Shadow of Athena

by Elena Douglas

  Taking his cue from Gortys, Arion grasped Haleia’s hand. “I trust that your ankle will mend,” he said. “You should try to rest it.”

  Haleia laughed shakily. “If I can!”

  “Farewell,” Arion said to her solemnly. Then he turned to address Marpessa in the same formal tone. “Farewell.”

  Her mouth was trembling. Her eyes flooded again and she knew they could all see her tears. She bit her lip, furious at herself for this show of weakness. Arion’s gaze met hers, steady and serious. He made no move to take her hand. Those brown eyes willed her not to cry. “Be strong,” he said.

  At that moment the High Priestess came through the doorway followed by two thin, stooped creatures that at first sight did not even look like young women. Their hair was shorn and wispy, their eyes hollow and ringed in dark shadows, their skin as pale as if it had never seen the sun. A stale odor arose from them. Marpessa’s heart dropped. Will we be like that in a year’s time? She had a faint memory of two girls setting out last year, robust and healthy. She could not remember their names. And now they looked as if they had no names.

  “Praise to Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and all gods! It is good to see you safe.” Gortys gave the two a forced smile. “We must go now. You will want to start your journey home.” He took the wraithlike girls by their arms. “Come,” he said to Arion. “We are no longer being pursued. We can leave by the main gate.”

  Though he knew he had no choice, Arion thought it heartless to just walk away, leaving Marpessa and Haleia standing there with the priestess. They were probably as shocked as he was by the sight of the two returning girls. What unimagined hardships had they endured? These same hardships now lay ahead for Marpessa and Haleia. At least they will be safe, he tried to console himself. As he followed Gortys and their new companions down the street, he did not turn back for a farewell glance, for he could not bear the look in Marpessa’s eyes.

  Gortys led them around a corner out of sight of Marpessa and Haleia. Arion lowered his head. He felt an emptiness, a sense of uselessness. He had a sudden vivid memory of his seven-year-old self standing on the dock among strangers while his ailing mother walked away, drooping. He had known from that moment that he was alone in the world. Did Marpessa and Haleia feel that same terrible aloneness? Then he reminded himself that they were not seven years old, and in a year’s time they would return to loving families. Besides there was nothing he could do for them. Best put all thoughts of them out of his mind. He had his own fate to think about.

  Now is my time, my chance to escape. How will I do it?

  He plodded along with the other three around a curve, down a sloping street toward a large, open portal. As they walked, Gortys spoke bracingly to the two girls.

  “We will cross the plain to Rhoeteum,” he said, “where we left the skiff. The ship will be waiting for us just offshore. If you are strong enough to walk, we can make it there in two or three hours. Just think! Soon—in a matter a few days, if the gods are willing—you will see your families. Are you hungry? We have food in our packs.”

  “We have just eaten a meal,” one of the two informed him.

  “What are your names?” Gortys asked. “I should remember from last year, but my memory isn’t what it once was, and—”

  But Arion wasn’t listening. He pulled his mind away from thoughts of these two girls and the ones they’d left behind.

  How? he wondered. It must be now, before we board the ship. When we reach the skiff, I’ll disappear into the shrubbery, and—

  But that would never serve. Gortys would wait for him, look for him, then alert the crew of the ship. There would be a widespread search. If they didn’t find him, he would be reported as a fugitive to all the nearby Greek colonies in Aeolia and Ionia. Many on these shores would be pleased to catch him, to collect a reward.

  The four of them went out of the citadel onto the plain, following a well-trodden road. As they walked, Arion gnawed on his lower lip, his thoughts leaping ahead to what would happen once they reached the ship. Gortys had instructed the captain to anchor just offshore from where the skiff had landed and to await them there. Once they boarded, the plan was to sail to an island northwest of Tenedos, where they would anchor for the night.

  An idea came to Arion, a possibility so full of peril that he grew cold with fear. It would be difficult, and there was a good chance he would not even survive. But though it went against every instinct, it was the only way.

  He must get back on that ship.

  XII

  ESCAPE

  U

  Thankful that he had not been asked to row, Arion watched the men raise anchor, haul the oars, and swing the ship around. He, Gortys, and the returning girls had found the skiff without difficulty and had rowed to the ship. Now the air’s chill pierced him to the core, and tension gnawed at his gut. He drew deep, calming breaths. As the men hoisted the sail, Arion moved in to help. Then, when they were done, he slipped away to the railing near the stern. A brisk wind lifted white-capped swells on dark blue seas. The sun came from behind a cloud to throw down blinding lances of light. On such a bright, cloudy day, it would be hard to see an object in the water.

  Good, Arion thought. He tightened his leather belt around his waist, making sure his silver pieces were secure against his body. His sturdy sandals would weight him down, but that couldn’t be helped. He would not give them up. Ruefully he discarded his cloak, for that would hamper him. As he watched the shore slip away on his right, his muscles clenched. He must wait for just the right moment, when they were farther from land but not too far. As the wind caught the sail, the ship bucked like a frisky horse and shot forward. The land’s features began to grow indistinct.

  Now. He waited until no one was near, no one paying him any attention. Then, standing on a narrow thwart near the rail, he took a misstep and tried to regain his balance, making it look awkward in case any were watching. He overbalanced and swayed, his arms flailing. With a cry, he pitched into the sea.

  He sank deep under. The sea was colder than it had been last night, and the shock of it stunned him, held him motionless for several heartbeats, his mouth and nose full of salt water. He fought to the surface, feeling as if he were in a nightmare where the sea was thick as syrup and his limbs were paralyzed. At last he came up choking, amid waves that slapped over his face and stole his breath.

  He heard yells from the ship. “Man overboard!”

  “Arion!”

  “Can he swim?”

  A wave washed over him. He went under—surfaced again, sputtering. It was not hard to feign difficulty staying afloat. “Help!” he shouted.

  Someone yelled, “Here’s a line! Catch it!”

  But the ship was already moving swiftly away. A rope came snaking toward him. The wind whipped it aside. Arion swam hard toward the rope, made a grab for it—missed.

  He gulped a breath and sank under. Beneath the surface he paddled furiously away from the ship. Then he came up again gasping and struggling.

  He heard a faint shout. “Too far—losing him!”

  He went under again, swam away, raised his head. His lungs felt swamped. He was already tired from fighting the swells. He floated on his back, keeping his face just above the surface while he recouped his strength. The ship was speeding farther away, propelled by the full sail. In these waves, with the sunlight and cloud shadows dancing over the surface, he would be all but invisible.

  With a strong wind driving them, they would debate furling the sail and going back to look for him. He hoped they would decide that it would be too hard to find him to be worth the effort. By the time they could bring the ship about, they would think it likely that he had drowned. Besides, they needed to make land on that far island before nightfall. They would remember that he was only a slave after all, one who had already served his usefulness on this journey, and therefore expendable. If supplies ran low, th
ere would be one less mouth to feed. The seas were dangerous, the outcome of any voyage unsure. Their survival was of more importance than the life of one slave.

  Let them sail on! Arion prayed. Let them return to Naryx and tell Thrasios that his slave has been lost at sea.

  He lifted his head to look. The ship had not come about. It was growing smaller in the distance. They had given him up as lost. In profound relief, he floated on his back and breathed deeply.

  But the most perilous part of his escape lay ahead. The land was far, and he had never swum a distance this great, and never in strong surf. When he had rested, he turned toward shore and began to swim in steady strokes. Soon his body grew numb from the cold. He tried to find a rhythm in the waves so that he could get a breath between each one. But this proved so hard that every few strokes, he had to roll onto his back to rest and catch his breath.

  His arms grew heavy as stone. He lost all sense of time. Surely hours had passed. He’d been swimming forever, yet the shore was no nearer. He was already drained from his exertions last night. The surf thrashed him, cut off his breath. The sky clouded over, the waves became rougher. If he didn’t reach land soon, his weariness would overcome him.

  Bizarre shapes and images possessed his mind. He didn’t know what was real any more. The dark line of land ahead blurred and became the tail of a sea monster, then slid away to nothing. All around was endless malevolent sea. Vague darting shapes in the water appeared and vanished when he looked. Lights floated in the waves like eyes staring at him, hostile spirits of the deep come to bring him doom, but when he blinked they were gone. He was losing his mind to cold and exhaustion.

  A huge wave swamped him. He went under, couldn’t find the surface. His lungs near to bursting, the cold, dark sea was taking him, pulling him under to a place where he would find warmth, where nothing mattered. He couldn’t fight any more. It was easy. He would let go, slip away.

  No! a faint, urgent voice in his head insisted. No! He kicked desperately to the surface and gulped air. Something soared over his head, a shadow flashing past. A seagull! Suddenly Marpessa was his mind, springing up the ship’s mast to rescue the young gull. A seagull meant land was near. Only a little more. One more stroke, one more... He had encouraged Haleia’s pained steps with words like these. When strength was gone, there was still a small reserve. There is no can’t. Over and over he repeated the words he had said to her. I will reach the land. I must.

  Ahead lay the land’s deep gray-green shadow. He could see the shore’s shape now, its vegetation. He launched himself forward, put his feet down. Nothing. Still too far. Somehow he kept swimming closer, closer to the shore, that last reserve of strength almost gone. Then at last his toes groped rocks and sand. Solid ground. Too cold and exhausted to feel relief, he dragged himself from the sea and staggered up the strand like a drunken man. He crawled out of the wind into a clump of bushes and collapsed. It was only late afternoon, but he was too spent to think of finding food. As he curled in on himself to stop his shivering, he made one last move, reaching into his sodden leather belt. Aye, it was all there, the silver he had saved. Not much, not enough, but—

  Sleep overwhelmed him, the thought unfinished.

  As darkness fell that night, Marpessa lay on a thin pallet in the room where the girls had been taken to sleep, a small cell-like room with a dirt floor, one small window opening, and a door that led to the temple courtyard. Next to her, Haleia, on her own pallet, was breathing deeply and evenly. The priestess had given her a poppy draught for her injured ankle, and the exhausted girl had fallen into a profound sleep that Marpessa envied. She turned her thoughts to what the priestess had told them. “Tonight you will rest, but tomorrow you must start your duties, which will be to sweep and wash every stone in the floor of the outer temple chambers, the portico and the steps every day. Never will you enter the inner sanctuary; never must you come before the image of the goddess herself, for, as part of the atonement to Athena, you are considered unclean during the time you are here. You are slaves, the lowest of the low.”

  She paused, and Marpessa blurted, “Why did the men try to kill us on our way to the temple?”

  “Because you are taking the role of Ajax himself. They tried to kill him for his sacrilege until he sought sanctuary in the temple. But to the goddess Athena he was a defilement. As you are now.” The word left a stain on Marpessa’s soul. Then the priestess added, “And remember, you are never to go outside in daylight—not even in the courtyard.”

  This made Marpessa want to weep, but she was beyond the relief of tears. A dark desolation filled her, a weight pressing on her chest. Never stand in the sun? Never feel the breeze on my face? How will I endure a whole year?

  Arion’s words returned to her. Be strong.

  Arion. Strangely it was his face that she saw now in her mind, while the faces of her mother, her father, her brothers, and her old nurse, had faded into shadows, their features blurred. She pictured Arion where he surely was now, on the ship. All day she had thought of them, the men and the two other girls walking across the plain, making their way to the skiff, rowing out to the ship. She imagined Arion sitting in his favorite place near the fore as they sailed away to that distant island where they would anchor for the night. Then they would continue the long journey across the Aegean Sea.

  It made her feel too lost and alone to think of them on their way home without her. Then it was as if Arion, sitting on the ship, turned to meet her eyes. She sat up in the darkness. Determination filled her. Arion, I will endure, she said to him in her mind. I will go home again. And I will not look like those two poor girls, broken and defeated.

  XIII

  ALIEN LAND

  U

  “Where are you from, stranger? I haven’t seen you in these parts before.”

  As he was digging into his belt in search of coppers, the question came at Arion like an arrow. He was in the agora of a small town near the shore—he did not know its name—and his inquisitor was a merchant who proffered a fine woolen cloak that Arion needed badly, though it would cost him most of his copper pieces. Any question could be a trap. But this man surely could not know he was a runaway slave. Arion did his best to look confident even though his tunic was stiff with salt, his hair most likely disheveled, and his stomach growling audibly.

  “I am recently come from Ionia, sir.” Arion gestured vaguely south. “This is a fine cloak. I’ll take it, but for a lesser price. My old one was blown overboard while I was crossing the gulf.” After haggling the man down by several coppers, Arion put the pieces in the man’s hand, gave him a “Good day,” and turned away quickly. He found the stall of a baker woman who regarded him as suspiciously as if she thought he would steal her bread. Handing her one of his coppers, he took the round, flat loaf she gave him and fled before she too could question him.

  During the next days he wandered from village to farm, hiring himself out for building or making repairs, helping with crops or tending the herds of sheep, goats, and cattle that roamed the flood plain. He worked for food, copper pieces, and tools until he had enough to live on while he built a hut. He found a place between two willows near the banks of a river. It was a deserted stretch of land, separated by the stream from the nearest farms and grazing grounds. Though it took him many days to build, he was proud of his small home. It was just large enough for a low pallet and the rough-hewn chest he made from olive wood to store his few belongings. Now he had a shelter while he roamed as an itinerant worker during the days. But few who hired him had coppers or goods to spare. He often earned his bread only. He hunted for meat or fished in the shallow, meandering river. His store of coppers and silver dwindled, though he managed to save the silver pieces given him by Amaltheia.

  The wooden rod struck Marpessa’s back again and again as she knelt on the dirt floor of her cell, her body bowed over, her hands flattened against the wall for support. Each thud of the stick
was a lightning bolt slamming through her. Never had she known such pain. But she would not cry out. She squeezed her eyes shut, braced for each blow, and waited for it to end.

  At last it stopped. She straightened, drawing shaky breaths, realizing she could straighten, could still breathe. Her cheeks felt wet. Tears had seeped through without her will. Her back burned and throbbed. Almost worse than the pain was the humiliation, the wound to her soul. She turned to look at her tormentor. The Mistress of Temple Discipline, a stone-faced priestess of middle years, stood staring down at her, the smooth-planed stick resting against the floor. Malice shone from her narrowed eyes. “Do you promise never to go out into the courtyard again?” she demanded.

  Marpessa, still having difficulty catching her breath, managed a nod and staggered to her feet. Then she gasped out, “For going in the courtyard—I was flogged?”

  “You were not flogged,” said the priestess sternly. “Men—prisoners, slaves—are flogged and sometimes die of it. I did not use my full strength, and you will not die. But we do not tolerate the slightest disobedience. Now turn around. Let me see your back.” Before Marpessa could protest, she bent and lifted the hem of the girl’s shift from the back of her knees all the way up to her neck, leaving her completely bare. Marpessa hugged her arms around her chest and cringed from the cold air on her aching flesh.

  “Only bruised,” the priestess grunted. “No broken skin.” She let the shift fall back into place. “To make sure you have learned your lesson, you will be confined to your room for three days with nothing but dry bread and water.”

  Three days in this tiny hole! That was almost worse than the beating. “Who will do my sweeping?” Marpessa asked.

  “Haleia will do the work for both of you. See? She too is punished! Make sure it never happens again.” She struck the floor with her stick for emphasis, then turned and left. Marpessa fell prone on her pallet and gave in to bitter tears.