Black Ships (30 page)

I sat and watched the ships come in.
Seven Sisters
wasn’t to shore yet. The sun was just below the waves and the stars were showing. It had seemed like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been very long. I said so to Lide.

“Not long at all,” she said. “Fast for a first birth. And a strong child at the end of it. Let’s get you settled so he can nurse. Sometimes they don’t want to at first, but it’s good to try. Makes you stop bleeding better.”

I waited in the firelight, my son at my breast. I lifted my nipple gently and rubbed his cheek with it. He turned his head and clamped on, his toothless gums surprisingly strong, a look of utter contentment on his face.

I sat there watching him, feeling receding cramps like waves going out to sea, strangely unreal, like I watched from above. In a few minutes Lide brought me some warmed wine, and I drank it drowsily. The boy closed his eyes and sighed, sliding off the nipple.

Xandros knelt down beside me. “Are you all right?”

I lifted a fold of the cloak around me so he could see. “He’s a boy. He’s a big, fine boy.”

His hair was black, like mine and Xandros’, with his father’s wide shoulders and broad chest.

Xandros bent his head against my shoulder, his arm around me, tears streaming down his face.

There was a stir, a flare of torches. Neas, with Maris and Wilos, was standing at the edge of the firelight, as though at the door of a house. “May we greet you?” Neas asked.

Lide stepped back, opening an invisible door. “Prince Aeneas.”

Xandros looked up.

Neas knelt before me. “Lady, may I offer my congratulations?”

“Thank you,” I said, and opened the cloak again so he could see the baby.

“It’s a baby,” Wilos said.

Neas looked at him gravely. “What is to be his name?”

I looked at Xandros. In truth, we’d not discussed names for a boy. “Markai,” I said.

Neas nodded and touched the boy’s forehead gently. “Markai son of Xandros son of Markai,” he said. “You are welcome to our company, Son of the People.”

Xandros met Neas’ eyes. “Thank you,” he said, and his eyes were full. “Markai son of Xandros son of Markai. My son and I will ever stand with you.”

Wilos looked at me, and he smiled suddenly. “When I’m king,” he said, “I promise Markai can be one of my captains.”

“That’s a good promise,” Neas said, ruffling Wilos’ hair. “May you be as true to it as I am to Xandros.” And he reached out and clasped Xandros’ hand, wrist to wrist.

The baby hiccuped and turned back to my breast.

NIGHT’S DOOR

I
don’t remember much about the first few weeks after Markai was born besides him. He was a big boy, and he wanted to eat constantly, nursing and sleeping and sleeping and nursing again while morning turned into noon turned into sunset turned into night. It all blurred together for me after a few days, napping in the shadow of the rail on
Dolphin
with him held close while we skimmed over the blue waves, waking to find us at some small village that would trade. I would fall asleep with Markai held tight, and wake to find that I was lying beside him in the bow cabin, the baby swaddled and warm, that someone had laid a cloak over me to ward off the chill of the night.

One night I woke in a panic, my breasts aching with milk and reached for him. Markai sighed, and made a little grunting noise in his sleep, but did not wake. His brow was cool and damp, his clout dry. It was nearly dawn. He had nursed at midnight, but didn’t seem inclined to wake and nurse again.

I got up and went out into the predawn light.
Dolphin
was run in on a beach of white sand. The waves rocked her a little as they washed against her stern. Xandros was on watch, sitting on
Dolphin
’s bow. He smiled when he saw me.

“Where’s Markai?” he asked.

“Sleeping,” I said, and came and sat beside him. “And that’s a surprise. It seems to me he does nothing but eat.”

“That will change soon,” Xandros said. “Three weeks. And he’s big. He’s gone a full watch tonight. I was sleeping when you fed him. I went on watch when you were sleeping.”

I looked around at the warm summer night, feeling the breeze off the water stirring my damp hair, my sweated body and heavy breasts. “I must look like a mess,” I said.

Xandros put his head to the side, as though considering the matter carefully. “You look like a woman with a three-week-old baby,” he said.

I laughed. “You should take up statecraft, with answers like that!”

“I thought I did,” he said.

“I think you did too,” I said. “It’s not much like fishing, is it?” I looked out across the beach, the banked campfires, the People sleeping in the moonlight. Around the perimeter of our camp I could see several men moving, watchmen like Xandros, who had care of us while we slept.

“No,” he said. “But there are good fish in these waters. This bay is magnificent.”

South of us, the beach of white sand swept away in a perfect crescent, broad and wide, with hills rolling down covered in green. To the north, the mountain rose. When I looked at it, the hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I felt Her hand like a chill sea breeze. The mountain looked like some sleeping monster stretched out in repose, towering over the blue sea and dotted islands, its head wreathed in clouds or steam. “Xandros,” I said.

“What?”

“The mountain.”

“What about it?”

I couldn’t take my eyes from it. “It’s like the Prison of the Winds,” I said. “Or Thera That Was. It’s a forge. A gate.”

He looked at it. “It’s not doing anything. It hasn’t. There’s just that little puff of cloud over it that never seems to go away.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s doing anything now. But it will. Maybe a long time from now, maybe not. But it just is. Whatever it is. A gate.”

“I wish you wouldn’t prophesy before breakfast,” Xandros said, but he looked nervous, like a pious man who is making a joke he shouldn’t.

I put my head on his shoulder. “It’s nothing to do with us. Not now. After all, it’s not as though we’re planning to live here. But I do wish I could get around to the other side, northward up the coast.”

“That’s where we’ll go tomorrow. Today, rather,” Xandros amended. “Why?”

“There’s something there.” I felt Her hand at my back, felt Her like a whisper in my mind. “One of Her holy places. I need to go there, and so does Neas.”

“Why?”

“So he can be king,” I said. “I knew when he found the golden bough that it would not be long. Just until Markai was born. She was waiting on him.”

“The Lady of the Dead waited on Markai?” Xandros asked.

“Yes.” I laid my head against his neck. It was nice to be with him alone for a minute while the stars paled above and the
Seven Sisters
sank into the sea. “She waited for life.”

Xandros swallowed. “He’s a fine boy.”

“He is,” I said. “And I love him more than I ever imagined possible.” Which was true. But then, I had never imagined love very much.

Xandros nodded against my head. “Yes.” He swallowed again, but his voice was steady. “That was why the Achaians killed my wife. She would not let them take the girls. She fought them so hard...” His voice broke, and he bent his face against my hair.

I put my arms around him and held him as he finally cried. I wrapped myself around him, as though it would make it better, though I knew that it wouldn’t. I have seen enough grief.

When at last he looked up at me, the blue shades of night were going and the dawn was coming. Two years, I thought. It has taken him two years to cry. Two years, and another child to fill his arms. Below, I heard a hungry whimper.

“I need to get Markai and feed him,” I said.

Xandros nodded. “Go on. No need for him to wait for his breakfast.”

When I had fed him and brought him up on deck with me, the People were beginning to break camp. With Markai slung against my side, I went in search of Neas. I found him eating day-old bread beside the fire, having come off the dawn watch himself.

“Prince Aeneas,” I said formally, though I did not look Death’s priestess with grimy flyaway hair and a baby slung on my hip, “we need to sail around to the north side of the mountain, up the coast. There we need to make camp, and I need to go onto the slopes of the mountain.”

Neas looked at me with surprise, but what he said was “If that is what your Lady requires, of course we shall do so, Sybil.” He looked up at the mountain. One little puff of smoke rose, pink in the dawn. “I wondered,” he said, his pale eyes distant. “I wondered when I saw it.”

“It reminds you of Thera That Was,” I said quietly.

He nodded. “It does. And I don’t know why.” Neas looked at me, led me a little way from the fire, where Lide was giving Wilos bread smeared with honey to break his fast. “Something strange happened in the night. I can’t explain it. I’m not the kind of person...”

“You are not a priest,” I said. “And yet you saw something.”

Neas nodded tightly, and I saw that he was afraid, not merely unsettled.

“What did you see?” I asked. “It may be that it has bearing on your quest, on the journey you must take to be king.”

Neas shook his head. “I have no idea. I hope not. And yet it was the strangest thing...”

“What did you see?” I asked.

Neas glanced back at the mountain, at the sea. “I was on watch last night, and everything was still. It was very dark, and I might have dozed off, I don’t know. But I woke suddenly because I heard the sound of oars. I thought I saw ships. I could hear them in the darkness. They were moving under oar, and I was about to shout the alarm, thinking it was some remnant of the great fleet, until I took a better look. They weren’t like any warships I’ve ever seen, though they were clearly warships. They had several banks of oars, nested one above the other, and they were huge, twice or three times the length of
Seven Sisters.
They were rounding the point, almost under the snout of the mountain, and the men were pulling like they were going into the Underworld themselves. I could hear the drums and the voices of their captains, the sound of the oars in the water, as real as anything.” Neas’ eyes were unfocused, as though he were still dreaming.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“The whole thing was lit by eerie light, as though the sky was on fire. And then I saw that it was.” Neas shook his head. “The mountain was burning. The ships were coming toward us, toward a harbor town that was burning. People were rushing the docks, wading out into the sea holding their children over their heads while fire rained down from above. I could hear the commands being shouted on the decks, the ships getting as close in as they could. One of the ships caught fire and burned. They were picking up swimmers in the water. And for a moment I saw...” He stopped.

“What did you see?” I asked gently, as though he were an acolyte and I feared to break the spell.

“I saw myself,” he said.

A chill ran through me.

“A young man on the aft deck of one of the big ships. He was wearing a bronze breastplate of some strange design over a scarlet tunic, but he was bareheaded, with brown hair cut short and a scar across his forehead. He was shouting out orders, trying to get alongside one of the big stone docks to pick up people. They were trying to back oars without breaking the lower bank against the dock. There were stones floating on the top of the waves like foam. A piece of burning stone landed right beside him and he just stepped over it. He was doing his duty, but all the while I thought he was looking for someone, someone he didn’t see on the dock.” Neas broke off and looked at me, blue eyes very bright. “Lady, can you tell me if this is something that will happen? And why I have dreamed this with my eyes wide open?”

“It may happen,” I said. “But not for a very long time. As to why...” I spread my hands. “Perhaps it is that he was also reaching for you. After all, you have rescued people from a burning city aboard a warship under oar before. Perhaps the you that is to come was reaching back to you now, trying to remember across the River and draw from your wisdom. You are his memory, and he is your vision.”

Neas shook his head. “That’s very deep water for me.”

“Yes,” I said. “Even I can do no more than guess at the meaning of this. And perhaps we won’t understand for many years to come.”

Neas nodded. “Then we must go on with what lies ahead.” He looked up. “It is time to be king.”

“Yes, my prince,” I said. “It is.”

W
E SAILED
around the point, between the islands and the mountain. It reared above me, its sides green with summer, pastures and trees and dells all shades of green, lovely against the azure water. The day was cloudless and calm.

On the other side was a little village almost on the slopes, vineyards terraced into the mountain’s side. The villagers ran in terror when they saw the ships, and it took until the sun was high to get them back and convince them that we wanted to trade.

“We need a place to camp,” I said to Xandros, who was speaking to them in his ever-improving Shardan. “And ask them if there is a cave.”

I knew exactly in the conversation when he did it. A hush came over the crowd. Xandros looked around. Finally an old woman, her white hair partially covered by a shawl, spoke. As she did, she looked at me.

Xandros translated. “She wants to know if you seek Sybil’s cave,” he said.

“I do,” I said, looking her in the eye.

“Sybil is dead,” she said through Xandros. “She died two years ago in the summer. She can give you no counsel.”

“I am Sybil to these people,” I said. “I am eleven years in Her service, and I have known the Mysteries. I am seeking Her cave.”

The old woman looked at me. They all looked at me. I did not look the part, not with a young baby at my breast and my hair loose, my face unpainted. The townspeople did not speak.

I met the old woman’s eyes. “Mother,” I said, “will you not tell me?”

She nodded fractionally.

Xandros translated for her. “She says she will send her grandson to show you the way, but he will not go into the cave. She says you will not want to take the child. It is very steep.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Mother.”

The boy came forward, a clean-limbed boy about twelve or so.

I handed Markai to Tia. “If you wouldn’t mind watching him a little while,” I said.

She nodded. “It’s fine. Don’t be too long. I can feed him, but he’ll want you.”

T
HE CAVE
was hard to find. The opening was in the shadow of a crag, just beneath a plateau in one of the cliffs overlooking a steep ravine. The mouth of the cave looked like a deeper shadow. I would not have seen it if I hadn’t known what I was looking for.

I told the boy he could go, and across the language barrier must have made it plain enough, for he took off like a hare, back to normal places. I stood in the shadow of the rocks on the steep path.

“Great Lady,” I said. “You have led Your handmaiden here, to this sacred place. If it is Your will that I should not disturb the silence of this Shrine, please let me know so. Otherwise I will know that I am doing as You intend. I will bring the son of Aphrodite Cythera here, that he may be king over the People in accordance with Your will. If I have misunderstood, please pardon my ignorance and teach me what Your wishes are.” I stood in the silence. Around me the light tan rocks were riddled with lichen, pockmarked. The mountain slumbered.

I set my foot over the threshold and into the cave.

At first it seemed much like the one I had grown up in, except that the first chamber was smaller and a cleft in the roof meant that some light came in and that it was not truly entirely underground. There was a blackened fire pit, but the ashes were gone. No one had lived here for several years. There were no pots, no goods of any kind. I wondered if they had been buried with the old Sybil, and how long it would be before one came again, called to this place by blood or magic.