Black Ships Read Online Free PDF Page B

horror-struck. “But why? Why would She do that?”
    “I will tell you,” she said. “Because you must know. But it is a story of kings, and they do not like if we tell it.” She stretched out her hands.
    “I was born in the palace of Pylos and dedicated when I was eight years old. This you know. In those days kings sought Her favor with the best of their harvest, even to the daughters of their house. There were other princesses who were dedicated this way, even the daughter of the High King, Iphigenia.” Pythia sighed. “I knew her. She was younger than I, but we were together at the great festivals, since we were both in Her service and of equal rank.
    “This was in the days when her father, the High King, led all of the men of the Achaians against Ilios, that you call Wilusa. They assembled together, all their men and ships, but the wind and the sea were against them, because that city was beloved of Aphrodite, the Lady of the Sea, and She held the seas against them. So the High King called together his priests and advisers, who served Athene and the Lord of the Storm, and asked them what he should do. They told him a terrible thing.”
    Pythia’s blue eyes met mine. “He sent to the Shrine at Dodona, where his daughter served the Lady of the Dead, and ordered her brought forth from the Shrine, saying that she was to marry a mighty hero and cement his alliances. They brought her to Aulis, where the fleet waited, garlanded as a bride, like the Maiden in the Feast of the Descent. And there he sacrificed her living upon the altar and shared out her flesh among his men to eat like a young kid.”
    I gasped. I clasped Pythia’s hand.
    She nodded, and her face was stern. “Yes. The Lady of the Dead sent a mighty curse, a curse upon his house and all of his blood that even now is consuming the last of his heirs with madness. And all the men there, everyone who shared in that dark feast, She cursed as well. For they had killed Her Maiden and eaten the flesh of Her servant. All of the heroes, all the princes. Most of them never returned from Ilios, for the Lady and Her Sister made common cause. Those who did return descended into madness, or watched their sons rend their houses apart.”
    “But King Nestor?” I asked.
    Pythia squeezed my hand. “My brother was a pious man. When they dragged Iphigenia screaming to the altar he turned his back and walked away. He had no part in her death, and did not eat her flesh. And thus he escaped the curse, and our house endures.”
    “But he did not prevent it,” I said.
    Pythia sighed. “I know. I have asked myself, what could he do, one man among many, and the king of a lesser city, not high in the king’s favor? But it remains that while he did not participate in this greatest blasphemy, he also did not prevent it. And while She did not curse him, She turned Her face from him and walked away. It is just.”
    “Yes,” I said. “He had turned his face from Her servant.”
    “Just so,” she said. “But since that time we have been in a slow decline. You have seen the palaces and temples at Pylos, the wealth of my brother and his many ships. But you did not see them thirty years ago, when I was young. My brother has left Idenes six warships. There were twenty that went to Aulis. Idenes can count the jars of olives, the amphorae of wine in his storerooms, but I tell you that they are not the tenth part of what was there when I was young. My brother brought back many slaves to weave and work the flax on the river, as you know, my Linnea. But slaves do not replace the men who went to Ilios and never returned. Those fields have young trees in them now, and will not be planted again. It used to be that in times of peace our ships traded linen out to the islands, even to Krete and Millawanda and the Lydian coast. Now there are too many pirates, desperate men who attack honest merchants, steal their goods, and sell them as slaves in faraway ports.”
    “What must we do?” I