With the tie severed, Archimedes had taken Nikomedes and his brother as was customary among the people of Nikomedes’ world, while Hera had kept the daughters to serve as heiresses to her holdings.
Archimedes spoke fondly of his time with Hera, and Nikomedes knew that their experience was a fairly typical one between men and women. Hera had hoped to increase her standing by selecting a younger, stronger Guardian while Archimedes knew that his prime was well past him.
But sometime near the end of his time with Hera, Archimedes had gone away to participate in what was now called the Red Dawn. Had Nikomedes never met Felix, or Kratos, he might have never known of his father’s role in the attempted assassination of every warrior who held to Kratos’ heretical ideas.
It was a less than honorable action, killing those men as they had done, but it was not without precedent. According to the oldest laws of Nikomedes’ people, a man was only deserving of honorable conduct on the part of his peers if he himself behaved in an honorable fashion. As such, a man who had proven himself dishonorable—or even heretical—would find himself no longer afforded the rights and privileges of his people’s version of due process.
Thinking over all of these things, Nikomedes was surprised to find his feet had taken him to the edge of Hera’s holdings. He looked up, shaken from his reverie by the sight of a familiar rock which he had sat atop as a small boy, and the vast tracts of partitioned grain farm nearly took his breath away.
Where the fields had been divided into only two separate tracts the last time Nikomedes had laid eyes on them, now there were eight such sections, three of which appeared to have been claimed during Nikomedes’ absence. There were precious few of the vertical, jagged rocks which had broken the landscape present within the wooden fenced fields, and though it was too early even for planting the coming year’s crop, Nikomedes could almost smell the grain as he had done in his youth.
The house where he had been born was no more, but in its place was a three storied, wooden structure which dwarfed the previous one. Its third level had a viewing balcony which wrapped completely around the structure, and not far from this house was a barn which likely held the farmhold’s livestock.
Nikomedes walked down the gently rolling hill, on which a hand cart was being pulled by a young man who lacked the size to be a proper soldier.
“Boy,” Nikomedes held up a hand as the youth approached, “is this the Anteus farmhold?”
The lad stopped, setting the handles of the cart he pulled down onto the road and eyeing Nikomedes briefly before nodding, “It is.”
“Is Hera within?” Nikomedes asked awkwardly as a brief wave of unexpected emotion welled up within him.
“She is,” the boy replied hesitantly, “who, may I ask, is calling?”
“Her son,” Nikomedes replied, omitting his chosen name. If word of his Trial of the Deep had reached the ears of Argos’ citizenry, there was little doubt that his mother had also heard of the affair—but more importantly, she would have heard of his father’s dishonor at failing his duties as a Guardian to Hera’s replacement in his life. Since his mother’s station had only improved in his absence, he had little doubt that her associates in Argos would have sent word via courier krytzu—winged insects as long as a man’s arm, which served as sources of protein and also as one-way carriers of messages written on cloth or scroll.
A look of wide-eyed surprise came over the boy and he nodded, “I will tell her immediately.” He dashed off before Nikomedes could reply, and he felt certain that this particular reunion would be less than the warm one he had envisioned in his dreams years earlier.
But knowing that he had a job to do, he strode purposefully after the boy, who entered the main door of the house several minutes before Nikomedes made his way to the first steps. The house had been surrounded by several feet in all directions of broken stones, most of which were the size of his fist. It was a fine skirt for the foundations, especially given the fact that the house was built on a sloping hill which often saw considerable rainfall collected and run down toward the sea.
As he had approached the house, he noted several drainage ditches which had been dug since his last time in the home of his youth. Those ditches, and the stony skirt surrounding the house’s foundation, would ensure that the house could endure a hundred rain-soaked winters without fear of being undermined by the rushing waters moving down the hillside.
In short, it was a fine home, and one which befitted the woman who had brought him into the World of Men.
“Lady Hera will see you,” a young woman said after appearing at the door. It only took a moment for Nikomedes to recognize his sister, Sera, who was three years younger than him. She had grown into a tall, lithe woman with hair the same shade of blonde as Nikomedes’ own.
His heart briefly leapt at hearing her voice, but her face was composed into an unreadable mask which told Nikomedes his earlier premonition had been correct: this would be a far from loving reunion.
As he removed his weapons and set them beside the door, he made his way into the house and followed his sister up the stairs to the second floor. She said nothing as she led him through the finely-crafted home, which had been filled with colorful plants that could endure the long winter if properly cared for.
She led him to a set of double doors which were slightly ajar and gestured within, “She will see you now.”
“Thank you, sister,” Nikomedes said, but Sera made no attempt to acknowledge the courtesy as she merely held his gaze with her own. Working hard to unset his jaw, he stepped into the room beyond the doors and saw his mother sitting in a high-backed chair near the window.
Her back was turned slightly to him and she appeared to be working with needle and thread on a small, round piece of cloth.
“Close the door,” she instructed without looking up from her work—or from so much as breaking the practiced motion of her fingers as they methodically passed the needle up and down through the thin piece of cloth. She was embroidering something, but he could not see what it was from his current vantage.
He did as she instructed, quietly closing the door behind him before moving to stand before the woman whose labor literally brought him into the world.
She made no attempt to meet his eyes, allowing several minutes to pass in total silence before finally saying, “You have grown strong.”
Nikomedes nodded stiffly, “By the blessings of Men, I have.”
“It was not Men who gave you the strength which now carries you on your way,” she said archly. “It was my mother, and those who went before her, who bestowed upon you the gifts which you now squander.”
Nikomedes bit his lip, narrowing his eyes but saying nothing as he fought against the urge to speak out. But as a son returned from a long absence, retorting against his mother would be disrespectful in the extreme. If she wished to castigate him, or rebuke him in any way—so long as it did not include physical violence—honor dictated that he accept those rebukes in full before making the request for which he had traveled these past weeks.
“That feckless cur, your father,” she continued bitterly, “has brought a mark of shame on his daughters with his cowardice. I knew he was past his prime, and his body bore scars which would one day make him unfit to serve as Guardian to all that I have, but never in my wildest dreams did I suspect he harbored such weakness. Had I suspected he did,” she said with certainty, her eyes never straying from the embroidery work, “I would have exposed it and brought him to justice before he could betray the woman who placed her trust in him with his…” she trailed off, her hands beginning to tremble in anger before she forcibly stopped them from doing so and drew a calming breath. Keeping her eyes to the embroidery, she resumed her work without once looking up to meet his eyes. “Before he could betray her with his weakness—a weakness which you now bring into my house,” she spat venomously, “carrying with you a dark cloud which may never be fully parted from over our heads.”
Nikomedes was only m
ildly surprised she had seemingly known of his pending arrival—a conclusion drawn from the coldness in her voice, where a surprised person would be expected to display a more heated affect—but he suspected that the rumors of his return might have prompted one of her friends at court in Argos to send a message via krytzu. It was expensive to send such a message, but it was clear that Hera was far from lacking in wealth at this point in her life.
He had actually expected the reaction, though. It was entirely reasonable, given the great shame which his father’s failure had brought onto his lineage. Hera and her daughters must have endured significant ridicule, scorn, and slight—much of which would take tangible form in the shape of unwillingness to do business with her—for having joined her blood with that of Archimedes.
“I heard of your Trial,” she continued, sounding less than impressed—which made Nikomedes more upset than anything else she had said or done since his entry into her private chambers. “I suppose it is fitting that you would refuse to accept the punishment of Men which was long ago decreed for those of such polluted blood. How could we have expected anything else from one who harbors such weakness?”
Considerations of honor aside, Nikomedes was nearing the breaking point. His hands had balled into fists at his side and he forced himself to breathe normally when every fiber of his being burned angrily at being rebuked so harshly by the woman who had brought him into the world.
“I am not yet finished,” she said stiffly, and Nikomedes realized that she was embroidering a letter which bore her family crest—a blue and orange bird which shared her family’s name—at the top and bottom. Such cloth scrolls were generally used for official purposes, and he realized that it was precisely what he had come to retrieve. “I will not be done until well after dark. Return in the morning and then be gone from this place forever, Achilles, so that your sisters may salvage what little remains of their honor and dignity. With luck, they may even find Guardians who choose to look past the shame which your father has brought on them.”
Nikomedes stiffened at hearing the name of his birth. “I am no longer Achilles, Mother,” he said as respectfully as he could through tightly gritted teeth, “I am now Nikomedes.”
She snorted hotly. “I know of your choice, Achilles, but in this—our last—meeting, I will refer to you as the name I bestowed upon you the day I brought you into this world. It belonged to my father,” she said, a tear trickling down her cheek, “and now it has died a traitor’s death, while the boy who bore it chose a name his father insisted on for his first born son—a name I detested, since it was his own father’s.”
She began to cough, and quickly placed the embroidery to the side as a fit took hold of her which saw her wheeze between ragged, hacking coughs for nearly a minute. Nikomedes eventually moved to help her when it seemed she might fall from her chair, but the fiery look she gave him—the only time she looked at him during the entire meeting—warded him off as Sera, his sister, entered the room with a moistened rag in her hand.
Sera placed the rag in front of Hera’s mouth and nose, and Nikomedes’ mother breathed deeply, causing the fit to subside after a dozen breaths.
“She has the coughing sickness,” Nikomedes concluded darkly after seeing the blood spattered on the cloth Sera had brought. “How long?”
Sera shot him a dark look. “She will not survive the next winter,” she said bitterly before helping her mother back into a more comfortable position in the chair.
“I meant,” he said evenly, “how long has she suffered?”
His mother clamped a thin hand over Sera’s wrist, cutting off the reply his sister was about to make, and Sera bowed her head in deference before standing and leaving the room without another word.
“It is…none of your…concern,” she said between light, wheezing breaths after wiping her lips clean of the blood she had hacked up. “Go from this place,” she said harshly, waving toward the door angrily. “Let me…finish this…in peace.” She turned her back on him pointedly, looking out the window as she fought against the urge to cough again.
Nikomedes stood silent for a moment, uncertain how he wished to end his relationship with his mother. But, since she had dismissed him, he was now permitted to speak his mind—respectfully, of course, lest he incur the wrath of whoever stood as her current Guardian.
“For my entire life,” he began reciting the words he had thought to say during the journey to the place of his birth, “I have known two things to be absolutely true: firstly, that a man’s worth is measured only by examining his deeds. Second,” he continued after hearing her snort softly in derision, “that a mother’s love is, perhaps, the most important rock on which a life is built. Without it, that life will collapse when it is first truly tested.”
He turned and made his way to the door, seeing Sera standing without and ducking her head out of the way to avoid being seen but doing so too late. When he reached the portal, he stopped and turned back to face his mother.
“My life has been tested, mother,” he said, managing to put genuine feeling into the words in spite of her cruel reception, “and not only am I still here, but I will carve my name into the face of this world and it will endure until the stars have all died out,” he said with fire in his voice, his limbs seeming to fill with purpose as he did so. He turned to the door and moved to the hallway, but before he closed the door he said, “It is regrettable that you will not live to see me do so.”
After closing the door, he saw Sera’s eyes filled with tears but she kept a stoic expression. He had always loved his younger sister, and he shared a silent moment with her before leaving the house of his mother forever.
Chapter XIII: Feeling Out
Nikomedes wasted no time in finding the magistrate who Kastor Kephus had indicated via his scrawled message on the wooden slate. The magistrate had informed him that everything would be in order the following morning, so Nikomedes had slept by the sea shore, the lapping of the waves serving as a familiar lullaby which he had last heard a decade earlier.
In the morning he returned to Hera’s house, where Sera had silently presented him with a pair of embroidered cloths. The first acknowledged his identity by describing his build, hair, face, eye color, and a trio of birthmarks on his arms and legs.
The second had, also predictably, formally disowned him in anything but gentle language. He did not begrudge his mother for this second declaration, however, since it was the only way for his sisters to have a real chance to attract capable Guardians who might oversee the continued growth of her line’s power and prestige.
In fact, that she had not filed it with the magistrate prior to his arrival was, in a sense, a respectful—even loving—gesture on his mother’s part. She could afford to wait, of course, since the eldest of her daughters was only now entering her prime years. The fact that she was clearly quite wealthy had also permitted her to forestall the gesture, but Nikomedes still felt grateful in a fashion that she had waited to expunge him from her line until he had returned home.
After meeting with the magistrate once more—during which meeting both of the cloth scrolls were inspected, the contents copied for local record keeping, and finally stamped with the magistrate’s seal of approval—Nikomedes set off once again for Argos.
He was eager to begin the work which awaited him.
“These seem to be in order,” Kephus said after examining the documents. “It was good of her to wait for you, at least.”
Making no reply, Nikomedes sat forward in the same chair he had occupied during his first visit to Kastor Kephus’ office in the guard house.
“Well done,” Kephus said, rolling the scrolls up and placing them beneath his breastplate, “we’ll produce these when the time is right.”
“When may I take up lodging in the guardhouse?” Nikomedes asked eagerly, but Kephus held up a hand haltingly.
“Slow down, boy,” he said with obvious amusement.
“I am no boy,” Nikomedes growled, the echo of Kr
atos’ voice ringing in his ears at hearing the word ‘boy.’
“I meant no offense,” Kephus chuckled, holding up his hands in mock surrender but his eyes were hard as stone as he continued, “but there are protocols which must be satisfied prior to your inclusion among the guards.”
“What are they?” Nikomedes asked impatiently, smirking briefly at the thought that Kephus might ask him to kill a wild cat on the slopes of the White Wall mountains as Kratos had done. He had not told anyone of his time at Blue Fang Pass, and would not do so as long as he harbored his current ambitions.
If anyone at court learned of his time among the heretics—especially before he earned sufficient acclaim to warrant consideration from Land Bride Adonia Akantha Zosime—he may find himself branded and exiled from Argos forever.
Kephus quirked a grin, “The first step is the tryouts, which take place each quarter and are scheduled for two days from now.” The commander of the citadel guard stood and gestured to a door leading from the back of the office, “But first I need to see what you’re made of, just to avoid wasting my valuable time.”
They stood in the guardhouse’s armory, which was empty of weapons for some reason. All of the benches and racks had been moved to the edges of the room, creating a fine space for the private sparring match—a match which Kephus had secretly arranged as Nikomedes’ initial examination of sorts.
“Will they not suspect collusion?” Nikomedes asked, gesturing to the door as he stretched his limbs in preparation for the contest. Several guardsmen had seen him enter the armory with Kephus, which had put him ill at ease given the fact that secrecy was something they had already established would be key to success.
“It’s not unusual for me to test an applicant prior to the official tryouts,” Kephus said with a shake of his head as he, too, stretched his limbs and rolled his neck this way and that, eliciting audible pops as he did so. “Besides, most of the men out there are mine; they have no love for Hypatios Nykator or his cronies.” His lips twisted into a smirk before adding, “And we know those which were sent into our midst by him and his men.”
The Forge of Men Page 20