Cursed by the Sea God (5 page)

“Pull!” shouted Lopex. Several other soldiers had grasped the idea and were
hauling on the rope behind Pharos. Some twelve men were now gripping it and
being towed toward the
Pelagios
.

The beetle-soldiers on the cliff tops had spotted the movement in the water and
a renewed hail of boulders poured off the cliff, concentrating on the zone near
the entrance. Within
moments, five of the men on the rope had
been struck, vanishing beneath the surface.

“Pull!” shouted Lopex again. Pulling so hard that the rope was in danger of
breaking, they hauled the remaining seven men up to the bow. Lopex sprang over
the railing to help those who were too weak up the boarding nets and onto the
deck.

Pharos was pulling the oar out of the water for another cast, but Lopex touched
his arm and shook his head. I looked up. The noise from the inlet had fallen
away. The battered bodies of the Greeks and their slaves floated everywhere,
motionless. There were no ships left afloat, no more heads above the water. From
the cliffs, ropes were being thrown down, black-clad figures climbing down the
walls.

Deklah staggered up behind me, holding one shoulder. In the panic I’d forgotten
all about treating him. I wondered whether Ury was still alive. “What do you
think they’re doing?” I asked, watching the figures casting bronze grapples on
ropes into the lagoon, reeling in the floating bodies.

He shook his head, rubbing the arm that had hit the deck when he landed. “You
saw them. They were cutting Yason up and carrying him away in baskets.”

STUNNED AT THE LOSS of the rest of the fleet, the men sat at
their benches on the
Pelagios
like corpses, too defeated even to shout
defiance at the soldiers watching from the cliffs. Somehow, Lopex persuaded them
to take up their oars again, while I was ordered to tend the few wounded laid
out on the forward deck. Ury was still unconscious, which at least made him
easier to treat. I used a couple of cooking skewers from the hold to splint what
felt like a broken leg and left him where he was.

It was already late afternoon by the time we rowed away from the island of what
we later came to call the ship breakers,
and with no island in
sight by nightfall we were forced to spend the night on the water again. We must
have drifted during the night, because there was an island visible to the
northwest the next morning. We pulled the
Pelagios
up on the first beach
we found, a narrow gravel strip on the northeast face of the island, strewn with
driftwood and uprooted seaweed from a recent storm.

For the next two days the Greeks lay groaning on the beach, their heads wrapped
in rags. Kassander said it was a Greek thing. Fortunately, I didn’t see much of
Ury. He was awake now and sitting up on deck, but with his broken leg he
couldn’t climb down the ladder to the beach. He was also coughing blood, so
there must have been something wrong inside, but it was nothing I could fix,
even if I’d wanted to. I was assigned to bring the men water where they lay, but
none of them ate.

On the third morning, Lopex got up and headed inland. He came back to camp
mid-afternoon, carrying the carcass of a stag over his shoulders and leaning on
his spear. After two days, I thought the men would jump up at the sight, but
they didn’t move. Lopex went a little way upwind, built a driftwood fire, then
skinned and cut up the stag and started cooking it on skewers.

After ship’s rations, the fresh venison smelled incredible. Lopex waved me
over. “Boy! Over here!” He thrust a handful of skewers wrapped in an empty
millet sack at me. “Eat.”

Eat before the Greeks? A quick way to get beaten senseless. But the meat
smelled too good to think about it for long. I
pulled a piece off
one of the skewers and bit in. “Stop,” Lopex added, gesturing down the beach
with his knife. “Stand over there.”

Fine by me. I wasn’t keen to be around him either. I walked over to where the
men lay on the beach and continued eating. Nearby, Lykos rolled over and
sniffed. “What’s that, boy?” He peered at it. “Fresh meat? What are you doing
eating before free men, slave boy?” Several other Greeks were sniffing the air
and looking in my direction.

I shrugged. “Lopex gave them to me.” I clutched the skewers tightly and
suddenly understood. The men were too depressed to eat if he ordered them, but
let a slave eat before them? Half a dozen Greeks were suddenly clustering around
me, anger in their faces. Once again, I was only a finger’s width from a
beating. I held the skewers out reluctantly, adding “. . . to, um, give them to
you.”

The nearest men snatched them from me as the others, looking disappointed,
headed toward the cooking fire. I watched them go, seething. Once again, Lopex
had used me, and I hated him more than ever for it.

Sitting alone in the shade of a stubby palm tree on a hill behind the beach, I
was still angry a little later when I spotted someone approaching. It was Pen.
He recoiled as he caught my expression, but hesitantly held out a venison
skewer. “Hi, Alexi. Would you like this? I thought you might be hungry.”

I grunted something and took it. Pen glanced around before sitting down to
watch me in silence. After a moment, he
spoke. “Alexi?” He began,
awkwardly. “I wish you . . .” He gulped and tried again. “I’m sorry. About,
well, you know. Being given to Ury. And how he—”

“Nearly killed me,” I interrupted. “I was there.”

Pen looked like he was about to cry. “I’m so sorry, Alexi. I wish I could have
done something to stop him, back on the docks. But nobody listens to me.” He
brightened a little. “But they did listen to you, didn’t they? Lopex stopped
him.”

He was right. They wouldn’t listen to Pen if he called them to supper. “Don’t
worry about it,” I said. “It’s not your fault.” I finished the skewer and
handed it back to him. “You’d better head back. It won’t help if they see you
talking to a slave.”

The next morning, Lopex called a council on the beach. Clearly recovering, Ury
roused himself to hobble down the ladder, along with one of the men we’d
rescued, a man named Phaeton whose foot had been crushed by a boulder.

“Men of Ithaca!” Lopex said. “We have suffered a terrible loss. While you
grieve for the men you knew, I grieve for every life lost from our company. As
their leader, their lives were mine to command, yet I would never have chosen a
death like that for such brave men. We are alive, thanks be to the gods, and
with their blessing will remain so. We owe it to the memory of our shipmates to
take up again the lives the gods have given us.”

“Lives?” Deklah broke in. “How can we do that? Do you know how to get home? How
to bring our dead fleet mates back? You talk about plans, Lopex, but look
around. The gods haven’t given us
kopros
. They want us dead.”

I waited for Lopex to lash back, but he shook his head
patiently. “Deklah. If the gods had wanted us dead, they could have caused it
twice over by now. You, who went deep into the den of the ship breakers and
escaped alive, don’t believe the gods are on your side? For shame.”

He raised his voice. “Before we continue our journey, we must hold a sacred
feast to send the shades of our comrades to Hades. But our stores are low, and
we have neither the equipment nor the time to replenish them. We must seek out
those who live on this island and trade with them for food stores.”

I felt a chill. Our encounters in the islands so far had all turned out badly.
The men clearly felt the same way but Lopex cut them off, ordering them to split
into two groups. The men shuffled apart obediently, the six or seven
black-haired, scowling figures who I now thought of as Ury’s crew all clustered
near him. I circled around carefully to the far side of the other group.

Lopex spoke up. “Listen now. You men will come with me.” He gestured at my
group. “We will find the source of some smoke I saw yesterday; the rest of you
will stay with the ship as a reserve, under Ury. Twenty-two well-armed warriors
can stand their ground against whatever they find, or beat a safe retreat if
they cannot.”

Lopex stood up to put on his armour when Deklah spoke up again. “So why does it
have to be us? Why can’t it be Ury’s group?”

Lopex closed his eyes for a moment, breathing carefully,
then
opened them again and removed his helmet. “Very well, Deklah. You may choose who
goes. Here is a wooden skewer. One end is burnt; the other is not.” He snapped
it in half and put both pieces in his helmet. “If Deklah draws the burnt piece,
my group will go. Otherwise, it falls to Ury’s group.”

He held the helmet over his head while Deklah reached into it. The men fell
silent. A murmur ran over both groups as he opened his hand to reveal the
unburnt piece.

Ury glared at Deklah and struggled to his feet, leaning on a crutch made from a
broken oar. “That’s it, men. The heretic has stuck it to us. Now get your armour
on and get moving!” He caught sight of me before I could dodge behind someone.
“You, boy!” he snapped at me. “Get over here and help me with this armour!” As
his slave I had no choice, and I cursed to myself as I joined them. At least
this group had Pharos in it too.

We set out, Ury gripping my shoulder with one black-haired paw and leaning on
his makeshift crutch with the other. Hiking up into the hills behind the beach,
we headed for the interior of the island where Lopex had seen smoke. It was a
hazy day with no breeze, so we were soon surrounded by clouds of sweat bugs. Ury
cursed me roundly as we walked, variously ordering me to slow down or speed up,
but with both hands occupied he couldn’t cuff me. As our path continued uphill,
the vegetation changed from low scrub to a thin laurel forest, leaving Ury
muttering angrily about Deklah each time he had to hobble over a fallen
tree.

As we emerged into a clearing, the men in the lead
stopped.

“What is it? Keep going!” Ury called. Shoving me aside, he crutched his way up
to the front to see what they were staring at. I followed, staying behind the
soldiers, but stopped. In the clearing dead ahead, a huge cat lay in the shade
of an oak tree. I peered at it. No, not a cat. A lion.

It looked in our direction, its tail twitching, and climbed slowly to its feet.
I watched Ury struggle to back up with his crutch. “Don’t run,” whispered
someone. “They’re like cats. They like to chase.”

I couldn’t have run if I’d wanted to. Even from behind armed warriors, the
sight of that huge beast padding slowly toward us was terrifying. The men groped
for their swords. I’d never seen a lion, but this didn’t look like an attack. It
was walking casually toward us, like a man coming to investigate a beetle in his
garden. As it reached a patch of sunlight in front of us, it stopped, then lay
on its back and stretched its furry belly in the sun.

“What’s it doing?” Ury hissed. The creature stretched again, then turned its
head to face us. A low growl escaped from it as its front paws batted the
air.

“I don’t believe it. I think it wants a belly rub!” blurted the soldier who’d
spoken before. He glanced around at us, looking embarrassed. “I once knew an
Egyptian trader who kept a cat,” he said awkwardly. “This is a lot like it, but
bigger.”

A lot bigger, I was guessing. The beast growled again, louder. The soldier must
have been sure of what he said, though,
because he edged up
slowly and reached out carefully to touch its furry stomach. A rumble like a
distant earthquake emerged from its belly. Slowly, the other Greeks approached,
clutching their swords. Ury stayed well back.

A second lion lay contentedly in the clearing, but it stayed where it was as we
crossed. On the far side stood a high stone wall with a bronze gate set into it.
It wouldn’t stop those lions, but they seemed tame enough. Or at least well-fed.
The Greeks flattened themselves against the wall on either side of the gate. A
soldier named Polites, who had somehow kept his tunic clean and beard trimmed
through all our hardships, crept up and peeked inside.

“There’s a stone cottage,” he whispered over his shoulder, “with a garden.
There’s a spinning wheel and a few chickens. Wait, there’s something coming.
It’s a woman. Now she’s sitting at the spinning wheel.”

“Does she look dangerous?” whispered Ury hoarsely, leaning backwards on his
crutch. “We should head back. She keeps lions . . .”

Polites shook his head. “No weapons. I think we should be able to handle
her.”

Ury glared around at the others but got no support. “Get on with it, then,” he
grumbled.

Polites cleared his throat and called out. “Hello?”

After a moment the gate opened and a tall, fine-featured woman with high
cheekbones and a nest of curly hair appeared. “I wondered when you would work up
your nerve to
call, good sir,” she said, her voice a
high-pitched chirp. “I am named Circe,” she added.

Her hand flew to her mouth as she came out and saw the rest of us around the
corner. “Oh! I didn’t realize there were so many of you.” She hesitated. “Well,
I suppose . . . I suppose you should all come in. Yes,” she added, her head
bobbing, “that’s it. Of course. Do come in, my lords. Please.”

At her request, the men dropped their armour and weapons at the gate. Circe
showed us across the flagstones and into a sunny room scattered with wooden
stools and small tables. Colourful woven tapestries covered every hand-span of
the walls. I trailed behind the men and took a seat in the corner, wondering why
Ury wasn’t ordering me over. Come to think of it, where
was
he?

Circe’s voice distracted me. “Please, sit down, do,” she said, her
long-fingered hands fluttering like tethered sparrows toward the stools. “You’ve
come from far away, I can see that. You must be thirsty in this heat, my lords.
Thirsty, yes,” she repeated to herself. “Perhaps you would like some wine,
perhaps, some cool wine?”

I hadn’t realized just how parched I was, but the idea suddenly seemed
wonderful. The Greeks agreed enthusiastically, and she went into a back room,
returning a moment later with goblets and a beautifully decorated deep bowl that
the Greeks called a
krater
, from which she dipped wine for us all.

It was a light Pramnian wine, sweetened with honey and a sprinkle of white
barley meal, but after only a single cup I felt
myself growing
strangely thick-headed. Around me, the conversation was slowly drying up, the
Greeks slumping motionless on their stools. My thoughts were becoming slow and
stupid. A goblet dropped from someone’s fingers and clattered against the stone
floor. For some reason it didn’t seem worth turning my head to see.

I could hear Circe enter the room to my right. She walked past me and picked
her way delicately through the seated men, pausing in front of Polites. “I’ll
start with you, I think.” Her tone was sweet and high-pitched. “You naughty man,
you didn’t think to tell me there were others, did you? But then, that’s just
like a man, isn’t it?”