There’s another one coming!” he cried.

The man who once had been called Gershom stood in the darkness that lay over
Egypte and gazed toward the north.

Patience was a skill he had learned only recently. As a young man he had
needed only such patience as was required by a royal prince accustomed to every
whim being instantly obeyed, that is, none at all. Then had come the day when,
in drunken anger, he had killed two royal guardsmen. He had had the choice of
being blinded and buried alive or fleeing the country of Egypte. He fled. As a
fugitive, working in the copper mines of Kypros, he again had little use for
patience. He worked until exhausted, then slept, then worked again.

Then he had fallen in with the sea people, roving traders, pirates, and
raiders from the far northern fastnesses of the Great Green. He seldom thought
of those days now, of his time with Helikaon on the great galley
Xanthos,
of his good friend Oniacus, of Xander, and of the people of Troy he had known
for a few brief years. Word had reached him of the armies besieging the city of
Troy; only in recent days had he heard of the death of Hektor, and he grieved
for a man he hardly knew. He wondered at the fortunes of Andromache and her son
and hoped that she was with Helikaon and was happy.

The affliction that had fallen on Egypte two days before had come out of the
north: great waves that had devastated the land and a dark cloud of ash that had
rolled across the sky, bringing perpetual night. The waves had swept up the
river Nile, overflowing its low banks, destroying crops, demolishing homes, and
drowning thousands. Then, from out of the river, polluted by ashfall and turned
to the color of blood by the violent churning of the red Nile mud, had come
millions of frogs and clouds of flying, biting insects. The frogs had invaded
homes and crawled and hopped through meager food supplies. The insects had
filled the air so that it was hard to breathe without sucking them in. They bit
any exposed skin, spreading sickness throughout the land.

Standing on a rooftop in the darkness, the prophet heard a sound behind him.
He turned to find hawk-faced Yeshua. “The sun will not rise again today,” his
friend said with certainty. “The people are crying out to you to save them. They
believe you have caused this catastrophe.”

“Why would they think that?”

“You asked the pharaoh to free the desert people from their slavery. He
refused. Then the sun disappeared and the waves came. The Egypteians believe our
god, the one god, is stronger than their own deities, and he is punishing them.”

“But does the pharaoh believe that?”

“He’s your brother. What do you think?”

Ahmose had gone to see the pharaoh, his half brother Rameses, risking
bringing on himself the brutal punishment he long had escaped, and asked the
ruler to allow the desert slaves to leave the land of Egypte. Rameses had
refused. Seated on his high gold-encrusted throne, his beloved son beside him,
Rameses had laughed at him for his naďvete.

“For the sake of our childhood friendship,” he had said, “I will not have you
killed this time. But do not presume on that friendship further. Did you really
expect me to wave my hand and release the slaves just because you, a known
criminal, asked me to?”