Cursed by the Sea God (7 page)

Lopex held up a weary hand. “Stop.” Caught in mid-flow, the carpenter looked
up.

“Just get it done quickly. I’ll assign some men to help you,” Lopex went on.
“As for parts, Circe will provide whatever I want . . .” His voice trailed off
as he stared up the hill in the direction of Circe’s cottage.

All at once his gaze returned to the carpenter. “You’re right, Arturos. This is
too important to rush. Take whatever time
you need. I will take
it upon myself to ensure that the sorceress stays friendly to us.” He turned and
headed back up the path toward Circe’s cottage. Perplexed, the carpenter stared
after him, rubbing the back of his neck.

On a cloudy morning over a month later, I was finishing some supper leavings
with Zosimea, a sharp-tongued older woman who had been enslaved with me at Troy.
From down the beach, I could hear the crack of wood against wood and some
halfhearted cursing. At my glance, Zosimea shrugged. “Some idiot Greek thing,
boy. Don’t get involved.” I got up and headed closer to see anyway.

On the far side of the
Pelagios
, two men were practising sparfighting,
brandishing wooden poles at one another like swords, surrounded by a dozen
watching men. The trainer was a wiry, nut-brown man they called Pakullos,
fighting in nothing but a loincloth and sandals. He must have had at least
fifteen years on his opponent, but he was leaping about like a monkey, skipping
easily out of the way of his opponent’s spar while landing blow after blow
himself. Thersites, a slope-shouldered Greek soldier with a foul temper, was
going to be badly bruised tomorrow. I slipped quietly between a couple of
cheering Greeks to watch.

“Hit me, you oaf!” Pakullos was squeaking. “Not like that, are you throwing
flower petals? No, never look where you’re striking, your eyes give you away.
Always look at your opponent’s face, you bumbling
sueios
ekpneusis
!”

Even after a year with the Greeks, that insult took me a moment.
I ducked my head down to hide my smile as I got it, but Thersites, leaning on
his spar for a breather, spotted me.

“Think this is funny, slave boy?” he snarled. “Laughing at me, are you?” He
threw his spar at me and I caught it automatically. “The slave, he’s going to
show us how it’s done!” he shouted.

I was about to drop the spar and run off when a hand pinned my shoulder. “If
you run now, you know, they’ll never respect you,” Deklah said softly.
“Pakullos will give you a few falls. You’re small. Just try to be hard to hit.”
He gave me a shove that sent me staggering into the ring.

Pakullos eyed me dubiously and looked back at the circle of men. “Spar with
that
?” he called, disbelieving. “What’s next — a cripple?” Already
worked up, the men kept shouting, and Pakullos turned back to me with a grunt.
“All right. This won’t take long. Let’s see your clay, boy.” Suddenly I was on
the ground, my right shoulder throbbing. What had just happened? I stood up
carefully.

“Have to be faster than that, boy.” Pakullos was standing a few paces away,
waiting. I took a step toward him and suddenly found my face in the sand again,
this time the throbbing in my left shoulder.

“Useless. One more fall and you can go.” Pakullos sounded bored. Over the noise
of the men I could hear Thersites jeering loudly.

Suddenly it was very important not to let Pakullos hit me
again.
I had to parry at least one strike.
Be hard to hit
. He was fast, but he
wasn’t an immortal. I climbed slowly back to my feet but this time, instead of
holding my spar at the end like a sword, I gripped it in the middle, my hands a
waist-width apart. The Greeks wouldn’t do this because it was useless for
attack, but I was interested only in defence.

Suddenly Pakullos was darting at me again, his spar swinging toward my neck. I
whipped one end of my spar up to block his before it could connect and it
whistled past my ear. He was caught off guard but recaptured his balance
instantly, stepping back and retaining perfect control. I’d stopped him! I kept
my spar crossways in front of me.

Suddenly he was directly before me again, his spar raining blows from all
directions at once. I had a quick eye and reflexes—I’d needed them to knock
seagulls from the sky, back in Troy—and found myself parrying frantically. With
this grip my spar could spin to block almost instantly, and aside from two
deflections that glanced off my ear and knuckle, nothing landed.

Pakullos stepped back. He didn’t look bored anymore. The catcalls of the Greeks
had fallen silent. Suddenly he came at me again, staring fixedly at my shin, his
spar lining up for the strike. I spun to parry, but—
never look where you’re
striking
. At the last instant I raised my spar and parried his actual
strike, a wicked slash to the head that could have knocked me out if it had
landed. Unprepared, he lost his balance and staggered backward. He was open! I
took a step to follow up with
a strike against his unprotected
side, but stopped, suspicious. Sure enough, the moment I stopped he sprang back
into balance. It had been a trap. A murmur ran around the watching
soldiers.

I braced myself for another onslaught but he planted his spar unexpectedly in
the sand, looking at me thoughtfully. “Not bad, shrimpling. Good clay.” As I
turned to leave the ring he called after me. “Come by some time, Trojan. We’ll
try you out on sword and shield.”

Later that day Deklah came up to me as I was returning to the camp with
firewood. “I think you’ve earned the right to carry this, Trojan,” he said,
holding out a knife. It was my sister’s, the one he had taken from me among the
ship breakers.

We spent another two months on Circe’s island until one morning, collecting the
breakfast platters to carry out to the Greeks, I saw Circe and Lopex emerge from
her cottage. She had a concerned hand on his arm. “Promise me, my sweet?” she
was saying. “Especially about the island of Helios? If you don’t . . . I wish
the entrails were clearer, but . . .”

He nodded gravely. “I give you my word we will do as you have said.”

She brightened. “I’ll prepare a special farewell banquet for your men tonight.
But right now, do you think we have a little time for ourselves?”

That afternoon, Lopex strode onto the beach to announce that the ship’s repairs
were done at last. “And tonight,” he
added as the men gathered,
“Circe will provide us with a feast to honour our brave companions who were lost
at the island of the ship breakers.”

The next morning I was set to work loading stores into the hold. It had rained
in the night, and the deck and ladder were still slippery. In addition to the
standard supplies of millet, olive oil and cured meat, the list of stores
included two live sheep, fodder and, strangest of all, a large bundle of tarred
greenwood torches. Last night’s feast had included several large amphoras of
dark Pramnian wine trundled out around the courtyard, and I had a dry mouth and
a pounding headache this morning from a long night of wine testing. Or perhaps
just drinking, my memory was hazy.

As I yanked another sack of millet from the cart and hoisted it onto my
shoulder, I spotted Pen hanging around anxiously by the stern ladder, looking
mournful. Well, whatever the problem was, it was his sour water, not mine. As I
carried the millet sack over, I could feel his eyes on me with each step. He
sighed as I approached.

“Hi, Alexi.” His lower lip was split and puffy.

I just waited. He sighed again, louder. “Alexi?” he began. “Aren’t you my
friend?”

Oh, gods. “Look, Elpenor,” I grunted, the millet sack growing heavier by the
moment, “I’m supposed to be loading stores. Do you want to get off this island
or not?”

He eyed me reproachfully. “I guess you were having too much fun with your new
friends last night.”

I squinted, trying to draw the evening back through the fog of
wine. Someone had asked me to sit at their fire. Deklah, Pharos, Adelphos . . .
I vaguely recalled people handing me meat and bronze cups of wine. Lots of
laughter, and the drunken insults that the Greeks considered high wit.

“Why didn’t you stop them? They would have listened to you.” His eyes glistened
like a puppy’s. “They respect you now.”

I stared at him. The barest hint of a memory from last night stirred uneasily
in my gut but I pushed it away. “Stop who? What are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay. Now that you’re friends with the soldiers I guess you
don’t need me around anymore.”

Friends? What— “Pen, look, Hades curse it,” I burst out, my shoulder aching
beneath the heavy sack. “Can’t this wait? My arm’s about to break off.”

Pen’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Alexi. It’s just that . . . you do
know that nobody else will talk to me, don’t you? I just thought—” his voice
broke and he rubbed his eyes with his fists. “I mean, I hoped you were still my
friend.”

“Boy!” Ury’s bellow carried across the camp. “Dump that
nothos
and get
back to work!” I spun around to see Ury crutching furiously across the sand. I
turned toward the ladder but Pen clutched at my tunic. “Please, Alexi,” he
said. “Can we talk? Maybe when you’re done?”

I sighed. “Fine. As soon as this cart is loaded,” I said, watching Ury
approach. “But right now, just let go of me, okay?”

Pen dropped his hand and I made for the stern ladder. Lately Ury had taken to
balancing on one foot and smashing
me in the head with his
crutch, but he still couldn’t get up the ladder without help.

As I carried the millet sack down into the hold I tried to remember what had
happened the previous night. There had been the usual insults, or even more. As
I dropped the sack to the floor, a memory surfaced. I’d been carrying platters
of pork around to the Greeks, passing Deklah, who didn’t eat pork, when
something caught in my legs. I tripped, spilling the platter across the sand.
Sprawled by the fire, I looked back to see Ury glaring in satisfaction as he
pulled his crutch back.

“Club-footed fool,” someone hooted. “Are you Trojans all this clumsy?”

A familiar rumble came from the other side of the fire. “More respect for this
one, I think, Grathes.” It was Pharos. “But for him, you would be now food for
the ship breakers.”

“This slave?” Grathes eyed me doubtfully.

Pharos nodded. “His warning it was, that alerted us first. And more, his rope
and oar pulled you from their grasp.”

Grathes stared at him. “
Him
? You pulled us in. I saw you!”

Pharos shrugged, his huge shoulders moving like a landslide. “The strength was
mine, but the idea his. Do not discount such a one, even a slave.”

Grathes looked at me for a moment. “That was your idea, boy?” I nodded
reluctantly, unsure whether to admit it. Since the event with the winds, I’d
tried to avoid attention, and this wasn’t helping.

“Sure-footed thinking, boy.” Taking my arm, he led me
around the
fire to a spot on the log beside Pharos. “Sit here. From here on, you eat as one
of us.”

Back inside the
Pelagios
, I slumped against the stack of millet sacks,
overcome by the memory. Had that really happened, or was the wine blurring my
memory? And then what was Elpenor so unhappy about? I strained to
remember.

Wait. It was coming back. From the far side of the fire, Ury had been glowering
like a volcano, shooting fiery glances in my direction, but I’d hardly noticed.
Sitting between Grathes and Pharos, sharing the meat and wine and finally
joining the conversation, I had felt a warm glow building that had nothing to do
with the fire. I’d even told a joke or two that were pretty white-haired in
Troy, but new to the Greeks.

Then—that was it. Furious, Ury had grumbled for a while, but then spotted Pen,
sitting alone. Yanking him to his feet, Ury had begun cursing at him, forcing
him to rinse the spilled pork in the water pail and offer it around. He’d torn
off Pen’s sandals and thrown them in the fire, making him walk barefoot. Drunk,
the other Greeks had watched at first but eventually joined in, jeering and
throwing things. First bones, then rocks. Somebody had caught him in the face
with a stone, and as he staggered, someone else had tripped him. He had sprawled
in the sand nearby.

Pen was right. I could have stopped it. Right then, they would have listened.
But what had I done? Nothing. I winced at the memory. Flushed with the pleasure
of being accepted
for once, I’d looked away, pretending not to
notice.

Ignoring Ury’s angry shouts, Pen had scrambled up and run off into the
darkness, crying. I leaned heavily on the stack of millet sacks, sickened. Since
Aeolia, I had known what it was like to be rejected. How could I have done that,
and to Pen of all people? I shook my head. From now on I would treat him better,
starting by meeting him as I’d promised. And if the Greeks thought less of me
for it, so be it.

It didn’t work out that way. The cart finally emptied, I was creeping off
around the stern to go and find Pen when I came face to face with Ury. “Where
are you headed, boy?” he sneered, cuffing me. “Get back to work, you lazy Trojan
filth.”

I dodged a second blow and went back. It was nearly noon before I found another
chance to slip away. Pen wasn’t in camp, so I ducked into the woods, searching
quietly for a while before spotting a fold of cloth behind a tree.