Cursed by the Sea God (13 page)

“Suddenly there’s a new voice, furious, getting the crowd worked up. Then
there’s a crunch. Something has smashed into the side. Right in front of me,
Stephanos groans and starts to slump down on the beam. A spear has come right
through the planking and taken him between the ribs!”

A murmur went through the Greeks but Deklah went on.

“He throws his head back to scream. I reach around and clamp my hand over his
mouth, hissing at him to be quiet,
but he starts screaming into
my palm, jerking and twitching around on the spear.

“Then I realize the whole spear shaft is shaking as he moves. With the other
end outside, it’s like waving a sheet out a window! I try to hold him still but
he’s got the pain strength now. Suddenly Lopex is right there behind me. ‘Kill
him!’ he hisses. ‘Before he gives us away!’ He reaches around and hands me his
knife.”

Deklah shook his head and looked up at us listening around the campfire, his
eyes pleading. “We were about to be discovered. Stephanos would have died
anyway, don’t you see? Not even our Trojan healer could have saved him. So I
took Lopex’s knife and . . . pushed it into his ear, where it wouldn’t bleed.” A
murmur went around the fire.

“Stephanos went limp immediately. If I’d let him fall the spear shaft would
have moved, so I sat the rest of the day clutching a corpse to my chest.

“Then I hear shouts from outside. Panic. Suddenly there’s a scream. Deep, a man
in agony. It goes on and on, like it’s being squeezed out of him, then a popping
noise as if something is being crushed, and the scream drops off.

“There’s total silence outside for a while, then I hear that snakeskin voice of
Sinon again. ‘You see, brave Trojans, how I tell the truth? That is what the
gods do to those who defile their gifts.’

“I never found out what happened out there, but after Sinon says this, they
can’t haul us inside fast enough. It scrapes
horribly but they
get us in the gates. We can hear the whole city celebrating around us, all day
and into the evening. The smells of food and wine just outside are driving us
insane. Of course, we’ve got no food with us, only a little dried fish. The
water’s long gone.

“It’s deep night before it goes quiet. Stephanos is as cold as a dewstone in my
arms, and I’ve been sitting cramped so long I can’t even feel my feet. And we’re
totally blind. Nobody thought to build in spy holes, of course. There could be a
whole squadron waiting out there.

“Finally we hear a soft thud below us and that little weasel, Sinon. ‘And have
the mighty heroes arrived, then?’ Lopex just grunts at him to open up. When the
hatch behind Lopex finally opens, the fresh air is like the breath of a goddess.
I let poor Stephanos go at last and climb out. There’s a rope ladder hidden
inside a thick fall of horsehair like a giant tail. At the bottom I get my first
sight of it, standing on two flatbed carts lashed together, just inside the city
gates.” Deklah lifted his bowl for a drink, frowning when he found it
empty.

“It’s a giant horse, just like Lopex said,” he continued, dropping the bowl.
“The name alone knows what it must have cost. The whole body is polished black
maple. The head is so perfect I swear it’s looking at me. Eyes of polished
marble. Teeth and hooves of beaten gold. You know, the whole Greek army could
have eaten for months on what it must have taken to build. Even the tail is real
spun horsehair. The thing is glowing like a god in the moonlight. Now I knew why
it was so
flimsy inside. All the skill must have gone into its
appearance. I could almost see why the Trojans were fooled.” Deklah’s tone was
hushed. There wasn’t a sound from the men around the fire now.

Deklah frowned. “That’s when I noticed where the hatch was. It was right at the
end. We had come out through that thing’s
gloutos
! Lopex comes around the
far side. ‘The hatch is there because the tail hides the rope ladder, ’ he says.
He doesn’t even sound embarrassed. Right then, we all realize the same
thing—Lopex is standing right there, unprotected. We start toward him, but he
just looks at us.

“‘I wouldn’t, ’ he says, really calm. You’d think he was talking about the
weather. ‘There’s only one way out, ’ he goes on, ‘and that’s through those
gates.’

“Just then I’m thinking there’s another way out, and it’s a lot easier. But
Lopex continues.‘Right now you’re thinking of killing me and running. Just
remember, I’ve got the only weapon, ’ he says. He pulls out a long knife, very
casual. ‘A noisy fight will draw every Trojan within five hundred paces, ’ he
says. ‘And I promise you, it will be noisy.’ He looks around at us.‘Who’s first?
Neoptolemos? Your father would be ashamed. Deklah? Where’s that famous loyalty?
Lykos?’

“He licks his lips and his expression changes. ‘Believe me when I say I dislike
this as much as you do. If I’d asked for volunteers, I would have gotten
fireheads and glory-eaters. Men who would betray the mission for their own gain.
I chose the twelve of you because you were the best. The smartest.
The most adaptable. Men who would do whatever the mission
needed.’ He looks right at me. ‘You’re here because
you’re the ones who could
pull it off
.’

“He looks around at us. ‘We’re inside now, and the Trojans don’t know it.
Beyond those walls, the combined armies have returned to the beach. All we need
now is to open those gates and let them in. Go ahead and kill me now. You’ll be
dead in moments, forgotten by morning. Stand with me, and the story of the horse
of Troy will echo for ten thousand years.’”

Deklah shook his head. “If you’d asked me even a hand earlier, I would have
sworn we would kill him. But somehow he talked us around. I was there and I
still don’t know how he did it.

“Under the statue there’s a single Trojan guard, dead, a knife in his back with
a dozen stab wounds. Sinon has come over, he’s hopping from foot to foot,
bragging that he brought wine for the guard but stabbed him when he turned his
back. Lopex ignores him and starts up the ladder to the watchtower beside the
gate. A little while later he’s back, splashed with blood and holding a torch.
There hasn’t been a whisper.

“With the tower unmanned, we set about opening the gates. There are three
bronze gate-bolts, each as thick as a man’s waist, threaded into giant sockets
on the opposite door. We climb up to the catwalks along the back and pull each
one out. Thank the name that the Trojans kept them well greased. Even so, it
took all of us to shift the bolts. Finally, we heave the doors open. Lopex
stands in the opening and waves a
torch up and down three times.
A little while later we hear the tramp of feet as the army marches up from the
beach.”

Deklah shook his head in disgust. “This was not how it was supposed to be. We
were to take Troy with strength and honour, not by creeping and lying. We were
tricked into helping him, and the Trojans into their own defeat. We took Troy,
but a thousand years will never wash away the dishonour of how we did it.”

So now I knew. Ever since Troy had fallen, I’d wondered. It took me a long time
to get to sleep that night.

AFTER FILLING THE WATER cisterns the next morning, I crept out
of camp. Ury had left early with a hunting party, and with them away I wouldn’t
be missed. The stream I had drawn water from earlier crossed the beach a short
walk south of the ship, and I set off for its source, a water skin on my
shoulder in case I was seen leaving.

The stream wound across a broad field. After walking for nearly a hand, I
entered the narrow mouth of a small valley between two steep, grassy hills that
curved like lips around a long, narrow pool. A waterfall perhaps twice my height
splashed into it over a narrow cliff at the far end, surrounded by a thicket of
dwarf laurel bushes.

The grass was still slippery with morning dew, and as I made my
way around the steep-sided valley, I lost my footing and slipped into the water.
Once I got used to the feeling of water up to my neck, it was refreshing, and I
spent a little while thrashing around, trying to swim.

There was a noise from the bushes behind me.

“Who’s there?” I called, turning. When there was no answer, I scrambled out
onto the steep bank. Something was moving in the laurel bushes, so I plunged in
only to spot someone darting away. I emerged beside the waterfall only an
instant later, but whoever it had been had gotten away.

From my quick glimpse, it had looked like someone about my height. One of the
Greeks, obviously, but the only Greek close to my height, now that Pen was gone,
was Nikias, and he was much heavier. And then there was that noise. Thinking
back, it had sounded like something I hadn’t heard in a long time—a
giggle.

By the time I got back to camp, a wind had come up, a constant breeze blowing
off the sea. The hunting party returned late in the afternoon, and I caught
their angry tone. “Not a goat or a pig to be found, not even a coney or a
curse-eating bird, for Hera’s sake,” someone muttered, kicking at a driftwood
log. A cloud of black and white bees buzzed out but he ignored them. “Nothing
but
kopros
-eating cattle. Thank the gods there’ll be fish.”

But the men sent out with the net in the ship’s
skaphis
, the two-man
oared boat that the Greeks stored just beneath the stern deck, came back
empty-handed too. That night we ate
dried fish and millet from
storage again, and the men’s grumbles took on an anxious tone. “What sort of
cursed island is this? Nothing but cattle and grass. The sooner we’re shot of
this place, the better.”

Overnight, the breeze freshened into a stiff wind blowing directly off the
water, but soon after sunrise Lopex had us push the ship into the shallows
anyway. As the men began to pull their oars, the wind picked up until it was
whipping spray off the waves, even in the bay. At full row, the ship was making
no headway. “Navigator! Change course!” shouted Lopex. “Angle us away from the
wind!”

At the navigator’s shout Zanthos obediently turned the ship. The wind pennant
at the stern fluttered around as we changed course, but as we stared, it twisted
slowly back until it was blowing dead astern again. The wind had shifted to
counter us.

“Navigator! Other way!” shouted Lopex. We turned again. This time the change
was even swifter, the wind whipping around almost immediately to push us hard
back toward the beach. He tried several times, rowing with one bank of oars
only, rowing us backwards, even trying to pole us into open water. Nothing
worked. It was as if something was trying to keep us there. At last Lopex
sighed. “Okay, men. Take us in. We’ll stay here for the night and try again when
the wind drops.”

There was only one problem with Lopex’s plan: from that moment on, the wind
never dropped. It remained a weak, con
stant breeze, even at
night. The moment we tried to row out, it picked up, twisting to blow us back to
the beach. Something was trapping us here, and when the men weren’t gambling or
squabbling, they began offering libations in the hope of appeasing whichever god
might be causing it. Proper meat sacrifices would have been better, but the only
meat on this island was out of bounds.

Without fresh provisions from the land, we were rapidly going through our
ship’s stores. True to their oath, the men hadn’t touched the herds of cattle
that roamed inland, but they stared at them more hungrily each day. Even with
our rations cut to one meal a day, we had long since run out of dried fish and
dates, and the remaining two olive oil
pithoi
in the hold had been
drained to supplement the men’s meals. After about a month, I found myself
upending our last sack of musty millet into the cooking pot for the men’s
breakfast. It was the next morning, with the pinch of real hunger in everyone’s
bellies now, that things came to a boil.

“Now what?” demanded Ury, hands on his hips, bearded jaw thrust out at Lopex’s
face. “What’s the plan now? Well? Should we go out and eat grass like those
cattle you won’t let us touch?”

Lopex was unmoved. “It was you who wanted to land here, Ury. I was against it.
But now that we have, our lives depend on leaving those cattle alone. We will
escape this island only if you do as I say and obey your oath.”

“Do as you say?” Ury growled. “That’s all we’ve done. And
look
at us! After everything else, now we’re starving on an island full of fat
cattle! Where’s the danger in filling our bellies?”

Heads nearby were turning to listen. Lopex raised his voice. “Men of Ithaca!
Ury has asked what harm there is in eating the cattle here. Would you so easily
scorn the gods by breaking your oath? The sorceress Circe has warned me that
these beasts are protected. If we leave them alone, we will return home safely.
Slaughter even one and we will die. This is the fate the gods are preparing for
us, the destroyers of Troy, if we fail to respect their wishes now.”

“That witch?” Ury sputtered. “How can you believe her? After she turned your
men into pigs!” He sounded as if he was about to burst a vein. “Elpenor died
there, and you still trust her? Everything that’s happened since we sailed has
been your fault, Lopex! You’re the one who’s cursed!”

Lopex, source of the curse? I didn’t put much stock in anything Ury said, but
that had a rare ring of truth. Regardless, Lopex refused to be drawn. “The curse
I spoke of in Hades is real. All that you have seen is proof of that. As for
Circe, she revealed many things, and they have all proven true.” He raised his
voice again. “I will search the island alone and find a way for us to escape. Do
as I say and we will all leave safely. On Athene’s sacred shield, I give you my
word.” He went to his tent to collect his spear, then strode off into the hills
behind the beach.

That night he was still gone, and the one after that. By the third morning the
men were closer to open revolt than I’d ever seen. Among Ury’s group, every
third word was angry,
and only lack of strength kept their
arguments from turning deadly. Even Deklah seemed to be trying to pick a fight
with Pharos that afternoon.

“
Again
?” I heard Deklah say as I was on my way across the beach, hoping
to lick a little oil from the ship’s empty fire pots. He was squatting beside
Pharos, who was carefully blowing life into a small fire in his pebble-lined
offering pit. “Where I come from we stopped worshipping gods like that a
thousand years ago.”

Pharos’s eyebrows went up but he refused to be angered. “Not worshipping the
gods?” he replied. “The twelve immortals? Zeus the almighty, Hera his wife.
Brothers had he Poseidon earth-shaker and Hades the brooding one. Music
from—”

“Names. Names to frighten children,” Deklah sniffed. “I’ve heard you recite
that old chant a hundred times, Pharos. The one true god needs no name.”

Pharos stared at him. “One god? One god only?” He frowned, thinking. “How to
explain the healing and the dying? The rains and the drought, good fortune and
bad?” He shook his head. “No, Deklah. There must be many gods, fighting always,
bringing us their gifts and curses. This you know.”

Deklah scowled. “The one god knows everything. It’s not up to us to understand
his purpose.”

Pharos shook his head again. “Changing his mind always, your god must be, to
daily bring such different fortunes.”

I couldn’t help a smile as I climbed the stern ladder, wondering how I could
ever have thought Pharos was simple.

True to his pattern, Kassander had kept out of sight of the
Greeks since we’d landed, keeping his head down when he came out for food to
avoid being spotted as the man they’d known as Arkadios. As for me, three years
as an orphan in Troy had accustomed me to short rations, but after three days
with no food at all, the constant ache of hunger was about to claw its way right
out of my stomach into the open air. One or two of Ury’s angry bunch took to
staring at me with the same lean look they used on the herds of glossy white
cattle. Like Kassander, I began staying away as much as I could.

Early in the morning of the fourth day after Lopex had gone, I took a walk
around the outside of the camp, trying to forget my gnawing hunger. Near the
south end of the encampment, one of the island’s cattle was standing on a
hillside, watching me. Up close it looked rounded and fat, its skin a milky
white that contrasted with its coal-black horns. I looked again, surprised.
Hanging from one horn was a red bunch of grapes.

I glanced around. Was this some sort of trick? But there were no Greeks nearby,
and this wasn’t Ury’s style anyway. Besides, I was too hungry to care. I reached
for the grapes as I came up, but the cow tossed its head and ambled off down the
far side of the hill. I glanced around once more and set off after it.

I didn’t have the energy to run, but whenever I tried to catch up, the cow
broke into a playful trot. Frustrated, I straggled after it. Surely the grapes
would drop soon. My eyes on them,
I didn’t notice how far we’d
come until I looked up and realized we were back in the small valley I’d visited
a month ago. We were moving up one side of the valley beside the long pool,
nearing the waterfall at the far end.

The cow turned back to look at me, but as I approached, it gave a playful toss
of its head, slinging the grapes into the pool. “Hey!” I shouted, leaping into
the neck-deep water to snatch them up. At last! As the first sweet grape burst
on my tongue, I lost control completely and stuffed them all into my mouth,
barely chewing. After four days without food, the relief was so great that my
knees buckled, momentarily dunking me. Once I was standing again, I heard a
sound from the shore. I splashed in the water for a moment, scanning the stand
of dwarf laurels near the water.

There. Someone was peeking out from behind one of the bushes. I could just see
part of a face behind a branch. I thought for a moment. The Greeks wouldn’t be
hiding. Whoever this was, they weren’t from the
Pelagios
. And behind that
thought came another: if they lived here, they would have food.

The last time I’d been here, I’d tried chasing after them. It hadn’t worked.
Perhaps this time I could get them to come to me. I climbed out, feeling clammy
in my wet tunic, and sat down at the water’s edge, facing the pool.

A rustle came from the bushes behind me. I cleared my throat. “Hello? Whoever
you are, I just want to talk!”

There was a sound of someone scrambling away through the laurels.
Kopros
. I waited until the noise stopped, then tried
again, keeping my tone gentle. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

There was a long pause. I’d nearly given up when a quiet voice came from the
bushes nearby. “You won’t hurt? Promise?”

“I promise. See, I’m sitting down.”

There was a movement in the bushes off to my left. I turned slowly. It was a
girl! She was about my age, peering at me out of the bushes, with wide, brown
eyes beneath a tight bun of fawn-brown hair. She looked ready to spring back
into the bushes at a single wrong word.

“Hello,” I said, trying to look harmless. She watched me from under dark
eyebrows as if dealing with an exotic monster.

“You’re . . . a
boy
, aren’t you?” she said at last, pronouncing the
Greek word carefully.

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Um—yes.”

She paused, continuing to watch me. “I’m sorry,” she added. “It’s just—I’ve
never met a boy before.”

I nodded as though I heard this every day. “My name is Alexi.”

She looked anxious for a moment, as though this was more than she wanted to
know, but then seemed to reconsider. “Mine is Phaith. Short for Phaethusia.”
There was another silence. My stomach growled, and she tensed again.

“Sorry,” I said awkwardly.

“That’s okay. I guess you’re hungry.” She smiled shyly. “Did you like the
grapes I sent?”

“You sent them?”

“Gala can be naughty. I’m sorry she threw them in the pond.”
She took a step out of the bushes and squatted on the ground nearby, staying out
of arm’s reach. Her tunic came down to her knees, exposing long, coltish
legs.

I nodded. “It’s okay. I got them. Thanks.” Trying to sound casual, I added, “Do
you have any more?”

She stiffened. “More?”

I shrugged an apology. “It’s just—I haven’t eaten in four days.”

Her hand leapt to her mouth. “Four days? Oh, you poor thing!” She ducked into
the bushes and came back with a linen satchel, from which she took out a lump of
cheese. She crept forward to drop it into my outstretched hand, then darted
back. Ravenous, I gobbled it down, tearing hunks off with my teeth and
swallowing them whole.