The Ruling Elite and Other Stories
Page 10
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Callithoe gauged the hours that passed by the length of the shadows that fell upon the furniture in the room she and Iambe shared, and by the changing color of the light – nearly white to yellow to burnt orange. She treasured the hours, and if she could have snatched them from the air like bees or grasshoppers, she would have put them in a woven basket as keepsakes. She hated to think of the future, and what it might bring.
Instead, she pulled a chair close to Iambe's couch, close enough that she might put a hand on her arm. She did her best to distract her sister with stories of the gods, the demigods, and those favored humans who had been visited by them. It seemed to keep her mind off the coughing.
Callithoe knew many stories. She of all in her household remembered the best details from the minstrels who recited their tales at the festivals. Her favorites were the comedies. She treasured the fleeting smiles upon Iambe's lips.
At the end of one such tale, Iambe declared in a low wheeze, "The gods are cruel."
Callithoe's chest squeezed. She swallowed. "I know it must seem so. Perhaps, because of this, we should favor the goddesses instead."
Iambe's breath sounded like the laboring pumps of the blacksmith's bellows.
"Oh, Callithoe. You are always telling me falsehoods to lift my spirits. They are not working today."
"You are wrong! All stories have a certain kind of truth in them. The best kind, for they explain to us why things are the way they are."
Iambe's eyes welled with angry tears. "Then explain it to me. Why am I sick? What evil have I committed?"
"Sister, you have committed no such evil. You know that."
"Then it is merely the whims of the gods, that I am sick and that you and our other siblings are not."
"Iambe—"
"See? There is no excuse, save that the gods are cruel."
Callithoe put her hand on Iambe's moist cheek. "How can they be, little sister?" She smiled, quiet and small, and put all the force of her devotion into her words, "They gave you to me."