Hero for Hire (20 page)

“Thank you. I wonder, could I trouble you for one more thing. It’s a little complicated.”

He drew a step nearer. “Sir?”

“I need a scabbard, about yay-long and yay-wide.” I demonstrated with my hands. “Nothing fancy, though I'll need a belt as well. I will reimburse your master for it when I return.” That was my pride speaking.

The butler waved my pride aside in favor of his master’s. “Skander of Mykonos delights in offering gifts, the more necessary to your comfort the better in his eyes. I shall send a slave to the leather-makers at once. Do you...er...require a sword as well, sir?”

He knew perfectly well I had none. “Not at present, thank you. Have us called before first light, if you’ll be so good.”

“I shall awaken you myself, sir, in case you require anything further.” He started for the door and then paused. “It was my master’s wish that I mix poppy-liquor with your friend’s last drink. He will sleep well but do not be alarmed if he is a little less than brilliant in the morning.”

“Not that it takes much. Thanks for telling me.”

“’Til morning, then, sir. Blessings on your rest.”

He was the sort who always had to have the last word.

Not even indigestion kept me awake. The roosters were calling before I was even aware I was asleep. No dreams had troubled me.

To my surprise, not only were Skander and his sons there to accompany us to the water, so was Phandros. He looked better. The bags under his eyes had tightened and his step was lighter. He kept a firm grip on his emotions, even when Skander told him to return to Mykonos as soon as our journey was done. “I need a man who can read and figure and who is honest. The first two are easily bought; the last not so. Promise you will return, brother-of-my-heart.”

“I will if the Fates make it so.”

“And you as well, Eno the Thracian. I want you to consider working for me, full time. I can offer you pirates, cheats, liars, leviathans, and runaway slaves. It’s not losing the slaves I mind, it’s what they take with them. What do you say to an annual salary plus bonuses?”

“I would say it is too much honor for me.”

“But you’ll bear it in mind? I’ll want you to teach my boys some of your tricks, mind.”

“You have enough sons to start a small school. I will consider it.”

The boys sang songs in tenor harmonies as we went down to the docks. I felt like a true hero going off to some fateful quest, instead of a man who’d made a grievous error against his own soul. The empty scabbard by my side reminded me with every step of just what I’d done.

Phandros turned back at the gangway. I saw him slip a closely-written list to Skander and speak urgently. Skander nodded, though his eyebrows drew together in concern. After a moment, he raised his hand as though taking an oath. Phandros skittered on board, nipping the captain's rising impatience in the bud.

As we waved our final farewells, he glanced at me. "It was a list of the fifteen other cities," he said. "Skander has contacts all over the Inner Sea. He's promised to send a warning to every city that holds a gate. Maybe it will do some good; I don't know."

"I hadn't thought of that," I admitted. "Though I doubt any mortal army in the world could stand against what we fear. I've tried to come up with another answer."

"Me too. I told him that I had information that the Egyptians would try to invade one of those cities, but I didn't know which one. I think...I hope he believes me."

"He wouldn't believe the true story."

Skander’s captain kept his eye on us the whole way. I don’t know exactly what he was told when Skander took him aside to whisper at him. It made him polite but wary. Perhaps he thought we were going to report on his crew’s discipline and the handling of the ship. If we had, it would have been a very short report. Once again we had a suspiciously good wind and frighteningly fair weather.

That last day, however, the sun rose as though from a bath of blood. The captain, looking out to the horizon, looked even more grim than usual. “It’ll be a bad night. Good thing we are making port today. Last time I saw a sky like that, we were struck by lightning and nearly went to the bottom. ‘Tis a bad omen.”

We were at least three days behind Jori, at the most generous estimate. Three days in which anything might have happened. Worry wouldn’t make the ship go faster but I wished the wind would blow even more strongly.

The crew seemed unusually cheerful, despite the ominous sky and the captain’s unease, strange when I considered they’d cut their leave short for this trip. I asked the captain what made them so talkative and good-humored.

“They know tonight’s the big celebration in Troezan before the Hunt tomorrow. There’ll be free wine, food, and music in the streets. They were afraid we’d miss it because we weren’t due to leave Mykonos-port so soon. You’re a very popular figure on this ship because of it.”

“But not with you?”

He spat over the side. “Coming to Troezen when the Hunt is up is liable to unsettle my men for a fortnight. Running a ship like this is hard enough with a good crew, dedicated and disciplined. With one that’s been on a two-day debauch in this black-hearted town, I’ll be lucky if we clear the pier without putting a hole in the side.”

“Take heart, captain. At least you don’t have to run your ship up on the beach to unload her.”

“You wait ‘til the return voyage. Won’t be so pleasant a cruise with every other man-jack so hung over he’s puking his guts out over the side.”

“I've heard the king here enjoys ritual hunts but I've never heard of it being a festival.”

He explained that the Troezenians had always held sacrifices at this time of year to Hermes in his aspect as nekropomtos, conductor of the dead to the Underworld. With the ascension of King Pavlos, the sacrifices had changed.

“Now they release animals, wild boar, bears, wolves, into the walled gymnasium just outside the city where they are hunted down. They can’t escape but they do sometimes kill the men hunting them.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Hmph. It’s human sacrifice, more often than not. They send in criminals, runaway slaves, men of that ilk. Eventually men triumph, though at a cost. But the end of the Hunt, that’s what the crowd’s waiting for.”

“Why?”

“The king himself comes down and fights some kind of legendary beast. They had a Griffin one year. Giant scorpion last year.”

“And the king fights them...alone?”

“Hades, no. He lets his men torment and wound the poor beastie ‘til it’s blind with rage and pain. Then he is rolled up close in a large metal box and stabs the thing to death. They claim he has a special treat up at the menagerie for this year.”

I would just bet he did. A harpy, no doubt. “Metal box?”

“Do you have a problem with your hearing, man? He had someone make him a metal box on wheels. Slaves drag it out into the arena, then take to their heels. He opens a door, stabs out with a spear, everyone cheers and goes home sated with blood.”

He leaned in closer, his face a bronzed mask, his bright eyes stern. “Between you and me, half the crowd is hoping one of those beasts will get revenge some of these days. Pavlos is not so popular as once he was, not since the princess disappeared.”

This was the first I’d heard of any princess. He read it in my expression. “What, have you not heard of the missing princess of Troezen? It’s a famous mystery.”

“Go on.”

“She’s the king’s own niece!”

I still looked blank. He sighed heavily and began as though he were telling a bedtime story. “Not too long ago, the king of the place was Imostratus, pleasant enough for a king. There was none of this bloody business, then. Just the usual lustrations and sacrifices. His wife died giving birth to a baby girl and the king swore he’d not marry again for he and his wife had been brought together by Aphrodite herself. Romantic nonsense, but he believed it. So he ruled for almost fifteen years then he died.” He tapped his nose significantly.

“Kings die same as other men.”

“Not tearing their own guts out for the burning poison in ‘em, they don’t. They blamed his best friend from boyhood, saying that the king had debauched his friend in his sleep and this was his vengeance. The king’s brother took the throne and his first act was to throw the friend to the bears.”

“And the princess?”

“They claim she died of grief shortly after her father’s death but no one ever saw the body and the funeral didn’t follow for some weeks.”

“There was a funeral though.”

“Secret one. Not public as it should have been. Who’s to say who they burned?” He spat again, more to cleanse a bad taste from his mouth than for luck. “If it were left to me, I wouldn’t step foot on this cursed island while this vile business goes on. It is bad enough here when the town isn’t full of drunken revelry and extra cruelty. I’ll not draw a clean breath ‘til we’re gone.”

“I wanted to speak to you about that,” I said. “How long will you be in port?”

“Two days, no more, if I have my way. Are you coming back with us, then?”

“If not I, at least Phandros. I may have more to do here than can be said.”

“Keep your secrets, sir, they’re nothing to me. If you’re here on time, I’ll give you passage as my master has bid me. If you’re not....” He didn’t look sanguine about our chances.

Yet, later, as we tied up, he caught me by the arm. “Listen, Eno....”

“Yes, captain?”

“’Tis none of my affair why you’ve come to Troezen,” he said quietly, not at his usual ‘hailing another ship across half-an-ocean of open water’ volume. “But there’s been bad rumors flying about this place for above a twelve-month now. Rumors of darker deeds than even I’ve mentioned and many, many dead men. If it should happen that you’re late back for the ship, make your way to the House of the Heavenly Twins near the acropolis. My master owns it, though most in the city don’t know it. They’ll see you make it safe out.”

“Thank you, captain.”

“Ah, ‘tis nothing. But my master is an honorable man and he gave you into my care.”

“He chooses good men, does Skander of Mykonos.”

The clouds were piling up fast when Phandros and I left the
Doris
. They brought on darkness ahead of night, muffling even the moon. All along the docks, sailors began to hang lanterns out fore and aft, illuminating the large painted eyes and the names of the ships. The eyes seemed to wink and beckon as the incoming tide tossed the ships up and down. They were packed in like grapes on a cluster, spars and oars touching.

That butler had foreseen much. He’d given us chitons dyed a deep indigo, as though we were in mourning. It blended into the night. I only hoped the color wasn’t foreshadowing a real death. I don’t believe such things but sometimes, on the eve of action, I do.

We were heading toward the portside when Phandros pssted at me. He bent down as though to refasten his sandal. He murmured, “The ship we just passed...is it the
Chelidion
?”

Casually, as if waiting for him, I turned to glance around and to look up idly at the bending prow of the ship behind us. The
Chelidion
’s iris had been painted a deep red, an echo of the red-purple dye obtained from a mussel off the coast of Tyre. Of course, Jori could never have afforded enough purple to paint the eye the color of royalty but he did the best he could. Usually the eyes of ships were blue or verdigris or even brown worn to gray, if they’d not been touched up for a while.

The eye above us was a deep red iris but the name underneath was Eidolon, the Ghost. I sniffed for fresh paint, but then docks always smell of linseed oil and pigment like an artist's studio, among other things. “Walk on a little,” I murmured back at Phandros. “See if anyone’s around.”

He nodded, said loudly, “Do it quickly then...I’m thirsty!” and walked on.

I turned toward the edge of the pier as though to answer nature's call. Then, swiftly, I jumped up, raising a hand to touch as high on the ship’s side as I could. I timed it right, jumping up just as the ship sank a little on the easy tide. My fingers came back smeared with fresh paint. Looking up, I could just see where I’d taken away the overcoating. I could see what letters it was covering up.

Five minutes later, I’d bluffed my way aboard a ship tied up three down from Jori’s. The single guard on board was leaning his elbows on the railing, gazing toward the town. I could hear the music and the sounds of many voices. He wasn’t interested in me or my companion’s argument that Ormenios and Lapithai shared a common border, though he agreed to let us see a map if we gave him the coin in my hand.

A minute or so later, the guard was sleeping peacefully with a black eye in the captain’s armchair and we were sneaking over the railing to the next ship, which was empty and dangerously close. There’d be tangled lines come the morning.

The next had two guards playing at dice with such attention that we could have stepped over them and not interrupted the game. I stole the lantern from their aft-rail as I made my way to the ship we wanted to inspect.

Phandros took the lantern from me and shone it around. He stopped and knelt, peering closely and even sniffing at a large stain on the planks in the rear of the waist. “This is where the cook overturned the egg-and-chive sauce the third day out. It’s definitely the
Chelidion
.”