by Suzanne Weyn
Still, he had promised her he would be there.
Macar was highly visible, so clearly the champion. He’d already won the long jump and the wrestling competitions.
The archery event arrived with no sign of Artem. When the event ended, Macar was again the winner. The skies opened, releasing torrents of rain.
Hyacinth rushed to her bedchamber, her eyes as wet as the ground. Why had Artem not come? Had he no desire for the comforts of the life she could give him? Had he no desire for her?
Throwing herself onto her bed, she sobbed. Lightning flashed with angry illumination. She was glad of the weather. It suited her mood.
In about a half an hour, her mother came in. She spoke gently though her words were firm. “You dishonor Macar by not congratulating him. Arise and go to your future husband, Hyacinth.”
Hyacinth looked up, pushing back her tear-soaked hair. Before she could protest, her father flew into the doorway.
He leaned in the entrance, red-faced and breathing heavily. “I have received the worst news just now!” he announced, and he was so overwrought that Hyacinth feared he would collapse there on the floor.
“What?” her mother asked, bolstering her husband at his side.
“A lone messenger has rowed ashore with the news. My ships have sunk in the storm. Our fortune is gone!” he wailed.
“All praise to Poseidon!” Hyacinth whispered, suddenly filled with new hope.
She rushed past her parents in the doorway and ran at top speed down into the yard. The rain soaked her in an instant but she didn’t care. She had to find Artem.
Her dowry wasn’t important to him. He would have her as she was. They could go away together. Their life would be rich with adventure. Others might think her crazy but she knew this was not true. Being with Artem was the only thing that had ever made sense to her.
Leaves spilled water on her as she crashed through the branches of the woods, running toward Artem’s campsite.
A ring of sodden ashes was the only thing that remained of it.
Maybe she could find him at the shore.
Dashing through the woods, she came out to the shoreline. Rain pelted the ocean water. A gray cloud sat on the land.
He was gone.
Gone.
It had been over two weeks since the competition and Artem still lay on a cot in a small room behind the fish stall. Nadim the fish man came in. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Grateful for your kindness,” Artem replied.
Nadim grunted. “I still say we should call for Macar’s arrest. A man should not be free to beat another man nearly to death and get away with it. What if I had not found you lying there senseless? You would be dead now!”
“We were both trespassing and poaching another man’s land. Macar would say that he was defending his friend and host. We would benefit nothing from making such a charge and lay ourselves open to be arrested in return. Besides, I am on the mend and you will soon be free of me.”
“Will you go to find the girl, the one for whom you cried out every night in your delirium?” Nadim asked.
Artem shook his head. “She must be married by now. Besides, I am sure she loathes me. I broke my promise to compete for her.”
“You were hardly in any shape to compete, let alone walk,” Nadim reminded him. “I have heard news of this girl. I inquired of Charis, the slave with whom she comes to market. She has not married. Her dowry lies at the bottom of the sea.”
Artem sat upright excitedly. “You are a true friend to bring such welcome news! Can you send a message to her through Charis? Say I will come to her as soon as I can move on my own legs. Tell her I will enter the Olympic competition and use the prize to take her away with me.”
Nadim took a pouch from his belt and opened its contents onto his outstretched palm. “These might advance your cause,” he said. He held out two large, dark green, pear-shaped drop earrings.
“They’re spectacular,” Artem remarked. “But I cannot take them from you.”
“They’re yours,” Nadim informed him. “I knew Herata, the old slave woman who found you. These were in an envelope along with the note pinned to your blanket. She was afraid someone would steal them from her so she asked me to hold on to them for when you were older. I believe the gem is called an evening emerald because it shines even more brightly in the lamplight. The time has come for me to turn them over.”
Awestruck by the magnificence of the jewels, Artem was filled with resolve. “Tell her,” he urged Nadim. “Tell her to hold on. I am coming for her.”
Hyacinth caressed the emerging clay form as it spun on the potter’s wheel. The soon-to-be urn that she rounded and lengthened on the wheel was turning out well. Life as a priestess of Athena had opened up so many new worlds to her. Her days were spent attending to the high priestess and learning so many things.
She had learned to create pottery, as she’d always wanted to. As she’d long suspected, she possessed a natural aptitude for it, taking to the craft with a sure, almost practiced hand.
It didn’t blot out the dull sadness that had lived in her heart since the day Artem had disappeared, but it was satisfying nonetheless. And it was better than spending her days as Macar’s pampered but servile wife.
Stopping the wheel, she surveyed her work. The result pleased her.
She was proud to serve Athena. She’d learned that the goddess was the patron of weavers, potters, goldsmiths, sculptors, musicians, and horsemen. As a priestess of Athena, and an accomplished potter as well, she had some status. Though she was forbidden to leave the grand, pillared temple on the Acropolis, in many ways she had become her own woman.
After setting the pot into the kiln, she washed her hands and prepared to go rinse off the rest of the clay. She was fairly covered in it, with it on her clothing, face, and even in her hair.
To get to her chamber, she had to cross the great, two-story central hall of Athena with its towering statue of the goddess. She stopped, as she always did, to look up and marvel at the majesty and power of Athena. Openings in the roof let slats of sunlight into the shadowy hall. They illuminated the huge statue, imbuing it with a lifelike quality.
In one uplifted hand, Athena held the winged Nike, the goddess of victory. In her other, she wielded a spear. At her feet were a snake and a wheel. The tall, golden, spiked crown on her head dazzled in the sun.
Athena, goddess of, among much else, knowledge: More than anything that this life had brought to Hyacinth, she most valued that in the last few months she had begun to read. After Artem had disappeared, she’d despaired of ever learning. But now, like a miracle, under the tutelage of older priestesses, she had mastered the art. He had been right; it was as though a thousand locked doors had been suddenly flung open for her.
What a gift! Such richness!
Her reading was still rudimentary, but the other priestesses could read skillfully. They read to one another, all variety of things. In the last weeks, she had learned about the medicines of Hippocrates, the thoughts of Socrates and Plato, the plays of Aristophanes. It was more knowledge than she could have ever imagined would come to her.
A priestess in a simple, belted, pale yellow dress came into the room so silently that Hyacinth started when she touched her arm. It was Iphigenia, a servant of the high priestess. Her green eyes flashed and she tossed back red curls as she delivered her message. “A young man wishes to speak to you. He is not allowed in the temple so I have made him wait outside.”
Hyacinth looked at her sharply. “Do you know his name?”
“His name is Artem.”
Artem — after all this time.
A vision of him appeared in her mind’s eye.
“Remember that you are sworn to Athena now,” Iphigenia reminded her.
Hyacinth bit her lip. Her eyes traveled up to Athena, the goddess who had provided this new life. Macar had not wanted her after her dowry was lost. Artem had not even appeared. But Athena had been here waiting to take h
er in.
“Please tell him to go,” she said to Iphigenia. With a small nod of consent, Iphigenia departed.
Hyacinth’s stomach clenched with anguish. Had this been the right choice? She should have at least spoken to him.
But if she saw him, she’d be swayed. And she could not run away with him now. To leave would be to disgrace not only herself but her whole family, and their lives had become difficult enough with their newly reduced circumstances.
Her position as a priestess was the only thing of social status they had left.
But Artem had come for her.
Filled with conflicting, confused feelings, she hurried from the Great Hall and up to her chamber. It was a small room with only a bowl and a water pitcher on a nightstand beside a bed. It had a narrow balcony, though, from which she could gaze down the steep slope of the Acropolis. Her balcony door was open now, and warm breezes blew into her room.
Sitting on her bed, she let her head drop into her hand. Her orange and black cat, Baby, leaped lightly onto the bed and licked her arm consolingly.
“Artem,” she said softly, just for the pleasure of hearing his name. Lifting the cat onto her lap, she stroked its fur. “Artem,” she whispered again.
A quick bang from the balcony made her jump.
The small blue violet plant she had placed on the railing had fallen down — blown by the breeze, no doubt. She was stepping out onto the balcony to right it when a hand touched her shoulder.
Gasping, she pulled away.
“I had to see you,” Artem said. “Why did you not wait for me?”
“Wait for you?”
“I sent word with Charis, your slave woman.”
She shook her head, not understanding. “I received no message.”
He told her all that had happened. Hyacinth cursed Macar for the pain he’d caused them both. “And Charis, too. No doubt she received the message but didn’t see fit to pass it along to me,” she said.
“Only now have I recovered enough to come to you,” he explained.
“If only I’d known,” she said, dropping her head. A tear wound its way down the planes of her face and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. “Now it’s too late.”
“It can’t be,” he protested fiercely. “The gods would not play with us so.”
She laughed bitterly as a torrent of tears soaked her cheeks. “We are only playthings to the gods,” she said, her voice cracked with sorrow. “They must be very entertained indeed at this turn of events.” Breaking down completely, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
“No,” he insisted. “If this is the will of the gods, then I defy them. I do not agree to be blown by the winds of some divine game.” Turning his face up to the sky, he hissed in an intense whisper, “Hear me, gods of Olympus! I do not submit to your will. Curse me as you choose but I do not care — my destiny is my own and I will have this woman whom you have so laughingly taken from my side.”
Hyacinth clutched his arm. “Do not tempt fate. The gods are powerful. They hear your defiant words and will destroy you.”
Artem laid the tip of his fingers gently over her lips to stop her fearful rush of words. He shook his head as he wiped the tears from her face with his other hand. “Athena does not want your service if your heart is elsewhere. I’ll win the Olympic archery contest — there is no one better with a bow and arrow — and we will go away together with the prize money.”
He was so sure. If only she could feel as confident.
Artem reached for her hand and poured the contents of a pouch into her palm.
She drew in a sharp breath.
The green earrings sparkled in the sun.
“They are beautiful,” she said, struck with awe. She looked at him with sudden alarm. “Where did you get them?”
“I didn’t steal them, if that’s what worries you,” he said with a note of bitter chagrin at her assumption. “It seems they are my inheritance, all I have of value — and I give them to you.”
“I would so love to have them, Artem. They are amazing of themselves and as a token of your love, even more so.”
“They’re yours to keep.”
Tears began anew, streaming down her cheeks, spattering the air as she shook her downcast head. “My family would be in disgrace. Their lives would be completely destroyed.”
“What of my life?” he countered. “It is over if I don’t have you.”
“Your life will go on. It must. You will meet another. You will be happy yet. My family cannot recover as you will be able to. You must go. Take back these gorgeous earrings and please leave.”
He pressed the earrings into her hand. “Is it what you really want me to do?”
Bitter, salt tears fell on the green stones in her hands. “No! You know it’s not what I want, but you have to go,” she insisted. “Please go,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
He swung his legs over the balcony and prepared to climb down. “Keep the earrings,” he said. “If the gods can’t stop me, neither can your sense of duty. I refuse to give up on our love, Hyacinth. It comes from a place older and more sacred than even the gods themselves know of.”
His words struck her as true and yet dangerously irreverent. “There is no place older and more sacred than Olympus,” she said.
“There is, and it is in us,” he insisted.
She held the earrings out to him. “You must take these. Give them to another who is free to accept your love.”
Artem wrapped Hyacinth’s fingers around the green gems and squeezed her hand. “There is no one else I will love.”
He swung his legs over the balcony and prepared to climb down. “Keep these,” he said. “Give them back to me on the day when you are sure you do not love me.”
Artem sat on the Acropolis playing his flute. Months had passed since he last saw Hyacinth. As he had predicted, he had won the Olympic gold medal at the archery competition. He’d even had the pleasure of beating Macar. He didn’t know which had been sweeter, winning the prize or seeing that fool’s face twisted in outrage when he saw who had beaten him.
But still, Hyacinth would not see him. Each time he came to the temple of Athena, she sent the shifty-eyed Iphigenia to send him away.
He was not so easily deterred. Night after night, he sat under her balcony playing his flute. He would break and recite his poem of ancient Egypt which he had completed during his long recuperation from Macar’s beating.
It was no longer just a story of a Nubian slave captive in Egypt. Now it told of an Egyptian woman he had loved. They had escaped from Egypt together and sailed south down the Nile. The song was rich with images of the golden sands, the imposing pyramids, and then the majestic temples and palaces of Nubia, the slave’s beloved home.
These pictures had come to him in a rush of inspiration sent, he had no doubt, from the muses of Mount Olympus, the divine creatures who inspired all the arts. Where else imaginings like that could originate in one such as himself who had never been out of Athens, he could not think.
And then one night, she appeared. How his heart had leaped at the sight of her, the silken dark hair, her form so desirable silhouetted there in the lamplight. Standing on the balcony, she sang to the sound of his flute, singing the words of his poem that she had committed to memory. That voice! Surely the siren mermaids upon their rocky cliffs that had mesmerized countless sailors with their sorceress songs could not sing more beautifully than did Hyacinth.
In the light of the lamp hanging above her door, there shone a glint of brilliant green at the side of her chin. She wore his earrings! She loved him still!
But when he began to climb to her balcony, she turned and went inside, shutting the door behind her.
Curse her stubbornness — her foolish, misguided sense of duty! What had her family ever done for her but make her feel stupid and unworthy? It was her destiny to be with him! Why did she let fear and duty rule her in this way?
But even as he cursed her, his heart
exploded with love for his beautiful girl, his Hyacinth. He would never give up on her.
Iphigenia stood in the doorway to Hyacinth’s chamber. It was the feast of Pallas Athena, the one day of the year when they would go out among the people in celebration of Athena, the guardian of their city.
Hyacinth stood at the window, gazing out over the Acropolis. Her hair was done up in golden cords. Her tunic was a fresh one. She was absently humming a song that Iphigenia recognized. It was the song she sang at night to the one who had once been known as the wild boy.
Iphigenia’s eyes roamed to the gorgeous green earrings, clasped one to the other and sitting in a ceramic dish on Hyacinth’s night table. They were a gift from the wild boy — stolen by him, no doubt. Hyacinth never wore them in the temple. It had to be that she only wore them at night when the two of them made music together.
Nightly, Iphigenia had fallen asleep restlessly listening to that maddening song drifting into her room.
Hyacinth played such games with that poor fellow, singing to him and yet shutting her door on him, refusing to see him. Either she loved him or she didn’t! Why did he put up with it?
And that stupid boy did not even recognize Iphigenia when he saw her. He had never noticed her, even before, when he had come by the temple begging for food. She was raised there, an orphan abandoned at the temple steps, raised by the priestesses. She had been sent out to bring the beggars food, he among them. He had never even looked at her.
But she had noticed him. If he had been singing under her window, desiring her love — she would have been long gone from the temple.
How she hated Hyacinth. What foolish arrogance, to throw away that kind of adoration, a love Iphigenia would have given anything to possess.
Hyacinth noticed Iphigenia and turned away from her daydreams at the window. “Is it time to go?” she asked.
“Yes, the high priestess is ready. I’ve come to get you. Will you be wearing your lovely green earrings to the celebration?”
Hyacinth shook her head as she passed Iphigenia in the doorway. “Are you coming?”
“In a minute.” Iphigenia waited until Hyacinth had gone down the steps to the Great Hall. Then she scooped the earrings out of the dish.