Part 21 (1/2)

”Think you did a rather good job of it last night-freeing your pa.s.sions.”

The heat of his voice made her tremble. ”I did, didn't I?” She felt proud of herself, proud of what she and Bennett had done, how little she cared what anyone else thought.

At last, Athena and Kallas joined them on deck, the witch looking considerably improved, though a bit vexed with the captain, a sentiment he shared.

Bennett uncovered the mirror. It gleamed even more brightly than it had when it was first removed from the stream.

”Such brilliance in its surface,” Athena marveled, then asked London, ”Are you sure of its age?”

”Quite,” said London, and felt certain of herself. Where language was concerned, she needed no other a.s.surances besides her own. ”The dialect died out millennia ago. Only a few fragments remain, but there are perhaps only a half dozen people familiar with it, maybe even less.”

”Including you,” added Bennett. His smile warmed her deeply.

”And me,” she said, pride and modesty b.u.t.ting up against each other. She was used to comments about her appearance or her clothing or other inconsequential things, but Bennett was the first man, the first person, to value her skill with languages.

”And the writings?” Kallas asked, scattering her thoughts. ”What do they say?”

London held the mirror, tilting it this way and that to better read the words encircling its rim. She cleared her throat, then began: ”My eye is golden and lost.The rocks tumble, seven three nine, on the east;Then the precarious narrow path that must be taken,Else find yourself stranded, walk upon the water.Onward, and reflect toward the dawn.Find me then, if you can, to seeWhat I see.”

Finished, she looked to Bennett to see what he could make of such a riddle. ”I wish, sometimes, that these ancients spoke plainly.”

”Then there'd be no fun in it.” He stared at the mirror as if it could reflect back an answer. London watched the light bounce off the mirror's surface to bathe Bennett in a golden halo, but he was far more devil than angel. She had proof of that in the wonderful soreness throughout her body.

”You sure that's some magic something?” Kallas asked. ”Because it sounds like a sailor giving directions.”

Athena frowned, but did not scoff. ”What do you mean?”

”There's a stretch of the sea to the northeast of here, a few days' sail,” Kallas explained. ”A chain of islands, more rocks in the sea than islands, in groups. The first of seven, then three, and then nine. Once past those, there are two islands that face each other with a narrow strait between them-maybe three times the width of this boat. A difficult sail. No one has ever dared it. Around the islands are wide shoals, too shallow to sail, but it's said a man could walk on them and the water would only come to his ankles. Then, toward the dawn toward the dawn would mean go east from there.” would mean go east from there.”

”Then this mirror is a map,” said London.

”A map of words,” the captain said. He drew on his pipe as punctuation, but could not quite hide some deserved masculine preening when Athena gaped in admiration and amazement.

”The men in your family must all be incredible sailors,” said Bennett, approving.

”Always. It's said one of my ancestors taught Jason how to sail, and another sailed with Odysseus. Will they sing of me, the Muses?”

”Without a doubt,” said London.

”You, too, will be in their song, Lady Oracle, who reads the words of the past.”

”An extraordinary little boat we've got here,” said Bennett. He rubbed his hands together. ”Now, let's have ourselves some breakfast. I'm so hungry, I could eat a halyard.”

London looked around the deck of the caique, at Kallas attending to the sails of his beloved boat, at Athena still shaking her head in wonderment, at Bennett heading off toward the galley below. He was the man whose bed she shared. For a few hours. For a few days. And then...and then she did not know, but she would not let herself dwell on uncertainties. For now, she was here, in the middle of the ocean, on this swift-sailing boat, with these people.

Sea captain. n.o.ble witch. Life-loving scoundrel. And her. An odd group, but one in which she was discovering her most truthful self.

London adjusted the tension on the jib's halyard, keeping its leading edge straight as the wind s.h.i.+fted. She didn't need Kallas's guidance anymore. She knew what the boat needed.

Certain moments in one's life would always be returned to, even years, decades, later. Some of them were painful-heartbreak, mortification, loss-but there were others that held the clarity and perfection of cut gems, to sparkle against the velvet drape of memory. And, as the years progressed and unfolded in their relentless march, again and again would the mind revisit those moments. Eating a plum, the juices running down your hand, as you walked an esplanade along the sh.o.r.e. The day that the weather cleared and the ground was finally firm enough to be ridden upon, and the leap of your heart as your horse took the first fence. A new old book being delivered and unwrapped from its brown paper, sitting upon your desk, full of possibility, and the musty, rich smell of its pages as you opened it.

You returned to these moments, sometimes to ease a current suffering, and sometimes for the simple pleasure of revisiting a past joy, but they were there, and held and treasured in the cupped palms of your mind.

London knew that, no matter what the years brought her, or even the next few weeks, she would always cherish her days spent on the caique, as they sailed toward the mirror's destination. Though she hadn't much experience with the larger world, she understood enough to see these days as miniature miracles painted in azure, cobalt, turquoise. Perhaps they were all the more precious because they could not last.

Squinting in the sun, she checked the jibsheets, both port and starboard, feeling the power in the lines, taking their power into herself.

Knowing the transience of her happiness, she reveled in each and every heartbeat, each breath. Daytime was filled with light and sky and sea, the glitter of gold upon the waves, the snap of the sails as she learned the wind, pa.s.sing other brightly painted boats in the timeless rhythm of seafaring life. She felt softness leave her arms, her body, in the joy of movement. Her hair smelled of salt.w.a.ter and sun. She laughed often. Stories were told, many outrageous, some entirely fabricated. She drank dark wine and ate briny olives. She became a sailor.

And the nights. She felt like Psyche, visited each night by the embodiment of sensuality. In truth, it was she she who visited who visited him him, since London and Athena shared a cabin, but the general idea was much the same. Though she prized her days, London could not wait for night, after dinner, when Kallas took the wheel for a few hours, leaving Bennett and her free to do unspeakably wonderful and wicked things to one another in dark, intimate seclusion.

She explored every inch of Bennett's magnificent body and, in so doing, came to know her own completely. How, when he bit the tender juncture of her neck and shoulder, she shuddered with pleasure. The insides of her arms, she discovered, were sensitive, and she ran them over his back, across his broad chest, feeling the textures of his skin, his hair. Her breath on the inside of his thigh caused him to growl. His tongue, lapping at the folds of her p.u.s.s.y, made her whimper and writhe. She loved to clutch at the tight muscles of his b.u.t.tocks as he drove into her, pulling him closer until they were almost one creature.

He taught her things. She guided him. They tangled together.

The heat that now suffused her cheeks was not caused by the sun, but by exquisite memory of what she and Bennett had done the night before.

London was sure that every morning, she emerged on deck with the sleepy, satisfied look of a woman who had been thoroughly pleasured. G.o.d knew that Kallas and Athena had to hear her moans each night. She could not bring herself to care. Shameless. She was without shame. And it was wonderful.

It wasn't only the physical aspects of their lovemaking that had London smiling to herself. Once they had temporarily sated themselves with each other's bodies, she and Bennett would lay together in the narrow bunk and talk of everything-weighty matters, trifles. She learned about his life in England as the second son of a noted barrister, his restlessness at the idea of settling down, practicing law himself, and how, when he was recruited for the Blades, life finally made sense. He could at last make good use of his skill with codes, his ease in the darkness. A man like him, of excellent breeding and solid English values, clever of mind and strong of body, could have been an Heir. To her utter astonishment, she learned that he had, in fact, been approached by an agent of the Heirs of Albion while in his second year at Cambridge. Bennett rejected their advances, their appeals to his vanity, his cupidity. Soon after that, a man by the name of Catullus Graves sent him a letter, inviting him to Southampton to decode some ancient Scandinavian ciphers. That's when he learned about the Blades, and that's when he vowed to make their cause his own.

At his prompting, she told him about her own life, but it was far less interesting, in her opinion, than his. Unlike him, she'd never been to Lapland, Tangiers, Bucharest. She hadn't scrambled up the sides of snow-covered mountains, seeking shelter before a blizzard hit. She never shared a Berber's hookah while watching kohl-eyed, veiled dancers in firelight. But, oh, she wanted to, and he described his adventures with such vivid detail that she felt as if she'd lived a whole other life, one outside of books. He asked about the numerous languages she studied, her joy in them, and took his pleasure in hers. She had never spoken to anyone about her linguistic scholars.h.i.+p, always afraid of their response. Bennett was different. She knew she could trust him; he wouldn't turn on her or decry what was so important to her.

She thought about them following the mirror's direction. It would be a difficult voyage-the mirror guarded its secrets well. London hoped Kallas had the skill of generations to navigate treacherous waters.

Satisfied that the jib's rigging was in order, London drifted from the bow of the boat toward the quarterdeck. There, she found Athena and Kallas pa.s.sionately arguing about whether Jason should have abandoned Medea. Naturally, the witch defended the sorceress. Kallas insisted that Jason rightly found a new woman, as Medea was of a less-than-sane disposition.

”But she killed her own brother to help him escape Colchis,” Athena protested.

”Exactly,” said Kallas. ”She was several sails short of a clipper.”

Athena made a noise of outrage.

London smothered her laugh, then asked, ”Where is Bennett?”

With the stem of his pipe, Kallas pointed toward the stern of the boat.

Leaving the witch and the sailor locked in their dispute, London picked her way toward the back of the caique. As she neared, she glanced around with a frown. Bennett wasn't there.

But he was. London got closer and saw him. Sprawled on his back along the decking, his head propped on a coil of rope, Bennett lay across the stern. His chest rose and fell in gentle swells. He was asleep.

For a few moments, she watched him. He'd had the opportunity to watch her sleep back on Delos, and she seized her chance for reversal.

His long legs stretched out, the fabric of his trousers outlining the clean shapes of his muscles. An athlete at rest, the subject for sculpture. His fingers interlaced over the breadth of his chest-she s.h.i.+vered, remembering how, last night, those deft fingers felt as they trailed along her spine, over the curve of her behind, and down her legs in a whisper caress. In sleep, his face was as beautiful as a night full of stars over the sea. Long, dark eyelashes that trembled slightly with dreams. His mouth, delectable, full, turned in a half smile, for even asleep there was lightness in his heart. A surge of tenderness swept through her.

London realized that they never actually slept together. She always had to return to her cabin, so that, when Kallas's s.h.i.+ft at the helm was over, he had a bed to himself. She and Bennett might doze, briefly, but then it was time for her to struggle into her clothing and stagger across the pa.s.sageway, and for him to go above. To wake beside him in the glow of morning, both of them warm and naked, talking of half-remembered dreams as they surfaced into wakefulness, it was a pleasure she might never experience.