Snakehead (9 page)

When she came swimming up from the depths again, there was a tall man, with clustering curls and a strong, rich, dark face, sitting behind the brazier. He wore a purple robe, white bordered, and he held a three-pronged spear; he looked at her as if he knew her. “Are you Melqart?” asked Andromeda. She unwrapped her loom weights, the rope of precious purple yarn and her shuttle, and set them on the pyre. She’d meant to burn the tally-boards where she’d written “Dark Water” as well. But when she’d looked for them, the morning after Mando’s singing, they’d gone from behind the bar.

It didn’t matter. The new kind of writing wasn’t held in those marked boards, it was in her head and hands.

She lifted up her hands to pray, and remembered the name Holy Mother had told her to use. “Accept the sacrifice, Lord Poseidon, which I make of my free will.”

The rocks cried out, there was a rushing of feet, a sigh like waves beating on a long, long shore. Somebody was crying…
.

She sat up with a start, stiff and sore. The man was gone. In his place a pale, small statue gleamed, dim in the darkness. She had fallen asleep. How long had she been in here? It felt like hours. The brazier was cold. The bundle she’d brought with her lay on the sandy floor, still
knotted up. She opened it: the loom weights, the yarn and the shuttle were unharmed, not burned at all. She had only dreamed the offering.

No, not just a dream, a vision. Because she knew something she hadn’t known before. She could accept what she had to accept, now that it was action, not surrender.
Not something done to me, something I choose to do
.

I will do it. I can do it. This act is mine
.

I more or less carried Pali as far as the goat hollow, hoping I wasn’t making the damage worse. Kefi had bravely stayed in his hiding place, through the earth tremor. We sent him racing down the hill with the news, both good and bad. The spirits were not visible, but the spring was a welcome friend. We bathed Palikari’s face, and got him to drink a little water. We thought that was safe, as he didn’t have any chest or belly wounds.

“I wonder if they felt the earthquake at home,” said Anthe. “Lucky for us it wasn’t worse.” Anthe had not seen what I had seen, or felt what I had felt. To her it had been nothing but a minor tremor, frightening but harmless.

I shrugged. “It seems to be over, anyway.”

The walk home took a long time. When we reached the streets, we got him on his feet. It was still midsummer; maybe we could have passed, in the dark, for three lopsided, drunken revelers. But it was very late by then, and
we met no one. The waterfront was quiet, the taverna shuttered. Moumi, Koukla and Dicty were waiting for us in the yard.

“Kore?” I said at once. I couldn’t help it: I had to know if she was safe.

“She came home an hour or two ago,” Moumi told me. “I sent her to bed.”

We took Pali into the kitchen, and laid him on clean towels on the marble-topped table. Lamplight showed my friend’s tanned face gray from loss of blood, dark blood all over him; and he’d passed out again. It was just as well, because the next part was going to be painful. Koukla brought more lights, a pot of hot water, clean cloths and the chest of household medicines. Moumi and the boss stripped off Anthe’s sodden makeshift bandages, and the remains of Pali’s clothes, while Anthe and I stood by, feeling useless.

Pali’s whole torso was a mass of cuts and darkening bruises, but the shoulder and the great cut across his head seemed the worst of it. Dicty felt his skull, gently, while he cleaned and snipped away clotted blood and hair. “It’s not too bad,” he reassured us, as quickly as he could. “No broken bones, no damage to internal organs so far as I can tell, no dangerous fracture to the skull. He’s lost a good deal of blood, but he’ll recover.”

“He was set on,” murmured my mother. “Cut down from above and behind, see, Dicty? With a heavy sword. And the
slash through his shoulder, looks like the same weapon. They could easily have killed him, but they didn’t.”

“The rest was done when he was on the ground,” said the boss. “With boots, fists, and here’re the marks of an armored boxing glove. I’d say at least three men.”

“The cowards!” wailed Anthe. “How dare they! I hate them! I’ll
kill
them!”

Moumi prepared a length of catgut by passing it through flame, and threaded a needle that she’d treated the same way. Koukla poured wine into the smaller wounds to clean them. I’d seen this team deal with broken bodies before: I trusted them. I’d been afraid he was dying, so relief flooded me with fury. “I’ll do it for you, Anthe. I have kept the peace, because I know the price we’ll all pay. But this means war!”

Moumi stared at me, across Palikari’s body.
“Perseus!”

She was right, it wasn’t for me to say.

The boss looked up from his careful work of searching the head wound, to make sure no dirt or debris remained. “Means war?” he said, head on one side. “I don’t think so. Strangely enough, I don’t believe the king means war. No, the truce still holds.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was dumbstruck.

“If we want it to, at least.”

That’s how things were when Kore found us. We had not heard her coming down the yard stairs, barefoot, and she was not carrying a light. She stood there, a dark blue
mantle wrapped over her white sleeping shift, taking in the blood-daubed scene. “What
happened?”
she gasped. “Great All! It’s Pali!

Who did this?”

Koukla brought another basin of hot water for the boss, and carried away the one that was fouled with blood and dirt, shaking her head. “What a mess,” she muttered.

“He got into a fight,” I said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“He was attacked, you mean,” cried Anthe. “A cowardly, brutal attack. And we know who’s responsible. But we can’t touch him!”

“You m-m-mean, the
king
did this?”

My mother gave Anthe a warning look, and went on sewing Pali’s shoulder. The boss was swabbing fresh blood from the scalp wound, ready for Moumi to sew it next. “The king Polydectes is my full brother,” he said quietly. “As I’m sure you are aware, my dear. I don’t know if people have heard of him, in your great city so far away, but he has made our island both feared and respected. Our agreement, which works most of the time, is that Seatown is my house, so to speak, where my ways are followed. The High Place belongs to the king and his men, and members of my household respect the boundary. If Palikari broke the agreement tonight, which we won’t know until we can ask him, I’m afraid I’m to blame, because I encouraged him to go in search of information.”

“But you
didn’t
send him!” Anthe broke in. “That’s why we didn’t tell you!”

“Thank you, child, but I will decide how to answer my brother’s men.”

Then, for once, Dicty’s calm gave way. He wiped his hands on a towel and went with stumbling steps to sit on a bench by the dining room, his head bowed, twisting the towel between his hands. “He would always take the best,” he muttered, “when we were young, when it was Dicty and little Dectes. The proper thing to do, when gifts are offered to the royal house, is to take a modest share and say, ‘The rest is to be distributed, among the vassals, for the poor.’ Dectes always took the most and the best of everything, the best colts, the best weaving, the best fine-worked metal. His hands were always grasping, never open. Our mother died when he was born, you know. After that, every real lady packed up and left. Our father and his women treated the boy with such scorn. So now he is
Poly
dectes, the ruler of many, and he rules by force…. He is the one who understands these times. I was born too late. The old days are gone, and I’ve tried too long to keep them alive.”

He raised his head; there were tears on his face. “A city on a hill is not a good thing! All these ‘High Places’ that kings are so proud of these days are
built on fear
. In civilized times cities are built on the shore, or in fine valleys, without walls, welcoming to strangers. Oh, I know Polydectes isn’t alone. The people of Serifos accept him
because he is
no worse
than many rulers in the Middle Sea, that’s the sorry truth. But I did not raise him, teach him well. I am to blame for that.”

“What could you have done?” asked my mother. “When he challenged the throne? Gone to war with him? Killed your own brother? That would have been a hateful act.”

“Ha!” said the boss, shaking his head. “Spoken like an Achaean, Danae of Argos. I did not make the truce for family reasons.
I did it for my island
. For Serifos!”

Kore was not listening to them. She wasn’t hearing the old story of two brothers. She was staring at Palikari’s battered body with a look of sick horror.

“Why did Palikari go to the High Place? Was it because of me?”

We couldn’t answer her. We were trying to think of a lie, and this was written on our faces, when Palikari himself stirred. He half sat up, and gave a moan. “I was ambushed,” he croaked. “Anthe?” She darted over to him and he clutched her, talking feverishly, his eyes wild. “We have to get away from here. It was a trap, I was ambushed, but the news is good. The king will not touch her. He’s heard some story that she’s god-touched, marked for sacrifice. The crazy innards-readers in the High Place confirmed it.”

Anthe tried to get him to lie down. “Hush. Shhh, sweetheart, lie quiet.”

Pali stared around at the bright kitchen, and touched the bandage on his shoulder. “Oh, I’m home,” he mumbled in a puzzled voice, and slumped back unconscious again.

No one spoke. The terrible look of fate was in Kore’s eyes. She stood very straight. I had the feeling that she could not see me, that she was sleepwalking or in darkness.

“The king is right,” she said. “The king is right. I am a sacrifice.”

“What do you mean?” cried Anthe. “What’s this about? You’re safe with us!”

She is not safe with herself, I thought.

“Kore,” said Papa Dicty, “I think I should tell you what I have heard myself: news that I haven’t yet shared with my family. It’s a story from the far east of the Middle Sea that is making its way around the ports. I heard it from an agent of Taki the shipowner. The big earthquake was not in Libya, it was at Haifa, on the Phoenician coast. They say that the great queen, Cassiopeia the Ethiopian, boasted that her daughter Andromeda was wiser and more beautiful than some Supernatural or other. The earthquake was the result, and the queen is required to sacrifice her daughter to appease the God. Cassiopeia now maintains that she’s holding the princess in prison, preparing her for the day of sacrifice. Rumor has it that in fact the girl has escaped, and no one knows where she is.”

“Oooh,” breathed Anthe,
“that’s
why you weren’t worried about the king wanting her!”

“Be quiet, Anthe.” The boss looked at “Kore” and added gently, “I know the name Cassiopeia, of course. She’s a very famous ruler. I don’t know how much of the
rest of the story to believe. Haifa is a long way from here. I was waiting for
you
to tell us.”

“It’s all true. I am Andromeda.”

And my heart leapt, even then, because now I knew her name.

She went to Dicty, and knelt in front of him.

“My father, the usurper may rule in the High Place but you are the true king, the guide and protector of your people. Let me tell you how it happened. The priests said that the first quake was a warning. The next would be devastation, another Great Disaster, unless I was given to them. But no one locked me up, so I ran away. The queen did not believe I would run away; princesses of my race do not
run away…
. You have shown me nothing but kindness, and I have brought trouble to add to your troubles. I’m very, very sorry. But it’s over, I’m going back.

She stood up gracefully, her head held high. “I knew when I wrote the ‘Dark Water’ song, when I felt the dead crying to me, that I had to go back. But it was you who taught me to do right, Papa Dicty. I found my courage here.”

Anthe and my mother stared at each other, openmouthed.

“Hmm,” said the boss at last. “Princess Andromeda, I hope I haven’t taught you to put your neck on the block for no good reason. Priests claim a human sacrifice will stop an earthquake, or end a drought. Have we ever seen that
proved?
I’ve heard that the priests of Haifa are jealous of your mother’s power. Are you sure you trust them?”

Andromeda shook her head slowly, but she hardly seemed to hear him.

“There are veils and veils, and behind them is the truth. I went to the Enclosure today to rededicate myself. I am sacrificed in my heart. I am ready to die.”

She looked us in the eye, one by one, standing so straight and proud. It was heartbreaking. Maybe it was easier for the others: they could tell themselves she was deluded.

Papa Dicty sighed. “Well, well. We should all be prepared to die. Let me give this thought.” He patted the princess on the shoulder, and stood up. “Anthe! Get out of those rags and go and bathe; you’ll feel much better. Let’s finish the sewing and get this young man to bed. Perseus, we’ll need your muscle.”

Anthe looked down at the tatters of her skirt, and her blood-spattered bare legs. “All right, boss,” she said meekly, and took herself off.

Palikari had come around again by the time we got him into bed. He was able to sip a cup of warm watered wine, and tell us about the ambush. “My so-called friend was waiting for me,” he said. “We were supposed to talk in the cemetery, but he didn’t feel safe there. He insisted I had to come farther up the steps. I didn’t suspect a thing. He told me about Kore, that she was god-touched, and then they jumped me. I thought I was done for. But they didn’t mean to kill, they just sliced me up and kicked me around.” He grinned at me. “I’ve got a message for you, big kid.”

“About Kore?”

He began to shake his head, and winced at the pain. “Our business … I’m to tell you Polydectes the king says, ‘Next time don’t send a servant, Perseus, and don’t hide behind an old man. Come yourself.’” For a moment the boss was out of the picture, and I was no longer a “big kid.” We were two young men, my friend had been beaten up, we were both furious. Pali set the cup down and lay back. “When you
do
go up there,” he remarked reflectively, “do me a favor. Take me with you, great prince. And let’s be armed, eh?”