Free Black Ships by Jo Graham

wild as the storm. Faster and faster, whirling their pain and feeling away, under the wheeling stars. Sparks flew and vanished in the air. I felt dizzy again, and sat down on the sand at the edge of the trees. Faster and faster. Sparks whirling up into the air.
    “What do you see?” Aeneas said gently. He had sat down beside me.
    “Sparks,” I said. “Sparks flying from an altar. You will raise an altar at the other end of the world, at journey’s end beyond the sea. There are many roads between here and there, and not all of them are kind. But some of them lead to this city you must build.”
    “A new city?” he said.
    “You have said it yourself,” I said. “Wilusa is lost. We cannot live upon the sea. So we must build a new city far from our enemies.”
    I shivered. Her hand on me was too much. I had not eaten since yesterday evening, and She had worn me like a cloak.
    Aeneas drew his own mantle around me. “You should rest,” he said. “I do not know what battles you have fought today.”
    “I am all right,” I said. “Though perhaps you are right that I should eat something, Prince Aeneas.”
    “Come to the fire where they are cooking,” he said, drawing me to my feet with his hands. “There is fresh bread from Pylos, and a stew of lentils with greens in it. And fresh fish roasted above the coals.”
    My mouth watered at the sound of it. Behind me, some of the dancers were lamenting, their cries mingling with the drums, calling encouragement to the two men who must find the River.
    “I should stay until the fire dies,” I said.
    “You can come back,” he said.
    I was a little unsteady on my feet. “As you say, Prince Aeneas.”
    “Call me Neas, as my men do,” he said. “And give me your hand. How will it look for the Avatar of Death to fall flat on her face?”
    I stifled a laugh. “Not so well, in truth.” I took his hand and let him lead me to the fire.

ON THE WAVES
    W e slept on the beach that night. I woke cold and cramped and went to join the knot of women who were tending the fire. They drew back from me and did not speak, and I did not know what to say. I had never been much in the company of women except for those of the temple, and since the accident that broke my leg, I had not really had friends, girls who were my age. Perhaps it was because I was set apart by my dedication. Perhaps it was because I would never be a wife or the mother of a family, and since those things are women’s life, we had little to talk about. So I did not know what to say and sat there silent and still.
    At last one who had known me in childhood reached out and gave me some of the bread from yesterday that they were eating. “She was Gull,” she said. “Her mother was a boatbuilder’s daughter in the Lower City. I remember her well. She died of a snakebite several years ago. Her mother gave her to the Shrine when she was a child.”
    Several of them shifted then, looked at me less suspiciously. I took the bread. “Thank you,” I said. “I remember you from when I worked the flax as a child. Your name is Lide. You had a little boy.”
    “He is here,” she said. “He’s nine years old now. And I have a younger son too. I never thought our people would come.”
    “They have come too late for my mother,” I said. “And for so many. Eighteen years is a long time.”
    “Are you so young then?” one of the women asked, a light-haired girl younger than I. “I thought you were very old.”
    “She is very old,” I said. “I am not. My name was Gull, but now it is Pythia.”
    “Is it true that you called down winds from the sky and struck the Achaians dumb? So that they didn’t resist our men at all?” she asked.
    “Not exactly,” I said. “There was a truce.”
    Lide nodded. “That was well done. Otherwise many more men would have died before it was over, and we by the flax river might not have been saved, because who would have known where we were or how to send for us?”
    “Did