Poul Anderson - The Dancer from Atlantis

Ribald shouts blew around Erissa with the smoke of cookfires. Several Achaeans approached her as she came striding. She ignored them, though she felt their stares on her back. A woman—bonny, too—who swung along that arrogantly—unescorted? What could she be, if not one of the whores come down to ply their trade? But she spurned every offer. So maybe she had a rendezvous with some important man in his tent? But the chieftains weren’t squatted here, they were in town at the inns, the mightiest at the palace.... The warriors shrugged and returned to their wasting spits, their dice games, their contests of speed and strength and bragging.

She came to a row of skiffs. Each had a ferryman on standby, whose boredom vanished when she appeared. “Who’ll take me out to yonder ship?” she asked, pointing at Oleg’s.

Eyes went up and down her height. Teeth shone wet in beards. “What for?” someone asked knowingly. “What pay?” laughed his companion. “Mine’s the boat belongs to it,” said a third, “and I’ll take you, but you’ll earn your passage. Agreed?”

Erissa remembered the barbarians of Thrace, the burghers of Rhodes, and too many more. She drew herself erect, widened her eyes till the pupils were circled in white, and willed pallor into her face. “I have business concerning the Beings,” she said in her coldest witch-voice. “Behave yourselves—” she stabbed a gesture—“unless you want that manhood you boast of more than you use to blacken and drop off.”

They backed away, terrified, scrabbling out, shaky little signs of their own. She gestured at Oleg’s man. He all but crawled to help her aboard, pushed his craft afloat, and worked at the oars like a thresher, never lifting his glance to her.

She muted a sigh. How easy to dominate, when you had ceased being frightened for yourself.

Oleg’s rubicund visage and golden beard burned in sun-light reflected off water, as he peered over the bulwark. “Who the chawrt —Why, you, Erissa! Saints alive, I haven’t seen you for weeks. Come aboard, come aboard. Hoy, you scuts!” he bellowed. “Drop a rope ladder for my lady.”

He took her into a cabin, set, her down on a bunk, poured wine that a crewman had fetched, and clanged his beaker against hers. “Good to greet you, lass:’ The cabin being a mere hutch cluttered with his personal gear, he joined her on the bunk. Windows were lacking, but enough light seeped past the door for her to make him out. It was warm; she felt the radiation of his shaggy tunic-clad body and drank the odor of his sweat. Waves clinked against the hull, which rocked slightly. Outside, feet thudded, voices shouted, tackle creaked, as the work of preparation continued which he had been overseeing.

“You needn’t look that grim, need you?” he rumbled. “Oleg.” She caught his free hand. “This host Theseus is summoning. Where are they bound?”

“You know that Been announced. A plundering trip to Tyrrhenian waters.”

“Are they really, though? This sudden—this many allies—”

He squinted pityingly at her. “I understand. You fear for Crete. Well, look. You’d not get the Atticans, not to speak of what other Achaeans they’ve talked into joining—you won’t get them to attack any place under the protection of the Minos. They aren’t crazy. At the same time, they do grow restless, and the Minos finds advantage in letting them work that off now and then, on folk who’ve naught to offer in the market but slaves and who themselves are apt to play pirate. Right?”

“But this year of all years,” she whispered.

Oleg nodded. “I went along with the notion, when my advice was asked. If we really are in for a tidal wave as Duncan claims, I’d hate to see fine ships wrecked, most especially my lovely new dromond. Let’s get them out of harm’s way. How I look forward to showing Duncan my work! His idea, you recall, that we build something really up-to-date that’d catch the notice of the time wizards.”

“Who has warned the Minos about the disaster to come?” Erissa demanded.

“Well, you heard Diores yourself, relating what he’d seen and done on Atlantis. Duncan’s an honored guest there. I got a couple of Diores’ men drunk and asked them out, just to make sure. It’s true. So surely by now he must’ve put the word across.

“We’d not have heard, here in Athens. If the Cretans do mean to empty their cities and scatter their navy well out at sea, they’d hardly give advance notice, would they? That’d be asking for trouble. I’d not be surprised but what Gathon. under orders, put the flea in Theseus’ ear about organizing a joint Achaean expedition beyond Italy. Beyond temptation, ha, ha!”

“Then why do I remember that my country was destroyed this spring?” she asked.

Oleg stroked her hair as her father might have done. “Maybe you misremember. You’ve said things are blurry where they aren’t blank for you, right around the day of the downfall.”

“There is nothing unclear about my memories of the aftermath.”

“Well, so maybe the God’s changed his mind and sent us back to save Crete.” Oleg crossed himself. “I’m not so bold as to claim that, mark you. I’m just a miserable sinner trying to make an honest profit, But a priest of the God told me men are free to choose, that there is no foreordained doom except the very Last Day. Meanwhile we can only walk the way we hope is best, a step at a time.”

The palm crossing her head reminded her of the new white streaks which had come into her locks this winter. On Atlantis, those tresses shone like a midnight sky.

“Anyway,” Oleg said, “remember, we’ve kept our mouths shut to the Athenians. They don’t know the future. If they believe anything, it’s that they’re bound to get friendlier with Knossos.

“For proof, consider that Theseus won’t be leading this expedition though he instigated it. His idea must be to bleed off as. much. Achaean restlessness as possible while he’s away. If he looked, for ruin to strike Crete, would he hie himself there?”

“That was the news which frightened me till I had to seek you, Oleg.” Erissa stared at the bulkhead. “When the prince made known that he would be among the next hostages—”

The Russian nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard Duncan’s notion. I worried too for a while. But then I thought, first, Theseus and what malcontents and crooks he might gather, what could they do in the Minos’ own city except get themselves killed? Second, like I said, he’s got no reason to think the Labyrinth will face trouble from the elements. Third, if he hopes to dicker for a better standing in the Thalassocracy, what shrewder way than to settle down some years in an honored post, where they’ll try to win his good will against the day he goes home? Fourth, I wouldn’t be surprised if Gathon, again, dropped hints it’d pay him to come. You see, if Duncan’s warned the Minos about Theseus, it’s purely natural for the Minos to want Theseus in the Labyrinth where they can keep an eye on him. And fifth, lass, this dromon’s going to be the flagship of the Tyrrhenian outing. Admiral Diores will travel on it, and keep an eye on him.”

He hugged her lightly. “Yes, we’re in a dangerous world,” he said. “It never was anything else, and never will be. But I do believe you’ve reason to feel some cheer.”

He would have been glad to entertain her a while, but when she failed to convince him he was wrong, she excused herself as fast as. possible. Walking back to Athens, she found a cypress grove along the road where she could hide and weep.

She hoped no one could tell that when she continued.

Driving a chariot of Diores his chieftain, Peneleos was among the warriors who had gone forth to summon men off their scattered farmsteads. He returned on the day after Erissa’s visit to Oleg: shouting for joy as he clattered up the Acropolis, horses tramping, bronze gleaming, cloak blowing behind him with speed, his own half-naked attendants toiling, afoot in his dust. Erissa was in the crowd of underlings who stopped work to watch the splendid spectacle. Light off his helmet and breastplate speared his eyes.