The Seventh Pleiade, page 8
Near daybreak, there was an official declaration by the court astrologers: the star was Poseidon’s blessing for the Panegyris, a sight not seen in one thousand years, and therefore a sign of the kingdom’s eternal vitality.
These were uneasy presumptions for some, given the storms that had been battering the island for days and the tumult in the city. So, to appease the commoners, the governors dispatched an envoy to High Priest Zazamoukh to request his interpretation.
His response arrived at dawn, delivered by a single charioteer drawn by a tattooed gelding with rings of piercings in its nose and ears. Zazamoukh’s pronouncement quickly passed from the Governors Council to the messengers to the families who had stayed up all night. The Governor Magistrate was to send a whelping bull for immolation, and the priest would read the entrails to divine Poseidon’s will. Until that time, the festival would cease in favor of prayer and rest.
There was no mention of what immediately occurred to Aerander—solving the Lost Sister’s mystery—and it didn’t seem to count that he had sighted the star the night before. Everyone had seen it now, and when Pylartes returned home, grim and stiff, Aerander backed away from bringing up the odd folktale. It wasn’t likely to help regain Pylartes’ confidence in his rationality.
He still had to apologize to the House of Eudemon, and Pylartes walked him over to the family’s guest quarters mid-morning.
The palace was a bustle of activity. Slaves covered doorways with shrouds to signify the day of rest, and groups of guests filled the sheltered corridors and stairways, traveling back and forth from the Sanctuary to make offerings at the effigies of Atlas’ daughters. With the curiosity of the star on everyone’s mind, Aerander’s humbling errand drew less attention than he had dreaded.
Punamun transported on his shoulders a heaping basket with dried fruits, salted meats, wine, and sweets. They were greeted warmly at the guesthouse portico by Governor Eulian’s diplomatic secretary.
They were welcomed into a salon room where Eulian and a group of men were seated on low couches. Aerander noticed first Lys. He was grinding a grape stem in his jaw once again, and his lip rose at the visitors, which didn’t count as much of an acknowledgment. His cousins Corydallus and Corythylles—who everyone called Cory One and Cory Two—were there along with two other boys. Hecamenes was there as well.
Pylartes and Eulian made small chat while the house slaves disassembled the gift basket and set the food out on serving trays. No one else said anything.
Aerander’s eyes traced a pastoral fresco surrounding the room though he was well aware that Lys was staring at him. Perspiration swathed his head. He’d never done anything to the boy, but Lys had been on an attack mission even before his gaffe—a misunderstanding—the other morning.
Once everyone around the room had made libation and eaten something from the platters, Pylartes cued Aerander with a glance.
Aerander looked to Governor Eulian. “I’m sorry about yesterday.” He floundered for a moment. He hated lying, but repeating the story of what he saw would only aggravate the situation. He faced Hecamenes. “And I’m sorry about what happened to your sons. They’re good boys. I hope they’re found soon.”
There. He had managed to say something sincere and not make anything up. The older men around the room nodded, and Hecamenes passed a kind look to Aerander. His face was ashen, his shoulders weighted with lack of sleep and worry. He was rightly much more concerned with the fate of his sons rather than dwelling on the false alarm yesterday.
Eulian enunciated, as though speaking to someone daft, “Are you feeling better?”
“Much, thank you,” Aerander said. “And if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, to help, I would, gladly.” He looked to Hecamenes, respectfully.
“That is entirely unnecessary,” Eulian said. His words hung in the air. Did he mean to say Aerander had done enough to aggravate them? It sounded too cold to be a gesture of politeness.
No one spoke for a grievously long stretch of time. Aerander gazed down at his feet.
“Let us put this misunderstanding behind us, then,” Eulian said. “The excitement of the festival can lead boys astray temporarily.” He passed a glance to his son Lys, whose face paled. Eulian lifted his chalice of wine. “But we stand united in difficult times. Houses Eudemon and House Atlas have a long history of brotherly loyalty.”
Everyone in the room raised their cups. “We thank you for your graciousness,” Pylartes said. Aerander nodded along. Eulian smiled, a politician’s façade.
The boys helped themselves to the platters, and everyone seemed looser. Except for Lys. He was stiff as stone and eyed Aerander skeptically. Eulian suggested that his son recount the archery contest to Aerander. He had narrowly missed out on third, after all. But Lys just chewed his grape stem and his gaze drifted away. Corydallus jumped in. Though Aerander had heard the story before, he acted like he hadn’t.
There was wistful joking about Lys’ close call to victory and speculation about the upcoming contests. Everyone thought Elassippos, Autochthonos, or maybe House Mneseus would take home the most victory fillets. Then a porter stepped in with a herald for Pylartes.
The young man whispered something in Pylartes’ ear, Pylartes stood up from his cushioned seat, gestured for the older men to follow him out to the antechamber, and they left the room to the boys. What could it be now? Aerander wondered.
The room fell silent. Lys crossed his arms and glared at Aerander. “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
Aerander scanned the other boys. Corydallus and Corythylles had seemed friendly up to that point, but he could sense them shifting, veering away from him, in deference to Lys, their governor’s son. It was Aerander against five other boys. He sat up. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Coming here with your rotten fruit,” Lys said. His foot launched out, somersaulting a tray of figs and nuts off the table. Aerander flinched.
“It was a ruse, wasn’t it? Your stupid story. To protect your cousin.”
Aerander had no idea what he meant. Lys’ voice rose. “Why don’t you stop pretending? You know what happened to Leo and Koz.”
“I swear I don’t.”
“It was a double-cross by Dam.”
Aerander leaned forward. “That’s not true.”
“Why else would he be sniffing around the two of them all week?”
“They were friends.”
“Leo and Koz don’t make friends with trash like that.”
Aerander’s shoulder’s clenched. He was bursting to defend Dam, but he had to keep himself composed. The whole point of coming over to the house was to make things better. He took in a deep breath.
“What?” Lys said. “You have something to say?”
“You don’t know Dam to call him that.”
Lys sneered. “I know his kind plenty.”
Aerander’s eyes rolled. A furnace of heat expanded inside him. Lys was a small-minded snob.
“How well did you know Dam?” Lys said.
Someone chuckled, and the banter poured out. “Did he make you pay or did he give it away for free?” “Family discount?” “How much?” “Half a galleon for a lolly-gag?” “A quarter, that’s what Leo said.” “And Koz was getting the other one for copper nickels.”
Aerander’s face compacted like a glacier. They all looked so certain: the boys were buying Dam and Hephad for sex. Their laughter clawed at him. It couldn’t be true, at least not in such squalid terms. The day before he disappeared, Dam came to tell him about sneaking out with Leo and Koz. He was happy that he had met someone. Maybe Dam had misinterpreted things; he wanted the boys to like him. So the others knew the truth. They didn’t have to be so mean about it.
The only other person not laughing was Lys, who stared coldly at some spot on the opposite wall. It brought Aerander back to a sobering truth: none of them knew Koz and Leo were dead, wrapped up in that strange vault. How could he explain it now? Lys turned to him, and their eyes locked.
“I don’t care about my father’s stupid diplomacy. You’ve a responsibility to make right what Dam did. Bring Dam forward to answer for what he did to Leo and Koz, or else.”
Aerander didn’t know what to say. Dam could be anywhere. He could be dead like the two boys. Even if Aerander could somehow prove what he saw in the vault, that wouldn’t exactly vindicate Dam’s involvement. The circumstances of their deaths were strange, unbelievable—well beyond his understanding.
But if the boys’ bodies weren’t found, Lys was single-minded in holding Aerander responsible. Did he truly believe that he had knowledge of Dam’s whereabouts, or was he just being a bully? He passed a steady look over Lys. He wasn’t intimidated, and no one was going to spread around that he was.
A porter returned with Punamun to gather Aerander for the return trip home. The other boys acted as though nothing happened, and Aerander was happy to leave them.
On the way out, Aerander made polite good-byes to Eulian, Hecamenes, and the other fathers. When they were a few yards from the home, Pylartes told him the news.
“The Azilian defense has fallen. The barbarians are headed to the coast. They’re slaughtering and burning everything in their path. Tartessos will be lost by nightfall. We’re sending a naval blockade in case there’s a launch from the continent. The city must be prepared to take in refugees.”
Aerander’s insides coiled up tight. It took weeks to organize a fleet. Nearly every able-bodied man had been sent overseas already to counter the barbarian threat. And if they were thinking about deploying men from the domestic guard, well, they were having a hard time as it was keeping peace in the city with the numbers at hand.
“Cancel the Panegyris and send us to fight,” Aerander said.
Pylartes patted his shoulder. “It hasn’t come to that yet.” They continued on to the main floor arcade. “How was the rest of your visit with Lysimachos?” his father asked.
“Fine, I guess,” Aerander said. Of course, it was hardly fine. The meeting was calamitous. But Aerander couldn’t go telling his father what Lys and his cousins were saying about Dam. Plus Aerander didn’t want to be accused of instigating the fight.
“Good,” Pylartes said. “Now that you’ve made your apology, you can steer clear of Lys. I don’t trust that boy. There’s a web of childish romances going on in House Eudemon. Dam stepped into it and fixed this trouble for himself. You don’t need to follow in his path.”
*
It was the most excruciating day Aerander had ever experienced, feeling urgently that he ought to be doing something but having, pathetically, nothing to do. After dispatching a messenger to assemble his diplomatic staff, his father was off again to meet with the Governors Council. This time, his excuse for not including Aerander was Zazamoukh’s proclamation: a day of prayer and rest. Aerander wasn’t yet a man, he said, so he should keep to the household along with the women and the children. Aerander supposed that the other boys in the festival were left out too, though he imagined boys like Calyiches, someday to be a general, received a lot more information than he got from his father.
Thessala and his sisters hung around the family parlor, halfheartedly distracted with Danae’s dolls, sitting for hair-braiding and alternately pacing about the room. Aerander couldn’t go out to see his friends since it was supposed to be a day of quiet family time. But he couldn’t sit still, and he couldn’t get interested in doing anything.
Aerander had never left the island city, though he had heard it was just a two days’ eastward sail to the Azilian coast. The Atlantean military was strong; they had been undefeated for one thousand years. Now they had failed, and something ominous was happening. He felt it, in a vague way: the confluence of strange events, the palace settling into an expectant calm, the collective worry hanging thickly in the air. There was nothing he could do about it. Even if he were in his father’s position, he thought while standing at his balcony, would he have answers to solve the problems facing the kingdom?
Beyond the Citadel walls, the city clamored aggressively—breadline fracas, workers hammering boards to cover damaged rooftops, groups of idle young men heckling the sentinels marching on their rounds. Beyond the island shore, somewhere far across the miles and miles of gray ocean, there was a barbarian army approaching and scarcely any defense to deter them.
Aerander closed his eyes. They needed protection, a miracle it seemed. He made a prayer to Poseidon and a prayer to Atlas. At least it made him feel like he was doing something to help.
Some time into the glowering of late afternoon, the High Priest’s charioteer approached the Citadel gates and passed over the tower bridge. Zazamoukh had made his augury of the Seventh Pleiade after sacrificing another bull. It couldn’t be anything but bad. The Great Showman had the biggest disaster in history to use to his advantage.
The governors must have been truly feeling the pressure of the military crisis to consult him, or maybe the idea came from his father’s steady dogma: bring everyone together to stand united. Pylartes managed everything with give and take, never discounting anyone as a potential ally.
Aerander didn’t trust the priest. There was the matter of Hephad’s tongue getting cut out, unexplained yet too coincidental to not have something to do with Koz, Leo, and Dam. Was his father being naïve or did he have a plan for handling Zazamoukh?
*
Later, Aerander joined Thessala and his sisters in the parlor, and they picked from a tray of fruit and played games of tiles to pass the time until Pylartes returned with news. At nightfall, they went out to the terrace to look up at the sky. In and out of the cover of passing clouds, the Pleiade star stood out. Across the tiers of balconies on the interior side of the palace, everyone was out to watch the star like spectators at an arena. They all stared silently, as though some explanation might rain down on them.
Aerander propped Danae on his shoulders so she could have a better view. Thessala and Alixa stood on either side of him and held his hands.
“Find the Seventh Sister and the girl shall be,” Thessala said.
“Your spiritual guardian for all eternity,” Alixa finished.
Aerander gaped. “You know that story?”
“All girls learn that rhyme,” Alixa said.
“Let’s all make a wish,” Thessala said.
Aerander’s eyes fastened on the star, and he thought about many things. There were shooting stars that the court astrologers said signified a good crop season or an advantageous time to go to war. But this star was permanent, in the cradle of Atlas’ daughters, coming out of obscurity just like the old legend said. Was it childish to believe? The governors didn’t seem to care.
“I wish for the barbarians to go away,” Alixa said.
“I’ll wish for that too,” Thessala said.
“I wish to be older and to marry Aerander and to be King and Queen!” Danae said.
“That’s three wishes,” Alixa said.
Aerander scoffed. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work anyway. You have to guess her secret to release her, and then she’ll give you something.”
“You both take it too seriously,” Thessala said.
“What’s the point in doing it if you don’t do it the right way?” Aerander said.
“If you’re going to wish on stars, I don’t think anyone will mind if you do it one way or the other.”
Aerander rolled his eyes. “What do you think her secret is?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
Alixa jumped in. “I think she ran away. And then her father said if you want to leave so badly, I’ll send you into exile so you never have to come back.”
Aerander looked at Thessala. “The astrologers say it’s a blessing, and Zazamoukh will probably say it’s a curse. So you shouldn’t be encouraging the girls to be heretics.”
“Men always have their certainty. I don’t think there’s any harm in entertaining old legends.”
“It’s a rhyme for children and women sitting around weaving circles.”
“We women, with our strange ideas about stars and love—”
“There’s more to life than that, real things, like war and managing the people when they’re unhappy.” He didn’t know where the words came from.
Thessala sighed. “Yes—a man’s world, and a woman’s world. But there was a time when there was only one sort of world. The old creation legend says the Titan Kronus made a race of people, with two heads, four arms and four legs, man and woman in one body. But Poseidon thought they were too powerful as such, so he used his trident spear to strike them in two, scattering their separate parts around the world. And it is our fate as mortals to be always searching for our other half. That’s what we call love.”
Aerander knew the story and he ached remembering Calyiches, his perfect other half. Thessala’s glance swept over him, noticing that the ring was gone. Aerander looked down at the floor.
A hand brushed his hair. “And there were others Kronus made, with two heads, four arms, and four legs, two men together, cleaved apart by Poseidon, and longing one day to be rejoined.”
Aerander wondered: Did that mean there were two sorts of male spirits? Those that came from the aboriginal man / woman and those from the man / man? Asking his stepmother, in front of his younger sisters, was too embarrassing. There was only supposed to be one sort of man, wasn’t there?
“There’s also the old tale of Neith and Isis. When Poseidon was a young man, he took more than his fair share of liberties with mortal maidens. Neith was so worried that the god would take his sister Isis’ honor that he consumed her so that she would be protected. He lived as a man with his sister’s soul inside him. He was at first an outcast from his tribe, but he became their greatest hero: both warrior and healer, a leader to men and a nurturer to wounded souls. They say his descendants maintained both souls: woman and man.”
