The Dancer from Atlantis

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.”

The palm crossing her head reminded her of the new white streaks which had come into her locks this winter. On Atlantis, those tresses shone like a midnight sky.

“Anyway,” Oleg said, “remember, we’ve kept our mouths shut to the Athenians. They don’t know the future. If they believe anything, it’s that they’re bound to get friendlier with Knossos.

“For proof, consider that Theseus won’t be leading this expedition though he instigated it. His idea must be to bleed off as. much. Achaean restlessness as possible while he’s away. If he looked, for ruin to strike Crete, would he hie himself there?”

“That was the news which frightened me till I had to seek you, Oleg.” Erissa stared at the bulkhead. “When the prince made known that he would be among the next hostages—”

The Russian nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard Duncan’s notion. I worried too for a while. But then I thought, first, Theseus and what malcontents and crooks he might gather, what could they do in the Minos’ own city except get themselves killed? Second, like I said, he’s got no reason to think the Labyrinth will face trouble from the elements. Third, if he hopes to dicker for a better standing in the Thalassocracy, what shrewder way than to settle down some years in an honored post, where they’ll try to win his good will against the day he goes home? Fourth, I wouldn’t be surprised if Gathon, again, dropped hints it’d pay him to come. You see, if Duncan’s warned the Minos about Theseus, it’s purely natural for the Minos to want Theseus in the Labyrinth where they can keep an eye on him. And fifth, lass, this dromon’s going to be the flagship of the Tyrrhenian outing. Admiral Diores will travel on it, and keep an eye on him.”

He hugged her lightly. “Yes, we’re in a dangerous world,” he said. “It never was anything else, and never will be. But I do believe you’ve reason to feel some cheer.”

He would have been glad to entertain her a while, but when she failed to convince him he was wrong, she excused herself as fast as. possible. Walking back to Athens, she found a cypress grove along the road where she could hide and weep.

She hoped no one could tell that when she continued.

Driving a chariot of Diores his chieftain, Peneleos was among the warriors who had gone forth to summon men off their scattered farmsteads. He returned on the day after Erissa’s visit to Oleg: shouting for joy as he clattered up the Acropolis, horses tramping, bronze gleaming, cloak blowing behind him with speed, his own half-naked attendants toiling, afoot in his dust. Erissa was in the crowd of underlings who stopped work to watch the splendid spectacle. Light off his helmet and breastplate speared his eyes.

Now? she thought. This very night?

Quite likely. Uldin is back too, sulkier than I dared await.

She felt acutely aware of everything around her, shadows between cobblestones, flies over an odorous dungheap by the stables, silver-gray of shakes on the palace roof and of sunlit smoke rising from them, a yelping dog, gowns and tunics surrounding her—though the wearers were only other objects, their words only other noises. Her thoughts moved coolly above, observing, weighing, fitting together. Beneath lay that sense of fate which had risen in her during, the winter.

Briefly, yesterday, she had hoped, just a tiny bit ... Well she would not surrender. She knew Theseus’ voyage to Knossos was in the pattern. She did not know how, or know what the Ariadne might have to do with it. She had been unable to persuade Oleg that those two were in conspiracy Doubtless her failure was itself part of the pattern, whose weaving went on But she knew that, one way or another, she would rejoin Duncan before the end. For over the months, staring into mirrors, groping in a haze of half-recollections, she had come to recognize a face among those which were around her at that final moment: and it was her own.

Was she herself. then, the witch who had taken the last hours out of those memories which were to nourish her over the years?

Why would she do so? Would she? It did not make sense. And thus it might be the one loose thread that, by her refusal to do the thing, she could seize to unravel the whole web. If she, cast back into this age after another quarter century, knew what she in this house could tell her younger self.

During her life with Dagonas, she had inquired of travelers as earnestly as of any of the remaining Keftiu: What happened? They told her different versions, which mostly had the same skeleton. Theseus and the other hostages were newly in Knossos when earthquake smote and the sea destroyed the Minoan fleet. He gathered people (whom he claimed an oracle had told him to organize) and seized the shattered capital by force. His own ships and those of his allies, spared because they had been far out to sea, arrived shortly after to reinforce him. Having imposed his will on what was left of the main Cretan cities, he went home, taking the Ariadne along. Many stories said she did not appear to have left unwillingly.

In the past—her past, which lay futureward of today-Erissa had considered that unlikely. It didn’t fit what she had known of Lydra. Besides, Theseus showed at Naxos that the priestess was nothing to him. Poor creature, she ended her days in a mystery cult, one of those ancient dark faiths whose devotees gave themselves by turn to orgy and torture. Theseus went on to unite a large mainland domain under his rule. The news that he came at last to an unhappy end of his own was colorless consolation.

Erissa nodded. The pattern was clearing before her. It had been clearing throughout the winter, as Diores traveled back and forth between Athens and Atlantis. The Ariadne must in truth be aiding Theseus, just as in those dim traditions Duncan had related. No doubt the disclosures out of time had inspired her.

But Erissa could not say this aloud—accusations would only earn her a slit throat—and Oleg and Uldin were nearly always off on their business, and when, they were at the palace she was never alone with either of them, and she could scarcely hope to repeat her trick of the Periboean grove, suspicious as the court was of her.

Yesterday, when most men of the royal household were gone, she had seized the opportunity to seek out Oleg. But she had failed to make the Russian comprehend how a mere story told by one who claimed to be an exile from the future (and did, to be sure, have some remarkable things to show) could affect people who believed in fate. Oleg did not his curious god forbade him. Theseus and Lydra—who wanted faith in their high and liberating destiny—would stake everything they had, the life of the whole Athenian kingly house and state, on what Oleg could only see as an insane gamble that everything would work out exactly right. Since he knew Theseus, Diores, and the rest were hard-headed men like himself, he cast aside Erissa’s fears.

Moreover, while he appreciated what he had seen of Cretan refinement and might well prefer to live there; and while he was fond of her; what really was her country to him? If he could not go home, he could make a new life in Greece. He had already started.

That busyness had helped keep him from thinking about the pattern. Erissa, immured in the round of an Achaean woman, had had ample chances to brood, puzzle out a few of the paradoxes, and slowly weave her own web whose threads she must soon draw together.

Yes, most likely this very night.

Peneleos came to their room earlier after sunset than she had expected. She rose, smiling, shaking back her hair across the Egyptian shift he had given her. “I thought you would think late in the hall after being afield,” she greeted.

He laughed. The lamplight showed him big, thickly muscled, face, a trifle wine-flushed but eyes bright and posture steady. Beneath the yellow locks, that face was boyishly round and soft of beard. “Tomorrow night I may,” he said. “But I’ve missed you more than any feasting.”

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.”

“And think, Uldin!” Erissa seized his arm. “The mainland does have reason to fear your kind of soldier. That’s why they’ve delayed and hampered you here. Crete. guarded by the sea, never would. Rather, they should welcomed a cavalry to help control that mainland. The more so when you come as their deliverer?’

He snapped to decision. “Very well. You may be deadly wrong, but if you’re right, we’re fools to linger here. And a man dies when the gods will.” Somehow, for the moment it flashed, his grin took away his ugliness. “Besides, this gives me less sea voyaging to do.”

“Go make yourself ready,” Erissa said.

When he was gone, she bent again over Peneleos. “Sleep now, my love,” she whispered. “All has been done. All is well.” With moth gentleness she closed his eyes. “Sleep late. Forget what we have spoken of. The gods and prudence alike forbid that more than your lord Diores know. Sleep. Wake refreshed. Do not seek after me. I will only be away on an errand. Sleep deeply, Peneleos.”

His breathing became still more regular. On an impulse she did not quite understand, she kissed him. Then she grew busy gathering clothes, blankets, jewelry and utensils and weapons to wrap in them.

Uldin returned, clad in his old foul-smelling outfit. He pointed at the bed. “Shall I stick him?” he asked. “No!” Erissa realized she had answered too loudly. “No, that could start the hue and cry after us hours before it need happen. Follow me.”

They had no trouble leaving palace or city. Since Athens was choked with king’s men, no one saw reason to post guards. The moon was still up, approaching the full. (When that happens during Asterion’s feast, the Keftiu believe it bodes an, especially, good year, Erissa thought; and her feeling of being an embodied purpose could not keep the sting from her eyes.) The road to the Piraeus stretched gray and empty, between silvery fields and silver-tipped shadowy trees. Stars were few. The air was cool and still, so that their footfalls crunched noisy and they lowered voices as they made what scanty plans they could.

“Walking!” Uldin spat once in disgust.

Sentries were awake at the beach, where boats and the cargoes of ships lay valuable. Uldin let Erissa pick the craft she thought best: a fifteen-footer with mast and sail. Their vessel should not be too big for him to do, some rowing or sculling at need, yet sufficiently big to make Atlantis in reasonable safety. For the most part they would depend on the wind, and entirely on her, navigation.

He had to bluster before he succeeded in commandeering the boat and a few provisions. But he was good at that; and as far as the warriors knew, he was still well up in royal favor. Erissa stood aside, unrecognized in a male tunic and cowled cloak of Peneleos’. The story of a secret and urgent mission that she had concocted was finally believed without sending a runner back to ask Diores. She was not surprised at that, nor at the favorable breeze they caught beyond the roadstead. For she remembered how these same planks bore her and Dagonas toward Troy.

Wind faded out at dawn. The boat lay becalmed in a nearly flat sea, which glittered across its dark blue to the rosy-clouded luminance in the east. Westward, Argolis rose in mountains and shadowy woodlands—Troezen, where Theseus was born. Attica was low on the after horizon.

Elsewhere a few islands were strewn, white and green. Erissa shipped the now useless steering oar and doffed her cloak, for the, dawn was fast warming.

“Best we eat,” she said. “We’ll be busy later.”

“Or idle,” Uldin growled by the mast. “We can’t get far on strength alone. When’ll it blow again?”

“Before long, I expect. Then we can await noontide calms, brisk afternoons and evenings, little or nothing throughout most nights.”

“Ungh. And the fleet due to start forth tomorrow. They’ll have rowers to overtake us, and whoever sees us may well think we’re worth a closer look.”

“I said we would go around behind the islands, taking cover at need. We can see a galley before it can, spy us.”

“Days at best, then, traveling.” Uldin scratched under his shirt, caught a louse, and cracked it between his teeth. “Death along the way, not unlikely?’

“If I am to meet Duncan again, as I told you long ago I would—”

“You never said I’d be there.” Suddenly her heart wavered. He drew his dagger and wagged the point at her. “See here. You’re an eldritch one. More so, I think, than the lover you’re taking us to. I’m none too sure you didn’t trick or bewitch me into coming along. And you’d cast me aside like a worn-out pair of breeches if you’d no further use for me.”

“Uldin, no ... I—”

“Keep quiet, I can take my chances with you, or I can turn around, give you to Theseus for killing after they’ve wrung what you know from you, and take my chances with him. Which is it to be?”

She rallied her courage. She knew, she did, she knew. With clamped fists and quick breath: “Me. You must.”

“I must not do one befouled thing I’m not bound to do, and I’m not bound to you.” Uldin’s scowl eased. “Here’s what I want. Blood brotherhood sworn between us. Faithfulness to death, you for me and I for you, by all our gods, demons, ancestors, hope of descendants, and blood of our veins that we mingle. Then I’ll know I can trust you. I’ve never heard of its being done between man and woman, but you’re different.”

Relief weakened her. “Of course, Uldin. Gladly.”

He grinned. “You’re not that much different, however. Don’t fear. I’ll not stand between you and the man you’re after, when you’ve found him. We can put that in the oath too, if you like. But meanwhile we’ll be by ourselves for days, apt to get killed on any of them, and plenty of free times like now. Keep me happy.”

She stared at him. “Oh, no,” she pleaded.

He shrugged. “That’s the price of my oath. You’re setting a price on yours, you know.”

She tried to recall the maiden who danced with bulls and fell in love with a god. But she couldn’t. The road back was too long.

Well, she thought, Oleg was right about this much: Wherever a road may lead, you walk it a step at a time. “As you will, then,” she said.