They embraced. His mouth and hands were less clumsy than they had been the first few times, and she used every skill that hers possessed. Inwardly she was cold with destiny. What flutterings went through her were because she was on her way to Duncan.
“Now, nymph, now,” he said low in his throat.
Usually she had let herself enjoy their encounters. Why not? They were a small reason, among larger ones, for luring him in the first place—to be free of that hunger, at least, while she waited half prisoner in Athens. In the beginning he was awed and bewildered. (Diores had encouraged him when the older man noticed what was developing. The admiral would like few things better than having a trusty follower live with, watch, and, if need be, curb this woman whose part and power in the world were unknown but were beyond doubt witchy and none too friendly.) Later Peneleos gained confidence; but he stayed kind to her in his self-centered Achaean fashion. She liked him well enough.
Tonight she must give him all her art and none of her feeling. She must bring him to a calm and happy drowsiness but not let it glide into natural slumber.
The lamp was guttering when she raised herself on an elbow. “Rest, my lover,” she crooned, over and over, and her fingers moved on his body in slow rhythm and when the gaze she had trapped began to turn glassy she began blinking her own eyes in exact tune with his heartbeat.
He went quickly under. Already in the grove he had not been hard to lay the Sleep on. That fact had caused her to choose him among the unwed men she regularly saw, and seduce him, after her plan had taken vague shape. Each time thereafter that she ensorcelled him—in guise of lulling him or easing a headache or bringing on a pleasant dream—made the next time easier. She was sure he followed the command she always gave: Do not tell anyone about this that we are doing together; it is a dear and holy secret between us; rather, forget that I did more than murmur to you, until ‘I do it again.
Now she sat staring down at him in the wan, flickering light. His features were too firmly made to fall slack, but something had gone out of them and out of the half-closed eyes. It had not gone far, though. It lay back in the dark-ness of the skull, like one of those snakes fed by Keftiu householders who believed their dead came home in that form. After hours it would rouse and uncoil; and the wrong sounds could bring it instantly awake and striking.
In the Sleep you believed and did what you were told, up to a point—and she thought her repeated suggestions that he acted out had driven that point further up than it stood in most men—but you would not do anything that your undeceived waking self would recognize as wrong or dangerous. She must be totally careful tonight.
The lamp was almost out. She rose, cat-cautious, and replenished it. The room was warm, thick with odors of oil, smoke, flesh, and musky breath. Outside the door curtain were darkness and silence.
Erissa leaned over him. “Peneleos,” she said, word by soft and measured word, “you know I am your woman who wants only to serve you. But you know I also serve the Goddess.”
“Yes,” he responded, toneless as always before.
“Hear me, Peneleos. The Goddess has revealed to me that the divine plan, Hers and Zeus’, for the union of our two peoples is imperiled. If that be done which is forbidden, the everlasting curse will fall upon them. Tell me what is intended so I may warn against wrongness.”
She held her breath till he responded. Her hope pivoted on the likelihood that Diores had confided in him. Surely more men than the prince and admiral would have to know the real scheme if it differed from the announced one. Peneleos, while young, was not indiscreet; and information would enable him to keep sharper watch on whatever his leman might be doing or learning.
The answers she drew forth clenched her sense of fate. Winter-long plotting between Theseus, Lydra, and those whom Lydra’s agents had discovered or planted in Knossos; story of the future drawn from a too trusting Duncan Reid; reinterpretation of the Periboean oracle to mean that the Goddess Herself desired the triumph of Athens; scheme to seize the queen city and command the whole fleet to turn about and fall on Keft; safety margin, that no hostile move need be made if disaster did not grab the Labyrinth when it was supposed to; everything kept secret from the Minos; Duncan left behind under guard on some pretext.
She didn’t pause for bitterness. Much of this she had suspected for weeks.
“Hark,” she said. “You remember that you have fretted about possible trouble from the man Uldin. Know now that Poseidon is angered at misuse of the horse—that his sacred animal should be ridden like a donkey—and will bring ruin on the expedition unless the sacrilege ceases for good. Uldin must be slain in expiation; but, secretly, for if the reason were given out, messengers would leave for Crete.”
She took her time, repeating, elaborating, until she felt she had engraved belief on the ill-defended mind. Moonset and sunrise drew nearer with each breath, but she knew she would see Duncan again. In the end, she left Peneleos on the bed, in the dark, while she went “to fetch your lord Diores so we can plan what to do.”
The rush-strewn passage was cold under her bare feet. Shadows jumped around the streaming lampflame. Uldin’s room was’ a few doors down. She entered. He lay snoring beside a new slave girl, his first being too heavy with child. (I will not have another by Duncan, went through Erissa’s thoughts like a bat that flies forth every twilight.
I seem to have become barren since the last one Dagonas gave me. Welladay, I could not have done what I have done here were matters otherwise; let the memory of Deukalion comfort me. Unless, after this strife is over, Rhea will grant—) The Hun had kept to, his shaven head, three tufts of hair, and barbaric earrings. The scarred coarse visage was hideous to her. But where else was help?
She shook him. He came immediately awake. She laid a hand across his mouth, stopped, and whispered: “Rise at once. I’ve laid the Sleep on Peneleos and learned something terrible.”
He nodded and followed her, unclad but gripping his iron blade.
Early in winter, still dwelling alone and remembering Duncan much too well, she had recalled a thing he told her. In future centuries Dorian tribesmen from the north were to overrun the Achaeans because their iron weapons were cheap enough that any man could bear them, whereas a full bronze panoply was only for a nobleman. So later she asked Peneleos: “Are your leaders wise to let Uldin create the horse archers he speaks of? Once that usage spreads, will it not spell the end of the war chariot, even of the whole state founded on charioteer lords?” At intervals she strengthened the suggestion while he lay in the Sleep.
Her act had seemed nothing but a minor wedge she might drive. However, it took effect. Peneleos repeated the idea to Diores, Theseus, and others, who grew thoughtful. They did not outright forbid Uldin to carry on, but they found pretexts to gradually withdraw support until they should fully have reconsidered. In the end he sat about idle and smoldering.
Tonight, from a Peneleos who thought he was Diores, the Hun learned of a scheme to kill him. He did not learn that Erissa had anything to do with those words aside from extracting them. Peneleos had been ordered to forget that; and Uldin’s acquaintance with shaman arts was limited.
“Ungh,” he grunted. After a moment, he shot her a glance from a countenance otherwise gone motionless. “Why do you warn me?”
“I’ve also learned of a plot to fall on Crete when it lies racked and broken,” she said. “The warning we bore was never allowed to reach the Minos. Those are my people. I want to save them. I can’t get there alone.”
“I’d wondered about that Tyrrhenian expedition.”