Enchanted Fire Page 7

  “That was Jason’s doing, not Pelias’.”

  “Ahhh! Jason refused the throne and decided to chase rainbows instead? Orpheus! I know Jason better than that, and I have only spoken to him twice and watched him manage his men for two days.”

  Orpheus, who had been looking annoyed, suddenly laughed. “It seems you do not know him as well as you thought. Jason is just the man to chase a rainbow. He is hungry for glory—and he is not at all stupid. He knew how long he would have ruled if he had taken what Pelias offered. He was nothing and no one, except his father’s son, and almost no one remembered Aison, who I believe had not ruled long enough in any event to make any mark, good or bad. He was going to replace a man whom—whether we believe it or not—those of Yolcos acknowledged as the son of a god and a wise and just ruler. After the first mistake he made, all would cry to have Pelias back. Nonetheless, Jason did not refuse the throne, nor did he say he would only ascend it on Pelias’s death, although perhaps Pelias thought he would… I was not there. I am telling you what others, mostly Jason, told me.”

  Eurydice grinned. “All right, so how did Pelias get rid of him?”

  Orpheus stared at her for a long moment, but her insouciant smile did not falter. She had made a telling point and expected him to acknowledge it. Between men that was only fair, but a decent woman would have hidden her triumph. Eurydice had not the faintest notion of how to behave. She had cocked her head at him, still grinning, in a silent challenge.

  “I cannot be sure his purpose was to be rid of Jason,” he said stiffly, “but he told Jason of a dream he had had over and over, that the ghost of Phrixos had come to him and wept of his murder at Aietes’ hands and said it could not rest until the golden fleece of the miraculous beast that carried him and his lost sister Helle was returned to those of his blood.”

  Eurydice looked startled. “Phrixos? Why is that name familiar to me? Who is Phrixos? And what is he to Jason?”

  Orpheus laughed. “As to why the name is familiar to you, I have no idea. How could I? As to his relationship to Jason, he is a second cousin, I think. Jason’s grandfather Kreutheus had a brother called Athamas who was king of Thebes. Athamas married a strange and Gifted woman called Nephele. She bore him two children, Phrixos and a daughter called Helle. When the children were almost full grown, Nephele left her husband.” Orpheus’ face took on a look of disapproval. “If she had done her duty and stayed where she belonged, none of this would have happened.”

  “If she was Gifted,” Eurydice put in, with a laugh, “she probably had her crop full of being told to be modest and obedient.”

  “Do you want to hear this story or not?” Orpheus asked.

  “Oh, yes, my lord,” Eurydice said meekly, lowering her head in false humility.

  Orpheus laughed again, realizing with a shock of surprise as he did so that he would not have been amused by the same response from any Greek woman. He would have been ashamed and uncomfortable over his sharp remark and would have spent the next half hour soothing her hurt feelings. Of course, no Greek woman would have made the outrageous suggestion that Nephele had had her crop full of modesty and obedience, but there was a kind of pleasure in the equal exchanges with Eurydice that put him at ease. He settled back more comfortably against the bulwark.

  “Have I not been meek enough?” Eurydice prodded tartly.

  Chuckling, Orpheus retorted, “When you achieve meekness, I will take to the air and fly. I just wished to be sure that you wanted me to continue.”

  “Of course I do! Is there anything more wonderful than listening to your voice?” She widened her eyes when he snorted with disbelief—but she had only been half teasing, and she smiled and put a placating hand on his arm. “Perhaps your companions have grown hardened to your voice, but for me it is still a thrill to listen, even when you are only speaking. Beside that, I have been cudgeling my thoughts and I am sure I know the name Phrixos but I simply cannot remember what I have heard. If you do not finish the story, it will drive me mad.”

  “Very well. Some years after Nephele disappeared, Athamas married a woman called Ino. She, too, bore him two children, two sons, and as they grew, she began to resent the fact that Phrixos, who was clever and well behaved, would be king. Ino began to plot against Phrixos and Helle, telling Athamas that his eldest son was impatient for the throne and was seeking his death. Athamas tried not to believe ill of Phrixos, but he was Nephele’s son and she had abandoned him so, it seemed, Ino’s words did find a foothold.”

  “It is very hard to prove one has no ill intentions,” Eurydice sighed.

  Orpheus nodded. “Still, Athamas did not act against Phrixos until a famine struck his kingdom. He sent to the oracle at Delphi to learn how he had sinned and what must be done to pacify Demeter and Persephone.”

  “Oh,” Eurydice groaned, “do not tell me that he sent Ino or a messenger that she suggested!”

  “I do not know, but I doubt he would have been such a fool, unless he really wished to be rid of Phrixos. It was suspected that Ino bribed the messengers. At any event, what you thought came about. The message—true or false is unknown—from the oracle was that Phrixos and Helle must be sacrificed to the king of the Dead and his queen to bring back fertility to the land. However, on the day they were to be driven into the caves, their mother, Nephele, appeared with a huge beast. Some said it was a ram with golden fleece and others that it had the longest, finest fleece ever seen but did not look like any breed of sheep on earth. Nephele ordered Phrixos and Helle to mount the beast, and they were carried away. Phrixos arrived alone in Colchis, however.”

  “That was where I heard the name!” Eurydice said triumphantly. “Balta— A sorcerer I met was trying to prove his Power to me by convincing me he was very old, though he looked no more than a man in his midlife. He told me that he himself had heard the voice of Phrixos calling for his sister after she fell from their magical mount and drowned. He was said to have wandered for weeks calling for her—until his mother came to him and convinced him she was lost. I thought that old charlatan was lying and paid little attention, but now I remember the sister’s name also. It was Helle, and the sorcerer said the passage was thereafter called Helle’s sea—the Hellespont. Perhaps he was lying.”

  “No, I do not think he was,” Orpheus said, looking amazed.

  Before Eurydice could ask what had surprised him, however, Lynkeus called out, “Land!” and Jason roared, “Eurydice, come forward.”

  Chapter Five

  Eurydice leapt to her feet, feeling Orpheus come to his beside her. He took the first step with her, too, but then stopped. “I cannot go with you,” he said. “I am timekeeper for the ship. If there is danger, I must be here where the rowers can see me and hear me.”

  This time, however, Eurydice was not frightened and did not feel she needed Orpheus’ support. As she came to her feet, her eyes had caught the dark irregularity ahead on the horizon that she believed was Imbros. A glance upward at the sun told her it was before midday, but she had had no way of judging the speed of the ship beyond what Polydeuces had said about reaching the end of the peninsula before evening. She did not fear being blamed for reaching the first goal ahead of time. She smiled at Orpheus and pointed ahead.

  “Imbros,” she said. “I do not think there is any danger.” And she hurried forward along the central gangway to where Jason was waiting on the raised, decked-over area at the prow. The bottom of the sail was well above her head as she passed.

  “What is that?” Jason asked, pointing to the land mass ahead of them as soon as she reached him.

  “If what I have been told is true, that is Imbros,” Eurydice said. “I have never been there and do not know from my own experience. I do know we must turn south here to pass between the island and the Chersonesus—unless you wish to land on Imbros. I cannot advise you about that; I know nothing of that place.”

  “You are sure turning south will not take us into a bay. It seems to me that—” he pointed to the coast they ha
d been following “—is a headland. Would it not be better to sail north around what you call Imbros?”

  “I know nothing about sailing and have no idea whether it would be better to sail around Imbros,” Eurydice replied. “It seems to me it would take longer. All I can tell you is that there is a wide passage of water between the island and the coast of the Chersonesus. I am quite certain of that. I have seen a ship pass through, and I have walked the whole way to the end of the land and even some distance east on the south shore. From the south shore, I could see land across the water—much better than I can see Imbros from here.”

  “Ankaios,” Jason called, and the young second steersman rose from a bench amidships, clambered up on the gangway, and came forward. When he reached them, Jason asked, “What do you think of this water?”

  Ankaios closed his eyes and stood in silence for perhaps four hundred heartbeats, his body shifting with the motion of the ship. Eurydice watched him with interest, aware of a stirring of Power, and equally aware that had she still been in the stern with Orpheus, her attention fixed, she probably would not have noticed. It made her wonder whether the priestesses had failed to teach her to shield her Power because they did not think it would be necessary for the High Priestess of their order to do so or because they did not know how or whether it was possible at all to hide her Power. Perhaps Ankaios’ was simply different.

  “Ahead is a disturbance of the currents, I think an island,” Ankaios said at last. “Behind and three-quarters port is land, the coast we have been following, I would say. At one-quarter port is open water, a channel I believe.”

  “Oh, wonderful!” a high, spiteful voice remarked. “As if all of us had not heard Lynkeus cry out ‘land’ and look for it. How astounding that you should ‘feel’ it where we all saw it. And for the rest, you are only repeating what she said, Ankaios.”

  “You little idiot,” Ankaios snarled, lifting a hand as if to strike him and starting toward the edge of the decking, “would I lie about what is ahead of us? If we are in a bay, sailing at the speed we are making, we could be wrecked before the sail could be furled and the oars could slow us.”

  Jason blocked the way to the boy, saying angrily, “Hylas, you are supposed to be opening a cask of cheese for the midday meal, not interfering in what does not concern you.” He gestured the boy roughly away from the decked-over area, cast one more glance over his shoulder at the rising dark area on the horizon that was Imbros. “Ankaios, watch,” he ordered, then turned fully toward the stern. “One quarter port,” he shouted back to Tiphys. “Steersman, sing out if you do not like the feel of the water. Sailors, stand by to shift or take up sail. Oarsmen, be ready to run out the oars.”

  Men jumped up and seized ropes hanging down by the mast and—attached to the rails on each side. The remainder took their places on the benches in rowing position. Eurydice watched with sparkling eyes, her heart beating fast, but with the joy the movement of the swift ship gave her, not with fear. She knew what she knew; there was a passage through which ships could go between Imbros and the Chersonesus. She had seen a merchant ship pass herself, and she was certain—especially since she had felt Ankaios’ Gift at work—that Jason’s crew was as skilled or more skilled than that of any merchantman.

  The sail, which had been full-bellied, became a little slack, and she saw the men Jason had called sailors releasing the ropes on one side and loosening them. The yard twisted to a slightly different position and the sail filled again. Eurydice could tell when the ship began to turn because Imbros shifted its position from ahead to the right. The ship flew on. Eurydice breathed deeply and stared out entranced at the coast and Imbros and the sea and the sky. And then they were around the headland, and it was clear that there was open water ahead with Imbros, clearly separate, to the right. Jason called for the men to be at ease.

  “I do not like the smell of cheese!”

  That irritating voice brought Eurydice’s eyes down to the lower deck where Hylas stood sullenly by a cask he still had not opened.

  “Has it taken you all that time to get the cask out?” Jason was plainly exasperated, but Hylas only turned down his lips and uttered a sob. Jason’s voice rose. “If you do not do as you were told, I will excuse you from eating the cheese as well as from smelling it.”

  “Why should I do it?” Hylas whined. “I have mending to do and other tasks. She does nothing but sit at her ease. Let her serve the midday meal.”

  “I will be glad to do it,” Eurydice put in hastily as much to silence Hylas as to show herself cooperative, then grinned at Jason. “I am very fond of the smell of cheese, especially when my stomach tells me that breakfast was a long time ago.”

  She was wondering while she spoke why someone had not pitched that nuisance Hylas overboard and then remembered Heracles’s shoulder beneath the keel and his massive strength steadying the mast against three men’s pull.

  “It is true enough that I have nothing to do,” she went on. “I will be happy to help in any way I can.”

  “If you will—and silence that one—” he gestured with his head toward Hylas, who stood with chin dramatically raised, as if ready to stand off blows or a hail of criticism “—I will be grateful.”

  Eurydice jumped down off the gangway to the lower deck, but when she saw the cask, she frowned. She could not see how the top was fastened in, nor how to open it, and as he started away, she caught at Hylas’ arm.

  “You scratched me,” he shrieked.

  Eurydice did not think she had, but replied automatically, “I did not intend to. I am very sorry. But you must tell me how to open this. I have never seen its like before.”

  “Barbarian!” Hylas sneered.

  A ponderous tread on the gangway above made Eurydice look up. Heracles eased himself down to the lower deck, for which Eurydice was grateful. She had a feeling that if he had jumped, he might have gone right through the planks.

  “Look at my arm,” Hylas whined, lifting the arm he had been rubbing vigorously enough to redden it.

  “A beautiful arm,” Heracles said fondly, bending to kiss the reddened place.

  “She hurt me,” Hylas complained.

  “Not really,” Heracles said. “A slip of a girl could not really hurt a strong boy like you.” Then he smiled at Eurydice. “There, just beside your foot is a pry.”

  She looked down, as much to hide her amusement as to seek the pry. Love, in this case seemed not so much blind as deaf. As she reached for the tool, Heracles huge hand swept it up, inserted it into caulking she had not noticed between the cask and the top, and popped off the top. Hylas was pulling at his arm, which had about as much effect as a fly walking on it, but Heracles patted the boy before he turned to give Eurydice the pry. It was surprisingly heavy and Eurydice had to grasp it with both hands to keep from dropping it. From the way Heracles had handled it, she had expected it to weigh no more than a wooden stick. Meanwhile, Heracles had lifted Hylas to the gangway and urged him gently away.

  “Thank you,” she said, as Heracles prepared to climb up.

  He turned back to smile at her. “It was nothing,” he said. “The pry goes in that leather loop just at the edge of the decking. And please forgive my boy. He is a tender creature, unused to the rough life he has undertaken and the kind of duties he is asked to perform. It is my fault. I should not have brought him.”

  Eurydice felt like agreeing heartily with the sentiment, but it was impossible to say anything that might hurt the gentle, kindly giant. “It will do him good,” she said, smiling. “When he grows hardened, he will enjoy himself. Boys always love adventures.”

  He nodded at her and was gone. Eurydice turned her attention to the contents of the cask and was appalled. Instead of the golden-white rounds or pieces of cheese she expected to see, there was a pile of large, dull grey lumps. She raised her head to call up to Jason that the cheese was spoiled and suddenly remembered Hylas saying he did not like the smell of cheese. The smell of rotten cheese was far worse however, a
nd these grey lumps smelled of nothing. Perhaps Hylas had pulled out the wrong cask, but if he had, what were these things?

  Eurydice extended a cautious finger and prodded the topmost grey mass. It was not, as she had feared, slimy, although it was relatively soft. Her nail sank in. In fact, the stuff felt familiar. She lifted the finger to her nose and sniffed. Wax! That idiot Hylas had taken a cask of wax out of the stores instead of the cheese. But wax? Why would Jason take along a full cask of wax? It was waterproof, but not strong enough to repair the ship or sail… No longer revolted, Eurydice looked more carefully and realized the pieces were not irregular lumps but rounds, only made irregular where the wax had coated the—of course—coated the cheese unevenly.

  Glad again that she had not made a fool of herself, Eurydice pulled the top round out of the cask and stared at it in perplexity. If she borrowed a knife and cut the cheese in pieces, the wax would probably shatter and pieces would get stuck into the cheese; but if she tried to break the wax away from the edible core, it would be long after dark before all the men were fed.

  A light thud bedside her made her look up hopefully, and help was indeed at hand, although she had not expected Orpheus to bring it. “Here,” he said, drawing his knife from its sheath, “this is how it is done.”

  He made a slit in the wax, pried it up a little, inserted his fingers and pulled. To Eurydice’s surprise, a large section peeled away intact.

  “Why did it not break up into little pieces?” she asked, taking the round from Orpheus, peeling off the remainder of the wax, and examining it closely.

  He laughed. “Do you have to know the why of everything?”

  “Everything I can know,” she replied, taking out another round, slitting the covering, and peeling off the wax. “The more you know, the safer you are. One can never tell when a little piece of knowledge will fall together with another little piece—oh, that reminds me. Why did you look so surprised when I said I had heard about Phrixos from an old charlatan—”