The Blood Star (56 page)

They were heading toward the mountains, four
men on horseback, their copper swords glittering in the sun. One of
them had a woman riding in front of him—he had one arm around her
waist and held the reins in the other. At that distance I could not
tell if she was Sicel or Greek, but she was young, hardly more than
a child, and she wailed in uncontrolled despair. It was not very
difficult to imagine what must have happened.

Everyone spoke of brigands—what else should
these be? Whose farm had they raided, and how many had they left
dead? And I could do nothing. I was one man against four, and I
carried nothing but an iron knife hardly fit to peel an apple. It
was foolish even to think of such a thing. If they had chanced so
much as to see me, they would have cut my throat for sport.

What would they do with the girl when they
grew tired of her, sell her into slavery? Was that how it had been
for Selana? For my mother?

I watched and waited, cowering in the
shadows, until they were out of sight, and then cursed the evil of
this world and continued down the road to Naxos.

In accordance with custom, an hour before
dawn I approached the temple of Hestia to accept the sacred fire
from her altar. Then as now, the cult was served entirely by women,
so I gave a silver coin to the priestess. I made sacrifice of wine
and left an offering of bread at the shrine—it has always been my
experience that the gods are pleased with less than are their
votaries. I received three living coals from the goddess’s hearth,
and these I was to carry home in an iron bowl, fueling the fire as
I went. The priestess touched her fingers to my lips in token of
silence and sent me away.

This time I did not stop for food, and I met
no one on the road. When I arrived back I was greeted with a cheer,
for the house was finished and my return meant the hearth fire
could be kindled and the celebration might begin.

The consecration of a house is one of the few
times when men and women mingle freely, and this because the
keeping of the household shrine is peculiarly a woman’s business.
After I had coaxed the sacred fire into a blaze, I gave the iron
bowl to Selana and she emptied it out over the bed of faggots she
had prepared on the hearth.

Selana was now mistress of my house, and it
would be her duty never to let the fire go out—except if someone in
the family should die, when it is extinguished in token of mourning
and, after five days, when the house has been purified, a new fire
is carried home from the temple.

I cannot forget how happy this little ritual
made her. She had become a great favorite among the women, and all
men love a pretty young girl, so everyone teased her until her face
burned as hot as the fire—even Kephalos kissed her and pinched her
backside, calling her our “little mother”—but she was as ecstatic
as any bride.

She belongs now, I thought. She is among her
own people and she has a place in this house which no one
challenges, so of course she is happy.

Such blind fools are perhaps all men.

Outside, the evening was warm and three sheep
were roasting on spits over the trench fire. Everyone had been to
the wine jar, even the women, so everyone was merry. An Achaian
named Teucer entertained us with a comic version of the story of
Heracles and Eurytus, performing all the parts himself in different
voices, and there was much laughter.

It seems a peculiarity of the Greek
temperament that at a certain point in any evening’s entertainment,
usually after everyone’s belly holds at least three cups of wine,
conversation begins to take on a certain quality of abstraction.
Phrases like “to return to first principles” or “to consider the
nature of the thing” or “looking at the matter in its essential
character” begin to turn up, and very quickly one finds oneself in
the midst of a philosophical dispute.

Philosophy—it is a lovely word, native to the
Greek tongue and descriptive of a concept for which, so far as I am
aware, no other has an equivalent.

On that particular evening the discussion
began with various critiques of Teucer’s performance and from that
proceeded to an analysis of the myth and an argument over whether
or not the king had been right to deny Heracles the wife he had won
through his prowess in archery, which in turn led, by a chain of
reasoning I could not hope to reproduce, to a general discussion of
kingship and whether it or oligarchy or even democracy was the most
natural and desirable means by which a state might be governed. One
or two of the poorer farmers favored democracy; the majority,
however, held for the rule of an aristocracy, although even this
was not without its detractors:

“To choose oligarchy over democracy is to
make a great distinction out of a small one,” maintained Teucer,
who I think continued to nurse a sense of injury over a few of the
things which had been said concerning his performance. “Since all
men are selfish, both systems divide men according to their
interests and thus create dissension, which is in all societies the
enemy of good order. Democracy only achieves this end a trifle
faster.”

“But by the same line of reasoning a king,
who is after all a man and thus will promote his own happiness over
that of others, grows divided from his subjects.”

This made Teucer smile and nod and lay a
finger to the side of his nose.

“Ah yes,” he said, “but a king has the power
to enforce his will and thus maintains order, and it is order
rather than happiness which is the aim of government.”

“Someone should inquire of the Sicels whether
they prefer the order which Ducerius has brought to their lives
over such happiness as they might find without him.”

I do not remember who said this, but it had
the effect of demolishing Teucer’s argument with one sentence and
imposing on all of us a profound silence.

“No. No one can prefer kingship under such a
man as Ducerius,” said my friend Epeios, morose as ever. It was a
sentiment with which all concurred, even Teucer.

“Yes, and soon it will be not merely the
Sicels who feel the weight of his hand, for he means to drive us
out if he can.”

“Soon!—hah!” A Boeotian named Cretheos, who
owned a farm near the mountains, laughed scornfully. “Already the
brigands have raided a neighbor of mine, burning his barn and
killing one of his young sons. Ducerius has an army of four hundred
soldiers, so why then does he not drive these thieves and murderers
from his territories? Because, as everyone knows, they pay him a
regular tribute from their spoils. They are an instrument of his
power and would not now be attacking Greeks if he had not given his
approval.”

This too every man present understood to be
the truth.

Yet it was not an evening for gloomy
reflections, and if the world was a mad place we were still all
fine fellows and Greeks in the bargain. There is a saying that the
gods will not permit a man to be unhappy when danger is far away
and the wine cup is at his elbow. This too is the truth, and thus
it was not very long before we had jested our way into a better
temper.

When the sheep were well roasted and the meat
was almost falling of its own weight from the bone, the women took
their knives and cut away great pieces, draping them over plates of
boiled millet so that soon every man’s beard was shining with fat.
Men and women together, we gorged ourselves sober again, packing
our bellies so tight that all drunkenness was squeezed out of us—we
did not dispute then, not only because the Greeks consider it
unseemly to speak of public matters before their wives but because
at such a time a man can only lie on the cool ground gasping for
breath.

But at last we returned again to our wine
jars, and the women entertained us with chanting and dancing such
as one sees among no other people. Then Ganymedes danced again,
this time with greater propriety, and then the women departed to
perform certain rituals over the threshold of my new house which
are their sole province and which it is forbidden for any man to
witness.

Then Kephalos came and sat down beside me,
carrying with him a wine jar from which he refilled my cup.

“I did not notice Selana among the dancers,”
I said, wondering why, when only the instant before I had been
intending to say something else.

“Did you not, My Lord? Then perhaps she was
occupied elsewhere.” Kephalos smiled cryptically, as he was likely
to when he found himself in possession of some secret. “Perhaps her
thoughts are not on dancing but on her new duties as mistress of My
Lord’s house.”

He paused for a moment, appearing to savor
the discomfort this idea caused me, as if I had at last stepped
into a trap against which he had been warning me for years.

“There are many unmarried men here tonight,”
he went on at last. “Doubtless most of them would be receptive to a
reasonable offer, for Greek women are still scarce on this island.
Have you noticed any, My Lord, whom Selana seems particularly to
favor?”

“No. . . no, I have not.”

“Neither have I, so perhaps it shall prove
necessary to provide for her in some other way.”

“I think, however, that Selana’s future can
safely wait a little longer.”

“So you are continually saying, My Lord.” He
leaned toward me to refill my wine cup, which had somehow become
empty again. “Yet she is like a flower whose petals open wider
under each day’s sun. She blooms, and the fragrance is sweet in
every man’s nostrils.”

“Then let her choose the man she wants and he
shall have her,” I snapped, wishing Kephalos would be silent.

Just then Ganymedes approached, staggering
under the burden of the wine fumes that clouded his brain. He lay
down beside Kephalos, who caressed the boy’s tangled, shining hair
with the tips of his fingers, and within a few minutes he was
asleep at his master’s feet, snoring like an ox.

“You had best bring him under control,” I
said, happy to be taking my revenge. “He grows more dissolute and
lazy every day.”

“He is dissolute and lazy by nature,”
Kephalos responded, calmly enough. “He knows neither honesty nor
modesty nor loyalty. He is full of cunning shifts and will
doubtless come to a bad end one day. Yet what am I to do? He is as
he is, and I cannot change him. I can only love him, for I too am
what I am. A man does well to take the world as he finds it, for he
cannot make it or himself any better by pretending to turn aside
from his own wants. Our selfish passions are wiser than we
know.”

We sat together for a long time, and Kephalos
kept refilling my cup until, I must own, I was somewhat flush with
wine.

Then at last, and in accord with custom, my
neighbors came with torches to light my way to my new house. There
was much laughter intermixed with the chanting of hymns, for, even
though my part in it was over, the celebration would continue until
dawn.

It was a fine moment when at last I crossed
over the threshold of my house of stone. Everyone cheered loudly. I
was given an oil lamp to light my way to bed, and Kephalos stepped
forward to close the door behind me.

The fire which only death could quench burned
on the hearth. In the morning Selana would rise to replenish it,
and the continuity of life within these walls would be affirmed.
For generation upon generation, the children of my loins would live
here—thus the shade of Merope had promised. The children of my
loins. . .

I needed to ease my mind in sleep. I walked
through the kitchen to find the bedchamber I had chosen for
myself.

When I opened the door I heard something
stir. I raised the lamp to see—it was Selana, lying under a blanket
on my sleeping mat. She sat up and the blanket slid down to reveal
her breasts.

For a moment neither of us either spoke or
moved. The expression on her face was fierce, as if I were an
intruder to be warned off, but I think it was only that the light
had startled her awake.

“Go to your own bed, Selana,” I said at last.
“What game is this?”

“It is not a game, and I am in my own
bed.”

“Who has decided that?”

“I have, since you would not.”

Suddenly I felt very tired. I knelt down
beside the sleeping mat—I could not fight her any longer. She put
her arms around me and kissed my lips, and I knew I was lost.

“
Build your house of stone and your house
of flesh,”
my mother had said. Selana’s flesh seemed to glow in
the soft light of the lamp. Her mouth was warm against mine, and I
could taste the desire that heated her blood.

“Come into me,” she whispered. “I belong to
no one but you—I have been yours since the first day, and only
because I would have no other. Come into me. Find your rest and the
easement of your body. I have lived only for this moment.”

The weight of her arms pulled me down. I lay
beside her, feeling the whole length of her body against mine. My
hands sought her breasts, and I could almost feel her heart beating
beneath my fingers.

Her legs opened to receive me, and there was
only a short, choking sob of pain as I thrust into her and then a
moan of passion that seemed to come from deep within and filled me
with the most terrible desire, as if it would burn us both to
ashes.

XXIV

That night, amidst the noise of my neighbors’
revelry, I went into Selana many times, and at last, bathed in
sweat, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. When I awoke the next
morning she had gathered up her sandals and left—the smell of
cooking already filled the house.

The hearth fire burned brightly while Selana
heated up a pot of barley with pieces of mutton in it. No one else
seemed to be awake yet. I stepped out through the door and saw that
last night’s guests had all crept away with the dawn. There was no
mist, and on the eastern horizon the sea looked like polished
stone. It would be a fine, warm day. A bird perched just at the
edge of the roof looked down at me with wary curiosity.