Free The Dancer from Atlantis by Poul Anderson Page B

south. We went
     into those woods, took up hunting and trapping. I learned how to get about there, I can tell you. The Finns have, uh, wooden
     shoes for walking on snow. They’re wizards. Told me how to sing up a good wind, though it doesn’t always work for me and,
     uh, naturally a Christian shouldn’t.’ They registered puzzlement, since to them he had just said that he was an anointed one;
     but evidently they decided he must be an initiate of some mystery cult.
    ‘We came back at last, started over in better times, and I’ve not done badly. Learned another lesson from those early days,
     too.’ Oleg chuckled, drank, and wagged his forefinger. ‘Trade stopped again, or nearly so, for a couple years after our war
     with Constantinople. I spent that time in Norway. The king’s a good friend to the Rus; served a while under Yaroslav, in fact;
     married a daughter of his. I got together many a load of furs in that country. First time I returned to Constantinople, believe
     you me, I made a killing.’
    ‘You were speaking of your homeland,’ a man called.
    ‘Ah. So I was. Novgorod. Would you believe, well inland as ’tis, Novgorod’s a seaport? Row from Gulf of Finland, up the Neva,
     ’cross Lake Ladoga, up the Volkhov to Lake Ilmen, and there you are. ’Course, you can’t go on. You’ve got to ride overland,make rendezvous on the Dnieper, first. But then it’s water the whole way, ’cept for the rapids. Kiev’s grown big and fat off
     that waterway, I can tell you. But me, I stay a Novgorod boy, where the furs and amber are handier to come by. And so at last
     you reach the Black Sea, and turn south along the coast to Constantinople, and
there’s
a city, lads, there you have the queen o’ the world.’
    ‘Hold on,’ Diores said slowly. ‘What you call the Black Sea, does it lead through two straits, a small sea between them, to
     these waters?’
    Oleg nodded vigorously. ‘You have it hooked. Constantinople’s at the inner end of the northern channel.’
    ‘But there’s no city there,’ a crewman protested.
    ‘Oh, you’d not have heard, I suppose,’ Oleg said loftily.
    ‘Zeus thunder me, I have!’ Diores rapped, all at once become stern. Silence took over, except for thrum and gurgle and the
     pitiful bleat of the two sheep penned beneath this deck. ‘I’ve plied these lanes aplenty, you,’ Diores said. ‘Once as far
     as Colchis under the Caucasus. Nor am I the only Achaean who has.’
    ‘You mean you dare those currents in a cockleshell like this?’ Oleg exclaimed. ‘Why, I could almos’ put my fist through the
     side.’
    ‘A guest oughtn’t to tell lies,’ Diores said.
    ‘Wait,’ Reid began, reaching to touch him.
    Oleg shook his head. ‘Sorry. Too much wine.’ He stared into his cup. ‘I forgot. We’ve come backward through time. Constantinople’s
     not been built yet, I s’pose. It will be, though, it will be. I’ve been there. I know.’ He tossed the wine off and the cup
     down into a sailor’s lap.
    Diores stayed unmoving. His face might have been a block of driftwood. The listeners below stirred and buzzed. Hands dropped
     toward bronze knives; fingers traced signs.
    ‘Oleg,’ Reid said. ‘No more.’
    ‘Why not?’ the Russian mumbled. ‘Truth, isn’ it? Let’s go in business as prophets.’
    ‘No more,’ Reid repeated. ‘I’ve told you where
I
am from. Heed me.’
    Oleg bit his lip. Reid turned to Diores. Above the unease that crawled inside him and made his skin prickle, the American
     donned an apologetic grin. ‘I should have warned you, Captain,’he said. ‘My comrade’s given to tall tales. And of course what really happened would confuse anybody.’
    ‘I think we’d better hold off on this kind of talk,’ Diores suggested. ‘Till we’re in the palace in Athens. Right?’

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The atmosphere did not turn unfriendly. The sailors obviously dismissed the incomprehensible remarks about time travel, setting
     that down to a