Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [218]
Deep-blue water gave way to sapphire, and our breeze died entirely. Undeterred, Tormos ordered the Illyrians to oars, and they pulled to a ragged beat as he stamped out the rhythm. Faltering yet game, ragged sails flapping emptily, we slid through the waters, until they grew shallower and turned to aquamarine.
We had entered the horns of the harbor.
Light-headed as I was, it took me a moment to realize that the sound I heard was mightier than the oarsmen's beat, echoing across the water. There is no mistaking that beat, once one hears it. It is measured to the pace of the mortal heart and it is measured out in bronze, eldest tool of the earth that ever humankind shaped to serve its need. I did not see, until we were well and truly betwixt them, the caves that riddled the horns of the harbor, layer upon stony layer, rising above us.
Then I did, and knew it was from thence that the soundof beating gongs came, and my hair rose at the nape of my neck as we glided below the caves. This was no ordinary port. We had crossed the threshold of a sacred place. So did we enter the harbor of the Temenos.
FIFTY-EIGHT
1 here were children on the beach; I had not expected that.
They greeted our arrival with eager cries, swooping like gulls over the gritty white sands as our ship ran aground in shallow water. Bemused, Tormos cast a line ashore, and a full dozen eager hands grasped it, children setting their backs to it with a will, hauling our vessel nearer to shore. It was a lucky thing the Illyrian ships had such a shallow draught, that we were able to disembark and splash our way ashore. Kazan came without assistance, and it seemed to me that there was an alertness in his face for the first time since Epidauro.
The sound of bronze gongs had ceased, and left in its wake a profound silence.
Salt-stained and aching and unsteady on my legs, I waited with the others, standing on the beach and gazing at steps carved into the living rock, easing down toward the sea.
'Twould be a party of guards would meet us, I thought; one expects such a thing, landing uninvited in a foreign harbor. Instead, there came a single man, unarmed, escorted by a retinue of seven youths and seven maidens. He was of middle years, dark and bearded, with a diadem of ribbons bound around his curly hair, wearing rich robes encrusted two hand-spans deep with embroidery. One of the youths held a parasol above his head, and tasseled pearls hung from its spokes, glimmering in the sun.
"Welcome, strangers," he said in a sonorous voice, giving us greeting in Hellene. "I am Oeneus Asterius, Híerophant of the Temenos. You have passed by the wide harbors and the company of men to enter here. Mother Dia grant youwelcome. Who is it among you that comes to be cleansed?"
I daresay we gaped foolishly enough; of our number, only Glaukos and I understood his Hellene speech, and neither of us knew what he meant by it.
Thus it was doubly startling when Kazan stepped forward, clear-eyed and willful.
"I am Kazan Atrabiades of Epidauro," he announced in Illyrian. "I come bearing blood-guilt for the death of my brother."
The Hierophant gazed at him with deepset eyes and nodded, then turned to one of the maidens. "Iole, fetch Mez-entius, who speaks the Illyrian tongue."
I glanced at Glaukos, who opened and closed his mouth helplessly, shocked speechless. "My lord Hierophant," I said in Hellene, pushing my damp, salt-stiffened hair back from my face and wracking my brain for the proper words. "I speak Illyrian, a little. So does this man, Glaukos of Tiber-ium," I added, nodding at him. "And my lord Atrabiades speaks Caerdicci, as well. We have had a dire journey, my lord, and it is a tale long in the telling. If you will offer us your hospitality, we can recompense you in gold."
'Twas true, too,