Only once was her isolation broken. Aristaios, the headman’s son, knocked on her door and asked to come in. Eurydice shook her head and stepped outside. “My husband is not here,” she said, eyes discreetly lowered. “He has gone to ply his craft.”
“But it is your craft I need,” Aristaios said. “Let me come in.”
“I can answer you as well out here where all can see and hear us,” Eurydice replied.
There was a brief hesitation, but Eurydice did not care what caused it and did not look up. “I have lost the little knife I used for carving,” Aristaios said.
“It is behind the brown chest in the large chamber,” Eurydice replied, having received the image of the knife and that of its resting place both at once.
“Thank you,” Aristaios said. “That has saved me much time searching. I wonder how it got there. I do not remember being near that chest at all.”
That was false, Eurydice knew, but she gave no sign. She wondered whether he had hidden the knife and asked her to find it to test whether she would still oblige the village with her skills when Orpheus was not there to urge her to it, but she was not interested enough to probe farther and only said, “I am glad to help in any small way I can.”
“And I also,” Aristaios said. “If you need a man for any purpose now that Orpheus is away, I would be glad to oblige you.”
“I thank you,” Eurydice responded, surprised, half pleased and half suspicious, “but I do not believe I will need to trouble you.”
With that, she nodded and went within, closing the door behind her. She was too absorbed in her own problems to give any thought to Aristaios, but he did seem grateful for her small help and came up to speak to her in the street when she went to fetch a pitcher of milk the next day. She answered him politely and passed on. The next day he turned up at the house again, not asking for help this time but offering to chop wood. She refused, saying that she was well supplied, but thanked him again, and this time lingered in talk a few minutes. She had begun to feel that her voice would rust before Orpheus returned.
By the fourth day, Eurydice was unable to bear the empty house any longer. She took her sling and pebbles, her basket and her digging tool, and went out into the hills to find what she could for the larder. That eased her heart a little as she often went gleaning alone. However, in the back of her mind she was aware of the empty house waiting, and she went farther than usual. Being beyond where the women ordinarily sought berries and nuts, she found the gleaning good and decided she would eat part of her harvest of mushrooms and nuts for her noon meal so she could go farther still. In the end, as well as finding more mushrooms, tasty bulbs, a stand of askolonion, and a whole basketful of nuts, she brought down two rabbits.
It was a heavy load to carry and Eurydice was very glad to see the grazing meadows when she topped the last rise of ground. She hesitated on the crown of the hill, tempted to sit down and rest for a while, then spun around as a man’s voice hailed her. It was Aristaios. He must have been out hunting, she thought, seeing the javelin he carried, but he had not been successful. She was tempted to hide the rabbits—men did not take well to being beaten at their own game by a woman—but she did not have time enough. Her lips tightened. No, she would not pander to his vanity.
“And where are you coming from?” he asked.
“I have been gleaning,” she replied, remembering not to look up and laugh. She held up her basket.
“That is a fine catch,” he said, prodding the rabbit lying on top.
Eurydice nodded, but dropped her arm so her basket was on the side opposite to him and started down the slope. If Aristaios thought she was going to give him any part of her hard won gatherings, he was sadly mistaken. However, he said no more about her catch, merely remarking that he was going back to the village and would walk with her. She nodded and smiled, glad of the company until Aristaios asked her if she was not unhappy to be without a man’s attention and support.
“No, of course not,” she replied.
“Because a witch can protect herself?” Aristaios asked.
“I am not a witch,” Eurydice protested automatically, feeling the hairs rise on her arms. “I am not afraid because I am in my husband’s village, where no one will harm me.”
“No one would harm you unless you harmed them,” he said.
“I have no power to harm,” she snapped, most untruthfully, but with inbred caution.
“Ah!” Aristaios smiled and put out a hand to grab her wrist. Eurydice jerked her arm away and took a step sideways. “Come now,” he said, sounding surprised, “are you not cold and lonely in your empty bed?”
Eurydice stopped dead in her tracks and stared up at him. It had never occurred to her that Aristaios had the smallest interest in her as a woman. Most of the villagers found her small size, dark skin, hair, and eyes strange and unpleasant—she had overheard enough indignant questions to Orpheus about his perverted taste.
“Yes, indeed,” she said, not lowering her eyes modestly, but meeting his in a challenging stare, “but having had Orpheus in it, I assure you that I prefer my cold and lonely state to sharing with any other. Orpheus is my husband. I desire only him.”
“How do you know?” he asked, laughing and reaching for her again.
Others had reached to seize her in the past. Warned by the sneering question that he had waited to ask, she leapt aside and began to run. Aristaios laughed again and started after her. “Whore,” he shouted. “Don’t pretend you don’t want it. All women want it—and the rougher the better. That’s why you run, isn’t it? All whores, every one.”
Spells rose in Eurydice’s mind: first to freeze him, then to geld him, and finally a black incantation to stop his heart. But to freeze him would prove her a witch; her Gift screamed against the taking of life; and she knew that impotence would only make his kind more and more vicious. She cast a stumble-foot at him and he fell, but it did not save her much time because he rose roaring imprecations and ran with increased speed after her. He intended to have her. She might even have yielded to him, as she had to others before she met Orpheus, if she could have believed that would be the end of it, but she knew it would not. He would come again and again and, worse even than that, he would talk! No, she would kill him and violate her Gift before she allowed such a tale to come to Orpheus’ ears.
Blind with tears and terror Eurydice ran on, hearing Aristaios’ feet pounding closer and closer. And suddenly before her, there was a thick growth of brush. She turned at bay, and he was there.
“Let me be!” she gasped, drawing the knife from her belt. “Let me be, or I will hurt you.”
For answer, he showed all his teeth, raised the javelin he was carrying, and poked it at her. Eurydice gasped again and began to whisper the freezing spell as she lifted a foot to back away, but before she could complete the spell, her sandaled foot came down awry and she crashed backward into the brush. She screamed as Aristaios, laughing, threw himself atop her and the magic of the uncompleted spell lashed back at her. Almost simultaneously Aristaios’ laugh changed to a shriek. He had released Eurydice’s bare arms, and recoiled. Without thinking, Eurydice had poured out the Power that was loose in her body to the nearest receptacle in contact with her and had burned Aristaios.
When he let her go, Eurydice rolled frantically away, only to scream again as a burning pain pierced her right arm. She jerked away, turned her head. Adder! She had rolled over an adder! In instinctive terror-driven need, Eurydice drew Power as she had never drawn before and HEALED. The terrible cramp followed by numbness that had been halfway up her arm disappeared. The bushes under her snapped and cracked. The adder, which she had thrust away with a sharp terrified blow, broke into pieces, like a long icicle; and Aristaios lay crumpled at the edge of the brush.
Eurydice stared at him for a moment, then went to find her basket and gather up as much as she could of what had spilled from it. If he were dead, so much the better! No one would ever be able to tell from what he had died.
If he were not, he would soon recover and find his way home. When she had cleared away any sign she had been there, Eurydice went back to her cottage and barred the door behind her.
She ate some bread and cheese, which she had left ready for her lunch, hung the rabbits for skinning the next day, and fell into bed. She knew she should be thinking out some excuse and explanation for what had happened to Aristaios—it would be lovely if he were dead, but the more she thought about it the more she doubted it; he was a lot more massive than the adder and she had not drawn in Power for long—but she was far too tired. Perhaps, she told herself as her eyes closed, he would be too ashamed of trying to rape another man’s wife to bring any accusation against her.
The pounding on her door which woke her soon after dawn the next day, proved that hope was vain. “Come out, witch,” one of the headman’s cronies called. “If you do not, we will burn the house and you within it.”
At first, having really heard only the last part, Eurydice was too frightened to answer, but when the threat was repeated, she cried, “I am no witch. Let me dress myself and I will come out. I have done no one any harm.”
Tears ran down her face as she spoke, but actually there was as much relief in her as grief and terror. She no longer had any choices to make. She could no longer hope to convince Orpheus to come with her—the villagers themselves would tell him that they had driven her out and that he had been wrong about his village being a safe haven. She would freeze them and flee as she had fled so many times before. Somehow she would make her way back to Salmydessus. If Orpheus loved her enough, he would come. If he did not…
She pulled on her traveling clothes, stuffed the few bits of metal that remained in the house in her pouch, stuck her knife and the small hand axe through her belt, and reached for the door. The words of the freezing spell were spoken. She flung open the door, “Epikaloumi,” trembling on her lips to be spoken the moment her eyes fell on those waiting for her…and the world went black.
Chapter Twenty-four
The blackness enveloped Eurydice for a long time. There were moments when it brightened to grey, when liquid was trickled into her mouth and she was urged to swallow; once or twice, she thought, she was urged to chew also, but she could never open her eyes and the blackness always returned. Then the dark was lit with a yellow glow. This tune nothing interfered when Eurydice tried to open her eyes. She found she was staring up at a rough stone roof and, looking around, saw she was in a stone-walled chamber lit by several torches. Before she could begin to wonder where the villagers had found such a prison, a male voice asked, “What is your name?”
She pushed herself upright, drawing a sharp breath as she realized she had been lying on a bier. Sitting, she could see the man who had spoken. He had very black hair and pale grey eyes in a pallid, clean-shaven face, he was seated in a marvelously carven stone chair much like a throne. No, Eurydice thought, her breath coming faster, nowhere in the village had there been such a man or such a chair.
“There is no need to be frightened,” the man said, although his face remained stern and unsmiling. “You are beyond all hurt now.”
“They killed me?” Eurydice whispered. She did not feel dead—but how did the dead feel?
“They sacrificed you to the King of the Dead. You are in Plutos now. I am Radamanthus, one of Hades’ judges. I warn you, I am Gifted to read the truth so there is no purpose to lying. What is your name and your Gift?”
Still too stunned by the idea that she was dead to worry about eternal punishment, Eurydice replied, “My name is Eurydice. I am a Finder and a Healer by Gift and I can draw and wield Power for spells.”
“Very good,” Radamanthus said. “Go out the right-hand door and down the passage. When you come to the river, wait, a boat will be along.”
Eurydice blinked at him, “That is your judgement? But you asked me nothing of my life.”
“King Hades is not interested in your life. Whatever good or ill you did in the upper world remains there. Here you begin anew. My judgement concerns only your Gift and your Power, and I judge those to be very strong. The boatman will take you to the palace of King Hades himself.”
“The boatman,” Eurydice repeated, “but I have no obol with which to pay him.” Her eyes filled with tears. “They did not even give me—”
“I assure you, the boatman will ask for no payment,” Radamanthus said. “I have no idea where that story started nor does King Hades. However, if you are afraid…” He reached down to a basket that stood by his throne, pulled out a flat, round piece of gold and held it out toward her.
Eurydice slid off the bier. She found her legs too weak and wobbly to obey immediately, but Radamanthus showed no irritation, and when she thanked him for not rushing her, he smiled for the first time and said that the dead were very patient. When she felt steadier, Eurydice took the coin—it was exquisitely engraved on one side with the face of a bearded man and on the other with that of a superbly beautiful woman—and went out the door as she was bid.
She was still far too confused by what had happened to object to anything. All she could really think was that they had killed her! She had not really believed they would do that for fear of offending Orpheus. He had powerful friends, the villagers knew that, and she believed that they still hoped, once they were rid of her, that he would go back to his old pattern of traveling and singing and bringing home gold for the village. She had come to the end of the torch-lit tunnel and out onto the bank of a black river. Both her feet and her mind stopped there. Would he? If she had left him, he might have. But if he knew she were dead at the hands of the villagers? She knew Orpheus would grieve for her, but when that grief was past, would the village that had killed her still hold him so that he would put the memory of what they had done to her aside and—
“Whatever your wrongs, there is no cause to be angry with me!”
Eurydice looked up and saw a strong-looking elderly man holding his boat just away from the shore with a pole. “I am not angry with you,” she said. “Why should I be?”
“No spells!” he exclaimed, frowning. “I was once changed into a fish and lost my boat. King Hades was very angry. Wood is not so easy to find in the underworld.”
“But why should the king be angry with you?” Eurydice asked, and then, before the boatman could answer, smiled and said, “There is no sense keeping the boat out there. You are quite close enough for me to cast a spell on you if I wished. I will do you no harm.”
“Strong enough to cast this far, are you? I’m surprised you weren’t here much sooner.” He brought the boat in and extended a hand. She put the gold piece into it. He looked at it in surprise, smiled, and shook his head. “Another one who was worried about obols? No, keep it.”
“But it is gold,” Eurydice said.
The boatman laughed aloud, waking pleasant echoes of amusement. “Gold is plentiful here and near worthless. It is bread and cloth and wood that are rare treasures—although I must say that since the coming of the queen, all blessings fall upon her, there is less belly pinching than there once was.”
Having been concentrating on stepping aboard and seating herself while the boatman spoke, Eurydice had not really paid attention. Suddenly she took in what he had said. “Belly pinching?” she repeated. “How can the dead be belly pinched?” And even as she spoke she realized she was, herself, starving.
“In Plutos, the dead hunger and thirst, sing and dance, hate and love just as they did in life,” the boatman said.
Well, there was water enough, if one could bring oneself to drink black Styx’s water, and there was the blood of sacrifice that was poured into the troughs when one wished to question the dead… Eurydice shivered.
“I will not drink the blood from the troughs!” she exclaimed.
There was a tiny pause and then the boatman said, “No one will force you to do it if you do not wish.” His voice sounded choked.
Eurydice was silent, thinking it was desire for that unwholesome repast th
at had risen in his throat to choke him, and she felt repelled and sad, for she had begun to like the boatman. And then she thought it might not be his fault.
“Is this our punishment? That we hunger and thirst and have only the black water of the Styx and the blood in the troughs to assuage that torment?”
He shook his head strongly. “There is no punishment in Plutos, except for those who transgress the rules of King Hades. If you do not cheat or steal or do other harm to any, you will have such food, clothing, and shelter as match the worth of your labor to support the realm. And, of course, there is nothing to stop you from employing a skill, aside from or beyond your labor, to get any luxuries you desire. I carve wood when I am free.”
“And who is the judge of the necessary labor?”
“Oh, it is all scribed by the king’s finger on stone tablets. For a boatman, so many ells of cloth, so many talents of bread, and so forth; for a miner of hard stone, so much; for a miner of soft black burning rock, so much; for a hunter—
“And for the use of a Gift? Or is that forbidden?”
“Not forbidden, no, but many in Plutos are Gifted. However, for one as strong as you…but that is for Queen Persephone to decide.”
“The queen, not the king?”
“They are the same—one flesh, one bone, one mind. But the queen is also High Priestess of the Goddess and mostly chooses the Gifted who are to serve with their Power. Ah, we are coming to shore. Look ahead. Where you see the torches is a passage. One waits there who will take your name and tell you what to do.”
The boat ground lightly into the pebbled beach, the boatman pushing against his pole to keep it steady as he came forward so his weight would ground it firmly. He watched Eurydice as she rose slowly, reluctantly. She swallowed over a tight throat, blinked away tears. He had been kind. She had been interested, almost comfortable. He smiled at her.
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