Ahead in the distance lay an island. Verdant and tranquil looking.
At the moment Jerry would have accepted any form of land. He just wanted off this ship. It was what the Greeks would have called a pentekonter. It was what a poor sailor called hell. Still—
That must be Thrinicia, Odysseus' next stop, according to Homer. Somehow Jerry was certain that it would be full of Helios' broad-browed cattle. Somehow he was certain that the weather would trap them there, and that, no matter what they did, the sailors would kill the cattle and feast on them. . . .
The hides would crawl, and even the roasted meat would groan and low. And then, the departing ship would be sunk.
The gentle breeze brought Achaean voices as well as Achaean rancid-oil-and-sweat bouquet to him. Classical Greek didn't sound quite like the linguistic theoreticians thought it would.
When he figured out what they were saying, it was even less appetizing than the stench. Odysseus was being cunning again. Jerry began to realize that Scylla and Charybdis might have been lesser evils compared to their present predicament.
" . . . The gods have sent us these fine barbarian slaves. They must be a sign. We are close to my principality on Ithaca. We must press on," said Odysseus. The oiliness in that voice said: Do not buy this used car.
The one being truculent must be . . . Eurylochus. He was certainly being insistent and not showing Odysseus a great deal of respect. Well, for all the self-praise in the Odyssey, Odysseus' men had always done pretty much what Odysseus claimed to have advised against. From what Jerry knew of the era, the crew were all minor noblemen, accustomed to doing as they saw fit, with Odysseus' control over them being tenuous at best. Raiding, piracy and slave-taking had always been part of their lives, and was taken for granted.
"We need rest and food and a decent chance to enjoy these slaves that the gods have surely provided for our pleasure. To Hades with Circe's predictions, Odysseus! She didn't tell us about the monster. Or if she did, then you didn't tell us about it. I want first turn on the yellow-haired peasant woman. And we're drawing lots for who gets the pretty red-haired boy. We know you, Odysseus. You want to get back to Ithaca to claim the whole lot as your share of the plunder."
The wind veered and Jerry had to stop his eavesdropping. But the snatch he'd overheard was enough to remind him that Mycenaean Greece was a good place to avoid. Mind you—that certainly wasn't the language of Mycenae they were speaking. It was classical Greek from later up the timeline, unless he was very much mistaken. But then this place was full of contradictions and impossibilities.
He forced his mind away from the attraction of playing with the puzzle. Whatever the answer, it didn't alter the fact that they had a very real problem here and now. He desperately wished that someone else would cope with it. But there was the language issue. He was the only one who could understand what was being said.
He turned to the woman. She'd been terrifyingly effective against Scylla. "Look, we've got to get away from these guys."
She picked something off her long, tanned calf and crushed it between short fingernails. Inspecting them, she pulled a face and said: "Yep. This smelly tub is crawling with damn fleas."
He took a deep breath. "Fleas may be the least of our problems. What do you know about ancient Greeks?"
She shrugged. "Not much. I'm a marine biologist, little guy. They were the source of western civilization. The founders of democracy. Can't be too bad, I suppose. Not compared to some of the other places back in time we could have landed up in."
Later he realized that he got the courage to continue principally from sheer irritation. She could skip the "little guy" stuff. He was as tall as she was. She just added an extra six inches of attitude. "One: We're not back in time . . . I don't think. These guys appear to be Mycenaeans or, as they called themselves, Achaeans—not Greeks, really. But they're speaking the language of a different people from later up the timeline. Two: Democracy happened much later. Anyway, it excluded women and slaves," he said grimly. "And you're both. At least as far as they're concerned."
She stared at him, silenced.
Lamont had been listening in. "Slaves. Oh, lord. Not me."
Liz shut her mouth with a snap. "Well, fuck me . . . "
"That's just what they intend to do, as soon as they get to land," said Jerry quietly. "And if I heard them right they're busy drawing lots for the corporal, too."
The expression on Jim McKenna's face was worth buying a video camera for.
"Instead of being gifts from the gods, can't we be messengers? I mean, if I remember correctly, Odysseus is a prince and a great general," said Salinas shakily, having emerged from under the rowing bench, but still looking green about the gills. "Explain to them the serious consequences of attempting to enslave Americans, Dr. Lukacs."
Liz snorted. "But I'm fair game. Listen, you spineless asshole: somehow I don't think they live in fear of air strikes. We don't have any modern weapons that work and they outnumber us ten to one." She went on rummaging through her bag. So far she'd found a Swiss army knife. It wasn't what it should be. It was rusty.
"I'll beat the living shit out of the first one of those little fucks to try anything!" McKenna was still red-faced. "They're half our size. And sure, our rifles are no use, but we've got bayonets. I've got my Gerber. And we're trained in unarmed combat. They're not."
Sergeant Cruz tensed his forearm muscles. "Corporal. If we've got to fight, we will. But we're soldiers. One-on-one, in a fair fight, we'd win. We're bigger than them and we're trained. But did you see how that guy killed Hooper? Like you would swat a fly. Get this: Those guys are goddamn killers. Even in Mogadishu they've got more respect for human life. And you can be damn sure they're not gonna stand back while we kill them off one at a time. Either they'll pack us, or, more likely, hold off and shoot us full of arrows or throw javelins at us."
Jerry nodded. "If you read between the lines, Odysseus' bunch were pretty much freebooters. And rather brutal. Actually, even in the Iliad—"
Liz interrupted his lecture on the realities of life in ancient Greece. "So, they're a load of scumbags. Tell me something that wasn't obvious. But what are we going to do about it, gentlemen? Fort up in the bow here, and try and hold them off with oars?"
Lamont shook his head. "Maybe Lieutenant RaRaRa has got something. Maybe we can talk our way out of this one, Jerry? Convince them that we're messengers from their gods or something. You know all their myths."
The mythographer shook his head. "Really, my field of expertise is the Middle East. But one thing is pretty well common knowledge: non-Hellenes were barbarians, one and all, even ones from more advanced cultures. Of course these people are not what we call 'Greeks.' They're the people the later Greeks or Hellenes displaced. However, the culture seems similar."
Liz snorted. "Yogurt's got more culture than this lot."
Jerry shook his head. "I don't think this was atypical. We tend to forget that life was pretty tough for ordinary people throughout most of human history. Power got respect. Pretty little else did." He looked at her speculatively. "Well. There is the sorceress option. Several foreign sorceresses got a fair bit of respect in Greek mythology."
She pulled a wry face. "I haven't turned anyone into a newt lately. Actually, I can't even do card tricks."
Lamont narrowed his eyes and looked at the marine biologist. "You don't happen to smoke, do you?"
"I'm trying to cut down," she said defensively. "It's hard to give up on ships where the whole crew smokes."
Jerry snapped his fingers. "Gotcha, Lamont! Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court! Can you blow smoke rings?"
Liz looked puzzled. "Huh? Yes, of course."
"Well, Twain's hero convinced the guys back in Arthurian legend he was a wizard by smoking. Magic is simply something that you don't understand," said Jerry.
She snorted. "That'd make men magic, in my book. All right. Let's try it. It's a stupid idea, but at least it is an idea."
Liz fluffed the hair about her face into a wild blond cloud. The roots were going dark but Odysseus' crew probably wouldn't notice that. It didn't take much effort to "Medusa" her hair. It always went like that when the salt spray got into it. She concentrated on looking regal and mysterious as she and Jerry walked calmly between the rowers to Odysseus.
Nature designs some people to look honest and trustworthy. Odysseus' face was made for politics. It had plainly been a while since he'd bathed, and they were downwind of him. And his breath was something else again.
Liz willed herself to look imperious to the prince of Ithaca.
By the expression on Odysseus' face . . . it wasn't working.
Jerry began to speak. She wished like hell that she knew what he was saying.
"Noble Odysseus, our great sorceress Liz has performed an augury. If you land on the Island of Thrinicia you are surely doomed." Jerry tried to keep a quaver out of his Greek. If only someone else could do this . . .
"Just what I was saying to Eurylochus here!" The somewhat high-pitched voice didn't go with his princely bearing. Of all the lower forms of life Jerry had had the misfortune to have to deal with, bank managers just about topped his personal list. Jerry decided that Odysseus was natural-born bank manager material. It raised Jerry's blood pressure. That helped.
Eurylochus didn't place much faith in the pronouncement either. "Sorceress! If she's a sorceress then my penis is rabbit food! She's a peasant. Look at her skin. Even with the funny hair dye I know a peasant when I see one."
"Not as well as you do when you feel one," said Odysseus with an age-old gesture and a nasty chuckle.
"Time to start smoking," said Jerry, out of the corner of his mouth. Then he drew himself up and did his best attempt at a snap. It sounded pathetic to him. "My mistress will grow angry! We appeared on your ship by magic—"
The Greeks were laughing uncontrollably. "Your mistress . . . ho ho ho . . . " Odysseus slapped his thighs and guffawed some more.
With glowing ears Jerry realized that what he'd said was "the woman who is my master." An absolutely hilarious howler in these parts. It didn't help that she was suntanned as only peasant women were, and he was as pallid as their female aristocracy. Of course in a man that was not a desirable trait. Men in all the paintings are dark-haired and dark-skinned. The glow in his ears spread to his face as he realized that a pale-skinned man was truly the lowest form of life to these Greeks: a wimp.
Liz revived him with a long smoky exhalation.
The laughter had died away. Eurylochus backed off. . . .
Odysseus didn't. He watched as Liz trickled smoke out of her nostrils.
"She is very angry. When the smoke begins to come out of her nose, it is a sure sign. She will turn you into a . . . a . . . " What the hell was the Greek for "newt"?
Liz took a deep draw and blew smoke rings.
Odysseus smiled like a shark. "It's a trick, Eurylochus. She's no sorceress. She sucks the smoke from the smoldering stick, and then blows it out. I can do it too." And he snatched the cigarette out of her hand.
He sucked at it.
Hard.
Liz had started smoking as a twelve-year-old, stealing her older brother's cigarettes. He, like many a young soldier of that time, had smoked only the strongest unfiltered cigarettes. You had to, to prove how tough you were. Filter tips were for weenies.
Liz had broken the habit—once. But when things went wrong she'd gone back to the same old smoking habits. In the U.S. she hadn't been able to find her brand. Bloody cheek. The adverts had had a cowboy! She still remembered her brother trying everything to get a match to strike against his boot.
Odysseus was a healthy Achaean with good strong lungs. He had sucked that smoke in hard and unprepared. . . .
It was a joy to watch.
He dissolved into paroxysms of violent coughing. Smoke erupted from virtually every orifice. Well, possibly not from under his sort of skirt thing. But she'd swear smoke came out of his ears.
Liz calmly reached down and took the fag from the limp hand of the doubled-up hero. Pah. He'd slimed it. She pinched off the damp bit and took another deep drag. She blew smoke into the goggle-eyed Odysseus' red face.
"Cigarettes may be harmful to your health. Want another drag, weenie?" she said coolly. Fortunately she didn't say it in ancient Greek.
"Well, all right. Maybe she is a sorceress after all," coughed Odysseus, waving the smoke away weakly. "No mere mortal could breathe the smoke of Hades like that."
"She says that if you touch the magic herbs of Persephone again she will turn you into a . . . frog," said Jerry grimly. "I am so pale because she turned me into a . . . goat for not obeying her orders quickly enough."
The Greeks regarded Liz with a bit of trepidation. Several of them edged away. But Odysseus looked suddenly very interested. "This turning people into goats . . . ask the sorceress if we could perhaps reach an agreement. I've a lot more serfs than I need, and a lot fewer goats. I asked Circe, but the nymph won't leave Aeaea. She says her magic only works there anyway. And goats are more valuable than pigs. Circe does pigs best. Tell the sorceress we could do business."
Jerry turned to Liz. "Look irritated and point at the island and draw your finger across your throat. Talk some gobbledygook."
Liz complied. Actually, she overdid it, demonstrating on the hapless Eurylochus. Unlike Jerry, she had no self-confidence problems. "This guy is a silly prat. I feel like kicking his balls in."
"The Sorceress Liz says, beware of your kinsman Eurylochus—he who suspected a trap of Circe, and would have you land on the Island of the Sun, Thrinicia. He will be the one to urge your comrades to slaughter the straight-horned cattle of the sun."
Odysseus was able to stick to a subject. Especially a subject he considered important. "About the goats . . . "
Liz had been staring at the horizon while Jerry warbled on. She'd spent a fair number of years going to sea in small boats. When the horizon went bumpy like that—it was time to run for port. Especially when the horizon got that gray haze about it. "Jerry. Tell this lot that I'm predicting a hell of a blow."
Jerry dug deep into his memories of the Odyssey. Had it been a wind from the north or the south that had kept them trapped on Thrinicia? "The Sorceress Liz says that the south wind and the storm are coming."
That was enough for the seamen. They'd been watching the drama. Now they too looked for weather cues. A low moan swept the ship. Well. They had just survived a whirlpool and a monster . . . Now a wind that would drive them back that way was rising. "Row for the island!" shouted someone. But the offshore breeze was already strengthening.
Odysseus was a son of a bitch with an obsession about goats, but he was no fool. Within minutes the ship was bearing northwest—quartering the storm, looking for a haven, any haven but the channel that housed Scylla and Charybdis.
Jerry didn't care that he'd successfully thwarted the myth. He was too busy being sick. Or trying to be. There was nothing left to come up.