The old woman watched the strangers approach down the dusty lane that ended at the open gates of her farmhouse. A tall boy with sandy blonde hair that hung matted and grimy down to his shoulders carried a girl in his arms. Three smaller children, two girls and a boy, clustered around his legs. The smallest girl had a hold of the hem of the tall boys faded blue tunic. They were all dirty, barefoot, ragged. But the clothing of the girls had a hint of past elegance. The material appeared to be soft linen, perhaps even silk. The old woman had seen silk, long ago. And the two smaller girls, remarkably similar in appearance, perhaps even twins under all the dirt, wore fine leather belts around their tiny waists, golden tassels swaying with the steady northeast breeze. She went to the gate to meet her unexpected visitors.
"Hello ma’am." Alexander said.
The old woman nodded in reply.
"Uh, I’m… I’m looking for work, any work, ma’am," the youth said. "I’ll do anything you need doing. I’m not afraid to work." He glanced down at Philip. "My brother is a hard worker too."
The old woman did not move or reply, but examined each child carefully. Dull, hollow, hungry eyes stared back at her. Finally her gaze fixed on Alexander.
"How old are you, boy?" she asked simply.
"Sixteen," he answered immediately.
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. There was a broad shouldered huskiness to the frame that made sixteen possible from a distance. But up close the smooth, hairless cheeks and cracking sound of the voice said otherwise. She shrugged.
"Sorry, don’t have work for liars," she said as she turned away.
Alexander’s face fell, desperation and humiliation crowding each other for room.
"Ma’am uh…," he swallowed, rubbed his nose, let out a breath, "I’ll…I’ll be fourteen in the fall."
The old woman turned back, pale blue eyes frank and penetrating as she sized up the youth. He met her gaze steadily.
"This is a farm, boy. There’s always plenty of work," she said. She glanced at the children. "Enough to keep all of you working and then some. But I have no patience with slackers. You work here, you work hard. Work or move on."
"We’re workers, ma’am," Alexander answered, face brightening. "Hard workers."
"Maybe so," the woman replied, "but I’m a poor widow. There’s no money here. I can’t pay you a single dinar."
Alexander’s face started to fall.
"But," the old woman continued, "I have a couple of empty rooms with decent beds, and I find people work best with a full stomach. If you want to work for a decent bed and a full stomach…"
"Yes ma’am," Alexander interrupted, a smile on his lips for the first time in a very long time, so long it felt strange on his face, "yes, we want too."
All right then," the old woman nodded. "No use wasting good daylight. There’s work to do. First," she pointed across the courtyard to an empty doorway, "there’s water and oil in there. I want those filthy clothes off and in a pile so they can be washed. And I want all of you clean. You stink to high heaven. No one’s going to be sleeping in one of my good beds smelling like that. When you’re done I want you all back out here in the courtyard. Food will be waiting. After you eat the little ones will go to bed." She looked at Alexander. "You and I will get the clothes washed and everything cleaned up. Any questions?"
"Uh…no…no ma’am," Alexander stammered, taken aback by the suddenness of it all.
"Then why are you still standing there?" the old woman said. "I told you, I won’t tolerate slackers."
"No ma’am" Alexander replied. He hurried across the courtyard, before the woman could change her mind, Philip, Beatrice and Serif scrambling to keep up, chickens flapping and clucking in protest as they scattered out of the way. The old woman watched the children disappear into the room. She looked over her small flock as they settled again after being disturbed. A smile slowly spread across her face.
"Well ladies," she said. "I think some chicken stew would sit well on those empty bellies. Do I have any volunteers?"
The hens kept quietly scratching and pecking. The old woman chuckled to herself.
"Funny, I never do."
Alexander discovered the old woman’s name was Ester. To his immense relief she asked nothing about where he and the children came from, or how they had come to be at her gate hungry, filthy and alone. He had plotted out an elaborate story to explain everything, but his heart told him the old woman would only laugh at his lies. Besides, he did not want to lie to her. He was a warrior and lying was a sign of weakness. He introduced the Princess’s as Bet, Sary and If, their mother’s pet names for them. They answered to the names naturally and unsuspiciously. He admonished the children constantly in private however never to use their real names around Ester, or anyone, even each other. They were names best forgotten.
One week became two, then three. Alexander spent long days in the fields or the orchard or the grove, weeding, pruning. Sometimes Ester worked beside him. They hardly spoke. He did not begrudge the silence. It was not just that there was little he could say that would not give away secrets he did not want to reveal, but his own nature had always been one of reticence. What did his father always laughingly say about him when he was small? That he had conversations with his pet turtle and the turtle did most of the talking. The silence between them however was never oppressive or uncomfortable. Sometimes Ester sang unfamiliar little tunes in a pleasant alto voice. Other times she hummed a strange lilting refrain that reminded him of the chants of priests in a Procession honoring the god Zeus. And there was something about Ester that was vaguely familiar. It was like being in the presence of the Princess’s mother again, Queen Amidal. Not that there was the slightest physical similarity between this small old woman and the tall, graceful, beautiful Amidal. But in the demeanor, the eyes, the way she carried herself, the quiet but unquestioned authority she exerted, there was an echo of a Queen. He noted that the Princess’s certainly felt it, even if they did not understand it. They buzzed around Ester like bees around a flower, eager to please, eager to lap up her every drop of affection, a caressed cheek, a patted shoulder, an approving smile. With each passing week of feeding chickens and collecting eggs and sweeping rooms, all under Ester’s watchful eye, the haunted anxiety lessened in their faces.
And the tense anxiety in Alexander eased as well. The old woman had lifted a boulder from his shoulders and carried it as if it were a pebble. He stopped thinking about the dark emptiness of the future. There was no future. There was just a comfortable bed to share with Philip, clean clothes, a full stomach, a day’s work to do. That was enough. To think about anything else was needlessly painful, and he consciously refused to do it. But he did, after a while, begin to feel a youthful curiosity about the silent benefactor who took them in so completely yet showed so little interest in finding out who they were. He noted the family shrine was a half sized statue of Artemis placed on a pedestal in a grotto carved out of the north wall. Every morning at first light he lay in bed and watched out the door of his room as Ester knelt in front of the statue and burned a bit of incense placed in a bowl on the pedestal while swaying and mumbling a prayer to herself. And in her room, when he glanced in one day self consciously while she was out with the children feeding the hogs leftover dinner, were a dozen icons of Artemis, hung on the wall, standing on the small table by the bed, on top of the carved hardwood chest by the door. He could not remember ever seeing such reverence for a god outside of a priest or priestess’ home. He was not religious himself, like his father, who scoffed at gods and goddess’. ‘A strong back, an alert mind, a courageous heart, a sharp blade. That will get you through, son’ he always said, ‘the rest is bug-a-boo for the weak and dimwitted.’ It seemed strange when he considered it, that Artemis should be the goddess of this old farm woman. He knew Artemis was Goddess of the Hunt and of Chastity and Virtue. That often young maidens prayed and sacrificed to her to quell their desires and preserve their virginity till marriage. But Ester was hardly a hunter. And she said she was a widow, a widow with children if the toys she produced from a musty storage room for the Princess’s and Philip to play with was any indication. Why would she have reverence for the Goddess of Chastity? It was a puzzle he thought about sometimes while out in the fields hoeing.
Alexander peeked into Ester’s room. The old woman was sitting in front of the small loom by her bed patiently working on a blanket. The old blanket used by the girls was frayed and had a hole. It would not due when the weather turned chilly. She had walked the three leagues into Amphipolis to purchase the wool for it just the day before. He pulled his head back and paced nervously several times out of sight. It had been bothering him all afternoon and now that the children were in bed he thought he should come and say something. Something reassuring so this old woman, whom he had come to like and depend on so much, did not think the wrong thing. After coming in from the orchard for lunch he had stopped by his room to drop off his sandals. He was going to feed the pigs in the afternoon and he did not want them mucked up. He immediately noticed that the bed had been stripped, the blankets piled in a corner to be washed. His heart leapt to his throat. He went and pulled up the corner of the straw stuffed mattress. His sheathed sword was still where he had placed it the second night he had slept there, after stealthily retrieving it from its hiding place by the apple tree. But the inscription on the sheath was face up, not face down. She had found it, picked it up, examined it. She said nothing at lunch, but she knew. What did she think? Was she afraid of him now? Did she worry that she had taken in a thug, a thief, a murderer? All afternoon it had bothered him more and more. Now, for the first time, he truly wanted to speak to this old woman. To tell her he was not any of those things. That his blade would never be anything but her friend. That…that he would never be anything but her friend.
"Come in or go to bed, Alexander," Ester said without pausing in her work. "It’s impolite to creep around someone’s door in the night like that."
The youth sucked a startled breath and blushed slightly, embarrassed at being discovered.
"Uh, ma’am, may I come in?" he asked hesitantly.
"You may," Ester answered.
Alexander entered and stood uncomfortably at the end of the bed. An oil lamp and a dozen candles lit the room in a yellow, smoky, shadowy light. After a few moments of strained silence Ester paused in her work to look up and examine the nervous youth.
"You’ve never come to visit before," she said. "To what do I owe the honor this evening?"
"Uh, ma’am, I…uh." Alexander swallowed, shifted on his feet, eyes lowered to the floor.
"Please sit down," Ester said. "People talk better when they’re sitting. They argue better when they’re standing. We’re not going to argue are we?"
"Oh, uh no…no ma’am," Alexander said hurriedly. He glanced around the room. Ester occupied the only chair. Reluctantly he sat on the edge of the low slung bed, his knees in his chest. He still did not speak. Ester resumed her work, shuttle zipping back and forth with practiced precision. The silence grew longer and longer. Alexander cleared his throat. His hands nervously rubbed up and down his thighs. Words, explanations, formed in his head then disappeared without being spoken. He wanted to tell this woman everything, about the sword, about himself, about the children. He wanted to lift the boulder off his chest and hand it to her. He…he wanted an adult to tell him what he should do next. He had struggled so hard the last year for his father’s respect, to be treated as a man, a warrior. It seemed so incredibly important, to be a man. A man father could trust and rely on. And now all he wanted to be was a boy again. But he could not. Father was dead, and mother and everyone. There was no going back, not for him. He was a man and there was nowhere to escape it. He had given his word. His word.
Ester began to hum one of her tunes, a steady rising and falling lilt. Alexander listened, trying to identify it. He swallowed again and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
"Uh…that’s…an unusual tune," he said. "It sounds like something I’ve heard before but I can’t think where."
"It’s a prayer," Ester said. "I ask her blessing everyday," she sang, "to show me only the truest way, to keep me pure and free of vice, in thought and body clean and nice." She smiled at the youth. "It’s a child’s prayer but it’s always been a favorite of mine. I learned it so many years ago. More than can be counted it seems like now. Sary and If like to hum it with me." Her face became serious. "I haven’t taught them the words. I didn’t know how you would feel about that."
Alexander frowned, rubbed his cheek, sighed uncertainly, unhappily. He did not care about such things, what gods someone prayed to. But some cared, cared very much. Queen Amidal cared. As Queen she was also Chief Priestess of the cult of Zeus. A role he knew she took very seriously, always attending to every duty and performing every ceremony herself, when she could have easily delegated the tasks to others. And always she had the Princess’s with her, instructing them about everything she was doing, everything she believed. Did she not send the Princess’s away, although it broke her heart, because the entrails she read on the altar told her it was Zeus’s will that they should, would live to find a new life where the orphans gather and the unwanted find shelter. Father had no patience with bug-a-boo riddles, still the Queen believed. Would he be betraying her to allow her daughters to learn prayers praising another god? It was too much, too much for a boy trying to be a man to decide. His gaze wandered around the room. He did not want to talk about this. There must be something else. His eyes locked on the likeness of Artemis etched in the wall above Ester’s head, bow drawn, quiver of arrows on her back, Goddess of the Hunt.
"You worship the Goddess Artemis," he said. "I’ve wondered about that. It seems kind of…uh…" he stopped. His face reddened a bit. Was he asking too personal a question? It was none of his business. He was being rude. He should apologize.
"I didn’t mean that…"
"You’re surprised," Ester interrupted as she fixed her attention on her weaving, "that a dried up old farm wife and mother would worship the Goddess of Chastity and the Hunt. The Goddess of the Amazons."
"Well…uh…yes," Alexander nodded, "it does seem…Amazons!? Is she the Goddess of the Amazons?" His face brightened as memories of the old bard who came to the palace courtyard to tell stories when he was young flooded back. "I’ve heard of Amazons. Women warriors who eat the hearts of the men they kill. Who raid villages and kill all the little boys and steal the girls. I’ve always wondered if they could really exist. That would be something to see wouldn’t it? A woman warrior. I heard they painted their bodies different colors and never wore clothes, just animal skins draped over their shoulders. And they lived like wolves in the forest. I never thought of them worshipping a god." He looked quizzically at Ester. "Do you think there could be such a thing as Amazons?"
"Yes," the old woman said quietly, continuing to work, "there are Amazons. In fact I was an Amazon, once, a long time ago."
Alexander’s face dropped with astonishment. A puff of shocked air escaped his open mouth.
"I was a Priestess of Artemis, the patron and protector of the Amazon people, until I…" Ester paused. She stopped working. Her eyes wandered, examining each icon that decorated the otherwise Spartan room. Finally her gaze fixed on Alexander. The look of surprise remained, joined by embarrassment at what he had said. And also, unmistakably, questions. She took a slow deliberate breath and resumed working.
"Amazons don’t live in the forest," she said. "They live in a valley, a beautiful broad fertile valley. As beautiful as any valley can be. And I was raised to be a Priestess of Artemis, to devote my life to her service. And to be a servant of the Amazon people as well. When I turned twenty I took a sacred oath, a vow before Artemis and all my sister Priestess’s, that my love and devotion belonged only to the Goddess and the Amazon people. That I would live in chaste purity all my life. That I would live a life that brought honor to the people and to Artemis, so that our compact with her was fulfilled and she would continue to hold us in her heart forever."
"I then assumed the duties of a Priestess. I would go out from the valley and spend a year alone tending a village temple and the needs of the worshippers, then a year back in the valley to be with the people, then back out again to a new village. It’s the pattern of a Priestess’s life. So it has been for five hundred years."
Ester paused to change the empty spindle of wool for a full one. Alexander leaned forward, chest against his knees, anxious for her to continue.
"The village here, Amphipolis," she continued, "was my fourth. I was comfortable with my life, content. I didn’t think there was anything else I could want or need. The future would be as the past had been and I was satisfied. Then I met Ullysius." She hesitated to take a gulp of air. "He was raising his niece, her parents had died in a plague along with her brothers. She was nearing the age of marriage and he brought her to the Temple each month at the beginning of her cycle to pray and sacrifice. He was a pious man who took his responsibilities seriously. I liked that about him. And I liked the look of him. I…"she gave a tiny shake of her head as she worked, "I can’t explain it any better than that but I just liked the look of him, the way he moved, the sound of his voice." She smiled and put her hand on her cheek. "The way he was always rubbing his beard because it itched in the summer heat." She blinked and sighed a distracted sigh.
"We started talking, longer and longer with each visit. He came a few times to help me repair the hut I lived in next to the Temple. When a baby was left on the altar, a blessed gift to Artemis, he brought good cows milk, a rare thing around here, to help feed her. She had colic and slept better if you took her for a long walk. He would walk with me sometimes, holding her and cooing in her ear till she slept. He had been married once, but she died in childbirth along with the baby. He had been alone five years, except for his niece, working this farm. And as the days drew closer for me to leave I came to realize…" she swallowed through a constricted throat, "to realize that I had been alone far longer than that. The last month before the new Priestess arrived was a hell on earth to me. I…I felt like my heart was being ripped open. I prayed to Artemis, prostrate before the altar, night after night from dusk till dawn, to help me calm the storm in my soul, to give me peace. I even prayed that she take me. That she stop my heart from beating and let me escape. I would have blessed her name and washed her feet with my tears of gratitude if she had. But she didn’t. She never spoke. Never answered."
Ester took an emotional breath.
"The new Priestess arrived and it was time for me to go, to leave Amphipolis, Ullysius, forever. I had never told him how I felt. It would have been sacrilegious. And he had never said a word to me that was not proper and respectful of my position. All I knew of his feelings was the look in his eyes when we said goodbye for the last time two days before her arrival. The night before I was to go I felt…" Ester paused, staring straight ahead, so still it was as if she had turned to stone. The silence in the room was profound. It frightened Alexander. It was eerie, unnatural. His heart began to pound harder. He could feel it throbbing in his ears.
"I got up from my pallet in the deep of the night," the old woman’s voice was a disembodied whisper floating in the room, "and took off my robes and folded them neatly on a chair. I removed the ring I was given when I took my vows and placed it on the altar in the Temple. A Priestess owns nothing. Everything she has belongs to Artemis and the people. It seemed so…so incredibly important to me that no one think I was a thief. I don’t know why but that’s all I could think of. That no one think I was a thief. I walked out of the Temple, naked, and started here. It was very dark. There was a drizzle of cold rain coming down. I remember the feel of the icy drops of water on my skin. The rustle of the breeze through the wet leaves of the trees. An owl’s mournful hooting, the sound seeming to follow me, league after league. I shivered all the way. Shivered to my soul. The gate was closed when I arrived. I stood in front of it a very long time, my heart in such turmoil I could hardly think, hardly breath. There was something inside that gate I wanted more desperately than anything I had ever wanted before. My…my soul cried out for it. Inside that gate was love. The warm, enveloping touch and smell and taste and sight of love. But was it? Was it really there, or did it exist only in my fevered imagination. Had I gone mad? Was I just a mad woman standing naked in the rain? I had reached the edge of an abyss. There was no going back. I could only go forward, to love or death. My body shook violently as I pounded on the gate, pounded and pounded. After an eternity Ullysius opened the door. He squinted at me a moment, disbelief on his face. Then he disappeared, back into the darkness of the courtyard. I looked up into the rain and closed my eyes and I…I felt as if my soul was dissolving. That I was going to disappear into a terrible nothingness. Suddenly I felt a blanket, a thick warm dry blanket being wrapped around me. I opened my eyes and Ullysius was in front of me enveloping me in his arms. He held me tight for a long time against his chest, chin on top of my head. Finally he put his mouth close to my ear. "I love you, Ester," he whispered. "I love you more than my life."
The old woman sniffed and rubbed her nose.
"That was thirty four years ago. We had seven children together, he and I. Five of them still live. And every day, through good and bad, heartbreak and happiness, we loved each other."
"What…uh…" Alexander asked hesitantly, "what happened too…?"
Ester took a breath and let it slowly, mournfully escape.
"Early this last winter," she said, "he went out to check the orchard, to see if a sudden freeze had hurt the saplings he had just grafted. As the sun was setting he hadn’t returned so I went out looking. I found him sitting under an apple tree, leaning back against the trunk, dead. He looked so peaceful, like he had just fallen asleep." She paused and glanced at Alexander, then looked away. She shrugged in helpless resignation. "Old men do that sometimes," she said in a barely audible whisper, "they just die."
There was a long, concentrated silence. Ester’s shuttle flew back and forth as she worked, but it made no noise, the sound swallowed up by the deep tide of emotion swelling in the room. Alexander stared at the wall, arms around his legs, chin on his knee. His face grew darker and darker, reflecting the dark turmoil in his soul as he wrestled with the implications of Ester’s life. With Father things had been so clear. There had been much hardship, much struggle. But the choices to be made were simple, direct. When there was doubt Father was always at hand to explain, guide, to make life make sense again. But now the clouds seemed to roll in thicker every day. Everything was becoming confusion, chaos. Right, wrong, why did they seem so mixed up, a knot he could not unravel? This old woman, Ester, had treated him, Philip, the Princess’s with such kindness. He liked her. How could she be…but still.
"You broke your promise," Alexander said softly, hardly aware his thoughts had become audible. "You gave your word and your word meant nothing. A person’s word has to mean something." His eyes shifted to Ester, not accusing but questioning, "Doesn’t it have to mean something?"
The old woman continued working. She did not look at the youth.
"Yes, I broke my oath," she said. "I broke it for the most selfish reason possible, my own happiness. I…"Ester paused and looked around at the icons of Artemis everywhere. "For so many years I had no religion, none but my husband, my children. They were my comfort. I believed in them. I could hold them, love them, feel my love returned. They answered when I spoke. Artemis," she shook her head ruefully, "never answered. When my heart was bursting with torment she left me alone. I was her Priestess and there was only silence." She swallowed and took a breath. "But after I buried Ullysius such a feeling of foreboding came over me. I could see…feel death creeping into this place. We can’t hide from the Gods, Alexander. They always know where we are. The years mean nothing to them. They don’t forget. In the end you must face what you’ve done. I gathered all these images of the Goddess to help me pray. Not for myself, but for Ullysius and the children. I prayed every day that the Goddess judge only me for what happened. I despaired that there could be any redemption from such a sin as mine. Only the damnation I deserve."
Suddenly Ester’s expression changed. Her eyes sparkled and a radiant smile lit her face.
"Then to my shock and wonder the great Artemis in her mercy and benevolence spoke to me."
Alexander’s eyes widened, stunned to see the glow of excitement that transformed the old woman’s features.
"She offered me redemption. She showed me the way to rebirth."
The youth shook his head, face a mask of astonished questioning.
"The Goddess visited me with a miracle," Ester said, voice thick with happy, grateful, relieved emotion. "She delivered five orphans for me to gather in. Five unwanted souls for me to love and protect. She has offered me the chance to be her servant again. The shadow of death has been banished from this house. You are my forgiveness, child. My salvation."
The old woman lowered her head. Alexander watched as a tear slid down her face and hung precariously on her lip. She put her hand to her mouth and sucked in a gulp of air.
"Blessed is Artemis, Goddess of the Amazons, blessed is her name."
"This is stupid. A wild goose chase," the skinny, ragged man huffed. "I can’t believe I walked all this way." He stopped to pick an annoying rock out from between his big toe and his sandal.
"Will you ever stop fucking complaining?" the taller man asked. He hocked up a ball of mucus from his throat and spit it disgustedly onto the dusty lane. "This could be the chance of a lifetime and all you can do is bitch and moan. Besides, it was your sister who told you about this, right? You think she was lying?"
The skinny man scoffed unpleasantly. "My sister couldn’t out fox a chicken. After its head was cut off. She wasn’t lying but who knows if she heard it right. You’re the one who got all excited about what she said and insisted we come out here. I was perfectly happy back at the wine shop with a beer in my hand. I have to work for my bread remember. Not like some people who can make a living gambling and begging meals off soft headed relatives. I don’t have the time or energy for this wandering around the countryside for nothing."
"No, but you have the time and energy to work yourself into an early grave, another dirty ignorant peasant eating the shit of this world without ever trying to get anything better," the tall man said contemptuously.
"Look, Lepodus," the skinny man waved a bony finger as a scowl twisted his weather beaten face, "last time I checked our mother’s were sisters. If I’m a dirty ignorant peasant what does that make you?"
Lepodus slapped away the finger in his face, anger in his eyes. "A man, Quintus. I’m a man. Not a damn horse bred for work. I’m a man and I’ll take from this world all I can squeeze out of it. I’m not going to stand in a field chewing my cud with a blank stupid look on my face while it passes me by. If being a dirty ignorant peasant is enough for you then turn around and go back to your beer and your fat harping wife and your five squalling brats and that miserable overcrowded hovel you call home and leave me the hell alone." He poked a sharp forefinger in Quintus’ chest, emphasizing each word. "But if there is the slightest chance that money is waiting for us at the end of this road I’m going to go find out."
He turned on his heel and stalked away down the lane. After a moment Quintus scratched his dirty beard, sucked a wet breath through the gaps in his teeth, then trotted after his cousin till he was beside him again. They continued on in silence.
They stood off the road behind an apple tree, the same one used by Alexander a month earlier, observing the farmhouse through the open gate. They watched intently as a small golden haired girl in a loose gray smock sat on the hardpacked earth of the courtyard pounding an uncertain rhythm on a toy drum. Chickens scratched and clucked around her, ignoring the commotion.
"So if this turns out to be them, how are we supposed to find those thugs from Corinth to collect the ten thousand dinars?" Quintus asked.
Lepodus looked at his cousin a moment, considering, then turned back to watching the house.
"We’re not here for ten thousand dinars," he said quietly.
"What?!" Quintus blurted, surprised. "I thought we came out here to see if the girls those men were looking for are here. The twins and the older girl, all with yellow hair. Old Ester told Minia yesterday, when she was buying wool from her, that she was going to make a blanket for three little orphan girls that were staying with her."
Lepodus shook his head and sighed disgustedly.
"Quintus," he said, "did it ever occur to you to ask why some armed gutter rats from way over in Corinth would be out here in the middle of nowhere, with ten thousand dinars in their pockets, trying to find three lost little brats? Do you think it’s because they’re worried about the cute little darlings safety? And what possibly makes you believe that low life scum like that have ever even seen ten thousand dinars, much less that they would ever hand it out to poor trash like us?"
Quintus scratched his beard irritably. His instinct was to kick the arrogant, pain in the ass bastard in the balls and go home. But he had come this far. And there in front of him was a little girl with golden hair. Maybe, just maybe, he was about to have a stroke of good fortune in his life. Maybe today the fates would smile in his direction, instead of showing him their asses and farting in his face. And the truth was he hadn’t thought about it. Adventures like this were not a part of the backbreaking, spirit killing monotony of his life. Why would he waste any time speculating about mysterious strangers and lost little girls and fabulous rewards he would never see. He might as well waste time wondering if spiders really fell from the moon at night and bit people, turning them into werewolves that prowled the forests stealing sheep and killing unsuspecting travelers, the story Aunt Beria, Lepodus’s mother, told them before sending them to bed when they were children.
"No," he said finally, weakly, "I…uh…haven’t really thought about why they…uh…I just…" his voice trailed away to silence.
"Well, fortunately for us I have," Lepodus continued, making no effort to hide the disdain in his voice. "After they left I thought about it a lot. So last week I went over to Vonitsa to talk to a few people I know. Men of importance. Men with connections in the world who know what’s going on."
"The local fence for everything stolen in this part of Macedonia you mean," Quintus thought with a shake of his head and a sneer.
"Those Corinth shits," Lepodus continued, muted outrage mixing with offended pride, "they were trying to play us for rubes, country hicks." He hocked up another ball of mucus and spit in disgust. "Fuck them!" He took a breath and swallowed down his emotion. "The real story, cousin, is that we’re looking for the three missing Princess’s of Cappadocia. The new king has offered a reward for their return."
He paused, rubbed his chin, wetted his lips, sucked a deep gulp of air. Quintus leaned forward on the balls of his feet, suddenly overcome whit electric anticipation.
"It’s a hundred thousand silver roman sesterces, alive or dead."
An audible rush of air escaped Quintus as his jaw slackened and his mouth dropped open.
"A hundred thousand?!" he repeated hoarsely.
Lepodus nodded without taking his eyes off the child playing in the courtyard.
Quintus rubbed his face. He noticed his hand had a slight tremble. He had only seen a few roman coins in his life, passed by some stranger in the wine shop as he stopped for a drink on his way through Amphipolis to somewhere else. No one stay in Amphipolis if they could help it. Everyone always crowded curiously around Phipidus the owner to examine the coin, hold it, feel its weight, bigger and heavier than a dinar. To admire the fine craftsmanship of it, the face of some dead general or senator, whatever that was, exquisitely etched in the silver. He knew a sesterce was worth five or six Greek dinars. Five or six! Five or six times one hundred thousand!! His head swam at the idea of it. He could hardly count to a hundred. Five or six time a hundred thousand. Did such a number even exist? It was an abstraction beyond comprehension.
"Think about it, cousin," Lepodus said. "With half of that you could buy Amphipolis, every thing and everyone, lock stock and barrel. And have enough left to build yourself a fine manor house to rule it from. You could be the King of Amphipolis." There was a tinge of sarcastic condescension in the words.
"I could, couldn’t I," Quintus whispered, shocked at the truth of the statement.
Lepodus shook his head and blew out a derisive snort of air. Quintus swallowed and collected himself.
"Cappadocia, I uh…I don’t know…"
"Don’t worry about the damn details," Lepodus said impatiently. "I know where Cappadocia is. The important thing is to find out if these are the right brats and to get them out of here. If we found them how long before someone else does?"
"Shit, look at that!" he suddenly blurted.
As they watched, transfixed, another child with golden hair came into view and plopped down by the first, laughing and beating on the drum with a hand as the other continued hitting it with a stick. Even from a distance the similarity between them was unmistakable.
"Do you…do you think it could really be them?" Quintus asked eagerly.
"Of course it’s them," Lepodus snapped. "How many little blonde orphan brats do you think are wondering around Macedonia. You’ve seen old Ester’s grandchildren haven’t you? None of them have blonde hair right?"
"No, uh, no. None of them do," Quintus stammered.
"All right then," Lepodus said decisively. "There’s another girl, older. We have to find her too. She’s around here somewhere. We grab them and head straight for Vonitsa by the old shepherds trail over the mountain. Nobody uses it anymore. I can get us some horses in Vonitsa. I’ve got a friend. From there we go right to Cappadocia. We can be there in ten or eleven days."
Everything was going so fast. This morning he was sitting on a bench in Phipidus’s shop sipping a beer, hiding from Clemidia and the children, watching Lepodus throw the bones. This afternoon he was kidnapping Princess’s to take to a place he had never heard of, farther from his home than he had ever been. He blew out a stunned, doubting breath through the gaps in his teeth.
"Lepodus," he said hesitantly, "I don’t know how to ride a horse."
"Oh for…" Lepodus struggled to keep from erupting. "I’d say it’s time to fucking learn then, don’t you," he hissed in exasperation. "Now come on."
They were halfway to the gate when Quintus grabbed his cousin’s arm and stopped him.
"You know," he said, "we should be careful. Old Ester’s in there. Father told me once, when I was young, that she was an Amazon, an Amazon Priestess. You know Amazons. They can be dangerous."
"She’s a hundred fucking years old, Quintus," Lepodus sneered. "I don’t care if she was Tribune of a fucking Roman Legion. I think we can handle her." His eyes narrowed. "You better understand something, cousin. This is it. The chance of a lifetime. The chance ten lifetimes. The chance to live like a man instead of an animal. The chance to enjoy what’s good in life. Food, clothes, women, the whole world at our feet. That only comes to people like us if we’re strong enough to take it. I’m strong enough. Ester had better not get in the way, her or anybody else."
A shadow fell over Serena and Serif. They looked up together and started in surprise. Two men stood over them, one skinny and ragged, the other taller and broader. His black eyes glared at them. Suddenly he reached down and grabbed them both by the arm and jerked them painfully to their feet.
"Where’s your sister?" he growled.
They did not answer but just looked up wide eyed with fear. Quintus
knelt in front of Serif and stroked her cheek.
"It’s all right, sweetie," he cooed. "You tell us.
Where’s…"
He jumped to his feet as a slender girl with yellow hair, seven or eight he guessed, emerged from the kitchen a dozen feet away eating a slice of fresh baked bread.
"Get her!" Lepodus shouted.
Beatrice let out a high pitched squeal of fright and dropped the bread as Quintus snatched her arm in an iron grip. He started pulling the terrified girl across the courtyard as Lepodus hoisted a twin under each arm like fresh cut firewood.
"Quintus, what are you doing?!" a shocked voice demanded.
Quintus looked back to see Ester standing in the kitchen doorway, hands white with flower, face flushed with the heat of the baking oven.
"Ester, these brats aren’t yours," he answered. "Now stay away from us. Nobody wants to hurt you."
He continued dragging Beatrice, who was finally reacting, trying to pull away.
"What are you doing! Stop this!!" Ester yelled as she ran up to Quintus. He pushed her hard in the chest with his free hand. She almost fell.
"I’m telling you, Ester!" he shouted, face reddening with emotion and adrenaline, "stay away from us! We’re leaving!! Just stay away!!"
The woman’s features hardened with anger. She looked around and spotted a thick handled hoe leaning against a wall. She seized it and twirled it once, like a fighting staff.
"Ow!! Fuck!!" Quintus cried in painful surprise as the weapon struck his elbow. His arm went numb. He lost his grip on Beatrice as she pulled away and fell. Blows rained everywhere in lightning succession. The knee, the hip, the other elbow. He jerked his head back just in time to avoid losing teeth but before he could regain his balance the end of the hoe pounded him in the chest like a hammer striking a nail. He reeled backward and fell.
Ester faced immediately about. Lepodus had dropped the twins and was almost on her. He was quickly retreating as the hoe attacked him from a dozen angles at once. Finally a blow caught him flush on the cheek. He stumbled back and bent double, one hand to his face, the other held out in a desperate gesture of surrender.
"Get off my land, Lepodus, you worthless scum!" Ester shouted. "Get off!"
Suddenly two arms were around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Lepodus spit out blood and a broken tooth. He looked up to see his attacker held tight.
"Fucking bitch!!" he exploded and with all his might he uncoiled and slammed his fist in the old woman’s face. She immediately went limp as a rag doll. Quintus held her up a moment, shocked by the brutal violence of it. Finally he let her slump to the ground. He stared at her, a woman he had known all his life. He felt empty, queer. Everything was going too fast, too fast. This was all so strange, unreal, out of control. He just felt numb.
"Quintus," Lepodus barked, after spitting out more blood. "Get the girl." He shoved his cousin hard on the shoulder. "Get her now! Go!"
Quintus shook his head, to clear the daze, to think again. He went to Beatrice and yanked her to her feet. She did not resist. Seeing Ester on the ground seemed to have drained the fight, the life out of her. Serena began crying. Lepodus gathered the two children up again under his arms.
"Shut up!" he snapped at the girl. She only cried harder. "Come on, we can get halfway to Vonitsa before dark if we hurry," he said.
He headed out the gate.
Alexander shoved Philip back against the wall of the farmhouse.
"Stay here, don’t move," he hissed in a whisper in his brother’s ear.
They had come running from the olive grove, where they had been pruning, at the sound of Beatrice’s scream. Alexander peeked cautiously around the corner of the wall. Ester was motionless on the ground.
"Come on, we can get halfway to Vonitsa before dark if we hurry," a husky man, with Serena and Sarif tucked under his arms, said.
The youth looked around desperately. He picked up the melon sized rock that held the gate open. He gripped it in both hands and cocked it behind his head and held his breath. The husky man appeared, his attention on Serif who was struggling to escape. With all his strength he attacked. The rock impacted with a dull ‘thunk’ on Lepodus’s temple just above the ear. The man collapsed to his knees, dropping the girls and grabbing his head between both hands as if trying to keep his brains from falling out of his skull. Blood welled through his fingers from a deep ragged cut above his ear. A strange, disembodied sighing groan came from his mouth.
Quintus stopped, shocked. "Gods," he murmured . He dragged Beatrice with him to his cousin. "Lepodus, what the hell?"
Lepodus slowly bent over till his head rested on the earth. Bright red blood soaked his hair and began staining the ground. Quintus looked up. His eyes met Alexander’s. They hesitated, both stunned by it all. Then anger flashed between them. Quintus lunged at the boy, but his grip on Beatrice held him back. Alexander flung the rock still in his hands. Quintus deflected it with his arm and it fell to the ground with a thump.
"Fucking kid!" Quintus yelled. He let go of Beatrice and tried to tackle Alexander. The boy dodged nimbly and raced away across the courtyard toward one of the rooms. Quintus started to follow but Lepodus gave out with a long low moan. Confusion, anger and a rising panic tore at Quintus. Everything was dissolving in chaos. All he wanted was to be somewhere else. To be back on a familiar bench in a familiar shop with a cool beer in his hand and Clemidia cursing him under her breath as she stalked down to fetch him to do his work and stop wasting his time and money. He wanted all this to disappear. He went to his cousin.
"Lepodus!" he shouted, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, "we’ve got to get out of here! Lepodus!"
Lepodus did not react to the words or the touch. He groaned again that weird, unnatural sound. Quintus took his hand away. It was sticky and red with blood. He looked around. The twins were crying, their small bodies heaving. The girl he had dragged was standing still as a statue, face white with fear, eyes round as saucers, filled with horror. Ester, old Ester, lay on her back in the dirt of the courtyard, not moving. Was she dead? What the hell was happening? How had this happened? He was going to be rich. That’s right. He was going to be rich but he’d never cared about being rich before. A cool beer on a hot day was rich. Clemidia grunting softly in his ear as he reached a deep, satisfying orgasm inside her was rich. Now all this because suddenly one day he thought he could be rich. A terrible anger erupted. At Lepodus, at Ester, at that boy with the rock, at these damn girls. They were all responsible for this. Why had they led him to this? What had he ever done to deserve to be treated like this?
Alexander appeared out of the room. He unsheathed a sword and threw the leather casing down. The blade was long, elegant, polished, an expensive weapon. Quintus grabbed the hoe that lay beside Ester. He held it at the end with both hands and cocked it back over his shoulder, ready to use it like a club.
"Come on!" he shouted. "Come on so I can smash your head like you did Lepodus!"
Alexander came on guard, blade pulled back in his right hand, left hand out for balance, feet apart.
If your opponent has a club or staff, father whispered in his ear you become the scorpion. Don’t thrust and parry, he’ll break your arm or knock you down. Circle left, keep him wrong footed. Use your feet. Anticipate. Wait. Patience will kill. Strike only once, when a missed swing exposes a critical spot. Strike only once like the scorpion and make it count. Live or die, my son. Your will to live must be stronger than his.
Quintus’ rage and desperation grew with each missed swing of the hoe. The boy kept just out of reach, always circling. He tried one more time with all his strength to knock Alexander’s head off his shoulders. He over extended and exposed his side. The blade stuck like lightning and sank into his belly, bisecting the liver and tearing open the stomach. Alexander stepped back, leaving the sword in his enemy. A terrible sick feeling rushed over the boy. He almost threw up.
"Oh, oh gods" Quintus gasped as he dropped the hoe and grasped the blade sticking from his body. His eyes were wild with shock and fear. He staggered away toward the open gate. ‘I have to go home’ was the only thought that raced through his mind, ‘I have to go home’. After a half dozen steps he fell to his knees. "Clemidia," he whispered, "Clemidia come get me." He sank to the ground only a few feet from Ester. "Clemidia!!" he shouted, then a long rattling exhale of breath came out of his throat, followed by silence and stillness.
Alexander gulped air in shallow panting breaths. His heart pounded so hard it hurt inside his chest. He put his hand on his forehead and pressed on his skull because for an instant he thought his head might explode. But after a few moments the surge of pure animal adrenaline subsided enough to let him think again. More, there could be more! We have to get out of here! I have to get the Princess’s out of here! I promised!
"Philip!!" he screamed.
His brother appeared at the gate, face drained of color, a ghost.
"We’re leaving!" Alexander shouted, not even aware that he was shouting. "Get some sacks in the kitchen and fill them with all the food you can find!" Philip hesitated, overwhelmed by the sight before him. "Now, damn you, now!!" The boy ran for the kitchen.
Alexander went to Quintus. He grasped the hilt of his sword, closed his eyes and pulled. It slid easily out. The man made no noise. He wiped the blade on the man’s pant leg. How many times had Father told him to always wipe the blade. Never put it back in the sheath with blood on it. You would never get the blade out again if you did. He retrieved the leather holder and put the blade in it and put it in its place on his back. He ran to his and Philip’s room and picked up a water skin Ester had given him to take water with him to the fields when he worked. He filled it at the well beside the grotto with the statue of Artemis. Was she watching him? For an instant he thought he saw the eyes move. His flesh crawled. Ester said you can never escape the gods. They always know. Ester. As Philip came out of the kitchen with a sack over each shoulder, staggering under the weight, Alexander went to the old woman. He knelt and caressed her soft, wrinkled cheek. She did not move. He put a finger under her nose. He could feel no air moving. For a moment his chin trembled but he gulped a breath and forced himself to stand. Philip was beside him looking down. He grabbed a sack and slung it over his shoulder.
"Come on, we’re going," he said decisively. He took Beatrice’s hand and pulled her along. "Sarif, Serena, stop crying, get up, we have to go, right now. Come on." The children got up obediently and followed. They passed Lepodus just outside the gate. He was still on his knees, forehead pressed to the earth. But he had stopped moaning. The stain of blood on the ground had become a pool, Lepodus’ heart pumping out his life faster than the earth could absorb it.
All the rest of the afternoon they walked as fast as Alexander could get the twins to go. He led them away from the road, away from Amphipolis, toward the looming mountains north and west. As the sun was setting they came to a small clear stream. He set up a cold camp in a grove of maples a few yards from the water. While the exhausted children huddled together under a tree sharing some cheese and a loaf of bread Ester had made only that morning, he went to the stream to refill the skin. As he held it under the water he noticed his reflection. He could see spots of dried blood on his cheeks and chin. Desperately he splashed water in his face and scrubbed till they were gone. And then he put his head down, fingers locked behind his neck, and he sobbed.
The end, for now.