Dangerous Secrets (93 page)

As we approached the dock, we saw a man waving
two red cloths warningly. The keenest-eyed crewmember went to the prow and
reported that the dock was half-tumbled into the sea. Jori frowned.

“Your harpy, perhaps?”

“She’s not mine yet. Can you get closer?”

“Bad shoals here,” Jori said, pointing to where
the white water foamed and broke.

I nodded and headed to the waist where our
midday meal of bread, oil and dry sausage was being laid out. I emptied the
beaker of oil over my best armor, put on that morning, always impressive for
the first visit to a new client, and ignored the cook’s surprised curse.

One step up to the rail and I dove into the
sea.

After a week without much chance to get clean,
the warm water was welcome. I turned onto my back to wave at Jori. He shouted
over the water, “You are a madman, my friend. When you sink, we’ll fish you
out!”

I turned the wave into a rude gesture, rolled
over, and set as fast a pace as possible toward shore. My ceremonial armor
isn’t as heavy as the stuff I wear for business but it slowed me down
nevertheless. Besides, even with the oil to protect it, I didn′t want it
to get rusty.

Pulling myself up by the two remaining upright
pilings, I shook all over like a wet dog, then promptly drew my short sword.

The signal man, a beardless boy really, gave a
squeak of alarm and backed away, shaking his head, “No, no...” he keened.

To him, I must have look like an avenging
minion of Poseidon.

Keeping an eye on him, I snatched one of his
cloths from his weakened hand and wiped the seawater from my blade before it
rusted. It was good steel, stronger and more expensive than the long one at my
side. I figure that if a battle reaches the point where whatever was trying to
kill me got past the long sword, I’d want a really, really good short one.

I picked up the other cloth and ran it over my
dripping hair, face, and arms. It felt good to have something solid under my
feet again.

“Palace up there?” I asked the boy.

He nodded and raised a trembling hand to point
up the hillside. I clapped him on the shoulder as I passed, buckling his knees.
“Keep up the good work.”

“The King won’t see you,” he piped.

“Eh?”

“He won’t see anybody now. Not since it came.”

“The harpy?”

He nodded, and looked up at the sky, his large
eyes rolling.

“He’ll see me, boy. He sent for me.”

“Are you...Eno the Thracian?”

I retraced my steps. “I’m Eno, right enough.
Who are you and who told you I was coming?”

His round young chin came up. His fear was
passing off. I gave him credit. At least he hadn’t wee’d himself.

“I’m Prince Temas. This is my island.”

“And your father’s holed up in the palace? Were
you waving those for help or to keep us off?”

“My father...told me to keep ships off. He
thinks...he says we are cursed by this thing that has come to us. He’s
barricaded himself in with a few servants to pray and make sacrifices. I
haven’t seen him since.”

“Well, I’ll just go pay a call on him anyway.
You come along to show me the way.”

It didn’t take a whole lot of intellect to
notice the gaps in his story. A curse doesn’t just happen. Most men have to
make a real effort to be worthy of a curse. Murder on a large scale and incest
being prime examples of foolishly piquing the attention of the Gods. Even then,
the Gods often wait to until someone dies to give some everlasting Underworld
punishment, not ordering a beast to curse a whole island kingdom. In any case,
why send for me?

The seaside village seemed deserted. Our
sandals slapping – or in my case squelching – was the only sound yet I felt the
weight of stares on the back of my neck. The prickling feeling in my muscles
told me that some part of me was expecting an ambush.

“What of your father’s guards? Where are they?”

The prince did not answer. I pivoted and pinned
him by his thin neck to a white-washed wall.

He was scarlet-faced, his eyes filled with
tears of anger and helplessness. “The...the captain is in the woods on the
other side of the island. He says he is king now and will come soon to take
over the palace. I’d fight him but how can I? He has men and I have nobody.”

“He has not moved against you already?” I
slacked the pressure on his neck. “That’s bad tactics.”

“He doesn’t want the harpy to follow him for
the crime of killing his sworn king.”

“Sensible fellow. How do you know what he’s
thinking? Or is your father already dead?”

“No! One of the maids comes out to bring back
food. She says Father is trying to propitiate the Gods with prayers.”

I released him. He rubbed his throat and
coughed. “You have no reason to believe me,” he said.

I began to have some respect for Prince Temas.
Most boys of his age – I’d trained a few during my brief stint in King Cademus’
Army before we’d parted ways over a small matter of Dragon’s Teeth – would have
shown resentment. Temas either didn’t feel it or was gifted in concealment. I’d
have to bear that second possibility in mind.

“When did the maid last come down for
provisions?”

“Two days ago. She should come again today.”

“I’ll need to get in to see your father. To
finalize my contract.”

Just then, the shriek of the harpy shredded the
air. Partly the scream of a brutalized woman, partly the screech of an eagle
spying prey, it dug into the mind like claws into the back of your neck. Though
it faded away, some echo remained, rattling in my head like a stone in a dry
skull.

The boy clapped his hands over his ears,
bending down low, his own cry of agony a faint imitation of the harpy’s shriek.
“Do you see it? Do you see it?”

I scanned what I could see of the clear blue
sky. “No, there’s nothing.”

I looked at the boy, seeing him sweating and
shaking. “Come now,” I said, shrugging off my own unease. “It’s just the cry of
a mindless beast.”

“You don’t know. It grows worse with every
repetition. You start to think you hear it even when no one else does.”

I made a mental note to acquire some wax before
leaving Leros. Wax pellets in the ears should keep the crew from panicking.
Pirates have their own sign language, useful for night attacks so temporary
deafness shouldn’t impair the running of the ship.

The boy sniffled and wiped his hands over his
face as though he were awakening from a dream. His eyes were glazed. I had to
repeat my question twice to get his attention.

“The palace?” he murmured.

“Yes, the place you live. Where the king is?”

He seemed to have to think about it. “Past the
olive grove and the spring. That way.”

“Come on; you’ll show me.”

He hung back. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

“I want you to tell the maid to let me in.” I
had to grip his arm to get him to move. The cry of the Harpy seemed to have
sucked the spine right out of him.

The white walls of the seaside village seemed
to magnify the silence as we heading out on the single road. Though it was
nearly noon, there was no smell of cooking coming from any house. No face
peeped around a door and no shutter opened but the feeling I had of being
watched persisted.

Outside of town, signs of life at last. Two
dogs dug listlessly at the edge of a garbage dump only to slink away without
barking as we passed. The boy stared after them. “I think those were two of my father’s
dogs.” If I hadn’t tightened my grip, he would have wandered off after them.

“Later,” I said. “Show me the palace.”

Temas turned sulky. “I already told you! Keep
straight on and you can’t miss it.”

I’d heard that before, usually just before
getting lost. “I want you to show me the way. The maid will be frightened of
me. You can talk to her first.”

The road was hard-packed dirt. Our sandals
kicked up no dust. A trickle of water grew louder as we passed through some
trees. It was probably refreshingly shady before the branches had been lopped
for firewood.

A drink from the spring, bubbling up in a stone
basin, seemed to restore the prince’s rattled brain. “Father’s going to be
pissed about the trees. But the people are scared to go any farther for wood
than they need to.”

He clasped his hands together reverently and
said to the water, “I will bring you a libation and sacrifice for the
desecration of your grove, oh Lady of the Spring.”

The tops of the trees rustled in a breeze that
had not blown before. A sweeter scent seemed to arise around us, though no
flowers bloomed there. I coughed to draw the nymph’s attention. “I have seen
bright tiles in the Athenian agora, brought all the way from Gaul. Should my
task prosper, I send some to this prince to add to your fountain.”

The breeze grew stronger, caressed my cheek,
and faded away. It was, therefore, with a bit of added confidence that I
approached the palace. A two-story, four-square building, it stood on a
smoothed prominence overlooking the sea-road. Jori’s ship was far below, tiny,
seeming not to move on the sea which lay spread before me like a wrinkled
blanket.

An enclosed balcony overhung the sea cliffs.
The air shimmered as though heated by a brazier, a hair-thin plume of smoke
curling up from a corner.

“My father has retreated there,” the Prince
said, pointing.

“We couldn’t have missed the maid?”

“No, Nausicaa always comes this way. There is
no other path.”

A locked door, even a palace door bound with
brass, wouldn’t have stopped me. But battered wood hanging from a hinge, while
impressive, tends to annoy prospective clients when it is their front door.

So we hung around for a while. The boy showed
me a half-finished statue of the Sea-God standing in what might one day be a
fine arbor. The head, one arm and a massive torso, as yet lightly modeled,
seemed struggling to be free of the encompassing marble. The chippings were
piled around the base, a chisel and a hammer half-buried among them.

“Where’s the craftsman?”

“Gone...on the first boat after the harpy
came.” Temas glanced skyward. “This garden used to be full of butterflies. My
father liked to sit here while a harpist played.” He sighed. “There was this
one dancing girl who had this way of bending backwards.... It’s all gone now.
Ever since the harpy came.”

Though the bushes were losing their shapes and
the paved walks were dirty and leaf-strewn, I could sense the peace that had
once bloomed here like the small white flowers. I shook off the spell. “None of
this is getting me my commission.”

I turned to see a woman, her hair shrouded by a
cloth, come out of a side door. The prince called her name. “Nausicaa!”

She saw us. Even from a distance, we could see
the start she gave as she recognized the Prince. She threw up a hand as if to
block a sudden beam of bright light and immediately turned back to the door.

“Come on,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”

Chapter 2

At a jog, I reached the side door before she
could shut it fully.

She cowered back as I entered. I was blinded
for a moment in the contrast between the brightness of outside and the dimness
within. An oil lamp burned before an altar to one side. I smelled baking bread
and burned meat and I heard the whispers of startled women and their movements
in the gloom. I confess my hand was clamped to my sword though I did not draw
it.

Prince Temas entered behind me and called the
maid’s name. “What’s wrong? Why did you run from me?”

I could see her now. She had the worn and weary
strength of a life spend in service to others. Her cheeks were fallen in, her hair
twisted into a wiry knot. Her lips worked soundlessly. She sank to her knees,
hands high, open palms in supplication. “Forgive, lord. Forgive!”

As though her keening summoned them, the other
servants appeared, all dropping to their knees, some crawling forward to grasp
at the hem of the boy’s chiton. A few of the younger maids were bawling, their
tears dripping onto their shawls.

I guessed what it all meant while Temas was
still gaping around. He knew these people well but he’d never seen them behave
with this mixture of grief and terror. I′d seen it often enough.
I′d even caused it a few times. Death had visited this house today.

I headed to the stairs at the back of the
kitchen. The maid called out, “No, no, no!” an expression more of pain than of
denial.
‶
Stop
him, lord.″

‶
Eno, maybe you...what′s
this all about, Nausicaa?″

The smell of smoke grew sharper as I climbed.
At first, it reminded me of the yearly sacrifice of an unblemished white bull
to the Thunderer. I’d met the wrangler at the last year’s ceremony. He told me
how they hand-raised the bulls from birth, and how they’d every day draw a
blunted blade along the bull’s throat until the animal grew to expect it,
raising its head for the treat. They would suspect nothing then when the priest
cut their throats on the altar. Most people think it is a miracle that the
bulls lift their heads for the stroke. I wish I still thought that.

As I climbed the stairs though, the smell began
to remind me of something else, darker yet than the betrayal of the bulls.

I’m about thirty, according to my mother. My
first experience in the hero business was when my village was plagued by
man-eating horses the spring I turned sixteen. Several hunters had gone to rout
them out but none had returned. Being big for my age always, when a more
organized group went up into the hills, I went along.

What we found were not horses but men; a family
of cannibals, traveling from place to place, seeking what they might devour. We
attacked their cave stronghold with fire and steel, slaughtering them as they’d
slaughtered others.

For days afterwards, I could smell the greasy
odor of cooked human flesh that had permeated their hiding place, their
clothing, even their skin. I’d wrestled one of their grimy, mad-eyed boys when
he’d leaped on me, teeth clinking together as he snapped for my throat.

I’d never killed before but rage burned my
heart when I’d seen the half-devoured carcass of my mother’s brother, my
favorite uncle. An upward stab with the knife I′d almost forgotten I
carried ended the boy′s life and then another, the female who′d
came at me to revenge him. I seemed to feel the stickiness of their blood again
on my right hand as I reached the top of the stair. I gagged as the filthy
smell reached me. Nothing else smells like a burning human being.

I had guessed the King of Leros was already
dead. But I felt a dread apart from that when I kicked open the door to the
room where the king had hidden himself away from everyone.

Long curtains flew, beckoning me through the
room and out onto the enclosed balcony. My sense that I approached something
vastly unclean grew stronger. Dark magic had been done here. Symbols were
scrawled on the floor and ceiling, symbols that seemed to move with fetid life
of their own.

The fire smoldered in a wide copper-lined pit
in the center of the tiled floor. A bundle of sacking or old clothes had fallen
across it, smothering the fire even as the fire consumed it.

Covering my nose, I thrust open the shutters,
my palm landing in something sticky. Turning with the light behind me, I saw
the ‘sacking’ was the body of the king. A bloody knife, the handle a leering
satyr’s head, lay where it had fallen from his hand. Blood had sprayed the wall
and the shutters. I didn’t need to look to know my palm was red.

“Father?” Prince...King Temas called from the
chamber beyond.

“Here. He’s here. He’s dead.”

Temas came through the curtains, his face the
same dingy white as his chiton, and stopped short. “By the Gods...what happened
to him?”“Sacrifice, I think. But to who and why?”

“Sacrifice,” he echoed, staring at the body.

“What cults did your father follow?”

“Zeus, of course, and Artemis. We have this
temple. It’s famous. But for the rest...human sacrifice is abhorrent to the
Gods. Everyone knows that.”

He took a step forward and one of the symbols
lifted a hooded head. Temas had all but put his foot on it. The snake hissed
and bobbed its head, preparing to strike.

Temas stood statue-like, the angle of his thigh
between my knife and the snake. I took one slow, gliding step and then another.
The cobra was too focused on Temas to notice me.

Seizing it behind the hood, I lifted three feet
of thrashing, twisting muscle straight up into the air. A stroke of my knife
separated head from body. The long body fell, writhing. I threw the head, fangs
still a-drip, into the coals. It was the largest snake I′d ever killed
thus far.

Temas paid little attention. He dropped to his
knees, pushing the corpse of his father off the remains of the fire. It had
devoured the king′s chest, leaving it like a half-burned log on a
campfire. The smell of burned human flesh arose stronger than before. I was
reminded again of sacrifice. His throat was cut, open like a smiling second
mouth, gleaming white and red, butcher′s work.

He lay now face-up in the shaft of sunlight. It
showed clearly the two shallow cuts high on the left side, under the jaw, as
well as the deep crimson cut that exposed the severed vessels in his throat.
The gout of blood had stopped the fire from consuming the upper part of his
clothes. They were of a style strange to me, a flowing robe with a wide
embroidered collar and cuffs tight to the wrists. The symbols were soaked with
red but those that escaped the deluge looked much like the ones drawn on the
floor.

I spoke my thought aloud. “This room reeks of
dark magic.”

“My father knew nothing about such things.”

“Well, for an amateur, he′s done very
well.”

“I don’t understand any of this. It isn′t
like him. What was he trying to do?”

“Propitiate some god by the looks of it. Or
expiate some sin. A sin big enough to punish him and his people with a harpy?”

“There was nothing, I swear,″ he said
passionately, tears starting in his eyes.
‶
He was a good king, wise and
loved. And a good father too.”

“No man can ever answer for another′s
soul.”

His straining eyes stared at the great wound in
his father’s throat. “Could the harpy have done this?” he asked, pointing with
a trembling finger. “I see marks like claws there.”

“Most men make a couple of tries before
slitting their throats, sire.” I laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the jolt
that went through him as I became the first to call him that. “Call your
servants to prepare the body for the funeral.”

While he was gone, I built up the fire to burn
the snake’s body, and tore a strip off the curtains to bind up the late king’s
throat. I didn’t want his head falling off when the servants lifted him up.

Then I vomited out the window.

Downstairs, I found a boy to carry a message to
Jori, telling him that the situation had grown more complex and that I doubted
I’d be back on the ship tonight. Having been on cases with me before, I knew he
would not be too surprised by any of it.

With a sigh, I went, again, in search of a
king.

***

He sat on the ground near the half-created
statue as though his knees had failed him just there. His eyes were red. He
knuckled them roughly with a boy’s shame, the tear marks like creek beds down
his cheeks.

I had grabbed a straw-covered jug as I’d passed
the kitchen altar. Tugging out the cork with my teeth, I took a sniff. My own
eyes watered at the harsh bouquet of the local wine.

“Drink deep. It’ll help.”

He swigged it as though he’d been given it in
his cradle. The color surged back into his face.

“Better?”

He nodded, wiped the lip of the jug with a
grimy thumb and handed it back to me. “It’s our best yet.”

“The Goddess won’t grudge it,” I murmured. He
hadn’t realized were I’d gotten from ‘til then and he cast a glance skyward as
I drank.

One sip and I saw I’d wasted my efforts
upstairs. To anyone used to the wine of Leros, cobra venom was a mild tonic
suitable for peaky children and sickly kittens.

When I could use my voice again, I asked the
question I’d wanted to ask his father. “So...this harpy problem. Your father’s
man offered....”

“Whatever Phandros offered, I’ll double! All
our misfortunes fell on us when this thing came upon us. My father would never
have committed suicide except for that!”

I was tempted - a double fee would mean I could
just kill the creature instead of transporting it across the sea. Easier all
around.

But I’d already paid for the cage. That, and
the Hero’s Code, decided for me.

“I couldn’t do that. Your representative and I
already worked out a price. Speaking of which, where is Phandros? Didn’t he
come back ahead of me from Athens?”

“He’s down at the taverna most days. He’s been
drinking a lot since my father threw him out. He’ll be back as soon as he hears
the news.”

No doubt the boy I’d sent to Jori would be at
pains to tell everyone he could find about the old king’s death. Bad news
travels on the wind as effortlessly as a bird.

I’d given Temas three swigs to every one of
mine. So he was nicely blurry when Phandros came up, long beard blowing in the
breeze. The prince hailed him even as the newcomer hesitated. “Phandros! Come
to mourn or celebrate?”

“I cannot guess your meaning,” Phandros said,
bowing austerely. He nodded to me, in brief recognition. “I grieve for your
loss, King Temas. Your father was a great and noble king and shall be long
remembered. But now we must look to the future.”

I hadn’t cared much for Phandros when we’d
worked out our deal. He was thin and pale, with a greenish tinge like a reed
dipped in fat. It had been dark in the bar and I’d had a hard time resisting
the urge to light his head. He had a high arched nose, ideal for sneering down.
I now knew why it was so very red at the tip.

For the rest, his hair was dirty white and
swept off a high brow over eyes too small for his face. He was missing an
eyetooth on the right. I wondered who had tired of his permanent sneer and
tried to knock it off. Whoever it had been, I liked him already.

Temas pointed at me. “He’s going to destroy the
harpy for me.”

“I hold to our bargain, Master Phandros.”

“No doubt,″ he said, running his hand
down his beard,
‶
but
does my lord forget that there are other, nearer, dangers? Mortal dangers?”

“He means the guards,” Temas said in an aside
to me.

“Word will reach them soon of your father’s
passing. They will not long delay their attack. They know we are defenseless.”

Temas seemed to be squinting down the neck of
the bottle. “What would you have me do, counselor to my late father? What wise
words made him kick you downstairs?”

The bony face showed two pink patches on the
cheekbones matching the wine stains on his tunic. “I spoke true. We must leave,
seek assistance from another kingdom. Your uncle, Scoros of Phyros, would grant
you ships and troops. Leave Leros to this captain and return in force to rout
him out. There is a ship in the Roads now; take it.”

Temas seemed now to be attempting to balance
the bottle on one outstretched finger. It fell, of course, but did not break
thanks to the stone chips littering the ground. He stared at it, his eyes round
as an owl’s. He glanced at me. “What think you of wise, frightened Phandros’
counsel, Eno the Thracian?”

“I don’t think he’s a coward, or he would have
run away in Athens.”

Phandros bowed to me with gracious irony.
“Praise indeed.”

“It’s your kingdom now,” I said, ignoring him.
“I’d not give bits of it away to anyone else. Scoros is known as a hard
bargainer. He does nothing from kindness, not even for close family. He might
help you and leave you penniless, prey to the next renegade.”

“There are other kings to aid you if you don’t
trust Scoros. But if you do not seek aid, sire, Captain Eurytos and his men
will overwhelm you.”

Temas stood up, swaying slightly. “My father
was a good king before these trib-trib-troubles came on us. I haven’t his
wisdom. But I can rec-hic-ernize a gift from the gods when it appears before
me. Phandros...where are you...Phandros....”

“My lord?”

“Persuade Eno the Thracian to send the Captain
and his fellows to Hades.”

“Sire,” Phandros whispered. “He is but one
man.”

“Then you help him.” Temas walked away, his
left sandal not knowing what his right sandal was doing. He didn’t seem to hear
Phandros’ gargling protest. I knew the boy was weeping again.

I turned to Phandros, staring him down. “What
villagers have experience in arms?”

‶
Few indeed.″ Holding his
elbow tight to his hip, Phandros extended his hand, flat, in the ancient sign
that bargaining had begun. “I am prepared to offer three hundred for this task.
In addition to our agreement regarding the harpy.”