Piria had been watching beside her, late in the night, when the old woman had sat upright in her bed, her voice suddenly rich and strong. “Why are you here, child?” she asked.
“To be with you, Sister,” Piria replied, putting her arms around the old woman and easing her back onto the pillows.
“Ah, yes. On Thera. Where is Andromache?”
“She has gone. You remember? To Troy?”
“Troy,” the old woman whispered, closing her eyes. She was silent for a while; then she cried out, “Fire and death. I see Andromache now. She is running through the flames. There are savage men pursuing her.” The old woman began waving her arms. “Run!” she screamed.
Piria grabbed at a flailing hand. “Be calm, Melite,” she said. “You are safe.”
The dying priestess opened her eyes, her body tense. Tears began to flow. “Wicked, wicked men! Doom will find you. The Minotaur will devour you. He will come with great thunder, and the sky will darken and the sun vanish.”
“What of Andromache?” Piria whispered. “Can you still see her? Speak!”
The old woman relaxed and smiled. “I see you, brave Kalliope. I see you, and all is well.”
“You see me with Andromache in the flames?”
Melite spoke no more. Piria looked into the old woman’s eyes. She was dead.
Alone on the beach Piria blinked away the tears and shook her head. Was it a true vision? she wondered now. Did it mean she was destined to rescue Andromache from evil men? Or had the dying old woman merely meant she could see her sitting by the bedside?
She sighed. Too late now to question it or the reckless decision she had made as a result of it. The night of Melite’s death she had gathered a few golden trinkets and some food and set off for the north of the island, where she had stolen the small sailboat.
Piria saw the portly figure of Odysseus walking along the strand, angling away from the ship and from the crew, his head averted from her. She knew he had been avoiding her, and on an impulse she stood carefully and then climbed down to the beach. By the time she reached him, Odysseus was kneeling, intently carving a face in the sand with his knife. He looked up, saying nothing, his face unwelcoming.
For a moment she was silent. Then: “Why did you try to rescue the pig?” she asked.
He raised his eyebrows as if he had expected a different question. “Circe told me the other pigs would follow Ganny. We needed him to control them.” He stood up and, after cleaning it on his grubby tunic, replaced the blade in his belt. Then he scuffed the sand with his foot, brushing away the carved face.
“Yet you got them off the ship and into their enclosure without him.”
There was silence between them again. Odysseus seemed tense, his normally bluff demeanor still and watchful. Piria feared he had already decided to betray her and was feeling guilty.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said, forcing a smile, “for accepting me as Piria. And for giving me passage on your ship to Troy.”
He grunted noncommittally.
“You knew of Kalliades before you met?” she asked him.
He looked at her then. “Yes, I knew of him. He has a reputation as a fine soldier.”
“He and his friend rescued me from pirates, from certain torment and death, for no thought of reward.” The dark fears within did not believe her words, but she pushed on, anxious to sway the Ugly King. “He is a man of courage and one to be trusted.” She looked into the king’s eyes. “There are few enough like him here on the Great Green—this sea of scum.”
He said nothing, so she nodded and started to walk away. Then she turned.
“Are you such a man, Odysseus?”
He was saved from answering by a sudden commotion in the pigpen. Piria turned to look. The pigs were squealing and grunting anxiously, and many of them had raced to the seaward end of the enclosure, where they were tearing with their trotters at the dry brushwood.
Then the ground began to shake. Piria was pitched sideways. Odysseus caught her and held tight to her as rocks rumbled down the hillsides. The sea began to roil, then drew back from the beach in a sudden rush, building into a huge breaker that swept forward, surging around Odysseus and Piria and up the beach. The cookfires were washed away, but the main blaze, on higher ground, escaped the flood, as did the pigpen. The Penelope had been lifted on the first wave and carried deep onto the beach.
Large waves pounded the shore, but the ground stopped shaking. The pigs were squealing in panic now. Cursing, Odysseus strode over to them, Piria beside him.
“Be quiet, you pox-ridden cowsons!” he bellowed, and the pigs fell silent, shocked by the sudden sound.
In the stillness a distant squealing could be heard, borne faintly from the sea on the night wind.
“There!” One of the men pointed out across the water, and, straining her eyes, Piria could just make out a small black dot as it crested a distant white breaker in the moonlight.
“Ganny,” Odysseus breathed. “By all the bastard gods…”
He flung off his jeweled belt and sandals and raced into the waves. With a curse, Bias ran after him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“My king, don’t do this!” he shouted, his voice diminished by the sound of the breakers. “The waves will throw you against the rocks. You’ll be killed.”
Odysseus shrugged him off without a word and waded into the surf. Cursing loudly, Bias followed him. After a moment’s hesitation two more crewmen went after them.
The pig was being swept in fast, and as it came closer, Piria could see it was exhausted, its legs flailing weakly as it was flung up and then spun around on the spume. There was a line of black rocks far out from the shoreline, and Ganny was being hurtled toward them. The pig’s cries were weakening, and Piria feared it was dying.
To have swum all that distance, following the ship with hope in its heart…
Odysseus had half waded, half swum to the jagged line of rocks and was clambering over them, battered by the waves. The other men joined him, struggling, and Piria could see that their strength was being tested by the force of the sea. They moved along the rocks, hoping to cut Ganny off as he was swept toward them.
A great wave hid the black pig, then Piria spotted it again being borne toward the edge of the rock on which Odysseus stood. As the next wave lifted the beast, Odysseus hurled himself headlong into the sea, his body striking Ganny and deflecting his course. A second wave crashed over them both, and man and pig disappeared into the spume. When they reappeared, they were beyond the line of deadly rocks.
Bias and the other two crewmen dived in after them, and for a while Piria could make out nothing. Then she saw the two crewmen carrying the exhausted pig to shore, Bias and Odysseus wading through the surf behind them.
The animal was laid down on the sand near its fellows, which fidgeted, grunting, in their pen, craning anxiously for a look at their friend. Seawater was dribbling from Ganny’s mouth, and he was breathing shallowly. His trotters moved weakly, and the crewmen were uncertain what to do.
Odysseus was visibly weary, water sluicing off him onto the sand. He was cut and bruised, and there was a long abrasion on his forearm where he must have fended off the rocks. He stood over the pig and sighed.
“He needs rest and warmth,” he said. “Place him near the fire.” He pointed at Leukon and growled, “Give him your cloak. This is all your fault, you moron.”
The blond crewman quickly doffed his yellow cloak and knelt to wrap it awkwardly around the stricken beast. Odysseus turned away and limped toward the Penelope. As he passed her, Piria heard him mutter, “Stupid pig.”