HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods (8 page)

Where to strike first, to save my mother and my
unborn brother? The back of her head? Would she drop the knife, then?

A commotion at the entrance halted Aidne’s hands
as surely as my fist would have.

“What goes here?” Merikos’ voice rang with
disbelief.

Behind him, Suvra and several white robed
ktístai
hovered in the hall. Merikos’ eyes were filled with rage at the sight of us. My
mother, wailing and bloody, sitting upright on the pallet, Aidne with the knife
poised in her hand, and myself hovering behind her with my fists clenched and
raised.

“Why have we been summoned?” he demanded. My heart
lifted at the tone of his magical voice. He would protect us; he could aid my
mother!

“It is Sita.” Aidne said. She lifted her chin and
stared defiantly at Merikos. “The child has not turned and Sita’s waters have
burst. We must take the child, and now, or they will both surely die.”

She did not mention her poisoned wine. Merikos’
face turned ashen. Behind him the sacred priests began whispering.

Merikos knelt beside my mother, murmuring in his
gentle way, and soon my mother stopped her wild cries and fell silent. Her body
still racked from the labors of birthing, she let him stroke the hair from her
face. “Gentle, now,” he said. “Gentle.”

“Leave me, Merikos. She has us all,” my mother
slurred. Her head drooped to her chest and she struggled to raise it again.

“Wh-what’s wrong with her?” Merikos’ voice
cracked.

“She has been drugged!” I exclaimed, finally
finding my lost courage. “I heard them talking. Aidne put herbs in her wine and
it’s killing her.” I pointed a finger at the woman still poised with a knife
suspended over my precious brother.

“How
dare
you spread such lies,
girl!” Aidne barked. “It was your own hand that poisoned your mother. Not
mine!” Everyone stared at me.

“I did not,” I said. “How could I?”

“There. In your own cup. You forced these women to
pour wine from your cup into your mother. A full cup, they said. Do you deny
it?”

My legs started to tremble. I could not deny it. “I…I
did not…I thought only to ease her pain.”

“Everyone knows the perils of ingesting too much
pennyroyal,” Aidne spat.

Merikos looked horrified, full of disbelief. “You
cannot expect us to believe the girl poisoned her own mother. What reason would
she have for such a god-cursed act?” His voice was strained.

And Aidne smiled, a slow, mocking twist carving
the flesh of her cheeks into a feral curve.

“What reason,
indeed
, Merikos? Can
you think of none?”

Merikos was silent. He frowned at Aidne and then
glanced between her and me. It was as if the entire balance of the world rested
on that one moment.

Aidne stood and placed the knife on the stool. “This
girl has entered into an unsanctioned alliance with the priest Merikos. I have
heard it from one who heard it from the girl’s own lips.”

“That is a lie!” Merikos thundered.

“I do not lie,” Suvra called. She pushed her way
into the already crowded room. “I heard Doricha tell him she loved him, and
later, he put his hands on her. Here.” She fondled her breast.

“The girl as much as admitted to me that Merikos
has been her lover.” Aidne lied. “He could not have the one, so he took the
other.” Merikos squinted at me and shook his head.

“You,” he whispered. His face was white as death. “You
said this about me?”

“No!” I said. “I would never!” My heart raged.
I
did not do this thing
.

“There are other witnesses if you wish to call
them before you, if my words are not enough. But the mother and child will both
die before all is made plain.” Aidne rocked back on her heels, confident in the
power of her voice, of her commanding presence over us all in that tiny, blood
dark room. Merikos’ eyes darted back and forth between the priests and Aidne
and I saw his fists clench.

But I could not refute the twisted words Aidne
spewed like venom into an already gaping wound. She was a powerful priestess. I
was only an inductee and I had no proof. For once, I was innocent, and yet I
could do nothing. Of all the betrayals I’ve experienced in my life, I think
this one to be the most painful.

“Sita,” he began. He stopped and eyed the faces in
the chamber, and those of the priests in the hallway. Then, shamefaced and red,
Merikos rose and stepped to the tunnel. His eyes were no longer kind, but hard
and angry, solidified by the thought I had ruined him.

“I’m sorry, Sita,” he said. He spared one last
glance for my mother who shook her head at him and turned her face to the wall.
“Do as you must. I am finished here.”

And he fled.

Just as before, he let someone take my mother from
him. He was nothing more than a coward. The world spun. I would like to say I
fainted, and I did not witness the murder of my family, but I cannot. They held
me fast between them. The sacred priests speared me with black glances, while
Aidne laid the blade to my mother’s womb.

“The gods take you, Sita. Stop fighting me and let
me ease your pain.” Aidne said.

My mother gagged and one of the women held a basin
for her to vomit into. Several of the priests edged closer to the hall.

My mother’s arms and legs began to shake uncontrollably
and she shook her head. “I will never stop fighting, Aidne.”

“Then let me save your son, if I can.”

I do not know what I wanted, only that I prayed
for my mother to live, as my father did not. I wanted her to smile at me and
whisper of my future as a Bacchae whilst we dandled my brother on her knees. I
wanted so much to live in happiness without the stain of my guilt touching every
secret desire of my soul.

“You wished him to die,” my mother whispered. Aidne
said nothing, but her eyes glittered. “But you will save him now, for me?”

Aidne considered for a moment. “There need be only
one sacrifice,” she said.

My mother nodded and closed her eyes.

“No!” I cried and struggled to go to her. They let
me drop down beside the pallet. “Do not let them!”

My mother’s eyes opened and she gazed at me. There
was a terrible blue tinge around her lips, and her sour breath was labored and
weak.

“Whist, Dori. I must do this thing. I am already
lost.” Her breath was labored. “You must be strong. For him and for me. Let me
live on in his eyes. Be strong.” And then she closed her eyes again and nodded
at Aidne.

“Stay,” I begged her. It no longer mattered that
my brother should be born alive. She could bear other sons, even Merikos’, I
thought graciously. I would allow anything if only she should live.

“My daughter.” She opened her eyes and reached up
to finger a tendril of my hair. “So much like the two hearts that bore you. Remind
him of me.” Her hand dropped to the pallet.

“No, Mamita,” I sobbed. “No.”

“Do it, now, Aidne.” My mother squeezed her eyes
shut.

I gripped her hand while Aidne cut her apart,
slicing her terrible blade along the painted line. I stayed, though my mother
screamed and lashed between the grip of the two women. Aidne enjoyed it, I
think, though at one point I saw a single tear slide down her cheek. Perhaps it
was only perspiration.

When she had gutted my mother with the precision
of a sailor, she drew forth my brother from the ruptured womb. For the child
was, indeed a son as prophesied. My mother raised her head in the final moments
to peer over the bleeding mound of her split stomach. She saw the cord, purple
and slippery with blood, wrapped tight around his neck. He was not breathing. He
never did.

“Ahhh…no.” My mother cried. “Delus. Forgive me.” She
turned to look at Aidne, who stared at her with something akin to pity and
triumph.

Mother fell back against the pallet and closed her
eyes, her lovely face turned towards me. The moment I had looked forward to
with anticipation and excitement was cut short in one fell swoop by the hand of
a jealous priestess. My mother bled to death. She joined my brother and my
father in the Underworld, and I was left to carry on here without them.

I could do nothing but tremble and weep.

At some point Aidne shook herself visibly and rose
to wash and leave. “Toss that abomination on the hillsides for the wolves.” She
jerked her chin at my brother’s tiny body.

“What shall we do with the girl?” someone asked.

I was amazed that anyone remembered me. Everyone
I’d ever loved was dead and Merikos had abandoned me to Aidne’s revenge.

“She is unclean to us. Unfit for the gods. Take
her to the slave pits,” Aidne said. “Let her spend her days serving a lesser
master and keep her unworthiness far from our sacred grounds.”

And so, they did.

I didn’t think they would do it.

I spent the night racked with sobs so fierce that
my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen shut by the time they came to fetch
me. Aidne had dosed my mother with pennyroyal to make her lose the baby, and my
own initiation cup--which I’d thought to ease my mother’s pain--had killed her.
If only I had been clever enough to spot the truths behind the temple’s lies. I
tore out hanks of hair and wished the pain could dull the agony of my soul. My actions
left me with only a sore, matted scalp and a speared heart.

After the morning broth, which I refused, a pair
of temple guards positioned my right hand over my left and bound them with
backs together, so my wrists were tethered and my healing tattoos did not show.

My mind was numb with grief and fear. My entire
family was horribly, wrongfully murdered. I feared to face the grim light of
morning outside the temple mountain, as a slave and alone.

I saw Mara. Her face blanched as white as the
marble effigy of Dionysus when they led me out of the Throat of Orpheus. Her
hand twitched as if to take mine when I passed, but a stern whisper from one of
the Bacchae stopped her.

I willed her to remember me kindly despite what
the others might say. I knew my name would be blackened from the temple.

Terrible thoughts dogged my heavy footsteps on the
path to slavery. I was sold to a dark haired trader named Cyrus, garnered
outside the temple. We traveled south along with three other slaves--an elderly
Samothraki and two young males, scarcely out of boyhood, who never spoke. They
stank of fear and resignation.

Cyrus was a harsh and unforgiving man. Grecian
blood tainted his features and stained his skin a sallow shade of amber. He
never asked what crimes I’d committed to be ousted from the temple, nor did he
see to my basic needs.

We stopped so infrequently throughout the next
three days that I was forced to wet myself. Urine burned my legs and soaked the
bottom of my chiton. Cyrus puffed his lips in annoyance. Shame burned my
cheeks. I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. The acrid stench burned my
nose and sunlight seared my eyes. It was no more than I deserved.

Cyrus’ damnable rope dragged me ever onward. We
journeyed over rocky paths that bruised my heels. I trudged under a blinding
hot sun until my shoulders turned to red fire and blistered in fierce, white
pustules.

I was a stupid girl. If I had been more cautious,
more vigilant, I would have seen the signs that pointed to this end. Aidne’s
words, the odd scent lingering around her like a mantle of cloth. Herbs that
made my nose tingle and my eyes burn--herbs that when ingested by some could be
as poisonous as a serpent’s kiss.

“Eat.” Cyrus tossed me an overripe onion and a
strip of dried meat. “We reach Abdera soon.” I made no move to catch them with
my bound hands, but his aim was good. I let them fall from my fingers into the
dirt.

Cyrus took one menacing step towards me.

“Here, I will help.” The old Samothraki slave
gathered them both and poked the dried meat at my chapped lips. Cyrus’ eyes
narrowed but he moved away.

“I don’t want it.” I brushed the meat away. My
shoulders ached from the tether rope and I stank from urine, sweat and my
mother’s birthing blood.

“The trader gains
nothing
if you
perish on the road to Abdera,” the old Samothraki whispered. His eyes darted
back to Cyrus. “He will feed you and shelter you only until you are sold. You
must eat if you wish to escape your bonds.”

I surprised him with a bitter laugh. “I do not
wish to escape, old man. I wish to die.”

His eyes widened. “There are quicker ways to die
than starvation. Cyrus will not exercise that force, for all that you might
wish him to, girl. You are no use to him dead. Eat now. You’ll find death soon
enough.”

But I vowed I would not eat. Not then, and not the
rest of our journey out of the mountains. I prayed daily for death until at
last I gave up voicing my pleas to the gods. When Cyrus held me down and forced
water between my cracked and bleeding lips, I gave up the gods altogether. The
days were a blur of piercing azure skies and rocky terrain. They passed in a
haze of despair and desperation that never gave me respite from my guilty
conscience.

I was utterly alone.

Once Cyrus came to me at night and laid on top of
me, stinking of sour wine and murmuring filth and curses into my ears. I fought
at him with my bound hands. He pinched my nipple so hard I thought it would
burst. I remembered how Mara and I had giggled about taking a lover. So, this
was to be my first.

Tears leaked from my eyes into my hair and my
cracked, bleeding lips moved in a soundless wail. When the old Samothraki
remarked into the evening air that I would fetch a better price with my
maidenhood intact, Cyrus rose from my motionless, stiff body and dealt the old
man a blow that should have killed him. The trader let me be afterwards.

For the old Samothraki’s sake, I managed to
swallow a bit of dried meat with water that morning.

*** ***

We marched for almost a week. Seven hundred
stades
of blistering trek over snow-covered mountain passes and ragged countryside
until at last, bleeding and emaciated, we arrived in the port city of Abdera.

After months of frigid earthy air in the temple
depths, the lure of the sea breeze in Abdera was a welcome change from the
desperate cold of my despair. Abdera, the city founded by Herakles after his
companion, Abderus, was slain by Diomedes’ mare. It was larger than any city I
had seen. Not even Perperek compared to its size and bustle. Our pace quickened
as we wound our way down the mountains to the city.

We passed the main gates with little trouble. The
cacophony was deafening. Abdera was arranged in a maze of paved streets and
stone walls, much like the fortress of Perperek, and segregated patches of land
into property. The main roads and alleyways led down towards the large open air
marketplace, the
agora
.

Birds screeched and wheeled over the mobs clogging
the roadway. Scents of humanity, exotic spices and perfumes, and filth of
beasts assaulted my nose. My empty stomach churned, but I could not stop
gaping. That is, until Cyrus laughed unkindly at my open mouth and tugged
harder on the ropes binding my wrists together.

Then I remembered the purpose in my journey and I
closed my mouth with a snap.

“The slave market will be nearer the water,” said
the old Samothraki. “On the far side of the
agora
.”

I shrugged. What did I care on which side of the
marketplace it was? My family was dead. I wanted to join them.

I’d violated my father’s dying wish and I’d lost
my family and my heart forever.

We trudged through the side streets, dodging other
beasts and travelers. Around the
agora
on all sides stood several
temples, military headquarters, the city records office and a prison—like the
fortress of Perperek but on a much grander scale. The inner walls were
decorated with murals depicting the city’s history. As we passed the law
courts, I heard the crowds shouting at the unpopular speakers at the morning’s
assembly.

Market stalls constructed of timber, rope, and
cloth or straw canopies afforded some shade from the oppressive heat. Slaves
carried baskets of strange fish, eels, and mussels through the crowds. They
stacked jugs of wine, olive oil, and vinegar for sale and hung twisted ropes of
onions and garlic from wooden pegs. Slave boys darted through the crowded
market place, avoiding the curses and cuffs of citizens and house slaves alike.

One winding, lopsided avenue held the stalls of
the
metoikoi
, the tradesmen. The poor also labored in workshops
beside the
metoikoi
,
crafting leather sandals, dyeing
cloth and other tasks, in hopes of learning a trade or gaining enough coin to
feed their families. The two worked in such harmony that it was difficult to
tell the difference between
metoikoi
and those too destitute to
claim citizenship.

I was so preoccupied with the stalls that Cyrus
jerked my lead hard and I fell to my knees into a puddle by the tanner. A
wealthy woman squawked angrily at me, her brass and copper adornments jangling,
and sidestepped to avoid my splash. Cyrus slapped at my ears. I scrambled to my
feet to avoid another blow. My scraped knees began to flush and burn from the
lye in the scummy puddle.

“
Move
.” Cyrus muttered. “This way.”

Slaves are common in Thrace and Greece. Even some
of the families in my village had housed slaves, though I’d scarce took notice
of them. And now I would be sold to some family, to cook food, mend clothing,
and tend their children. My life would no longer be my own. Oh, how my father
would be crushed!

When we reached the slave pits, the sheer numbers
of people for sale shocked me. Most slaves were barbarians captured by pirates
or soldiers. Others were the children of slaves or had been abandoned and
rescued by slavers like Cyrus, who roamed the rugged hillsides looking for
souls to ply his trade. I had no idea there would be so many of us.

Live free
, my father wished for me
with his last breath. And I’d failed him, as I’d failed my mother and unborn
brother.

Hot tears blinded me as Cyrus maneuvered us
towards the pits. I bowed my head, thinking to hide my face behind the curtain
of my filthy hair.

“Sssst, girl,” the old Samothraki hissed. “Cease
your tears else it will go worse for you. Wipe your face. Pray for a kind
master.”

“Pray? To whom?” I moaned. What god would save me from
the Hell I had created in my naivety?

My ears still rang from Cyrus’ blow. My reddened
knees felt as if a hundred stinging insects crawled on my flesh. I stank. I
hurt. I could not face this humiliation, not without someone to guide my steps.
What I wouldn’t do for my near-sister to comfort me, now. But Mara was far
away, hidden in a nest of traitorous vipers.

Cyrus pulled me to a long table, where they wrote
my name and a price on potshard. The shard had a hole through it and a leather
lace to suspend it from my neck.

Thracian girl
, I read.
One
hundred drachmas
.

One hundred drachmas? So much? Cyrus was a madman.
The scribe raised his brows at Cyrus’ price, but wrote it just the same. I felt
his dark eyes on me when he finished and handed the shard to Cyrus.

Cyrus gathered up the shard for the old Samothraki
and set a price on the two boys, to be sold as a pair. Even together, their
price was not half of my own.

“This way,” Cyrus ordered. He tugged my lead
toward the rocky stretch of beach beyond the slave stockyard. The old
Samothraki shrugged his shoulders at me. Apparently this was not typical.

“Where are you taking me?” I dared to ask.

Cyrus gave me a dark look and wrinkled his nose. Then
we took a short detour and went around the backsides of what appeared to be
private homes. The walls were low and coated in white plaster that reflected
the sun’s rays. They were crumbling in a few areas from neglect, or the sea
salt in the air, I guessed, and some of the small gardens were overgrown. Still
a few had courtyards that seemed tidy enough.

When he found the gate he was looking for, Cyrus
whistled sharp and high. The shrill sound nearly split my ears. A woman poked
her head out the rear door of the dwelling.

She frowned. “What do you want?”

“She needs a bath and a fresh chiton,” said Cyrus.
“Nothing fine. How much?”

The woman’s eyes shifted toward me. She shrugged
in indifference and named a price that made Cyrus tighten his hands on my lead.
As they haggled back and forth, the old Samothraki edged closer to me.

“You will fetch a higher price when your beauty no
longer hides behind your filth. Be thankful you have such a clever trader to
bargain on your behalf.”

Oh, yes. Cyrus was clever.

“He has only spared me the worst of his
attentions,” I whispered back. “It will not save me from being sold against my
will.”

The Samothraki tightened his lips at my words, but
his irritation did not make them any less true. Coin was coin for a slave
trader.

A tub of unheated water was brought. I was given a
cake of soap and made to strip in the rear yard, with Cyrus leering at me all
the while. My skin grew pink both from shame and the frigid water. By the time
I’d finished bathing, there was no part of me that Cyrus, or anyone else who
happened by, did not see. I dressed quickly in a simple coarse chiton that was
too large for me by a hand span. The draped neckline was so loose; it persisted
in slipping off one or the other of my shoulders. I cringed when Cyrus’ eyes
took on a very keen shine.

The woman came out and helped me rinse and dress
my hair. Her eyes flickered at my tattooed hands and she darted a glance at
Cyrus. When she picked up an oil ewer, he nodded and she rubbed olive oil
through my hair. Then she jerked my gleaming tresses into a sloppy braid. My
scalp stung from her ungentle ministrations, but at least I was clean.

Cyrus tossed a coin to the woman who caught it
with a quick hand. She harrumphed her way back into the dwelling and I was led
once more towards the slave stocks, with the Samothraki and the two silent boys
creeping along behind us.

*** ***

My first impression of the slave stocks was
riotous noise. The clamor of the morning crowds was deafening, even more
overwhelming than the stench of humanity pressed together in a sweating,
perfumed throng.

Cyrus slipped the shards over our necks and led us
to a large wooden platform. Slaves of every race imaginable were led in a
single file line across the platform. Buyers shouted, inspected, and threw down
coins before the most desirable of candidates.