Black Ships (25 page)

Like the leaves opening in the sun, two fragile sails pale green and trembling, I felt the beginning of something.

W
HEN THE PLANTING
was done, Pharaoh ordered the ships down the Nile to Tamiat because there was the rumor of raiders. We waited, and the men sailed. This time Xandros had a breastplate of leather and a fine new sword, and he gave me a sideways smile as
Dolphin
slid away from the dock, his hands on the tiller.

They were gone forty days, and came back without having seen an enemy, much less engaged one. Xandros came eager and happy to my bed, and I kissed his throat and chest as though we had been parted a year.

Afterward, we lay replete, murmuring sweet things in the warm night.

“There is no great fleet,” Xandros said. “What there was is shattered. There are a few ships left, but they are scattered and hiding, for the most part. This winter there will be few raids, and nothing that can assail Egypt.”

“That’s good,” I said. I was not entirely thinking about ships.

“The sailing season is ending,” he said. “We are wintering here.”

“And I suppose Neas means for us to stay on,” I said.

Xandros gave a short laugh, as though it wasn’t really funny. “Well, he’s certainly not going anywhere! The princess told him that she had hardly been able to stand it while he was away with the ships. Next time we’re supposed to go without him while he stays in Memphis.”

I pushed myself up on one elbow. “He’s supposed to stay in Memphis?”

“Yes.”

“With the women and children and old men while his ships patrol against raiders?”

Xandros nodded. “That’s what the princess says. She’s completely entranced with her barbarian prince. And she says he must never be allowed to leave her side again.”

“Allowed?”
I raised one eyebrow.

“That’s the word she used,” Xandros agreed.

“Will Neas stand for this?” I asked.

Xandros shook his head. “I don’t see that he has any choice. If he doesn’t do what she says, what then?”

“Our contract is with her brother, not with her,” I said.

“Her brother is in Thebes,” Xandros pointed out. “And the sailing season has ended. In any event, we aren’t going anywhere until spring.”

T
HE DAYS
were at their shortest, and the fields of Egypt greened. Anchises sought me out as I returned from the Temple of Thoth.

“Sybil,” he said formally, “I would speak with you.”

I went aside with him, though I looked on him with trepidation. My dealings with him had never been what I should call pleasant. “How may I assist you, my lord Anchises?” I asked.

“I want you to talk to my son about leaving Egypt,” he said, his mouth twisted as though it hurt him to ask me. “He may heed your council as he does not heed mine.”

I thought carefully. “Why do you wish me to do this?”

“If it is not done soon it will never be,” Anchises said. “Already four men among the People have taken Egyptian wives.”

That much at least was true. And it was to be expected. Half a year we had been here, and there were three times as many men as women among the People. Our men, coming home with spoils and bonuses from the battle, accounted heroes who had helped Pharaoh preserve Egypt, were not unattractive to Egyptian women. Four had married so far, and I was certain that before the winter ended there would be more.

“Are you afraid it will be five, my lord?” I asked.

His mouth tightened and for a moment he looked very like his son. “It will never be five,” he said. “My son is not reckoned an appropriate husband for Pharaoh’s sister. And he never will be. Though in the old days his grandfather took to wife a niece of the Hittite emperor!”

“Those days are gone,” I said carefully. “And even in the days of Wilusa’s power the Great Kings of Egypt did not send their daughters to marry the lords of other lands. No, I think that you are right. Aeneas will never marry Basetamon.”

“Is that what we are to be?” he asked, and his blue eyes met mine, a little watery with age or light. “We are to be no more than the concubines and hired men-at-arms of a foreign nation?”

“Some men would say it is better than slavery,” I said. I would say so, if he asked. But he had never asked me before what I thought.

“Is that all we hope for? To avoid the lash? What has become of our pride, our sovereignty?”

“My lord, if you had tasted the lash you would not disdain avoiding it,” I said a little tartly. But then I sighed. He was right. And though I hated to agree with him, I must. “You are right that this is not our destiny. I will speak with Neas when I may.”

“I will not,” he said, and almost smiled. “If I say more to him of it he will only get his back up and heed you less.”

“Then we are in agreement,” I said. “I will do as you ask.”

I
FOUND NEAS
alone a week later, when we were celebrating another wedding. One of Maris’ rowers was marrying an Egyptian widow, a woman with a fishing boat and two young sons, and no man to help her fish the river. They broke a jar together in the Egyptian way, and then we did the snake dance, some of her relatives jumping into the festivities too.

I found Neas by the fire, clapping in time but not dancing. His hair was cut to no more than a finger’s length, and his face was shaven.

“My prince,” I said, standing beside him.

“Sybil.”

“My prince,” I said, “I do not think I will dance at your wedding to Basetamon.”

He looked into the fire instead of at me. “No, I don’t think you will.”

“And when she tires of you, my prince?”

Neas shrugged. “We will be a fighting force her brother reckons valuable. He will not cast away a sword to his hand as easily as she will cast away a pastime. There will be no peace next year. There will be raids and war on the western border. The Libyans were emboldened by the great fleet, and they will make trouble.”

I took both his calloused hands in mine, made him look at me. “Neas, is this the best we can do?”

“I can do no better,” he said, and his eyes were full of regret. “What would you have me do? Steal away in the middle of the night with the People stuffed aboard ships, hoping that Basetamon doesn’t pursue? And go where?”

“If we can’t go east to the cities of the coast we must go west.”

Neas shrugged. “To the Libyans? The Shardana?”

“Think on it,” I urged. “That is all I ask.”

“I will think, Sybil,” he said.

Across the fire, I watched Amynter dancing with the bride’s aunt, a plump, smiling woman of thirty-five or so. Yes, I had heard right when she arrived. She was also a widow with several half-grown children. She looked like the sort of woman to take Amynter’s sons under her wing, cozying them to eat without treating them like children. He spoke little Khemet and she spoke none of our tongue, but they seemed to be getting along well enough.

T
HE HARVEST TIME CAME
, and the first of the crops were gathered in, the green beans and the spring fruit. The year had turned. The days lengthened again.

I counted the captains. Xandros would go, and most of the men of
Dolphin.
Maris would go with
Pearl,
and so would his young wife and most of their men, though not the man who had married. Amynter and
Hunter
would not go. He was courting the widow, and he was plainly content with his lot.
Winged Night
and her captain would likely be reluctant. We had begun with nine warships and three fishing boats. If we left Egypt, it would be with three ships. Anchises was right. Many would not leave now, and that number would be more each day.

And I, I had one more reason to stay.

In moments of terror I wondered what Xandros would say, and then I told myself that it mattered not at all. The daughters of Pythia belong to the Lady of the Dead, daughters to the Shrine. I could keep my child as well as Kianna with no fear of starvation. The children of Egyptian temples are well provided for, and Hry had made it very clear that I would be welcome indeed in the service of Thoth. If I wished to stay I should not lack a place, and neither should the child.

And yet.

I felt Her path leading me on across the sea.
Carry Me,
She had said,
like an unborn child in your body to a new place. Carry Me with the People.
If I stayed, I should leave Her service. I should lose Her as well as Xandros.

I did not even need to wonder what he would do. He would follow where Neas led, even to the ends of the earth.

T
HE HARVEST
was gathered in. The dry season began. Soon the seas would open and the ships of all nations set forth.

On a hot day when the sun stood straight overhead Kianna took her first steps from her mother’s hands to mine, then fell back on her fat clouted bottom in the dirt and laughed. Her hair had come in thin and red, shining like copper, and a sprinkling of freckles showed across her nose.

When we had laughed and cuddled her Tia looked at me meaningfully. “They will be sisters,” she said.

I nodded.

“Have you told Xandros?” she asked.

“If he doesn’t notice it’s because he doesn’t want to,” I said, and I did not meet her eyes. “It’s not as though he’s never seen a breeding woman before.” And I wondered about them too, my child’s older sisters that the Achaians had slain. Someone had killed a child Kianna’s age. Some man I had blessed at Pylos had cut her little body to pieces with a sword, a child that Xandros had loved and cuddled and walked with at night, a child he had talked to while still in her mother’s belly. Small wonder he did not see. He could never bear another loss like that.

“He will see when he wants to,” I said, and held Kianna when she clung to my hands, the sweet baby scent of her against my face.

Or he will not. He will go far across the sea with Neas, and I will stay here in Memphis,
I thought.
He will not know, but the child will be safe.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Amynter came in from the palace with news. Our ships were ordered to Sais in the western delta, to be ready lest the Libyans make war. Our ships would sail, and Neas would stay in Memphis.

That night I lay in our bed, but Xandros did not come.

I waited and I turned and thought. The sounds of the People quieted. And still he did not come.

At last I uncurled and got up. Perhaps he was ill. Or perhaps one of the men was. There were many good reasons for his absence. I did not go to the door out of concern. I just wondered where he was.

He was standing with Neas beside the river. Behind them, the rising moon made a ribbon of light across the water, shining on Neas’ hair, their heads inclined close together, talking in low voices. I started to duck back inside, but Xandros saw me and beckoned.

I went to them.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” Neas said, and his eyes were troubled. “I have need of your counsel.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Xandros looked solemn. I wondered what they had been talking about.

Neas nodded. He turned, looking out over the river, his back half to me. “Sybil, it is time to leave Egypt.”

“Leave?”

“Have you not counseled me before that it was not our destiny to stay?” I could not see his shadowed face and looked instead at Xandros.

Xandros shook his head almost imperceptibly, and made some grimaces that I had no idea what he meant by. Did he mean that I should urge him to go, or that some strange mood was on him that I should discourage?

“I need to know how we are going to get all of the People to Sais,” Neas said, his back still to me.

“Why Sais?” I asked.

“Because Pharaoh is there,” Neas said, “or will be. And that’s where the People who aren’t going with us need to be.”

“When we cut and run for the wild ocean and Shardan shores,” Xandros said gravely. “We know not everybody will go. About half, really. But they need to be in Pharaoh’s service, not the princess’. So they’ll be safe when we go.”

“Pharaoh won’t cast them away,” Neas said. “Not with the Libyans pressing. Especially since they’re the men who kept faith.”

“Not us oath breakers,” Xandros said grimly.

I looked at him. What has brought this on? I tried to convey with my face alone. Of course these things are true, but until this moment Neas has heard none of it. What has changed?

I did not know what Xandros gathered from my expression. Possibly some inexplicable twitching.

He said, “Getting the People to Sais won’t be hard. Basetamon doesn’t like it that you spend so much time at the barracks of the Division of the Ram. You could tell her that the People would rather go to Sais and be close to their men since Pharaoh is going to use Sais to stage from rather than Memphis. If it’s war with the Libyans, Memphis is too far south to be convenient.”

Neas nodded. “I could. I doubt Basetamon will frankly remember that there might be some oarsman who stayed in Sais. It won’t matter to her, not if I go.”

“The problem,” I said, “is getting you to Sais. Aren’t you supposed to stay here?”