Soldier of the mist

Soon Drakaina and Hippagretas were in one big litter and Io and I in another, each litter carried on the shoulders of four bearers. "You and the black man had to carry Kalleos like this," Io told me. "But there were only the two of you, and I bet Kalleos is as heavy as you and me together."

I asked whether we had to climb so steep a slope, and she shook her head. "It was uphill, but not nearly as bad as this. I was following you, and you didn't know it." She giggled. "I'd watch the litter and wonder which of you would give up first, but neither of you did."

I told her no man likes to admit he's weaker than another.

"A lot of women do-that's one reason why so many of us like men better, besides their being easier to fool. Look there, you can see the water already. And there's the slipway. Thirty-six stades from the gulf to the Sea of Saros. That's what the man we talked to yesterday said."

I asked her whether Drakaina had been with us.

She shook her head. "She stayed on board, because Pasicrates was there, if you ask me. We went with the captain, and they seemed happy enough to see us go."

I scarcely heard her. With the few steps since she had mentioned the water, the bearers had turned a corner and ascended a bit more; and the bright patch of water Io had pointed out had grown to an azure sea, as a child grows who is a woman as soon as your attention is distracted for a moment, at once restless and restful, alluring and dangerous. And it struck me then that the sea was the world, and everything else-the city, the towering crag of limestone, the very ships that floated upon it and the fish that swam in it-was only exceptional, only oddities like the bits of leaf or straw one sees in a globe of amber.

I was myself a mariner on that sea, a sailor at the mercy of wind and wave, lost in the mists and hearing breakers on the reefs of a rocky coast.

"This is it," Io said as the bearers lowered our litter before a frowning building. "This is where they kept us, Latro, in a cellar down a lot of steps." Drakaina and the lochagos were out of their litter already.

The interior seemed a cavern after the heat and brilliant sun outside. I understood then why so many gods and goddesses are said to live under the earth or among the everlasting snows of the mountaintops; no doubt we would do the same if only we were not bound to our fields for sustenance.

Corustas proved to be a beefy man in a cuirass of boiled leather molded with lions' heads. The snarling faces woke some faint fear in me, and I seemed for an instant to see a lion rear and threaten a mob in rags with its claws and fangs.

"You were on the ship with the young Rope Makers?" Corustas said. "I take it you are not Rope Makers yourselves."

Drakaina shook her head. "I am from the east. The man-who will be able to tell you little or nothing, by the way-is a barbarian, and neither he nor I can tell you his tribe. The child is from Hill."

"And your information?"

"And your price?"

"That must be determined when I have heard you. If it will save our city"-he smiled-"ten talents, perhaps. Otherwise much less."

Drakaina said, "Your city's in no immediate danger, as far as I know."

"Fine. You'd be surprised how often people come here to warn me of oracles and the like." He took out a silver owl and held it in his palm. "Now tell me what you've come to say, and we'll see if it's worth this. My time's not unlimited."

"It concerns an oracle," Drakaina said. "A dream in which the regent places complete trust." She extended her own hand.

"And it concerns my city?"

"Not directly. It may eventually."

Corustas leaned back. His chair was of ivory, inset with garnets and topazes. "Your ship is the Nausicaa, out of Aegae, bound for Hundred-Eyed. A hundred young Rope Makers are aboard, sent by the regent to offer praise at the temple of the Heavenly Queen in fulfillment of some vow."

Io smiled behind her hand, and Drakaina said, "You've been questioning the sailors. That was what they were told."

"And the young Rope Makers," Corustas added. When Drakaina said nothing, he muttered, "When we could," and dropped the owl into her hand.

"The hundred men are not bound for Hundred-Eyed, nor for any other place on Redface Island. Nor are they being sent in fulfillment of a vow, nor for any other sacred purpose."

"I know that, naturally," Corustas said, gauging Drakaina with his eyes. "They wore full armor when they went to threaten our slipmaster today. The Argives aren't fools enough to let a hundred armed Rope Makers through their gates." He took out another owl.

Drakaina shook her head. "Ten."

"Absurd!"

"But for nothing I will tell you they are picked men, taking their instructions directly from the regent."

"I knew that as soon as young Hippagretas told me you had said the regent's aide was aboard."

I asked whether Nausicaa would be taken on the slip today. "Ah!" Corustas winked. "You can talk after all. But you know nothing about all this."

"No," I said. "Nothing."

"You think a woman can get more and is less likely to be tortured. You're wrong on both counts. To answer your question, whether the ship crosses the isthmus today or never depends on the message I send our slipmaster. That in turn depends on what we say here." He looked back to Drakaina. "Five owls for the true destination."

"One word only."

"Agreed, but no tricks."

"Sestos."

For a moment I thought the strategist had fallen asleep. His eyes closed and his chin dropped to his chest. Then he opened his eyes again and straightened up.

"Yes, isn't it?" Drakaina said.

"And a dream told him to do it?"

Drakaina rose, knotting the six silver owls into her robe. "We really should go. The child wants to see your city from the summit."

"One more for the dream."

"Come, Io. Latro."

"Three."

Drakaina did not sit down again. "The dream-"

"Who was it? The Huntress?"

"The Queen Below. Had it been the Huntress, I wouldn't be telling you these things. She promised him that the fortress would fall soon after the young men arrived, and the regent believes her implicitly. Now you know all I do."

As Corustas counted out three more owls, he asked, "Why the Queen Below? It should have been the Warrior, or perhaps even the Sun."

Drakaina smiled. "A strategist, and you've never seen the fall of a city? Believe me, there's little enough drill or light then, but a great deal of death."

Outside, she asked the bearers whether the lochagos had paid them, and when they said he had, ordered them to carry us to the temple at the summit. They protested that they had been paid only to bring us up from the city and return us to the place where they had found us. Drakaina said, "Don't trouble me with your impudence. We've been conferring with Strategist Corustas, and if you won't earn your money like honest men, he'll have you whipped in the marketplace." After that they did as she told them.

The temple was small but every bit as lovely as it had looked from below, with slender marble pillars and elaborate capitals; its pediment showed a youth offering an apple to three maids.

When the bearers were out of earshot, Io whispered, "You didn't tell him about Latro. I thought you were going to."

"Certainly not. Suppose Corustas had decided to keep him here? Do you think the regent wouldn't have guessed someone talked? And that it was you or me? Now have a look at the view; I told Corustas you were going to."

Io did and so did I, feeling the sea breeze would never be so pure again as it was today, nor the sun so bright. The white city of Tower Hill spread in two terraces below us. Its gulf, stretching away to the west like a great blue road, promised all the untouched riches of the thinly peopled western lands, and I felt a sudden longing to go there.