“Sisters,” Laelia said, “one of you tell him. Please. I can’t—”
Astera squeezed the younger woman’s hand. “It’s you who posed the questions to the goddess. No lips but yours should describe what you saw.”
“It’s true, little mother,” Cerzula added. “Just tell him truly. That’s all you need do.”
Little mother. They started calling her that after the first time she bled from between her legs. She hadn’t known what was happening and had tried to hide it at first. She’d wrapped a strip of bandaging cloth between her legs and around her hips. She’d gone often to the stream near their tent and, in a hidden place, had dunked her rear in the chill water and washed herself. It didn’t help, though. Working beside Astera over the herbs, the older woman smelled her. She stopped what she was doing and took Laelia by the wrists and said, “I smell you. You are bleeding, aren’t you?”
Laelia tried to deny it, but Astera said the goddess had given her a gift. Like other women, she could make life now. She wasn’t a girl anymore, she was a woman. A little mother. It was Cerzula who explained that the Great Mother gives the blessing of creation to women. And only women. Men don’t have it. The Great Mother denied them long ago because they craved murder and death too much. So it’s only for women. Because it’s such a wonderful gift, she makes them pay a sacrifice. Once a month, as on the moon’s cycle, they must bleed. It’s blood for the Great Mother, offered to her so that no woman forgets to be thankful. As of yet, Laelia had no desire to be a mother. She kept that to herself, though.
They found Spartacus standing before his command tent. He was dressed for battle, with molded Roman leather armor snug over his tunic. Beneath it, he wore breeches in the Thracian style, to the knee, and greaves on his shins. It was good armor, Laelia knew, but not fancy, not that different from that of many a common soldier. His long hair had been pulled back and bound so that it trailed down his back. He wore his rhomphaia over his shoulder, held there by a leather cord that ran diagonally across his chest. He spoke in close consultation with Gaidres and four other men. He talked, but he also sketched his words with his fingers and hands. Though Laelia had stopped being scared of him some time ago, she’d never, however, ceased being awed in his presence.
Astera stopped some distance away. The three women waited until Spartacus clapped one of the men on the back in the rough way men do when they’re parting with each other. As the men dispersed, Spartacus saw them or at least saw Astera. His eyes went right to her. A few other men who had been waiting nearby started toward him and Gaidres, but Spartacus stopped them with a hand. He said something to them, then left them to wait as he walked toward Astera. Gaidres followed him.
The two men reached them and stood silent for a moment, until Spartacus said, “Did the goddess answer you?”
He directed the question at Astera. She shook her head. She pulled Laelia up in front of her. Holding her shoulders, she said, “Not me. This one posed the questions.” Spartacus cocked an eyebrow. He glanced at Gaidres, who looked equally wary.
“This girl is not a girl,” Astera said. “She’s bled. She’s a little mother now. Because of when her cycle came, it was right for her to call down the moon last night. It fell to her, and she did it.”
Spartacus, resigned, looked at Laelia. His eyes were so gray. Laelia had never noticed how very gray they were, as if there were a light behind them that made them glow. His skin pulsed with life. She could see the life within him. It glowed like coals in a low fire, giving off heat without flame. She watched the pulsing of the artery running up his thick neck. And most strange, she could hear his heartbeat.
She reminded herself that it was the Bright-Eyed Lady that made her see such things. The concoction was still in her, still giving her a glimpse of the world as the gods saw it.
“Tell him,” Astera said.
Remembering that she was supposed to speak, Laelia tried. She wanted to speak, but for a time she couldn’t push words out of her mouth. She couldn’t help but fear she was an impostor, and that she would suffer for it. In the days after that first time she had attended Astera in calling down the moon, Laelia had been confused. She’d believed more than one thing at a time, things that conflicted and didn’t seem possible. When Astera had asked, “Do you see her?” Laelia had given the only answer she could imagine giving. She said, “Yes, I see her.” It stunned her to say it. It sent tingles scorching through her body, elation mixed with terror. Elation because she loved those words. She wanted them, and saying them was beautiful, and she knew it pleased Astera.
Terror, because it was a lie.
She hadn’t seen the face of a fierce goddess reflected in the dark water of that wooden bowl. She saw the ripples of moonlight in it. She saw the stars reflected from the sky above. She saw a portion of the shadow Astera cast. Mostly, though, peering close, she saw the faint highlights of the face she knew to be her own. Just herself, and she was nothing like the beautiful, awesome visage she had anticipated. Certainly she was nothing like the frightening wolf face she imagined the goddess wore at the nights when the moon was full and round and bright.
That night Astera had carried on with the ceremony. Laelia, beside her the whole time, feared that the goddess would strike her down at any moment for having lied. But she didn’t. It all went to Astera’s satisfaction. Afterward she embraced Laelia. She held her tight in her slim arms and told her how proud she was. She told her that the goddess, in showing her face, had acknowledged Laelia as one of hers. She had only to be faithful to her, and the goddess would always protect her.
Laelia had loved those words. She’d loved that embrace, the arms tight around her, feeling Astera’s breasts against her, the movement of her ribs as she breathed. In that moment, it was right as almost nothing in her life had ever been right. Only Hustus’s hand holding hers had ever felt as right, but that had never been an embrace like this.
So there was love, but there was also fear and confusion. She hadn’t seen the goddess’s face, but she was not being punished for saying she had. That she didn’t understand. It made her wonder if she’d been wrong about the moment. Maybe she had, in lying, told the truth. Was the goddess ripples of moonlight on water? Perhaps she was, for surely she could look like anything she wished. Or was she stars in the sky as well as the moon? Had she been there, but veiled by Astera’s shadow? She even began to doubt that the face she’d seen had been her own. She didn’t know her face that well. Mostly, she saw herself in Hustus, knowing that others did as well. If she could have the same face as her brother, who is to say that Kotys wouldn’t come in a similar guise, to show that she understood Laelia was a twin?
The questions had swirled, unanswered and unspoken. They still did.
The ceremony they had just conducted, though, with Laelia in the grasp of the Bright-Eyed Lady, had been a very different experience.
Astera rubbed circles on Laelia’s back. She whispered, “My moon at night, tell him.”
Laelia tried again. “I…saw the goddess’s face.” She raised her voice. “I asked her if we yet pleased her.”
Spartacus leaned forward. “Yes?”
How to say what happened next? This time she had seen Kotys’s face. It was Laelia’s and not Laelia’s. It was familiar but also wholly unknown to her. It looked young and old at the same time, both calm and full of power. And her answers, when she gave them, had been subtle, silent. Undeniable. Spartacus wouldn’t like them, but he needed to know.
“The goddess pressed her lips together and wouldn’t speak,” Laelia said. For a moment, she pressed her own lips together, so that he knew what she meant. “I asked her if it was her will that we fight today’s battle. Kotys closed her left eye.” Laelia did the same. “I asked if we would win the day. The goddess closed her right eye.” Again, Laelia showed him. “And then she turned her face away and became the moon in the sky.”
Laelia opened her eyes to find Spartacus peering at her, clearly waiting for more. It was Gaidres wh
o spoke, though. “What does that mean? Did she refuse to answer?” He addressed the first question to Astera, the second to Cerzula. Neither woman answered him, and Laelia knew it still fell to her to do so.
“I think…that she has answered. I think that Kotys is sated.”
Spartacus turned his head slightly, as if he could see her better by looking at her askance. “Sated?”
“We have killed enough.” Laelia believed herself more as she spoke. “Her belly is full. She asks no more of you than what you’ve already given her. We’ve done what she wanted, and now she has released us.”
“ ‘Released us’?” Spartacus repeated. “She doesn’t favor us anymore?”
This time Astera responded. She slipped from behind Laelia, trailing her fingers approvingly up the girl’s back and over her shoulder as she did so. She stepped close to Spartacus and took his bearded jaw in the palm of her hand. She looked between him and Gaidres. “She doesn’t bless us,” she explained, “but she doesn’t curse us either. We have no right to ask any more of her. She has done something even greater than continuing to bless. Don’t you see it? She’s freed us. Freed us. This day we are simply ourselves. What could be better?”
Spartacus looked as if he were trying to think of the thing that could be better but couldn’t find the words to describe it. Astera slipped her arms around his torso and pulled herself into his chest. He held his arms awkwardly, not quite committing to the embrace. Something about the way she pressed him and how his arms hung there, undecided, embarrassed Laelia. She looked away. She tried not to hear the things Astera whispered. She tried not to, but she did. She heard her say that she was glad the goddess sent her the dream of him. She said that he had helped her own her life again, and that he’d helped her to find strength she hadn’t possessed before, and he’d lived with her through things so grand, she need ask nothing more of life. She thanked him for these things.
After that she went silent. Laelia risked a glance back. Spartacus had his hands on Astera’s back, the fingers spread wide, so large there on her slim frame. Head down, he was saying something to her. This time Laelia really couldn’t hear it.
She wished she could.
—
In the tiny ruin beside the beach, it’s late in the afternoon. The others have been away all day. Too long, Laelia starts to think. She can’t stay hidden, not when her mind reels with thoughts and her body just wants to move, to do something to rid herself of her restless energy. Against Epta’s cautions, she creeps out of the ruin, careful to scan the dunes and the coastline in all directions. Nobody. Not even the Nubian boy. There are several ships passing out on the waves, but she’s sure they’ll pay her no mind.
She walks across the dunes and onto the firmer sand of the beach. The tide here, she’s observed, slides in and out like a slow breathing. Right now the sea has inhaled, and a wide strip of sand stretches before her. It’s ribboned with smooth contours that she feels on the soles of her bare feet. She looks back. Epta is watching her, likely muttering under her breath that she’s being foolish. Laelia turns and walks across the sand toward the water.
She still can’t grasp the enormity of what’s happened and how everything has changed. She tries to. That’s why she’s here, on the sand, inhaling the salty air and hoping that if she stares long enough at the sea, the thoughts in her head will order themselves. She still has Astera’s voice in her head. That’s a good thing. The words she speaks are filled with confidence. But it’s a strange thing as well. Astera, she knows, is gone from the world. How then can she still hear her? Spartacus is gone from this world, and yet she has only to think of him to feel the power of his presence. The same for the others. Cerzula and Gaidres. And Vectia, who went her own way, is still able to smile at her. Laelia has only to see the smile in her mind for it to be real.
She can feel even Sura is with her, and that’s a strange thing. In life, Sura had never been kind to her. Now Laelia thinks of her with a fondness she doesn’t remember feeling before. Perhaps it’s because she was the one who found her that night they were to call on the goddess. When Sura didn’t arrive as they expected, Astera sent Laelia down from the hill to ask what was keeping her. Laelia came upon her where the path started to rise out of the camp. She froze, seeing a shape on the ground, knowing instantly the curve of Sura’s hips in the starlight. She called her name. No answer. She walked forward, with small steps, trying Sura’s name every so often. Though she called, Laelia knew that Sura couldn’t answer. And though it was an utter surprise and should’ve been a horror, it wasn’t, not after she beheld the woman’s face. Sura’s visage, under the moonlight and in death, didn’t look angry or disapproving. Her mouth was not a pursed thing about to speak harsh words. Her eyes didn’t cut. They were closed. She looked as if she’d fallen into an easy sleep. She was at peace in a way Laelia had never seen her before.
Later Astera had said that Sura must’ve killed herself in grief over Kastor’s death. The evidence was on her lips and in the empty bowl that should have held the Bright-Eyed Lady.
Maybe. Laelia knows that she had been fond of the Galatian, but she has doubts. Grief does not wear such a tranquil face. Grief does not make one look, in death, more beautiful than one had ever been in life. There is more to it than grief; Laelia is sure of that. But what, she can’t say.
There is Hustus, also. There is more to that than she cares to face as yet. She often hears him begin to speak to her, but each time she denies him and puts some other thought in front of him. Hustus, for now, is still too large a thing to face.
So the others are with her still. Everything did not, as Epta fears, end that one day. What she saw before she left the battle beside the river called Silarus, that is good too. She’s tried to make Epta believe that it happened. Epta claims that she does, but there’s a hint of uncertainty behind her eyes. She can choose to believe, but that’s different than seeing it and knowing. That’s what Epta can’t do. Not as Vectia did. And not as Laelia—seeing through Vectia’s words—did.
She reaches the moist sand near the water. She keeps walking until the cool salt water begins to lap at her toes. For a time she looks for whatever it is that the Nubian boy found and put into his net, but there’s nothing. Just sand. Lovely contours the water has worked on it. Pebbles and broken shells. She picks up a crab claw and studies it for a time, finding beauty in the delicate, dangerous shape of it. She has learned from Astera that the Great Mother creates all life. It’s a truth and she feels it, and because of it she’s only more amazed by the endless shapes that make up the world and the creatures in it. She imagines that if she had to create a world, it would not be nearly as grand and diverse as this one. Nor as frightening, or as cruel. She places the palm of one hand on her lower back. There’s a stigma there that she can neither see nor feel: the symbol of the Great Mother. Astera, who drew it under her skin, had said, “You will never in your life see this. You will never be able to feel it. But it’s real, and it will be with you always. The same is true of the Great Mother. Love her as much as you fear Kotys. Love her, and if life is good to you, she may, someday, be more important than the moon god who devours.”
There she is again, Astera’s voice in her head. Laelia shakes it out and keeps walking.
A little farther down the beach, she notices the holes. Small ones, as if someone has poked a finger into the sand. They are, now that she’s noticed them, many. In the wet sand, a few up into the dry sand, others under the water of the approaching tide. She kneels down, peering closely. She digs her fingers into the sand near one of them. It’s hard, and she barely manages to pull away any sand. She grabs a piece of driftwood and levers it in beside the hole, pulling and pushing. The plaque around her neck swings and bangs against her chest as she works. With her fingers again she scoops the loose grains away. Eventually, she sees a clam. That’s what’s beneath the holes. She’s never dug for them, but now that she’s found one, she remembers that people do this. It’s what the Nubian boy
was doing.
The clam fits perfectly in her palm. Heavy and hard, shut tight, it’s thick and ridged deeply, striped in various shades of brown. It feels like a weapon, as if she could swing hard with it clenched in her fist. It’s a jewel as well, and just thinking that it can be eaten makes her mouth awash with moisture. She’s hungry. And this, she thinks, can be eaten raw. All she has to do is slip a knife blade between its clenched jaws and open it. She’d eat it fast, without chewing. A painless death, she hopes. She wants it now, but her knife is back in the ruin with Epta. Silly that. She should have it on her always.
She makes a point of not looking back toward the ruin. She doesn’t want to see Epta watching her, beckoning her. She uses the stick of driftwood to loosen sand around other holes. She finds a wide shell to dig with. For a time, she’s lost in the work, grinding her knees into the sand, getting wet and chilled. She builds a collection of sandy clams. She keeps at it until she’s tired, and there are quite a few of the creatures, sitting dejected where she’s cast them. Enough, she thinks, for her and Epta. Enough also for the other two. At least for today.
Noticing that the tide has started to creep in, she rinses the clams in the water. She carries them, wet and heavy as stones, wrapped in a portion of her tunic that she holds up against her belly. Walking back toward the ruin, she catches movement on the dunes to the north out of the corner of her eye. Or she thinks she does. When she gives the view her full attention, there’s nothing but sand and hillocks and the beach and the sea. She stands motionless, waiting to see it again, her heart suddenly hammering.
A rider emerges from a dip in the dunes, first his head and then the horse’s. A moment later, a man on foot climbs into view. They’re too far away to see clearly, but just the shape of them is enough for her to recognize. A Roman. A slave.
She hurries the rest of the way to the ruin. She climbs inside and spills the clams onto the grass. “They’re coming,” she says.
The Risen Page 53