AN UNEXPECTED HARBOR
Our trip home from Calydon was to be the reverse of the route we’d taken to go there, sailing east as far as the isthmus of Corinth and then going by land south and west to Sparta.
The voyage was uneventful, with fair skies above and calm waters under our keel. The only bad thing was that we weren’t blessed with favorable winds to speed us along. The crewmen complained loudly as they bent their brown backs over the oars, but I was happy. I loved to feel the gentle roll and swell of the sea, to see gulls and pelicans swooping and soaring overhead, to lean out over the rail and wave to the folk on other ships, and to watch the ever-changing coastline slipping past. As long as I was on the water, I was surrounded by beauty and peace, but once I reached home, I had dreadful news to give to my parents. I’d gladly delay it. I wished the voyage could go on forever.
My brothers, too, were at home on the water. They passed the time talking to the crewmen, asking countless questions about the workings of a ship. How do you steer? What are all the ropes for? Which prayers and sacrifices did Poseidon like best? How do you keep the ship from running aground or going too far from the safety of the coastline and becoming lost? They even insisted on taking a daily turn at the oars. This left some of our Spartan guardsmen ill at ease, not knowing whether my brothers expected them to join them on the rowing benches or just stand by and watch. The ship’s master turned down the few who volunteered. On our third day out, I overheard him remark to one of his crew: “Bad enough trying to sail a ship with no wind and two inexperienced newcomers tangling up the oars!” I was so intent on smothering my giggles that I didn’t bother pointing out that my brothers had become very good very fast at the work of sailing.
If the ship’s master didn’t know what to make of two princes who wanted to be sailors, he would have been even more perplexed if he’d known how much I wanted to do the same. As it was, I managed to share a little of their lessons on seamanship by listening and lingering nearby. That was easy. It was a small ship.
After each day’s voyage, once the ship had been beached for the night, we all lay out on the shore, under the frosty swirl of stars. My brothers and Milo were soon snoring, but I thought that the night sky was far more interesting and enchanting than any painted palace ceiling. I’d have time enough for sleep when we got home.
One of the ship’s crew noticed my wakefulness and my fascination with the stars. He was a friendly, talkative old man with leathery brown skin and the only hair on his head a short white beard that traced his jawline. He delighted in filling my ears with tales of the beings—human and animal, beast and hero—whom the gods had placed among the stars as reward or punishment. I knew most of those stories already, but I enjoyed hearing him retell them.
“Who knows, my lady?” he said. “Maybe one day when you’re a grown woman, your beauty will make Zeus himself fall in love with you and put your image up there as well, for us ordinary men to see and envy.”
“I can think of better reasons to end up among the stars,” I said, smiling at such harmless flattery.
Milo didn’t share any of my brothers’ or my pleasure aboard the little ship. Sailing didn’t agree with him, except when he took shelter in sleep. My new friend, the seasoned sailor, took pity on Milo and offered one infallible cure for seasickness after another. None worked.
“I can’t understand it,” he said as the two of us watched Milo giving the latest potion back to the sea. It was our fourth day on the water, and the poor boy was limp and green as seaweed. “I even put in three extra anchovies, just to make sure it would take effect.”
“Well, it did,” I pointed out. “Just not the effect we were hoping for.”
The old man shook his head over this latest defeat. “That last tonic saved my stomach back when I was just a lad aboard a trading ship bound for the tin mountains of Hyperborea! Here we’ve got easy sailing across a gulf that cradles our ship and steals the teeth of serious gales, but may Poseidon never send you beyond the Middle Sea, my lady. The waves out to the west are ferocious things that’ll devour your ship out from under you. And before that happens, you’ll be so miserably sick that you’ll pray for the mercy of shipwreck and drowning!”
I did my best to look suitably terrified at the very thought of those western storms—the old man took such joy in seeing his tales have their intended effect!—but secretly I was thrilled at the possibility of riding wild waves.
“What’s going on, Helen?” Polydeuces came up behind us, followed closely by Castor. They’d been working hard down among the oarsmen again, and it was no pleasure to stand too near them on that windless day.
“The usual, from the look of things,” Castor said, glancing at Milo’s sagging body at the rail. He gave the boy an encouraging pat on the back. “Try to drink something, even if you can’t keep your food down, lad,” he said. “Shall I bring you a little watered wine?”
Milo lifted his sallow, haggard face and tried to thank my brother for his kindness but had to turn away quickly and spew over the side again.
Polydeuces sighed. “How can he still do that? I haven’t seen him eat a bite of food since we boarded. You’d think his gut would be empty by now.”
“Maybe it’s a sacred mystery and only the gods know the answer,” Castor said, smiling. “Like the horn of the she-goat who suckled the infant Zeus, the horn he broke off and blessed as soon as he was king of the gods so that it poured out a never-ending stream of food and drink.”