Snakehead (17 page)

“I
think
the river’s up in the northwest, Yiannis. There’s a place of pilgrimage. I
believe
the port is called Parga.”

Andromeda reached for a scroll. She made out a wavering line that had once been incised and filled with black. Beside it, at intervals, was a scatter of pricked holes, half obliterated by grease and dirt. Anthe leaned over and traced the line with her finger: a very clean cook’s finger, the nail cut short and square. “That’s the horizon. Or it could be the coastline. I don’t think he remembers.”

“Is he going to be any use at all?” murmured Andromeda.

“Don’t know.”

“Oooh, no need to apologize, cap’n,” the old sea dog was saying. “I ferget things, it’s our age, sir.” He had his nose to another of the scrolls. “I ferget what the patterns meaned. A rat et one bit, and the salt rot gnawed off another bit. I’m not what I was. How many days sailing, to the northwest coast ports? Could be, oooh, twenty. Lemme think.” His free hand, with a life of its own, pushed the wine cup coaxingly toward the jug. “I’m tryin’ ter jog my mem’ry, as you’re sech a noble,
gen’rous
company.”

Nobody else was drinking. To any sane human being, unwatered wine would have been unbearable in this heat. Anthe filled the old soak’s cup, but she’d lost interest in his mumbling. “Did you remember anything more about nymphs, boss?”

The heat lay heavily on them, though the dining room had been shuttered all day. Papa Dicty passed a hand over his bald head. “Hmm. Styx, Stygian … The Styx runs underground through a famous cavern, hence the association with the dead, perhaps. There’s an oracle, where the Greeks question the departed.”

“They question dead people? Eeww. That’s disgusting!”

“Not
corpses
, my child, ghosts. One has to feed them with blood, I seem to remember. But perhaps that’s another—”

“The Supernaturals didn’t mention an oracle,” Palikari broke in. “Maybe I’m missing something, but if these nymphs are the nymphs of the Dark Water, won’t Perseus have to be dead to talk to them? He’s dozy sometimes, but he’s not that bad.”

Perseus grinned ruefully. “Thanks, Pali. You too.”

“The Supernaturals describe things in their own terms,” said lady Danae. “We mortals know that stones and springs, rivers and trees,
may
have spirits inhabiting them. To the Gods that’s everyday reality…. Perseus lives in both worlds, Pali. If he can reach the Styx, he’ll be able to speak to the river spirits.”

Perseus stared at his mother. “I didn’t know you knew about that!”

She laughed, and sighed. “You used to talk about it, my dear. When you were a little boy, before you decided you didn’t want to know …”

Andromeda thought of Perseus’s secret life, the birthright he was both ashamed and proud of, like the power of his fists. Their eyes met.

They’d been ready to leave for days. Everything had been so simple. But then they’d learned that the regular ferry to Paros was laid up, in dock for repairs. There was a dead calm, a shortage of long-haul rowers, and cargo ships were not taking passengers. So the household went on talking, talking, asking the same questions over and over. They meant well, but it made the waiting even harder to bear.

“What about the Graeae?” asked Anthe. “What are they, and where are they, in our world?” (Another question asked too often, and never yet answered.) “The sisters with a tooth and an eye between them. He has to talk to them too. What did you say about the Graeae, boss? You knew something….”

“I recall the name, my dear, that’s all. Gray Sisters, Elder Goddesses: the sailors used to talk about them when I was a child. Ancient, cunning and dangerous, that sticks in my mind. But
where
they are, or
what
they are, I’ve forgotten—if I ever knew.”

Yiannis perked up. “Wozzat? Gray Sisters? Oooh, now I know something about
them!
And I would tell ye a terrible tale, only I find my throat is dry.”

“Yiannis!” exclaimed the boss. “You’ll give yourself an apoplexy, in this heat.”

“The women say that, Mother bless ‘em, but what do women know about drink? It don’t
harm
me. It cures my shakes. An’
helps my mem’ry.”

Anthe gave the boss a questioning look. He mouthed
one more
. She filled the cup again with thick, dark, unwatered wine.

“Aah, thank yer, young Anthe.
Now
, lemme see.” Yiannis reached for his precious scrolls, then inspected and returned them, one by one, to the breast of his well-seasoned tunic, which stank of ancient fish. He smoothed out the last, with watery-eyed pride and joy.

“I uster know the stars. I was a steersman once. You didn’t know that, did you?”

When he was drunk enough, Yiannis always remembered that he had once been a steersman, a great navigator, famed throughout the Middle Sea. Maybe it was true, or partly true. He had those charts, which weren’t the usual gear for a common sailor.

“Good heavens,” said lady Danae politely. “Yiannis, we never guessed!”

“Aye, well, it was long, long ago. I fell in the world, from the helm to the bilges. It’s a terrible thing to have a weakness.” He looked at his cup, which was mysteriously
empty again. Pali and Andromeda grinned at each other. Yiannis was a magician: you never, ever saw him lift his cup. Anthe moved the jug away.

“The Graeae are the terror of the sea, tha’s what. Ancient and merciless, we face those Gray Sisters every time we leave port. Nobody has sympathy with what we sailors suffer, and where would yer be without us? But let me tell you about this one time, an’ I’m sure it was off Parga. Between the eye and the tooth, now that’s what we call bein’ ‘tween a whirlpool and a fang of rock….”

His straggle-bearded chin sank down; his gnarled finger traced a lost path, pricked onto a salt-stained, rat-gnawed, blackened scrap of memories. “It were off
Parga
, it were. You know what that is, a whirlpool? Horrors, horrors. When the waves is fifty man-heights over your mast, and the wind is ripping the skin from your back. When you see your ship bein’ drawn into a great spinning eyehole in the sea, and the only way past is between it an’ the great fang of the tooth, oooh, then you won’t forget the Gray Sisters.”

The chin sank to rest with a soft thump. Yiannis gave a snore, and rolled quietly from the bench. He was an expert at dropping out of sight. They would often find him in the morning, peacefully asleep in a corner.

“Maybe he really knows something,” said Anthe. “We gave him a cup too many.”

Brébré, who had been sniffing around the table, sneaked up and took a quiet chew at the last star chart.
The boss lifted him, dropped him onto the floor and rolled the cracked scroll. He would give it back to Yiannis in the morning.

“I don’t think so, my dear. We were talking about Parga, then he tells us that’s where the Graeae are. I’m afraid he just wanted to please us.”

“Good news,” said Perseus to Andromeda. “I went up and down the waterfront again while you were sleeping. I think I’ve found us a berth.”

A thrill went through her: like falling, like flying.

She was bound to die, but they were running away together.

On the last morning she woke from forgotten dreams (if there were horses, they’d galloped away before she opened her eyes), and took her gifts down to breakfast. It was a feast. Spiced sausage pie, fried eggs and cheese, mountain greens in oil and sharp wine. Papa Dicty’s own fresh bread, yogurt and honey; a platter of fruit, cut and arranged; the pastry cook’s finest. Andromeda would have stuffed herself if it had choked her, out of pure love. But she had an appetite, and so did Perseus. They ate until their stomachs begged for mercy, grinning at each other. Once, Palikari and Anthe started talking about the defense of Seatown. How they would meet the threat if the king turned nasty while Perseus was gone, the plans they had for the outlying villages … Papa Dicty was quite
angry with them. He wouldn’t have unlucky subjects at a farewell meal.

Then Andromeda brought out her presents.

For Anthe the piece with splashes of orange and yellow, blue and red, on a ground of unbleached wool. “Is this really mine?” said the wildcat uncertainly. The flying marks worked below the colors astounded her. “Your new kind of writing! Oh, Andromeda, I love you! I’ll treasure this forever! What does it say?”

“It says
Honest Colors
,” said Andromeda gravely, and everybody laughed. The colors Anthe had added to the ancient painting were still on the wall.

For Palikari the ripening field, the convolvulus motif and flying marks that said Faithful Flowers. At the last minute she’d been afraid that her message was too personal and he’d be offended. She was wrong. Palikari came around and hugged her, wet-eyed. “You may be a princess at home,” he said. “But to me you’ll always be Kore the mystery girl. You’re my best friend, bar the wildcat and that great hunk of yours. Look after yourself, and, er, be safe—” He broke off, in confusion. What could he say?

“I’m all right,” said Andromeda. “I know I have to do this, so I’m
all right
. Thank you for making a waitress out of me. Thank you for being my friend.”

For the boss there was a platter of wheat ribbons and a smiley fried fish above a red furnace surrounded by smithy tools, the two groups divided by a short line of
flying marks, all on a deep-yellow ground. The wheat ribbons weren’t a great success. But she had wanted to make him laugh, and tried to give him the signs of kingship.

“Now, this deserves pride of place!” cried the boss, laughing. “I shall frame it and hang it above the bar. What does my writing mean, dear girl?”

“It says,” explained Andromeda,
“Dearest guests, PLEASE do not take your room towels to the beach. Ask for a beach towel at reception.”

“Hmm. Really? That’s rather a lot, for such a small number of marks.”

“It doesn’t,” she confessed, blushing hard. “It says
The Good Master.”

The boss smiled at her, with the same kind, yet piercing, look she remembered from the day she’d come to his house as a fugitive. “Great Mother bless you,” he said quietly. “Don’t give up all hope, Andromeda. Fate takes strange turns.”

For lady Danae she had a circular piece of very fine bleached linen with a knotted fringe and a wreath of cornflowers, wheat and daisies embroidered in the center. “The linen is the first good thing I ever made,” she said. “I brought it with me. The flowers and the writing I added here, for you. It says
The Queen of Summer.”

Danae took the cloth, and kissed it. “You have given me a promise, Kore,” she said in Achaean Greek. “Keep it, and I will be very glad, my dear daughter.”

There was a clutch of smaller presents for Koukla and Kefi, and the restaurant staff. She’d worked the beads, and some of the silver coin she’d brought from Haifa, into braided wristbands and necklaces. She left them for lady Danae to distribute. It was a wrench to see them go, all these little things that had given her hours of refuge, steady work to ward off the fear and grief. And had served a double purpose now: making this morning easier, saving her from trying to
say
what these people meant to her.

Goodbye to Brainy, and Music and Dolly. Goodbye Mémé and Brébré. She ran upstairs to fetch her bundle, and there was the
Perseus
weaving, still in her loom. She was leaving the frame behind. She’d thought of hiding that strip of cloth, so that there’d be something of herself in this room, in his house. One day Perseus, hero of the Medusa Challenge, would discover it, and remember Kore…. She couldn’t bear the idea. It would be like leaving a bit of dead flesh for him to find. She cut the warp, and stuffed the lost scrap into her bundle.

Our bags were already on board the little cargo ship, called the
Octopus
, that was going to carry us to Paros. We walked along the waterfront in silence: she with her bundle, I with mine. I was thinking that those pieces she’d woven, and the tallyboards in our safe, were very precious. They would be all there was left of Andromeda’s discovery, if I failed…. I was wondering if the boss had guessed my secret plan. I thought he had.

The news that Kore was probably Princess Andromeda of Haifa, a runaway human sacrifice, had got around, and of course everyone knew about the Medusa Challenge. We’d been expecting some kind of a crowd to see us off. It was one good reason why we’d said our goodbyes at home, in private. I
hadn’t
expected to see our baggage on the quay, and the crew of the
Octopus
hurrying to get cast off.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Wait up!”

The sailors saw us, and redoubled their efforts. I raced along the quay, Athini’s shield, which I had wrapped in a sheepskin, jolting on my back. The winged sandals were in the same bundle: I was never going to let the Supernatural treasures out of my hand’s reach. The crowd of tale-tellers and idlers yelled encouragement. The
Octopus
was moving, clear water between her and the dock. I leapt across the gap like a lunatic.

“What are you doing!” I yelled. “Did you forget you have passengers?”

The ship was a Parian, and so was her captain, a man called Sika. I didn’t know him personally, but he was a respectable small trader. He stood on his fish-scale-glistening deck, scratching his beard and looking very uncomfortable.

“I changed my mind, er, young sir. We’ve no room. Can’t take you.”

“But I
paid
you! Well over the odds, and in goods. You have the stuff on board!”

He looked at his crew, hoping they’d help him out. The
men just looked away. “I’ll reimburse you, sir, only we can’t do it now, got to catch the breeze.” He lowered his voice. “Look, we could take the noble young lady, no problem with that. But you’ll have to get off the boat. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Suppose I won’t?”

“Then I s’pose we’ll stay in port.”

I heard one of the sailors mutter
god-touched
.

The crowd on the quay was loving this. Maybe I should give them a real show: draw the
harpe
, wave it around, order the captain at knifepoint to carry us. “Set me back on the quay,” I said resignedly. “I don’t feel like another long jump. But you’ll regret this. We
are
god-touched, we’re on a sacred mission, and now the Gods are going to be offended with you. Are you sure you still want to put to sea?”