He heard footsteps now, echoing from the far end of the cave. Resisting the urge to pull the sheepskins over his head, Charles tried to see past the glow of the fire. The approaching figure seemed fairly ordinary, rather on the plump side perhaps, carrying a toy oil lamp in one hand. Then with a terrible adjustment of perspective Charles saw that the oil lamp was normal-sized. It was the hand holding the lamp that was enormous. The fellow must be fifteen feet tall. Slowly Charles raised his eyes to the giant’s face, and almost fainted again with the shock.
“Phylax the dog said you were awake,” the giant growled. “So you recognize me. Just say it, okay? Get it over with.”
Charles opened his mouth but no words came out. Diplomacy, that was the ticket. The famous British tact. He swallowed and tried again. “You’re one of—of, uh, the binocularly impaired.”
The monster clapped a huge three-fingered hand to its bald head. “Oh for dumb! I’m a Cyclops, dammit! Haven’t you read the Odyssey?”
“In school,” Charles stuttered. Unpleasant memories of the Homeric epic returned to him. “You’re shepherds—and cannibals!” But a Prince of Wales cannot dive under the covers and scream for mercy, it simply isn’t done. Even if the creature ate him on the spot he had to assert himself. “And I presume you recognize me.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get satellite TV. You should just marry Camilla and get it over with. Show Princess Di where she gets off, dissing you.”
Charles winced, as he always did at his ex’s name. “So perhaps you plan to hold me to ransom, rather than serving me up on a platter, eh?”
“Don’t count on it,” the Cyclops growled. It stared at Charles from under its single shelf-like eyebrow. “You’ll have to make yourself useful somehow.”
“My pleasure.” Charles threw back the sheepskins and got up. It put him at a psychological disadvantage to be in bed, he thought. He found he was wearing a faded red sweatsuit, a nasty change from his usual hand-tailored suits. “Just indicate your wishes,” he said a little bitterly. “I oblige the entire British nation, a few Greek mythical figures shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Don’t gimme that! At least you got a role in life!” The Cyclops picked up something from the mantel and tossed it to Charles. “Here, take these—the floors are way cold, it’s the big hassle of cave life.”
Charles flinched and let them drop—the items looked like feet, a pair of large human feet cut off at the ankles. But when he picked them up, with an effort, they were only sheepskin slippers with the fleece turned in. He stepped into them and followed the Cyclops down the cave. “Oh come,” he said rallyingly, hoping to keep the conversation going. “Don’t Cyclops have a role?”
“Sure, one that’s four thousand years out of date. Homer didn’t do us any favor, you know—we came off as dumb.”
“But scary too.”
“Yeah, dumb and scary and shepherds. Whoopie. What do you think of, when you think of shepherds? What’s the first image that pops into your head?”
It was January, so Charles didn’t need to think very far back. He’d sat through no fewer than fourteen Christmas pageants last month in the course of his duties, a schedule guaranteed to shrivel anyone’s holiday spirit. “Bethlehem,” he said promptly. “While shepherds watch their flocks by night. Away in the manger, no crib for a bed.”
The Cyclops stopped. “Actually, Christmas wouldn’t be a bad gig. Seasonal appearances get you exposure every year. Like the way the leprechauns hijacked March 17th. Nah, what am I saying? One of us tried it a few centuries ago—sneaked into a Nativity fresco with a lamb under his arm. Total fiasco—they painted him over into a Wise Man.” The Cyclops began walking again, shaking his head.
“Let me get this straight,” Charles said. “You Cyclops are searching for a—shall we say a niche in the popular imagination?”
They turned a corner into a smaller, more comfortable cave, furnished with a Greek flokati rug, a battered cafe table and a pair of old bentwood chairs. An old-fashioned wood-fired cookstove was crowded on top with kettles and pots from which delicious smells rose. Charles sat in a bentwood chair. He had skipped lunch, due to seasickness, and now felt distinctly hungry.
Without paying much attention to its work the Cyclops set two plates out, produced cutlery and cloth napkins from a cupboard, and poured out two glasses of red wine, talking all the time. “Damn straight we need a niche. There’s nothing deader than yesterday’s folklore figure, just ask Paul Bunyan. And we’re from the day before yesterday. The trick is to make the transition, you know? Without losing anything essential.”
“And you say other legendary folk have made this jump successfully,” Charles said in the encouraging, interested tone a Royal picks up at his nanny’s knee. “I believe you mentioned leprechauns.”
“You wanna know the real success story? The Nereids. And their cousins, the Dryads and Hamadryads.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They’re the nymphs of oceans and trees and streams. You’ve had dinner with one, I saw it on CNN. Look!”
The Cyclops reached a big coffee-table book down from the cupboard. Charles stared astonished at the glossy dustcover, which had a photo of a huge curving ocean wave, very blue, on the front. On the back the author, a dishy blonde in a Givenchy dress, stood in front of a yacht. “Our Living Waters? But I know her—Constance Bedlington! She’s on the Birthday Honors short list, for her antipollution work!”
“Told you! She and the other Nereids have a lock on the clean water stuff. The Greenpeace people, all those groups that monitor oil spills, and shampoo greased-up sea otters, and save whales, and hug trees—nymphs pack all their governing boards. There’s Nereids running water purification plants, and Dryads lobbying against clear-cutting Amazon rainforests, and Hamadryads lecturing at universities on wastewater treatment policy. It’s enough to make a Cyclops sick with envy.”
Charles shook his head in wonder. “Connie Bedlington, a Nereid. Amazing!” He took another sip of wine.
The Cyclops refilled both glasses. “Okay, chow time.” Charles hid his nervousness as the monster brought a serving dish over from the stove. Suppose it was human meat? But the dish was an appetizer, fried calamari—the crisp little brown rings of squid were plainly visible. Charles picked up his fork. “So you eat squid, huh?” the Cyclops said.
“Of course—and these are scrumptious.”
The Cyclops grinned with pleasure at the compliment. “Lots of folks won’t, the wimps.”
The sight of its sharp shark-teeth almost made Charles knock his glass over. “I’m used to eating all kinds of things,” he said, recovering quickly. “Part of the job, being Prince of Wales. I ate a boiled rat once, in Cameroon.”
“A rat? My god!” The Cyclops shuddered all over. “Better you than me, pal!”
“Only one bite,” Charles said gloomily. “If I’d jibbed, the diplomatic scandal would have been indescribable.” He helped himself to more calamari, to get the memory out of his mouth.
“Don’t fill up on that,” the Cyclops warned. “There’s bouillabaisse to follow, and pigeon pie.”
“No human stew, eh?” Charles drained his glass.
The Cyclops looked embarrassed. “That was Homer’s idea, you know. Trashed our image completely. We could’ve got over being one-eyed—look how the satyrs managed their goat legs. But people don’t like people who eat people, no denying it.”
“What are the satyrs into these days?” Charles asked, fascinated.