The Dancer from Atlantis (19 page)

‘Who has warned the Minos about the disaster to come?’ Erissa demanded.

‘Well, you heard Diores yourself, relating what he’d seen and
done on Atlantis. Duncan’s an honored guest there. I got a couple of Diores’ men drunk and asked them out, just to make sure.
It’s true. So surely by now he must’ve put the word across.

‘We’d not have heard, here in Athens. If the Cretans do mean to empty their cities and scatter their navy well out at sea,
they’d hardly give advance notice, would they? That’d be asking for trouble. I’d not be surprised but what Gathon, under orders,
put the flea in Theseus’ ear about organizing a joint Achaean expedition beyond Italy. Beyond temptation, ha, ha! ’

‘Then why do I remember that my country was destroyed this spring?’ she asked.

Oleg stroked her hair as her father might have done. ‘Maybe you misremember. You’ve said things are blurry where they aren’t
blank for you, right around the day of the downfall.’

‘There is nothing unclear about my memories of the aftermath.’

‘Well, so maybe the God’s changed his mind and sent us back to save Crete.’ Oleg crossed himself. ‘I’m not so bold as to claim
that, mark you. I’m just a miserable sinner trying to make an honest profit. But a priest of the God told me men are free
to choose, that there is no foreordained doom except the very Last Day. Meanwhile we can only walk the way we hope is best,
a step at a time.’

The palm crossing her head reminded her of the new white streaks which had come into her locks this winter. On Atlantis, those
tresses shone like a midnight sky.

‘Anyway,’ Oleg said, ‘remember, we’ve kept our mouths shut to the Athenians.
They don’t know the future.
If they believe anything, it’s that they’re bound to get friendlier with Knossos.

‘For proof, consider that Theseus won’t be leading this expedition though he instigated it. His idea must be to bleed off
as much Achaean restlessness as possible while he’s away. If he looked for ruin to strike Crete, would he hie himself there?’

‘That was the news which frightened me till I had to seek you, Oleg.’ Erissa stared at the bulkhead. ‘When the prince made
known that he would be among the next hostages—’

The Russian nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard Duncan’s notion. I worried too for a while. But then I thought, first, Theseus and what
malcontents and crooks he might gather, what could they do in the Minos’ own city except get themselves killed? Second, like
I said, he’s got no reason to think the Labyrinth will face trouble from the elements. Third, if he hopes to dicker for a
better standing in the Thalassocracy, what shrewder way than to settle down some years in an honored post, where they’ll try
to win his good will against the day he goes home? Fourth, I wouldn’t be surprised if Gathon, again, dropped hints it’d pay
him to come. You see, if Duncan’s warned the Minos about Theseus, it’s purely natural for the Minos to want Theseus in the
Labyrinth where they can keep an eye on him. And fifth, lass, this dromon’s going to be the flagship of the Tyrrhenian outing.
Admiral Diores will travel on it, and
I’ll
keep an eye on
him’

He hugged her lightly. ‘Yes, we’re in a dangerous world,’ he said. ‘It never was anything else, and never will be. But I do
believe you’ve reason to feel some cheer.’

He would have been glad to entertain her a while, but when she failed to convince him he was wrong, she excused herself as
fast as possible. Walking back to Athens, she found a cypress grove along the road where she could hide and weep.

She hoped no one could tell that when she continued.

Driving a chariot of Diores his chieftain, Peneleos was among the warriors who had gone forth to summon men off their scattered
farmsteads. He returned on the day after Erissa’s visit to Oleg: shouting for joy as he clattered up the Acropolis, horses
tramping, bronze gleaming, cloak blowing behind him with speed, his own half-naked attendants toiling afoot in his dust. Erissa
was in the crowd of underlings who stopped work to watch the splendid spectacle. Light off his helmet and breastplate speared
his eyes.

Now? she thought. This very night?

Quite likely. Uldin is back too, sulkier than I dared await.

She felt acutely aware of everything around her, shadows between cobblestones, flies over an odorous dungheap by the stables,
silver-gray of shakes on the palace roof and of sunlit smoke rising from them, a yelping dog, gowns and tunics surrounding
her – though the wearers were only other objects, their words only other noises. Her thoughts moved coolly above, observing,
weighing, fitting together. Beneath lay that sense of fate which had risen in her during the winter.

Briefly, yesterday, she had hoped, just a tiny bit Well, she would not surrender. She
knew
Theseus’ voyage to Knossos was in the pattern. She did not know how, or know what the Ariadne might have to do with it. She
had been unable to persuade
Oleg that those two were in conspiracy. Doubtless her failure was itself part of the pattern, whose weaving went on. But she
knew
that, one way or another, she would rejoin Duncan before the end. For over the months, staring into mirrors, groping in a
haze of half-recollections, she had come to recognize a face among those which were around her at that final moment; and it
was her own.

Was she herself, then, the witch who had taken the last hours out of those memories which were to nourish her over the years?

Why would she do so? Would she? It did not make sense. And thus it might be the one loose thread that, by her refusal to do
the thing, she could seize to unravel the whole web. If she, cast back into this age after another quarter century, knew what
she in this house could tell her younger self—

During her life with Dagonas, she had inquired of travelers as earnestly as of any of the remaining Keftiu: What happened?
They told her different versions, which mostly had the same skeleton. Theseus and the other hostages were newly in Knossos
when earthquake smote and the sea destroyed the Minoan fleet. He gathered people (whom he claimed an oracle had told him to
organize) and seized the shattered capital by force. His own ships and those of his allies, spared because they had been far
out to sea, arrived shortly after to reinforce him. Having imposed his will on what was left of the main Cretan cities, he
went home, taking the Ariadne along. Many stories said she did not appear to have left unwillingly.

In the past – her past, which lay futureward of today – Erissa had considered that unlikely. It didn’t fit what she had known
of Lydra. Besides, Theseus showed at Naxos that the priestess was nothing to him. Poor creature, she ended her days in a mystery
cult, one of those ancient dark faiths whose devotees gave themselves by turn to orgy and torture. Theseus went on to unite
a large mainland domain-under his rule. The news that he came at last to an unhappy end of his own was colorless consolation.

Erissa nodded. The pattern was clearing before her. It had been clearing throughout the winter, as Diores traveled back and
forth between Athens and Atlantis. The Ariadne must in truth be aiding Theseus, just as in those dim traditions Duncan had
related. No doubt the disclosures out of time had inspired her.

But Erissa could not say this aloud – accusations would only earn her a slit throat – and Oleg and Uldin were nearly always
off on their business, and when they were at the palace she was never alone with either of them, and she could scarcely hope
to repeat her trick of the Periboean grove, suspicious as the court was of her.

Yesterday, when most men of the royal household were gone, she had seized the opportunity to seek out Oleg. But she had failed
to make the Russian comprehend how a mere story told by one who claimed to be an exile from the future (and did, to be sure,
have some remarkable things to show) could affect people who believed in fate. Oleg did not; his curious god forbade him.
Theseus and Lydra – who
wanted
faith in their high and liberating destiny – would stake everything they had, the life of the whole Athenian kingly house
and state, on what Oleg could only see as an insane gamble that everything would work out exactly right. Since he knew Theseus,
Diores, and the rest were hard-headed men like himself, he cast aside Erissa’s fears.

Moreover, while he appreciated what he had seen of Cretan refinement and might well prefer to live there; and while he was
fond of her; what really was her country to him? If he could not go home, he could make a new life in Greece. He had already
started.

That busyness had helped keep him from thinking about the pattern. Erissa, immured in the round of an Achaean woman, had had
ample chances to brood, puzzle out a few of the paradoxes, and slowly weave her own web whose threads she must soon draw together.

Yes, most likely this very night.

Peneleos came to their room earlier after sunset than she had expected. She rose, smiling, shaking back her hair across the
Egyptian shift he had given her. ‘I thought you would drink late in the hall after being afield,’ she greeted.

He laughed. The lamplight showed him big, thickly muscled, face a trifle wine-flushed but eyes bright and posture steady.
Beneath the yellow locks, that face was boyishly round and soft of beard. ‘Tomorrow night I may,’ he said. ‘But I’ve missed
you more than any feasting.’

They embraced. His mouth and hands were less clumsy than they had been the first few times, and she used every skill that
hers possessed. Inwardly she was cold with destiny. What flutterings
went through her were because she was on her way to Duncan.

‘Now, nymph, now,’ he said low in his throat.

Usually she had let herself enjoy their encounters. Why not? They were a small reason, among larger ones, for luring him in
the first place – to be free of that hunger, at least, while she waited half prisoner in Athens. In the beginning he was awed
and bewildered. (Diores had encouraged him when the older man noticed what was developing. The admiral would like few things
better than having a trusty follower live with, watch, and, if need be, curb this woman whose part and power in the world
were unknown but were beyond doubt witchy and none too friendly.) Later Peneleos gained confidence; but he stayed kind to
her in his self-centered Achaean fashion. She liked him well enough.

Tonight she must give him all her art and none of her feeling. She must bring him to a calm and happy drowsiness but not let
it glide into natural slumber.

The lamp was guttering when she raised herself on an elbow. ‘Rest, my lover,’ she crooned, over and over, and her fingers
moved on his body in slow rhythm and when the gaze she had trapped began to turn glassy she began blinking her own eyes in
exact tune with his heartbeat.

He went quickly under. Already in the grove he had not been hard to lay the Sleep on. The fact had caused her to choose him
among the unwed men she regularly saw, and seduce him, after her plan had taken vague shape. Each time thereafter that she
ensorcelled him – in guise of lulling him or easing a headache or bringing on a pleasant dream – made the next time easier.
She was sure he followed the command she always gave: Do not tell anyone about this that we are doing together; it is a dear
and holy secret between us; rather, forget that I did more than murmur to you, until I do it again.

Now she sat staring down at him in the wan, flickering light. His features were too firmly made to fall slack, but something
had gone out of them and out of the half-closed eyes. It had not gone far, though. It lay back in the darkness of the skull,
like one of those snakes fed by Keftiu householders who believed their dead came home in that form. After hours it would rouse
and uncoil; and the wrong sounds could bring it instantly awake and striking.

In the Sleep you believed and did what you were told, up to a
point – and she thought her repeated suggestions that he acted out had driven that point further up than it stood in most
men – but you would not do anything that your undeceived waking self would recognize as wrong or dangerous. She must be totally
careful tonight.

The lamp was almost out. She rose, cat-cautious, and replenished it. The room was warm, thick with odors of oil, smoke, flesh,
and musky breath. Outside the door curtain were darkness and silence.

Erissa leaned over him. ‘Peneleos,’ she said, word by soft and measured word, ‘you know I am your woman who wants only to
serve you. But you know I also serve the Goddess.’

‘Yes.’ he responded, toneless as always before.

‘Hear me, Peneleos. The Goddess has revealed to me that the divine plan, Hers and Zeus’, for the union of our two peoples
is imperiled. If that be done which is forbidden, the everlasting curse will fall upon them. Tell me what is intended so I
may warn against wrongness.’

She held her breath till he responded. Her hope pivoted on the likelihood that Diores had confided in him. Surely more men
than the prince and admiral would have to know the real scheme if it differed from the announced one. Peneleos, while young,
was not indiscreet; and information would enable him to keep sharper watch on whatever his leman might be doing or learning.

The answers she drew forth clenched her sense of fate. Winter-long plotting between Theseus, Lydra, and those whom Lydra’s
agents had discovered or planted in Knossos; story of the future drawn from a too trusting Duncan Reid; reinterpretation of
the Periboean oracle to mean that the Goddess Herself desired the triumph of Athens; scheme to seize the queen city and command
the whole fleet to turn about and fall on Keft; safety margin, that no hostile move need be made if disaster did not grab
the Labyrinth when it was supposed to; everything kept secret from the Minos; Duncan left behind under guard on some pretext—

She didn’t pause for bitterness. Much of this she had suspected for weeks.

‘Hark,’ she said. ‘You remember that you have fretted about possible trouble from the man Uldin. Know now that Poseidon is
angered at misuse of the horse – that his sacred animal should be ridden like a donkey! – and will bring ruin on the
expedition unless the sacrilege ceases for good. Uldin must be slain in expiation; but secretly, for if the reason were given
out, messengers would leave for Crete.’