For the Immortal

by Emily Hauser

  Aella, my swiftest horsewoman, broad-cheeked and slim as a bird, was handing to Ioxeia, the healer, a pouch of koumiss, then spearing fish from the fire and mare’s-milk cheese. Orithyia stood beside the entrance, her dark hair plaited down her back and swinging from side to side as she gestured in argument with the councillor Agar. Melanippe sat, one knee curled into her chest, at Orithyia’s feet, throwing another salted fish into the sizzling pan of butter on the fire. The youngest of the three daughters of Marpesia, Melanippe had been the most carefree of us all, riding for hours upon the plains on her beloved mount Akhal, a beautiful dark horse with the spirit of a wild deer, until he had been killed in battle, speared by one of the Tisgita and cut up for his meat. Without Akhal, Melanippe had lost herself, turned inwards, become quiet and sometimes sullen, and wild with vengeance in battle. It was as if the playful girl who had galloped through the meadows was gone for ever.

  I took up a lamp and stood, my breathing coming faster and a rushing through my fingers, even though for years I had had to stand before the council and plan our battles, our movements over the plain. I glanced at my war-belt, draped over a low table, the plates of gold gleaming in the firelight, the golden scales decorating the quiver shimmering like stars. So it must always be, for my mother, my sisters, my people. I straightened my back, feeling my strength come from the belt as if from a draught of the gods.

  ‘As you see,’ I said, and as I spoke the elders of the group fell silent, ‘Orithyia is returned, with victory in the raid over the Hialeans and horses to supply our meat for the winter.’ A few of my Amazon guard nodded, or turned to each other to talk, and I saw Aella reach over to grasp Orithyia by the hand. None of the elders spoke or moved. Battle was not a contest to be won between the tribes of the open grassland: it was a struggle for existence, as bare and as primal as a starving wolf stalking its prey, and victory meant merely to survive a little longer. The elders knew it as well as I; my band of fighters would learn it soon enough. ‘But, as far as we know, the Budini to the north are running low on their supplies. The Silis river has been frozen many months, and they lost several fighters in their raid. They will be growing desperate. I believe we should expect another attack.’

  ‘Then we attack them first!’ Orithyia was on her feet, her hand at the hilt of the sword hanging from the war-belt at her waist. The light from the fire cast dancing shadows across her face, darkening the hollows of her eyes and the ridge of her cheekbones. ‘We are warriors, are we not? Have we not been taught to ride and to fight from our earliest days in order to best the peoples of the plain and to blazon the name of the Amazons across the land?’

  ‘We were taught to fight,’ Ioxeia said, licking her lips and leaning forwards, her voice harsh-edged with age, ‘to protect our people. We move in search of better herding-places. We raid for meat and weapons when we must. We fight to protect what we have. No more.’

  Orithyia slammed a hand into the tent-post, and I felt the hides overhead shake upon their frame. The smoke of the fire curled to one side as a breeze blew through the tent and snaked across my cheek. ‘And if we do that, what then? Do we sit idly and wait for the Budini to attack?’

  ‘Daughter of Marpesia,’ Agar said, his voice snapping, ‘recall yourself. You are speaking to the representative of the gods.’

  ‘It is the gods I am thinking of!’ she retorted. ‘Does Tar, lord of war, find honour in defeat? Does Tabiti, lady of the fire, seek the shadows of the forest?’

  I could see my Amazons muttering to each other, Aella’s expression half hesitant, half hopeful, Xanthippe beside her, one hand already upon the hilt of her iron sword.

  ‘That is enough!’ My voice rang out more strongly than I had meant it to, and all the council turned towards me, their chatter silenced. ‘Orithyia, I thank you for your words, but you forget that I am queen of this tribe.’ My impatience with her bit at me, urging me on. Melanippe and I had wished for her return and her counsel … And yet, I thought, we should have known on which side she would fall. With Orithyia it is always war. ‘You did well in Hialea. But I prefer not to attack. We are a tribe of horse-riders and worshippers of the gods, living close to the black earth and the winged eagle and the deer, and though we fight with pride and honour we are not seekers of battle. You speak of blazoning our name across the land of the Saka tribes. Yet I would rather have us spoken of for our skill with our proud-stepping horses than as man-killers, would you not?’

  ‘You told me you wished for my counsel,’ she said, arms folded across her chest, her sword swinging at her side and catching the light of the flames, her mouth now set in a grim line with no trace of her earlier smile. ‘That is my advice.’

  I forced myself not to take her challenge. ‘Councillors?’ I said, taking refuge in movement and getting to my feet, looking around the circle, meeting each by eye: the elders Agar, Iphito and Ioxeia, my fighters Aella and Xanthippe. Their faces were half shadowed in the darkness of the tent, and I could see the scars outlined, like silver threads, on their cheeks and jaws, each of them taken in battle for the Amazons. ‘Do we choose war against the Budini, or do we wait here to defend ourselves? Those for battle,’ a few shoulders shrugged, a couple of dark eyes glanced my way, ‘and those for—’

  ‘For the queen.’ Ioxeia finished my sentence for me. She stood and gave me her hand, and I felt the skin, tough as hide and ridged with scars, beneath my fingers. One after another, the elders, then many of my war-band stood and placed their hands in mine, though Xanthippe and Aella moved to Orithyia.

  ‘A decision, then,’ I said, my eyes fixed on Orithyia’s, as though daring her to defy me. I could almost feel the heat of the anger radiating from her stance – feet planted apart, arms folded. But I would not allow her to sway me. ‘We wait,’ I said, ‘and if the Budini come for our horses, we defend ourselves – but no more.’

  Ἀδμήτη

  Admete

  Tiryns, Greece

  The Twelfth Day of the Month of Sweet Wine, 1265 BC

  I knelt in the dirt, the skin of my hands chafing as I tried to uproot a tenacious weed. Two months had passed since Alexander’s ship had arrived from Egypt, and the herb-garden in the outer court beyond the herbary was blossoming with the first signs of spring. The mayweed had already unfurled into bright daisy-like flowers, and bees were buzzing over the blossoms of the rosemary bush; the mandrake’s petals were still green, though tinged each passing day with white, and the flowers of the borage were open to reveal their dark purple hearts.

  Yet I could take no joy in it. For Alexander sweated and groaned with fever, and though – thank the gods – he lived, I was exercising every skill and all the herb lore I possessed, and still, I could only lessen his suffering, not end it.

  I tugged harder, venting my frustration, my fatigue. Days and days I had spent stripping willow-bark and boiling it to a pulp, straining it till my fingernails were stained brown; I had endured so many nights when I barely slept for sponging Alexander’s forehead and tipping infusions between his dry lips. Though I hated to admit it even to myself, it was a relief to be in the open air, outside the stifling closeness of his chamber where the fire continually blazed and the dusty scent of willow and bitter feverfew hung on the air. I pulled again, fingers knotted around the stem, and at last it gave way, roots tearing up from the black soil. I threw it into the basket beside me and reached for another.

  What sickness can it be? My mind wandered again to my brother, even as my hands performed the routine task, asking the question, the riddle that had taunted and plagued me ever since his return. What illness could fell such a man at the peak of his health, when he had survived all the sweats and poxes of childhood? What disease could form such a strange distinctive pattern, such as neither I nor any of the priests had seen before?

  The image of the clay tablets stacked on shelves in the herbary, arranged by illness as I had observed them and dotted over with the impress of my stylus, rose before me.

  Regular as the c
hange of the seasons, the fever builds to its height every ninth day before releasing its grip, only to return again. The single beneficial thing that can be said of it is that it seems the decline is very gradual, since it is a cyclical fever and not continuous, and the sufferer – though growing always weaker – has a few days each cycle to recover strength. At its worst, it produces sweating, uncontainable shivering and chills, weakness and pallor, nausea, vomiting, even delirium. A decoction of white willow-bark alleviates discomfort, while fresh feverfew leaves lessen the heat in the body when chewed. No cure as yet.

  No cure as yet. I bit my lip. They were like a curse, those words, taunting me to try harder, to search further. There is a herb. There has to be a herb – somewhere.

  Unthinking, my mind still raking through the plants that might serve, I pulled up the sleeves of my tunic, streaking my forearm with dirt. Sweat prickled beneath my arms and beads of moisture clung to my temples. Though the morning was cool and the dew still on the rose-leaves, I had been in the garden for several hours, pruning and weeding, and it was hot work.

  And then, as I reached for the spade, I caught a glimpse – black, like my own shadow – of the tamga branded into my inner arm.

  I sank back on my heels, staring at the pattern inked into the skin, the lines mottled where they ran across the veins, my thoughts drifting over it.

  When had I first realized my mother was an Amazon? It had come slowly, I think: little pieces of evidence disclosing themselves. The way she had plaited her hair, so differently from the other women. The days she would spend alone, riding over the Argive hills, returning to the hall for the evening meal with her cheeks bright, when my father would call her his wild one. The songs she used to sing to me, filled with tales of horses galloping across the plain beneath an unending sky. The tamga branded on her arm.

  There were many times, when I was younger, that I wished it was not there, this mark of my heritage. I had lain in my cot at night after the nurse had put us all to bed, trying to rub it off with my thumb till the skin blazed red and itched. Later I had been proud to show it, treasuring my mother’s only legacy to me. I had thought it made me special, placed me above my brothers, who bore no tamga to show their birthright. And now I hid the mark beneath long linen sleeves, and though I still plaited my hair down my back for her, I walked with my arm pressed to my side, my fingers clenched around the cuff.

  For I had learnt, in ways I did not want to remember – blurred memories of insults, vicious hands tugging at my plait, accusations, refusals to allow a barbarian to heal their ills – that it was not easy to be – I felt warmth spread through my chest, in spite of it – the daughter of an Amazon in Greece.

  And then, all at once, with the suddenness and force of a lightning bolt shivering through the veined trunk of an ash tree, I knew, with a mix of fear and joy, where I might find a cure.

  ‘Admete!’

  A voice rang across the court, breaking into my thoughts. I started and dropped the spade. Hastily, I pulled down my sleeves and got to my feet.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ I said, as Alcides came into view, climbing over the low wall of the portico. He walked through the shaded yard into the slant of sunlight that lit the herb-garden. I saw that he was dressed for the hunt: a sword-belt over his tunic, two spears and a shield on his back, a javelin in one hand.

  ‘You go ahead,’ he called, over his shoulder, to someone I could not see. ‘I will follow you shortly.’

  ‘You are going on a hunt with my brothers?’ I asked, as he approached, shielding his eyes against the sun.

  ‘Yes, indeed – with Eurybius, Mentor and Perimedes. Iphimedon still sleeps.’

  I picked up the spade again and pushed the sole of my foot against it, driving it into the earth.

  ‘I have not seen you for several days.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ I grunted, as I lifted soil and dropped it into the basket with the weeds, ‘I have been attending to Alexander.’

  I felt his eyes on me as I thrust the spade back into the rosebed.

  ‘You do not look well,’ he said.

  I took a deep breath, ready to retort that I hardly had the hours to look to myself, that perhaps some assistance from him and my brothers would not go amiss, but the words faded on my lips as weariness overtook me. ‘I do not know what more I can do,’ I said, pushing the spade into the earth so that it stood upright. I drew a hand across my aching eyes.

  He hovered where he stood by the mandrakes. ‘Surely the priest-healers … You do not have to heal him alone.’

  ‘My father has dedicated more votives to the hill-sanctuary of Apollo Paeon than any has before,’ I said. ‘The priests believe in magic, curses and evil spirits. They have exorcized the spirits from my brother’s body with sacrifices and incantations, and still he is no better. I do not doubt the gods – to you, of all people, I need not justify that.’ I smiled faintly at him. ‘But to believe that they send sickness as a mark of their displeasure is to think it the stigma of sin, and that I will not credit.’

  ‘I know your theory,’ he said, and he was rubbing with his thumb at the shaft of his javelin, following it with his eyes as he spoke, ‘that disease comes from the body, that since the body is made of earth and returns to dust when we die, it may be healed by the plants of the earth. You have told me of this. But if the herbs are not effective …’

  His voice trailed into silence. I knew he did not wish to criticize me, but his less frequent visits to Alexander’s chambers, his quick-changing moods, his inability to stand still or leave his hands unoccupied, even when he had come to the herbary, and his habit of going out hunting almost daily were enough to tell me what he left unspoken. He had been held in the palace all winter without a task to distract him while my father worried over Alexander, and he found life at Tiryns stultifying. He was not a man who could sit in silence in a sick chamber for an hour, let alone days at a time.

  Yet the journey to fetch the cure would free him – and you would be doing it for Alexander.

  ‘I – I have a thought,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Yes?’ The fingers of his left hand were tapping against his thigh, and I knew he was regretting his decision to talk to me, longing to be gone.

  ‘I think perhaps my mother …’ I said, my voice very quiet.

  The tapping of his fingers ceased. ‘What of her?’ he asked, his eyebrows lifted, eyes now fully focused on me.

  ‘She was – she is a healer,’ I said. ‘She taught me all I know before she left. And she spoke often of herbs in the land of the Amazons, potent beyond those we have here in Greece. I think …’ I hesitated ‘… it is not that herbs do not work, or that the disease is incurable, but that we need to search for the correct plant, and the knowledge to go with it.’

  I looked up to see him dash his javelin to the ground, his eyes bright, expression transformed. ‘But, Admete, that is it! You should make a task of it! Have your father send me on my eleventh labour to the Amazons – he would deny you nothing, if it will be of help to Alexander – and I can bring back to you whichever herb you need.’

  ‘Yes.’ I rubbed my hands together, the dirt crumbling over the skin, feeling uneasy. ‘But how would you know which it was when even I do not? You have no skill with herbs.’

  I was nearing the only conclusion, yet I drew back from it, as a colt shies from thunder in a storm. I could see comprehension dawning on his face, the words forming.

  ‘But, then, you should come with me! Who else, in Zeus’ name, knows as much of herbs as you, and speaks Scythian too?’

  His energy was contagious – I could feel it rising within me. And yet … and yet …

  I bit my lip. ‘Alcides, I do not know.’

  ‘Know what?’ He clapped me on the shoulder, and the bees above the periwinkles swirled around me, buzzing, as I stumbled. ‘The course of action is clear, is it not? The eleventh labour shall be to the realm of the Amazons – a step towards my immortality, a cure for Alexander, and the prospect that y
ou should be reunited with your mother.’

  So much for his doubts, I thought. I wish I could dismiss mine as easily. ‘But, Alcides, you will not hear me. What if …’ I broke off one of the dark winter stems of the rose bush beside me, playing with it between my fingers ‘… what if I am misguided, and I only suggest this because I wish to see her again?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  I stared at him, the bees humming in the background. ‘It matters because I must find a cure for Alexander.’

  He let out a breath through his teeth. ‘Very well,’ he said, bending to pick up his javelin and leaning close to whisper in my ear. ‘Then what of this? If you can cure Alexander within the next three days, we shall not mention the Amazons again.’ He cocked a smile at the dark plait tossed over my shoulder, as if to nod to the fact that I was, and would always be, half an Amazon, whether we spoke of it or not. ‘But if you cannot, then we will take this plan to your father, the king, and he will make the decision as to what is best for Alexander. Then it will be at his judgement, not yours, that we journey together to the east.’