HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods (2 page)

Father slipped once, twice in the muck on the
forest floor, reeling a little out of control, as the blood of Dionysus sang in
his veins. I wanted to call to him, but no sound came from my useless mouth. Instead,
I shivered and hid my face in the shadows and underbrush, clutching the rough
trunk of the nearest tree until my palms were red and marked with blood. A
clang of metal and one of the Perperek soldiers fell heavily at my feet. I
thought his name was Borlok. His eyes wide and unblinking.

I think I screamed.

I must have, for my father turned suddenly and
fixed his gaze on me. He mouthed my name,
Doricha
, though I could
not hear it over the din of the battle, the clang of metal weapons on metal
armor, the squish of blades striking flesh, and the hoarse screams of those
that fought and those that fell. He never saw the swords float out of the inky
night and flash behind his back, brandished by unseen hands.

Stark terror drove a blade into my heart and I
stood and pointed to the area just beyond his familiar broad shoulders. My
father’s brows drew together for the briefest of seconds before he turned. His
topknot swung like a stinging whip, dark with sweat and blood. He brought up
his spear and deflected the first blow. His muscles bunched underneath his taut
skin. Like a fierce bull, he planted both of his bare hands on the haft of his
sarisa
and forced the Greeks back.

A flash of silver danced at my father’s side, and
a bloody black line appeared on the grime of his pale tunic. He staggered,
clutching his abdomen. He leapt out of reach and spared another tortured glance
in my direction.

Then the Greeks spotted me.

My father beat the haft of his
sarisa
against his armor, trying to draw their attention, but to no avail. Moonlight
streamed through the trees and gleamed off the surface of the raiders’ polished
bronze helmets. One lifted an arm and pointed in my direction. He shouted an
unintelligible word. Time seemed to stop.

Blood pounded in my ears. I felt as if my hands
were cupped around my eyes; I could see neither left nor right, only ahead,
where my father struggled to reach me before the Grecian soldiers.

“Dori!” My father roared. “No!” His leather
sandals churned up the stinking, blood-damp forest floor. He slashed wildly at
the soldier in front of him. The Greek crumpled to the ground. Father vaulted
the fallen soldier and jabbed at the unprotected hip of the next.

“
Papita
,” I whispered.

Tears stung the back of my eyes and spilled onto
my cheeks. My feet were rooted to the soil. I was so afraid. I could not make
them move. My hand made a small gesture unbidden, reaching out to him as if he
could indeed make it to me in time to save us both. For a moment, I thought he
would.

More invaders fell, Grecian pigs slaughtered by my
father’s fearsome rage. And then, the Greeks reached my hiding place. The world
rushed back to me with such force that I was knocked to my knees. Time resumed
its deadly march.

I peered up from my crouched position to see a
pair of cold, dark eyes boring into my skull. The five invaders shouldered each
other, jockeying for position before my father plowed into them from the side,
like a storm from the sea. One sidestepped the blow—the same who had spotted
me. He said something to me that I could not understand, grabbed my bare arm
and began to drag me from the clearing.

“Doricha,” my father called after me as they drew
him further away. His voice was tinged with a helpless timbre. “Doricha, fight!
Don’t let them take you!”

I tried to twist my arm free and run. My captor
stopped and slapped me, open handed across my left cheek. He laughed as my
father continued to fight the remaining pack, desperate to retrieve me. The
blood from my father’s side soaked his tunic, but he called curses to them in
challenge. The Greek was diverted.

He halted at what he judged a safe distance,
removed his helmet, and tucked it under the arm that bound me to him. With a
nasty grin at me, he wiped his pale face on the back of his hand and turned
back to watch my father’s torment. Moonlight gleamed off the dark oiled hair
curled against his white forehead.

I had to find a way to free myself. I resolved to
fight him, though I’d little chance against an armed Grecian soldier. At full
age, we Thracians are half again a Greek’s height and breadth but as scarce
more than a child, I was no match for him. Or so he thought.

Suddenly, I spied the bucket I took to gather
water, lying unnoticed in the bracken. By stretching out my toes, I was able to
hook the long handle around my ankle. I bobbled, unbalanced on one foot, and
looped the rough wooden handle into my sweating hand.

My captor took no notice, transfixed by his
companions’ efforts to subdue my father. I glanced at Father once more, as the
night’s glow surrounded his sweat drenched skin. His face, crowned by the
glorious, shining topknot of red-gold, his broad lips curled in a grimace, and
the flash of his
sarisa
. At that moment he seemed more splendid
than even Dionysus himself. I prayed to be as brave and strong as he.

Wielding the bucket like Boreas, the harbinger of
storms, I jerked my wrist free, and screamed my father’s war chant.

“Live free!” I aimed for the back of the Greek’s
head.

He turned in surprise. I swallowed hard, closed my
eyes, and swung the heavy wooden bucket with all my strength.

As fortune would have it, my captor leaned over to
recapture my wrist just as the wide wooden brim of the bucket clouted him on
the side of the temple. The heavy wooden edge boomed like thunder against his
skull. His ivory skin split beneath the force, and his dark eyes grew vague. He
staggered and blood dripped from the wound to taint his cheeks. Then it seemed
the left side of his body ceased to function, for his hand went as nerveless as
a palsied elder.

Again, I hefted the bucket and prepared to strike,
but there was no need. On the second step, my captor fell to the ground with a
most puzzled expression and ceased to move again. I think I shall never forget
his death stare.

I was free! And yet my joy was short-lived.

The two remaining Grecian soldiers, unaware of
their companion’s plight, had gained the upper hand. I turned, just in time to
see them plunge both their blades deep into my father’s abdomen.

Father’s agate eyes locked on mine, strange and
terrible, and he gripped a sword pommel and tried to pull it from his body. His
lips quivered as his hands scrabbled at the blade thrust through his organs.

“Run,” he said in the tongue of my forefathers. “Run,
Dori! Don’t look back.” He coughed and bloody spittle ran from the side of his
lips, so much like the crimson wine before. Though I was more than twenty paces
away, I could hear his voice as clearly as if we were still snuggled together
on the hearth.

The Grecian soldiers taunted him. “The Thracian dog
begs for mercy.”

They laughed at his pain, and yanked their blades
free. My father sank to his knees in the red-running earth. The coppery scent
of his life’s blood clogged my nostrils. The sea wind moaned like a wounded
animal, and rage such as I’d never known scorched the sorrow in my heart.

I would kill them, too. The cleansing flame spread
through my arms and legs and filled me with vengeance. I picked up the sword of
my dead captor and took one bold step forward out of the shadows.

My father’s head shook, the feeble motion begging
me without words to stop. Gasping for breath, he clutched his hands over the
gaping wounds, trying to hold his flesh together long enough to save me still.

“Run.” His chest heaved like a small bird I’d
captured once in my palms. “Live free.”

He might have said more, but coughing overtook
him. Horror struck me. My father lay dying in a pool of his own blood. I’d
killed a man. No one would protect me from the cruel whims of the gods. No one,
except myself.
Run
, he’d said. With that thought entrenched in my
mind, I dropped the cursed Greek sword and fled the clearing, as silent as a
wraith, though my throat ached to wail my sorrow to the skies.

Run
.

I stumbled and plunged through the black forest.

I could scarce see two steps in front of me. Surrounded
by the drowning sounds of battle, my arms flailed. I heard Grecian soldiers in
the whispers of every blowing branch and leaf. I feared for my mother and our
peaceful village. Was I running to another Grecian trap? And, oh, my father was
dead!

Live
.

I don’t know which direction I fled. Somewhere in
the darkness, a wolf howled. I clenched my jaw to keep from joining in. Silence
descended, heavy and strange to my ears after the screams of the dying. Great
gasping sobs racked my chest, and my legs burned from the steep pitch of the
land, but I did not stop. I could not. My father, oh, my beloved father!

Panic and desperation beat at me with icy claws,
until I heard a familiar sound to the south. Sounds of the tide. The fortress
was near the shoreline, and our village lay directly between the forest and
Perperek. I covered my mouth with my hands and focused on the call of rousing
sea birds to guide me home.

And all the while, my father’s war chant became my
mantra.

Live free.

Live free
.

It was his dying wish for me. And so, I vowed, I
would.

After the initial fear of capture subsided, I
followed the tide until at last, I stumbled across the worn earthen path that
led to home. The sun was just beginning to break. Pale, silver fingers of light
infiltrated the familiar terrain. I shivered and my knees turned to water.

What would I say to my mother? What
could
I say? My mind turned again and again to the night’s devastation.

I had been foolish and it had led my father to his
death. Oh, if only I had heeded his warning! Though my eyes were open, I saw
only my father sinking to his knees, the hilt of a Grecian blade that protruded
from his gut and spilled his steaming blood and innards to the earth.

A tight knot hardened in the pit of my stomach and
then uncoiled with such fury I dropped to the earth myself and vomited. Icy,
shivering sweat bloomed on my body. My hands and hair were rusted from old
blood, whether mine or that of the man I had killed, I do not know. I rolled to
the side and curled my knees to my chest, praying I would die before my mother
should discover the awful truth.

Some many moments later, I realized Bendis, Mother
Huntress, would not take me to her bosom. I reasoned my actions had made me
unclean in the eyes of the gods, and so I rose, stiff and aching, to continue.

Where else could I go?

At the top of the next rise, our home materialized
out of the low-lying mist. I pictured my mother, still drowsing in the
aftermath of spent passion. Or perhaps worse, she could be setting the fire,
awaiting me and preparing for my father’s victorious return. If not for me, he
would return to us. I was sure of it. I bit down hard on a dingy knuckle and
stifled the cry that again threatened to erupt from my raw, aching throat.

My father was by all accounts the most
accomplished warrior in Perperek. Though we were poor, his exploits had
afforded him the luxury of a beautiful Bacchae as a wife instead of one of the
sturdy village women who populated this territory. Without him, I did not know
how we would survive. That is, if the Greeks did not infiltrate our village and
enslave our people. For if my father, the mightiest of men, had fallen so had
the others. I’d escaped, but perhaps only to be recaptured as a slave.

Live free
, my father had commanded
with his last breath.

Could I? Our hut was deathly silent as I
approached and no cook fire burned. I trembled, fearing the worst.

“Doricha!” My mother, who never moved without
unconscious grace, rushed out of our hut. Her face was ashen. “Gods be praised,
you’ve escaped! You must hurry.”

I wanted to speak. My throat closed, and I felt
tears prick my swollen eyes.

“Doricha.” She enveloped me in a fragrant embrace
of herbs and sorrow. “Something has gone amiss. None of the men returned last
night and the Greeks could be upon us at any minute. Come now, quickly.” Her
light eyes darted about the hillside, as she shooed me towards our hut.

I froze in my tracks just outside the threshold,
the door my father would never again walk through, because of my willful
disobedience.

“Whist, Dori, did you not hear me?” My mother
gripped me, quick and brutal and shook me hard enough to set my teeth to
clattering.

“
Mamita
…”

My voice was a pitiful sob, even to my own ears. But
what right did I have for mercy? My mother turned me around then, and her eyes
loomed large and terrible in her divine face. She knelt before me.

“Hear me, Doricha. None of the men returned.
None
.
Do you understand?”

I nodded and tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Then you know what that means for us. The
fortress has fallen. The others have already fled into the mountains. I waited
for you. Hurry now. I’ve already gathered our belongings.”

I was grateful then, so very grateful that she was
efficient in her fear. The Greeks would be upon us at any moment. She had
always been first and foremost a Bacchae, but the morning’s bloody sun revealed
my mother’s true feelings to me. As I bent to gather my meager pack from the
hearth, a darker blot crossed my mind. She didn’t know I was the cause of her
sorrow. I vowed then never to tell her.

We padded stealthily into the unknown hills to the
southwest, beyond the familiar rises of fields where I’d gathered herbs and
played solitary games.

My mother was so afraid of capture that she never
sought to question my haggard and filthy appearance. I hadn’t even had time to
wash the evidence of my betrayal from my palms. I rubbed the dried blood from
my skin as if I could erase the memories along with my guilt.

Storm season was upon us. I sought to lose myself
in the raging wind as we made our escape into the hills. My mother’s frigid
hand tugged incessantly at mine throughout the day, and she urged me in
whispers to hurry. Her concern began to mock me. What would she do if she knew
the awful truth? The mountain air scarred my cheeks with taloned claws that
could not reach the desperate secret buried in my stomach. It gnawed at me with
every step, every murmur of my mother’s voice.

When we reached the broken, jagged cliffs of the
Rhodopes, I pulled away from her steadying hand and stood at the edge of the
rocky mountain path. My beloved homeland stretched green and gold far into the
distance. I wavered there. It would be easy to slip off here, into oblivion.

“Doricha?” My mother beckoned to me with her eyes
wide and full of fear. “Come away, Daughter.”

I did not want to go to her. I wanted to be away
from all of this--away from the dying screams of men and crimson fog clouding
my vision. But I had not the courage to hurl myself over the welcoming heights
of the cliffs. Hot bubbling acids ate at my stomach. I could taste them in the
back of my throat as I rejected salvation and returned to the path of my
mother’s footfalls.

A day and night, a night and day, we walked on in
silence with only the birds to note our progress. When she offered me a slice
of bread and goat cheese, I refused. A crease formed between her delicate
arching brows, but she said nothing and let me walk on in hunger and guilty
silence.

The hills were treacherous and I stumbled and
slipped on the scree, until my mother bade me clutch onto her skirts as we
climbed. Sharp rocks pierced the soles of my sandals and the wind tore my
stained woolen chiton to ragged shreds and still we journeyed towards the
setting sun. I took no food, only a little watered wine, until my mother’s
concern over me outgrew her sorrow at losing her heart mate.

She knelt before me in the dust and pressed her
face against my chest.

“Please, Doricha. You must eat. For my sake, if
not your own.” Her light eyes were awash with tears. “I cannot lose you, too.”

I could not stand to see her humbled. I choked
down the hard stale bread and smelly cheese to ease her mind, though it stuck
in my throat. We headed onward, I knew, to the one place that might offer us
some protection-- the temple of the Bacchae.

As we labored on beneath the third slowly dying
sun, I followed my mother without question. At some point, we must have passed
out of immediate danger, because the set of her shoulders relaxed. Perhaps the
proximity of the temple reassured her. I was too sick and exhausted to care. We
continued, it seemed, for eternity though in truth the night’s horror had yet
to fade in my mind.

When at last I thought I could go no further and
it seemed I would march into the gates of Hades for my sins, we reached the
torch-lit sanctuary. It was dusk, a time when the veils between worlds are
drawn back and fearful things tread upon mortal soil. The cliffs, once solid
and eternal rock, grew filmy before my weary eyes, and I fancied the air grew
thin and sharp, as if in anticipation as we drew near.

The Temple to Dionysus was hidden deep within a
natural cavern of the Rhodopes Mountains. The entrance was a gaping black hole
that seemed to swallow every trace of daylight in its inky maw. Torches lit the
narrow path of crushed stone. Thracian artists had enhanced the rugged beauty
of the entrance with enormous carvings of the gods in various stages of repose
or pursuit. Beyond the columned entry, Dionysus lay on a verdant hillside
attended by the blue-inked Bacchae. Feeling unclean, I took no comfort from the
depictions.

I stared at the exquisite illustration and then at
my mother. She noted my gaze and patted my shoulder.

“It’s what you were born for, Dori. To live in
grace and beauty as a Bacchae.”

I turned again to the carved friezes adorning the
chamber entrance. Here, a Bacchae fed grapes to a satyr. There, Dionysus
danced, ringed by five women, whilst others played musical instruments. Each
was a vision of beauty, grace and gaiety. I swallowed hard. Each bore a pattern
of cobalt across the backs of their hands. After the grisly images in the night
forest, I felt as if I’d entered the blessed afterworld.

These women were the epitome of perfection. Oh,
how I longed to be one of them! With every fiber in my being I wished to find
myself worthy. But I was all elbows and knees and stringy hair. My limbs were
too long, my nose too snub, and my teeth too large. I did not know how to play
music or dance. And worse, I was unclean--both outside and in, for I had led my
father to his doom.

I closed my eyes, shutting out the beautiful
images. In my mind’s eye, I saw them turning away from me, shielding their pure
faces from the stain of my presence.

“I will never be one of them,” I muttered.

“Whist, daughter. You mustn’t say such things.”

A glimmer of hope pierced the haze of despair in
my heart. If I were a Bacchae, I could beg my lord Dionysus to watch over my
father’s shade. I could earn back my honor.

I let myself be consoled by my mother, who shooed
away my failings with a pale, slim hand. Deafening booms resounded off the
craggy cliffs, like peals of thunder, too evenly spaced. My body shuddered with
each beat. I imagined them as the voice-blood of the Bacchae, mocking me for my
impurity.

“Come,” my mother said and led me to the gods’
door.

*** ***

It is a strange thing what guilt, youth, and
starvation can do to one’s perception of truth. Smothering darkness enveloped
my mother and me. As the heat of the day passed from our bodies, we entered the
temple. The path sloped downward, deep into the mountain. Chill bumps grew
along my bared arms and legs. The crunch of our sandaled feet on the stone path
mingled with the whoosh and sizzle of unseen torches in the earth-scented air
ahead of us.

“This is the Throat of Orpheus,” my mother
whispered as dim torchlight penetrated the darkness. “It is a sacred place, one
of the last places he walked, before the Maenads slaughtered him. Dionysus, our
lord, accepted the death of Orpheus as a sacrifice for his people. Pass these
walls and pray for joy to return again to your heart.”

“Will no one come to greet us?” I asked.

“Whist, Dori. You heard them sound the gongs, did
you not?” But her nostrils were white and pinched.

So, not thunder, as I had thought before, but the
hammerings of mortal men upon a polished disc of bronze. I wondered what
portent the alarm held for us, but feared to ask. We traversed the long hall in
silence, my mother praying and myself, eyes downcast, feigning penitence for I
was certain the priests would know of my unworthiness. I scurried beside her
and shrank from the serpentine shadows that seemed to follow my every movement.

The sudden appearance of a robed figure in the
tunnel startled me. A priest materialized out of the shadows like a wraith,
tall and sinuous. I skidded to a stop to avoid colliding with his pale robed
legs. His eyes were deeply set and obscured by the shadow of his brows, but
they flickered once like burning pitch over me before settling on my mother.

“Greetings, Sita,” he said after an uncomfortable
length of time.

“May the gods find favor on you,” replied my
mother. She bowed her head.

“You’ve brought the girl for induction.” It was
not a question.

“Please, we...I must speak with the Branch Order. Will
you take us?”

He considered her for a moment longer before
answering. “As you wish.”

My mother exhaled audibly, and her icy fingers
gripped my hand as we stepped from Orpheus’ Throat into the temple’s embrace.

My first impression was that I had shrunk in
stature. The temple had an enormous central hall painstakingly carved out of
the natural cavern. Pale granite columns supported the entire cavern, jutting
like wolf’s teeth from the polished stone floor. The air felt moist and cool
upon my skin, as if I walked inside a tomb. Our footsteps echoed as we crossed
the stone floor, and I could hear the far off whistle of an
avlos
being played. The priest shortened his stride, to accommodate my pace. It made
me only a little less afraid.

The ceiling lay hidden in the black beyond the
torchlight, so high I could not see it no matter how I strained my weary eyes. The
sharp acrid stench of burning pitch stung my nostrils. Hundreds of torches shed
their smoky illumination on the adorned stone walls. Painted grapevines
blossomed in earthy red, ochre, and black, resplendent in their full harvest
beauty. Stag and hare cavorted on mountain hillsides beyond. I followed their
painted forms to aerial depictions of birds soaring toward the sea. They
reminded me of my seaside village, now gone, so I turned away.

Attendants, all with the close-cropped, curling
locks of the
ktístai
, swept the floors with rush bundled brooms. Their
pallid robes flowed with the same unconscious grace that marked my mother and
the priest we followed. The
ktístai
took pride in their work,
completing each task with meticulous care. So will mortal man ever toil to make
life upon the earth worthy of the gods’ notice.