by Laura Gill
Then by all means, we needed to hasten. Ktimene took the bundle from my hands so I could concentrate on walking through the snow, and Thalamika lent me her muscular arm just to make certain. Phileia led the way past houses and outbuildings, past the bonfire clearing, and through the trees to the stockade. Out we went, down an incline to the stream, its waters frozen over, and its banks barren and muddy.
As the women started to lead me across the stepping stones, I hesitated. “I’m forbidden to go outside the temenos.” So were Phileia and Ktimene, as priestesses and consecrated virgins. How did they manage?
Phileia replied, “This is a special circumstance, and we are but a stone’s throw from the front door. You see the sentries?”
Not until I was secure again on solid footing, and Thalamika had pointed them out to me, did I notice the three women camouflaged in boiled leather, homespun, and sheepskin cloaks leaning on their spears around a wattle-and-daub cottage. Grayish smoke curled up from the flue, indicating that a fire burned on the hearth, but inside the house was soulless, empty. No weaving stood upon the loom, no cooking smells pervaded the atmosphere. The bed appeared comfortable enough, when Ktimene set my bundle upon it, but not particularly inviting. A curious footstool with a back and arms, and a hole cut through the middle occupied one corner; that must have been the birthing stool. Sweetening herbs hung from the rafters. Foodstuff and drink sat beside the hearth, along with a jar of cold spring water. I had everything I needed, but nothing I truly wanted.
Worst of all was the solitude once the women left me, because I could not remember another occasion when I had been left so alone. In truth, it was not a large dwelling—it was smaller even than Phileia’s house, at only ten paces long—yet to a lone woman like myself it seemed almost cavernous. I unwrapped my small bundle and placed the kourotrophos beside the bed, but it did little to offer the reassurance of flesh and blood women.
A kick against my ribs reminded me that I was not technically alone. “At least we’re snug and warm,” I told my son. He kicked again, harder this time, as if to say he was growing restless from being confined to my womb. I laughed despite the stab of discomfort, and, acknowledging him with a caress through wool and flesh, encouraged him to keeping moving, distracting me from the solitude of my confinement.
In other ways, too, I soon discovered that I was far from alone. At twilight, the women of Thalamika’s guard knocked on the door to inquire whether I needed anything. As I did not know the sentries, who spent most of their time posted and billeted outside the sanctuary enclosure, each woman introduced herself. Each approached me with an air of fascinated reverence that I recognized for an unspoken desire to feel the baby kick. Of late, many women had asked for the honor, and I, reluctant to refuse, agreed.
“We’ve never seen a woman who’s been blessed with an immortal’s child,” the youngest sentry, scarcely past girlhood herself, shyly confessed. She did not linger, as some of the older Women of the Mountain had, but flinched back the moment she felt a movement. Did she think my son possessed two heads and claws that would tear through my flesh to seize her? I said nothing, though, but allowed the women to satisfy their curiosity as they pleased.
Another sentry, an older woman, touched my breasts as well as my womb. “Zeus favors you, indeed.”
A flush crept across my face as my instincts warned me against pride. Queen Hera was one of Potnia’s many aspects. Tales of her jealousy and the rancor she unleashed against her husband’s loves abounded in Argos. One of my own ancestors, Lady Io, was also impregnated by the immortal Zeus, and had been hounded by Hera, who transformed her into a heifer before sending a plague of flies to torment her.
“Oh, no. You shouldn’t praise me so,” I quickly replied, mindful that the goddess was surely listening.
Two of the women, Thebeia and Pyrrha, kept me company, joining me inside for meals and conversation when Thalamika sent replacements to relieve them, and then those newcomers, having also heard about my condition, asked for an introduction. I had but to ask if I wanted water or kindling brought in, and frequently the sentries volunteered for those duties without my ever having to make the request. Embarrassed, I asked them for ordinary treatment. Having a baby was a mundane thing outside the sanctuary, after all. And I did not want to incite Hera’s displeasure.
Pyrrha explained, “Women in the villages always help each other out when one of them is about to deliver her baby. Making sure you don’t hurt yourself is one of our duties.” Then she flashed me a wink. “We’ll fetch you water, but we won’t do the cooking.”
Rhona visited twice a day with encouragement and news. “Phileia’s had to forbid women from crossing the stream to come see you.” She inspected everything from the quality of my cooking to the rumpled bedding.
“Why would they come now, when they never came before?” I wished she would sit down. Her constant motion and meddling set me on edge. My time was drawing ever nearer. At any moment, I expected my water to break. Even the sentries themselves, not wanting to miss the birth, continually peered inside to make inquiries about my health.
“Because then you were sequestered with the priestesses,” Rhona explained. “Now you’re outside the temenos and vulnerable in ways you weren’t then.” She rifled through the heavy homespun satchel she had brought until she produced a kourotrophos; it smelled of fresh paint. “Take this. Phileia had me make it for you. Goddess knows, the first baby is always the hardest, when the mother is scarcely out of girlhood herself. Eleuthia preserve you.”
“Now you have me worried.” I reached around to massage my back; my discomfort had but increased since midnight. “Women die in childbirth. Suppose the baby’s too big to pass through, or I become too tired, or—”
“Women also die from a hundred other ailments.” Rhona reached across to grasp my arm. “Does your backache extend to your womb? Do you feel any dull or sharp pain, or heaviness there?” Urgency suffused her tone. “Now’s the time to tell me.”
I grimaced. The ache in my lower back was steadily growing worse. Perhaps Rhona knew some remedy I had not already tried. “Well, he’s not kicking quite so much today, but it’s not providing much relief.”
She acknowledged my comment with a frown. “That’s a sign that he’s ready to be born. Stand up and take a few paces for me.”
My belly had grown so cumbersome that I had to brace myself on my arms to maneuver into position. So difficult and uncomfortable had that simple act become that I did not immediately register the unexpected wetness that had plastered my shift against my thighs or the wet sheepskin upon which I had been sitting until Rhona alerted me with a gesture and a comment: “It seems he’s more ready for the birth than you are.”
I stared uncomprehending at the wet spots, too much in shock to feel anything yet. “I thought that...”
“That you’d feel your water breaking?” Rhona stood to offer her support. “Eleuthia can be merciful.”
Seeing me to my cot, she went to the door and spoke to the sentries, then presently returned to instruct me on what to expect. “I doubt the goddess is going to grant you a painless delivery, so expect contractions.” Rhona took hold of my hand, and I, acutely aware that the pain in my back was spreading around to my womb, squeezed it hard. “Remember, your contractions are a good sign. They’re Lady Eleuthia’s way of reminding you to focus on the child, and to push when the time comes.” She uttered a laugh. “And once the child is laid in your arms and you see how beautiful he is, you won’t even recall the pain.”
Ironic advice, coming from a woman who had never borne a child, but at that particular moment Rhona’s presence mattered more than her childlessness. What she called contractions I called the worst menstrual cramps ever, and I groaned and whimpered at the prospect of having to endure them for the eternity it took to birth an infant. No wonder my stepmother had screamed herself hoarse during her deliveries.
After what seemed to be hours, Phileia arrived. Ktimene, carrying blankets and a bask
et of foodstuff, pushed through the door after her. I had not expected to see the younger priestess, but, somewhere amidst my growing agony, her presence comforted me. She deposited the bundles beside the hearth and joined the high priestess. “At least the child chose a fair day to make his entrance.”
To my disappointment, all the women did was probe between my legs to gauge my readiness; their fingers burned. “Goddess! I’m ready now!” I cried.
“But your body isn’t.” Rhona wiped her fingers on a cloth before tugging my shift down. “Your womb will widen and shed moisture, and maybe a little blood, to moisten the way before the hard labor begins.”
I was sweating; the little house had suddenly become too close, and I wanted nothing more than to escape, to slough my ordeal as a snake shed her skin. My birthing attendants forced me to my feet to walk back and forth.
My lower back throbbed in agony, the contractions gripped my belly like bronze bands, and my swollen ankles strained to hold my weight, even though the women took turns supporting me. How long must I endure this back and forth, back and forth? Why did women even want children, if bearing them meant this unholy suffering? Laboring to give birth was no sacred act; it was messy and agonizing, and it took far longer than was reasonable. Surely the immortal gods, who had cursed women to suffer, must be laughing from the heights of Olympus.
After a while, the women made me sit, take a little water, and spin wool, though by then I could scarcely concentrate on working the spindle. Phileia told me, “My mother finished the last rows of the blanket she was weaving for the nursery while she endured the pains of my coming. Of course, I was her sixth child, and I’m told that a woman becomes accustomed to it after a while. They say the first is the hardest.” She flashed me a smile. “Fortunately, the goddess be willing, you will not have to suffer this again.”
“Have you considered a name for the child?” Rhona asked. Ktimene, I noticed, offered no comments about babies or childbearing, inquiring only if I wanted something to eat or drink, or if I had strength enough to move around some more; she looked completely out of her element while revealing a grim determination to help.
Where I had been hot, now I was cold, and I had to urinate. “That’s the baby pressing down,” Rhona explained. “I’ll help you to the chamber pot so you can squat, but you probably won’t be able to relieve yourself.”
She was right, and I wept in frustration. Not only for my current circumstances but for all the sleepless nights due to my rebellious bladder and aching back and bloated ankles, as well as for the uncertainty of what was to come. For Rhona to explain each phase of the childbearing process was one thing, but to actually experience it was something else altogether; she could not have conveyed the physical pain in words, or the clamor of conflicting emotions racing through me. I had not asked to become a mother, and a part of me still wished that none of this had ever happened, while at the same time I wanted the child like I had never wanted anything before, and was desperately afraid that one of the priestesses would tear him from my arms the moment I delivered him into the world.
The women spun wool and exchanged gossip. I tried to be calm, to help the process along by obeying Rhona’s every command, but with each passing moment I dreaded the birth and the inevitable separation. Might my dreams be mistaken, and I be carrying a daughter? Why could I not be more hopeful? Because I knew in my heart that the dreams were not the mundane, vague glimpses into other worlds that Morpheus bestowed on mortals, but visions given by a more powerful god. I could not help wondering whether I would have been better off not knowing the child’s gender or being informed beforehand that I could not keep him.
Rhona instructed me to breathe normally, not to hold my breaths against the pain of the contractions. The pains were coming closer together now, and when she checked again between my legs Rhona informed me that I had opened wider still. How wide was wide enough? I wondered. “Your maidenhead won’t survive the birth,” she said, “but we already knew that would happen.”
A cruel trick of Lady Eleuthia, to make a mother squeeze her child through a too-small orifice. Another colossal jest of the gods, I thought. “The baby will tear me apart.”
“Nonsense! Your maidenhead isn’t made of stone. You won’t tear yourself in two giving birth. Women push out babies all the time with no harm done,” Rhona cheerfully explained. “Your body has the power to stretch itself. It’s a gift from the goddess—that, and the magic that happens once you finally hold your child in your arms. Eleuthia blesses mothers with the gift of forgetting all about their suffering the moment their newborns take the breast.” Her beatific smile offered further evidence. “I’ve seen it many times.”
The short winter’s day soon darkened, and the moon rose, heralding the long, cold night. A persistent owl hooted outside; even Mistress of the Owls, it seemed, took interest in the birth. Slowly, I became conscious of a crowd gathering in the snow outside. Whenever a sentry inquired if we needed anything, I caught glimpses of women carrying torches and chanting paeans to Eleuthia, who could inspire life to take root even in an unplowed womb.
Even the suggestion of such a demonstration brought me to new heights of alarm. “Send them away!” I begged Phileia. “Queen Hera won’t like it.”
“Hush, now,” Phileia urged, but soon after she rose and went to the door, and the sound of the chanting subsided. My exhausted mind might have been playing tricks on me, for a multitude of torches continued swimming before my eyes, yet the sounds of women had dwindled to a murmur hardly comprehensible above the measure of my own labored breaths and my rapid heartbeat. Spent, I was nevertheless acutely aware that I had yet to climb onto the birthing stool to face the hardest part of the ordeal.
Whether my baby and I survived the night was not so much in my hands. For now, struck by the immensity of the task at hand, I realized more than ever that I was just an insignificant, frightened mortal. Rather, my fate and that of my unborn son depended on the goodwill of a goddess who might have already turned against me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My son had ten miniature fingers and ten pink stubs of toes, a rosebud mouth, and a cap of dark fuzz. He was a bundle of perfection, and his name, when Rhona and the priestesses inquired, was Eurymedon.
Sleep little lamb.
Sleep with the ewes
Where the goddess dances under the light of the moon.
Sleep little lamb.
Sleep with the sun.
Where the lazy bees keep their honey,
And the scarlet poppies nod their heads.
Sleep little lamb, sleep.
“That’s lovely,” Phileia commented. After the women had cleaned me and the baby, the high priestess remained with me. Outside, the worshippers had gone home; the news of a boy child born to a junior priestess of the sanctuary must have tempered their anticipation. There was no chance now of a daughter who could be loved and instructed by the whole community, and thus no cause for any real celebration.
I would not think about my son’s future right now. Morning was still many hours away. “I remember my nurse singing it to me.”
“You have a lovely voice. It’s a pity you don’t sing more often,” Phileia answered. She leaned forward to take the child from my arms. “You should rest now.”
She preferred to smuggle him away while I slept, but I would not be deprived of these precious hours. “I can rest later.”
“You’re exhausted, Myrtale,” she argued. As was she, gauging by the shadows and lines etched across her face. “And where would I take him by night? Sostrate will come tomorrow for the boy. She’s made all the arrangements. His new family are goatherds, pious but childless. Good people. Sostrate’s Hunters will keep watch over him, but there’s nothing to fear. Goatherds make a better living here than farmers.”
Her talking about the other family aggravated me, because I wanted this time alone with my son. Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked them back, while snapping, “Then that’s settled. I don’t need to
hear about it.”
“You’ll be bound to ask some time.” Phileia exhaled a hissing breath, but her tone remained cool, level. “Your body is sore and drained, and you need rest lest you mean to make yourself unwell. As I said, Sostrate won’t come until morning.”
Deep down, I believed her because common sense dictated it, but I was not in my right mind. Everything and everyone threatened my son, even the flames in the hearth, and the kourotrophoi still cluttering the little table beside the bed. My arms trembled with the need to press Eurymedon as close against my breast as possible, to tuck him back inside me so we could never be separated. I suppressed a yawn. Phileia must not see my vulnerability, or she would try to press a potion upon me. Earlier, I resisted the draught Rhona had prepared to help my torn and aching body heal itself. There would be sufficient time later.
Sensing my agitation, Eurymedon stirred and mewled. It could not be hunger, for I had already given him the breast. How would the other family feed him if the wife was barren? Rhona had said something about goat’s milk; my head spun, trying to remember the events of the last several hours. Hypnos stood at my shoulder, his wand of sleep raised high; there was no defeating the will of the immortal.
Not knowing what else to do, I kept Eurymedon beside me while I slept. Yet scarcely had I closed my eyes, it seemed, than someone was nudging my shoulder to awaken me. Then I heard Phileia’s voice saying, “It’s time.”
Morpheus’s drowsy embrace claimed me so thoroughly that only my mother’s instinct lent me enough strength to resist him; the sound of Sostrate speaking in the background tipped the balance. They had come to take my son. Before I even opened my eyes, I flung out an arm in search of my child. Eurymedon gurgled from the fleecy nest I had fashioned for him, and in spite of my soreness I reached toward him.
Phileia helped me into a sitting position. “There, now. Say your farewells.” Rhona and Ktimene were there. Sostrate kept a respectful distance. Even so, an air of dreadful anticipation hung about the house.