Fall of Kings (62 page)

A dozen horses stood blinking at them in the light of the torches. They
shifted about nervously, stepping in the piles of horse manure that covered the
floor, and the acrid odor from the chamber grew even stronger.

Agamemnon cursed and grabbed a torch from a soldier. He pushed his way among
the animals, looking for treasure. He searched frantically around the low square
chamber, followed by Idomeneos and Menelaus. It was empty except for the horses
and their droppings. Only in the far corner did they find two dusty goblets and
a large wooden chest, its lid flung open. Agamemnon reached in and drew out
three copper rings, then flung them onto the stone floor. Fury in his voice, he
turned to the other kings.

“Helikaon!” he raged. “The Burner has stolen Priam’s treasure from under our
noses!”

Menelaus frowned. “But Brother, that is impossible,” he offered nervously.
“How could he get it out of the city?”

“He and his crew must have lowered it down the north wall in the night,”
Agamemnon guessed. “That was why the rope was cut! To stop anyone following him
and stealing it back. They will be far away on the
Xanthos
by now.”

“It is the fastest ship on the Great Green,” Menelaus added miserably. “We
will never catch it.”

“We will if we know where Helikaon is going!” Agamemnon cried. Turning to
Xander, he grabbed him by his tunic.

“Tell us, boy,” he snarled into his face. “The Hittites will not save your
wounded friends. They will not care if they live or die! Tell us where Helikaon
is going, or I will have them taken apart one by one in front of you!”

Xander looked around anxiously, but he could not see his champion Meriones,
only the faces of the three kings staring greedily at him.

Please forgive me, Golden One, he thought.

“They are going to Thera,” he said.

Andromache was watching clouds of birds in the sky over Thera, wondering what
kind they were. They were small and black, and there were thousands of them,
swirling, diving, climbing, splitting into two clouds, then three, then four,
then coming together again in smooth graceful flight. All the crewmen of the
Xanthos
were watching, and the ship was drifting in the warm morning breeze.
Suddenly, as if under orders, the birds formed a single flock and headed away
from the island. For a heartbeat they were over the ship, myriads of them
blocking the light. Crewmen ducked instinctively. Then the birds had passed,
racing for the north, and they soon vanished from sight.

The oarsmen picked up the beat again, and the
Xanthos
glided on toward
the Blessed Isle. Andromache sat back on the wooden bench at the mast and peered
down into the lower deck, where the boys were playing happily. She smiled to
herself. For the first few days of their voyage she had watched them all the
time, frightened that one would fall overboard. But she had found that on the
Xanthos
the boys had more than sixty fathers watching out for them. The
oarsmen, most of whom had children of their own, treated them as they would
their own sons, playing games with them and telling them stories of the sea.
Sometimes they would sit the two boys on the rowing benches and let them pretend
to row the great galley.

Astyanax and Dex had thrived during their time at sea. They were both
nut-brown from being in the sun all day, and Andromache was sure they both had
grown taller in those few days. Dex was still watchful, a little shy and slower
to laugh than his brother. Astyanax was bold and sometimes reckless, and
whenever he was on the open upper deck, Andromache watched him with the anxious
eyes of mother love.

Since leaving Troy, Helikaon had set a fast pace toward Thera. His intention
was to stop briefly at the Blessed Isle to take Kassandra on board, then sail on
to Ithaka, where Kalliades and Skorpios would leave the ship. Then the
Xanthos
would make the long voyage, perhaps for the last time, to the Seven
Hills in time for winter.

Once at sea and safely out of Trojan waters, they had no reason to race to
Thera, yet Andromache felt a feeling of urgency all the time. She could not
understand it. They no longer had to fear the Mykene, and the weather was mild
and still, but she suffered a constant sense of subdued panic, as though they
were late for something. Helikaon felt it, too, he admitted, and they believed
that the rest of the crew did, although it never was discussed.

Andromache stood and walked down the aisle to the foredeck, where the two
warriors were resting. She liked the fair-haired rider Skorpios. He was unlike
any soldier she ever had met. She would talk to him in the long idle evenings
spent on rocky shores and sandy beaches. The young man knew the names of birds
and the small creatures in the rock pools. He had his own names for the star
pictures in the night sky and would tell her tales of them. He had bought a set
of pipes from a trader on Lesbos and sometimes would play soft laments as the
sun set. He told her stories of his childhood, sad ones about his brutal father
and careworn mother and happier ones about his brothers and sisters and the
daily life in their village. He planned to leave the
Xanthos
at Ithaka,
but she hoped he would go with them to the Seven Hills.

Kalliades looked up as she approached, and she gave him a warm smile. Rested
by the voyage, his leg at last had started to heal. Each day she had dressed his
wound, until this day she had thrown away the spent healing plant Xander had
placed on it.

A sailor shouted, “Dolphins!” and she looked to where he pointed. They often
saw a dolphin or two on their travels, and she wondered at the excitement in his
voice. Then she realized he was pointing to not one dolphin or two but to
hundreds of them, passing the ship to starboard, their sleek gray backs rising
and falling as they surged toward the north.

“Doffizz, doffizz!” she heard one of the boys cry, and they ran up on deck
and raced to the rail. She saw two crewmen catch them and hold them securely as
they craned their necks to watch the creatures pass.

“Unusual,” murmured Kalliades, who had stood up to watch. He sat down again,
but Skorpios continued gazing at the sea until long after the dolphins had
disappeared. When he sat down, his face was flushed with excitement like the
boys’.

“I have never seen dolphins before,” he explained. “In fact, I have never
been to sea before, except to cross the Hellespont.”

“Then you have never seen Thera, the Blessed Isle,” she told him. “It is
unique.”

“How so?” he asked, peering at the island looming ahead of them. “Because no
men are allowed there?”

“Partly,” she told him. “But it is fashioned like no other island. It is in
the shape of a ring, with just one gap where the ships sail in. In the center is
a wide round harbor, which is very deep. No ships can anchor there, for the
stone anchors will not reach the bottom. In the center of the harbor is a small
black isle called the Burned Isle.”

Soon they were passing into the harbor, and Kalliades, who was watching
ahead, commented, “Not such a small island!”

Andromache looked around and gasped. The Burned Isle, black and gray like a
pile of coals, was twice the size she remembered. It now filled more of the
harbor, and the
Xanthos
had to skirt it to reach the Theran beach. From
its summit she could see thick black smoke arising and trailing off toward the
east. She looked back to the aft deck, where Helikaon and Oniacus were talking
urgently, pointing and gazing at the growing isle with wonder.

Young Praxos shouted, “Ship ahead, lord!”

Andromache could see a galley drawn up on the far beach. She could make out
nothing of it at that distance, but within moments sharp-eyed Praxos cried, “It
is the
Bloodhawk,
Golden One!”

Odysseus! What good fortune! Andromache smiled. But at that instant she heard
the rumble of an earthquake beneath them. The sea churned, and she saw a
landslip on the Burned Isle go crashing into the water. The waves it created
lashed the
Xanthos,
and the ship rocked back and forth. Andromache looked
to the children, but they were both safely on the lower deck. She gazed up at
the isle again and shivered.

Within a short time the
Xanthos
had reached the beach, and crewmen
were shinnying down ropes, ready to draw the ship up alongside the
Bloodhawk.
Helikaon slid down a rope, and a ladder was thrown over the side for Andromache.
When she reached the beach, Odysseus was waiting, one arm around Helikaon’s
shoulders. They both were grinning at her, and she smiled back. With a touch of
sadness she saw that the Ithakan king’s once-red hair was now silver.

He took her hand and kissed it. “By Zeus, goddess, it does my old heart good
to see you both safe. I heard Troy was taken and overrun, but there was no word
of survivors. I’ll wager you have a stirring tale to tell me!”

“Indeed we have, Odysseus, but it is a tale of sadness, too,” Helikaon
replied, gazing fondly at his old friend. “What are you doing here? We thought
you would be safe in the arms of Penelope by now.”

“Would that I were. I have a son I have not yet seen. But I came to rescue
Kassandra. With Troy taken, Mykene scum have no reason to respect the sanctity
of Thera. But the place seems abandoned.” He looked around. “We arrived at
sunset last night, and we have seen no one. There is always a priestess to greet
arriving ships.” He shrugged. “I was debating defying the demigod and climbing
to the Great Horse myself. Then we saw the
Xanthos.
”

At his words a chill passed through Andromache, and the feeling of urgency
returned full force. It was as much as she could do not to go running up the
steep cliff path.

To Helikaon she said swiftly, “I will go find Kassandra and bring her to the
ship.”

“If she is still here,” her lover replied, gazing up and frowning at the top
of the island, where the horse’s head could just be seen.

“I know she is here,” she told him, “though I do not know why she has not
come to greet us.” She saw his expression and guessed what he was thinking. “You
must not anger the Minotaur by climbing to the temple. I will go and find her.”

Helikaon glanced at the sky, then took her hand. “If you have not returned by
noon, I will come get you, and no demigods or monsters will prevent me.”

“And I will come with him,” Odysseus added. “There’s something dangerous
about this island now, and it’s not the danger of violent men.” He shivered in
the sunlight and nodded toward the Burned Isle. “And tell me that island is
growing, and it is not just a delusion of old age.”

Andromache replied, “They say the Burned Isle only rose from the sea a
hundred years ago. And yes, you are right. It is growing very fast, and I fear
it is a bad omen. I will make haste.”

With a smile for Helikaon, she turned and strode across the beach of black
sand, then started up the cliff path, her old rope-soled sandals carrying her
surely. Halfway up she stopped and looked down on the men and the ships below.
Her gaze traveled to the Burned Isle, and she was shocked to see it was nearly
as high as the cliffs of the ring island. Smoke was rising from the summit, and
the air was thick with it. On her arms and shoulders was a light sprinkling of
gray dust. She hurried on, dread and foreboding pushing her along with whips of
fire.

As she reached the top of the cliff, she paused again, gazing up at the Great
Horse. The colossal white temple seemed to sway above her, and she wondered if
it was she who was swaying. Then, with a deep rumble that made her teeth ache,
another earthquake rippled across the isle. Andromache threw herself down and
clung to the rocky ground, fearing it would tip and throw her back down the
cliffs. She heard a
whoosh
of wings and a raucous screeching. Looking
behind her, she saw a huge flock of gulls flying past the edge of the cliffs,
heading south.

“All the creatures are leaving the island,” said a voice. “Even the birds of
the air and the fish of the sea.”

Andromache scrambled to her feet. Walking toward her slowly from the Great
Horse temple was the First Priestess. Iphigenia saw the surprise on her face and
chuckled.

“You thought me long dead, Andromache. Well, I will make old bones soon, but
my time has not yet come.”

“I am glad to see it,” Andromache replied, and it was true. Iphigenia looked
older than the world, but the gleam in her eye was as intelligent and
calculating as ever.

Andromache gazed around. “Are the women all leaving the island, too? It seems
deserted.”

Iphigenia frowned. “When the earthquakes started at the time of the Feast of
Artemis, Kassandra convinced all the girls the island would be destroyed. With
her dreams and her visions she can be very persuasive, your sister. One by one
they left despite all my efforts to stop them. The last one, little Melissa,
departed two days ago.” She gave a barking cough that Andromache recognized as a
laugh. “She even took the donkeys, saying she did not want them to suffer when
the end came. A ship full of donkeys.” She shook her head. “Foolish girl,” she
said tenderly.

“How is Kassandra?”

Iphigenia looked at her with compassion, and Andromache wondered why she ever
had thought the old woman unfeeling.

“She is dying, Andromache. Her visions… they injure her mind and give her
hideous fits. Each fit takes something vital from her, and they have been
getting more frequent. She is very frail, but the visions go on relentlessly.”

“Where is she? I must help her.”

“She is in the temple. Walk with me, my dear.”

Andromache’s sense of panic was almost uncontrollable now. Nevertheless, she
took the old priestess’ arm and walked with her slowly into the dark building.