by Rane, April
“You asked for me. You asked from the depths of your soul. You wanted to know what awaits you. I come to teach you, for I am your teacher.”
“I do not want lessons!” cried Aradia, “I want help. I want to know my future!”
“I have told you that with each thought you bring the future into existence. Watch your thoughts. These words are the most important teachings I can give you on your journey at this time.”Desimena’s image began to fade.
Aradia cried out, “No… do not leave me! Please, I have many questions.”
But deep, all encompassing darkness was her answer.
Opening her eyes, Aradia, hoping against hope that she would find herself on shore, was soon aware that such was not the case. Feeling movement under her feet reminded her just how much she disliked ships. Rummaging through a chest searching for a knife, she heard a door open and jumped to her feet as the Captain of the ship slammed through the door, his portly body dwarfing the room.
Glowering down at the circle of salt and the signs of disarray in the room, he frowned with displeasure. His weary face, deeply creased at the eyes and mouth, and unsavory beard gave him the look of a man much older than his forty-five years.
“Clean up this mess you’ve made!” he told her. “Do they think they do me a favor putting you in here? You are not my type. There’s nothing good between those legs!”
Aradia rushed him and jumped on his back, beating him with her fists.
Backing her up against the wall, he pushed hard until, feeling her chest constrict, Aradia stopped hitting at him.
“I want you out of my cabin, now,” he told her, and going to the door roared into the hall, “Get this witch out of my cabin! Put her in the hold. Before you brought her aboard my vessel I should have been informed of her wicked ways.”
The first mate, Arapolis, came quickly upon hearing the Captain’s harsh voice. Grabbing Aradia, he drug her out of the cabin, kicking and scratching. She did not know what the hole or hold was, but it sounded dreadful and she wanted no part of it.
Leering at her he smacked his dirty lips over his toothless mouth. “We’ll take a bit of a stop on the way so I can sample your wares,” said Arapolis. “Tol’em not to put you in the Captain’s cabin. He likes young boys. Never did have a woman!”A sinister rattle came from the cavernous opening in his face; Aradia supposed it was a laugh.
When Aradia, overcome with the evil odor of the man, began to retch, he thrust her through an open hole in the floor. The sound of a door closing over the opening left her to strain her eyes in the bleak darkness. Unable to tell whether or not she was alone, she spoke first in her language, then in the tongue of the Upper Valley, and when there was no reply, tried Greek. Still no reply. And then, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that three of the men who had been her captors, men responsible for the death of her family, were huddled in a corner, clutching their robes tightly about them in the dampness.
“So,” said Aradia, speaking the language of the Upper Valley in a low and mocking tone, “there is justice after all.”
She thought for a moment, of going over to strangle them, her hatred ran so deep. She could, she knew, put a spell on them which would make them unable to drink, no matter how thirsty they were. But what if they had had no choice but to loot and kill? She would be taking their lives without knowledge of the extent of their guilt. Being here on this ship, with these men making them slaves would be their repayment, no doubt. Aradia reached for her throat at the memory of how her friend Phesoj had been killed, his life’s blood draining from his body as she stood helpless to do anything. The recall was so vivid that she buried her face in her hands trying to shut out the image. A low moan moved through her as her throat constricted, burning with memories of all the loss.
Shivering from the dampness, Aradia looked around for something to cover herself. In her searching, she found a metal cup. Tentatively picking it up, she felt the cool copper under her fingers, and recognized it as the design that was made only in her father’s mine.
Besieged with grief, the memories of waving to her father and her two brothers as they went off to the mines on that fateful day confronted her. Needing to remember better times she thought of how proud her father had been of the family business. Upon inheriting it, he had asked his new wife to trust him and invest into the company, and she had. Her mother had a good head for business but she kept out of it and let her husband take care of the accounts while she tended to the children and sat back and watched as Aradia’s father became one of the richest men in Etruria, who told everyone he was a rich man because his wife had faith in him. He then would laugh, patting his wife on the derriere and say, “Of course, it is good that I have strong sons to work the mine and gifted daughters to discourse with.”
Her heart wrenched as she brought the cup to her face, the welcoming touch of the metal caressed her cheek. A tear mixed with the coolness of the copper, it slowly brought her to the present. No, she thought, I will not cry. I am stronger than that. I will not allow these men to see what they have done to me.
Jumping up, she banged the cup on the walls of the low ceiling, and cried out, “Acqua, acqua.” Getting no response, she continued her onslaught until the trap door was finally opened and a bucket of brackish seawater was thrown down on her through the cage-like opening, drenching her. The men in the corner yelled at her to be quiet before worse would come down on all their heads.
But unable to keep still, she paced back and forth until, worn out, she fell, crumpling to the floor in an exhausted sleep.
Upon awakening bits and pieces of a dream from her fitful night began filtering through her mind, reminding her of the vision she’d had the other night. The message in the vision had been, ‘watch your thoughts!’ Yet how could she think of anything but anger. How could she not want to kill?
Focusing on her breathing, she realized she needed to feel warmth. Her body was chilled to the core, and the more she tightened up, the colder she became. Each breath helped her to relax and she pictured herself by a huge fire, basking in its warmth. She could taste the wine that was produced from the vines in her courtyard. She could hear the crackling of the logs as they splintered and broke apart creating iridescent colors and more heat. Yes, now she felt better.
The sound of creaking wood and a ray of light alerted her to the trap door being opened. A young man hesitantly came down the ladder with a jug of water and food in hand. “Ay ’tis food I be carrying,” he said.
In the dim light, Aradia could see that his face was bruised, and his eye was blackened. As he bent over her, instinctively, she reached up to touch his face. Startled, he pulled away.
She said softly, “You are hurt, I am sorry. If you can go to where they store the food and herbs, I will tell you how to heal your cuts and take down the swelling.”
The boy seemed hypnotized by her words, no doubt because he so rarely had a kind word spoken to him. Apparently unable to speak, his words catching in his throat, he gave her water.
Finally finding his voice, he said, “Drink slowly. When me deeds er’ done I be down again. I be bringing ya food, real food, not this rot!” And when he threw it into a corner of the bulkhead, she realized to her horror that the hold was infested with rats. He gave her a quick nod and left.
Since Aradia knew from her earlier experience, that she must focus on pleasant thoughts to keep her body relaxed and her mind occupied, she began to daydream, thinking of travel, of seeing the world. Suddenly she began to laugh. It was hysterical laughter, but laughter nonetheless, and she considered the fact that here she was, traveling the world, and yet under what circumstances, in a filthy, dank hole with brutal men chained in the dark corner opposite her, watching, always watching.
Clutching a sack of food in one hand and a small lamp in the other, the cabin boy slipped down the ladder and lit the lamp. Aradia awoke from her daydream to the smell of bread. The cabin boy had also brought wine, and for the first time since being captured, she ate. She w
as in heaven as she observed an angel that had come to her rescue.
He was young…much too young to suffer such cruelty in his short life, so thin his shoulder blades jutted out from his back. Small, frail, and pale of skin, with blondish hair that fell to his shoulders in knotted strands, he looked as if a mother’s tender hand had never touched him. A faint smile lit his face, as his eyes met Aradia’s, and in the deep liquid blue eyes that held no bitterness, Aradia saw that this child had somehow been able to transcend the harshness of his life.
She boldly told this young man she was proud and thankful to share with him, but had no intentions of breaking bread with enemies! She asked him about his family and what his life had been like up to now. As he told her the sad tale, tears ran down her cheek for this boy, as she thought of how easy her life had been. He truly has never known a day’s happiness, she thought. Yet he could smile and do her a good turn.
“What is your name?” asked Aradia, speaking the language of Greece very slowly, for she found he wasn’t used to the refinement in which she spoke.
“Thaddeus it be. I carry ore’ the name of me great-grandfather. He was a captain, went down with his ship.”
Asking him where they were heading was hard for Aradia, as she instinctively knew she would not like the answer. But when she finally asked, he told her that they were to land at the great port of Athens.
“The Captain says you’re worth your weight in gold, Miss,” said the young boy. “We left port t’ hurry right after they took you a board. I thought he meant your family was paying fer ya ransom, but the captain said they are all dead!”
Aradia flinched, changing the subject as she felt the bleakness of their loss rip through her; she clutched her stomach barely getting out the next words.
“Can you find out more without putting yourself in danger?” she asked him.
“I will fer you, mistress,” the boy told her proudly. “I need ta feed the others now. It’s a good thing they are that weak and chained or you might be in danger, me bringing you bread and all.”
Hanging the light on the hook as he was leaving he looked at her with eyes that were wise beyond his years, eyes touched with pain and sadness, yet sparked with curiosity for the greater world. Watching him again, Aradia marveled at the fact that a part of him was untouched by the brutality and shame he carried. His plight touched her and filled her with compassion.
After Thaddeus left, she was engulfed in loneliness, in good part because he was about the age of her brother Megalita who had been twelve when he and Radarius, who was two years younger, had gone to the mine with their father. And now they would always be with him, just as Kouros, her baby brother, would be with her mother. At least none of them had been alone when they had died. Sinking into a cavernous pit of grief with every memory, she softly cried, “Oh, Sardiana, my sweet Sardiana…I left you alone!” A great heaving sigh escaped her. As she lay down to sleep, the meal, her first in many days weighed heavy on her stomach.
Aradia awoke to the ship rocking violently, and the gale blowing outside nearly deafened her. She had asked Thaddeus to get her something to read and he had brought her some maps and an old captain’s log. Mesmerized by the information in the log she studied them until her eyes hurt from the poor light and the gale stopped blowing. She found the maps interesting but the log fascinating as it was a disclosure of huge slave markets in which the captain was taking more than his share from the man who owned the ship. Piracy was, she realized, a very lucrative business. Aradia did not know why, but she put the names in the log to memory using rhymes, as her grandmamma had taught her. She knew she had to put the lamp out, for if it spilled over it could cause a fire. Reluctantly, and in deep thought about what she had just learned, she got up to blow it out, and then she settled back down to try and sleep.
Time lingered, as the long voyage continued. Aradia schooled her new-found friend in pronunciation and taught him some of the Etruscan language, finding that it helped to pass the long days and nights. He had a quick mind and a good memory. And when she asked him if he could find a way to secret her on deck, he said that there was one mate he could trust to do so and that when he was on watch, he would come for her.
“Oh Thad, this is glorious,” whispered Aradia as they crept up on deck into the moonless night. The stars twinkling bright and low looked to her as if she could reach up and touch them. Thinking of the maps that he had brought her, and of the names of the constellations, she was awed at the knowledge she now possessed. She had learned from him that the constellations were how ships navigated at sea, the North Star being most important.
“The constellation that the North Star is in is called Ursa Minor,” Thad had told her a few nights before. “It means Little Bear.”
Looking towards the North Star, she shook her head as she realized all of the other stars danced around the North Star, as if hung by invisible strings, each star becoming part of a glittering canvas.
So I am seeing the world, she thought. Ships are not so bad. In fact, there was something mystical about being out here; the water seems infinite and immeasurable, silhouetted by the moonless night. She felt insignificant, yet at the same time, like the most important person in the world.
“T’s lovely being topside, isn’t it, mistress,” the boy asked, remembering to speak properly as Aradia was working hard with him on his letters and his brusque way of speaking.
She laughed. “Yes, it is. Thank you for befriending me. It has meant a great deal to my sanity.”
“I will be back, got duties to tend. Keep out of sight much as ye can,” he cautioned as he left.
Aradia breathed in the fresh air. Thaddeus had given her a blanket which she spread out so she could lie down on the deck and take in the stars. She found the constellation Ursa Major, which looked like a pot for cooking, as well as Orion and amused herself by remembering the story she used to tell Sardiana of why Orion was placed in the sky.
Once upon a time, the lovely Goddess Diana, or Artemis as she is call in Greece, roamed the forest with her bow and her hound by her side. When her brother Apollo came upon her and challenged her to hit a leaf in a distant tree, she won, as she usually did, and he became jealous of her skill.
Then one day he came upon Orion swimming in the ocean and knew of his sister’s love for the great hunter. So he challenged her to yet another target much farther away. “Do you see that little speck in the ocean? It is an apple and it is far too distant for even you to hit with your bow.”
With pride and a bit of arrogance, she took aim, and of course she hit her mark. It was only after her sure aim that her brother confided in her that she had shot the man she loved, it left her howling in agony.
Jupiter, god of the sky, whom the Greeks called Zeus, came to see what was taking place. “Due to Orion’s great skill as a hunter,” he said, “I shall put him in the sky with his bow and arrows so that all can see and remember his greatness.”
Aradia thought about the lesson the story held. Why was it that men were so jealous of women’s skills, and why did some women become less of who they are to please men, and some women kill the very thing they love the most to prove…to prove what? There was something very important here which she must figure out.
A sense of longing for home washed over her, but it was not her home in Volsinii. It was her home in the sky. What a strange thought. Now she sounded like Grandmamma. But it was true that when she had told her of the royal blood being passed down from the warrior goddesses that came to the Earth in ships from the stars, Aradia had believed her. It was, she realized, only when children become older that they begin to question. When young they believe in themselves and trust in those that teach them. They see and feel things differently, and then they grow up.
When Sardiana was little, she had seen the colors around the other children. When, Megalita made fun of her, she stopped seeing the beauty and did not trust me to teach her about the fairies. Boys are not so open; it does not come natural to them.
Perhaps… And then she felt someone trip over her.
“Blithering idiot, what in blazes…?”
Hastily sitting up, hugging the slim protection of the blanket, Aradia looked about for a way to escape, but only saw the rigger glaring down at her. Having been drinking deeply, he was in a foul mood. Crouching over her, he said, “Lookie what we have here. Oh, you’re in for a treat, girl.”
Slavering, he threw himself on top of her, one hand groping her breasts, the other undoing his breeches.
Aradia stopped struggling against him and willed her body to go limp. Breathing deeply she called on the elementals. Allowing herself no thought of screaming, she lay still, and heard, to her great relief, Thad’s voice.
“Get off her!” the boy shouted, running to jump on the man’s back and beginning to pummel him, all of which had the effect of a flea on a large dog. At first the man did not even notice. But when Thad tried to gouge his eyes out, he flung the boy roughly on the deck.
Stunned, as the most brutal man aboard the ship towered over him, Thaddeus trembled as the rigger moved to retrieve his knife.
Looking at the pockmarks of the leering face above him and smelling the foul breath from his rotting teeth, Thad curled into a fetal position as the man threatened to carve him up before killing him.
But as he bent over the boy, Aradia grabbed his arm and shouted, “Look over there!” And when the brute looked where she pointed, Aradia called on the elementals that came at once to do her bidding.
“Go to him, bring his worst fear
And as just that you will appear.
To injure himself he will be led.
And nothing more needs to be said!”
A wraith like figure stood just a few feet away, and holding a stick threateningly the ghost beckoned the brute with his other hand. Screaming “No, father, I didn’t do anything wrong,” the rigger began to run, tripping, falling and looking behind him, his face a mask of terror. Howling in fear, he ran to the rail and jumped overboard while Thad and Aradia scurried back to the hold.