Five or six men slumped at one of the tables, speaking in that slow, slurred manner all drunkards share. I interrupted their inconsequential talk. “Something hot, my good men?”
They pushed their bowls eagerly toward me, and I ladled out steaming portions of gull-and-onion stew. One of the Ithacans hiccupped loudly, but then said, as genteelly as he could manage, “I thank you, my beautiful, beautiful lady.”
I headed for another table, but as I moved off, I heard another man mutter to the one who had thanked me. “You shouldn’t speak to her, you know.”
“Why ever not?” the first man said.
“She is the one we heard about—you know.”
Another man added thickly, “The infamous witch of the isles.”
I moved through the crowd more slowly, straining to hear the conversation over the din of celebration.
“She’s never a witch,” the first man said. “She’s too pretty for it.”
“She is. You see that stick she keeps with her? That…that staff?”
A pause.
“That’s her magical im…plement.” The drunken man struggled over the word. “The tool she uses to work her spells.”
I rolled my eyes at the men’s ignorance and kept moving, lest any hand should grab me. Once the Ithacans were gone, I told myself, more respectful traders would come. Then I would never have to hear that word—witch—again.
I headed for another makeshift table, but before I reached it, a loud thump and clatter sounded through the clearing. For the briefest moment, I thought the bonfire logs had collapsed, as they always do, sooner or later, sending up a column of sparks. But then I heard another, stranger sound—the rumble of many hooves on hard-packed ground, accented by the high-pitched squeals of our pigs. Instantly, I knew that the swine-yard fence had given way—the very last disaster I needed at that moment—and I hissed a curse. A few of the men laughed. Then they shouted incoherently. And then, with one great roar of confusion and needless fear, the whole clearing erupted in chaos.
Pigs were everywhere, rushing in and out of the shadows, screaming as they leaped over buckets and planks that had once been benches, running in circles around the huge bonfire, which belched smoke and orange sparks as the Ithacans dodged away from the flames. “Demons!” one drunkard shouted, and another cried, “to arms! We’re under attack!” Someone pulled a blade from its sheath—I heard the bronze sing its cold, whispery verse, fearfully close by. I dropped the pot of stew. It shattered on the hard ground, and in seconds the pigs flocked around my feet, gobbling up onions and bits of stringy meat.
As men and swine dodged past me, all I could think about was that drawn blade—the unsheathed sword, somewhere in the darkness—somewhere far too close for my comfort. I gripped my staff, the only weapon I had, and brandished it above my head as I turned about in a circle, trying to find the sword and its inebriated bearer in the whirl of sparks and shadows, squeals and shouts and staggering, blundering men.
“Stop!” I cried, “don’t panic! It’s only our swine!” But the Ithacans could not hear me over their own great commotion.
Most of the men now seemed to believe they were truly under attack—by whom, or what, I couldn’t say. They leaped over tables and dove beneath with agility I never would have credited to drunkards, if I hadn’t seen it for myself. They flattened themselves into shadows under benches and ran for the cover of the forest undergrowth. In moments, where men had sang and danced in revelry, only a milling herd of pigs remained. And there I stood among the swine, my chiton splattered with stew and wine, my spinning staff raised high above my trembling body.
Once they’d lapped up the stew, the pigs seemed to lose interest in the goings-on at the bonfire. They grumbled and grunted as they dispersed in all directions, but the Ithacans remained under cover. All but Eurylochus, who picked himself up from the ground where he had sprawled. For a moment, he stared around the clearing, blinking in a stunned, stupid manner. There was not an Ithacan in sight, but there were pigs in any number, trotting and capering around us both.
In an instant, I understood what Eurylochus must think. I lowered my staff quickly. “Eurylochus, wait,” I said. “You mustn’t think—”
But it was too late. The king’s second-in-command turned and fled from the clearing, stumbling and clumsy with wine and fear. He found the trail that led back to the cove where his king’s ship waited, grounded on our shore. The shadows of the forest swallowed him whole.
Neither I nor any of my friends slept that night. Instead, we tidied our trampled clearing as best we could, clearing away the refuse the Ithacans and the pigs had left in their wake. We picked our way quietly around the snoring men—most of them had fallen asleep under tables and behind benches, wherever they had hidden from the menace of the swine. It was long work, and wearying to bodies and minds already worn threadbare from our trying ordeal.
“Should we find the pigs?” Eumelia asked, stifling a yawn as the first pale-gray hint of dawn lightened the sky. “I might be able to fix the fence.”
“There’s no use doing it tonight,” Galene said. “They’ve run all across the island by now.”
“We’re better off leaving our pigs to the forest,” I agreed. “At least these Ithacans can’t take the animals if they’re scattered far and wide. We’ll track them down and return them to the swine-yard after our guests have gone.”
Anthousa scowled across the clearing at the sprawled, snoring men. I could sense her rising desire to kick one or two of them as they slept. “Gods of heaven and earth, let them leave soon. I fear the wolves will kill all our pigs if we let them run in the forest too long.”
That same fear had haunted me ever since the swine had escaped. We needed those animals now more than ever before; even with the mitigation of ash and dried gull meat, the Ithacans had eaten through at least a quarter of our paltry winter stores in a single night.
“We’ll see to the pigs as soon as the Ithacans have gone—and after we’ve had a few hours of sleep,” I said.
“You aren’t suggesting that we sleep with these ghastly men strewn all over our island,” Anthousa said.
“I suppose we must keep a watch. But I’m worn out.”
Anthousa nodded and drew herself up. She was just as tired as the rest of us, I knew, but she was determined to let us take our rest first. “I’ll take the first shift. After two hours, I’ll wake Agathe. We can take it in turns, two hours at a time. That way, we’ll all be rested enough to track the pigs and bring them home.”
We crept into our stone-and-timber house, steps dragging, bones creaking with exhaustion. Each of us found our way to our small bed chambers, and I fell atop my thin, hard mattress, too weary to remove my chiton or even to crawl beneath the sheets. I fell at once into a heavy sleep—but that sweet deliverance didn’t last more than an hour at the most. I started awake to find Anthousa beside me, shaking my shoulder and whispering my name in a strained, urgent tone.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes, which felt full of sand. “What is it?”