Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (50 page)

Herodotus nursed the dregs of wine in his cup, his last, and knew he would be sleeping in a doorway tonight. That prospect rankled. Not a good ending for a proud Greek, who delighted in reading and could write as well as a scribe, for someone who learned to write as a small child, helping his father with his business books and whose father made sure his education was equal to that of an Athenian.

He thought over the poorly told tale he had just heard. His father and friends would often sit of an evening and discuss the lives and times of their Persian overlords. Oh, the stories they told. The truth made a much better tale than what he had just heard—some made-up fire- breathing monster. Even he could do better than that!

A glimmer of inspiration flashed; perhaps that was a way to gain a few coins for a room. Before he lost his courage, he stood and announced he would tell a true tale none had heard before—a dramatic tale about a Persian in Queen Artemisia’s’ court. He had first heard it told by his lover, Panyassis, in one of those long, magical evenings.

He was a natural performer, miming and moving his body to the rhythm of the tale. At the end, the small crowd erupted in a burst of applause, and a shower of coins fell on him, as they called for another “true” story.

Late that night, as he lay on a traveler’s wooden slab of a bed in a windowless room above the tavern, he thought of the great storytelling actors he had seen in Athens, who mostly spoke of myth and gods. He fell asleep pondering the stories of his own time, slowly fading away as times changed and people died. To live, all stories depended on the people who knew them and, in telling, passed them on. Telling stories was the blood line of memory.

The next morning, he traded the fat tavern keeper a story about a man’s search for love—he knew she would like that—for a morning meal of hard bread and olives, and a small cup of heavily watered wine. She laughed heartily at the story of the man’s sexual misadventures, trying to follow a list of strange lovemaking positions. Winking broadly, she suggested they go upstairs and she might try some of them with Hero. He politely declined. Unfortunately, he said, he personally preferred boys (no offense intended) and quickly left.

From there he made his way to Thebes and the disastrous Queens of the Night brothel. That part of his journey was best not told. At least, not to young girls.

So his life of telling tales began. Now he was twenty and scribe to an important Carthaginian Admiral. Anything was better than the brothel.

That night, after the evening meal, Hero found Sabrann and told her how he began telling stories. At least most of what happened, but not all.

Sabrann handed Akmu-en-Swnw a basket full of carefully rolled linen cloths. “Hero told me how he came to be a story teller,” she said. “But he said there are parts he can’t remember.”

Akmu looked up from the herbs he was grinding with a pestle and gave Sabrann a faint smile. “I see he is your friend now. That is the god’s good grace for both of you. You both need their blessings.” He carefully placed more
Cannabis Sativa
leaves in his stone grinding bowl.

“He is a beautiful boy and sometimes strange things happen to those whom beauty favors. Passions of men and women lose all reason around such beauty and many want to keep it for themselves.”

Akmu’s thin voice trailed off into the land of memory.

“I found him lying in the street in the pleasure district of Thebes. His head was bashed in and severely injured. His heartbeat was faint. I remember thinking he would die ... I was sure he would! But I knew who might save him. I took him to my grandfather—an embalmer, not a physician—and we cut open the skull to ease the pressure on his brain. A trepanation it is called. Embalmers know all there is to know about the body, as much, or more even than physicians. It was illegal. Only a physician of the highest rank could do this. We both would have been killed if the authorities found out.”

Sabrann sat motionless at Akmu’s feet as he brushed the crushed leaves into a large vial. He pursed his lips and gave her a secretive look.

“I carried him on a litter back to the temple of Sekhmet, where I was a priest—a physician priest. He healed slowly. But he had no memory at first. He didn’t know his own name. Gradually he remembered little things, but not how the terrible thing had happened. One day, he picked up a stylus and wrote a name on the wax surface of a tablet. HERO. He said there was more, but he could not remember. It was there behind a door in his head, but he kept losing his way to that door.”

“So now he had a name – Hero. It was only much later that he remembered his true name: Herodotus.”

“Was he healed?” Sabrann asked.

“Not yet. I kept him as a scribe at Sekhmet’s temple. He could write beautifully, but he was not completely healed, and it was dangerous for him to wander around without all his powers of the mind available. And, as I said, his face is charming. Who knows? Another accident could happen.” Akmu stood and reached to the ceiling for more dried
Cannabis Sativa
; it made an excellent soothing tea.
Mau
swatted playfully at his hand from the safety of the high shelf.

“When Admiral Himilco asked me to go on this long journey, I worried. The boy walked around talking to anyone and everyone, and believed all they told him! He could not be trusted. He was gullible. And he had little judgment; he hears a story and writes it down as true.”

“Ah, but now I am better,” Hero said, entering Akmu’s small room. He touched his forehead and made a bow of respect to Akmu. He sat down next to Sabrann, gracefully crossing his legs.

“I remember all of the past and then there is a dark space, until the temple and Akmu- en-Swnw. He showed me this in the reflecting mirror in the temple.” He reached up and, parting his hair with his hands, revealed the great scar at the top of his skull. It circled the top of his head like the growth ring of a tree.

Sabrann gasped.

Hero grinned at her. “It does not hurt. I can write and read, but sometimes, even now, I cannot bring my thoughts to order. I cannot tell you one day from the last if I have not written it down.”

Akmu watched him with a keen physician’s eye.

“A wealthy man from Carthage hired me as a scribe for the Admiral. I will receive a great sum and then I can continue on my travels. There is so much to see!”

He was beautiful and very charming. Sabrann watched him with her young girl’s eye. Hero’s lavender scent drifted over her, filling her senses. Her heart opened. A gentle flutter moved through her body. Her skin felt warm and tender. And as she gazed at his handsome face—so gentle—she wished it had been him she took to her body as her first loved one. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought.

A wave of sadness swept over her. Her body was defiled now. No amount of praying to the Matrones or the gods would change that. Fresh anger mingled with her newly born desire. Someday she would make Vodenix pay for that.

Late that night, Sabrann woke with a start. The dank odor of the hold blended with the smell of something else, metallic and deep, with the salt essence of the sea. Her tunic was wet. She stumbled up to the latrine and there, in the blaze of a full moon, looked down and saw the dark trail of blood, running down her thigh in a slow trickle, drop by drop.

She knew what it meant. It marked the beginning of her life as a woman. She was no longer a young girl of the Durotriges.

She was not frightened. Every woman at Mai Dun freely passed on women’s lore and care. If she were home, she would go to the woman’s hut and be secluded for a week, tending her new body in isolation. It was a time of woman’s retreat from life, when she bled, but did not die. The time of bleeding meant she was close to the moon, land of the Otherworld, where all souls dwelled, waiting to enter new lives. She wondered if Akmu’s bitter draught of
Silipium
had saved her from the agony of carrying Vodenix’s child—Akmu said it might—and what unknown soul his evil nature would have planted in her.

Tonight meant more than that. She looked up at the bright night sky. The moon hung yellow and ripe against a dark indigo night flung with stars. It was the moon of Samhain—her own birth night!—she realized with a start. Now she was fifteen and no longer a child. She could be the Durotriges’ ruler.

Bitter memories filled her thoughts. Her childhood was already ended in a blaze of fire and murder at the farm, and later, in pain and brutality in a slave hut in the land of the Veneti. Like a slave, she was branded and already haunted by a prophecy many feared. Sabrann gripped her bronze amulet with the piece of wood from the Matrones, and gave a thin, forlorn cry. She was lost, alone in her new world, in her newly awakened body.

No, she thought. Not totally alone. She had Glas, whom she would protect with a fierce love, like a mother, and Maigrid’s guiding spirit from the Otherworld. It was enough.

It was dusk when Sabrann came on deck to do her nightly washing. She had made herself a makeshift woman’s hut, far up in the bow of the ship, where no one ever went. Thin lines of daylight reached the space in the daytime through the cracks in the deck above. With the waxed writing tablets and Hero’s scraps of papyrus, she was content to practice her writing. Cathbad would be surprised!

Akmu told the Admiral she was sick, and Glas brought her food and water. He slept a little ways off in the hold, guarding her.
Mau
found her in the dark and stayed, curled up against her stomach, keeping her warm. She found no shame in her new body and its needs. Yet somehow, men considered a woman’s bleeding something to be feared. Hidden for almost a week, she would end her retreat tomorrow.

Cautiously, she glanced at the water below, the surface turned lilac with silvery ripples, as a low sun faded. She poured the water from her wash basin over the railing. Stained red from the blooded pieces of linen she wore, it left a small crimson trail in the luminous water.

Suddenly the water churned, turning all the placid color into a frothing wave. A black shark darted into the blood, seeking the remains of some kill.

An omen? Sabrann jumped back, her heart pounding, as waves of fear swept over her, and she quickly ran down to the hold.