Free Black Ships by Jo Graham Page A

everyone come?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “There were four who wanted to stay with men they have there. They stayed, and their children too. But all the women who were taken in the war this summer came.”
    That did not surprise me.
    W E SAILED at full morning, leaving the ashes of the pyre on the beach. As we were preparing to leave, Aeneas came to me. “If it suits you, Pythia, it suits me well for you to remain on
Dolphin.
Space is tight on the ships, and Xandros is the only one with a private cabin for you. He has given you his cabin in the prow, and he will sleep with the other sailors. I should give you mine on
Seven Sisters,
but...”
    “I know,” I said. “You have your son aboard, and you must have a place for him.”
    He nodded. “Is that well, then?”
    I agreed, thinking it easier to continue on
Dolphin
rather than start over on some other ship.
    We went south along the coast all that day, passing villages I knew the names of, villages that owed arms and service to Pylos. Before darkness we crossed the gulf and the shores beyond were lands I didn’t know.
    Much as he disliked it, Aeneas brought us in to land on the mainland. There were no islands that were suitable, so the best we could do was a stretch of beach that was sandy and not right next to a town.
    This night was very different. The fires were kept low, and the men took turns in arms around the camp, watch and watch alike, all night long. The men of
Hunter
had the first watch, and did not sit down to eat. After moonrise, when everyone was stretching out on the sands to sleep, the men of
Lady’s Eyes
took the watch.
Pearl
’s crew would relieve them before dawn.
    I wasn’t sure where I should be, so I stretched my mantle on the sand near the others from
Dolphin.
I lay on my back and looked up at the moon, still waxing and growing brighter each night. It was strange to sleep this way, on sand under the open sky. The ocean was very loud, and all around me were the noises of a great crowd of people, snores and the occasional cry of a child, whispers, shuffles. I had slept for years in the darkness of the caves, and to sleep like this under the sky was both bright and strange. I rolled over, trying to block the moonlight with my mantle.
    Xandros was a few feet away. He was not sleeping either. I could see the bright gleam of his open eyes. “You’re not tired?” I whispered.
    “It’s hard to sleep on a strange shore,” he said. “When any minute the men of this place might fall upon you.”
    “So why don’t we sleep at sea?” I asked.
    “It’s dangerous,” he said. “We can’t anchor except in shallow water, and if we don’t we might drift apart in the night. We can’t have fires except in the braziers on the warships. There’s no water for washing. And people need to move about, relieve themselves. But we’re vulnerable on land.”
    I heard the soft shuffle of
Lady’s Eyes’
men patrolling slowly around the edge of the camp. “Wouldn’t it be hard to attack a camp like this with the moonlight this bright? The sentries would see you. Wouldn’t a moonless night make more sense?”
    “It would,” he said, “but people don’t always make sense.” There was something in his voice that was amused. “Did they school you in war at the Shrine?”
    “No,” I said. “They taught me how to look at the world and see what is plain before me.”
    “I meant no offense, Lady.”
    “Were you schooled in war, then?”
    Xandros shrugged, as much as one may while lying down. “I was a fisherman, and I went to sea with my father when I was old enough to be a help, not in the way. When I grew from boy to youth, my father talked to his friends and kinsmen, and they found a place for me on one of the warships, a rower’s bench on
Lady’s Eyes.
After a few years I moved to
Dolphin
and became the chanter.”
    “The chanter?”
    “The rower who sets the pace with the song. It has to be with the ship’s movements when she’s