Cybele's Secret - Juliet Marillier - Cybeles Secret
“Go on, Stoyan,” I said. “We’re going to have to sample this dried meat sometime. Don’t ask them what kind it is. I’d rather not know.”
I could see Stoyan thinking, weighing up the relative dangers of leaving me alone here with Duarte and taking me up on deck, where I would be visible to the Esperança’s crew. He left, looking anything but willing.
“Well, now,” Duarte said, sitting down again by the small table that held his charts, “are we going to continue fighting, or shall we attempt some kind of truce?”
“You still have questions to answer—” I began, but Duarte waved a hand, hushing me.
“Not now. We will only argue, and I am weary of that. Once we drop anchor for the night, we must quench all lights on board, the better to remain invisible to certain eyes. Until then, perhaps you and I might engage in some other activity, one that will not have us at each other’s throats.”
A prickle of unease crept across my flesh. “What activity?” I asked, trying for the sort of tone Irene might have employed in a similar situation.
“I could teach you a game,” he suggested with an expression that could only be described as wicked, all dimples and snapping dark eyes.
Out of my depth already, I struggled not to make my misgivings too obvious. “I’m not sure I’d care for your sort of games, senhor.”
“Call me Duarte; you did before. Forget the teaching, then. Tell me what games you already know, and we will try one of those.”
“Chess?” I had already observed a board and pieces amongst his things when I went through them in the hunt for clothing.
Duarte grinned. It was the fierce, combative smile he had used in the çarşi. “Done,” he said, crouching to retrieve the set from the small chest where it was stored. “I warn you, I’m good. I’ve been playing since you were a babe in swaddling.”
“Then I imagine you will defeat me before Stoyan returns with our supper,” I said demurely. “How convenient. I’m sorry I won’t be able to offer you a challenging bout.”
“Ah, well, perhaps that is best. Otherwise we may fight again.”
“Oh, I don’t fight when I play,” I said. “Getting the emotions involved is not at all appropriate. A cool head is the thing.”
I saw the flash of his teeth. “Then I will certainly beat you, Paula. You’re incapable of keeping your temper for more than the space of a few breaths.”
I refused to be baited. “Black or white?” I asked him calmly.
“For a villain such as Duarte da Costa Aguiar, it must be black, of course. For an innocent maiden held captive on a pirate ship, pure white.”
We were just getting into the game when Stoyan returned, bearing a platter of food. I was playing carefully, wanting to show enough skill to keep Duarte interested but avoiding any displays of expertise. I planned to trap him at a far later stage and thereby secure a victory. He was good, certainly: an experienced player, as he had said. But he was far beneath the folk who had shared the scholars’ table with me in the Other Kingdom. They had taught me a rare assortment of strategies and tricks; they had trained me to see far ahead and to read my opponent’s subtlest gesture, his faintest sigh.
“You play well,” Duarte said grudgingly. “We should pause awhile and eat. Is there sufficient here for three?”
Stoyan set the platter down without comment. I exercised my teeth on the chewy strips of meat and managed a few bites of hard-baked bread. The olives were the only thing worth eating. I finished my share in unseemly haste, for it had been a long time since Irene’s sweetmeats. What would Irene think of my current predicament? She’d be shocked, certainly. She’d also tell me I had only myself to blame for disregarding her warnings about the charming Senhor Aguiar.
Duarte ate steadily, no doubt long accustomed to sailors’ fare.
“You’re not eating, Stoyan,” I said, noticing how pale he still was. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am sure, kyria. This man Cristiano tells me we will soon be at our anchorage for the night. You will wish privacy to prepare for sleep.”
“Not quite yet,” Duarte said. “I need to win the game first.”
“I don’t suppose that will take you long,” I said with a sweet smile that brought a suspicious frown to his face. “Stoyan, you may as well go to the cabin next door and lie down. Chess is boring to watch if you don’t know how to play.”
Stoyan’s features tightened. “I will stay,” he said, and settled on the floor again. The size of the cabin meant he could not quite stretch out his legs. He looked uncomfortable in more ways than one, but I decided not to press the point.
As the game advanced, I became more and more absorbed. So, it seemed, did my opponent. Knights, rooks, bishops, and pawns fell and were removed from the board. Strategies were put into play and countered. Once or twice I was aware of Stoyan asking if we were nearly finished and Duarte murmuring something in return. At a point when I was beginning to set up my endgame, Stoyan observed that the ship had stopped moving and that we should surely be quenching the lantern, since he had been told all lights on board were to be extinguished once we reached our mooring. “Not yet,” I muttered, moving a critical piece into play. A little later, Pero came to the door, said something in Portuguese, and at a murmur from Duarte left us.
And somewhat after that, I won the game. It was only then, looking up with a triumphant grin and surprising an unguarded smile of pure delight on Duarte’s aquiline features, that I realized how quiet it was. Stoyan had his head tipped back against the wall; he was half asleep. The Esperança was at anchor, and beyond our door, all I could hear was the gentle creak of the timbers and the faint wash of the sea. The last time I had been so caught up in the thrill of a true intellectual challenge had been six whole years ago—the night I made my final farewell to the Other Kingdom.
With each day that passed on board the Esperança, I felt guiltier. Looking back, I could hardly believe I had acted so rashly. Father would be distraught. I imagined him using up all our profits in mounting a fruitless search for me. I thought of him sinking into a decline. At the same time, I found myself glancing into odd corners of the ship, wondering when Tati was going to make another appearance and give me some clear instructions as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing. For, despite my guilt and anxiety, I felt in my bones the certainty that Stoyan and I were exactly where the powers of the Other Kingdom wanted us to be. We had begun our quest.
Duarte relaxed his rules. I was allowed up on deck, except at times when the crewmen were under particular pressure and needed to be without distractions. He showed me where I could sit or stand and not be in the way. I obeyed his instructions, understanding that on a ship the captain’s word is law and it is foolhardy to disregard it. I knew next to nothing about sailing. I tried to learn by observation how things worked: the sails in particular, with their complex arrangement of ropes and the different deployment of them in varying conditions.
Many of the crewmen spoke some Greek, Turkish, or French, and they put these together to answer my questions or invite me to learn a certain knot or help haul on a particular rope. They were indulging me in the latter. My strength was puny by comparison with that of the slightest of them, but they congratulated me heartily and, after a day or two, took to singing a certain ditty as they worked:
Paula, de brancura singela
Faz corar uma rosa
Gaivota graciosa, do navio
Marinheira mais bela!
I heard Stoyan and Duarte arguing about it later. Duarte was assuring my guard that there was nothing at all ribald in it and that it was the kind of song a man might make up about his little sister. He would never, Duarte declared, allow crude comments about a lady like Mistress Paula on board the Esperança. The crew knew he would have their guts for garters if they tried anything of the sort.
I could not help noticing that Duarte was regularly seeking me out. That surprised me. It seemed we had managed to outrun the pursuing vessel as our captain had intended, for she had not been sighted. But we were in a race of sorts, with Duarte keen to reach landfall and move on before there was any chance of the Mufti’s crew spotting where he was headed.
A mountain pass, he’d said. That sounded difficult. I knew from my studies of geography that there were high mountains quite close to the shore at the eastern end of the Black Sea. I judged we were still a long way short of that region. In view of the urgency, it was odd that Duarte so often found time to stand beside me on deck, explaining how far we had traveled and telling me the names of landmarks as we passed them. I asked him about something that was puzzling me.
“Isn’t it supposed to be unlucky to have a woman on board? On the Stea de Mare, I kept getting funny looks. But your men have made me welcome.”
Duarte smiled. “For a few memorable years, we had a woman amongst our crew. Carlota captains her own ship now; her name is much feared across the Mediterranean. My men have never forgotten the lessons she taught them. Besides, they understand that you are my guest.”
After dark he made a habit of coming down to the cabin for a game of chess or a conversation about politics or philosophy or literature. He had a strong grasp of the classics, and his knowledge of matters scientific was wider than mine. He was not so strong on mythology and folklore, which surprised me, since the object of his personal mission was a statue of Cybele. As I grew to know him better, I realized he was not quite the evildoer I had once believed him. He spoke of my father with such genuine respect that I became convinced that he was not responsible for that attack. It had been luck rather than violence that had enabled him to acquire Cybele’s Gift that morning. I stumbled through an apology for so misjudging him, and he told me to put it behind me. I toyed with the notion of telling him about Tati and the mysterious messages I had been receiving since the day I first arrived in Istanbul, but I held back. Maybe there was some genuine feeling for me hidden in his smooth flattery, but he didn’t trust me. He still hadn’t told me where we were going. He still hadn’t said why after paying good money for Cybele’s Gift, he seemed to be planning to give it away.
Of course, there were times when the Esperança’s crew, expert as they were, needed their captain’s guidance, and to keep those times from passing too slowly, I prevailed upon Stoyan to let me continue his reading lessons. As my ankle and his arm were both now completely recovered, Stoyan in his turn worked on my skills in unarmed combat. This was made easier by my new outfit of practical trousers and tunic. I was certain Stoyan would not have allowed either reading or combat lessons had he not disapproved so strongly of the interest Duarte was showing in me. It was harmless, of course—something Duarte did without even thinking. It meant absolutely nothing. I tried to explain this to Stoyan but got tangled up in words.
“He likes books,” I said. “He likes talking about ideas. I don’t suppose there are many men in the crew who enjoy doing that; they’re probably all so tired at the end of a shift that they want nothing more than a platter of that miserable dried meat and a few hours’ sleep. Duarte likes games, and I’m good at them.”
“His motives cannot be so simple.” Stoyan’s tone was grimly judgmental. “He wants something from you, Paula.”
“I just happen to be here and able to entertain him, that’s all. He means nothing by it. As soon as this voyage is over, he will forget all about me, Stoyan.”
“You cannot read the look in his eyes.”
“And you can?” I challenged, exasperated with his edginess. I wished he would go off and help sail the ship.
Stoyan did not answer, and when I looked at him, there was such a closed expression on his strong features that I glanced quickly away. I remembered Duarte saying: You would jump through fire for her. At the time, I had thought this a flowery Portuguese overstatement. Now I was not so sure.
By afternoon on the third day, Stoyan had memorized the Greek alphabet and could inscribe all the letters. We improvised a sand tray, since there was a supply on board as a first precaution against fire. We wrote and erased and wrote again. We usually performed the task in the cabin, since the deck was too windy for such a delicate activity.
At first, there were frequent interruptions. When Duarte saw what we were doing, he raised his brows in apparent astonishment, making spots of color appear on Stoyan’s cheeks. Pero was fascinated and wanted a turn. Others followed; had time permitted, I could have provided the Portuguese pirate ship with the most literate crew to be found anywhere between Istanbul and Lisbon. The cabin was small, and I could tell Stoyan was acutely uncomfortable performing his tasks under any scrutiny other than mine. I shooed the others away with assurances that I would teach them another time.
Then there were the lessons in which I was the pupil. I perfected the technique for escaping an assailant who grabbed me from behind. I learned an unpleasant move involving a kick to a certain part of a man’s anatomy, but I refused to practice this on Stoyan. I began to understand that the relative strengths of a pair of opponents were not the determinants of who would prevail. He taught me to use my adversary’s superior size against him.
“This is much more complicated than I thought,” I panted, every part of me aching with effort after an attempt to bring Stoyan down by edging him just slightly off balance so he would fall at a subtle push to the back of the knee combined with a particular grip on the wrist. “I thought it was a simple matter of brute force. I didn’t expect to have to calculate exactly the right way to stand or the perfect spot to push.”
“You learn quickly,” Stoyan said, bending to pick up my sash, which had come undone during our contest. “Our audience does not disturb your concentration?”
I followed his glance and spotted five or six seamen clustered at a vantage point above us. Our activities must have made an entertaining diversion from their daily work. Embarrassed, I looked away, wrapping the sash around my waist over Duarte’s tunic, which was getting rather grubby. “At least they’re not singing now,” I said.
“I have heard this Paula song, but I do not know its meaning. I hope the words are not offensive.”
I felt very awkward. “Paula, of a natural pallor, makes a rose blush,” I muttered, not meeting his eye. “Graceful seagull, the prettiest sailor on our ship. Duarte translated it for me.”
“I see,” Stoyan said. “Well, it is accurate. But these sailors see only the outer beauty; their verse says nothing of your courage, Paula, nor of your honesty and strength. This is a beauty far deeper than the blush of a rose.” Without another word, he turned and headed off toward the cabin, leaving me speechless.
