Ithaca (15 page)

For what that was worth.

Nausicaa got out of bed, shaking out her long golden hair. She brushed it, listening to the sounds from the courtyard: someone drawing water from the well; a creak of baskets as her women brought the washing downstairs. When she went out onto the gallery, she saw there was a mountain of it: four baskets, each piled high. She stood for a moment, thinking, her pretty mouth twisted, then ran down to the great hall, where her mother was spinning purple yarn and her father was flicking beads on a counting-frame of time-blackened oak.

Nausicaa kissed her mother, then went behind her father and wound her arms around his neck. He kissed her absentmindedly.

“Father?”

“Mm?”

“I was wondering . . .”

“Mm?” Her father flicked two beads across the counting-frame, frowning.

“Could I possibly . . .”

He said, “No.”

Nausicaa stood up, pouting, and dancing her fingers on his shoulders. “There's four baskets of it.”

Her father frowned and looked up, attending for the first time. “What is it you want?”

“The covered wagon. To carry the washing.”

“Oh, yes . . . if you must. Get Halius to put the mules to it.”

“Thank you!” She kissed him lightly on the head and ran out into the courtyard, snatching up an apple for her breakfast as she went.

The girls were already outside. It only took a moment to bring the wagon around and talk two of her brothers into loading it up. Then they were spinning out through the gate and past the dye vats, taking the beaten chalk road over the fields.

Nausicaa drove. She liked driving and was good at it, even though the girls screamed when she went too fast and her brothers scolded her for wearing out the mules. There must have been a storm the night before. From the cliff at the edge of town she could see that the waves were still high, crashing viciously onto the rocks and scratching the blue sea's surface with white breakers. The olive trees in her father's grove were still tossing in a high wind, their leaves flashing green and then silver, and the beach, which the road skirted, was strewn with foam and driftwood. She hoped all the Phaeacian ships were safe in harbor, their long black hulls, distinctively curved, sheltered by the breakwater or drawn up safely on the sand.

The girls chattered in the wagon behind her. Nausicaa swung the mules inland, following the track through olive trees and wheat fields to the washing place, where the island's river, bearing cold, fresh water from the mountain, formed a little bay with its own sandy beach, a short walk in from the sea. There were stony shallows in which they could trample the dirty clothes, and stunted little bushes on which they could hang them to dry while they picnicked afterward.

“Picnic?” Nausicaa called, suddenly worried.

“I've got the basket!” shouted a voice from the back.

Nausicaa flicked the whip expertly over the leading mule's ear and took the turn down to the river slightly too fast, lifting one wheel off the ground and evoking screams of outrage and excitement from the back. In one of her dreams—one of the
stories she told herself—she rode in a fighter's war chariot, gripping his muscled arm as they hurtled across the plain of Troy past heaped bodies and fallen ramparts, with the wind blowing her long hair out behind.

It didn't take long to do the washing. Each basket was emptied out into the rapidly flowing stream, then, hitching their skirts up to their thighs, the girls waded, screaming, into the icy water to tread the heavy cloth with their feet, kicking up spray and screaming again as it splashed them. Streamers of purple dye trailed away downstream.

Like blood
, Nausicaa thought. For a moment she looked left, toward the river's mouth. It must have been some storm last night. The thick bulrushes that fringed the river were blown flat, and driftwood had been washed all the way up from the beach.

When the washing was trampled enough, they hauled each piece out, heavy with water, wrung it out, and hung it on the bushes to dry.

“We'll swim!” Nausicaa ordered.

They all swam. The girls copied everything she did. Glancing around to make sure no male eyes were watching, they pulled their light dresses over their heads and waded out into the deeper water, splashing each other and shrieking. Nausicaa swam the farthest. Afterward they dried themselves in the sun on the bank, then dressed again, unpacked the picnic, and ate bread, fish, and apples from Alcinous's orchard. The washing still wasn't dry.

“We'll play ball!” Nausicaa commanded. She was annoyed with the washing. She needed to be back home in time to dress for the feast, which always took hours, but the heavy cloth remained stubbornly damp. One of the girls got a ball from the back of the wagon, and they picked their way along the bank to a meadow nearer the bulrushes. They formed a ring and threw
the ball to each other, sometimes bouncing it, sometimes full toss. Nausicaa lobbed it, and the ball sailed over the girls' heads to disappear in the rushes beyond.

“I'll get it!” Nausicaa shouted.

She ran across the grass to the rushes and began to pick her way through them. The stems pricked her bare feet. The ball must have gone farther than she thought. There was no sign of it, so she kept on, steadying herself on the branch of a little bog oak. The ground was marshy and uneven. Nausicaa stumbled once, slipped on the edge of a hollow, and then stopped.

There was a man lying in the hollow beyond the tree.

He was sunburned and caked with brine, his beard tangled, the hair on his chest and shoulders all white with salt. His legs were drawn up under him.

He was naked.

Nausicaa clung to the tree branch. The sound of the girls' voices seemed very far away. Was he alive or dead? He wasn't moving. The wind fluffed his curling brown hair. Maybe he was dead.

She reached down and touched him, then almost screamed as the man moved.

He sat up with a start, eyes staring, fingers clutching for something he couldn't find—a ship's oar or a sword. They found Nausicaa's wrist instead and gripped it. She found herself staring closely into two blue, bewildered eyes. His breath came in hoarse pants.

Actually, his breath stank a bit.

She said, “It's all right. You're safe. I'll look after you.” She swallowed. His grip hurt. “We'll look after you.”

“Nausicaa?” The girls were shouting her name.

“Just coming,” she called.

Frightened, the man looked past her shoulder. “It's all right,” she said. “They're my friends. Everything's all right.” It was
so
like her dream. He was even handsome, like the men in her dreams. “We'll take care of you. Are you hurt?”

The man thought for a moment, then shook his head, bewildered. He tried to say something, but his lips were too dry.

In fact, he was a bit older than Nausicaa had first thought—perhaps even as old as her father, although it was hard to tell. Suddenly the man seemed to become aware of his nakedness, and he squirmed away from her, trying to roll over and cover himself.

“It's all right,” she said. “I'll bring you some clothes. Wait here.”

Her own mouth was dry as she clambered back through the rushes. The girls stood in an expectant circle on the edge of the meadow.

“You haven't got the ball,” Nereis said.

Thegea said, “What's happened?”

Nausicaa drew herself up. It was her role, as the chief's daughter, to be in charge of everything. “There's a man,” she said as offhandedly as she could. “He's hurt. We need to help him. He needs clothes.”

“Isn't he wearing
anything
?” Nereis squeaked.

“Just get some clothes,” Nausicaa snapped.

They brought a purple shirt back from the bushes, still slightly damp. Ordering the girls to wait, Nausicaa carried it through the rushes to where the man still lay. She handed it to him, then turned her back as he pulled it over his head.

“What's your name?” she asked.

He didn't answer. He still hadn't spoken.

“Come with me.”

She took him by the hand. The girls screamed when he rose up out of the rushes, but Nausicaa ignored them. He was limping, she noticed. There was a gash on his leg, caked with dried blood. His torso, under the curling hair, was knotted and crisscrossed by scars.

She had noticed that before he pulled the shirt on.

At the meadow, Nausicaa gave orders. “Thegea, get a jar of water. Nereis, get food.”

The stranger ate as if he hadn't seen food for a month, squatting on the grass and tearing at the bread with his teeth. Nausicaa could see his shoulder muscles moving under the shirt as he raised the jug to drink.

Then he looked up at her. His eyes were the bluest she had ever seen, the color of the sea in the harbor's shallows, or the sky on a gentle morning.

He said, “Thank you.” His voice was still hoarse. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Thank you.” He looked around him, at the meadow, the stream, and the purple washing hanging on the bushes. “Where am I?”

“You're in Phaeacia. My father, Alcinous, is chief of the Phaeacians. I am Nausicaa, his daughter.”

The stranger nodded, still squatting on his haunches. He said, “I need to wash.”

“Are you hurt?”

He examined his thigh, running calloused brown fingers over his scar, as one might test the strength of a piece of wood.

“I can bind it up for you,” Nausicaa said. “I know how.”

“I need to wash first.” The man looked confused. “But not while . . .”

Nausicaa blushed. “We won't look.”

The girls stood on the bank in a prim line, facing the meadow, while the stranger washed himself in the stream behind them. Nausicaa could hear the water splashing over his body and his grunt as he dipped his head in the icy stream. She had already picked him something to wear from her father's clothes, a dark shirt, almost blue—like his eyes—and a purple kilt. But even she was surprised at the transformation when she turned around. His hair and beard were paler than brown,
almost golden, and with his face clean of salt, the eyes stood out even more startlingly, if anything, against his deep tan. He didn't look quite so old.

Or perhaps, to be honest, still a bit old. His face was lined, and his hair was streaked with grey. Quite a lot of grey. But definitely better-looking.

“Shall I bind up your wound?”

“I've done it.”

“Oh. Can you walk?”

He nodded. “Is there a town? A chief's house? Are we on the mainland or an island?”

Nereis said, “Don't you even know where Phaeacia is?”

Thegea said, “So were you shipwrecked or what?”

“Don't pester him,” Nausicaa said.

The stranger looked over his shoulder, out toward the sea, where waves were still breaking in the brisk onshore wind.

“I was at sea for sixteen days,” he said in a dazed voice.

“Did your ship sink?”

Thegea said, “Are you a fisherman?”

“Obviously he isn't a fisherman,” Nausicaa snapped.

“I had a raft,” the man said. “I made a raft.” Suddenly his knees sagged, and he pitched forward. Nausicaa sprang toward him and gripped his arm as he fell. She found herself cradling his head. His hair and beard were soft. It was a moment before his eyes opened again, blue and unfocused.

“You're weak,” she said. “We must get you to my father's house.”

“I can walk.”

“We've got a wagon.”

It took two of them to help him into the wagon. Driving back to town, Nausicaa grew thoughtful. It was all very well to turn up in Phaeacia with a handsome stranger. That had happened really quite often in her dreams. But in real life it was a
bit awkward. She knew how people talked. Girls weren't supposed to be on their own with men other than their brothers and close relatives. She was confident she wouldn't get in any trouble, but she didn't want to be teased afterward. She hated being teased.

She turned the wagon in by the back way, the track leading to the side of the courtyard. There she helped the stranger down from the wagon. His wounded leg almost gave under him.

“This way,” Nausicaa said. “I'll take you to my father and mother. Lean on me.”

A
lcinous, chief of Phaeacia, disliked interruptions. When he was working a problem through—his accounts, for instance—he needed to work them through to the end, balance weight of cloth against number of ships, length of journey, size of crew, and know that it all made sense. Interruptions caused mistakes. Mistakes caused loss.

His wife, Arete, knew that. She knew to keep spinning, for hours on end if need be, without talking, and the patient clack of the spinning wheel was oddly soothing to Alcinous's thoughts, suggesting that they too had the regularity and precision of a machine. Only when he sat back from the counting-frame with a particular sigh and pressed his two palms together
did she smile and say something—usually a quiet question about the nature of his calculations, which allowed him to explain it all to her, doubling his satisfaction. She was, in every way, the perfect wife.