HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods (12 page)

*** ***

“Bring some wine. She’s coming round.” A familiar
warm voice filled my aching head and penetrated the fog in my ears.

“Aesop?” I tried to crack an eye open but a stab
of pain made them water so fiercely, I kept them closed. “Aesop, where am I?”

“Shh, Doricha. You’re safe. We’ve brought you
home.”

“What hap-?” My voice cracked.

If the Swine had succeeded I would know soon
enough. I shifted and found I was sore at the juncture between my legs. I could
not stop the tears that leaked out of my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks.

“Leave us,” Aesop spoke to some unseen servant. He
paused for a moment and I felt his cool, dry hand pass over my brow. I was sore
there too, just above my left temple. I winced.

“You have a nasty bruise over your eye,” Aesop
said. “And your body is scratched and sore. But you are…intact for all
purposes.” He sighed. “Fortunate we were passing and heard your cries.”

“We?”

“Iadmon, Aeschylus, and myself. Iadmon became
worried when his son did not arrive at the assembly.”

“Oh,” I turned my face away in a direction I hoped
was toward the wall. If Aeschylus knew, soon the entire city would know of my
shame. “Where is The Swine now?”
Would he creep upon me in my very bed?

“His father has sent him away to Phrygia.”

Relief, followed swiftly by cold fear washed over
my limbs. “Because of me?”

“Iadmon ordered his son to oversee a shipment of
tablets. But, yes. Because of you.” Aesop touched a cool rag to my eye.

I was glad I had not been raped. While we do not
prize virginity as much as the Greeks, I did not wish to be taken unless I
desired it. And I most definitely did not wish The Swine to take me. What
little I’d experienced of his attentions had left me bruised and sickened.

“Will Iadmon send me away as well? I didn’t do
anything, Aesop. Please, you must tell him!”

“You are to stay here, for now. And that is all I
can say, Doricha.”

It would have to do. I sighed heavily and tried to
rest. As long as The Swine was away, I would not be touched. My body ached but
I leaned over and pulled the
hetaera’s
peplos
from
under my cot. I buried my nose in it to comfort myself with the faint scent and
stroked the soft material until I fell asleep.

The following morning, Iadmon himself came to
visit me. My master had called a healer from the temples of Abdera to serve me,
a mere slave. Iadmon was a good man, a kind man. I tried to remember that in
later months. Kailoise sent me seed cakes for my breakfast, and glared at any
man within ten paces of me, so Iadmon nodded briskly at the physician’s report
and left.

In the months that followed, the household treated
me with kindness. Aesop and I never spoke again of that morning when he’d
kissed me, or of The Swine’s attack, but the rest of the slaves regarded me
with a grudging tolerance they had never shown before.

My body healed, even my ear, which the healer
proclaimed burst. After a week’s time, they poured sweet olive oil in my ear
cavity, and when the golden liquid drained there was no blood and no pain.

Though my bruises faded, my memories did not. I
shied away from dark corners. My body grew thin with anxiety The Swine would
complete his father’s bidding and return to us in Abdera.

Aesop tried to turn my thoughts away from my fears
with increasingly difficult puzzles and indeed my mind grew sharp as my body
waned. I learned much under his tutelage. On more than one occasion, Aesop’s
bushy brow raised and he would laugh like thunder booming down from the mount
in reaction to my words. Things resumed their normal pace.

After a time, I stopped watching the shadows.

But the fear never left me, and I think Aesop knew
it. If he felt sorrow over the cause of it, he never said, but I never went
anywhere without him or one of the other slaves to accompany me. At least not
in those months.

Then my first woman’s blood began.

I woke after a feverish night where I’d dreamt
Dionysus had stepped off his stone platform in the temple and caught me by the
wrists. He bade me dance for him, and I did gladly, until my legs ached and my
throat was dry and parched. My body was hot, much too hot, and I quivered under
the touch of my lord. The heat ignited my innards like flame, consuming my strength
with it as it burned.

When I begged my lord for rest, he turned his face
to me, and his face was that of The Swine. The lithe, marble hands of Dionysus
became bird’s claws that raked my flesh to crimson ribbons.

“Dance for me, Rufus,” he ordered and pulled me
stumbling along, until I collapsed on the floor in a shivering heap.

I awoke in a puddle of sweat and sodden,
blood-rich bed linens. My chiton was half-dried to my legs and the air was
thick with the meaty odor of spoiled flesh.

My first woman’s blood.

By moonlight, I climbed out of my cot, washed
myself off as best I could, and changed into a fresh chiton. I tore linen into
strips and tied them around my waist to secure them under my crotch like an
infant’s swaddling. Then I carried my linens out to the rear courtyard to wash.

My body felt wobbly and out of joint and my
stomach churned and ached from my nightmare and the pains cramping my womb. My
mother had spoken of a woman’s courses before we fled to the temple, so I knew
well what the blood signified. I could bear children. I was not afraid, but
still I wept as I scrubbed the stains out of my old clothing and my bed linens.
If only my beautiful mother were here to guide me.

At last, I was a woman.

*** ***

Some weeks later, after a long day spent shuttling
between the agora and the weaving room, Kailoise sent me to the courtyard
gardens to collect herbs for a Lydian meat stew. The dusk air was heavy with
humidity and the clean scent of parsley. I was tired after a long day, and did
not attend to my surroundings. So it was that I bundled up the plants and
stuffed them into my basket, with little note what lie just beyond the shadow
of the pillars.

“Night becomes you, Rufus.” It was the voice of my
dream.

My blood ran cold and my teeth chattered in
terror. He should not be here. We’d had no warning! He
could
not
be….I felt a hysterical scream bubbling up my throat as Young Iadmon stepped
from behind a shadowed portico.

“You…here?” I croaked. I held my herb basket
before me like a shield.

“And where else should I be, but in the house of
my father?” He reached out to finger a lock of my hair and I flinched from his
touch.

The Swine’s brows drew together and he slapped the
basket away. It hit the stones with a muffled thunk. My throat closed in fear
and I swallowed hard.

“Ah, little Rufus. There is only one place I
desire to be tonight. Between those lovely pink thighs of yours. Or have you
had your fill of the Fabulist? Perhaps even my honorable father, as well. They
both seem to champion you to extraordinary lengths.” He turned and spat. “They
sent me away to Phrygia on a god-forsaken mission for some crumbling tablets of
stone, when I had a much more a precious treasure waiting for me here.”

I stumbled backwards to a column and gripped it to
steady myself.

Think. This is simply another puzzle.

He delighted in torturing me with unwelcome
attention. What would he do if I were to turn the tables? What if I feigned
interest in his attentions? He was scarce a man and interested only in that he
should not take. Well, I was his for the taking in any case; what did it matter
if I failed? Perhaps, with this ruse, I could buy some time until someone
discovered I was missing.

“I have been awaiting your return.” I leaned back
against the column in what I hoped was an alluring manner, but in truth the
stone lent strength to my quaking knees.

The Swine were wary and more than a little
puzzled. His eyes darted back and forth across the courtyard and he wet his
lips with his tongue before speaking, as if his mouth had suddenly gone dry.

“You are thinner than I recall. Are you not so
much a woman, then?”

“I have begun my courses.” I tossed my hair. “I am
fertile now and ready to bear you many sons.” I wanted to retch at the thought,
but I forced a smile to my lips.

He curled his lip and wrinkled his nose. I felt a
flash of hope.

“I wish no sons from you, Rufus. Zeus knows they
would all be born into slavery and marked by your accursed red hair.” He gave
my long locks a sharp tug. I winced.

I have never been gifted in theatrical arts. When
he pushed me further against the column, I forgot all my plans to distract him
and screamed.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked and flailed with all
my meager strength against his smooth muscular arms. My ploy to deter him had
failed, but I would not go silently. He would beat me no matter what I did. So
I screamed, as if the hound of Hades, Cerberus, was nipping at my throat.

I screamed high and loud, and prayed that someone
would come.

His hand bound my wrists. Birds twittered in alarm
and took flight, roused from their nested slumber. The Swine sought to quiet
me. He clamped his hand over my mouth. I shook my head and bit at him like a
rabid dog.

Oh yes
,
I thought.
I
may be a dog of another coat, but this bitch will not go down without a fight
.
I growled in fury, and prepared to strike, as I had that Greek long ago in the
midnight forest. I shouted like Boreas, God of Thunder, and….

Then, Young Iadmon drew his fist back and struck
me, as if I were a man.

The blow stunned me and I fell to the limestone
pavers, like my basket a few moments before, with the same muffled thud.

I tasted blood and spat. Moonlight gleamed on a bit
of pearl in the bloody spew.

My tooth.

My head and jaw raged in pain. I reeled from the
blow, dizzy and unable to gain my feet, and without even the sense to crawl
away. I cried out as my tongue probed the tender spot on the side of my mouth,
where a tooth used to be. Young Iadmon struck me again. I rolled and used the
nearby column to drag myself to my feet.

The Swine pounced on me. I toppled over backwards.
My elbows hit the stones. I tried to knee him, but he twisted away and struck
me again. My head rebounded off the pavers and the night went completely black,
save for the lights whirling behind my eyes. I felt his hands tugging at my
chiton, rucking it up above my hips. Then my legs were pried apart.

“I will have you,” he claimed.

“No-o,” I slurred. I could not open my left eye. My
ears felt thick and stuffed with wool.

He crushed me with his weight. I felt a piercing
pain between my legs. I could not breathe, I could not scream. The whole of his
body invaded me in a way I never thought to be broached. Again and again, he
thrust inside me. Each motion struck lightning pain through my legs and back.

I sobbed. I cursed. I cried words that even I did
not understand. I beat at him with my fists until he wrapped his hands around
my throat and began to squeeze, gently at first, but more and more until I
thought I would die. I prayed for it.

Dionysus
, I pleaded.
If it be
your will. Let this end. Let me come home.

I saw the face of my mother and father in the
darkness fogging my vision.

“Mother,” I whispered and reached to her.

A thousand needles pricked my flesh. My parents
smiled at me. I ceased to feel the raw thrusting pressure between my legs. I
smiled back to them. My father stretched out his strong hands to me. I ceased
to feel anything at all.

“Doricha,” he whispered. But my mother shook her
head.

“No, Doricha.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “No.”

Tears leaked from my eyes and the world rushed
back to me with the mighty roar of a familiar voice.

“Doricha!
No
!
”

I turned my head and saw a pair of sandaled feet
running towards me on the pavers. The Swine still hovered over me, his eyes
shining like pools of ebon blood in the moonlight. He groaned and convulsed
between my legs, oblivious to all. His fingers dug into my shoulders.

“Doricha!” It was Aesop.

He hefted a limestone paver. Our eyes locked, his
expression dark and terrible.

Then, he brought the stone down on top of Young
Iadmon’s head.

The Swine groaned and slumped to the side,
withdrawing himself from my body as he went. I winced as his member trailed
warm fluids across my thigh.

Aesop stared down at me. His face was crumpled. I
had never seen such fear, such grief, etched in the fine lines surrounding his
eyes. His hands twitched as if he wished to pick me up off the cold, pitted
courtyard. A sudden breeze blew the scent of parsley and blood to my nostrils.

“It is over,” I said. My voice sounded strange and
far away.

Aesop looked at the unmoving body of young Iadmon
and back at me. “Not yet, Little Flower.” He turned and shouted over his
shoulder for help. There was a sound of sandals slapping on the cobbles.

And overhead, somewhere unseen, a bird cried three
times and flew away into the night.

I was tended by the same healer who’d come before.

The old man clucked his tongue at me, but said
nothing. When he finished, I saw Aesop pay him far more than his time was
worth, no doubt to keep his mouth sealed.

My bruises faded after a few weeks. I was sore and
felt chilled for days. Kailoise gave me a union of herbs, oil, and wine to
leech the ill humors from my body, but it did me little good. My breasts were
so sore and tender, I wondered if The Swine had bitten them. Even the soft wool
of my chiton was nigh unbearable.

The Swine lived. They told me how the slaves
carted his unconscious body to the temple hospital, the
asklepeia
,
named for Asclepius, their god of healing. Iadmon’s face had turned as grey as
Aesop’s eyes when they reported the night’s disturbance. He did not seem
surprised, though. And this time, he did not visit me.

After the fifth week, I found myself dizzy and off
balance, while going about my duties. I thought perhaps the rape had addled my
brain. But, on the third morning of vomiting my morning broth, Aesop told me
the news.

I was with child.

The punishment of the gods could be no worse!

How well I remembered my joy at my brother’s
impending birth, and the pain and death of my mother. Despair and fear gripped
me tighter than The Swine’s claws had held me against my will to bear his seed.

I avoided the courtyard. I could not stand to see
the spot where I’d been taken. The very sight of the colonnade made me sick,
though it could have been the accursed child within me. The household tolerated
my restless, sleepless nights of wandering and my days of frantic activity. I
could not bear to be alone, yet I could not stand the company of anyone, save
Aesop.

He, alone, attended to my wretchedness.

I prayed for death in the days and nights that
followed. A servant was sent to watch over me during the night hours when I was
wont to wander off into the shadows. Even Aesop could not comfort me.

He did his best. He spoke of duty and accepting
one’s fate in life. He spoke of far off lands and even posed riddles which I
never bothered to answer. I could not fathom my own lot in life, what did I
care about another man’s fate?

In three month’s time, my belly began to round
ever so slightly despite my inability to keep anything down. The chills in my
body continued to plague me. My cheeks and forehead flamed. Smudges lined my
eyes and made me look a harpy. When I went to gather the water, I tossed the
bucket in at my reflection. The other slaves began to whisper and draw symbols
in the air when I passed. How much I hated them for their hostility and their
fear. How much I understood it.

I hated myself.

“You should pray to Hera, mother of the gods, to
give you a fine son,” one of the women advised me, after the umpteenth time of
sicking up my meal.
A fine son?
This cursed creature would be the
epitome of his father. What would any goddess find blessed about it?

My own lovely red-gold hair grew listless and fell
out in hanks when they bathed me. I had no desire to bathe myself. I had no
desire to do anything other than weep and vomit, or so it seemed.

I paced the halls in a filthy chiton with the
hetaera’s
peplos
wrapped around me. It was the only thing that brought me
any measure of comfort. I lost myself in dreams of the past where my mother
stroked my hair and told me that one day the world would know my name.

At times, I swore she spoke to me.

Another month passed and I grew weaker. The babe
seemed to feed off my infirmity and drew strength from every tear I shed. Strange
rapid flutters, like butterfly wings in my abdomen, kept me awake at night, and
then ceased, which was worse still.

My body was not my own. I housed a child of hate
and revulsion. I was convinced it would bear the same brutality as its father. What
would he do to me when the child was born? I longed to be rid of it, to return
to my former self. My only salvation was the knowledge that I would not need to
raise the child, myself, for it would be sold or cast off as soon as it quit my
womb.

Perhaps then, I thought, I could convince Iadmon
to send me home. Surely there was someone back in Perperek who would take me
in, wretched and cursed as I was.

One day, as I tended to Iadmon’s grooming, I
thought to ask him. Instead, he shared news that his son would recover, but had
lost the use of his right arm. I thought of the blows that hand had struck
against me and could not muster compassion for him. When my master saw my
frigid demeanor, he sent me from the room, and so I could not beg my freedom,
after all.

I went to my alcove, heedless of the work still to
be done. After I allowed Kailoise to brush out my hair, I curled up in the
peplos
.
Later, Aesop visited, and tried to comfort me with another story, but I closed
my eyes and he went away. I offered a prayer to the gods that I might never
wake.

Dionysus, hear my plea
,
I
began. Then I realized with cold clarity, that my lord was not master here in
Abdera. The Greeks had their own gods. Perhaps my assault was simply their
will.

I dredged up memories of attending the family
religious ceremonies and slave gossip, culling faceless names to my lips. Then,
I slipped onto my knees on the cold floor, ignoring the bite of the stone into
my knees and prayed.

Great Zeus
,
I began. For I
would not pray to Hera, the mother goddess!
Hear me Poseidon or
Aphrodite. Show mercy! Show mercy….

I prayed until my head ached and my throat was
dry. I prayed until my knees were stiff and my back cramped from touching my
forehead to the stones. Then I crept back onto my cot, feeling somewhat better,
and slept.

That night, I dreamed.

*** ***

I stood on the rocky beach of a barren black sea. Three
birds circled and veered before a setting sun turned their feathers to
rose-gold--an owl, a sparrow, and a gull. They cried as the wind blew my
red-gold hair into a tangled web. I did not recognize this place, but I felt
certain if I turned away I would find the house of Iadmon behind me.

How I wished to be free. Free of my life in
Abdera, and yes, free of the child in my womb.

“
Whom will you choose?
”
cried the
wind.
Choose
.

I shaded my eyes with my hand and stared up at the
blazing sky. I don’t know why the voice did not startle me.

“
Choose
,”
the wind commanded me.

Three birds etched in silhouette against the sky. Three,
an ill-luck number. I fixed my eyes to one of them, the smallest, and pointed a
finger at its rose-gold plumage. Perhaps the smallest of the three would take
pity on me.

The other two cried once and veered away on the
wind.

The smallest, the sparrow, swooped low over me.

“How will you pay, Little Flower?” This time a
woman’s voice echoed over the crash and thunder of the churning waves. Foam
danced on the tide and beckoned me deeper into the cold, dark sea.

I stretched my hands out over the agate waters. A
shining pearl glimmered in my palm.

The sparrow called once overhead.

Then, it was not a pearl, but my lost tooth
knocked free during the attack. I let it slip from my hand into the agate
waters and tasted salt on my lips.

“It is done,” said the voice. I thought I saw a
woman striding across the sea. Her lips were curved in a sly smile. She wore a
girdle of bright gold that matched her hair and carried a small bronze mirror. Her
eyes were as blue as the sea and she wore a pearl circlet over her unbound
hair. A sparrow perched upon her finger.

“You chose well, Beauty. Only
I
would
show compassion.”

Her words rang in my ears like a hundred brass
bells, yet her lips did not move.

She pointed her mirror at me. I felt my insides
twist as if I needed desperately to void my bowels. I shifted, and crouched on
the rocky beach, pulling the
peplos
tighter around my shoulders. The
pain in my gut grew. I rocked back and forth on my heels.

The woman knelt gracefully on the waves and the
sparrow lifted from her finger, and flew away. She cupped a hand to the water
below her.

Taking the salt water into her mouth, she stood
and spat it at me. The water trickled over my face and body like warm rain. Droplets
dribbled between my eyes and down my neck. I bowed my head and let the water
drip off my nose and chin.

“It is done,” the woman repeated.

And the sea she spat became a flood that washed me
away from Abdera.

*** ***

When I woke with a start, it was not yet morning.

My stomach still churned and twisted. When I stood
on trembling legs, the pain was worse. My skin felt prickly and I burned and
froze by turns. Something was not right.

I stumbled into the hall, and tripped over the
slave sent to watch me for the evening. He blinked sleepily and rubbed his foot
before standing.

“Where is Aesop?” I asked. Another pain. I
grimaced and pressed my hand to my stomach. To my great relief my monitor
hurried down the hall, his chiton flapping behind him.

In minutes, Aesop arrived. I was shaking and I
felt something wet and warm trickling down the inside of my thigh. It reminded
me of the rain from my dream. Aesop frowned at me and ordered the slave to get Kailoise
and the healer. Then he gripped my arm and led me back into my chamber.

“What have you done, Doricha?” he said. “What have
you done?” His face was ashen.

“I did nothing. It was a dream,” I cried. “Only a
dream.”

Aesop shook his head and helped me back onto my
cot. “This is not a dream.”

He stayed with me. That is something I shall never
forget, whatever else happened later. Aesop stayed.

He bathed my forehead, held my hand when the pain
became unbearable, and suffered my tears. But he turned his head when the
female slaves came and sopped the blood from between my legs.

In time, the healer arrived with a pair of women. They
peeped under the thin linen sheet and shook their heads. The pair whispered
something to the healer, who left the room. When he had gone, they glared at
Aesop. I suppose they blamed him for my condition.

“I will fetch her some wine,” Aesop mumbled. He
left then in haste.

The women carried a brass chamber pot to my
bedside. They bade me rise, telling me to squat as if I needed to void my
bowels. The cramps were so bad, I thought I would vomit, but I didn’t. I hiked
up my stained chiton. My head swam. I forced my shaking legs to support me and
squatted over the pot.

As soon as I was in place, I felt a warm rush of
clotted blood exit my body. Blood splashed up over the sides of the pot and onto
my calves.

“What is happening to me?” I moaned as another
swell of pain overtook me.

“Hush, girl.” They forced me into a deeper crouch.
“It’s only the babe you lose.”

I’d never been so grateful to be ill.

When I finished releasing the spawn of hatred from
my womb, they cleaned and changed me into fresh clothing. My cot was stripped
while I sat idly on a stool, my hands folded over the subsiding cramps in my
abdomen.

“It was a girl, most likely. The gods do not look
favorably on a girl child. Rest now,” ordered one of the women. “You should be
well enough for mild tasks by the morrow.” They helped me to lie back on the
cot.

“And do not trouble yourself,” said the other,
covering me with a fresh linen. “You are young still and will bear many sons. Keep
to yourself for a few weeks. You don’t want to fill your womb until you’ve
healed.”

I covered my eyes with my arm, to shut out the
sight of them. If they thought to bring me comfort with their words, they were
mistaken. I was glad to be rid of it.

“Take the pot away,” I said. “I do not grieve. I
never wish to bear a child.”

The women were silent as they left my chamber. A
sudden breeze sifted into my window, bringing the scent of salt water. I lifted
my arm off my head and stared at the moon sinking in a cold, dark sky.

“It is done, Little Flower.” I heard the golden
woman’s voice in my head. A sparrow trilled outside my window, unusual after
dark. “But how you will pay.”

*** ***

I was assigned menial tasks, to prevent more
bleeding. Even a slave may not stop laboring for her keep, not mater the cause.
Kailoise more than made up for my lack of industry. She tended me as well as
any mother, and scolded those she deemed unfit. By three week’s time, a slave
came to fetch me away from my simple chores. As he led me to the chamber, I
heard Aesop’s voice rebound off the stone walls.

“And what should I have done? Left her to be
murdered by your son? Master, surely you know I struck him for his own good as much
as for the well-being of your slave!”

“He was simply asserting his male dominance.” It
was Iadmon, my master. He sounded annoyed. I heard the clank of brass on
crockery. “It happens often enough in every house and brothel in Greece.”

“There are laws against such, as you well know.” There
was a pregnant pause. “You are still a visitor to these lands, master. I know
not what the Abderans would do, if the truth was known about the
hetaerae
.”

“Yes, yes. You have always been a faithful servant
of my interests, Aesop.”.Iadmon sighed. “But there has been much talk about
you, of late. Talk of the strength of your words. Of the degree of freedoms I
afford you. You face a greater danger than my son ever will. I do not know if I
can protect you from them, if they come for you. You are a slave and forbidden
to strike any man.” Iadmon sounded weary and old. “If they know of him, they
know of you and your actions, as well.”