Goddess of Yesterday (16 page)

You may have stolen his wife, Paris, I thought, but you are afraid of Menelaus. You are afraid of his great brother, King Agamemnon.
You are afraid.

I stared into his spine, using the eyes of Medusa to pierce his back like a dagger, but nothing happened.

For me, the twenty miles were not difficult. It had been only a month or so since I had last dashed over the hills and vales of Siphnos. This time, when we entered the forest, I saw only beauty: how each green leaf filtered the light, and butterflies threaded like embroidery among splashes of sun.

When we emerged, it seemed that the same slaves were working in the same row of the same field under the same sky, singing the same song.

I needed a good explanation for Helen concerning my presence. If I said that Hermione would have put a knife through her, it would simply inspire Helen to put a knife through me.

I will tell her my true name, I thought. I will die as Anaxandra.

Far ahead of us, like a war belt of purple and blue, I glimpsed the noble sea, flecked with the ships of Troy.

And in the rushing salt wind came my goddess. I lifted my face to let her kiss me and held the hood off my hair that she might ruffle it.

O goddess of yesterday, thank you for coming.

It was as if Menelaus had never existed; as if Helen were not married; as if this were the normal betrothal of a normal prince and princess. The royal couple rode through Gythion, never dismounting, the surefooted horse and mule managing the wide stone steps down to the harbor.

The people of Gythion wisely stayed indoors, but the army of Troy cheered in the streets and the sun went down into the sea and the world turned lavender and silver.

The two children of Menelaus were put up in the house of Axon, where not long ago a princess named Callisto had been sheltered. Axon himself had been thrown out. The princess Hermione was placed in the very same bedroom in which Callisto had slept.

From the balcony of that room, I looked down into the harbor. Helen and Paris were crossing a slender isthmus to an islet so small it made my birth island look substantial. Nothing stood there but a small summer house and a delicate airy temple. Paris held Helen's hand and they gamboled like lambs in spring. His men—Trojans! armed to the teeth!—flung bright flowers over the happy couple.

The soldier who had carried Pleis the whole twenty miles entered the bedroom and set him down gently enough and walked away.

Rhodea was in terrible shape. Her feet were torn and bleeding, her cheek bruised from slaps every time she tried to rest. I nearly gathered her in my arms, but I dared not let her see who I was. If I were discovered now, Paris would have time to send men back for Hermione. Bia might be killed. And since the slaves of Axon might recognize me as Callisto, I could not explain the situation to Rhodea while they bustled around us.

There were two beds, one for a prince and one for a princess. I wrapped myself from head to toe in the cloak of Hermione and lay down with my back to the others. If Pleis came over to cuddle, he would crow happily, “Calli! Sto!”

The little prince was exhausted from a long day under a hot, hot sun. He was cranky and anxious. He was not willing
to lie down on a strange bed under a strange blanket without his usual toys and songs and kisses. “Princess, help me with your brother,” begged Rhodea.

“No.”

“May we bathe you before you sleep, Princess?” the slaves asked politely.

“No.”

“May we tempt you with a hot barley casserole? Yellow cheese and honey. Easy to swallow.”

I said nothing.

They had done their duty. Taking him from Rhodea, they comforted and fed and rocked Pleis. I loved them for that.

Pleis would not sleep without Rhodea, so at least she had a soft mattress, and she and Pleis were asleep in moments. The slave women slept like a litter of puppies, using each other's stomachs and backs for pillows.

Sleep was a waste of being alive. I tiptoed onto the balcony. Gythion was like a hive of bees when the keeper thrusts in his hand to take the honey. All through the night, the Trojans loaded loot into their ships and pillaged the town for supplies. Crews counted off amphorae of water and oil; checked for bread and bedding; argued whether the bronze weapons on this side of the hold would properly balance the ingots on that side.

Clever escape plans came to mind. Happy futures.

But it was my destiny to guard the future of Hermione. For in the end, she was a princess, and I had to take up my duty toward her. I prayed to my goddess.
Do not let me weaken.

I wondered if my sacrifice for Hermione would soften some angry god against me for pretending to be Callisto. But
I did not need to worry how much was left in the jar of unhappiness. I would not be alive long enough to taste it.

When dawn came, I was still leaning on the railing of the balcony. In the first light, I counted ships. No wonder Kinados had feared Paris. Nobody ever needed thirty-three ships for a friendly visit. I wondered what Kinados had thought, sailing past all those ships as he took Menelaus to Crete.

But no—Paris would have used the strategy I had once thought of. Most of these ships would have been moored elsewhere. Even thirty ships could have been easily hidden among the jutting peninsulas and curling inlets. As soon as Kinados and Menelaus were out to sea, Aeneas would have sent some signal, by fire or by foot, and summoned the ships here.

Paris led Helen off the tiny isle. She clasped his neck. He carried her in his arms aboard his flagship.
Paphus
was the only ship with a true cabin. The rest were hollow. The stone anchor of
Paphus
was raised and the oars taken up.

And Helen, a queen abandoning her country, sailed away on a ship of Troy.

I let the cloak slip down my shoulders and puddle on the floor.

If only I had known it would play out like this! I had not wasted time on sleep, but I had certainly wasted time. At any time during the long night I could have slipped out of Axon's house with Pleis asleep on my shoulder. This town had not one wall and not one gate to stop me. In the to-ing and fro-ing of thieving Trojans, who would have noticed? The little prince and I could have been halfway back to Amyklai by now!

Helen, the only person who cared whether Pleis and
Hermione sailed for Troy, did not in fact care. Had not even looked.

O, Helen, if you do not care whether your little son is safe, no one will care. And therefore he is not safe. I must not let the Trojans take him. I must—

The slave women were stirring. I would need Rhodea's cooperation. Could I count on Axon himself, if I could find him? I would promise to marry him after all. I would give him Siphnos. I would give him sons.

It was time to stop worrying about little things like bloodlines and falsehoods in marriage vows.

But the movement in the bedroom had not been the slave women's. Zanthus stood there with two of his men. The bundle of Hermione's things was scooped up and my fallen cloak added to the pack. For good measure, the sailors took the bedding and some artwork and then snapped the bronze finial off the railing and took that, too.

Zanthus thought I was the daughter of Helen.

Helen thought I was the daughter of Helen.

In fact, everybody except the slave women and Pleis would think I was the daughter of Helen. I prayed Pleis would stay asleep for hours to come. I lifted him gently, singing as I shifted him, and he dozed on, as babies do, his little body melting into my thin shoulder and unrewarding bosom.

Zanthus kicked Rhodea to get her moving.

“Captain, you will treat my woman with respect,” I said sharply.

It would have taken an oar to prop up the jaw of Rhodea. “Princess? But—you are—you are—”

“You have my permission to call me Hermione, Rhodea, for you and I are in this together. You need not stand on
ceremony during our long voyage. In return I shall help you with the care of my little brother, the prince Pleisthenes.”

“I'll treat your woman any way I feel like, girl,” said Zanthus. “It's an insult to have the whelps of Menelaus on my ship.” He frowned. “Where's your slave? I'm not nursing you. She has to carry this load. My men aren't your servants.”

“The princess's nurse ran away,” Rhodea said. “And I wouldn't let you touch the children of Menelaus if the other choice were drowning. I will care for the prince and princess. You stay away from them, you dog tick.”

I could not have said it better.

Zanthus' eyes lit up. There is nothing a pirate likes more than spirit in a woman, because it gives him the opportunity to crush it.

Ophion
was long and slim. Her eyes were painted exceptionally large and looked very far ahead. The bow had a deep inward curve, making a tiny platform where men could piss, catch fish or wash clothing. Denting the platform were tiny boarding steps so that when given a hand, a passenger could embark gracefully. I was not given a hand.

“This is a warship,” said the helmsman to Zanthus. He was furious. “Do you expect me to steer with children crawling around?”

“I expect you to throw them overboard if they get in your way. Go down the gangway,” Zanthus told me, pointing toward the stern.

Rhodea made it on board. Her right foot had split from toe to heel and the sailors swore at her for bloodying their just-scrubbed ship. Pleis woke up. “Calli,” he said happily. “Sto.”

“Baby talk,” Rhodea said to Zanthus, but the captain was
paying no attention. He had a ship to sail and the helmsman was calling out the check. “Water?” bellowed the man.

“Sixteen amphorae!” came the response.

The gangway was only two planks wide. It was difficult to balance with Pleis on my hip. The mast, half as long as the ship, lay right where I had to walk. I inched sixty careful steps, a foot-length at a time, and counted twenty-four benches. There would be forty-eight rowers.

“Wine!”

“Eighteen two-handled jugs.”

“Barley meal!”

“Twenty bushels in leather bags.”

The afterdeck was a triangle, seven feet across, as was the
Ophion
, but quickly tapering to a narrow point. Rhodea, Pleis and I perched on the gunwales. Pleis snuggled in my lap and said his two words over and over. “Calli,” he comforted himself. “Sto.” He was getting better at it; the “s” lasted longer and the baby talk sounded more like a girl's name: Calliss-sssto.

I could not guess how long we would be at sea.

Men who went to trade for grain beyond Troy left in early summer and were home by fall. I was not sure what they were doing all that time, because in a good wind, Troy is only a week away. Three days to Cyprus; five or six to Egypt. But no captain could count on the wind, even one who has lately roofed a temple or sacrificed a white calf. For all I knew, Paris might plan to ravage the kingdom of Salamis as well, and get his aunt Hesione. He might stop off at every city of every ally of Troy, and display Helen in Lydia and Phrygia, in Caria and Mysia.

Even one night would be a long time at the mercy of Zanthus. I had to establish myself as a royal personage due
royal respect or I could not protect Pleis. “The little prince my brother will need milk and yogurt, Captain,” I called out. “Bring a ewe on board.”

Zanthus grinned. “Sheep!” he shouted.

“None!” yelled the men, and they slapped their knees and howled with laughter.

I glanced back at the shore. Not one citizen of Gythion was visible. There would be no rescue. No potter dared approach his workshop and no fisherman came near his dory. A single brown pelican swooped past.

I looked out to sea. It was utterly still, the ships just toys on a pond, the distant islands like paintings on a vase. The colors were stiff and bright.

The flagship
Paphus
had nearly reached the horizon and yet half of Paris' ships had not raised anchor. The most important rule in commanding a fleet is that ships not separate. It would be difficult to keep together thirty-three ships buffeted by wind and current. But a single ship is an easy target for pirates, and every sea captain
is
a pirate, should the opportunity arise.

The men fastened leather strips around their palms, to help with the grip, and the pipes skirled, and the rhythm began, and
Ophion
headed after
Paphus.

The Main Land grew smaller and smaller. Rhodea wept. I had no words to comfort her. Twice I had been lucky with kings: Nicander and Menelaus. I would not be lucky with Prince Paris of Troy.

All day the crew rowed.

No man can row without rest. In turn, a half dozen men would climb off the benches to rest on the two center planks, while those finished with rest would take over their oars.

Our yellow sails would not fill with wind. The sun shone through the patches, some gold, some lemon or flax, depending on their dye lots. The glassy sea and silent sky gave us no help.

Nicander's ships had every one been black hulled and red sailed, but the scattered ships of Paris came in many colors—blue and sea green and bloodred. Some sails were white, others black or yellow or red, and one was striped.

As a courtyard is spattered with mud after a child has jumped into a puddle, so the Aegean is spattered with islands. Rhodea and I had to occupy Pleis only for the day. When dusk came, I thought, the ships would pull up on some shore, the cook would produce a hot meal and we would set our fleeces on the sand. Perhaps I would know the shore. I would slip away with Pleis. I would have to abandon Rhodea, who could not walk.

But after leaving the bay, the fleet of Paris did not take the northern course along the edge of the Main Land, which was the safe and usual direction. The ships headed due east into the open sea and the water began to churn. I had felt safe on a smooth sea. But now we sailed at a god-sent speed and the waves churned around us, and the ship was nothing but a tiny cup in a frothing ocean.

Dolphins swam alongside. Now and then they would leap out of the water and spin themselves like yarn. Pleis waved and called and they seemed to wave back with their powerful tails.

The wooden cross beams of the ship groaned and sang as they lifted and sank with the waves. The song of a ship's beams is called threnody, sorrow for all that has been and all that is to be. A ship is constructed of the strongest wood; I
did not know how well I was constructed. I feared that I might collapse. I had to think of something to do.