Shadow of Athena

by Elena Douglas

  The crowd grew restive as the sun rose toward its zenith. There were angry murmurings to which Klonios listened anxiously when a dissenter stood on the plinth of a column. “Hear me, men! We must stop this. The gods don’t want human victims! Not for untold generations has this happened—only in the far past, when men were barbarians.”

  An uproar broke out. “He angered Athena. He must die!” And the crowd clamored, “Sacrifice! Sacrifice!”

  “Is it a sacrifice?” the dissenter shouted. “Call it what it is—an execution!”

  But the mob, impatient for the bloodletting, drowned him out. A voice bellowed, “Call it what you want, so long as it lifts the goddess’s wrath.”

  Another voice shouted, “You saw what the oracle said. The goddess doesn’t want turtledoves. That must mean she wants human blood!”

  “Aye, aye!” a chorus of voices shouted. “Human blood to appease the goddess!”

  “He ravished the girl. Let him die to lift the curse!”

  “Hear me, men—” the dissenter tried, but several men threw rotting vegetables at him, driving him down from his post.

  And the chant started up. “Let him die! Let him die!”

  Klonios sighed with relief. His heart raced with anticipation.

  In the servants’ quarters, Marpessa, ill with fear, could hear the chant. It chilled her to the bone. She wanted to fly into the agora, to demand the silence of the crowd, their help. She wanted the power of the gods to spirit Arion away, as aeons ago the goddess Artemis had rescued the maiden Iphigenia when she was about to be sacrificed, leaving a young doe in her place.

  Athena, help me! she screamed silently. Save him!

  Amaltheia came to sit on Marpessa’s bed. “My darling, remember, you will have a chance to speak.” Marpessa tried to focus on her mother’s words, but she was so close to panic she could barely take them in. She forced herself to breathe deeply. “I must go to the agora with Thrasios,” Amaltheia was saying. “We don’t know what Klonios is planning, so you must go at the last moment only, dressed as a servant. And don’t neglect to take two attendants with you.”

  Marpessa thought at once of the two girls who had sometimes accompanied her on childhood adventures. “I’ll take Ianthe and Damaris,” she said. Damaris was tall and strong but cautious. Ianthe was slighter and quick-witted.

  Amaltheia kissed her brow. “Only make sure you get there in time!”

  When her mother and the rest of the household left, Marpessa rose and drew many long breaths. She reached her arms to the sky. She had wallowed in fear; she had been paralyzed into inaction. Perhaps it was thanks to the influence of the goddess, but she now felt almost calm. Everything had come down to an absolute. She would save him. Or she would die with him. There was no other choice.

  She stood a moment in thought. She heard Arion’s voice in her head saying, Klonios has guessed everything. It was as if he were cautioning her as he had so many times. Over and over he had saved her. Now everything was up to her.

  “Athena, be at my side,” she whispered.

  She put on a gown that molded itself to her body, and tied the sash above the small bulge of her belly. She wanted to look fecund in this barren land. She covered her cropped hair with a head cloth. Lastly she flung an old cloak about her shoulders for concealment.

  She called the two servant girls who had remained behind. “Damaris! Ianthe! We go together to the agora. I need your help to save my beloved.” She gave each a knife. “Hide these in your sashes.”

  “Why?” asked Damaris warily.

  “Klonios may try to stop us. If his men attack, don’t let them take us at any cost.”

  Ianthe’s eyes flashed. “Let them try!”

  “I’ve never fought anyone, Mistress,” said Damaris staunchly, “but I’ll do my best.”

  “I’m counting on you.” Marpessa was touched. “Here’s how you hold a knife.” She demonstrated, remembering with heightened urgency the feel of Arion’s fingers on hers when he had taught her this same skill. “Now let’s go!”

  As they set out, the very silence and emptiness of the streets frightened her. All the townspeople except themselves were gathered in the agora. Marpessa drew an unsteady breath. Athena, help me. “We must hurry!” she told the serving maids, and they quickened their steps. They heard faraway shouts from the crowd. Marpessa’s heart clenched, then began to beat with frantic urgency. Let me not be too late!

  “Hurry!” she cried.

  Suddenly two men sprang out from behind a wall. One came straight for Marpessa and swung his fist into her temple. Suns burst behind her eyes. When her vision cleared, she struggled free. He punched her hard in the stomach and yanked her arms behind her, pinning her under him. A fierce constricting pain blocked her breath. She couldn’t move. She heard gasping, groaning noises—they were coming from her. A moment passed like an hour. She fought to breathe. She had to get up. In the agora— Oh, gods, Athena, help me! I can’t—

  There is no can’t. She heard Arion’s voice in her head, saying those words as he had so long ago on the way into Troy. Her breath returned. She willed strength into herself and thrust her knee with all her force into the man’s groin. He doubled over. She rolled away, found her knife. He lunged again and pinned the hand with the knife. She swung her free hand up to his face, shoving the heel of it into his nose, her fingers digging for his eyes. He let go with a cry. She plunged the knife into his neck. As he fell back, spurting blood, she scrambled to her feet.

  The other man had knocked Damaris down and was grappling with fierce little Ianthe. Marpessa hauled Damaris to her feet. “Your knife!” she hissed. The girl pulled it out but stood frozen, her eyes full of fear. Marpessa pointed to the injured man. “Stab him if he moves!” She launched herself at the second man, thrusting her knife deep into the soft flesh of his side. He fell. The first man was getting up. Damaris jabbed at him ineffectually with her knife. Marpessa grabbed a rock and smashed it against his head. Ianthe got to her feet and stabbed him under the chin.

  “Run!” Marpessa shouted. The three girls sprinted toward the agora. As they reached it, Marpessa saw a vast crowd that had fallen silent. She fought down panic. Far across the agora in front the altar stood a tall figure in a white robe, his hands bound behind his back. A man in ceremonial robes approached, lifting the huge sacrificial knife.

  She was too late!

  Icy sweat broke out on Arion’s brow. He was cold to the core. He struggled for each breath as if he were underwater. His heart pounded, hard and heavy, shaking his body. As if from far away he heard the High Priestess’s voice. “If there are any here who wish to speak on behalf of the victim, let them come forward now.” A hush fell over the crowd, and Arion too ceased to breathe. With all his being he prayed to live. He had an absurd hope that Marpessa and her mother would save him. Now moments passed. The silence grew. His hope died.

  Arion felt his entrails liquifying, his whole being crumbling. The eyes of the multitude were all fixed on him. He drew breath. With the last of his resolve, he straightened, lifted his head. None should see his fear. He would die like a man.

  The executioner came forward. “Does the victim agree to the sacrifice?”

  Arion knew that animal victims were made to nod in assent by having water poured over their heads. He would not. He held his head high, but a hand struck him hard from behind. His head jolted forward, giving the appearance of a nod. Sickness rose in his throat.

  “The victim agrees,” intoned the High Priestess. “Proceed!”

  “Wait!” screamed a voice from far across the crowd.

  Arion’s heart jerked. Someone was swimming through the multitude like a fish against the current, parting it, pushing people left and right, shouting, “Wait, wait! I can interpret the prophecy!”

  The High Priestess echoed, “Wait!”

  But the executioner held his kni
fe high.

  The High Priestess lifted her voice. “Stay your hand!” The man’s arm dropped.

  A breath flooded Arion’s lungs as he watched the figure that struggled toward the altar. He thought he would never see her again. At last she reached him, breathing in gasps, and placed herself between him and the executioner. From under the hood of her cloak, her gray-green eyes burned a look into his heart, the briefest look, but it was enough. Then she addressed the High Priestess.

  “Your Eminence, I know the meaning of the oracle.”

  “Who are you?” the High Priestess demanded.

  “I am Marpessa, daughter of Thrasios,” Marpessa shouted so that her voice carried over the crowd. “I left last spring to serve the goddess in Troy.”

  There was a stirring, a murmur of voices from the crowd.

  “Marpessa?”

  “—doesn’t look like her—”

  “Aye, it’s her!”

  “How is it you have returned from the dead?” asked the High Priestess.

  Marpessa gestured toward Arion. “This man saved me and brought me home. I have come forth interpret the oracle.”

  The High Priestess looked dubious but said, “Then do so.”

  “The goddess Athena will be angry if you kill this man.” Marpessa’s words were breathy with panic, at first barely audible, then gaining in strength. The crowd gasped, and their gazes shifted. Arion turned, saw what they were looking at. The white smoke rising from the censer behind the altar was turning gray.

  “Continue,” the High Priestess said curtly.

  Marpessa threw off her cloak, her body revealed in the clinging gown—widened hips, full breasts, the small but unmistakable bulge of her belly. Some voices exclaimed in surprise. A noise like a restless wind passed through the crowd.

  “Athena saved me from death, protected me. She guided Arion to me and helped us on our journey home. She sent me this token of her favor.” Marpessa held high the feather of an owl, the one she had carried with her or perhaps another one. Her voice rang out with confidence as she continued. “Arion and I are the pair of turtledoves the oracle spoke of,” she said. She took a step backward and threaded her arm through his bound one. “We are mated for life. I am carrying his child. If you kill him,” her arm tightened in his, and her voice choked, “you kill me. That is the sacrifice that would anger Athena.” Marpessa lifted her free hand toward the ominous gray smoke. “The oracle says that to lift the curse you must set us free.”

  No one spoke, no one moved or breathed. Time stopped. Then there was a small poof, a crackling sound, and the smoke from the incense turned a thick angry black. The small priestess who tended the censer stepped back with lowered eyes. The smoke billowed in an enormous cloud. The High Priestess’s eyes followed it to the sky. Some in the crowd pointed. There was a murmur of fear.

  At last the priestess spoke. “The will of the goddess is clear. This sacrifice is not to her liking.” She waved toward the two male acolytes who flanked the altar. “Set him free!”

  Arion’s knees went so weak with relief he feared they would dissolve like sand. He felt hands fumbling behind him, loosening the ropes. Soon he could pull his own hands apart.

  There was a ferocious shout, and someone leapt from the crowd, wielding a deadly knife. Arion saw the knife arcing toward him and, behind it, Klonios’s rage-distorted face. Marpessa flung herself in front of him. The knife struck flesh, not his, and blood burst forth. His freed hands came up just in time to catch her as she fell, her blood soaking into the white linen of his sacrificial gown.

  He was only vaguely aware that three or four men had leapt on Klonios with drawn swords.

  Arion sank to the ground holding Marpessa as she slumped against him. Her eyes met his for one instant with all the love and all the light in the world. Then they closed.

  LII

  HANDFAST

  U

  Arion’s heart became stone. His arms felt heavy and useless as they held her. He sat, unable to move, staring into her white face, until somebody pushed up next to him, and an elbow jostled him.

  “Quick!” Amaltheia was pulling off her head cloth, winding it into a long strip. “It’s only her arm, but we must stop the bleeding.” Just then Marpessa’s eyelids flickered, and Arion came to life again. Amaltheia tied the improvised bandage tight around Marpessa’s arm, high above the elbow. “Press your fingers here,” she directed him. “Press hard!” Arion did, and soon the dreadful pumping out of blood eased. “Now—can you carry her? We must get her to the house.”

  Cradling her, he staggered to his feet. Knots of people milled around, but they were outside of his awareness. From the corner of his eye he saw the crumpled body of Klonios and heard Thrasios shouting. But that too meant nothing. As if in a dream, he held Marpessa tight against him and followed Amaltheia across the agora.

  Marpessa came awake at last, lying on her own bed. As Amaltheia and her old nurse Eumene leaned over her, she tried frantically to sit up. “Arion? Where is he?”

  “Hush, child, all’s well,” Amaltheia soothed. “Arion is in the men’s quarters.” A sharp, throbbing pain ran down Marpessa’s arm, and she reached around to feel a thick bandage. “You have a nasty gash, thanks to that villain Klonios!” her mother said. “Your father and brothers killed him, and none will blame them. The High Priestess believes that Athena made you and Arion instruments of Klonios’s destruction. He angered her with his hubris, and he tried to ruin the city out of revenge.”

  All it meant to her was that they were out of danger. “Mother, I must see Arion!”

  “Later. After you’ve rested.”

  But several days passed, and she did not see him.

  “He shan’t see her. I will not have it!” Thrasios raged.

  Amaltheia bowed her head. “My lord, he saved her life and brought her home. If not for him, she would be dead.”

  “That’s why I haven’t punished him. But he’s a runaway slave. I don’t want him here. I’ll sell him as soon as I get the chance.”

  “He escaped to save her! He risked his life. He should be set free.” As I promised him long ago, she thought. “You would be dishonored if you did not reward his service.”

  Thrasios frowned. But the word “dishonor” did the trick, as Amaltheia had hoped. He gave an irritated sigh. “Very well, have your way, woman. Send for him.”

  Arion had tried every day to see her, only to be turned away by a blank-faced servant who gave him no news. His stomach was knotted with dread. What were they keeping from him?

  When he was summoned into Thrasios’s presence at last, he saw Amaltheia standing against the back wall, fidgeting with her shawl. His eyes threw her a silent, imploring question, which she seemed to understand, for she nodded in reply. His knees went weak. Thanks to the gods, she’s mending! he thought.

  Thrasios beckoned him forward. “Thank you for saving our daughter, for bringing her back,” he said, the words dragged from him. He handed Arion a sack of coppers. “Take this token of our gratitude. You are hereby set free.”

  Arion bowed briefly, muttered thanks. Thrasios added, “But you must leave Naryx.”

  Arion gave a start. He glanced at Amaltheia, but she did not meet his eyes. He straightened with steel in his spine and looked at Thrasios in the face. “I want to marry your daughter.”

  Thrasios gave a growl of outrage. “Out of the question. Did you not hear? You are exiled. Now leave us!”

  Amaltheia stepped forward with a muffled cry, her eyes swimming with tears, but Thrasios waved her back. “You have no say in this, woman.”

  “I want to see her,” Arion said. “Before I go. If I go.”

  Thrasios made no reply. Amaltheia mouthed something at Arion that might have been, Later, or perhaps Wait, but her eyes, meeting his, were full of despair and defeat, and he had little choice but to turn and wa
lk out of their presence.

  He went to his old hut at the edge of the woods, where he sat on his pallet. He had no will to move. They might as well have killed him there in the agora for all his life was worth. His whole being and will had been bent on bringing Marpessa home. He had not thought, had not dared think beyond the moment when he delivered her to safety. Then, when she saved him from death and spoke of them as a mated pair, he had begun to hope.

  He was furious at himself for being duped. How could he not have known that Thrasios would send him away, considering himself merciful in giving the lowly slave his freedom and a sack of coppers? Arion flung that sack against the wall with all his might. An abyss opened in him, a wide enough maw to swallow his very soul. Without her there was nothing. And who would care for her and be a father to her child?

  Wait, Amaltheia had said.

  How long?

  “Exiled? NO!” Marpessa screamed. “Find him! Bring him back! I haven’t even seen him since—” Tears streamed down her face. Amaltheia and Eumene ran to quiet her. “Hush!” Amaltheia said. “Your father will hear and be angry.”

  Marpessa shook her off. “Where is Arion? Has he gone?”

  “He hasn’t left,” Amaltheia reassured her. “I heard from the servants that he’s in his old shack.”

  But he might leave at any moment, and Marpessa would never see him again. She must hurry. She started violently for the door, but the two older women restrained her, Amaltheia protectively holding her daughter’s injured arm, which rested in a sling. “Calm, now! You’ll reopen your wound.”

  “Never mind. I will see Arion. I will marry him!”

  “Your father won’t have it.”

  “He will. I will talk to him. Now.” Before Arion leaves, she prayed. Oh, goddess, let me not be too late! Marpessa dried her eyes in haste, one-handedly put on her sandals, and straightened her gown.

  “Don’t be absurd!” Seated by the hearth in the central hall as Marpessa and Amaltheia stood before him, Thrasios glared at his daughter. “He’s nothing—a freed slave only through my kindness.”