HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods

by Coffey, J. A.

  Then the Greeks spotted me.

  My father beat the haft of his sarisa against his armor, trying to draw their attention, but to no avail. Moonlight streamed through the trees and gleamed off the surface of the raiders’ polished bronze helmets. One lifted an arm and pointed in my direction. He shouted an unintelligible word. Time seemed to stop.

  Blood pounded in my ears. I felt as if my hands were cupped around my eyes; I could see neither left nor right, only ahead, where my father struggled to reach me before the Grecian soldiers.

  “Dori!” My father roared. “No!” His leather sandals churned up the stinking, blood-damp forest floor. He slashed wildly at the soldier in front of him. The Greek crumpled to the ground. Father vaulted the fallen soldier and jabbed at the unprotected hip of the next.

  “Papita,” I whispered.

  Tears stung the back of my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks. My feet were rooted to the soil. I was so afraid. I could not make them move. My hand made a small gesture unbidden, reaching out to him as if he could indeed make it to me in time to save us both. For a moment, I thought he would.

  More invaders fell, Grecian pigs slaughtered by my father’s fearsome rage. And then, the Greeks reached my hiding place. The world rushed back to me with such force that I was knocked to my knees. Time resumed its deadly march.

  I peered up from my crouched position to see a pair of cold, dark eyes boring into my skull. The five invaders shouldered each other, jockeying for position before my father plowed into them from the side, like a storm from the sea. One sidestepped the blow—the same who had spotted me. He said something to me that I could not understand, grabbed my bare arm and began to drag me from the clearing.

  “Doricha,” my father called after me as they drew him further away. His voice was tinged with a helpless timbre. “Doricha, fight! Don’t let them take you!”

  I tried to twist my arm free and run. My captor stopped and slapped me, open handed across my left cheek. He laughed as my father continued to fight the remaining pack, desperate to retrieve me. The blood from my father’s side soaked his tunic, but he called curses to them in challenge. The Greek was diverted.

  He halted at what he judged a safe distance, removed his helmet, and tucked it under the arm that bound me to him. With a nasty grin at me, he wiped his pale face on the back of his hand and turned back to watch my father’s torment. Moonlight gleamed off the dark oiled hair curled against his white forehead.

  I had to find a way to free myself. I resolved to fight him, though I’d little chance against an armed Grecian soldier. At full age, we Thracians are half again a Greek’s height and breadth but as scarce more than a child, I was no match for him. Or so he thought.

  Suddenly, I spied the bucket I took to gather water, lying unnoticed in the bracken. By stretching out my toes, I was able to hook the long handle around my ankle. I bobbled, unbalanced on one foot, and looped the rough wooden handle into my sweating hand.

  My captor took no notice, transfixed by his companions’ efforts to subdue my father. I glanced at Father once more, as the night’s glow surrounded his sweat drenched skin. His face, crowned by the glorious, shining topknot of red-gold, his broad lips curled in a grimace, and the flash of his sarisa. At that moment he seemed more splendid than even Dionysus himself. I prayed to be as brave and strong as he.

  Wielding the bucket like Boreas, the harbinger of storms, I jerked my wrist free, and screamed my father’s war chant.

  “Live free!” I aimed for the back of the Greek’s head.

  He turned in surprise. I swallowed hard, closed my eyes, and swung the heavy wooden bucket with all my strength.

  As fortune would have it, my captor leaned over to recapture my wrist just as the wide wooden brim of the bucket clouted him on the side of the temple. The heavy wooden edge boomed like thunder against his skull. His ivory skin split beneath the force, and his dark eyes grew vague. He staggered and blood dripped from the wound to taint his cheeks. Then it seemed the left side of his body ceased to function, for his hand went as nerveless as a palsied elder.

  Again, I hefted the bucket and prepared to strike, but there was no need. On the second step, my captor fell to the ground with a most puzzled expression and ceased to move again. I think I shall never forget his death stare.

  I was free! And yet my joy was short-lived.

  The two remaining Grecian soldiers, unaware of their companion’s plight, had gained the upper hand. I turned, just in time to see them plunge both their blades deep into my father’s abdomen.

  Father’s agate eyes locked on mine, strange and terrible, and he gripped a sword pommel and tried to pull it from his body. His lips quivered as his hands scrabbled at the blade thrust through his organs.

  “Run,” he said in the tongue of my forefathers. “Run, Dori! Don’t look back.” He coughed and bloody spittle ran from the side of his lips, so much like the crimson wine before. Though I was more than twenty paces away, I could hear his voice as clearly as if we were still snuggled together on the hearth.

  The Grecian soldiers taunted him. “The Thracian dog begs for mercy.”

  They laughed at his pain, and yanked their blades free. My father sank to his knees in the red-running earth. The coppery scent of his life’s blood clogged my nostrils. The sea wind moaned like a wounded animal, and rage such as I’d never known scorched the sorrow in my heart.

  I would kill them, too. The cleansing flame spread through my arms and legs and filled me with vengeance. I picked up the sword of my dead captor and took one bold step forward out of the shadows.

  My father’s head shook, the feeble motion begging me without words to stop. Gasping for breath, he clutched his hands over the gaping wounds, trying to hold his flesh together long enough to save me still.

  “Run.” His chest heaved like a small bird I’d captured once in my palms. “Live free.”

  He might have said more, but coughing overtook him. Horror struck me. My father lay dying in a pool of his own blood. I’d killed a man. No one would protect me from the cruel whims of the gods. No one, except myself. Run, he’d said. With that thought entrenched in my mind, I dropped the cursed Greek sword and fled the clearing, as silent as a wraith, though my throat ached to wail my sorrow to the skies.

  Run.

  I stumbled and plunged through the black forest.

  I could scarce see two steps in front of me. Surrounded by the drowning sounds of battle, my arms flailed. I heard Grecian soldiers in the whispers of every blowing branch and leaf. I feared for my mother and our peaceful village. Was I running to another Grecian trap? And, oh, my father was dead!

  Live.

  I don’t know which direction I fled. Somewhere in the darkness, a wolf howled. I clenched my jaw to keep from joining in. Silence descended, heavy and strange to my ears after the screams of the dying. Great gasping sobs racked my chest, and my legs burned from the steep pitch of the land, but I did not stop. I could not. My father, oh, my beloved father!

  Panic and desperation beat at me with icy claws, until I heard a familiar sound to the south. Sounds of the tide. The fortress was near the shoreline, and our village lay directly between the forest and Perperek. I covered my mouth with my hands and focused on the call of rousing sea birds to guide me home.

  And all the while, my father’s war chant became my mantra.

  Live free.

  Live free.

  It was his dying wish for me. And so, I vowed, I would.

  Chapter Two

  After the initial fear of capture subsided, I followed the tide until at last, I stumbled across the worn earthen path that led to home. The sun was just beginning to break. Pale, silver fingers of light infiltrated the familiar terrain. I shivered and my knees turned to water.

  What would I say to my mother? What could I say? My mind turned again and again to the night’s devastation.

  I had been foolish and it had led my father to his death. Oh, if only I had heeded his warning! Though my ey
es were open, I saw only my father sinking to his knees, the hilt of a Grecian blade that protruded from his gut and spilled his steaming blood and innards to the earth.

  A tight knot hardened in the pit of my stomach and then uncoiled with such fury I dropped to the earth myself and vomited. Icy, shivering sweat bloomed on my body. My hands and hair were rusted from old blood, whether mine or that of the man I had killed, I do not know. I rolled to the side and curled my knees to my chest, praying I would die before my mother should discover the awful truth.

  Some many moments later, I realized Bendis, Mother Huntress, would not take me to her bosom. I reasoned my actions had made me unclean in the eyes of the gods, and so I rose, stiff and aching, to continue.

  Where else could I go?

  At the top of the next rise, our home materialized out of the low-lying mist. I pictured my mother, still drowsing in the aftermath of spent passion. Or perhaps worse, she could be setting the fire, awaiting me and preparing for my father’s victorious return. If not for me, he would return to us. I was sure of it. I bit down hard on a dingy knuckle and stifled the cry that again threatened to erupt from my raw, aching throat.

  My father was by all accounts the most accomplished warrior in Perperek. Though we were poor, his exploits had afforded him the luxury of a beautiful Bacchae as a wife instead of one of the sturdy village women who populated this territory. Without him, I did not know how we would survive. That is, if the Greeks did not infiltrate our village and enslave our people. For if my father, the mightiest of men, had fallen so had the others. I’d escaped, but perhaps only to be recaptured as a slave.

  Live free, my father had commanded with his last breath.

  Could I? Our hut was deathly silent as I approached and no cook fire burned. I trembled, fearing the worst.

  “Doricha!” My mother, who never moved without unconscious grace, rushed out of our hut. Her face was ashen. “Gods be praised, you’ve escaped! You must hurry.”

  I wanted to speak. My throat closed, and I felt tears prick my swollen eyes.

  “Doricha.” She enveloped me in a fragrant embrace of herbs and sorrow. “Something has gone amiss. None of the men returned last night and the Greeks could be upon us at any minute. Come now, quickly.” Her light eyes darted about the hillside, as she shooed me towards our hut.

  I froze in my tracks just outside the threshold, the door my father would never again walk through, because of my willful disobedience.

  “Whist, Dori, did you not hear me?” My mother gripped me, quick and brutal and shook me hard enough to set my teeth to clattering.

  “Mamita…”

  My voice was a pitiful sob, even to my own ears. But what right did I have for mercy? My mother turned me around then, and her eyes loomed large and terrible in her divine face. She knelt before me.

  “Hear me, Doricha. None of the men returned. None. Do you understand?”

  I nodded and tears streamed down my cheeks.

  “Then you know what that means for us. The fortress has fallen. The others have already fled into the mountains. I waited for you. Hurry now. I’ve already gathered our belongings.”

  I was grateful then, so very grateful that she was efficient in her fear. The Greeks would be upon us at any moment. She had always been first and foremost a Bacchae, but the morning’s bloody sun revealed my mother’s true feelings to me. As I bent to gather my meager pack from the hearth, a darker blot crossed my mind. She didn’t know I was the cause of her sorrow. I vowed then never to tell her.

  We padded stealthily into the unknown hills to the southwest, beyond the familiar rises of fields where I’d gathered herbs and played solitary games.

  My mother was so afraid of capture that she never sought to question my haggard and filthy appearance. I hadn’t even had time to wash the evidence of my betrayal from my palms. I rubbed the dried blood from my skin as if I could erase the memories along with my guilt.

  Storm season was upon us. I sought to lose myself in the raging wind as we made our escape into the hills. My mother’s frigid hand tugged incessantly at mine throughout the day, and she urged me in whispers to hurry. Her concern began to mock me. What would she do if she knew the awful truth? The mountain air scarred my cheeks with taloned claws that could not reach the desperate secret buried in my stomach. It gnawed at me with every step, every murmur of my mother’s voice.

  When we reached the broken, jagged cliffs of the Rhodopes, I pulled away from her steadying hand and stood at the edge of the rocky mountain path. My beloved homeland stretched green and gold far into the distance. I wavered there. It would be easy to slip off here, into oblivion.

  “Doricha?” My mother beckoned to me with her eyes wide and full of fear. “Come away, Daughter.”

  I did not want to go to her. I wanted to be away from all of this--away from the dying screams of men and crimson fog clouding my vision. But I had not the courage to hurl myself over the welcoming heights of the cliffs. Hot bubbling acids ate at my stomach. I could taste them in the back of my throat as I rejected salvation and returned to the path of my mother’s footfalls.

  A day and night, a night and day, we walked on in silence with only the birds to note our progress. When she offered me a slice of bread and goat cheese, I refused. A crease formed between her delicate arching brows, but she said nothing and let me walk on in hunger and guilty silence.

  The hills were treacherous and I stumbled and slipped on the scree, until my mother bade me clutch onto her skirts as we climbed. Sharp rocks pierced the soles of my sandals and the wind tore my stained woolen chiton to ragged shreds and still we journeyed towards the setting sun. I took no food, only a little watered wine, until my mother’s concern over me outgrew her sorrow at losing her heart mate.

  She knelt before me in the dust and pressed her face against my chest.

  “Please, Doricha. You must eat. For my sake, if not your own.” Her light eyes were awash with tears. “I cannot lose you, too.”

  I could not stand to see her humbled. I choked down the hard stale bread and smelly cheese to ease her mind, though it stuck in my throat. We headed onward, I knew, to the one place that might offer us some protection-- the temple of the Bacchae.

  As we labored on beneath the third slowly dying sun, I followed my mother without question. At some point, we must have passed out of immediate danger, because the set of her shoulders relaxed. Perhaps the proximity of the temple reassured her. I was too sick and exhausted to care. We continued, it seemed, for eternity though in truth the night’s horror had yet to fade in my mind.

  When at last I thought I could go no further and it seemed I would march into the gates of Hades for my sins, we reached the torch-lit sanctuary. It was dusk, a time when the veils between worlds are drawn back and fearful things tread upon mortal soil. The cliffs, once solid and eternal rock, grew filmy before my weary eyes, and I fancied the air grew thin and sharp, as if in anticipation as we drew near.

  The Temple to Dionysus was hidden deep within a natural cavern of the Rhodopes Mountains. The entrance was a gaping black hole that seemed to swallow every trace of daylight in its inky maw. Torches lit the narrow path of crushed stone. Thracian artists had enhanced the rugged beauty of the entrance with enormous carvings of the gods in various stages of repose or pursuit. Beyond the columned entry, Dionysus lay on a verdant hillside attended by the blue-inked Bacchae. Feeling unclean, I took no comfort from the depictions.

  I stared at the exquisite illustration and then at my mother. She noted my gaze and patted my shoulder.

  “It’s what you were born for, Dori. To live in grace and beauty as a Bacchae.”

  I turned again to the carved friezes adorning the chamber entrance. Here, a Bacchae fed grapes to a satyr. There, Dionysus danced, ringed by five women, whilst others played musical instruments. Each was a vision of beauty, grace and gaiety. I swallowed hard. Each bore a pattern of cobalt across the backs of their hands. After the grisly images in the night forest, I felt as if
I’d entered the blessed afterworld.

  These women were the epitome of perfection. Oh, how I longed to be one of them! With every fiber in my being I wished to find myself worthy. But I was all elbows and knees and stringy hair. My limbs were too long, my nose too snub, and my teeth too large. I did not know how to play music or dance. And worse, I was unclean--both outside and in, for I had led my father to his doom.

  I closed my eyes, shutting out the beautiful images. In my mind’s eye, I saw them turning away from me, shielding their pure faces from the stain of my presence.

  “I will never be one of them,” I muttered.

  “Whist, daughter. You mustn’t say such things.”

  A glimmer of hope pierced the haze of despair in my heart. If I were a Bacchae, I could beg my lord Dionysus to watch over my father’s shade. I could earn back my honor.

  I let myself be consoled by my mother, who shooed away my failings with a pale, slim hand. Deafening booms resounded off the craggy cliffs, like peals of thunder, too evenly spaced. My body shuddered with each beat. I imagined them as the voice-blood of the Bacchae, mocking me for my impurity.

  “Come,” my mother said and led me to the gods’ door.

  *** ***

  It is a strange thing what guilt, youth, and starvation can do to one’s perception of truth. Smothering darkness enveloped my mother and me. As the heat of the day passed from our bodies, we entered the temple. The path sloped downward, deep into the mountain. Chill bumps grew along my bared arms and legs. The crunch of our sandaled feet on the stone path mingled with the whoosh and sizzle of unseen torches in the earth-scented air ahead of us.

  “This is the Throat of Orpheus,” my mother whispered as dim torchlight penetrated the darkness. “It is a sacred place, one of the last places he walked, before the Maenads slaughtered him. Dionysus, our lord, accepted the death of Orpheus as a sacrifice for his people. Pass these walls and pray for joy to return again to your heart.”