Cursed by the Sea God (15 page)

He was some distance away from us but in the sudden silence every word rang
clear. Dropping his sack, he turned to Ury and smashed him back-handed across
the mouth, sending him staggering and knocking his skewer to the ground. “And
you, Ury? Where is your honour? You who in my absence hold command, this is how
you abuse it? You shame yourself. You shame us all, before the gods.”

Ury half-straightened, his forearm raised to shield his face. Around them, the
other Greeks watched silently to see what
he would do. Ury
glanced around and straightened slowly. “It’s not my fault!” he burst out. “You
left us here to starve! You wanted us to die!”

Lopex stared at him as though at a loss for words. Taking heart from his
silence, Ury snatched up a skewer of raw beef from the slaughterboard by the
fire—and bit off a mouthful. He held the skewer over his head and turned to face
the camp. “We’ve eaten, and nothing has happened! If there’s a curse on this
meat, then curse me now!” He turned back to face Lopex once again and took
another bite.

Lopex’s sword hand crept out from his body, fingers flexing, and Ury took an
uncertain step back. But Lopex’s hand stayed where it was, and after a moment he
sighed and shook his head. “You’re a fool, Ury. I knew it was a mistake to give
you authority, but until now I hadn’t understood just how big a fool you
were.”

He lifted up the sack he had brought back into camp and faced the men. “At the
southernmost end of this island is a rush marsh. I have spent three days
identifying which plants are safe, and have returned with enough for several
days’ meals.” He glanced expressionlessly at Ury. “But we are undone by your
foolishness. Eat, then, if you have no respect for your oaths. But for any among
you who have not already despoiled your honour before the gods, these shoots are
the meal they intended for us.”

He dropped the sack on the sand, pulled out a finger length of pale-green plant
stalk and bit into it. “Pray hard for the winds to release us tomorrow. The
curse is real, and you have
unleashed it. Perhaps we can yet
escape before it strikes.”

He turned and caught sight of us, tied to the boarding nets of the Pelagios.
“Ury!” he barked. “Why is my slave tied up? And why is our healer tied up beside
him?”

Ury smirked. “Your slave, Lopex? You should have looked more closely. He’s no
more Trojan than you are. This is Arkadios the traitor! The man who went over to
the Trojans!”

Lopex came across the beach to us and knelt to peer into Kassander’s
eyes.

“You haven’t left much of his face for me to tell, Ury,” he said mildly, “but
yes, this is Arkadios.” He glanced at me, lashed to the boarding net nearby.
“And our Trojan healer?” he asked drily. “Is he a Greek turncoat too?”

“Well, no,” Ury began, sounding less certain. “But he kept the traitor’s
secret.” He frowned. “And there’s something else . . .” His voice trailed off
for a moment as he tried to remember, but Kassander’s interruption earlier had
snapped his strand of thought. “I’m sure he knew about Arkadios, at least,” he
added. “He called the traitor by his real name. I’ll kill them both after we’ve
eaten.”

Lopex looked at him. “Has it occurred to you that knowing a man’s name doesn’t
mean knowing his history? Or that most men would have done the same in his
position?”

He turned back and pointed to Kassander. “Whoever he is, he is still my slave.
I choose to leave him alive, for now. As for the boy, who were you planning for
our new healer? Release him immediately.”

Ury came over to cut my bonds, glaring at Lopex’s retreating
back. “I’ll get you yet, boy,” he muttered, sawing savagely at the cords on
my wrists. “He may be blind but I’m not. I’ll have your tongue in my collection
soon enough.” He shook his leather pouch at me.

My wrists and ankles had been bound so tight they had gone white, and it was
some time before I could put any weight on my feet. When at last I could, I
stood up and hobbled carefully over to Kassander, still bound. I looked at the
knot binding his wrists but he shook his head. “Don’t help me. Ury would love to
catch you. Get back to camp.”

He was right. Even treating Kassander’s wounds would be all the excuse Ury
needed. Feeling helpless, I hobbled toward the rear edge of the camp where the
beach grass began, keeping clear of Ury while I worked the cramps out of my
wrists and ankles. As a result, I was the first to see the curse begin.

Ury had ordered some men to carry the offal from the slaughtered cattle out of
camp. The men had dumped it all— heart, lungs and other organs—in a sprawling
pile in the long grass. As I limped back and forth, trying to walk some life
back into my feet, I heard a strange noise from the pile, like an old man
wheezing. I crept over and peered down into the grass.

At my feet, the offal was moving.

For a moment I thought there was an animal burrowing in it and stepped closer
to look. The sound was coming from the pink, fleshy lungs themselves, expanding
and contracting. Regular, bubbling gasps as the air rushed in and out. I
stared in astonishment for a moment until something else caught
my attention. Off to my left, one of the deep red cow hearts was pulsing too.
Separated from its body, it was starting to beat rhythmically as if still
alive.

I backed away, staring. Now one of the intestines started to move, coiling and
pulsing like a giant, fleshy snake. A disembodied tail flicked at a phantom fly,
and I lost my composure completely. Stumbling and scrambling, I backed away
until I could turn around and run back into camp. Some of the Greeks looked up
as I burst in among them, pointing back toward the offal dump, trying to form
words.

“What’s the matter, city boy? Never seen cow guts before?” Someone guffawed but
suddenly stopped. Stretched out on the wooden slaughterboards near the main
campfire, the jaws of the three carcasses had started to move in unison, a slow,
rhythmic chewing as though they were working their cud in a field.

The two men nearest them scrambled up in alarm. Ury, his back to them as he
chewed hunks off a skewer of beef, turned toward them. “What’s your problem?
Sand up your
gloutos
?” The men shook their heads, pointing. Ury looked
over and leapt to his feet, dropping his skewer of beef. “Sweet mother of Zeus!
What in the name of Ares
koprophage
is that!”

The men around me were scrambling to their feet, groping for their knives. From
the cutting boards, a low noise began that grew louder until I recognized it as
a pain-filled bellow. The skinless carcasses, the first little more than a
skeleton,
had lifted their heads and begun an agonized lowing, a
sound that grew more insistent until it seemed to vibrate in my own teeth and
throat. Around me, the Greeks clung to one another in fear as the curse
unfolded.

First one flayed carcass, then the other two, lurched to their feet and hobbled
off their planks onto the sand. Shedding shreds of flesh and muscle, they began
to stagger among the terror-stricken men. Near the edge of camp, I huddled
anxiously behind a bulky warrior, too frightened to move. How could this be
happening? The three carcasses were staggering around blindly, their heads
lifted as they howled their unearthly pain into the dusk.

The lead cow staggered toward me, ragged strips of flesh still trailing from
its bloody bones. The soldier and I bolted in opposite directions through the
panic-stricken mass of men. I found myself running toward the far side of the
camp where the
Pelagios
was beached.

“Alexi! Stay here. It’s safer.”

For whatever reason, I had bolted toward Kassander, still bound hand and foot
to the boarding net. Reassured by his tone, I slowed to a stop. His right eye
was now swollen completely shut but the other searched my face, then flickered
toward the chaos in camp. “I’m not sure . . . how you managed it, Alexi, but . .
. nice distraction.”

I turned back toward camp to watch the men, still darting in all directions. A
few had swords out, but nobody was getting close enough to use them. Besides, if
cutting their throats
and pulling out the cattle’s guts hadn’t
killed them, I couldn’t see a sword doing much. Speaking of swords, I
automatically felt for my knife but it wasn’t there, of course. I reached
through the net and started trying to unpick Kassander’s wrist cords in the
gloom. He nodded.

Suddenly there was a new noise. One of the soldiers had bent double and thrown
up his half-chewed meal. He lifted his head and shrieked in terror. “Merciful
gods! They’re still alive . . . inside us!”

In the firelight, I could just make out some misshapen lumps in the puddle he
had left behind. The hair on my arms rose. Were they moving? Shocked, I stared
at Kassander but he seemed unfazed. “Just as well we didn’t . . . eat any,” he
wheezed. He saw my expression and shrugged. “Panic never helps. Your master
Lopex knows that better than any man I’ve ever met.”

I glanced over through the gloom at Lopex’s tent. In the near-darkness I could
just make out his pale shape sitting on a camp stool, arms folded, watching his
men flee the stumbling creatures. One by one the men stopped running and
violently retched up their dinner.

A few of his men were pleading with him, but Lopex continued to watch in
silence. Eventually he unfolded his arms and stood up. “Men of Ithaca!” he
shouted, his tone demanding attention. “I warned you of the curse. Do you
believe now?”

Despite their terror, many of the men stopped. Those who didn’t were tripped
and pinned by the others. Lopex waited.
Finally, when the only
sound was that unearthly lowing, Lopex spoke. “If you want to live, listen now.
You have seen what disobedience brings. From this point on I demand
unquestioning obedience as the price of my help.
Do I have it
?”

An anxious affirmative quavered back from the men. Lopex looked around,
unconvinced. “
I said, do I have it
?” he roared.

The men found the energy to roar back. “Yes!”

Lopex looked slowly around the camp at the terrified men. After what could have
been a lifetime, he nodded. “Very well. Do
exactly
what I say. Polites,
take five men to collect driftwood. Adelphos, take three more and chop the
driftwood down to fire size, then bank the fire up. Ury, take ten men and rope
those creatures. Three of you hold each one steady while the rest cut them into
pieces no larger than your thumb. Everyone else, collect every single piece of
each carcass— every hoof, hide, horn, scrap of offal, bone or flesh. Every piece
of those creatures must be burnt away to ash. We may not be able to reverse the
curse, but if we destroy all the signs, we may yet escape it. And tomorrow, wind
or no wind, we will leave this island if we have to swim.” The men scrambled to
obey.

I nodded in admiration. Back on the island of the Cyclops, I’d seen him do the
same thing, binding a mob of frightened men into a dedicated group with a few
words.

The rawhide knot binding Kassander’s wrists and ankles suddenly came free, and
as I unlaced the remaining cord on his ankles, he pulled his hands from the net
and clutched at my
arm. “I’ve got to go, before anyone looks
this way. When I’m gone, get away from this spot. Wipe away your tracks. Sleep
on the far side of camp tonight. Near the Greeks. I won’t see you again.”

I nodded. “Kassander, I—”

He tugged his hands and feet out of the boarding net and got carefully to his
feet, feeling his ribs and wincing. “You’ve helped me escape. All debts are paid
now.” He looked toward the camp. “A lot of debts were repaid tonight.” He
hobbled around the bow of the
Pelagios
and vanished into the night.

A FURIOUS BELLOW WOKE me the next morning. Ury, of course. He
was so angry he was hardly making sense, but I was pretty sure I knew what it
was about.

“That
kopros
-eating traitor! Where is he!” he was roaring. I fought my
way awake and rolled over to watch. Ury was stomping across the beach, kicking
men awake as he passed as if he expected to find Kassander hidden in a Greek
bedroll somewhere.

We had been up most of the night. Desperately relieved to have Lopex back in
charge, the Greeks had jumped to follow his orders, incinerating the hacked-up
remains of the cattle:
hides, bones, offal and all. I had been
forced to clean up the puddles of vomit around the camp, scooping them up with a
shovel and burning them away to ash in a sizzling bronze pan set up at one side
of the huge fire. A disgusting job, but still better than what Pharos and
Adelphos had been tasked with, loading the still-pulsing lungs and hearts onto a
shield to carry to the pyre. Even cutting them into small pieces hadn’t worked,
and several men were kept busy sweeping the burning chunks of organ, flesh and
bone back into the fire as they struggled to crawl away.

Dumping fresh meat directly onto the fire kept threatening to put it out, and
two other soldiers were kept busy searching the nearby coast in the ship’s
skaphis
for more driftwood, clutching torches against the moonless
dark. The night was almost over by the time Lopex stirred the embers with his
sword and declared the carcasses destroyed. “Now get some sleep, all of you,”
he added. “Tomorrow we leave. Unless any of you think you know better, of
course.” Ury stared at his feet as Lopex’s gaze swept over him.

Now, with the morning breeze blowing away the guilty stench of burnt flesh, Ury
had found his bluster again. “The traitor’s bonds were untied,” he shouted,
holding up the rawhide cords that I had unpicked last night. “Someone here
helped him escape!” I ducked my head beneath my sailcloth sheet as his glance
came my way.

A second voice rang across the camp. “Ury!” It was Lopex,
standing beside his tent. “I need all hands to break camp. You are to waste no
time on the traitor. Furthermore, your behaviour in my absence has disgraced you
as a commander. I will no longer permit you in a command position.” Ury opened
his mouth to argue but was silenced by Lopex’s fierce glance. He subsided,
muttering.

After a breakfast of the gritty, chewy shoots that Lopex had brought back, we
were put to work breaking camp. “There must be no sign we were ever here,”
Lopex announced. “Every scrap, every piece of shaped wood, pottery or bronze
must be stowed on board, all cooking pits dug into the sand and buried. You,
boy,” he called to me, “take this shovel and fill in the cess trench.”

I came over to take the shovel from him, but he held his grip for a moment. I
looked up. “You helped Arkadios escape,” he said quietly. I was about to
protest but he waved me to silence. “I expected you would. Why do you think I
had you untied?”

He must have seen my confusion. “A commander can’t always give orders, Alexi.
Sometimes he has to work through others.” He let go of the shovel. “Off you go,
then.” I headed for the cess trench, wondering. Had I heard an apology in his
voice? I shook my head. I didn’t like being used. But like it or not, he was
good at it. I frowned, choking the thought off angrily.

The cess trench that the Greeks used as a toilet marked the southern edge of
their beach camp. It had been extended a
dozen times since we
arrived, now winding back on itself like a gigantic dirt snake. Many of the
Greeks hadn’t been too careful about filling it in after using it, and I had to
work my way along its whole smelly length. It was mindless work, and my thoughts
wandered back to the girl I’d met. Phaethusia. I stopped. Was she watching right
now? I glanced up toward the near edge of camp, suddenly embarrassed to be
cleaning a cess trench, but couldn’t see anyone. I sighed. Even with her
doe-eyed timidity—or maybe because of it—I realized I’d been hoping to see her
again. Well, it wasn’t likely to happen now.

Someone grabbed my shoulder. I turned hopefully, but it was Palakis, a soldier
I didn’t know very well, a younger man with a short, black beard.

“Come quick,” he said nervously. “He’s sore hurt. Slipped over the gunwale,
see? Landed hard on the ground. I think there’s something wrong, inside. It’s my
mate, you follow?”

I followed him across the camp, threading our way between half-buried cooking
pits and stacks of bedrolls waiting to be loaded. At the rear edge of camp, the
Greeks were standing in a circle around what sounded like a fight, but Palakis
didn’t slow down. “Come on, come on,” he urged me, tugging at my tunic. “He’s
sore hurt. Broke his leg, maybe.”

“I thought you said there was something wrong inside?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, yes, that too,” he replied. “But hurry along, he’s poorly, I tell
you.”

He led me around the stern of the
Pelagios
to the
starboard side, away from camp. I could make out someone lying in the shade of
the hull and covered by a blanket. Only four overloaded spar poles were propping
the ship up on this side, and I came over cautiously to kneel beside the injured
man. I had just time to wonder what the blanket was for when Palakis announced,
a little too loudly, “He’s here.”

The man under the blanket rolled over and whipped it off. It was Ury. Before I
could leap back, he had grabbed both my arms and thrown me to the ground.

This was no time for pride. “Help!” I shouted. “Pharos! Deklah!”

Ury smiled nastily as he straddled my chest, pinning my arms painfully under
his knees. “They won’t hear you, slave. I made a—” he hesitated, frowning, “a
distraction.” He sounded proud of himself. “Palakis, go join the fight. Keep it
going.”

My sister’s knife appeared in his hand as Palakis left. “Recognize this,
Trojan? Now, I got to thinking this morning. That girl by the well, she was your
sister, you said. So if she was there where my brother died, where were you?”
His eyes narrowed. “You were there too. It was you that Takis saw on the steps
behind my brother. It was you that killed him.”

I shook my head but Ury just smiled, a slow, nasty grin that split his face
like a wound. “And I wanted to kill you just for being Trojan. I had no idea.”
He shook his head. “All this time, my brother’s killer was right here.” He
leaned down close to my face and the knife tip caressed my neck. “Lopex
isn’t here to stop me now, boy. I can take my time.” The knife
point began to slide up my neck toward my left ear.

As I struggled to get free, I realized something. The familiar wave of fear,
the sickening terror that stopped my thoughts— it wasn’t coming. This time, what
I was feeling was . . . anger. A cold, furious anger at Ury for terrorizing me
for so long. And at myself for letting him do it.

Ury paused uncertainly as he saw my expression change. “Ury?” I whispered,
quietly scraping up two handfuls of sand behind his back. “There’s one thing you
need to know. Something you’re wrong about.”

Ury frowned and leaned down to hear, as I knew he would. I drew a deep breath
and shouted the truth into his face. “It was my sister! Ury, your brother was
killed by a girl!” Shocked, he rocked backward and his knees came off my arms
for an instant. I yanked them free and thrust my hands up to grind the sharp
sand into his eyes. Bellowing like a wounded bull, he leapt up, clawing at his
face. I scrambled to my feet and started to run off, but stopped as I passed a
pile of unused spars. Running away would solve nothing. Was there another way? I
glanced back, watching him curse as he rubbed his red and streaming eyes. I
looked around. We were still alone, thanks to Ury. Perhaps this time I could
teach him to fear me.

I picked up one of the unused spars from the pile and ran back with it. He had
my sister’s knife, but it would be no help against the longer range of a spar.
Ury’s puffy eyes widened as he saw me coming, and he grabbed for the spar beside
him.
With so few spars propping up the ship up on this side, it
was wedged tight, and he braced one foot against the base of the hull as he
pushed with both hands. Already bent under its load, the spar snapped suddenly,
leaving Ury sprawling on the sand.

Someone behind me scooped me up one-handed and hauled me away from the ship. I
turned angrily to find Pharos, but a noise behind me drew my attention back.
With one spar gone, the remaining three were even more overloaded. They creaked
and bent further, and the ship began to tip over toward us. Ury was trying to
scramble out of the way, but he seemed to be stuck. I peered closely into the
shade of the hull and realized with shock that his foot was caught, pinned in
the sand beneath the hull as it shifted.

He looked up and spotted us. “You! Slave boy!” he shouted anxiously. “Come
here! Pull me out!”

For some people I would have risked it, but not Ury. I turned to Pharos, but he
shook his head silently, pointing at the last three spars. They were bending
like bows, and even as we watched, one snapped with a loud crack, sending pieces
of wood flying. The ship heeled further.

“Pharos!” called Ury, his tone panicked. “Help me!”

I looked at the spar in my hand. Surely even Ury didn’t deserve this. I was
about to move forward to put it in place but Pharos grabbed my shoulder. “Too
late,” he murmured.

He was right. The last two spars, carrying a load far beyond them, snapped at
the same instant. With a great crashing and
clanking as the
storage vessels and plunder shifted in the hold, the ship rolled slowly onto its
side, crushing Ury’s legs and torso into the sand. Only his head and one arm
were still visible as the ship came to rest. He raised his head to look at me,
trying to say something, but collapsed back into the sand.

Spotting the ship’s movement, the other Greeks were pouring around it from both
sides as Pharos and I stood together, facing the ship. “Ury’s men started fight,
” he said. “Fight rang false to Pharos. Too much shouting, too little blood. And
then Pharos could not see Ury or healer.”

I nodded, overwhelmed by what I had just seen. Should I have tried to save him?
Pharos spoke as though he could hear my thoughts. “Not worth saving. Ship needs
healer.”

Lopex strode up. “Boy? Alexi! What in Athene’s name is going on here?”

I stammered, looking for an explanation, but Pharos spoke. “Pharos saw. Ury,
foolishly pulling propping pole from flank of ship. Trapped beneath as ship
rolled. Dead by own hand.”

Lopex looked at the spar pole in my hand and I cursed silently. “Then what are
you doing with that, boy?”

Pharos rode effortlessly to the rescue again. “Carrying to prop ship up again.
Pharos held him back. Too dangerous. Needing healer more than foolish
brute.”

Lopex peered at us both in turn, but Pharos’s expression gave nothing away. I
struggled to keep my face still.

At last, Lopex nodded. “I always thought Ury would die in
a
fight. Or with a knife in his back. I didn’t see this.” He paused thoughtfully.
“Come on, then. We need to right the ship.” He strode off.

I turned to Pharos, amazed. “Thanks. That was . . . quick.”

He shrugged. “Pharos told only truth.” A slight smile showed through his beard.
“And if some truth unsaid, who is harmed? No one living.”

I nodded. “Ury would have killed me.” Pharos didn’t react. Was he feeling
guilty? “If anyone ever deserved to die, he did,” I added. “He was an animal.
Like his cousin.”

Pharos’s head twitched and I recalled that he was also a cousin of Ury’s. “Not
you!” I added. “Sophronios, I meant.”

Pharos said nothing, waiting for me.

“He killed my sister, back in Troy. At least,” I added, recalling Kassander’s
words, “he told me he did.”

Pharos turned toward me. “Sophronios, with your sister?”

“He found her lying by the well and . . . cut her throat.” I squeezed my eyes
to keep the tears away.

Pharos shook his head. “Your sister that was, by well? In lower town of
Troy?”

I nodded. “She killed his brother. But I was there.”

Pharos looked puzzled. “There with Brillicos, on that night? You?”

“When the Greeks came—” I hesitated, uncertain.

Pharos nodded. “Tell story. Pharos does not mind.”

After keeping it a secret for so long, it was a relief to let it out. “When
you, the Greeks I mean, entered Troy, Ury’s brother
Brillicos
found Melantha in our room. She stabbed him in the neck as he carried her down
the steps. But I was watching from the doorway.”

“Ahh.” Pharos breathed a long sigh of understanding. “Then you, Ury was
seeking!”

I nodded. “Takis and Deklah saw someone on the steps and thought he did it. It
was dark, so they never realized it was me. Ever since then, Ury has wanted to
find the person on the steps.”

Pharos frowned. “But cutting of throat, Sophronios said? Not he. Pharos, in
same squad with Sophronios that night. Not permitting.”

I looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“A liar, was Sophronios, ever since boy. Never to believe. Listen now. Came our
squad to square in lower town of Troy. Near steps, we saw a girl, lying dead
against well. But pretending, she was. As Sophronios came, she sat up, slashed
his nose with knife. Sophronios grabbed it, angry, ready to kill. Pharos stopped
his hand. Not killing women, never.”