a marvel—slender, swift, and with two brilliant new features: a pivoted rudder board instead of the great clumsy stern oar and a mast that tilted the sail for a quartering wind, permitting us to outrace and outmaneuver any other vessel on the sea. Or so our shipwright claimed.
He had also made a skiff to be carried on deck, using materials never before used: whalebone for ribs and struts; not planks for its hull but whale hide, scraped membrane-thin and tough as oiled silk. In making the oars, he had allowed for the enormous strength of the Twins. He used polished ash stiffened with rhinoceros horn. Under great stress, they bent like bows but did not break; when bent, they snapped back, adding to the titanic power of the Twins’ stroke.
“It’s a pirate skiff, really,” Argos told us. “Fleeing or pursuing, it will outrun anything. I learned its design when I voyaged to the Land Beyond the Dawn, where dwell little men with tilted eyes and parasols growing out of their heads. They carry curved knives and live on fish heads and tangerines. This is their design, but they never made a skiff to match mine, and their oars are flimsy things.”
Finally the ship was caulked and painted. There was never any question about her name. Rufus melted gold and mixed it with pine-nut oil and painted Argo in letters of gold across her stern. Argo was her name, and we who sailed her became known as the Argonauts.
EIGHTEEN
E KION
T HREE DAYS OUT OF port, we were cutting through the water under bright skies. I was at the bow watching points of light dance on the ruffled sea. We were all on deck. Rufus and Idas stood at the weather rail, deep in their endless discussion of new fittings for the Messenean’s wrist stump. My redheaded friend was spending entirely too much time on that lopped lout. I was jealous.
Daphnis sat on the iron block that was Rufus’s deck anvil. He was touching his lyre. By the goofy rapt look on his face I knew he was composing a verse. Autolycus was curled at the foot of the anvil, asleep—but with a pantherine grace; he seemed poised for leaping even as he slept.
The Twins were sparring. Idas had told them how dueling was done in his savage land. Enemies tied their left arms together and fought with knives. Castor and Pollux stood on the deck, left arm bound to left arm with a length of anchor chain, striking at each other with imaginary daggers. A point would be scored when one would slice past the other’s guard and touch his body with the edge of his fist. They were hitting as lightly as they could, but with enough force to cave in the ribs of anyone else.
Jason had climbed the mast and was perched on top, his legs wound around the spar. He was swaying in the wind. It was slackening now; he was waiting for it to blow gently enough for him to dive off the mast and be able to overtake the ship without our having to circle back.
Daphnis came to me and said, “I’m doing a sea song, using the cry of the wind, the creak of blocks, the rattle of tackle, the lisp of waters, all that we hear. At sea we tune ourselves to these sounds and are startled when one of them stops or a new sound comes.”
He spoke softly; his sweet murmuring and the occasional plink of the lyre had begun to put me to sleep on my feet. And in that sun-dazed half-sleep I seemed to be entering an old dream again, to be standing at the stump-water ocean watching a tiny visionary ship sail into disaster. I heard again an odd gurgling, rushing sound. My eyes snapped open, and I saw that, sure enough, we were sailing toward two huge boulders that had suddenly appeared. They stood about a quarter of a mile apart. But I remembered what had happened in my vision, and I shouted to Argos to put about. But found that I was shouting into a violent gust.
The wind carried away my voice. We drove straight forward to the passage between the rocks. And I saw to my horror that the dream was coming true: the rocks were beginning to hurtle toward
He had also made a skiff to be carried on deck, using materials never before used: whalebone for ribs and struts; not planks for its hull but whale hide, scraped membrane-thin and tough as oiled silk. In making the oars, he had allowed for the enormous strength of the Twins. He used polished ash stiffened with rhinoceros horn. Under great stress, they bent like bows but did not break; when bent, they snapped back, adding to the titanic power of the Twins’ stroke.
“It’s a pirate skiff, really,” Argos told us. “Fleeing or pursuing, it will outrun anything. I learned its design when I voyaged to the Land Beyond the Dawn, where dwell little men with tilted eyes and parasols growing out of their heads. They carry curved knives and live on fish heads and tangerines. This is their design, but they never made a skiff to match mine, and their oars are flimsy things.”
Finally the ship was caulked and painted. There was never any question about her name. Rufus melted gold and mixed it with pine-nut oil and painted Argo in letters of gold across her stern. Argo was her name, and we who sailed her became known as the Argonauts.
EIGHTEEN
E KION
T HREE DAYS OUT OF port, we were cutting through the water under bright skies. I was at the bow watching points of light dance on the ruffled sea. We were all on deck. Rufus and Idas stood at the weather rail, deep in their endless discussion of new fittings for the Messenean’s wrist stump. My redheaded friend was spending entirely too much time on that lopped lout. I was jealous.
Daphnis sat on the iron block that was Rufus’s deck anvil. He was touching his lyre. By the goofy rapt look on his face I knew he was composing a verse. Autolycus was curled at the foot of the anvil, asleep—but with a pantherine grace; he seemed poised for leaping even as he slept.
The Twins were sparring. Idas had told them how dueling was done in his savage land. Enemies tied their left arms together and fought with knives. Castor and Pollux stood on the deck, left arm bound to left arm with a length of anchor chain, striking at each other with imaginary daggers. A point would be scored when one would slice past the other’s guard and touch his body with the edge of his fist. They were hitting as lightly as they could, but with enough force to cave in the ribs of anyone else.
Jason had climbed the mast and was perched on top, his legs wound around the spar. He was swaying in the wind. It was slackening now; he was waiting for it to blow gently enough for him to dive off the mast and be able to overtake the ship without our having to circle back.
Daphnis came to me and said, “I’m doing a sea song, using the cry of the wind, the creak of blocks, the rattle of tackle, the lisp of waters, all that we hear. At sea we tune ourselves to these sounds and are startled when one of them stops or a new sound comes.”
He spoke softly; his sweet murmuring and the occasional plink of the lyre had begun to put me to sleep on my feet. And in that sun-dazed half-sleep I seemed to be entering an old dream again, to be standing at the stump-water ocean watching a tiny visionary ship sail into disaster. I heard again an odd gurgling, rushing sound. My eyes snapped open, and I saw that, sure enough, we were sailing toward two huge boulders that had suddenly appeared. They stood about a quarter of a mile apart. But I remembered what had happened in my vision, and I shouted to Argos to put about. But found that I was shouting into a violent gust.
The wind carried away my voice. We drove straight forward to the passage between the rocks. And I saw to my horror that the dream was coming true: the rocks were beginning to hurtle toward
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