Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

And once, miles off, Reid glimpsed the reason for that. A lean galley quartered the horizon. Several of Diores’ people drew knives at it or made obscene gestures. “What’s yonder craft?” Oleg inquired.

“A Cretan warship,” Diores replied. “On patrol.”

“For distressed mariners,” Erissa said, “and against pirates and barbarians.”

“Against those who’d be free,” an. Achaean boy declared hotly.

“No squabbles,” Diores commanded. The boy slouched aft. Erissa clenched her lips and spoke no more.

Soon after dark the breeze died and the vessel lay hove to under magnificent stars. Gazing at them before he slept, Reid recalled that they too were not eternal. “Tell me,” he asked Erissa, “what constellation heads your Zodiac?”

“The Bull, of course, Asterion’s. Bull, when he awakens from death in the reborn spring: Her voice, which had started sharp, ended in reverence. Through the wan light he saw her kiss her amulet and trace a sign amidst shadow, a cross, the sun’s emblem.

Precession of the equinoxes, he thought. I’ve come back two twelfths of twenty-six thousand years. Well, that isn’t so exact. He shivered, though the night was not especially cold, and crept under a thwart to huddle in the sheepskin Diores had lent him.

At dawn they took down the mast, broke out the oars, and spider-walked to the coxswain’s chant—“Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai! “—creaking and splashing across a sea which shimmered pale blue at first, later sapphire above indigo. Oleg said he wanted exercise and settled down at an oar for two turns in a stretch.

That cracked the men’s reserve. When the breeze lifted (not as favorable as yesterday’s, but Reid was surprised to learn how close this awkward-looking square rig could point) they gathered about the Russian, who sat dangling his legs off the foredeck. They gave him undiluted wine and bestormed him with questions.

“Where you from, stranger?—What’s it like?—Where’ve you been?—What kinds of ship they use in your country?—That armor you were wearing, those weapons, are they really iron?—Iron’s no good, too brittle, even when you can get it out of its ore, which I’ve heard is mucking near impossible. What’s the trick?—Hai, how’re your women?—Your wine? D’you drink beer like Egyptians?” Teeth flashed in brown countenances, bodies shifted around in a dance of muscles, laughter and chatter pealed across the blueness.

Could these frank, merry boys, these far-faring men with skillful hands, be the savages Erissa claimed they were?

She sat on a bench well aft, brooding. Uldin shared it. They didn’t speak. The Hun had uttered hardly a sound after the hour yesterday when he must lean overside while the Achaeans guffawed at his back. He’d gotten over the sickness, but stayed sullen at the loss of face. Or did he crouch alone behind his mask in a wretchedness of terror? This endless water where no horse could move!

Diores lounged, on the deck beside Oleg, picking his teeth and saying little. Reid sat nervously nearby, against the bulwark, embracing knees under chin, hoping the Russian wouldn’t make some gaffe, as hard as he was drink-ing. He was no fool, but after everything which had lately happened to him the temptation to lower his guard and relax must be considerable.

“I’m a man of the Rus, if that’s what you mean.” Oleg drained his beaker and passed it down for more. His yellow locks fluttered from the headband, his eyes twinkled happily in the red cherubic visage, he scratched beneath his shirt and belched. “Don’t know ‘bout the rest. S’pose I lay out the land for you, and you tell me what you rec’nize. That way we’ll get the names straight.”

They settled back to listen. He swigged from the refilled cup and rumbled:

“I’ll start far north. You might like to hear ‘bout that. Woods, mile after mile of woods. Farms too, of course, but you could wander in the woods your whole life. I almost did when I was a sprat. My father, was a merchant, wiped out when first the Poles took Novgorod, then Yaroslav took it back, then the long war ‘tween Yaroslav and his brother stopped our trade south. We went into those woods, took up hunting and trapping. I learned how to get about there, I can tell you. The Finns have, uh, wooden shoes for walk-ing on snow. They’re wizards. Told me how to sing up ,a good wind, though it doesn’t always work for me and, uh, naturally a Christian shouldn’t.” They registered puzzlement, since to them he had just said that he was an anointed one; but evidently they decided he must be an initiate of some mystery cult.

“We came back at last, started over in better times, and I’ve not done badly. Learned another lesson from those early days, too.” Oleg chuckled, drank, and wagged his forefinger. “Trade stopped again, or nearly so, for a couple years after our war with Constantinople. I spent that time in Norway. The king’s a good friend to the Rus; served a while under Yaroslav, in fact; married a daughter of his, I got together many a load of furs in that country. First time I returned to Constantinople, believe you me, I made a killing.”

“You were speaking of your homeland,” a man called,

“Ah. So I was. Novgorod. Would you believe, well inland as ‘tis, Novgorod’s a seaport? Row from Gulf of Finland, up the Neva, ‘cross Lake Ladoga, up the Volkhov to Lake Ilmen, and there you are. ‘Course, you can’t go on. You’ve got to ride overland, make rendezvous on the Dnieper, first. But then it’s water the whole way, ‘cept for the rapids. Kiev’s grown big and fat off that waterway, I can tell you. But me, I stay a Novgorod boy, where the furs and amber are handier to come by. And so at last you reach the Black Sea, and turn south along the coast to Constantinople, and there’s a city, lads, there you have the queen o’ the world.”

“Hold on,” Diores said slowly. “What you call the Black Sea, does it lead through two straits, a small, sea between them, to these waters?”

Oleg nodded vigorously. “You have it hooked. Constantinople’s at the inner end of the northern channel.”

“But there’s no city there,” a crewman protested.

“Oh, you’d not have heard, I suppose:” Oleg said loftily.

“Zeus thunder me, I have!” Diores rapped, all at once become stern. Silence took over, except for thrum and gurgle and the pitiful bleat of the two sheep penned beneath this deck. “I’ve plied these lanes aplenty, you,” Diores said. “Once as far as Colchis under the Caucasus. Nor am I the only Achaean who has.”

“You mean you dare currents in a cockleshell like this?” Oleg exclaimed. “Why, I could almos’ put my fist through the side."

“A guest oughtn’t to tell lies,” Diores said.

“Wait,” Reid began, reaching to touch him.

Oleg shook his head. “Sorry. Too much wine:’ He stared into his cup. “I forgot. We’ve come backward through time. Constantinople’s not been built yet, I s’pose. It will be, though, it will be. I’ve been there. I know.” He tossed the wine off and the cup down into a sailor’s lap.

Diores stayed unmoving. His face might have been a block of driftwood. The listeners below stirred and buzzed. Hands dropped, toward bronze knives; fingers traced signs.

“Oleg,” Reid said. “No more.”

“Why not?” the Russian mumbled. “Truth, isn’ it? Let’s go in business as prophets.”

“No more,” Reid repeated. “I’ve told you where I am from. Heed me."

Oleg bit his lip. Reid turned to Diores. Above the unease that crawled inside him and made his skin prickle, the American donned an apologetic grin. “I should have warned you, Captain,” he said. “My comrade’s given to tall tales. And of course what really happened would confuse anybody.”