Amber and Clay

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  “Melisto!” Korinna’s voice was sharp. “Come out at once!”

  Melisto obeyed. The bear cub started to follow, but the chain yanked it back. Melisto felt a pang, but she climbed over the rail. She stood before Korinna with her head bowed in submission.

  “Did no one tell you it was forbidden to go into the stall?”

  Korinna had never spoken to her like that. Melisto confessed in one word. “Elpis.”

  “Why did you disobey?”

  Melisto faltered: “Some god put it in my heart to go inside.” She dared not look up. Never in her life had she defended herself by suggesting that her behavior had been inspired by a god. If it were true, no one could blame her. If she were lying — and she didn’t know whether she was or not — it was blasphemy, and the gods would punish her.

  Korinna did not answer right away. Melisto stared at her feet. The silence was so protracted that she was able to study every one of her dirty toes.

  “It isn’t safe,” Korinna said at last. “Perhaps now, when the cub is young — but it won’t stay safe. I don’t know much about bears — I’ve never seen one before today — but the hunters claim they’re the strongest of all animals, and they can’t be tamed. It’s a dangerous gift. I gave my orders, and you ought to have followed them.”

  “I know.”

  Korinna seemed to have forgotten Melisto. She gazed past her into the darkness of the barn. “The bear belongs to Artemis. There are places where they sacrifice bear cubs — wolf cubs, too. They drive them into a pen and burn them alive. But we’ve never done that here. Brauron has always been a sanctuary. We’ve never sacrificed a bear — only stags and goats. I don’t know what’s meant.”

  “Why must the bear be sacrificed?” The words burst from Melisto. Her head shot up and she challenged Korinna with the accusing owl gaze that her mother loathed. “Artemis is the goddess of children and sucklings! The bear’s a suckling — or would be, if its mother hadn’t been killed. In the Brauron story, Artemis sent the plague when her bear was killed. What if we sacrifice the bear and she’s angry?”

  “It’s a risk,” Korinna admitted. Melisto was surprised; she had expected to be punished for her outburst, not taken seriously. “And yet — the hunters traveled a long way to bring us the bear. It’s their offering to the goddess. If we don’t sacrifice it, what then? It can’t be trained. It will have to be fed. After a few months, it will be strong enough to kill.”

  A loud clank interrupted her. The bear cub was playing with the bucket. It had one paw inside and was knocking it against the wall of the stable.

  “It doesn’t have any water,” Melisto said defensively.

  “Then go and get some,” Korinna retorted. She smiled at the surprise in Melisto’s face. It was Artemis’s own smile: sweet-lipped and enigmatic. “Did you think I would forbid it? I dislike being disobeyed, Melisto. If I have to change my orders, I will. Get the water bucket from the stall and take it to the spring. When you come back, hold the bucket while the bear drinks. It’s bound to knock it over a second time.”

  Melisto paused for a moment, hypnotized by Korinna’s smile. Then she hurried back to the bear’s stall.

  That night, the moon was waxing, and the sky was clear. Melisto was not surprised when the priestesses came to summon the Little Bears to the altar. The children burned incense in small clay pots and sang prayers to the goddess. After they learned a new hymn, they were told to circle the sanctuary.

  Melisto’s limbs felt heavy. Even after the singing, she was half asleep. Gradually her muscles stretched and warmed. She found her stride and ran steadily. By the time the altar came in sight again, she had hatched a plan.

  She made sure that Desma, the priestess in charge, counted her as she passed the altar. On her way back to the dormitory, she ducked behind a juniper bush. Once the other girls were gone, she set off for the stable.

  She noticed that the two rails that served as a stable door had been reinforced with boards. Someone had decided that the bear’s prison was not secure enough. She whispered, “Bear?”

  She heard a rustle and smiled in the direction of the sound. The bear was listening. Perhaps it could smell her, too. Something opaque moved in the shadows. Melisto swung herself over the stall door. She hunkered down on the hard earth.

  The bear came to her. Melisto’s heart swelled. It was lonely, or it liked her; she thought it must be glad that she was there. It sniffed at her tunic, searching for the spilled porridge. Melisto patted it cautiously. It wiggled against her hand, and all at once they were playing again. The bear kicked and batted the air; Melisto tried to grab its paws; they rolled and jostled and shoved. The bear nuzzled her and tried to climb on top of her. Its paws clamped down on her shoulders. She felt its warm breath against her throat and then its tongue. It suckled at her neck, pulling the blood inside her skin.

  Melisto tensed. The suction was painfully strong. At the same time, she understood. The bear was alone and wanted its mother. “I don’t have any milk,” Melisto protested, but the bear made a low humming sound, like a prolonged chuckle or a hive of bees. It sounded happy. Melisto abandoned all thought of pushing it away.

  She took a deep breath, bracing herself against the discomfort. The bear continued to suckle, murmuring contentment. Tentatively, Melisto put her arms around the furry body. She did not squeeze. It was enough to encircle the bear loosely, to know that she was making it happy. From time to time, she reached up and slid her thumb between the skin of her neck and the bear’s mouth. It broke the suction, easing the pain.

  She touched the bear’s shoulder hump. Her fingers felt the intertwined cords of the knot. It seemed to her that the harness must be uncomfortable. It was snug. She wondered what would happen as the bear grew.

  The bear was suckling more gently now. At last it flopped down beside her, half in and half out of her lap. Melisto shivered with joy. The bear was going to sleep beside her. She leaned against the stable wall and closed her eyes, relishing the warmth and the bear’s weight.

  She dozed. When she woke, she was shivering. She reached across the stable floor for the woolen sack she had noticed earlier in the day. She touched it —

  — and the bear was awake. It uttered a close-mouthed shriek of rage; it leapt to its feet and scrambled up the post inside the stall. Melisto got up, baffled. She had not known that bears could climb; she had no idea what had enraged the animal. It had happened so quickly, and she was still half asleep.

  The bear was huffing, digging into the weathered post with its needle claws. It climbed until its head touched the barn roof. Melisto stared at it stupidly. Then she looked down at the sack in her hand.

  “Are you afraid of the sack?” she asked incredulously. Then she thought. The bear had been imprisoned in the sack, unable to move freely, perhaps half smothered. “All right,” she conceded. “I’ll get rid of it. Wait here.”

  She went to the stall door and flung the sack outside. Some instinct told her that it would be of no use to try to coax the bear down from the post. She returned to the place where she had slept and sat against the wall. When she heard the bear scraping its way down the post, she did not stir. The bear wandered around the stable, sniffing. When it came to her, it raised itself up, pressing its paws against her shoulders. She felt its mouth fasten on her neck again. She grimaced.

  The bear suckled for a few minutes and then subsided. It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub. She curled herself around it and slept until dawn.

  6. THE SEER AT OROPOS

  Melisto began to smell of the bear. She washed in the spring every morning, but she had only one chiton, and it reeked of bear. Some of the other girls pinched their nostrils shut when she passed by. Melisto suspected that they were jealous. Insofar as the bear belonged to anyone, it belonged to her. None of the other children were allowed inside the stall.
/>   Melisto did not like the stable smell — the bear’s droppings had a pungency that stung her nose like vinegar — but the ripe aroma of the bear’s body was now familiar. She spent hours with the cub each day, tending it faithfully and without complaint. On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear. During the early days, she brooded over what might become of it, but weeks went by, and she heard no more about the impending sacrifice. She pushed the matter from her mind.

  She visited the bear several times a day, passing back and forth between glaring sunlight and the odorous dim of the stall. The bear welcomed her, sniffing, rooting in her skirt, pawing her and mouthing her. It was eager for food and company, wrestling and play. It was fed regularly, and even with elegance. Twice a day, Agathe, the old woman in charge of the kitchens, provided a generous bowl of porridge mixed with honey. The bear slurped up the barley and licked the bronze bowl clean. When every grain had been ingested, the bear punished the bowl, flipping it over and over, and battering it with its paws. Sometimes it knocked the bowl across the stall and under the door so that it skidded out of sight. Then the cub bawled and squealed until Melisto brought it back.

  It seemed to Melisto that porridge was not enough for the bear. She foraged, gathering dandelions, cow parsnips, and fennel. She investigated the roots of plants, digging up any that appeared moist or starchy. She stripped young leaves from trees and filled her skirt with acorns, mushrooms, berries, and wild grapes. The bear investigated her offerings with a delicacy that surprised her. It turned the plants over with its front claws, sniffing with mouth ajar. It was only after a prolonged sniff-and-paw that the bear poked out its long tongue and ate. Once the bear had made up its mind that a plant was edible, it attacked all future offerings with gusto.

  The bear was growing. The rope harness that had once been snug was tight. Melisto was tempted to unchain the bear from the post and take it outside like a man leading a horse to pasture. Always she hung back: she knew she wasn’t strong enough to hold the bear. Once the bear tore the chain out of her hands, it was lost to her forever. The cub would go free, but it would also be hampered — perhaps even strangled — by the dangling chain and the harness around its throat and trunk.

  So the bear remained captive, and she tended it. She noticed that it backed up, as far from the post as possible, to defecate, and kicked its droppings behind it, as if the stall were a den that should not be fouled. From this, Melisto inferred that the bear wished to be clean. She borrowed the stable pitchfork and scraped the bear’s droppings outside the stall door. Whenever she visited, she checked to see if its drinking water was clear. It seldom was, because the bear regarded water as a toy. It dabbled its paws in the bucket and combed through the water as if it hoped to discover a fish.

  Melisto stole food from the storerooms. Once, finding the kitchen deserted, she split a warm loaf and piled it high with soft cheese. The bear greeted her with whimpers of delight and lay down on its belly to consume the treat. It clasped the loaf between its front paws with such ardor that the cheese squirted out the edges. The bear gnawed and gulped in ecstasy. It ate with intense concentration, stopping from time to time to lift its head and lick its chops. One bitten-off chunk of bread rolled toward Melisto. She reached for it, meaning to return it to the bear.

  The bear misunderstood. It thought she was taking that piece for herself. It reacted with insane aggression, screaming with outrage and swiping at her. Melisto dropped the bread and scuttled backward. After that, she kept her distance while the bear was eating. She believed that the bear liked her, but there were limits to its patience. She had learned that its moods changed swiftly and drastically; it could be combative one moment and sweetly drowsy the next. Whatever it felt, it felt with every cell in its body. There was no moderation and no fraud.

  She did not name the bear. To her, it was the only bear in the world, and she called it simply αρκτσς, Bear. She didn’t know whether it was male or female. Often when they wrestled, the bear rolled over on its back, but Melisto was kept too busy dodging its claws to investigate its sex.

  As the bear grew, it became more familiar with her person. It suckled her neck and her fingers, pawed her, nosed her, and gnawed on her. If a sudden noise frightened the bear, it ran to her, rose up on its hind legs, and flung its front paws around her. Once it tried to climb her like a tree. Melisto’s skin was covered with teeth marks, scratches, and indentations, though her puncture wounds were miraculously few. When they wrestled, Melisto pitted her whole strength against the cub. She was largely unconscious of the injuries she received while playing. The moments when the bear hurt her were only chinks in the joy she felt. The joy was the real thing. Afterward, when the bear burrowed next to her, or tumbled into her lap, she felt as if her heart would burst. She sat cross-legged, her hands buried in the bear’s fur, while her legs ached and tingled and fell asleep.

  She was down by the bridge late one afternoon, digging worms — the bear greatly relished worms — when a shadow fell over her. She glanced up and saw Korinna. Her face was in shadow, but brilliant sunlight lit the edges of her violet-colored dress.

  Melisto rose and stood with her head bowed. Now that the bear had come, she devoted fewer thoughts to Korinna, but the priestess still inspired adoration.

  “Are you digging worms for the bear?”

  “Yes,” Melisto answered, wondering if she was in trouble.

  “You feed the bear often.”

  “It’s always hungry,” Melisto countered.

  “It’s growing.” Korinna walked onto the bridge and sat down halfway across. She took off her sandals and placed them beside her. Drawing her peplos up to mid-thigh, she wiggled to the edge of the bridge, and lowered her feet into the water. She patted the stone, inviting Melisto to join her.

  Melisto rinsed her dirty hands in the water and wiped them on her chiton. Then she sat down beside Korinna, copying the older girl’s pose. With unwonted politeness, she waited for Korinna to speak.

  “We feed the bear well,” Korinna explained, “because it is sacred to Artemis. The other priestesses know you’ve been feeding it. It isn’t forbidden. You must know, Melisto, that your visits to the stable have been observed.”

  Melisto had not known. She cupped her hands in her lap and kept her eyes lowered.

  “I warned you that a bear cannot be tamed.” Korinna’s voice was neutral. She was reminding Melisto of what she had said, not rebuking her. “All the same, you have formed a friendship with it. I believe it’s as tame with you as it will ever be.”

  “It likes me.” Melisto spoke shyly. She was aware that it was a proud claim.

  “Of course it does. You bring food, and you play with it. A cub needs to play, and in feeding it, you have forged a link with it. It is possible, with young animals, to create a bond. The bond might not last when the animal comes of age. It’s one thing to play with a bear cub — and even now, you are black and blue — ”

  Melisto forgot herself and looked up into Korinna’s face. “It doesn’t hurt me,” she said earnestly. For a moment her mind slipped back into the past. She recalled the bruises she had carried from her mother’s pinches, and the sore patches on her scalp from Lysandra’s hair-pulling. She remembered the loathing in her mother’s face that struck terror into her soul. She had never been afraid of the bear like that.

  “That isn’t my point. The point is, even if the bear seems tame now, it won’t be tame when it’s full-grown. It will be strong enough to kill you, and the bond will be broken.”

  Melisto did not believe it.

  Korinna swung her feet in the water. Her feet were pale and slender. Seen through the clear water, they appeared vaporous. “You know I tame the deer to drive my chariot.”

  “Yes,” Melisto murmured respectfully. From the shelter of her favorite tree she
had watched Korinna. The priestess fed the deer from her hands, and it was beautiful. She was patient, steadfast, uncanny in her rapport.

  “I don’t tame them — ” Korinna stopped. She leaned back on her hands, scanning the blue sky. “I don’t tame them the way I card wool. You can card wool and think of other things, and it doesn’t matter how you feel when you do it; the wool will be combed. But when I tame the deer, I have to be clear in my mind, because the deer can sense what I’m feeling. I have to have a respect for them, an affection. Feeding them, that’s part of it, and holding still, that’s another part, but it isn’t all. In the end, a wild animal doesn’t trust you unless it senses something else. There is a bond between me and the deer I tame. But some of them are sacrificed.”

  Melisto felt a chill pass through her.

  “If they are chosen to die, that’s the will of the gods. I am a priestess of Artemis, and I must be glad. And because I have tamed them, I’m the one who leads them to the altar. I distract them while the priest readies the knife. Melisto, if the bear is sacrificed — ”

  “But the bear shouldn’t be sacrificed!” Melisto’s voice rose impetuously. She forgot that Korinna was Korinna. “I told you before — when the bear was sacrificed at Brauron, Artemis was angry! She doesn’t want — ”

  Korinna’s eyes flashed. “It’s not for you to say what Artemis wants! How dare you interrupt me? I seek to do you a kindness — ”

  “What kindness?” Melisto’s cheeks were red. She knew she was throwing caution to the winds, but she was too frightened to care. “You talk about sacrificing the bear — ”

  “Because I want to prepare you!” Korinna snapped. “The messenger from Oropos may return any day, and if the bear is to be sacrificed, you will be part of the ceremony! You — ”