The Elementals (12 page)
Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
Meriones was startled. “Why at my house? Why not take them direct to Labrys?”
“They are, shall we say, unpredictable. Especially the old man. Hokar tells me you know a little of the language they speak, so I
want you present throughout the negotiations to persuade them to be cooperative. It will all go more smoothly here, in a private house.”
want you present throughout the negotiations to persuade them to be cooperative. It will all go more smoothly here, in a private house.”
Watching Meriones closely, Tereus assessed his exact degree of resistance. He immediately poured another bowl of wine for Meriones, saying, “And of course I will pay you extra for the use of your house. Agreed? Good, good!”
When Tereus left them for a few moments to go and relieve himself behind the wall, Meriones said to Hokar, “I always seem to be letting people talk me into things. I can never say no when I should. I admire your cousin. I doubt if he has that problem.”
“He has others,” Hokar replied. “Is there any more wine?”
Meriones gazed solemnly into the pitcher Tulipa had left on the table. “It's empty,” he reported with regret. “But I think we have some milk flavored with kinnamon.”
“Milk!” Tereus guffawed as he returned to them. “Men don't drink milk, even flavored with spices! Once this deal is concluded, my wasp-waisted friend, you'll be able to afford amphorae of wine, one for every day of the week.” He clapped Meriones heartily on the back.
Much later, in the privacy of their bed, Meriones made the mistake of telling Tulipa about Tereus' offer.
“You certainly are going to help that big Thracian sell his slaves!” she insisted, sitting bolt upright in the bed. “If you don't, I'll go back and live with my mother!”
For a momentâonly for a momentâMeriones was tempted.
After several false starts when his courage deserted him, Meriones spoke to Carambis, Master of Slaves, and a meeting was arranged. Carambis had been party to such deals before and knew exactly how much padding could be concealed within the price he would ultimately collect from the palace treasurer. A nice little profit would be made all around, if the slaves lived up to their description. The new Minos was known to have a taste for exotics.
Tereus' men were to bring the slaves from the ship to Meriones' house before dawn on the appointed day, and hold them there until Carambis arrived for the inspection. Tulipa disliked having so many strangers under her roof, but the promised commission placated her.
Meriones had less easily dismissed reservations.
When he heard the muffled knocking at the street door in the predawn darkness, he thought for the tenth time, I wish I had not agreed to this. Tulipa burrowed more deeply into the bed and pretended not to hear, so it was Meriones who padded downstairs on bare feet and opened the door.
Four husky seamen pushed past him into the small passage opening onto the megaron. The area was filled with the stench of their unwashed bodies. Meriones was aware of huddled forms being dragged and shoved with them, and the thump of a fist on someone's back. He lifted his bronze night-lantern in an effort to make out faces, but only succeeded in casting distorted menacing shadows on the walls, figures that gesticulated like dark frescoes come to life.
Tulipa joined them in the megaron. She shrank against the wall and rolled her eyes at Meriones.
“It's all right,” he assured her with a total lack of conviction. “These men are from Tereus, with the, ah, guests, we talked about.”
One of the seamen grinned, a flash of broken yellow teeth in a swarthy face. “Guests, is it?” he mimicked. “Look at this one.” He thrust one of the bound, cloaked figures into the lantern light and uncovered its head. “You have strange tastes if you invite people like this to be your guests.”
A thin old man stood blinking before them. He was taller than either Meriones or Tulipa, as tall as any of Tereus' men. His gaunt face looked like wrinkled parchment stretched tight over a skull. A fringe of white beard edged his jawbone, then slanted upward to meet the tangle of his uncut hair. His eyes were set deep in cavernous sockets. When they accepted the light and were able to focus he turned their full glare on Meriones. Strange eyes, colorless, burning with a life more intense than any other in the room.
Meriones involuntarily took a step backward.
The old man murmured something and struggled to free his hands. Instantly his captor pulled the cloak over his face and spun him around to face the wall. “Here, that's enough of that,” he warned. To Meriones he said, “You don't want to let him look at you too long, or make those signs with his hands.”
Tulipa asked in a harsh whisper, “Why not?”
“It's just better if you don't,” the man replied. “I am Jaha Fe, third officer on the
Qatil
. My men and I will stay here and guard these guests of yours. Is there anything to eat while we wait?”
Qatil
. My men and I will stay here and guard these guests of yours. Is there anything to eat while we wait?”
Without complaints for once, Tulipa hurried away to prepare food. When she was gone, Jaha Fe winked at Meriones. “Now these women, they could be guests in my pallet any time. Want to see?”
Meriones nodded, though his eyes kept straying to the cloaked figure of the old man. Jaha Fe unwrapped the nearest woman and pushed her toward the light.
She was beautiful, even by Cretan standards. Her skin was as luminous as seafoam.
“I think she's the daughter of the old man,” Jaha Fe said. “Or granddaughter, could be.”
Her frightened glance skittered about the room until she met Meriones' eyes. He offered a shy smile. She said something in reply.
Meriones struggled with the scattered fragments of childhood memories, put together a few words, discarded them and tried again. A sound emerged that might have been the sighing of wind in the cypresses of Kn
sos, a confusion of sibilants and aspirants that startled him as much as anyone else. But the girl flashed a grin of acknowledgment and replied in the same tongue.
sos, a confusion of sibilants and aspirants that startled him as much as anyone else. But the girl flashed a grin of acknowledgment and replied in the same tongue.“What's she saying?” Jaha Fe demanded to know. “Get her to tell you her name.”
Sweating, for the heat had returned to Crete, Meriones struggled with the forgotten language of his grandmother. His words came haltingly, but his understanding of the language improved as he listened to the girl. “She is called Ebisha,” he translated at last, pleased with himself. “It means something like ⦠Green Eyes.”
“And she does have them!” Jaha Fe exclaimed. A roll of laughter relieved the tension in the room.
Meriones did not go to the palace that day. Even if he had not been instructed to wait for Carambis to come and inspect the slaves, he would have been unwilling to leave his wife alone in the house with the Thracian seamen.
He spent his time in conversation with Ebisha, who was pitifully eager to talk now that she had someone who could understand. She spoke with longing of her lost land, a land of many tribes, ruled by warrior chieftains who were very much under the influence of the
priests. According to Ebisha, the inhabitants of the Islands of Mist were obsessed with the supernatural. They envisioned a community of spirits freely mingling with the living, interacting with them as if both seen and unseen were members of one ongoing community. This concept was inexplicable to the Cretan mind, whose vision of the netherworld was a simplistic paradise.
priests. According to Ebisha, the inhabitants of the Islands of Mist were obsessed with the supernatural. They envisioned a community of spirits freely mingling with the living, interacting with them as if both seen and unseen were members of one ongoing community. This concept was inexplicable to the Cretan mind, whose vision of the netherworld was a simplistic paradise.
Ebisha told Meriones of priests who manipulated the power in the standing stones that dotted the islands, drawing down that power in some extraordinary fashion to make crops grow and heal the sick and control the weather to their advantage. This was not magic, she insisted, when Meriones tried to apply that term to the priests' actions.
“Not magic,” Ebisha said. “Priests use ⦠what is. Earth, fire, water, stone. They know how to use. They ⦠shape. Make happen by shaping. My grandsire”âshe nodded toward the old manâ“he makes happen.”
Meriones looked toward the tall, gaunt figure that was still standing immobile, facing the wall. He shuddered. It was as if something alien, cold beyond cold, had come into his warm little house.
Tereus arrived before Carambis. There was no mistaking the way Ebisha's face lit up when she saw him, though the other slaves turned their faces away from him. “He is like a chieftain of my own people,” she told Meriones. “As soon as I saw him I wanted him to put his hands on me. I knew he wanted it too.”
“Did he ⦠on the ship?” Meriones asked, surprised to find the thought angered him.
“No. But he will, he will.” She looked past Meriones to Tereus and smiled.
Tereus was paying no attention to her. Instead he had the old priest brought before him and asked Meriones his opinion of the man's saleability. The priest stood silently, glaring out of his skull-like face, eyes blazing with a light that might have been madness or even the manifestation of a god. Once, perhaps, they had been as green as Ebisha's, but all color had long since been burnt out of them by the heat of the spirit within.
“Tell him he will go to the king of Kn
sos,” Tereus instructed Meriones. “Tell him that if he pleases the king, he will have a good life and be treated well.”
sos,” Tereus instructed Meriones. “Tell him that if he pleases the king, he will have a good life and be treated well.”Meriones repeated the message. The old man's only response was a contemptuous flicker of his eyelids. “I don't know if he will cooperate,” Meriones said doubtfully.
“He must,” Tereus grated. “I didn't haul this ugly old weed all the way here just to have him turn obstinate when the time came to prove his value. He's worth more than the rest of them put together, and I mean to make a lot of money with him.”
“Shall I ask him to do a feat of sorcery that would impress Carambis?”
“He had better; a damned impressive one.”
“What can your grandfather do?” Meriones asked Ebisha.
The girl cast a wary glance at the old man. “He is a servant of the sun. He can ask the sun to hide his face and darken the land. He can summon the wind.”
Meriones said he was vastly impressed, but he doubted those acts would be suitable for performing in a small house. Besides, thinking about them made him nervous. “Can he cause a lump of glass to change color?” he asked Ebisha. “Or charm a snake? Those are the sort of tricks The Minos enjoys.”
Ebisha's eyes were cold. “You mock him.”
“No! I did not meanâ” His apologies were interrupted by Tulipa's entry with a tray of food. Meriones was too tense to eat, but Ebisha showed an appetite that outstripped even that of Tereus and his crewmen. She and the other captivesâwith the exception of the old man, who ate nothingâstuffed food into their mouths as if they had been starving for days.
“Didn't you ever feed them?” Meriones asked Tereus.
“I offered them what I feed my crew. They didn't seem to think it was food.”
One of the crewmen laughed.
The old man behaved with a dignity that never deserted him. His hands had been untied to allow him to eat, though the guards watched him closely every moment. He lifted the bowl Tulipa offered him and carefully examined its contents without touching them. Then he placed his bunched fingers against the bottom of the bowl in its exact center and chanted something under his breath. The ritual completed, he put the bowl down, the food uneaten, and sat back, withdrawing into some private place beyond their reach.
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