Voyage of the Snake Lady (4 page)
Chapter Six
The Inhospitable Sea
“C
OME, TAMSIN NEEDS
her mother.” Akasya took hold of Myrina and pulled her away from the gunwales, dragging her along toward the greased-felt tent they’d rigged up on the lower deck to give some small shelter. Tamsin was crouching there with Phoebe; both girls were silent, their eyes wide with fear. Myrina crumpled down between them as they both put their arms about her. She lay there, clinging tightly to them both for a few dreadful moments, but then she tried to struggle to her feet again. “I am captain, I must give the orders!”
“No,” Akasya told her. “Kora is captain for now. You rest. Kora has seen that we are close to land!”
Myrina felt as if her head was full of wool. “Then we have crossed the sea?”
“So it seems! There’s land on either side of us! We struggle through a narrow passageway and Kora will try to run for the shore.”
The ferocity of the storm continued and the ship swung violently through the darkness. The decks were crowded now with those who’d been saved from the
Artemis
. The women crouched together, quietly gritting their teeth against the wind and rain, each one trying to hold onto the thwarts or the gunwales. To the west for a few moments they glimpsed the distant lights of a city, but the
Apollo
was soon carried violently away from that glimmer of hope on into the wild darkness beyond.
Kora’s sharp orders kept them calm, but at last, as they struggled to hold a course, one huge wave sent the
Apollo
lurching sharply up and then down, shaking the mast loose from its base. There was another sickening crack, as the mast and yardarm crashed down through the deck, just as it had on the
Artemis
; it caught Myrina a sharp blow on the head. Black darkness flooded her mind as raging water swamped them, flinging women and girls wildly in all directions, sucking them down into its depths.
Myrina became aware that she was cold, numbingly cold; so cold that it did not seem worth even trying to open her eyes. Perhaps it was best to just slide slowly back into the numb, comforting blankness again. She lay there for what seemed a long while, all energy spent, strangely contented; perhaps she could just stay here and sleep forever.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear a young girl sobbing. The sound disturbed her enough to make her wonder why the girl’s mother didn’t soothe her; but then with a faint sense of alarm the thought pierced through to her brain that she knew that cry. She began to understand that she herself might be the mother of the girl, and painful though it was, she ought to get up and soothe her daughter.
At last with a huge effort she managed to open her eyes. Bright light sent a sharp pain shooting through her head, so that she quickly snapped her eyelids shut again. When she tried once more, the assault of the light was not quite as powerful, but she still could not focus properly. She blinked hard, shifting the gritty crust that had formed, and at last her eyes began to work again. She was covered in wet sand and seaweed, and there were other sandy, weed-strewn lumps around her that might be her companions. She still had her quiver strapped to her thigh and her knife in its sheath, stuck in her belt.
“Oh Maa!” she whispered. “Where have you brought us to now?”
The sobbing came again and she managed to lift her head, turning blearily in the direction the sounds came from. Tamsin was there and the hopeful thought came to her that if her daughter was sobbing, then she must be alive. Myrina pushed herself up on her palms for a moment, and before her arms gave way she managed to see that Tamsin was crouched farther up the beach, hunkered down beside a rock, her hair matted and wild but her lungs good and strong.
Tamsin was silent for a moment as her mother flopped down again into the gritty sand and seaweed, but then the young girl let out a long, lonely howl of distress that sent energy shooting through Myrina’s veins. She pushed herself up again and this time she managed to struggle onto her hands and knees. “He—here,” she gulped. “Snake Mother’s here! Come to me . . . Little Lizard.”
Tamsin scrambled to her feet at once at the sound of her mother’s voice. She ran to her, arms spread wide. “Snake Mother,” she cried. “I thought you’d gone!”
“No, no,” Myrina gasped, hugging her so tightly that the wet sand that covered them both grazed their skin. “Where’s Phoebe?”
“I don’t know.” Tamsin shouted it, as though her mother were stupid to ask.
The noise they made seemed to rouse those about them; almost at once the sound of groans and coughing filled the beach. Vague lumps of soggy sand moved and shuffled, women struggled to their feet and shook themselves, until familiar shapes appeared from the gray featureless grit, though some of the lumps did not move at all.
Myrina looked about her desperately. “Akasya, is that you? Where is Coronilla?”
Akasya looked about wildly. “Coronilla!” she cried.
Tamsin took up the cry. “Coronilla!”
A hump of sand farther up the beach moved a little, then Coronilla rose to her feet, shaking herself like a dog. “Don’t worry,” she growled. “You can’t get rid of me.”
Akasya ran to her, smiling.
Myrina spied a large sand lump down by the sea that moved and struggled, trying to roll over. She ran to help. “Kora—thank goodness! What happened?”
The fisherwoman sat up in a shower of damp sand. “What happened? What happened? We ran ashore!”
“Where’s our ship?” Myrina asked.
Kora struggled to her feet. She shook her head and pointed to the wreckage that littered the beach and floated in the sea. “It broke up, you stupid woman! It could be worse—Maa has a rough way of dealing with folk.”
Myrina might have smiled if her mouth had not been so stiff and numb. Kora’s rugged words raised her spirits better than any soothing could have done.
“At least there are no warriors in sight.” Myrina scanned the landward horizon for movement.
“Huh!” Kora huffed. “No one but us is crazy enough to claim this desolate spot!”
Kora tried to rouse the inert lump by her side. “Vita! Vita! Come—wake up, honey!”
There was no response.
Kora looked at Myrina and shook her head, her expression grim. “This girl is the same.” She had tried to pull a young woman to her feet.
“Phoebe! Phoebe!” Myrina shouted, desperate now to see her niece safe.
A small figure emerged from behind a rock, dragging a broken ship’s timber. “M-making a fire.” Phoebe struggled to speak. “G-got to get warm! I found your drum, Snake Lady, and your bow!”
Myrina almost wanted to laugh as she hugged her. “Right idea, Young Tiger!” she told her. “A fire’s what we need most, but wet wood’s no good.”
Only then did she really look around her to see what might be scavenged in this land. They were on a wide beach, and though it was covered with wreckage from the
Apollo
, none of it would burn until it was dry. Myrina swung around and put her hand up to shade her eyes. The land was low and featureless, a desolate marshy grassland, with no sign of habitation. A copse of plane trees in the distance might provide some dry fuel and shelter.
She pointed it out to Kora. “We must get ourselves warm or we’ve no chance.”
Coronilla and Akasya had set to work at once to organize the survivors; now they pointed out two young women, waist high in the water. “Snake Lady!” Coronilla reported. “Leti and Fara are wading into the sea to fetch what they can from the wreckage, but we have women with smashed arms and legs and grit and water in their lungs—they must have rest and warmth. We must find some kindling somehow.”
“Up there—where there’s trees!” Myrina said. “And we must search for our weapons and gather together all we can.”
Akasya nodded and held out her hands to Phoebe and Tamsin. “Come on, all the girls—we will walk fast to warm ourselves, then find dry sticks to turn until we make a flame.”
Myrina let Akasya go ahead with the girls, then she dragged the two bodies that were closest to her away from the sea and laid them side by side beneath a small, stunted tree, thinking sorrowfully that they must find wood for a pyre as well as warmth. “But we must save the living first!” she muttered, as though giving herself instructions.
Then she went back to the water’s edge to help those who were injured. “Go up to that copse,” she ordered. “Huddle together! Give each other warmth! We will find kindling as soon as we can.”
Wood was not plentiful in the marshy grassland, but among the group of windblown trees the girls managed to scavenge enough and at least what they found was dry. Akasya pointed out dry animal dung that would burn. A clear stream ran through the copse. Tamsin and Phoebe found dry sticks and shaved sharp points on them. They set them turning on dry logs, rolling them between their palms until their hands were sore. But their hard work was at last rewarded with a skein of smoldering, sweetsmelling smoke, then sparks and flames. They carefully fed the flames with dry kindling, and the freezing, soaked women who slowly gathered beneath the trees smiled with relief and held out their hands to the fire.
“Well done!” Coronilla approved. “Do not let this fire go out! It is your job to guard it! This fire will mean life or death to us!”
Phoebe nodded, taking her responsibility seriously, determined to do this job as well as she could. “Fetch those twigs!” she ordered Tamsin. “And more over there!”
Back at the beach Myrina saw the twirling smoke and smiled. Leti and Fara had managed to garner many items from the water, and so planks of wreckage now became crutches and litters to carry those who’d been injured up to the fireside. They hauled ashore the bodies of the four drowned goats, for Myrina swore that nothing must be wasted.
“That is our meal for tonight,” she told them, without mercy. “So much for our hopes of breeding. What of the sheep?”
Fara shrugged wearily. “Drowned like the goats, I should think.”
“We must find them,” Myrina insisted. “If they have drowned, then we need their meat to sustain us and their skins to help us keep warm.”
After a short search Fara gave a shout and dived into the deeper water. She emerged with one of the drowned sheep, its thick wool so heavy and drenched that its body could not float on the surface.
“Well done!” Myrina cried. “Meat and a skin—we must try to find the other one.”
She made them drag the corpse of the sheep up to the camp. Only then could they give their minds to the best way of treating their own dead with respect. Six drowned Moon Riders were now laid out by the stunted tree, so Myrina organized a solemn procession of women to carry them up to the campfire.
Myrina walked behind them, distressed to have lost so many. As she followed in their wake her steps slowed and her thoughts fled back to the sight of Iphigenia disappearing into the dark and terrible sea. At least she had the bodies of these six Moon Riders and could perform the sacred rites that would send them safe into the arms of Maa.
Somehow she had managed to force Iphigenia out of her mind while it had been so vital to save Tamsin and Phoebe and help the others. Now that the immediate crisis had passed, the horror and terrible emptiness of losing her dear friend flooded back to her.
T
HE PROCESSION MOVED
ahead while Myrina stumbled and stopped, sinking down onto a rock beside a small pool. She dropped her head into her hands and sat, still and desolate, slowly growing cold again, her thoughts a wild muddle of sorrow and despair.
Her mind slipped back over the years. “We have lost too much,” she murmured. “Too much!”
Over and over again the Moon Riders had fought back against all the odds. They had struggled on despite the loss of friends, lands, purpose, and power. The battle at the River Thermodon and the destruction of Myrina’s magical mirror had been terrible, but the loss of Iphigenia, whom they had risked so much to save . . . this was more than she could bear.
At last she lifted her head, gazing down into the still water at her feet. “Princess—priestess,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and breaking, “where have you gone? Did we rescue you from the sacrificial knife only to let you die in this cold, dark sea?”
The water beneath her reflected a white-gray sky, with clouds that slowly shifted across her vision. The surface of the pool glinted with a touch of frosty light that struck right down through the water to the bottom, where the sand was patterned in waves. The tide had etched small diamond shapes there, creating a small but perfect world inside the pool. As Myrina stared down at it, she slowly drifted into a dreamy state of half sleep that was not unfamiliar to her. A tiny seed of comfort grew and began to spread through her body. She gazed at the reflection of the moving clouds and then through them to the mirrored image of the sky beyond.
Her shoulders drooped and her breathing slowed; this was almost like gazing into her mirror. Was it possible that she did not need a magical mirror to see loved ones far away?
“Iphigenia. . .” She murmured the name over and over again. “Iphigenia!”
She gasped as at last the pattern of shifting clouds slowly began to clear, showing her the recognizable shape of a coastline—very different from the one the sea had thrown them onto. An inlet of water with a narrow sea entrance was almost enclosed by towering cliffs. Inside was a small beach edged by buildings, some of them very large and grand. A city had been built into the steep hillside, with the water lapping at its feet.
Her focus shifted to the flotsam and jetsam that had been thrown onto the beach in the wake of a storm. Could it be wreckage from the same storm that had smashed the
Apollo
and driven them ashore? Could this be the city whose lights they’d glimpsed? But there in her vision was a sight that made her heart beat faster. A young woman lay on the beach, thrown up onto the sand among the rubbish; it looked as though the woman clung to a solid wooden shape that she recognized: the carved figurehead of the Moon Lady—Artemis herself.
“Iphigenia. . .” Myrina’s lips moved in wonder. “Can she be alive?”
She watched and saw that many people were running down to the beach, picking up bits of wreckage, curious to see what the tide had washed up. They gathered about the inert figure. Myrina watched with concern. Were they friendly? Could Iphigenia really be alive?
Then she saw with joy and gratitude that they were wrapping her in a warm cloak and giving her something to drink. “She must be alive!” Myrina murmured.
The figurehead was lifted high, and suddenly these strange people were dancing around the carved figure and bowing to the princess who’d been washed ashore in such a bedraggled state.
“She’s alive, she’s alive!” Myrina cried out loud with delight and clapped her hands.
The vision faded as she spoke, though she tried hard to grab it back again. At last she reluctantly gave up the struggle; she was too exhausted and cold to find the image again and she’d seen the most important thing. She sat on the rock for a moment, smiling and wondering. “My dear friend lives and . . . I do not need a magic mirror,” she whispered. “The magic is in me—it is here in me!”
She did not know where Iphigenia was, but she had seen enough to trust that she was not dead and not in any immediate danger. This knowledge meant everything to her; now despair could be thrown aside. She and her companions must find a way of surviving in this unfamiliar, bare landscape. Perhaps, after all, the decision to travel north might still prove to have been a good one. She rose to her feet, stiff and cold again, but her spirits were higher than they had been all through the day. She set off at once, marching toward the Moon Riders’ camp and the fire.
Coronilla, Akasya, and Kora had worked wonders. Barrels and baskets were stacked outside the copse, drying in the last rays of the setting sun. Even some of the cloaks and clothing had been retrieved and were now hanging out to dry on the lower branches of the trees.
“Here, see what we’ve found!” Tamsin leaped up at the sight of her mother. She held out a handful of hazelnuts. “I can crack them with my teeth!”
Myrina smiled and then she suddenly laughed out loud at the sight of Leti chasing the other sheep. Somehow against all the odds the creature had managed to scramble ashore and find itself a bit of fresh grass to nibble. Pleased with its newfound freedom, it was determined not to be caught. The strong young woman chased it around the marshy ground with just the same determination, and at last she flung herself full length and wrestled it to the ground. The sheep gave up at last and allowed itself to be led back to the camp, bleating and protesting loudly, both animal and Moon Rider covered in sticky mud.
“Well done! Well done!” Myrina clapped her hands.
Then she looked down at the six bodies of her friends and her laughter fled. “Now, as darkness falls about us, we must build the fire up into a pyre,” she said. “Then we will feast and dance to honor our dead—but I must tell you this: I believe Iphigenia lives! I have seen her in a strange watery vision. I cannot swear that what I have seen is true, but I believe it is.”
Kora frowned and shook her head and murmurs of sorrow came from all around, but Coronilla touched her shoulder. “Snake Lady, if our lost priestess lives and could send a vision of hope, then she would surely send it to you.”
Myrina smiled, glad that they did not pour scorn on her words.
The two drowned goats were roasted on hastily improvised spits and the mouthwatering scent of roasting meat drifted among the trees. Myrina hesitated for a moment, but then she remembered her vision of Iphigenia and decided that they should open a barrel of cherries stored in wine that had been saved from the sea.
Suddenly she was struck by uncertainty. “Maybe we should eke out our provisions,” she said to Kora. “Do you think this right?”
“Yes,” the practical woman agreed. “In the days to come we must save all we can, but tonight we are battered and bruised. Open the barrel and let them eat, for we must somehow get through this harsh night and honor the dead. Let us keep our self-respect and dignity.”
Myrina nodded, grateful for this support. Roasted goat meat had never tasted so good and the cherries in wine cheered and warmed them all, but nobody begged for more, not even Tamsin, almost as though they sensed the need for restraint.
When they had eaten, they all stood up to dance. First they moved in a solemn circle around their comrades’ pyre. Though the air was full of sadness, still it was good to move. Coronilla played her pipe, the slow notes rising and falling in a lament that had become all too familiar. Myrina beat out a rhythm on her drum, though tears poured down her cheeks as she thought of the missing clack of Iphigenia’s castanets. Even those who were injured made their contribution, keeping up a steady clapping rhythm and lifting their voices in the slow thrumming songs that would see their lost sisters safely back into the earthy care of Mother Maa.
Later, as the flames licked high into the darkness, the atmosphere changed and the women began to catch each other’s hands and form the long chain of crisscrossed arms; this was the dance that many of the women had invented when they were Trojan slaves. It expressed respect for the dead, just as much as the slow circle, but it was also a dance of life and survival. At first the young people stood back and watched their elders as each woman began chanting and singing in the language of her own long-lost homeland. But as the dance progressed, they all began to chant in the Luvvian tongue, symbolizing their unity, and moved together in perfect harmony.
Then at last the young ones leaped up to join them, smiling and laughing as they remembered the stories of their births. Most of the children had been conceived in slavery, their mothers used for comfort by the warriors who had traveled far from their homes to defend the city of Troy. The women had had no choice but to bear these children and they had suffered terribly, but the years of peace on the banks of the Thermodon had restored their pride and purpose. No Moon Rider had anything but total love for her child.
“We live! We live!” they sang. “We live and survive!”
As the flames burned low, sending smoke twisting high into the night sky, the rhythms of the dance quickened even more and wild songs of thanksgiving made their spirits soar, while blood went racing through their veins, making them warm and cheerful.
Then at last Myrina called for the gentle moon dance, fearful that they would exhaust themselves and anxious to settle them to a restful sleep, for they would certainly need all their energy to face the coming day.
Night watchers were appointed, and Myrina snuggled in between Tamsin and Phoebe, grateful for the warmth that they’d built up beneath the smoky, seaweed-smelling blankets that the fire had dried.
Coronilla shook Myrina awake as the first blurry rays of acacia-colored light touched the eastern horizon. “What now?” she growled.
But Coronilla would not be put off. “Open your eyes, Snake Lady,” she insisted. “Akasya and I have seen such a sight that will make you howl for joy. Get up off your backside and come and see!”
The suppressed excitement in Coronilla’s voice made Myrina snap into action, wide awake and ready for anything. She leaped to her feet, full of curiosity. “What is it? Why do you have to make such a mystery of it?”
But Coronilla’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “I’m not saying! I want to see your face!”
“Then take me to it—quickly, at once!”
Her friends grabbed her by the arms and pulled her along between them, away from the sea, away from the copse of trees, and up a gentle slope to some rocks, where Leti and Fara were crouched. They lay flat on their bellies, keeping their heads down, but Myrina could see that they watched something or someone down below them on the other side of the rocks. They both turned at her approach, huge grins on their faces. Leti lowered her palm in warning, then raised a finger to her lips for quiet.
Myrina sank like a cat, moving slowly forward, belly low. They made a space for her to creep between them, then at last she carefully stretched her neck out to see what it was that brought such excitement. They all turned to witness the wonderful look of surprise that lit her face. “Thank you, Maa,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. “Now we are safe! Now we can survive!”
A grassy valley rolled gently away from them, sloping down to a wide river that curved its way through the lowest ground; but, most wonderful of all, along the banks of the river, tossing their manes, nickering gently to one another, moved a herd of wild horses.