Pandora Gets Lazy (11 page)

And she pointed to the walls of the cabin and then to the walls of the corridor.

“My wife's letters . . . ?” His voice fell away as he looked around the room.

“We had to defend ourselves, sir!” said Iole.

“No, you didn't!” the captain cried. “By Zeus! You could have walked away. You could have come to find me! This is none of your business!”

“Grape skins . . . that's so not true,” said Alcie, then quickly went on. “I can explain. I mean, can I explain? 'Cause I can explain—everything.”

“Explain? Explain your snooping in my quarters? Well, go ahead. This I must hear.”

“Okay,” said Alcie, stooping to pick up the letters.

“Don't touch anything else!” cried the captain. “Don't even move or I will be only too happy to run a sword through each of you.”

“Um. . . okay,” said Alcie.

“Start talking, maiden.”

Quickly and concisely, Alcie told of the box, the school project, Pandy's trip to Olympus, and the quest for the great and lesser evils. She explained exactly why she and her friends had been on the
Peacock
, their adventures in Egypt, the ride in Apollo's Sun Chariot, Pandy's fall, and the crash landing. But Alcie made certain to stress how important it was that the tiny figure of a woman—“I think it was probably the spirit of your wife,” she interrupted herself—was captured and placed in the box. She and Iole were certain that the woman-spirit was the hiding place of a lesser evil.

“It's Misery,” she sidetracked again.

She explained that they both thought the answer might be found in the letters, which is the only reason they read them.

“. . . and that's when we read about your wife killing herself. And then you came in . . . and then we . . . stopped,” she finished.

The captain stared blankly at each of the girls in turn.

“I told Homer not to touch that map. It looks like I have many snoops aboard my ship.”

“He didn't mean to, sir,” said Iole. “He wasn't snooping. The chart had come loose and the book of your wife's letters fell out. He was trying to put it back and that's when it bit him.”

The captain looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Before we got the spirit of your wife in the box,” Iole continued, “the book had rows of sharp teeth. But please don't blame Homer.”

“And I thought I had hidden it so carefully,” he said, gazing without really looking around his cabin. “Shameful thing.”

He turned back to the girls.

“You are mistaken in one thing, Alcie.”

“Figures,” she said.

The captain stooped to pick up several of the unfolded letters; he looked solemnly at the words before him, then held the letters to his heart.

“These are not my wife's letters,” the captain said.

“They aren't?” Iole asked.

“No,” he replied. “Latona was my mother.”

The girls stood very still.

“Then,” Iole said at last, “you were the boy in the letter. You never knew your father?”

“Never
knew
him?” the captain said with a sneer. “I never
met
him.”

He sat down heavily at the table, leaving Alcie and Iole standing, feeling somewhat helpless.

“My mother would show me a marble bust of my father . . . the great man of the sea!” he began. “Or she'd point to a statue of him in our garden and tell me what a fine man he was. And each day, as I grew up, my mother became more and more lonely. And I became more and more angry. He sent us money . . . but wouldn't even write to her. Finally, I came home from the academy one day and the house servants gathered around and told me what had happened. I was immediately taken from my home to the one place I swore I would never go—aboard a ship. I wanted to be nothing like my father. But the City High Council told me they were under orders!”

“Orders?” said Iole. “Who was left to give orders?”

“Who indeed?” he said.

The captain paused for a long moment. “It's as if,” Alcie thought, “he's trying to decide just how much he can or should tell.”

The captain rose and walked to his chest of private possessions. He lifted the heavy lid and took out a large rectangular case made from a metal that glowed with a faint light blue. He set the case on the table and placed his hand on the clasp, looking at the girls once more.

“Wondrous Aphrodite was and is now in charge of my life. One night, after I'd been at sea only a few weeks, I had a strange urge to go up on deck while everyone slept. Aphrodite the Beautiful rose from the water on the back of a mighty two-tailed fish, telling me
she
had set me to work on the ship and that I would ultimately become its captain, living out the rest of my days alone and at sea. No man in my lineage would ever again have the chance to make anyone as lonely as my father had made my mother. This was the decree of the Goddess of Love. I would never marry, never know the company of a caring woman, never have a family, and I would never live away from a ship.”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“And the same fate . . . my enduring punishment for the sins of a loveless, self-centered father . . . would befall my sons.”

“Oranges,” said Alcie. “That's so horrible. I mean— wait! What?”

“Excuse me?” said Iole.

“How can you have sons if you can't have a family?” said Alcie.

The captain smiled weakly, as if he alone knew the answer to the saddest question ever asked, and lifted up the lid of the case, revealing a soft white light and a faint sound, like the cooing of doves. Inside, surrounded by many folds of deep purple silk, was a gleaming white egg the size of a large melon.

“Grape seeds, that's some first meal,” Alcie said, then slapped her hand over her mouth.

The captain stared blankly at Alcie for a moment, then began to laugh very hard and very quietly, almost doubling over.

“Never before have I laughed about my dilemma,” he said at last, wiping his eyes. Then he waved his hand across the case. “Maidens, this is . . . or will someday be . . . my son.”

The captain lifted the egg out of the case and held it up to the light of an oil lamp. Inside, the girls could see the faintest outline of a tiny, tightly curled human form.

Alcie looked around again; now the toys made sense. There was baby stuff everywhere! But the girls had been so busy focusing on Misery that they hadn't noticed. The top shelf of a bookcase was filled with tiny clothes made of the finest cotton and soft, fur-lined leather infant booties. A small Egyptian reed basket lined with a thin Chinese silk mattress and covered with a fine Persian linen blanket lay at the foot of the captain's pallet. Above this, a crude mobile was nailed into the ceiling. Dangling from it were painted papyrus horses, dryads, lightning bolts, musical instruments, and fishes. There were odd toys and colorful baby clothes from all over the known world peeking out of strange hiding places about the room.

“Wait a tick on the sundial, if you please!” cried Alcie. “This is the
Syracusa
! The
Peacock
was destroyed! How did everything from that ship get
here
?”

“Nothing can change what the gods decree,” the captain said. “When I was spared by the pirates and given the helm of this ship, they brought me down here. Aphrodite, I'm certain, put everything back in its place. This cabin is an exact duplicate of my old cabin on the
Peacock
.”

Their attention was drawn back to the cooing coming from within the folds of silk.

“What's that sound?” asked Iole.

“The dove is Aphrodite's protected bird. I think those sounds are keeping my son safe in some way . . . perhaps even imparting knowledge to him. Nourishing him.”

He put the egg gingerly back in the box.

“Aphrodite told me that I should have an heir,” the captain said, “who will also have an heir, and so forth, and so the line will continue. I had no idea what she was talking about until one night, several months ago, Aphrodite in a dream gave me instructions to visit a particular market stall the next time I put in to the port at Athens. The vendor handed me this box and refused to take even a single drachma. He only repeated the phrase ‘nine moons' over and over. When I got back to the
Peacock
and opened the box, I found this egg and the book of my mother's letters to my father.”

He sighed deeply.

“I used to pray every day to Aphrodite to release me from this curse,” he continued. “Now I simply pray to all the gods to be able to raise my son well. I keep the egg close so I can tend to it, but I didn't want to look at my mother's letters, so I hid the book where I thought it would be safe and forgotten, long before Pandora opened the box. I had no way of knowing that it had since become a dangerous, enchanted thing. It makes perfect sense, though, that the pure source of Misery would find a home within it. I know it lived within my mother while she was still alive.”

“Do you think it was your mother's spirit we put in the box?” asked Iole.

“No,” he replied. “Aphrodite has assured me that my mother's soul is happy in the Elysian Fields. I think it was Misery in the shape of my mother.”

There was silence as they all pondered the effect Misery could have.

“Doesn't seem like a ‘lesser' evil to me,” said Iole.

“So your son is gonna have an egg, too?” said Alcie.

“Um . . . can we help you clean all of this up?” asked Iole quickly.

“No, but thank you . . . I shall attend to it myself,” the captain replied, looking at the letters everywhere. “I think I'll do a little reading.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
Blackmail

Hera returned to her rooms from raiding the food cupboards, two oversized bowls of ambrosia in her hands. She had nothing for Dido; she didn't even so much as glance in his direction.

Demeter was only seconds behind, carrying goblets of nectar and two large spoons.

“Oh,” she giggled, “I feel like a mortal at one of those chic Roman Somnus parties where all the girls get together and paint their nails and give each other makeovers and gossip all night . . . Where's the dog?”

“Huh?” said Hera, whirling about.

“Where's the dog?”

“Probably hiding,” Hera said.

“No,” said Demeter, walking into the corner, gazing under the divan. “He's not here.”

“What do you mean, he's
not
here?” shrieked Hera.

“The corner is still warm,” Demeter said, feeling the stones, “and there's a trail of something sticky leading out onto your balcony.”

“Looks like sandal prints . . . in blood,” said Hera, following the prints outside.

The dark red trail led across Hera's balcony, with one print on the far railing, but it didn't continue on the balconies of the adjoining apartments belonging to Hermes, Artemis, and Apollo. It was only looking at the far end of the wing that Hera saw a tiny speck of red dot the railing of the corner apartment.

“Ares,” Hera muttered.

“Oh no,” Demeter whispered. “How do you think he found out?”

“The brat,” Hera spat, moving inside. “She prayed to him. I heard her. Clever girl. I just didn't think he would be so bold . . . but he's left me his signature trail.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep the nectar cold,” Hera said, clomping through the entryway. “This won't take long.”

Hera strode down the long hallway, passing fountains and gardens. Halfway to Ares' rooms, she nearly plowed into Artemis, arriving fresh from a hunt.

“Hey!” yelled Artemis. “Watch where you're going!”

“Sorry, dear,” Hera said, acting nonchalant, but continuing on. “Oh my, you look all spent. You should take a nap . . . and definitely a bath. If you'll excuse me.”

Hera pretended to examine an exotic floral arrangement on the far side of the hall until Artemis entered her own apartments. Then she wound her way around several bushes and placed herself squarely in Ares' entryway. At the sight of her, Dido, lying on a low fur pallet, a huge bowl of choice meats half eaten in front of him, immediately began to growl.

“Hush now,” came a gravelly voice from a chair in the corner of the room. “Rest.”

Immediately, Dido fell asleep.

“You have something of mine,” Hera said, regaining her composure.

“You
had
something of hers,” Ares replied.

“I'd like it back.”

“I'm glad to see you, at least, are remaining well fed,” said Ares, ignoring her comment.

Hera gazed at Ares. She noticed his helmet, on a table by his side, knowing full well that Ares removed it only when he wanted to be particularly imposing.

“I have to eat,” she replied, calmly ignoring the battle scars that covered his face (some of which bled afresh eternally) and his yellow eyes, narrowed into slits.

“So does the dog,” Ares said. “You mistreated my protected animal and I'm not going to stand by and—”

“Blah, blah. I feed him—”

“I won't argue,” Ares interrupted. “Now go away or I'll let it slip to Zeus that he's here and who brought him. Which I might do anyway.”

Hera walked toward Ares, her voice set at a purr.

“And what exactly will you say?”

“That I was visiting Aphrodite; her apartments are not far from yours. I heard a yelp and I came to check it out. I found the dog dirty, panicked, and starving, which he was. It won't take Zeus long to put alpha and beta together.”

“Fine,” Hera said, looking directly into Ares' eyes. “Tell him your theories now that you've revealed them to me, wonderful strategist that you are. And when he asks me about it, I will tell him that I know how precious the animal is to Pandora and that I took him only out of love for the child. That this quest is too dangerous for such a helpless animal . . . that I only took him to keep him safe until, and if, she returns. That it is
I
who was protecting him. Now, whom do you think Zeus will believe?”