Free The Dancer from Atlantis by Poul Anderson Page A

replied. ‘On patrol.’
    ‘For distressed mariners,’ Erissa said, ‘and against pirates and barbarians.’
    ‘Against those who’d be free,’ an Achaean boy declared hotly.
    ‘No squabbles,’ Diores commanded. The boy slouched aft. Erissa clenched her lips and spoke no more.
    Soon after dark the breeze died and the vessel lay hove to under magnificent stars. Gazing at them before he slept, Reid recalled
     that they too were not eternal. ‘Tell me,’ he asked Erissa, ‘what constellation heads your Zodiac?’
    ‘The Bull, of course, Asterion’s Bull, when he awakens fromdeath in the reborn spring.’ Her voice, which had started sharp, ended in reverence. Through the wan light he saw her kiss
     her amulet and trace a sign amidst shadow, a cross, the sun’s emblem.
    Precession of the equinoxes, he thought. I’ve come back two twelfths of twenty-six thousand years. Well, that isn’t so exact.
     He shivered, though the night was not especially cold, and crept under a thwart to huddle in the sheepskin Diores had lent
     him.
    At dawn they took down the mast, broke out the oars, and spider-walked to the coxswain’s chant –
‘Rhypapai! Rhypapai!’
– creaking and splashing across a sea which shimmered pale blue at first, later sapphire above indigo. Oleg said he wanted
     exercise and settled down at an oar for two turns in a stretch.
    That cracked the men’s reserve. When the breeze lifted (not as favorable as yesterday’s, but Reid was surprised to learn how
     close this awkward-looking square rig could point) they gathered about the Russian, who sat dangling his legs off the foredeck.
     They gave him undiluted wine and bestormed him with questions.
    ‘Where you from, stranger? – What’s it like? – Where’ve you been? – What kinds of ship they use in your country? – That armor
     you were wearing, those weapons, are they really iron? – Iron’s no good, too brittle, even when you can get it out of its
     ore, which I’ve heard is mucking near impossible. What’s the trick? – Hai, how’re
your
women? – Your wine? D’you drink beer like Egyptians?’ Teeth flashed in brown countenances, bodies shifted around in a dance
     of muscles, laughter and chatter pealed across the blueness.
    Could these frank, merry boys, these far-faring men with skillful hands, be the savages Erissa claimed they were?
    She sat on a bench well aft, brooding. Uldin shared it. They didn’t speak. The Hun had uttered hardly a sound after the hour
     yesterday when he must lean overside while the Achaeans guffawed at his back. He’d gotten over the sickness, but stayed sullen
     at the loss of face. Or did he crouch alone behind his mask in a wretchedness of terror? This endless water where no horse
     could move!
    Diores lounged on the deck beside Oleg, picking his teeth and saying little. Reid sat nervously nearby, against the bulwark,embracing knees under chin, hoping the Russian wouldn’t make some gaffe, as hard as he was drinking. He was no fool, but after
     everything which had lately happened to him the temptation to lower his guard and relax must be considerable.
    ‘I’m a man of the Rus, if that’s what you mean.’ Oleg drained his beaker and passed it down for more. His yellow locks fluttered
     from the headband, his eyes twinkled happily in the red cherubic visage, he scratched beneath his shirt and belched. ‘Don’t
     know ’bout the rest. S’pose I lay out the land for you, and you tell me what you rec-nize. That way we’ll get the names straight.’
    They settled back to listen. He swigged from the refilled cup and rumbled:
    ‘I’ll start far north. You might like to hear ’bout that. Woods, mile after mile of woods. Farms too, of course, but you could
     wander in the woods your whole life. I almost did when I was a sprat. My father was a merchant, wiped out when first the Poles
     took Novgorod, then Yaroslav took it back, then the long war ’tween Yaroslav and his brother stopped our trade