unnecessary appeal to the authority of his mother infuriated Charles even more. “Rather drown,” he snapped.
It was an unfortunate choice of words, because the deck shuddered oddly under their feet. Somewhere below alarm bells began frantically ringing. “Quick!” the captain shouted.
Disregarding protocol he leaped on Charles and stuffed the Princely arms into the life jacket. A sailor burst into the room shouting, “She’s sinking!”
“Save the Prince!” the captain yelled. They hustled Charles out of the cabin just in time. The Britannia heeled over with a jerk, flinging all three of them across the deck like dice. Charles was so surprised he made no effort to grab the railing as he hurtled over the side.
The Mediterranean was cold enough to make him gasp, and the dark waves were taller than mountains. A slashing downpour made it difficult for Charles to breathe. Hastily he tightened the straps on his life jacket. He couldn’t see the yacht anywhere, and night was coming on fast.
Charles had no experience of mortal peril before, and didn’t realize how lucky he was to be washed up onto a rocky shore before hypothermia set in. Must be an island, he thought, the seas around Greece are stiff with islands. His legs were so cold he couldn’t stand. It would be undignified however for the Prince of Wales to crawl up the beach. He lay shivering in the surf, knowing that help would come because for him it always had. Unsurprised, he felt large horny hands grasping him, hauling him higher over the shingle. “Dash it, pick me up and carry me!” he said, and fainted.
*
Charles woke slowly. A fire crackled cozily nearby. He was dry and warm, with something wooly tucked right up to his chin. His once-frozen feet rested on an enormous hot-water bottle in a wooly cover. Sleepily he imagined his rescuers, perhaps a pair of elderly Greek spinsters who knitted afghans and hot-water bottle jackets. He curled his toes into the luxurious nap of the bottle cover.
To his exquisite horror the hot-water bottle moved away! With a yell Charles sat bolt upright and heaved the covers off. “My god, it’s a dog!” he cried. The big sheepdog shot him a disgusted look as it got up. With a disdainful all-over shake of its curly brown pelt the beast walked away.
Shivering, Charles huddled back into bed. The covers, he saw, were sheepskins tanned with the wool on. The bed was a crude wooden affair, no more than a box to hold the sheepskins in a heap. It stood at one end of a vast cave. The only light came from the big stone fireplace. Impossible to imagine a pair of nice old ladies knitting beside that fire!
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
