Hero for Hire (21 page)

Needless to add that the cage was gone. Only a little straw scattered in the corners showed it had ever been there. I forced my anger down into a corner of my soul and told it sternly to stay there. Little pieces of rage kept escaping, though, clouding my thinking.

From somewhere below, a knocking sounded. I held up my hand, indicating that Phandros should stay here. He nodded and drew out his long leather cord, quickly twisting it in his special sliding noose.

I slipped below deck, looking for any member of the crew. I found nothing out of the ordinary except that the door of Jori’s private cabinet was swinging as the tide moved. Rhythmically, it hit against the frame, making the knocking sound I’d heard.

The cabinet was empty, not a scrap of paper, but his strongbox was jingling with the coins of a dozen nations and an ivory statuette of Hermes, god of trickery, travel and trade, lay on top. All very portable goods but no one had taken anything, so far as I could tell, except the papers.

I searched the hold, even the secret ones that I knew how to get into because I’d hidden things myself there once or twice. On one memorable trip, a certain hiding place had hidden me. The cargo was still there, chests and barrels and amphorae all muddled together.

I looked in my own bunk. Again, there was nothing much out of place, though there were a few bits and pieces that didn’t belong to me. Space being so precious aboard a ship that I’d probably been overboard all of five minutes at Telemenos before the first mate took it over.

It only took a moment, and cost me a fingernail, to get the secret hiding place open. The bundle that held my sword was still there, untouched until I took it out. I unwrapped it and slid it home into the scabbard. Trust Skandar's butler. The fit was just a tad off in the width, the length ideal.

It was only as I was climbing the narrow gangway that I paused to stare. In between the boards just below the hatch, a little bead of liquid had run, dry now. It looked as though a line of resin dripped, leaving a thick, bumpy ridge along the wood. In the yellowish lantern-light it looked orange against the graying wood. I’d never noticed it before and I’d been up and down this ladder a thousand times. One of Jori’s smuggling holds was behind the wall, a secure strong-room to which I did not know the secret.

I climbed out and held the lantern close to the deck. It was hard to tell but I thought the wood of the deck looked darker than it should after weeks under the bleaching sun. I handed the lantern to Phandros, leaned down and pulled, the wooden pegs screeching as they came out. The two-inch board snapped like a twig when bent back too far. Flies, disturbed at their feasting, dark as the night, spun up past our faces, their buzzing a rasp along my nerves.

Along the sides of the board were dabbled stains, leaving dots along the underside where something wet and dark had gathered and dripped. I did not think that the clumsy cook had also dropped a decanter of wine.

With one accord, Phandros and I looked down into the hidden compartment between the decks. Half a dozen bodies, twisted, piled, broken, lay there in a pile. Sated flies crawled drunkenly over the corpses. The slack faces were ones well-known to me but of Jori, I saw only his smooth dark hair.

I sat for a long time on a bollard by the sea, watching the wavering reflections of torches in the water. Strangely, though I'd known Jori for years and never met his mother, I thought more about her than about him. He was beyond earthly matters now. She would wait and watch the sea for a glimpse of familiar sails, looking for a ship that would never come. I could tell her he died, of course, but I had a feeling she wouldn't stop waiting for that ship even so.

Phandros had paced up and down the docks for a while before disappearing. He came back, bearing a jug of black wine, resin-flavored and steaming hot. "I don't think this is what I asked for," he said, sniffing dubiously. "But it's definitely alcoholic."

I spilled a little for the souls of the sailors and drank the rest. "We'll find the harpy," I said. "Find the harpy, find the murderer."

Phandros stroked his beard. "Logical. Let's go."

I don’t know what the total population of Troezen may be but I’d offer good money that the majority of them were in the street. Small indeterminate children shrieked with excitement or temper, their delight sounding much the same as their fear. Their fathers and brothers capered to the ever-present music, slapping their heels and kicking up their feet, red faces and white teeth a-gleam. The old men tapped their sticks to the beat or used them to nudge someone in the direction of the wine tables to fetch them another beaker. Adding in the visitors and sailors staring about in wonder with no idea where to go or what to do made the streets even more of a log-jam of humanity.

Phandros and I tried to force a way through but our progress was dismally slow. Many people were heading with great energy into the town while streams of others seemed just as determined to go the other way. The cacophony was appalling, shouting, laughing, shrieking, complaining humanity mixed with genuine musicians, with the added irritant of a persistent buzzing from the ram and bull horns that seemed to have magically appeared in every hand.

My head began to throb in sympathy with the increasing sound levels. I wanted to hurtle up the street, knocking everyone over, tossing them aside like straw, but neither violence nor politeness would improve our rate of progress.

For everyone I could have pushed out of the way, there were forty more right behind them, paying no attention to anything but their own entertainment.

There were many young men dressed in kilts, vines or skins, satyr’s horns bound on their brows, mooing like cattle. Their bodies were smeared with soot or red paint. They roamed in groups, blocking the narrow streets, or threading their way through, hand in hand, single-file, dancing sometimes, and always, always yelling. One group caught Phandros and me up in a chained dance, grabbing our hands, dragging us back the way we’d come. We no sooner shook loose than another group locked arms and swept up everyone in the street, I no less helpless than the rest in the crush.

I found myself next to a woman, looking into great dark-fringed eyes, her face as fair and flawless as a statue’s. When we stood on our own feet again, she threw her arms around me. Her body was lush and full but the skin of her cheek against mine felt oddly lifeless. Her voice quivered with laughter at my expression. “Is that a sword on your hip, or are you just glad to see me?”

“It’s a sword,” I answered.

She tossed her head. “Hmmph, if you won’t, there are plenty who will!” She vanished, swallowed up in the crowd as though she had become one with the night.

Phandros shouted something, for a whisper might as well not have been spoken at all. I put my hand to my ear to show I hadn’t understood. This time, I more read his lips than heard him. “They’re masks, only masks!”

Looking around, I saw many women disguised as she had been. Animals predominated, cats with life-like whiskers threaded through the masks, birds with great beaks and feathers sprouting, bulls and rams whose heavy horns contrasted sharply with the feminine contours below. Many wore masks of Tragedy or Comedy, mouths pulled square, cheeks round or stretched out. They wore long robes with hoods or scarves to cover their hair.

The very air smelled different to the spring festival where I’d first seen my future bride. The women of Athens maintain their modesty through never exposing themselves to ridicule or disdain. They may compete in games from time to time and participate in important celebrations or religious ceremonials. This sort of Dionysian excess would have been despised as a revolting spectacle no decent woman would dare attend. There was even dancing where both sexes moved together which somehow shocked me more than I understood.

As we progressed toward the upper-town, fighting through to attain our goal, the dancing and drinking of the lower town seemed a mild bacchanal, a sort of bucolic party for native spirits to ensure a good harvest or plentiful nets of fish. I could imagine some of the girls I knew, simple country girls like Iole or Omphale, quite enjoying themselves.

Up here, nearer the acropolis, however, evil was thick in the air, floating like oil on water, leaving a slime behind as much on the soul as on the body. At every step, I felt something like spider webs across my face, invisible but a reminder that there are other motives and forces in the world beside the human.

We heard no wholesome laughter now, only screams or sobbing hysteria. The music had altered, more drumming, more flute, no harp now or delicate sistrum jingling. The flute quavered, a weird melody with no perceptible tune. Many people still danced to it but with a wild, helpless abandon that frightened even sailors.

We passed a few groups of them running back down the street. Phandros bumped into one young man who took a swing at him, sobbing, “I won’t, I won’t.”

I slapped the boy lightly; he was hardly older than the fishing lad aboard the Cythereia. The blindness cleared from his eyes and he stared at me wildly. “Who are you?”

“No one important. What ship are you from?”

“The...the Lotos.” He straightened up. “From Piraeus.”

“I’m from Piraeus myself. Do you know the Ram’s Head taverna?”

He half-smiled. “My uncle is Bibos the tailor. His shop is near there. I wish....” He stopped, biting his lip.

“Sure, I know Bibos.” Really, I didn’t know the man from a hole in the ground but it steadied him to hear a familiar accent. “Listen to me, son. Round up your friends and get back to your ship. This isn’t a night to be wandering around Troezen alone.”

He nodded. A moment later, more sailors came by, hurrying, not quite running, held to discipline by the presence of a couple of older hands. I gave the young sailor into their keeping. One saluted, looking at me curiously.

“Get on,” I said. "Sail tonight if you can but don't leave your ships again until dawn."

Phandros and I continued to head up the street, closer together as the buildings seemed to narrow in above us. A fog or smoke from the fires burning on every corner stung my eyes and clouded my sight. The figures that passed now seemed ever more sinister, and their glances told me that I looked much the same to them.

Phandros tugged at my elbow. “Call me an old fool,” he murmured. I could hear him clearly now for it seemed to me that even the music died away when he spoke.

“Never mind,” I muttered back. “I see it.”

“Some of these people aren’t wearing masks any more, are they?”

“Not unless the mask makers here are really, really good.”

Some of the eyebrows were not glued-on feathers, the whiskers were not black thread, the fangs protruding over full red lips no longer wooden dentures. Claws and tails half-glimpsed in the uncertain light spread and lashed.

Looking at them was bad enough; it got worse when they started looking back. The hissing I heard wasn’t the criticism a bad actor receives. A hungrier, deeper sound followed us.

“Let’s walk a little faster,” I said.

“Excellent idea.”

At the top of the street, there was a cross-roads marker. “Read it for me, will you?”

I wasn’t sure when I’d drawn my sword. It felt light and easy in my hand. Standing with my back to Phandros, I peered this way and that down the streets meeting here. I felt eyes upon me.

“It says Palace to the left, acropolis straight ahead....”

“The left it is then.”

“No, wait. Queen’s Menagerie to the right. They must keep the beasts near the arena; that’s logical.”

“Queen’s Menagerie?”

“That’s what it says.” Phandros squinted again, holding the lantern up as high as he could. I took it from his hand, still keeping the sword in my left, and raised it to shine on the block of wood shaped like an arrow.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Queen’s....thank you, Eno.”

“Thank you. I can read but right now I have another use for my eyes.”

He sighed. “I feel it too. Somebody’s watching us.”

“More than one. Top of that roof with the awning still out. Three streets down -- don’t look -- he’s behind a corner. Down at the end of the street, that one’s got a real flair for this, very good, just blending in with the shadows.”

There’d be no shadows in a moment. The moon had been playing hide-and-go-seek with the clouds all this time. Now she decided she’d had enough flirtation and withdrew to contemplation behind her veils.

“What do you suggest, now? Cover of darkness...element of surprise...spring from hiding....” He sounded like a small boy reciting his lessons for the week. Knowing the Spartans, those were probably the lessons he had been forced to memorize, right first time, every time.

Before I answered, I threw the lantern to the ground to burst in a brief flare-up of flame and oil. It illuminated for an instant the creature that crouched nearest, a thing of sinew, bone, feather and hide with only the merest outline of a human being. It lifted up to sniff the air and a low growling whine reached us.

“I have a simpler plan. Run.”

“Well, it is a plan...of sorts.” The last word had hardly floated across to me when he hiked up his borrowed robe and ran down the street. For a skinny older guy, he showed a nice turn of speed. It was harder to get my mass going but I achieved my top speed at about the same time he did.

One piece of advice I offer free of charge to any young man considering the heroic life as a profession. Sooner or later, you were going to have to run. Keeping yourself fit is important. Not looking back is vital. That may sound like cowardice. So be it. Sometimes you don’t want to know what is chasing you. Knowing how close they are won’t make you any faster. Run flat out or don’t run at all.

A wagon had been pulled halfway across the street. Phandros saw it in time to go around. I took it like a competitor in high hurdles on the last day of the Olympian Games. I heard a thud and a crash behind me as someone else didn’t make it over. I knew some of the others would have no trouble. Those kinds of creatures don't.

Then there was no sound except my boots flapping endlessly on the hard-packed road. And heavy breathing, lots of it, from behind me.

We’d reached the outskirts of town. There’d soon be no confining streets where they could only come at us from behind. They’d be able to lope ahead and have room to spring. All the time I ran through those reeking alleys, I kept expecting one to strike from the roofline. Phandros was somewhere ahead but I couldn’t see him now. I only hoped they weren’t herding us into an ambush. Another cart...I’d never be able to jump that high again.

My throat felt hard, my mouth drying, as I tried to get enough air. I am not built for distance. I had just decided to turn and fight where I’d still have a paltry advantage when I heard Phandros call to me. “This way, Eno, this way.”

I skidded around a last corner and found myself on an open plain. The moon came out, flooding the ground with dead light. Not far away was the arena, a tall round structure made up of individual timbers roped together.

Phandros, however, was closer by, standing in front of an open gate in a smaller stockade, the guard of the doorway behind him. I changed course, finding a spurt of speed even I didn’t know I had in me.

I saw the staring eyes and gaping mouth of the guard as I passed him. He wasn’t looking at me but at those behind me.

Phandros had to jerk the guard in through the gateway or he would have still be standing there agape as they ran him down.

I pushed down on the pivoting bar and it dropped into its slots, holding the gate. Thuds came as something couldn’t stop in time. I heard whimpers and then a long, disappointed howl.

“What...what?” the guard gasped.

I clonked him on the head and he crumpled.

“What was that for?” Phandros protested. “He saved us.”

“Do you think whoever sent those things will be pleased he saved us?”

“It wasn’t just part of the Hunt?”

“With us as prey? I don’t think so. They didn’t seem to be hunting anyone else. Somebody knows we have come to Troezen and why.”

“Do you think Jori told them?”

I shook my head. Taking the unconscious guard by the shoulders, I dragged him over to a shed. It smelled of hay and sweet grass. I dumped him there to have his sleep out.

“I think they killed him outright, along with the rest of the crew to keep them from talking. It’s why they took his papers instead of questioning him.”