The Seventh Pleiade, page 10
“Doesn’t matter if I was successful or not. I had to defend myself, to defend the honor of my family.” Aerander wondered why everything seemed like such a novel concept to Punamun. “That’s what men do here in Atlantis. We stand up for ourselves and the people we love.”
Punamun tended to a spot on Aerander’s shin that had grated against his chain mail apron. “Then you shouldn’t have to worry about your father. If he thinks the same way you do, he’ll understand.”
Aerander’s face shrank up tight. The treatment was like hot pokers digging into his skin. For someone who espoused to be a pacifist, Punamun was remarkably apathetic about the pain he was doling out with the damnable salve. Aerander didn’t disagree with trying to work things out nonviolently—in theory—but the Lemurians couldn’t deny that it had its limitations. They lost their entire kingdom because they refused to defend themselves. At least other colonies like Mauritania, Tamana, and Azilia had put up a fight. Strange people, the Lemurians. The twin sons of their most famous emperor Kukulkan used to enact a comedy routine by stabbing each other with swords. Anyway, Punamun was a mystery to unwrap, and despite the difference in their status he somehow made Aerander feel under pressure to earn his approval.
Aerander decided to try a chummier approach. He told Punamun the whole story about Dam, Koz, and Leo, plus the confrontation with Lys when he went to apologize the other morning. By the end, Punamun had finished bandaging up his shin and wrapping up his knuckles. He looked as though he was outfitted for boxing practice.
Punamun commented casually, “Lys and Leo were sweethearts.”
“That’s what everyone seems to be saying. But I don’t get it. Hephad said Dam was with Leo. Why would Lys be so bent on Dam coming forward if it’s just going to prove that Leo cheated on him? He ought to be incredibly embarrassed already that his whole family thinks Leo was paying Dam for sex.”
“I don’t know much about Atlantean honor, Master Aerander,” Punamun said. He stowed away some supplies on the bathhouse shelves. “But I know there are men who will do anything to defend the person they love, whether or not that person is worthy of their adoration. In Lemuria, they call it Haneptimotyl’s Curse.”
Aerander watched Punamun curiously. Punamun sat down at a bench and told a story.
“Haneptimotyl was a very poor man who lived in a village with a wife he loved very much. He barely had money to put rice on the table for dinner. But every night, he would find a fat hen in the house, and his wife would cook it for them. Haneptimotyl thinks, ‘Great God Kukulkan provides for us,’ and he never worries about where the hen is coming from. But a farmer starts complaining in the village: ‘Someone is stealing my hens! Where does your wife go at night, Haneptimotyl?’ the farmer asks. ‘I think I am seeing her outside my pens at dusk.’
“Haneptimotyl cannot believe this. He tells the farmer, ‘My wife is washing her hair in the sacred spring every evening. It must be a fox killing your hens.’ ‘I will show you,’ Haneptimotyl says. ‘Tonight, I will watch your chickens and catch that fox for you.’
“So Haneptimotyl hides in some thatch nearby the pens that night. And what does he see, of course? His wife is grabbing the biggest, fattest hen in the pen. Haneptimotyl comes out from his hiding spot and asks her what she is doing. ‘Why, I am saving this hen from the fox,’ his wife tells him. ‘My wife is kind and wise, as I have always known her,’ Haneptimotyl thinks. ‘Here, let me help you,’ he says. He takes the hen from his wife, and his wife runs off, certainly to make sure she washes her hair in the sacred spring before the night is done.
“Then the farmer comes out to the pens. He sees Haneptimotyl with the hen. ‘Aha,’ he says. ‘It has been you stealing my chickens!’ And he doesn’t believe the story about saving the hen from the fox. He tells all of the villagers about it. And Haneptimotyl is hanged. All because he believed his wife could do no wrong.”
Aerander smirked. The story struck a compelling chord. Lys certainly was bullheaded. Aerander’s feelings toward the boy expanded. Lys had caused a lot of trouble for him and thrown ugly accusations at Dam, but beneath all of that, he was holding on to a belief in Leo, who had to be the earth and heavens to him, tragic as it was. Doubly tragic, Aerander recognized, since Leo was dead.
“I have to show him what happened to Leo.”
Punamun washed his hands in the pool and dried them with a towel.
“In the underground tunnel. I should take him there, to Leo’s body.” He could sense Punamun shutting down from the idea. “Or just the two of us could go. We won’t tell anyone. To bring the bodies back.”
Punamun was sharply silent. He went to bring over a woven hamper.
“Why won’t you help me?”
“It’s forbidden.”
“Why?”
“Because men above the ground are not supposed to go there.”
“If you lost someone you loved, wouldn’t you want to know what happened to them?”
Punamun pulled the drain out of the bath and gathered the towels.
“I could command you, but I’d rather you came with me willingly.”
Punamun glanced at Aerander. “I take my orders from your father, actually. Until you finish the Panegyris.”
Aerander stared at him in disbelief. He stood and watched Punamun move about the room, wiping up puddles on the floor, discarding towels into the hamper. Punamun brought over a linen robe, draped it over Aerander’s shoulders, and stood in front of him awaiting orders. Aerander didn’t know what to say. He felt like telling Punamun to get out of his sight.
Neither one looked at the other. Punamun was better at that sort of thing. Before long, Aerander peeked at him curiously.
Punamun stared at a corner of the bathhouse ceiling. There was a dark spot in the mortar, between the tiles, and a steady drip down to the floor. A leak from the roof. It had been pouring rain all day.
“If you want to go with your friend, go ahead,” Punamun said.
“Good. That’s settled,” Aerander said. He would have to wait for nighttime, when the portal opened, and find some way to get out of the house discreetly. Then there was the matter of somehow convincing Lys to come along, which Aerander couldn’t begin to fathom at the moment. But he was so relieved by Punamun’s cooperation, that item snuck away for later consideration. “How about tonight?” Aerander said. “The feast is called off, and if the storm continues, everyone will turn in by moonrise.”
Punamun didn’t answer. He looked to the ceiling, a distant gaze, a screen to some deep thought, whether personal or more expansive, Aerander couldn’t tell. There was something troubling about his expression.
“Doesn’t matter,” Punamun said. “The first destruction was fire. The second will be water. We’ll all be dead in a few days anyway.”
*
The rest of the day passed sluggishly, awaiting his father’s return and sentencing, which was certain to be harsh and implacable. However Aerander looked at the situation, there was always the fact he was the governor’s son. That trumped whatever righteous reasons he had for trying to silence the Corys’ mouths. The kingdom was in crisis. The houses ought to be coming together rather than tearing at each other over petty gripes. Even though he hadn’t started the fight, he should have set a good example by staying out of it. His father didn’t need more headaches than he already had.
His plan to sneak out to the underground tunnel ate holes in his stomach. Could he really disobey his father while so much was going on? It was one thing if he and Lys made it to the tunnel and recovered Leo and Koz’s bodies—he would be a hero. But it was quite another if something went wrong. He might not find the portal again.
Still, going back there seemed like the right thing to do. He wished there was a way to make his father understand. If he could confide in him what Punamun knew about the portal and the tunnel, maybe Pylartes would give his permission to check it out, just one more time.
Aerander went down to the family parlor, resolved: he would meet his father head-on when he came home. He would show him he was fully prepared to account for himself, explain the circumstances at military practices, and admit his poor judgment. With that part settled, he could try for a second chance to prove where Leo and Koz’s bodies were.
All the doorways to the terraces were shuttered. Wind shook and rattled the hinges while the house slaves reinforced the storm boards and mopped up the rain that had blown inside.
Aerander made his way down to the main floor. Voices echoed from the portico. He drew a deep breath. Pylartes had returned with his entourage.
He turned into the entrance hall. An armored guard led Pylartes on a steady path that would cross with Aerander at the interior side of the colonnade. Aerander’s feet felt welded to the ground. At a few paces away, the guard broke his stride, and his father’s eyes were upon him. The guard clinked forward, and Pylartes continued down the hall. “Come along,” he said.
Aerander followed him up one flight of stairs to the men’s side of the estate and entered an antechamber they seldom used. There were austere furnishings—some wooden chairs, a pair of benches, and a wall hanging embroidered with the House of Atlas crown and trident coat of arms. Pylartes sat down at a bench and dismissed his guard.
Aerander stepped over to a chair at a right angle to his father. He wiped his clammy palms on the side of his robe.
“The storm has forced a change in plans,” Pylartes said. “There will be no boats launching from the harbor, no grain shipments coming in. The breakwater can barely harness the ocean. We’ve enough men to fill ten ships, but we wouldn’t be able to raise the half-sail of a herald’s skiff against the gusts of the sea.”
His voice was resigned. Aerander glanced up at him. Pylartes’ broad shoulders were slumped, and his face was gray from lack of sleep. Did he even know what happened at martial practice? Aerander felt stupid for worrying about it.
“We’ve made a decision. Priest Zazamoukh will start his lottery tonight. With so much against us, the Council reckoned it could bolster morale in the city. There’s nothing any of us can do until the storm passes.”
Did that mean the barbarians couldn’t sail across the ocean either? How long would the storm continue? How much food was left? But Aerander didn’t want to upset his father by asking these things; the Council must have been over and over all dimensions of the crisis.
It was a rare confidence between him and his father, a circumstance that made him proud, but he wanted his father to be strong and unflappable. Pylartes couldn’t be beaten down. Even though Aerander didn’t like the way his father hoarded his authority, he agreed with his father’s right to be decisive and confident.
“Do you really think Poseidon has abandoned us?” he said. They had never spoken about their spiritual beliefs—the permanence of Poseidon and the ancestral sons—though his father’s quiet following of traditions conferred a vague sort of deference. That was the way of noblemen, not talking about religion or making a show of it. That would be vulgar, like the priest class, who they respected but preferred to keep at an arm’s length. But Aerander needed to know what his father believed, if he really thought one boy’s offering at the Pillar of Poseidon would make a difference. It seemed unlikely and desperate, but if his father said he believed it would work, Aerander was ready to believe it too.
“Poseidon didn’t create his empire to watch it crumble and fall,” Pylartes said. “If what the kingdom is going through is a test, it is only so that we may discover a better way forward. We should always remember that. Fear can lead us into desperation.”
Pylartes had regained his unequivocating tone, and Aerander relaxed a bit. “I think Zazamoukh wants us to be afraid,” he said.
Pylartes hesitated for a moment. “The priests are the keepers of the ancestral faith. The Poseidonidae inherited the kingdom, and our realm is the material. There has always been an uneasy alliance between the two—we who govern the world Poseidon claimed and the priests who divine the mysteries of his afterlife. We may not always see eye-to-eye, but we work at a mutual purpose, the glorification of the ancestors.”
It was familiar rhetoric, somewhat more consoling than usual given the circumstances, but still Aerander wanted a more candid response. “What about the Seventh Pleiade?” he said.
“We defer to the priests for their interpretations—”
“What if they’re wrong?”
Pylartes scratched his beard. “You’ve your own theories on the subject, have you?”
“I just think it doesn’t make sense for everyone to be so afraid when they don’t know what the star means.” Aerander swallowed hard and said what was on his mind. “Plus, there’s the story—”
“The riddle of the Lost Sister.”
The way his father said it was trivializing, and the space between them seemed to expand. With his wild ideas, his imagination, and his father with his sturdy reason and practicality, there was a wide gulf. Pylartes never believed in legends or folktales, even when he was a boy. Aerander was certain of it. He wondered if Pylartes believed in romantic love, a similar kind of faith.
“You can’t manage a kingdom staring at stars and hoping to solve riddles,” Pylartes said.
“What can I do? I want to help.”
A ghost of a grin passed over Pylartes’ face. “There’s not much any of us can do, I’m afraid. We stand together, and show our subjects that we are strong and unafraid.”
A cold blanket of shame fell over Aerander. He told his father what happened with the Corys at martial practices. A pensive shifting of Pylartes’ eyes showed that the news had traveled to him, but his response was mild. Things really were that bad.
“I’ve spoken to Governor Eulian about the matter. He’s to render a firm punishment for Lysimachos. I’m to do the same with you.”
The last part was deeply troubling. But the first part—why Lys?
Pylartes went on. “Did I not remind you to stay away from Lysimachos?”
Aerander stammered: “You did…but Lys had nothing to do with the fight.”
“All the boys are to be reprimanded for their part, but Eulian confessed that his son was the conspirator to the feud. His unmanly attachment to his cousin Leonitos drove him to try to hurt you, as well as inventing malicious rumors about House Atlas since Leonitos ran away. Eulian is humbled and made all due apologies.”
Aerander couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Corys must have turned on Lys, claiming he had directed them to instigate the fight. Lys had been trying to stop it. Did they want to get back at him because of that?
Pylartes glanced at Aerander sternly. “You know better than to strike a man for no other reason than a fool’s taunt?” Aerander nodded. “I’m of two minds about saying this to you, but we’ve had so little good news to speak of, well—” His father’s voice trailed off as he considered. A brighter phase passed over his face. “This idiotic spectacle at martial practices may have been exactly what you needed to repair your reputation. You showed yourself capable of holding your own among your peers. With all the idle chatter in the palace focused on Lysimachos, your missteps will be forgotten. The scene at the Citadel shrine, and Calyiches.”
“We—I broke things off.”
Pylartes big hands clasped the arms of his bench, and he pushed up to stand. “So much the better.”
Aerander’s eyes dropped to the floor.
“When we return from temple tonight, you’ll stay quartered in your room all through tomorrow’s martial practices and meals. No visits from friends, no dispensation.”
Pylartes left the room. Aerander pulled his feet up on the chair and cradled his knees. An infinite quiet surrounded him.
Chapter Nine
Aerander got ready for the temple ceremony that night, but he wouldn’t be able to say he remembered much of what happened after his father left. His mind had drifted into the clouds…
He supposed he should be relieved that his reputation had been repaired as his father had said. To an extent, Aerander was relieved, but to claim his own happiness meant shrugging off a host of things circling around him like phantasmal spies.
So, his father was finally proud of him for acting like a proper man.
The fact was Aerander had given away his manhood. That would never change. It had changed him. For the rest of his life, he would have to steward his father’s approval by minding his fascination with other boys. There were the legends that Thessala had spoken of. If he had been cleaved from his one true love, his other half, who was wandering the earth somewhere, he could never search for him. He would never find him. Hereafter, his heart could hold no place for new acquaintances who might be that person who was looking for him. If, like the descendants of Neith, he had twin souls inside him, he would bury the feminine.
So, there would be no more bullying from House Eudemon.
The boys who had shown themselves to be the worst of the lot, Cory One and Cory Two, ended up with a mild reprimand, while Lys had become their scapegoat. The circumstances formed firm and sharp. House Eudemon had supported their Crown Prince to a point, but Lys must have worn out their tolerance. Lys betrayed a code of moderation for boyhood affections and shone a light on his family’s indiscretions. Based on what Pylartes had said, Lys would become a huge disgrace.
Aerander had been a victim of the drama, and now he was a bystander, though it felt like more than that, maybe a kinship with Lys. He had never expected to feel that way. To keep on his father’s good side and be his proper representative, he would have to let the situation pass.
Aerander knew what no one else knew. Leo and Koz were dead. And Dam was still missing. Aerander would have to seal up that knowledge and never speak of it again.
*
Aerander traveled numbly with an escort to the ground floor and on to mounting a covered carriage with his father and then caravanning into the city. The steady rain and clop of horses echoed in his ears as though from some great distance away. He and his father didn’t speak.
