by Laura Gill
“Why aren’t you wearing any mud?” I asked.
“Does my skin look like it needs it? I’m used to the sun, and not afraid of wild animals,” Rhona answered lightly.
As we traveled west, following the narrow goat path that took us higher into the foothills, Rhona tutored me in herb-craft, teaching me which each of the plants and berries we encountered were edible or possessed medicinal qualities, and which to avoid as dangerous. Even when she carried me on her shoulders, she continued the instruction.
“You see those dandelions growing among the weeds?” She pointed to the yellow flower-heads poking up among the riot of green and brown foliage framing the path. “We boil the stems and leaves and cook them in oil like spinach. You shouldn’t eat them raw because they’re bitter-tasting. The flowers are used to make wine. Dandelion milk is good for removing warts, and the whole plant can be used to encourage good digestion.
“Now, those mushrooms growing in the shade? Stay away from them. They’re poisonous. Mushrooms are Hekate’s plant. Some are edible, some grant sacred visions, but the others will bring convulsions and violent sickness and send you in agony to the dark goddess’s realm. Never meddle with them unless you’re absolutely sure they’re safe, and even then treat them with the utmost respect. High Priestess Phileia will instruct you in their use.”
Several times, the women had mentioned the high priestess under whom I would serve, but described nothing about her. “Is she nice?”
“Phileia isn’t unkind.”
“Is she anything like...?” I held my tongue, but indicated Sostrate’s back.
Rhona chuckled. “That depends.”
Sostrate must have had eyes in the back of her head, and the intuition of an all-knowing goddess, because she responded. “Depends on what?” she barked over her shoulder, while never losing her stride. “Are you calling me unkind?”
Rhona answered on my behalf, “The girl wants to know if Phileia is anything like you.”
“Well, I’m much better looking,” Sostrate huffed, to the sound of much laughter, but after a few moments, she explained what Rhona had not.
“Phileia’s stern when she has to be, and kind when she chooses.” Words full of air, describing nothing. “She’s lived in the sanctuary forever—well, since she was a child. Does everything the other women do, except she never leaves to hunt, or to trade with the villages, or to celebrate in the meadows in midsummer as we do. She has her own house where you’ll live with her and Ktimene. That’s the other priestess. Younger, strong as an ox.”
“Is Ktimene nice?” I asked, expecting little information in return.
“Nice?” Sostrate snorted. “What does it matter whether she is nice, when you are there to—?” Abruptly, she stopped, and everyone halted with her. She turned toward me, gestured for me to join her. Rhona set me down.
“Look.” Sostrate indicated something lying on the path ahead. It took me a moment to focus and notice the snake lying camouflaged among the dirt and weeds, and then I might not have recognized it at all but for the flicking of its forked tongue.
“See how she tastes the air?” Sostrate murmured in my ear. Her breath smelled as sour as her brownish teeth looked. She snapped her fingers when she sensed my attention wavering. “Wake up, girl! There’s no time to nod off. Is the snake poisonous or harmless?”
Venomous snakes. Sostrate had mentioned something about a particular characteristic of theirs... Their what? The answer hovered on the tip of my tongue, only I could not reach, and... Heads! Yes, their heads. Poisonous snakes had triangular-shaped heads with pits behind the eyes. Except it was not so easy to tell with this serpent, for she blended into her surroundings so well, and I stood beyond striking range. Brown, ribbon-slender with a dark face that could have been mistaken for a rock. How had Sostrate noticed her while talking to me? Had I been her, I would not have seen the snake and stepped right on it.
“It—it looks harmless,” I stammered.
“Does it?” Sostrate sounded skeptical. “You hesitate, girl. In the Mistress’s domain, there’s no making a mistake, but yes, that’s a saita, a whip snake. Quite harmless. Next time, you’ll recognize her coloring and patterns, and not make such an excuse. We’ll step carefully around her, like so.” Raising the back of her left hand to her forehead to salute the Mistress’s divine messenger, she started to step around the snake, but then the serpent took fright and immediately retreated, slithering into the undergrowth alongside the path.
After a brief rest at noon, we continued west. Climbing the foothills toward the pass that would bring us around to the north flank of Mount Parnon and the sanctuary was hard work. My companions slowed their pace to accommodate me; they were not even winded, while my calves and back ached interminably, and my lungs strained for oxygen. Rhona relaxed her instruction, except to point out the occasional clump of dandelions and blackberry thickets, and to tear off sprigs of yarrow and late-blooming sage for me to examine. I already knew what yarrow and sage looked and smelled like, because head cook Lampito cultivated them in the Larissa’s kitchen garden, but in my exhaustion I took the sprigs without complaint.
The ambient sounds of buzzing insects filled my ears. Whenever I had to walk, the soles of my shoes scraped along the path; they were not so nice now, the painted leather filthy and scuffed. Sweat clung to my skin, making me itch through the caked mud covering the exposed areas of my skin; the mud flaked away in patches where I scratched. And my belly ached with hunger; the mouthful of dried fruit and the handful of blackberries harvested earlier from the thickets had not been enough. My mind began to shut down. Homesickness became a distant thing. I no longer had sufficient energy to dwell on Father’s rejection, or to worry about outlaws or savage beasts, or even to pay much attention to Rhona’s instruction. The things she told me swirled about in my head.
*~*~*~*
On the eighth afternoon after leaving Argos, we reached a swift-flowing stream. Kynane set me down; she expected me to walk, but not before Rhona made me remove my shoes to replace them with the smelly secondhand ones I remembered from Argos. She flung my shoes into the undergrowth, much to my dismay. “You can’t bring anything from your old life across the stream.”
“We’re almost there,” Kynane said.
Where was there? I saw nothing resembling a sanctuary, or even a place where its servants might dwell.
We continued through a thin wood of holm oak and sweet chestnut and white poplar until we reached a stone wall pierced by a wooden gateway—landmarks which appeared across our path as suddenly as an owl might fly out of the darkness.
Sostrate hailed the two women on guard. Female sentries! The Hunter had spoken truly. The women wore leather and homespun rather than gleaming bronze, but they had the same sort of tough, unsmiling faces and were armed no differently than the men who guarded the Larissa. They even carried shields in the familiar style: cowhide stretched over a wicker frame, just like Father and his followers back home.
They noticed me watching, and waved me through the gate with words of welcome. “Ho, there, young maiden! May the Mistress receive and keep you.”
From the gate, the path led down into the bowl of a kidney-shaped valley surrounded by high, forested cliffs. Cooking smoke curled up from the flues of mudbrick and thatch dwellings. Just like Argos town, except I saw no men. Women did everything: hauled burdens, tended the goats that wandered throughout the settlement, and prepared food on clay grills and in outdoor ovens. Yet how could those women possibly live without men? Who built the houses? Who said the customary prayers to Zeus and Poseidon? Surely the Women of the Mountains did not really neglect the male immortals. Only fools would ignore those gods. At any moment, I expected a man to emerge from one of the dwellings, yet as we moved through the community and encountered no men my consternation grew. Everything felt unnatural, turned upside-down.
As we passed a sinewy woman splitting wood with an axe, she called out, “Any game tonight, Sostrate?”
“Why, she’s caught a little girl!” a woman from across the path shouted. “A maiden for the sanctuary.”
Unused to being the center of such boisterous attention, and conscious of my own disheveled, sunburned state, I blushed.
Sostrate did not linger to answer their questions, but hustled me straightaway to a house where, apparently drawn by the commotion, a diminutive white-haired woman awaited us on in the threshold. “You’ve returned.”
The Hunter took hold of me and nudged me forward. “Here she is, Phileia. The maiden from Argos.”
That small, elderly woman, holding a distaff and clad as a peasant in sun-faded brown homespun—she was the high priestess of the sanctuary? Why, my great-aunt Kitane never greeted anyone without a colorful skirt and two strands of beads, no matter the time of day or night; only her trusted tiring woman knew what she looked like without her cosmetics. Yet Phileia, who was called priestess, who served a goddess greater than Queen Hera and Lady Athena combined, could have been mistaken for someone of low status.
The moment she fixed her gaze on me, I forgot my scornful first impression of her. Diminutive though she was, she seemed to grow in stature the longer I stared. For all I knew, she could read my thoughts. “Come with me, girl.” She extended her hand. I obeyed without question.
“Thank you for your service, Sostrate.” Phileia thanked each of the women in turn and dismissed them. The next thing I knew, she and I were alone in her house, and I once again remembered my old apprehensions.
Phileia’s house resonated with strangeness. Multitudinous eyes stared down from shelves where unfamiliar idols of wood and clay congregated. Dried herbs reached down like branches from the rafters where they hung; the house’s interior was a smoky combination of wood-ash and what must have been a hundred different plants, each exuding its own fragrance. Added to that were the savory cooking smells wafting toward me from the hearth; the aroma of hot food made my knees buckle and my head grow light. Phileia caught hold of my arm before I could crumple to the floor.
She supported me as we passed through the house, and in a daze I stared.
Animal skins covered the walls, while a striped weaving stretched across the upright loom in the corner. Something black and feathered high above one shelf made my skin crawl; it was a stuffed raven like Sostrate’s, with eyes of obsidian that followed my every movement as Phileia led me past a pair of fleece-covered cots to a third, smaller one at the back of the house. “That’s for you. Leave your belongings there, then follow me.”
Behind a heavy wool curtain, steaming water awaited in a terracotta tub. “Let’s get you undressed and washed,” the high priestess said. She had to assist me in unfastening my clothes because I lacked the energy to do more than fumble with knots, and then she had to lift me into the hot water.
The warmth and closeness of the house worked their magic on me. I must have nodded off in the bath, because the next thing I knew I woke under warm fleeces, to mouthwatering aromas. Phileia appeared at my side the moment I stirred. “Ah, the little fledgling is awake! Come have something to eat.”
I was clean and dry, and wore a plain smock; the terracotta idol still hung around my neck. My whole body felt stiff and sore; my calves cramped the moment I tried to put my weight on my feet, but I had learned that the surest way to relieve the pain was to walk around.
As the discomfort eased, the strangeness of the house came back to me. The raven and the unnumbered idols stared down from their perches. So I had not dreamt them. Phileia noticed. “Nothing here will harm you unless you meddle with it,” she said. “So keep your hands to yourself and do as you’re told.”
Something delicious simmered in a pot on the hearth; it smelled like venison with herbs. Phileia brought flour from a vessel on a shelf, and water and salt for mixing. Then, on a board, she kneaded and pounded dough to make into bread. “Once you’re rested, you will have to help with supper. Can you bake?”
I shook my head. Cooking was peasant work; the only time noblewomen went into a kitchen was to instruct the cooks or to prepare the sacred Goddess cakes with flour ground from the first grains of the harvest.
“Then I will show you.” Phileia slapped balls of dough against the side of an overturned bowl arranged over the fire. My belly growled audibly. I was so hungry I could have eaten the raw dough. Phileia only chuckled. “Patience.”
When the bread was ready, she ladled out a thick stew of venison and lentils seasoned with thyme, coriander, and salt. “I ordered the venison especially for you the moment the scouts reported you were coming, because I know you won’t have eaten well on the journey here. You need meat to give you strength.”
I tore into the bread and stew like a peasant, barely pausing to chew what I swallowed even when Phileia cautioned me to eat slowly. “You will make yourself sick.”
She herself had a princess’s manners: she tore off a piece of flatbread, dipped it in her stew, and savored the morsel. I started to feel self-conscious. A hundred thousand eyes were watching me, judging, and she noticed, too, because she commented, “I will excuse your bad manners today because you are starving, but tomorrow you will behave better.” Her sternness dissipated as she leaned forward and confessed, “I myself behaved like a wretch when I first arrived, and I, too, was a king’s daughter. I was a willful child, terribly spoiled. High Priestess Alexandra had to thrash the naughtiness out of me. I’m surprised the Mistress even allowed me into her service.” She uttered a soft but self-deprecating laugh. “You’ll be better, I think.”
Once we finished, Phileia drew my attention to the plate on the hearth, a battered kernos whose painted decorations were fading. “Time for the libation.”
The numberless deities and the raven glared down. How long would it take to pray to them all? “Did we forget?”
Phileia shook her head. “Sometimes, we feed the Mistress after rather than before, but always portion out the best for her.”
From a shelf above a wooden chest, she carefully took down a figure that stood apart from the multitudinous others and reverently set it on the hearth curb. “This is the Mistress of the House, our own special guardian.”
I started. The crude stone figure before me owned no face, but she was undeniably, impudently female, her only features a squat, fleshy body and pendulous breasts. “That’s not the goddess Sostrate brought to Argos.”
The high priestess sat down again with a creak of ancient bones. “No, this figure represents the Giver of Life and Mistress of the Mountains. Alexandra, who was my predecessor and teacher, told me that a long time ago, a priestess discovered her in a remote corner of the cave sanctuary and brought her into the house to serve as a talisman. To touch her is to feel her power humming through the stones—ah, but not for you, child, not yet.” Phileia forestalled my attempt to touch a finger to the image. “You must wait until you’ve been dedicated and properly instructed. Pay attention. This is how we honor the Mistress of the House.”
“But what about the other...?” I indicated the idols arranged on the shelves all around. Upon examination, none of those figures had a special niche like the Mistress of the House, but sat beside baskets and vessels; the vessel of salt Phileia had earlier taken down occupied a space beside a goddess with what must have been a hundred breasts.
“Those, too, are the Mistress,” Phileia agreed. Did she mean the raven, too? “Some are broken and no longer have power, others have lost their names. Some watch over my work and keep the Mistress of the House company. Others must be nursed back to health before they can be taken to the Mistress’s altar. If we prayed to each one, we’d be here all night.” She chuckled. “Now be still and observe. The Mistress won’t like it if we dither too long.”
I watched her rather than the goddess being honored. I did not like the Mistress of the House, how the firelight painted shadows across her non-face to give her the illusion of an expression of disdain for Phileia’s offerings and prayers. Had she owned a mouth with which to speak, I imagined she would
have cursed us in some incomprehensible tongue.
Phileia told me to kiss the hearth at the Mistress’s feet before she put the figurine and ritual equipment away. “Did your elders trust you to observe the everyday rituals?”
I nodded.
“Well, child, that’s far more than I can say for mine. I hated the rites, and always tried to eat the sweet offerings.” She began removing the bowls and utensils cluttering the hearth.
“You can call me Danaë—unless you don’t want to.” I quickly added that last part lest she misunderstand and take my comment as impudence.
She smiled, but shook her head no. “That’s a lovely name, but you left it behind in Argos with everything else. I left my birth name behind, too. So have all the other priestesses who came before. You’ll receive a new name once you’ve been dedicated. When depends on how soon you master the rites of the sanctuary.”
“Do I have to wait till my moon blood comes?” That was years away, as Wordeia and the court ladies had told me, and meanwhile I did not like the prospect of being nameless. A person without a name did not exist before the gods.
“No, of course not.” Then Phileia gestured to my bowl and spoon. “Bring those. You’re responsible for washing your own things.”
After we cleaned the supper utensils outside, Phileia put me to bed again, even though an hour remained before sunset. “You’ve traveled a long way these last several days, farther than you’ve ever gone, and I doubt you’ve slept well at all those nights on the ground. You need the rest,” she explained. “Tomorrow, you’ll begin your lessons and start doing chores. Ktimene will show you.”
Ktimene, the other priestess. “Where is she?”