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There are leather curtains along the railing to keep out spray, but they do not come as high as our heads.
    We came to shore to spend the night here, hauling our ship onto the beach. We built fires to warm ourselves and to cook on—there is plenty of driftwood—and I am writing by the light of one now, while everyone else is asleep. This fire was nearly dead, but I have collected more wood. A moment ago one of the sailors woke, thanked me, and went back to sleep.
    There is a tent for Hypereides, the kybernetes, Acetes, and Hegesistratus. If it rains, we will make more from the sail and the battle sail; but now we sleep beside these fires, rolled in our cloaks and huddled together for warmth. When I asked where we were going, Io said to Pactye, where the wall is.
    I woke and saw a woman watching our camp. The new moon was high and bright, so that I could see her quite clearly, standing just beyond the shadows of the pines. Two of Acetes's shieldmen were on guard, but they did not see her, or at least did not pay heed to her. I got up and walked toward her, thinking that she would vanish into the shadows when I came too close, but she did not. I cannot have lain with a woman in a long time; there was a tremor in my loins like the shaking of the sail when we tried to steer too near the wind. There are no women on our ship save for Io.
    This woman was small and grave and very lovely. I greeted her and asked how I might serve her.
    "I am the bride of this tree," she said, and pointed to the tallest pine. "Most who come to my wood sacrifice to me, and I wondered why you—who are so many—did not."
    I thought I understood then that she was the priestess of some rural shrine. I explained that I was not the leader of the men she saw sleeping on the beach, but that I supposed they had not sacrificed because we had no victim.
    "I need not have a lamb or a kid," she told me. "A cake and a little honey will be sufficient."
    I returned to the camp. Tonight the black man, Io, and I ate with the four in the tent, the black man having prepared our food; thus I knew that Hypereides had honey among his stores. I found a pot sealed with beeswax, kneaded some of the honey with meal, water, salt, and sesame, and baked the dough in the embers of the fire. When both sides of the cake were brown, I carried it to her, with the honey and a skin of wine.
    She led me to the foot of the pine, where there was a flat stone. I asked her what I should say when I laid our offerings there. She said, "There are rhymes men use, and others favored by their wives and daughters; but all of them have forgotten the true way, which is to present what is offered without speaking a word."
    I set the cake on the stone, poured a little honey on it, and set down the pot of honey beside it. Opening the wineskin, I poured some on the ground.
    She smiled and sat down before the stone with her back to the bole of the tree, broke off a piece of the cake, dipped it into the honey, and ate it. Bowing, I offered her the skin of wine; she took it from me and drank deeply of the unmixed wine, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and motioned for me to sit across from her.
    I did, believing I knew what would soon come, but unsure how I might bring it about, since the altar stone lay between us. She returned the skin to me, and I swallowed the hot wine.
    "You may speak now," she said. "What is it you wish?"
    A moment before I had known; now I knew only confusion.
    "Fertility for your fields?" She smiled again.
    "Have I fields?" I asked her. "I do not know."
    "Rest, perhaps? We give that as well. And cool shade, but you will not want that now."
    I shook my head and tried to speak.
    "I cannot take you to your fields," she told me, "that lies beyond my power. But I can show them to you, if you like."
    I nodded and sprang up, extending my hand to her. She rose, too, the wineskin upon her shoulder, and took it.
    At once bright sunshine covered the world. The trees, the beach, the