The Prisoner of Limnos

IX

Pen craned his neck as they rattled into the small port village of Guza, on the Cedonian shore opposite Limnos. Dusk muffled its streets in shadows. The sea remained luminous; four miles out, the island bulked as a mysterious silhouette against the horizon. Guza earned much of its living serving Limnos, its Order, and the steady stream of pilgrims making their way to its sacred well. Spring was the busy season for such travelers, but the clear skies and calm waters of summer drew a second wave. In the grimmer winds of winter, Bosha had told them, such traffic shut down.

A hospice of the Daughter’s Order in Guza was devoted to housing pilgrims, with a reputation for being the cleanest, cheapest, and safest place to stay overnight. Pen was not willing to test his disguise in the close confines of a women’s dormitory, however, where the goddess might not be the sole one to take vigorous offense if he slipped up. Bosha dropped them instead at the inn that was not the mainstay of the sailors, and went off to find secure stabling for Lady Xarre’s horse and cart.

Pen had hoped to find separate rooms for all three of them, but was lucky to get even one. The chamber in the eaves held a bed and a straw-stuffed pallet brought-in which, between them, filled the floor. Ruchia advised him to take the offer of plain cold food and drink carried up by a maid in place of a trip to the taproom, and Nikys seemed relieved to go along with this. When Bosha arrived, they made a picnic of it. Pen suspected the retainer dined at home as finely as his mistresses and often with them, but he made no comment on the simplicity of this meal.

Then came the problem of apportioning beds, which brought back memories of the flight to Orbas with Adelis. Nikys, both practiced at the arguments and plainly very, very tired of them, took over, bluntly assigning herself to the pallet and the two men to the bed.

“And don’t stare at me like a pair of five-year-olds told to eat their vegetables,” she added tartly, blocking protest. Fortunately, Bosha seemed used to following the orders of irate women. It would have made for the most awkward night’s sleep imaginable, if Pen hadn’t been so fatigued he dropped like a log within moments of hitting the sheets.

He’d no idea of how Bosha had fared, come dawn. The man’s eyes were always red.

The small boats that ferried travelers out to the island left Guza as early as they could make up a passenger list. Several of the captains and crews were themselves women, much favored by some of the pilgrims. Bosha directed them aboard one of these not because he knew it, he said, but because he didn’t, and vice versa. As soon as the craft cast off, he clambered over the barrels and crates to crouch in the shadow of the sail, augmented by a wide-brimmed hat that he pulled down over his flushed face.

The little fleet sailed out in the morning and back at dusk, giving their supercargo as long a day as possible to visit ashore. Some pilgrims stayed over, either at the fishing village that served the Order, or at the upper hamlet that lay outside its precincts, and a very few, by arrangement, within the walls, most of the latter being themselves Temple functionaries. Pen kept peeking over the green spectacles to take in as much of the glorious sea light as he could, until Nikys appeared with a straw hat she’d found somewhere, jammed it over his head declaring he was going to fry like an egg, and made him join Bosha in the shade.

They had each supplied themselves with a thin blue scarf, conveniently for sale at a booth on the Guza wharf, marking them as supplicants. Bosha had draped his over his head, secured by his hat and pulled down over his face. He raised this curtain to frown briefly at Pen, then let it drop back. With every inch of skin covered with, mostly, dark cloth, including gloves, he looked hot and very uncomfortable.

“Would you like your spectacles for a while?” murmured Pen.

“No,” he muttered back. “If you’re going to carry out this play, stay in your character.”

He’s right about that, said Des.

“I didn’t realize this would be such an ordeal for you.” The brilliant morning sun reflecting off the sea would have bathed the man in burns, uncovered. Pen wasn’t sure how well Tanar’s dye would protect him, either.

“My sister’s birthday is in late fall. It’s not usually this bad, then.”

Nikys sat down on Pen’s other side. She seemed to be growing tenser the closer they drew to their goal. Pen nudged her in an attempt at silent reassurance, barely acknowledged by a lip-twitch that did not linger.

With a few barked orders, the boat came about. The sail slid aside like a screen, giving their first view of the Daughter’s retreat on Limnos.

Pen looked up. And up. And up. His jaw unhinged. “Five gods preserve me,” he breathed.

From the sea, a nearly sheer rock face soared so high into the air that the gray stone buildings atop, roofed with faded blue tile, looked like architect’s models. The precipice stood out from the island like the column of a giant’s temple.

“That has to be a thousand feet up,” Pen marveled.

“Just about that,” said Bosha, raising his scarf again to follow Pen’s gaze.

“How do people get up there?”

“There is a stairway cut into the cliff that winds up it in switchbacks. You’ll be able to make it out when we get closer. Over two thousand steps, and every step a prayer.”

“A curse, surely, by the end!” said Pen, appalled.

Bosha let him dwell in his horror for a long moment, then added airily, “Or you could pay a coin to the donkey drivers to take you up the road from the village.”

Pen, well taken-in, shot him a glare.

The smirk curled back on teeth. “Some rare persons on a pilgrimage of atonement do climb the stairs, I’m told. On their hands and knees. This is less an act of humility than terror, as there are no railings. There are places so narrow that people coming up and people coming down have to crawl over each other.”

“I believe we will take the donkeys,” said Nikys primly.

“Good decision.”

“I’m not sure how such wild feats are supposed to impress the gods,” mused Pen, squinting upward, “who are present everywhere the same. Though my subtler seminary teachers advised me that any useful effect is upon the supplicant, not some holy audience. It’s all in whether the given action fills a person or empties them, leaving room for a god to enter. You could sit by yourself in a quiet room and have as good a chance at it. A man could walk up those two thousand steps on his hands singing hymns the whole way and have none.”

Bosha eyed him curiously. “Could you have such a chance? Learned divine as you apparently are.”

“No. Sorcerers are always too full.” Pen sighed. “It’s all indirection, for my god and me. Maddeningly so, sometimes.”

So far up, trees looked like bits of parsley set around a roast. It took study, counting the rows of windows and filigree of wooden balconies, to realize how large the buildings actually were, rising six or eight floors high above the rock base on this side.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t been seized for an imperial fortress,” said Pen.

“It was, once,” said Bosha. “Although not by Cedonia. By one of its enemies. Two hundred years ago. A long tapestry tells the story, up in the halls, that all the pilgrims to Limnos go view.”

“So what is the tale?” asked Pen.

“Ah. The ravine was bridged by ladders, and the Daughter’s women suffered the usual rapine, slaughter, and carrying-off into slavery. About a week after, the entire garrison was felled by plague. Of a thousand men, there were only thirteen survivors. It was considered a miracle of the Daughter, in vengeance for the affront. The Order has never been attacked since.”

Nikys hummed. “Or a very, very angry woman poisoning the sacred well.”

The lip-scar stretched. “So I would make it.”

“No reason it can’t be both,” said Pen, judiciously. “And every reason it could. The gods have no hands but ours, they say.” He held up his fingers and wiggled them.

“Not mine,” growled Bosha, and retreated back under his blue curtain.