Lydra confronted Reid beneath the Griffin Judge. In the lamplight her black gown was like another shadow, against which her face thrust startlingly white. From her throne she. said: “I summoned you this late on purpose, exile. There are none to hear us but the guards beyond the door.”
Reid knew with a chilclass="underline" There need never be any to eavesdrop. The door is thick. Though not too thick for those men to hear a call. And they are wholly vowed to her service.
“What has my lady in mind?” he got forth.
“This,” the Ariadne told him. “You thought to embark tomorrow with your giddy Erissa, did you not? It shall not be. You will remain here.”
Suddenly he knew that his cage had no doors.
“You have been less than candid,” she said. “Did you imagine Diores and I would never talk about your companions in Egypt and so learn what you were withholding about the woman? These are uncanny matters. If you did not tell the whole truth, how can we suppose you did not lie? That you are, not the enemy of him the gods have chosen, Prince, Theseus?”
“My lady,” he heard himself cry, “Theseus is making a tool of you. He’ll abandon you as soon as you’re not needed—”
“Hold your mouth or you’re dead!” she yelled. “Guards! Guards, to me!”
He knew, he knew: Long before, the man with the lion eyes had come into her aloneness and promised her what no other man would have dared, that he would make her his queen if he could: but for this, she must needs aid him in bringing about the downfall of her king.
Why didn’t I see it? he shrieked in his head. Because I wasn’t used to intrigue, but mainly because I didn’t want to kick apart the glittery little paradise she let me spin around myself, he whispered in his head.
He realized: When she passed on to Diores and so to Theseus the word I gave her, that was Lydra’s required service—that, and whatever help she’s been lending to a conspiracy among the metics and the disaffected on Crete, and now her locking me away lest I break the silence.
Through how many springtime nights, while her maidens dreamed and whispered in their dormitory of young men they would meet, through how many years has she prayed for a chance like this? And to what gods?
XV
The ships were coming in. Already the Piraeus strand was full and newcomers must lie out at anchor. There too was Oleg’s great vessel; it could be beached, but with difficulty, and the Russian wanted to avoid curiosity seekers, ‘ thieves, and blabbermouths as much as possible. Most crews pitched tents on the nearby shore and walked to Athens for sightseeing and amusement. But on any given day, many men lounged in those camps.
Ribald shouts blew around Erissa with the smoke of cookfires. Several Achaeans approached her as she came striding. She ignored them, though she felt their stares on her back. A woman—bonny, too—who swung along that arrogantly—unescorted? What could she be, if not one of the whores come down to ply their trade? But she spurned every offer. So maybe she had a rendezvous with some important man in his tent? But the chieftains weren’t squatted here, they were in town at the inns, the mightiest at the palace.... The warriors shrugged and returned to their wasting spits, their dice games, their contests of speed and strength and bragging.
She came to a row of skiffs. Each had a ferryman on standby, whose boredom vanished when she appeared. “Who’ll take me out to yonder ship?” she asked, pointing at Oleg’s.
Eyes went up and down her height. Teeth shone wet in beards. “What for?” someone asked knowingly. “What pay?” laughed his companion. “Mine’s the boat belongs to it,” said a third, “and I’ll take you, but you’ll earn your passage. Agreed?”
Erissa remembered the barbarians of Thrace, the burghers of Rhodes, and too many more. She drew herself erect, widened her eyes till the pupils were circled in white, and willed pallor into her face. “I have business concerning the Beings,” she said in her coldest witch-voice. “Behave yourselves—” she stabbed a gesture—“unless you want that manhood you boast of more than you use to blacken and drop off.”
They backed away, terrified, scrabbling out, shaky little signs of their own. She gestured at Oleg’s man. He all but crawled to help her aboard, pushed his craft afloat, and worked at the oars like a thresher, never lifting his glance to her.
She muted a sigh. How easy to dominate, when you had ceased being frightened for yourself.
Oleg’s rubicund visage and golden beard burned in sun-light reflected off water, as he peered over the bulwark. “Who the chawrt—Why, you, Erissa! Saints alive, I haven’t seen you for weeks. Come aboard, come aboard. Hoy, you scuts!” he bellowed. “Drop a rope ladder for my lady.”
He took her into a cabin, set, her down on a bunk, poured wine that a crewman had fetched, and clanged his beaker against hers. “Good to greet you, lass:’ The cabin being a mere hutch cluttered with his personal gear, he joined her on the bunk. Windows were lacking, but enough light seeped past the door for her to make him out. It was warm; she felt the radiation of his shaggy tunic-clad body and drank the odor of his sweat. Waves clinked against the hull, which rocked slightly. Outside, feet thudded, voices shouted, tackle creaked, as the work of preparation continued which he had been overseeing.
“You needn’t look that grim, need you?” he rumbled. “Oleg.” She caught his free hand. “This host Theseus is summoning. Where are they bound?”
“You know that Been announced. A plundering trip to Tyrrhenian waters.”
“Are they really, though? This sudden—this many allies—”
He squinted pityingly at her. “I understand. You fear for Crete. Well, look. You’d not get the Atticans, not to speak of what other Achaeans they’ve talked into joining—you won’t get them to attack any place under the protection of the Minos. They aren’t crazy. At the same time, they do grow restless, and the Minos finds advantage in letting them work that off now and then, on folk who’ve naught to offer in the market but slaves and who themselves are apt to play pirate. Right?”
“But this year of all years,” she whispered.
Oleg nodded. “I went along with the notion, when my advice was asked. If we really are in for a tidal wave as Duncan claims, I’d hate to see fine ships wrecked, most especially my lovely new dromond. Let’s get them out of harm’s way. How I look forward to showing Duncan my work! His idea, you recall, that we build something really up-to-date that’d catch the notice of the time wizards.”
“Who has warned the Minos about the disaster to come?” Erissa demanded.
“Well, you heard Diores yourself, relating what he’d seen and done on Atlantis. Duncan’s an honored guest there. I got a couple of Diores’ men drunk and asked them out, just to make sure. It’s true. So surely by now he must’ve put the word across.
“We’d not have heard, here in Athens. If the Cretans do mean to empty their cities and scatter their navy well out at sea, they’d hardly give advance notice, would they? That’d be asking for trouble. I’d not be surprised but what Gathon. under orders, put the flea in Theseus’ ear about organizing a joint Achaean expedition beyond Italy. Beyond temptation, ha, ha!”
“Then why do I remember that my country was destroyed this spring?” she asked.
Oleg stroked her hair as her father might have done. “Maybe you misremember. You’ve said things are blurry where they aren’t blank for you, right around the day of the downfall.”
“There is nothing unclear about my memories of the aftermath.”
“Well, so maybe the God’s changed his mind and sent us back to save Crete.” Oleg crossed himself. “I’m not so bold as to claim that, mark you. I’m just a miserable sinner trying to make an honest profit, But a priest of the God told me men are free to choose, that there is no foreordained doom except the very Last Day. Meanwhile we can only walk the way we hope is best, a step at a time.”