Electra (15 page)

'I have brought you some food,' she said simply, and was gone again, picking her way through the bare torsos and grasping hands of the lolling oarsmen. I heard a grunt and some swearing, and thereafter they did not offer her any insult. There was something admirable about the way she never allowed anyone to molest her, though I doubted that I could learn it.

Orestes, who had stayed awake, said, 'There's bread and oil, sister, and wine.'

'I wonder that you can bear to touch wine,' I reproved him. He hung his head. He was only a boy and really was sorry, so I relented. We shared the bread and the diluted wine.

The landscape winged past. Strange white birds with wicked, strong beaks wailed as they flew alongside
Phoebus
.

'Seagulls,' said Orestes. He clearly listened to all that Eumides said. I hoped that he had not learnt other, unsuitable things.

'That must be the beacon,' he told me with his mouth full, pointing. I saw a stone tower. The shipmaster saw it too, and yelled an order. The boat slowed, turned, and we began to row at right angles to the current, towards a shore which was only a distant shadow on the edge of sight.

It was hard work. The oarsmen had no time to speculate further on the identity of the woman under the veil. The oars slid forward, out of the water, the backs bent, the oars were hauled back with an explosive grunt, to be lifted and carried forward again. It was not an easy motion, a galley under oars. The sail had been bundled up. Orestes said it was useless, as the wind would not blow us in the right direction.

We were making good progress, or so shipmaster Laodamos was telling the crew, when Orestes said, 'Look, another ship!'

'Where?' asked the man at the nearest oar.

'There, and they've got more oars than us.'

I could see the ship too, speeding across the ocean like a beetle.

'Sail!' cried the oarsman to Laodamos. 'Sail to steer board, Master.'

'Eumides,' summoned the shipmaster. 'Look there.'

The mariner balanced easily, with one hand on the ropes which were strung from the mast, and called, 'You've got good young eyes, Orestes, can you see the picture on the sail?'

I grabbed the back of my brother's tunic as he leant out, shading his eyes. 'It's a hand,' he said definitely.

I heard an intake of breath and someone began a prayer to Poseidon. Someone else was praying to Thanatos for an easy death.

'We're too far out to get back to Eleon,' said the shipmaster. 'We'd better try and go on, and hope the current catches us and takes us into Kirrha. All right, my strong men, my hearts. Bend your backs, bend your oars and we may get out of this with a whole skin. Pray if you like, but row. Row for your lives. You know who that is, that sail over there? That's Metrodorus of Troizen. He will kill us all if he catches us.'

I had thought that they had been rowing hard before, but it was not so. Now I heard the groan of effort with every stroke, and the oars beat the water, throwing up spray so that Orestes and I were soaked. We huddled close together, wet and miserable. The sail with the hand on it grew closer and closer.

The voyage had been delightful. I liked the notion of sitting still and skimming along the water instead of plodding the weary paths on feet. Chryse had prepared an infusion against sea sickness for us and it seemed to have worked. My stomach was unruffled by the motion and my bread and oil remained where I had put them. The cliffs flowed past, melting into the green farmland, so rich that I saw olive trees leafy and fruiting with their roots almost in the sea.

We had settled down as comfortably as possible, considering the lumpiness of Eumides' baggage. He had collected it in great secrecy from the temple of Poseidon and would not tell us what it was, though Chryse and I had some shrewd guesses. I had prevailed on him to let me carry the smaller bundle, which was heavy for its size and chinked suggestively. All I allowed myself to say was, 'A very good bargain, Eumides?' and the sailor grinned in a way calculated to melt my knees and distract me from further questions. In that, the tactic had been entirely successful.

Electra had snubbed me, but I was not worried. Soon we would be at Delphi - one easy day's ride from the port of Kirrha, they said - and then I could leave the troubled children of the House of Atreus in safe hands.

I tried not to remember my captivity aboard the ships of the Achaean fleet. The day was clear, the sea calm, and the company excellent, though I had to plant a careless foot accidentally in the crotch of one oarsman who thought that unveiled females were fair game. He revised his views with satisfactory speed and I had no further trouble with the crew.

Then the sail came. We fled, but the ship was a trireme, and it gained on us steadily. Eumides came back through the rowers and told us, 'We've been unlucky. It's Metrodorus the pirate. He is notorious in these waters for his rapine and slaughter. Princess, do not be captured alive.'

'I do not intend to be captured at all,' I said tartly, stringing my bow and finding my arrows. 'But thank you for your advice.'

'Can you swim?' he asked us. Both Chryse and I nodded. I remembered with painful intensity my brother Hector holding my chin and my brother's as we floundered through the shallow waters of the Scamander delta. After we had gained some skill, Eleni and I used to race each other to the marker buoy on the first sandbank. No matter how hard we tried, we always landed, waterlogged and laughing, at exactly the same time.

'I've just remembered swimming in the river at Epidavros,' said Chryse in a low voice.

'And I, learning that same skill in the Scamander with my brothers; all lost, all lost. We are wounded, Chryse, but we are not dead. Yet. Will you fight?'

'I have no training,' he said, taking up a knife. 'but I will try. Since the Lord Apollo does not exist, he will not have to forgive me for breaking my healer's oath.'

'Since he does exist,' I asserted, watching the tattooed sail loom closer, 'he will forgive you anyway, for fighting for your life and the lives of others. That must be allowable. Then again, I have never found Apollo a merciful God.'

'Lord Poseidon,' said Eumides under his breath, hefting a boathook. 'Have mercy on your faithful children. Look down, Master of Horses, on the fate of your devoted ones. Protect and assist us in our extremity as we rely on your mercy. Earth-Shaker, Blue-Haired, Lord of the Sea, take us not down to death in the deeps, to be food for octopus and squid.'

'A cheerful prayer,' commented Chryse.

The trouble with sea battles is that they take so long to start. The rowers heaved and the ships moved, continually changing places and positions. After an hour, we were further across the Gulf of Corinth. We could see the white tower on Andromahi which marked the entrance to the Bay of Kirrha. But the sail with the hand was close behind us, and we saw no reason why it should not intercept us.

I would rather have dealt with any ambush or hand-to-hand fight than this slow chess-piece manoeuvring. Close encounters either work, and one survives, or else they don't work, and one is dead. In either case the action takes less than an eye-blink and there is no time for terror.

This board game which both shipmasters were playing with our lives on the breast of Poseidon's country was blood-chilling. I slackened the strings of my bow and put it in my tunic to keep it dry as the ship heeled, turned and wriggled to escape like a fish on a hook. Birds like scraps of white paper reeled over us. We could see the land quite plainly, but it was further than it looked. I did not think I could swim that far. I looked at Electra and Orestes in the eyes of the ship. They were huddled together like birds in a storm, these scions of the doomed House of Atreus. Unless the pirates were unlucky enough to back Electra into a corner, I did not think they would fight. Orestes was valiant, but small.

'What is the pirate trying to do?' I asked, noticing that the
Hand
was continually adjusting its position to remain at right angles to us.

'See that curved horn at the bow? That's a ram. They aim to hit us amidships and impale us, then board us and loot the ship while it is sinking. They will leave the men to drown, except perhaps little Orestes, and they will take the women. They will be sold when Metrodorus is finished with them.'

'I will not be a slave again,' I said. Eumides kissed me hard, his hand in my hair.

'Nor I.'

'This is a day as long as centuries,' sighed Chryse.

'If we can avoid him until night, we might slip into the harbour, but there is an equal chance that we will pile up on a reef in the dark. But he is gaining on us rapidly. I can't see what would delay him.'

The
Hand
, steered with skill and rowed with strength, became clearer and clearer. Now we could see individual faces, scowling with effort. Our shipmaster caught sight of a black-bearded bald man and screamed, 'Metrodorus! Be forever cursed! May Poseidon break you with a wave! Are you a Libyan beast, to tear the flesh of innocent sailors?'

'Can we make a bargain?' asked Eumides. He did not shout but his voice carried well. 'You know us, Metrodorus. Laodamos the shipmaster and Eumides of Troy. We drank together ten years ago in that tavern by the temple in Iolkos. What has turned you into a pirate, fisherman?'

'There are golden fish in the sea,' grinned the black-bearded man. 'Better fishing than ever since Agamemnon died. There is no law in the Gulf of Corinth now, Trojan. But give me all your gold and I might let you go.'

'Or you might just sink us anyway. Where's your home port, Metrodorus? Do they know that you're a murderer there? If you let us go, we can tell Corinth of your mercy. And the Gods of the Sea can't be pleased with your actions.'

'I care nothing for Corinth, and I need no advocates. The Gods died with the King of Mycenae, and you are mine.'

The ships were sliding closer together. Metrodorus ordered his men to back oars, angling the
Hand
for the fatal ramming blow. I considered that Eumides had done his best for diplomacy and peaceful solutions, and strung the bow again.

An Amazon's bow, with a reverse curve. I wondered briefly where Chryse had found or bought it - living Amazons do not sell their weapons - then I bent it, laying an arrow on the string. Metrodorus made a lovely target, outlined against the dazzle of the water. He was too far away to reach, so I waited.

The air filled with sparkling silver light and silence fell. The Gods were with me again. I held my breath. Would they doom me or save me, Cassandra, Princess of Troy? Having destroyed my city, cursed my gift, murdered my family, stolen all my loves from me, had they still not finished with their plaything? I was filled with outrage. If this ship was to be taken because I was on it, then I would leap into the ocean. Too many people had died, far too many. Drowning was not an unpleasant death and at least then it would be finished, my story completed.

The sea was growing lumpy, like a decoction when a bubble is about to burst. I hear Chryse gasp, and Eumides cried aloud on Poseidon. Blue-grey and silver, shining like a fish, I saw a vast tail surface and slap the sea, halting the
Hand
with the backwash, though her oarsmen strained and groaned. Prompted or pushed, I loosed the arrow.

With God-sight, things move slowly. I saw the bolt curve up, level out, and fly steadily. The interval between
Phoebus
and
Hand
was crossed in jerky stages - far, further, yet further away from us, close and closer to the black-bearded man.

Then time clicked back into tune and the arrow buried itself up to the feathers in the pirate's chest.

'Ship, ho!' I heard, and the scream of disbelief from the
Hand
as Metrodorus the pirate fell, pierced through and certainly dead before he hit the decking. Another ship had come up from behind us and I found another arrow and turned towards it. It was a trading ship, deep-breasted and painted blue. Its sail was set and it must have followed us out of Corinth.

'
Phoebus
ahoy!' cried a great honeyed voice I'd never heard before; rich, compelling, strong man's voice, impossible not to listen to. Eumides and Chryse sprang to their feet, dropping their weapons, and shouted together, 'Arion Dolphin-Rider!'

'Well, well,' said the voice, amused. 'Chryse Asclepid-Priest and Eumides the ex-slave, my dears, my golden ones! Whither away?'

'Kirrha, then Delphi,' called Chryse.

'I, also. What shall we do with this pirate, Laodamos?' asked Arion. The man was big and robed like the bard he was; for even Trojans had heard of the fame of Arion Badger-Haired.

'Take him in tow, and we'll split the pirate's cargo,' said our shipmaster. 'I'm glad to see you, Arion, and just in the nick of time. I didn't know you were in these waters. I thought you had gone to Troy.'

'Oh, I had. Now Menon and I are going to Delphi. Where did you pick up your passengers? You were not used to carry royal cargo through these dangerous straits.'

Laodamos was puzzled. 'Royal? They are just my old friend Eumides and these religious people. One priest, two priestesses, and a boy.'

'All priests are the children of Gods, how much more royal do you require?' asked Arion, preserving our disguise with admirable ingenuity. 'I will bring in the pirate ship. Meet you on the quay, Asclepid!' he called, as his ship fell behind. I noticed that she had a wooden cut-out of a dolphin, beast of Dionysos, as her figurehead and thought it very fitting. Arion was known to be a devotee of that God. And Dionysos the Dancer had been a great friend to Trojans.

We caught the current into the Bay of Kirrha, to the noise of wailing from the bereft ship behind us.

Blood ran into the trench, steaming; ghosts gathered. Dead ones attracted to the scent of life, tasting and sighing, endowed with a little life for a little time. I was at the gates of Hades' realm, Pluton the Rich one and Persephone his wife. I needed to find my home, and only the dead knew the way.

My mother's shade bent lovingly over me, her hands slipping through my shoulders with only a tingle. Tiresias told me to steer for Thrinacie and on no account to hurt Apollo's cattle grazing there.