"I'll gladly go along," said Ops before Lucian could reply. "If the wind dies or the boat leaks, they'll need someone to blame. A wonderful opportunity for me."
"No, Argeus Bright-Face," the Lady said. "Your place is here. My daughter has told me of your request. I must give it long and careful thought. Be patient and stay among us until I see what is best for you."
"I've brought Aiee-Ouch and Fronto this far," declared Joy-in-the-Dance. "I'll certainly go the rest of the way with them."
"No, you shall not," replied the Lady, as Lucian's heart sank. "It is not fitting. Now leave us, child," the Lady went on. "Take Argeus Bright-Face to his chambers, then remain in your own."
The girl's chin shot up. Her eyes and the Lady's met and locked. "I do not speak as a mother to a beloved daughter," the Lady said in a low voice, "but as the Lady of Wild Things to her pythoness. Do as I say. You know that you must."
Joy-in-the-Dance stood, as if she would step toward Lucian, then turned abruptly, head high, and strode from the courtyard. Ops followed. Lucian started after her. The Lady rose to stand in front of him. The leopards, alert, twitched their tails. Lucian faced the Lady of Wild Things. "Let me say farewell to her. That much, at least."
"No," the Lady said. "Do you think me heartless? I am not. I am doing you a kindness. It would be too painful for both of you.
"I will tell you this," she added. "My daughter was tom in spirit when she came here and questioned whether she should have changed the prophecy she gave your king. I have made it clear to her. By speaking the true prophecy she proved herself worthy of her rank. She is a pythoness. That is her life. You can have no part in it."
He was filled with her absence and might as well have been sleepwalking for all the heed he paid to where he was being led. Laurel-Crown had been instructed to guide him and Fronto down the cliffs to the fishing village, where she pointed out the ship master’s hut, and left them there.
"Hurry along, my boy," urged the poet. "Glooming never mended a broken heart, as I've discovered a thousand times. Think of something else. Anything. Go alphabetically. Anthills. Beetles. Callista-Ah, that's a happy prospect.
"We'll go in style, too." Fronto tossed his head toward a little cove and a sleek, high-masted ship. "This what's his name-Oudeis-let's get him stirring, reef the anchor, hoist the rudder, whatever these nautical fellows do."
Fronto eagerly trotted across the threshold of the hut. Lucian, at his heels, was surprised to find that the hut was more spacious on the inside than it appeared from the outside. The reason, he understood, was that the chamber had been so cleverly laid out. Tables and benches of polished wood had been set into the walls; what looked like a fishnet was slung between two beams of a ceiling crafted of wooden ribs. Storage bins nested one on top of the other; an oil lamp hung from a chain. Only one thing seemed to be missing: the occupant.
"I hope he's not gone far," said Fronto. "We've no time to lose. Seek him out, lad, at the piers; perhaps the local tavern, or whatever sort of place might attract the seafaring trade."
The words had barely passed his lips when a voice boomed from the doorway: "A jackass! Away with you, lumbering lummox!"
A figure as high and wide as the doorway itself dropped the wineskin he carried on his shoulder. With hardly a glance at Lucian, he seized Fronto by the ears and would have hauled him bodily from the hut if Lucian had not brandished the amulet. At sight of it, the man stopped and drew back a pace.
"What are you up to with that?"
"Are you the ship master?" Lucian stepped between him and Fronto. "Oudeis?"
"Who else?" The man loomed bulkier than Bromios, with a salt-and-pepper beard in tight curls, hair closely cropped, a jutting hawk's beak of a nose, and shrewd black eyes flecked with gold. "And you? Is that your jackass? Yes, well, take that sorry bone bag away before he makes a mess on my floor."
"My good ship master," said Fronto, tossing his head and looking down his nose, "credit me with at least a measure of refinement. I'm not what I appear to be. Has it not occurred to you that I can speak?"
"I don't care a fig if you can whistle out your ears," retorted Oudeis. "Make a mess, you clean it up. What do you want? The quicker you tell me, the quicker you're gone."
Fearing the testy Oudeis would throw him out the door despite the amulet, Lucian hurried to explain their circumstances. The ship master’s weather-beaten face fell, he scratched his beard, puffed his cheeks, and muttered to himself.
"The Lady told us you'd do as we ask," Lucian insisted.
"I will," grumbled Oudeis. "I owe her more service than I can repay. There's been times when she's held my life in the palm of her hand. Aye, her spirit bore me up, else I'd have drowned a dozen times over. I'll take you where you want to go. That doesn't mean I have to like it. I've shipped many a strange cargo in my day, but never a jackass, let alone a talking one."
"I assure you," said Fronto, "on our return voyage, when I'm back to myself, you'll find me most entertaining. Once my difficulty is resolved and my mind can concentrate on my profession, I'll compose a few rhymes to amuse a seafaring fellow like yourself-though unsuitable for the ears of your lady wife. On that subject, we have not had the pleasure of her acquaintance."
"For good reason," Oudeis replied. "There isn't one. I lost my best chance these long years past." He sighed, his eyes wandered an instant. Then, with a shrug, he went to fetch a smooth, flat board.
"I regret to hear that," said Fronto, "and I'm astonished, as well. Your snug abode betokens a feminine hand."
"Only mine. I keep my little haven shipshape. I'm the one who built what you see here. Aye, and devised it all myself." This while, the ship master had been unfolding wooden poles neatly joined and hinged into the board; within the moment, there stood a table.
"Remarkable!" exclaimed Lucian, intrigued and delighted.
The ship master beamed proudly. "I wasn't called Clever Oudeis for nothing. You won't find a better mariner, if I say so myself. Besides that, there's not a task, a piece of work, I can't do.
"Now, then, as for Callista," he went on, drawing up stools for Lucian and himself while Fronto thrust his head over Lucian's shoulder, "let's do a little reckoning. I'll have to lay in provisions, water, extra gear. Some few chores to finish. Aye, all told, we'll set sail in, say, five or six days."
"What?" burst out Fronto. "We can't possibly wait that long."
"You're not only a jackass, you're a landlubber as well," Oudeis retorted. "Go off ill-fitted? Do you suppose I'll risk my neck and my ship? Not counting your necks-which, I'll tell you frankly, don't weigh heavy in comparison. No. Out of the question."
"I wouldn't dream of doubting your judgment." Lucian put up his hands in resignation. "You know your trade. A week? A month, if need be," he added as Fronto stared aghast. "We'll have to wait, since that's the best you can manage. I understand now. Calling yourself Clever Oudeis was only a fanciful manner of speaking."
"Fact!" Oudeis slapped a heavy hand on the table. "I tell you there's nothing-" He stopped and cocked an ear, then laid a finger on his lips. He stood and pulled the netting from the beams.
"You're going fishing?" protested Fronto. "We require your undivided attention."
"Be quiet, jackass." The ship master went swiftly from the hut. Lucian soon heard scuffling and a few colorful oaths from Oudeis, who was back within moments, the net and its wriggling contents slung over his shoulder.
"Here's a fish for you!" Oudeis tossed his burden to the floor. "I've not seen the like of it. What is it? A creeping, crawling, eavesdropping land-fish?"
The ship master untangled the net. Out popped Catch-a-Tick.
18 - The Voyages of Oudeis
"What are you doing here?" Lucian burst out.
"You know this wretch?" Oudeis glowered at the boy, who was swaggering around as tickled with himself as he could be. "First, a jackass. Now, a goat. Look at him, he's got mud on my floor." The ship master made to seize Catch-a-Tick, who stuck out his tongue a
nd ducked behind Lucian.
"I'll deal with this," said Lucian. "How did you find us? More to the point, why did you run off? That's what you did, isn't it? Your mother must be out of her wits. Your father, too. You'll be in for a good tanning from both of them."
"No, I won't," Catch-a-Tick declared. "My mother said I could go with you."
"To Mount Panthea? I doubt that."
"All right," admitted Catch-a-Tick, "I suppose she thought I'd come straight home with the others. By the time I caught up, you'd already gone through the mountains. So, I followed. I wasn't told not to, was I? They'll guess I went with you and the pythoness. Where is she?"
"She's-staying behind. At the sanctuary."
"Well, even so," said Catch-a-Tick, "you'll take care of everything. Yes, I heard about what you did with the Horse Clan. You'd left by the time I got there, but they all talked about you. How you defeated their best warriors and-"
"And now you're going home," Lucian interrupted. "We're getting ready to sail on a journey."
"So much the better. I've never been on a ship."
"You won't be on mine," said Oudeis. "Go back wherever you came from." Catch-a-Tick folded his arms. "If you try to leave me here, I'll swim after you."
"Please, please," said Fronto. "We'll decide what to do about him later. We have plenty of time to think it over, as we're stuck here for a week."
"Who says?" Oudeis squinted a dark eye at Lucian. "I told you I could do anything that needed doing-if I've a mind to. Well, my lad, I'll prove it to you. We sail with the night tide. I'll make do with what I have and take on the rest at one port or other. So, stir your stumps and lend a hand. The jackass, too. What about the goat boy?"
Catch-a-Tick began whining, begging, demanding, and carrying on so much that Lucian put his hands over his ears.
"Enough! You'll come with us. Only because I want you where I can keep an eye on you. If I leave you running loose on your own, you'll get in worse trouble."
Oudeis, meantime, set about gathering what food and gear his hut offered, as well as a coarse shirt and cloak for Lucian, a blanket for Catch-a-Tick, and several wide brimmed straw hats. Loading the cargo required a few trips between the hut and the pier, where a single-masted boat bobbed in the water. It was well after moonrise when Oudeis declared that all was to his satisfaction and ordered his passengers into the vessel.
"Cramped quarters," remarked Fronto, who had clambered unsteadily over the side. "No matter, we'll be more comfortable once we're aboard."
"Ass," retorted Oudeis, "you're aboard right now."
"But-the great ship?" cried Fronto. "We saw it in the cove."
"That's the Lady's," Oudeis said. "Not for the likes of you or me. This little beauty's mine, built with my own pair of hands."
"You didn't leave much room for your crew," said Lucian.
"What crew?" said Oudeis, casting off the mooring lines. "I'm the crew. I work my ship myself. That's not to say you lubbers will sit at ease. Put your back into those oars," he ordered Lucian and Catch-a-Tick. "Do you know what an oar is? You'll find out quick enough. Once clear of the harbor, I'll hoist sail and hope for a breeze."
Under the ship master’s instruction, Lucian and Catch-a-Tick plied the long wooden sweeps: a labor heavier than Lucian expected. The little ship skipped along on the tide, bobbing and tossing over the gleaming black water. By the time Oudeis called a halt, Lucian's muscles were twitching in protest, and he was glad enough to rest on his oars. Oudeis, with remarkable strength, hauled on a cat's cradle of lines; and, little by little, the sail rose and spread.
"Here's for you, old Earth-Shaker," Oudeis called over the side. He unstoppered his wineskin and spilled some of its contents into the lapping waves. "Oh, I'm devoted to the Lady. But Earth-Shaker's been there long before her, long before the Great Ones. Aye, since the day the world began.
"It's a good thing to stay on the lee side of him; he's not one to trifle with. I've heard the old boy roar like thunder and send up seas high as mountains. I've seen waterspouts taller and thicker than oak trees, and whirlpools that could suck in half a dozen ships and spit them out again."
"Even so," said Lucian, "you still follow the sea."
"And keep promising myself I'll give it up, for all the good it's brought me. Once, my home port was Metara," said Oudeis, an undertow of yearning in his voice. "Those days, I had a fine ship, with a fair business in the cargo trade. And a sweetheart. A plump, lively lass: Mirina was her name. We were betrothed, but I was ever putting off our wedding day. You see, I wanted to wait until my fortunes were better; for I had the notion of buying a little tavern, and the two of us running it happily and handing it down to our young ones when they came along."
One day, at the docks, a long-jawed, narrow-nosed fellow steps up to me. "My name is Diomedes," he says, "and I'm told there's no better ship master in Metara."
"Or anywhere else," I say. "You're not from these parts or you'd have known without being told."
"He gives a dry sort of chuckle and nods his head. I'm glad I found you," says he, "because I want to make you a rich man."
"I share your ambition for me," say I. "Would you care to mention how you'll do that?"
"Sheepskin," says he. "Hear me out," he goes on, as I had started laughing in his face, "sheepskins being no profitable cargo. I'm not talking wool, but gold. Sheepskin of pure gold."
That hooked my attention. All the more as he goes on to tell of a land some ways overseas, northeast of Metara; and a mighty river that washes gold down from the mountains. There, the folk lay sheepskins in the riverbed to trap the nuggets, hang the fleece to dry on trees, then comb out a treasure with no more effort than combing your hair. "I know how to find the place," he says, pulling out a chart. "I and my friends propose to go and lay hands on all that fleece. You provide the ship and stores, and you'll come in for your share of the wealth. It's a speculative venture, we win all or lose all together. But," says he, with a wink, "I don't expect we'll lose."
"It sounds like speculative robbery to me," I answer, but he only shrugs and tells me these folk have no end of sheepskins, the river's rich, they'll never miss what's taken.
Now, I'm no more honest than the next fellow, but I don't much care for bald-faced thievery. And yet, I was starting to think how this might be my best chance for that little tavern, to set up Mirina and me snug for the rest of our days. As those river folk have an endless golden stream, it's no great harm to them and a great good for us.
And so-to my shame, as I'm first to admit-I agreed, and we clapped hands on the bargain. When I proposed assembling my crew, Diomedes tells me he has his own. "And a remarkable band they are," says he. "Each man's as good a seafarer as you'll find, but most have yet another skill. There's a fellow with eyes keen as a lynx's he's our lookout. There's another, quick and hard with his fists. For the heavy work, there's one so strong you'd swear he could uproot a tree as easy as you'd pull up a scallion. Have no fear, you'll never see a crew like that again."
I studied his chart, calculated the voyage there and back to last most likely three months, which chimed with his own reckoning. So, Diomedes goes off to gather his companions; and I take my leave of Mirina, giving her a few good swacking kisses, vowing I'll be home even before she misses me, with a fortune in my hands and a merry life for us both.
And so we set sail, and a fair voyage it was. But, little more than halfway on our course, Diomedes sidles up to me, gives me a warm smile and a cold eye, and says, "You've done so well for us, from here on I think we can forgo your services. What we wanted was your ship. Now we have it, no need for you."
I barely had time to curse myself for a gullible fool when Diomedes bully boy-a thick-headed oaf who carried a cudgel and wore a lion's skin around his shoulders-picks me up like a feather and pitches me over the side. And the ship sails on, leaving me to the mercy of the waves.
"Much later, I heard that most of that motley crew of villains came to bad and bloody ends. Diomedes, I
gather, got his sheepskin; but he took up with the daughter of one of the local worthies and there were some nasty doings in consequence. As for that lion-skinned ruffian, that's a tale in itself."
"Who cares about them?" cried Fronto. "Don't keep us hanging while you're floundering in the sea."
"I think he's doing it on purpose," whispered Lucian. "Isn't that what you called suspense?"
"A little goes a long way," said Fronto. "Come on, Oudeis, you didn't drown, since you're here to tell the tale. What happened next?"
"I fought the waves and swam until I was out of strength," Oudeis continued. "Sure my end had come, I turned my last thoughts to Mirina, a widow before she was even a wife, and resigned myself to a watery grave.
"That moment, up swims the biggest dolphin I've ever seen. The Lady sent it out of mercy for me, no question about that. I flung my arms around it and climbed astride, and that blessed creature carried me on its back all day and night until we reached shore. And there it gave me a big smile and left me safe and sound.
"All along that beach, what do I see but tents and piles of gear and cook fires. And men armed to the teeth, a hundred or more, a rough-looking lot, indeed. I step up to the one who seems to be in charge, a beefy, refaced fellow in helmet and breastplate-Strong-of-Will, as he named himself-tell him my tale, ask where I am and how I can reach Metara.
"You're far off your course," says he, "and I can't help you. I've more on my mind than a washed-up sailor."
He goes on to tell me they're from a kingdom a few days voyage from here, where the king was about to marry a young maiden. "But a youth came passing through, he and the wench took a fancy to each other. Next thing you know, they ran off and he brought her here, to his own country. My warriors and I have orders to fetch her back," he told me.
He points up the beach to a pretty little town overlooking the sea. "They're behind those walls. The folk have no warriors to speak of, beyond a few watchmen and constables, and we far outnumber them. But we can't get in. We've tried every way. Storming the ramparts, throwing fire pots, whatever. The walls defeat us, and here we've been sitting for weeks, made to look like a pack of squabbling fools."