Black Ships Read Online Free PDF

Old King honor, Neoptolemos, the son of their hero Achilles. He was a high-spirited youth some three or four years older than I was, with dark red hair and long limbs that he had not quite finished growing into. His clothing was splendid and his breastplate was worked with silver. During the most sacred parts of the rite he was shifting his feet and whispering with his friends. I thought that a hero’s son should behave in a way that was more seemly.
    Later, as the feast was ending, I was making my way through the palace corridors to where Pythia was in council with her nephew, Idenes, the Young King. I saw Neoptolemos and two of his friends and would have passed them without speaking, but one of them caught at my arm.
    “Come here, girl.”
    I jerked away, but Neoptolemos blocked me. “Come into the light and let me see you.”
    “Let me go,” I said. If I had been older I would have thought to explain who I was.
    One of his friends shoved me back against the wall. “She’s not so pretty, but she’ll do.”
    Neoptolemos put his hand around my neck to lift my face to the light. “Yes, she’ll do.” He was smiling.
    I struck his hand away and his eyes darkened. “You should be honored, girl,” he said.
    One of his friends grabbed my arms. I did not think to scream. I was still too much the slave girl for that.
    “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a mild voice behind them. It was Triotes, who had been my mother’s lover. He stood at ease in the hallway, a warrior in his prime, not a boy. “That one is dedicated to the Lady of the Dead. She could shrivel your manhood so you’ll never have use of it again.”
    One of the friends let go immediately, but Neoptolemos hesitated. “I don’t fear Death.”
    Triotes walked up and stood between us. “That’s not wise,” he said quietly. “When you have seen the ways that Death can take you, you will be slow to offend Her.” He glanced at me. “Go,” he said.
    I drew my chiton up over my shoulder and went. I did not stay to see what he said.
    I went back to the Temple of the Sea and said nothing. For in truth, what was there to say?
    S OON I had other things to think of. Pythia had taken a chill at the funeral, and she was ill for many weeks. We stayed at the temple while she recovered. Even when she was well enough to go back to the Shrine, she was frail. Her hands were thin and her nails bluish. The veins stood out in the backs of her hands. She was only a few years younger than her brother the Old King, and he had been very old indeed when he died.
    We had been back at the Shrine a few days when I asked her if she would go down into the caves with me.
    Pythia looked up at me from her place beside the fire. “I don’t think so,” she said. Her gaze grew sharper. “Go yourself, if you hear Her calling.”
    “I...”
    “Go,” she said. “You can walk in the dark without me.”
    And so for the first time I took that way in darkness alone, going down into the deep caves without a lamp, with only my breaths and my steps to tell me how far I had gone. I was not afraid. I had been well prepared.
    When I returned I sat at her side beside the brazier. It was heaped with charcoal to dispel the chill in the room, but Pythia was still wrapped in her cloak.
    “Pythia,” I said, “I don’t want you to die.”
    She put her hand on my head. “Was it my death you saw down there in the dark?”
    “No,” I said. “And yes. I stood on the deck of a ship with the veil blowing out behind me, my face painted white and black. I was Pythia, which means that you were not.”
    Pythia smiled. “But that is what I want. To know that you will be Pythia after me. That you will keep this Shrine and serve Her faithfully. I have feared...” She stopped, and unwound her hands to warm them at the flame.
    “Feared what?” I asked.
    Her eyes fixed on the flame, very blue. “That She is leaving us. That She has withdrawn Her favor from this land.”
    I was