Dark of the Moon

chapter 11

I'M SORRY," I say for what feels like the thousandth time. "I didn't mean to kill your pig. I didn't even know it was a pig. I was just holding my sword up at the ready, and it ran right into—"

"She," the old woman says.

"I'm sorry—she?"

"You keep saying 'it.' My Phyllis wasn't an it. She was a she."

At least, that's what I think the crone says. She's missing most of her teeth, and her words come out somewhere between a mumble and a whistle.

"Sorry," I repeat, feeling inadequate to her grief. I don't know what else to say or what to do about the pig, which lies motionless between us.

"A dozen piglets at each farrowing." She ignores my apology. "Most of them would live to grow up, too, and make fine eating."

I wish she hadn't mentioned eating. I look at the pig and mentally carve it—her—i nto chops and loins, into fat cheeks and delectable trotters. My stomach rumbles. The old woman looks at me indignantly, and even Artemis lays her ears back as though my hunger, in the presence of this tragedy, is in bad taste.

I end up giving the old woman the blanket that Konnidas packed for me. She is so pleased with it that she becomes friendly and talkative, even recommending an inn farther up the road where I'll be able to sleep in exchange for one of the small pieces of silver from the pouch my stepfather pressed into my hand as I left.

I trudge along the seaside path, first thinking that I should save the silver, then reminding myself that I've been forced to give up my blanket and that the late-winter night is sure to be chilly this close to the water.

The inn is farther on than the old woman said, and it's not much more than a shack, but the old man sitting outside of it chewing on laurel leaves is hospitality itself. "Welcome!" he cries, hauling himself to his feet. He's skinny and wrinkled, and he leans heavily on his staff.

"Sit, grandfather," I say respectfully, but he ignores me.

"Just in time for supper!" he says. "And then you shall have the finest bed in Hellas. What brings a young gentleman so far out into the country?"

"Actually, I'm on my way to—"

"Come in!" He practically shoves me through the doorway. A fire burns in a pit in the middle of the floor, the heavy smoke barely drifting through the hole in the roof. "Sit here." He points at a three-legged stool very like the one that Konnidas must be sitting on at this moment, back inTroizena. He reaches into a bucket and pulls out a fistful of wriggling silver fish, which he proceeds to thread onto long, thin pieces of wood that have been soaking in a barrel next to the fire. He sprinkles the fish with herbs and pops them directly onto the hot coals. They sizzle and send up pungent smoke. After a minute, he turns them, and then he picks up a stick by its end and hands it to me.

I suck the small, salty bodies off the warm twig and wonder if I've ever eaten anything this good. The old man watches me with a satisfied grin, and when my belly is full he takes the three sticks I've emptied and pops them back into the barrel.

"Now, sir, if you're ready for bed?" I look around.

"Where?" I ask.

"Why, right there!" He points to a kind of platform raised about knee height from the floor. There's a sleeping-pallet on it. "Most comfortable bed in Hellas." He puffs out his chest like a dove. "Raised off the floor out of the way of drafts, and to keep the bugs away. Not that there are any bugs here," he adds a little too quickly.

I don't care if the mattress holds a herd of lice the size of sparrows. I'm suddenly so tired that I nod my thanks and tumble into the bed. It wobbles, and I fling myself upright, gripping its edges. I've never slept off the floor before (it has never occurred to me that you could sleep off the floor), and I feel as exposed as if I were on a mountaintop.

"Sorry, sir!" He shuffles forward, a wicked-looking blade in his hand. "If you'll step down for a moment?" I'm only too glad to comply, and he hacks off the bottom of one leg and tests the balance of the bed. Now another leg is too long. He trims that one, too. He tests it again, and the bed is still unstable. I'm about to tell him that it doesn't matter, that I prefer a pallet on the floor, when he's finally satisfied. "There's always one either too long or too short," he says as I settle myself in cautiously. "But once they're even, there's no more comfortable bed—"

"In Hellas," I finish for him. "I know. I thank you."

And while he's thanking me back I fall asleep, with Artemis curled on the floor beneath my head.