Oniacus lay on the deck beside him, half-drowned, one arm hideously dislocated from its socket. Helikaon started to untie his ropes, dread in his heart. He had to find Andromache and the boys. If he had nearly drowned on the top deck, how could anyone still be alive lower down in the ship?
He felt a hand on his arm. Gray-faced with pain and shock, Oniacus had pulled himself up; he put out his good hand to stop Helikaon from untying himself. He pointed ahead of them, terror in his eyes.
“There’s another one coming!” he cried.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
DAWN OF A NEW DAY
The man who once had been called Gershom stood in the darkness that lay over Egypte and gazed toward the north.
Patience was a skill he had learned only recently. As a young man he had needed only such patience as was required by a royal prince accustomed to every whim being instantly obeyed, that is, none at all. Then had come the day when, in drunken anger, he had killed two royal guardsmen. He had had the choice of being blinded and buried alive or fleeing the country of Egypte. He fled. As a fugitive, working in the copper mines of Kypros, he again had little use for patience. He worked until exhausted, then slept, then worked again.
Then he had fallen in with the sea people, roving traders, pirates, and raiders from the far northern fastnesses of the Great Green. He seldom thought of those days now, of his time with Helikaon on the great galley Xanthos, of his good friend Oniacus, of Xander, and of the people of Troy he had known for a few brief years. Word had reached him of the armies besieging the city of Troy; only in recent days had he heard of the death of Hektor, and he grieved for a man he hardly knew. He wondered at the fortunes of Andromache and her son and hoped that she was with Helikaon and was happy.
The affliction that had fallen on Egypte two days before had come out of the north: great waves that had devastated the land and a dark cloud of ash that had rolled across the sky, bringing perpetual night. The waves had swept up the river Nile, overflowing its low banks, destroying crops, demolishing homes, and drowning thousands. Then, from out of the river, polluted by ashfall and turned to the color of blood by the violent churning of the red Nile mud, had come millions of frogs and clouds of flying, biting insects. The frogs had invaded homes and crawled and hopped through meager food supplies. The insects had filled the air so that it was hard to breathe without sucking them in. They bit any exposed skin, spreading sickness throughout the land.
Standing on a rooftop in the darkness, the prophet heard a sound behind him. He turned to find hawk-faced Yeshua. “The sun will not rise again today,” his friend said with certainty. “The people are crying out to you to save them. They believe you have caused this catastrophe.”
“Why would they think that?”
“You asked the pharaoh to free the desert people from their slavery. He refused. Then the sun disappeared and the waves came. The Egypteians believe our god, the one god, is stronger than their own deities, and he is punishing them.”
“But does the pharaoh believe that?”
“He’s your brother. What do you think?”
Ahmose had gone to see the pharaoh, his half brother Rameses, risking bringing on himself the brutal punishment he long had escaped, and asked the ruler to allow the desert slaves to leave the land of Egypte. Rameses had refused. Seated on his high gold-encrusted throne, his beloved son beside him, Rameses had laughed at him for his naďvete.
“For the sake of our childhood friendship,” he had said, “I will not have you killed this time. But do not presume on that friendship further. Did you really expect me to wave my hand and release the slaves just because you, a known criminal, asked me to?”
As Ahmose had walked away disappointed, the pharaoh’s son had come running after him. Ahmose had stopped and smiled down at him. The boy was about ten, with a mop of black hair, intelligent eyes, and an eager smile.
“They say you are my uncle,” he asked. “Is that true?”
“Perhaps,” Ahmose told him.
“I am sorry we cannot be friends,” the boy said. “But I will speak to my father about the slaves. My mother says he can refuse me nothing.”
He had grinned, then turned and ran back to his father’s throne.
Standing in the darkness, Ahmose told Yeshua, “I think Rameses is a stubborn man and contrary in his nature. I have told him what I want from him; therefore, that is the last thing he will give me.”
“Then perhaps you should have asked him to keep our people here in Egypte.”
The prophet looked around, startled, and realized that cold-eyed Yeshua had made a joke. He laughed, and the sound echoed strangely over the land of despair.
“I will go and speak to him again. Perhaps he will relent now.”
As he set off for the palace, he thought back to the night long before on the island of Minoa when he had lain by a burning bush and the dreams and visions he had endured, dosed with opiates by the fey priestess Kassandra. He had seen mighty waves, rivers running red, darkness at noon, desolation and despair. He had seen his half brother raw-eyed with grief. He wondered what tragedy could make the cold-hearted pharaoh suffer so.
Yeshua came after him, grabbing him by the arm.
“You cannot go! He will certainly have you killed this time.”
“Have faith, my friend,” Ahmose told him. “God is great.”
It was the morning of the third day since the destruction of Thera and the coming of the waves. Helikaon and his son walked through the twilight along the gray shore of an unnamed island, splashing their bare feet in the shallows.
Astyanax kept stopping to peer into the shallow water. One of the crewmen had fashioned a shrimping net for him, and he was eager to catch some of the creatures. So far there was just a handful of the tiny transparent shellfish flopping about in the bottom of his net. Helikaon waited patiently each time the boy stopped to add one or two more. After all, there was nothing to hurry for.
Astyanax held up the net again for his father to inspect. “Good boy,” Helikaon told him. “Now, let’s go back to the camp and eat them.”
The sky still was clouded with ash, and there was a constant light ashfall, leaving a grainy grayness on everything. Even the crew’s campfires had to be protected from the ashfall or they would go out quickly. As father and son passed the cairn of small rocks raised to mark the bones of their comrades, Helikaon saw that it now appeared as if carved from a single smooth stone.
The Xanthos had survived all four of the great waves, each one smaller than the one before. After the brutal punishment of the first, Helikaon had not even tried to steer the ship. He just had held on grimly, one arm around the aft rail, one around Oniacus, who by then was unconscious. Yet gallantly the ship had plunged unerringly like a lance into each mountainous wave, as if steering herself. When the fourth wave had passed, Helikaon had gazed out over the sea. They had been swept into unknown waters. He had no idea where they were. He quickly untied himself and Oniacus, then raced down to the lower deck.
He never would forget the awful sight that struck his eyes. Andromache hung, helpless and still, from the ropes she had tied to a rear rowing bench. Her face was pale, and her hair drifted like seaweed in the shallow water on the planks of the deck. She still held the boys in a viselike grip. Both were alive, but they were sodden and white-faced, silent with shock.
Helikaon untied them, then picked Andromache up, dread in his heart. Her head lolled loosely, and her eyes were half-open, unseeing. He threw her down on the waterlogged deck, turning her to her stomach and pressing down on her back to try to expel the water. It seemed to make no difference. Her body was limp, unmoving. Crying out with anguish, he lifted her by the waist so that her head was down and shook her like a rag doll. At last she gave a faint sigh. Then water gushed out of her mouth, and she gave a weak cough. He shook her again, and more water gouted out. She started coughing harder and trying to struggle from his grip. He picked her up and pulled her tightly to him, tears of gratitude and relief falling down his cheeks.