The Lost Sisterhood

by Anne Fortier

  THE LOST SISTERHOOD

  A NOVEL

  ANNE FORTIER

  Dedication

  For my beloved mother-in-law

  Shirley Fortier

  1945–2013

  whose courage under fire rivaled that of any Amazon

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Amazons

  MAP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  PART II

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PART III

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PART IV

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  PART V

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  PART VI

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TYPE

  BY ANNE FORTIER

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Amazons,

  mythical race of female warriors. The name was popularly understood as “breastless” (maza, “breast”) and the story told that they “pinched out” or “cauterized” the right breast so as not to impede their javelin-throwing…. Amazons have been used as evidence for an actual matriarchy in prehistoric times. This has seemed an attractive counter to modern male prejudices, but mistakes the nature of myth.

  —THE OXFORD CLASSICAL DICTIONARY

  He who controls the present, controls the past.

  —GEORGE ORWELL

  PROLOGUE

  THE YOUNG MEN COMPLETED THEIR TRAINING ROW IN RECORD TIME. It was one of those rare bright mornings in Oxford, when the mists lifted off the river right before the bow, as if nature had waited for this moment, this crew, to finally unveil herself.

  Haz felt invincible when he and his mates walked back to college together, crossing the Christ Church Meadow in the rising sun. But his elation was cut short by the college porter, who summoned him to the lodge with a brusque wave as soon as the young men entered the quad. “This came for you, sir.” The porter pointed an ink-stained thumb at the object sitting on the mail counter. “Not ten minutes ago. I was just about to call the dean—”

  “What is it?” asked Haz, stretching to see. “And where—?” But his voice broke off as soon as he discovered the contents of the canvas hamper, for nestled on a cushion and covered with a blanket lay a sleeping baby.

  Haz was unable to come up with any appropriate English words to express the sudden chaos in his brain. He had seen infants before, certainly, but had never expected to find one so small in the dank lodge, surrounded by mail bags and forgotten umbrellas.

  “Indeed, sir.” The porter drew up his woolly eyebrows in awkward sympathy. “But perhaps this letter”—he handed the young man an envelope that was attached to the hamper by a string—”will provide an explanation.”

  PART I

  DUSK

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nine days then I was swept along by the force of the hostile winds on the fishy sea, but on the tenth day we landed in the country of the Lotus-Eaters …

  —HOMER, The Odyssey

  OXFORD, ENGLAND

  PRESENT DAY

  IN HER OWN OBSCURE FASHION, MY GRANDMOTHER DID WHAT SHE could to arm me for the carnage of life. Stamping hooves, rushing chariots, rapacious males … thanks to Granny, I had it more or less cased by the age of ten.

  Alas, the world turned out so very different from the noble battleground she had led me to expect. The stakes were puny, the people gray and gutless; my Amazon arts were futile here. And certainly nothing Granny taught me during our long afternoons of mint tea and imagined monsters could buoy me for the currents and crosswinds of academia.

  On this particular October afternoon—the day it all started—I was knocked down by an unexpected gust of wrath halfway through a conference paper. Prompted by the almighty Professor Vandenbosch in the front row, the discussion leader sprang to her feet and drew a cowardly finger across her throat to let me know I had precisely zero minutes left to finish my lecture. According to my own wristwatch I was perfectly on time, but my academic future depended on the favor of these distinguished scholars.

  “To conclude”—I stole a glance at Professor Vandenbosch, who sat with his arms and legs crossed, peering at me with belligerent eyes—” it becomes clear that despite all the graphic descriptions of their mating habits, these Greek authors never saw the swashbuckling Amazons as anything more than fictitious, quasi-erotic playmates.”

  A rustle of enthusiasm went through the auditorium. Everyone had been sodden and rather glum coming in from the rainy quad earlier, but my lecture had clearly done its bit to warm up the room.

  “However”—I nodded at the discussion leader to assure her I was almost finished—”the knowledge that these bloodthirsty female warriors were pure fiction did not stop our writers from using them in cautionary tales about the dangers of unbridled female liberty. Why?” I panned the audience, trying to count my allies. “Why were Greek men compelled to keep their wives imprisoned in the home? We don’t know. But surely this Amazon scaremongering would have served to justify their misogyny.”

  As soon as the applause had waned, Professor Vandenbosch short-circuited the discussion leader by standing up and looking around sternly, mowing down the many eagerly raised hands with his gaze alone. Then he turned to me, a little smirk on his venerable face. “Thank you, Dr. Morgan. I am gratified to discover that I am no longer the most antiquated scholar at Oxford. For your sake I hope the academy will one day come to need feminism again; the rest of us, I am relieved to say, have long since moved along and buried the old battle-ax.”

  Although his charge was disguised as a joke, it was so outrageous that no one laughed. Even I, trapped behind the lectern, was too shocked to attempt a riposte. Most of the audience was on my side, I was sure of it—and yet no one dared to stand up and defend me. The silence in the room was so complete you could hear the faint plunking of raindrops on the copper roof.

  Ten mortifying minutes later I was able to flee the lecture hall at last and retreat into the wet October fog. Drawing my shawl more tightly around me, I tried to visualize the teapot awaiting me at home … but was still too furious.

  Professor Vandenbosch had never liked me. According to a particularly malicious report, he had once entertained his peers with a fantasy in which I was stolen away from Oxford to star in a girl-power TV series. My own theory was that he was using me to ruffle his rival, my mentor Katherine Kent, thinking he c
ould weaken her position by attacking her favorites.

  Katherine, of course, had warned me against giving another lecture on the Amazons. “If you continue down this path of inquiry,” she had said, blunt as always, “you will become academic roadkill.”

  I refused to believe her. One day the subject would catch, and Professor Vandenbosch would be helpless to smother the flames. If only I could find time to finish my book, or, best of all, get my hands on the Historia Amazonum. One more letter to Istanbul, handwritten this time, and maybe Grigor Reznik’s magic cave would finally open. I owed it to Granny to try.

  Scuttling down the soppy street, my shirt collar up against the elements, I was too preoccupied to notice someone following until a man caught up with me at the High Street crosswalk and took the liberty of holding his umbrella over me. He looked a sprightly sixty and was certainly no academic; underneath his spotless trench coat I spied an expensive suit, and I suspected his socks matched the tie.

  “Dr. Morgan,” he began, his accent betraying South African origins. “I enjoyed your talk. Do you have a moment?” He nodded at the Grand Café across the street. “Can I buy you a drink? You look as if you need one.”

  “Very kind of you”—I checked my wristwatch—”but unfortunately, I am late for another appointment.” And I really was. Since it was recruiting week at the university fencing club, I had promised to pop by after hours to help demonstrate the equipment. A convenient arrangement, as it turned out, since I was very much in the mood to lunge at a few imaginary foes.

  “Oh—” The man proceeded to follow me down the street, the tips of his umbrella stabbing at my hair. “How about later? Are you free tonight?”

  I hesitated. There was something unsettling about the man’s eyes; they were uncommonly intense and had a jaundiced tint to them, not unlike those of the owls perched on top of the bookcases in my father’s study.

  Instead of turning down the dark and mostly deserted Magpie Lane, I stopped at the corner with what I hoped was a friendly smile. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?”

  “John Ludwig. Here—” The man rummaged around in his pockets for a bit, then grimaced. “No cards. Never mind. I have an invitation for you.” He looked at me with a squint of deliberation, as if to reassure himself of my worthiness. “The foundation I work with has made a sensational discovery.” He paused and frowned, clearly uncomfortable with the public setting. “Are you sure I can’t buy you a drink?”

  Despite my erstwhile apprehensions, I couldn’t help a twitch of curiosity. “Perhaps we could meet tomorrow?” I offered. “For a quick coffee?”

  Mr. Ludwig glanced at a few hunched passersby before leaning closer. “Tomorrow,” he said, his voice dropping to an intimate whisper, “you and I will be on our way to Amsterdam.” Seeing the shock on my face, he had the nerve to smile. “First class.”

  “Right!” I ducked away from the umbrella and started down Magpie Lane. “Good day, Mr. Ludwig—”

  “Wait!” He trailed me down the alley, easily matching my pace on the uneven pavement. “I am talking about a discovery that is going to rewrite history. It’s a brand-new excavation, top secret, and guess what: We’d like you to take a look at it.”

  My steps slowed. “Why me? I’m not an archaeologist. I’m a philologist. As you are doubtlessly aware, philology is not about digging, but about reading and deciphering—”

  “Precisely!” Burrowing into the same pockets that had failed to produce his business card, Mr. Ludwig extracted a bent photograph. “What we need is someone who can make sense of this.”

  Even in the murk of Magpie Lane I was able to see that the photograph showed an inscription on what appeared to be an ancient plaster wall. “Where was this taken?”

  “That I can’t tell you. Not until you agree to come.” Mr. Ludwig stepped closer, his voice low with secrecy. “You see, we’ve found proof that the Amazons really did exist.”

  I was so surprised I nearly started laughing. “You can’t be serious—”

  Mr. Ludwig snapped upright. “Excuse me, but I am very serious.” He opened his arms, umbrella and all, as if to demonstrate the enormity of the matter. “This is your field. Your passion. Is it not?”

  “Yes, but—” I glanced at the photograph, not immune to its lure. Every six months or so, I would come across an article about an archaeologist who claimed to have found a genuine Amazon burial, or even the legendary city of women, Themiscyra. The articles were usually headlined NEW FIND PROVES AMAZONS REALLY DID EXIST, and I always read through them eagerly, only to be disappointed. Yes, another weather-beaten diehard with a hooded parka had spent a lifetime combing the Black Sea region for women buried with weapons and horses. And, yes, occasionally he or she would find evidence of a prehistoric tribe that hadn’t prevented females from riding and carrying weapons. To claim, however, that those women had lived in a manless Amazon society that occasionally clashed with the ancient Greeks in spectacular battles … well, that was a bit like finding a dinosaur skeleton and deducing that fire-breathing fairy-tale dragons had once been reality.

  Mr. Ludwig looked at me with his owl eyes. “Do you really want me to believe that after spending, what, nine years researching the Amazons there is not a tiny part of Diana Morgan that wants to prove they really lived?” He nodded at the photograph he had given me. “You’re looking at a hitherto undeciphered Amazon alphabet, and get this: We are giving you the chance to be the first academic to take a stab at it. Plus, we’re going to compensate you handsomely for your time. Five thousand dollars for one week’s work—”

  “Just a minute,” I said, my teeth chattering with cold and the shock of it all. “What makes you so certain this inscription has anything to do with the Amazons?” I waved the photograph in front of him. “You just told me it has not yet been deciphered—”

  “Aha!” Mr. Ludwig pointed at my nose, almost touching it. “That’s precisely the kind of smart thinking we’re looking for. Here—” He reached into an inner pocket and handed me an envelope. “This is your plane ticket. We leave from Gatwick tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you at the gate.”

  And that was it. Without even waiting for my reaction, Mr. Ludwig simply turned and walked away, disappearing into the flurry of High Street without looking back once.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Awed by her splendor

  Stars near the lovely

  moon cover their own

  bright faces

  when she

  is roundest and lights

  earth with her silver.

  —SAPPHO

  MOST OF THE COLLEGE FACULTY WAS ALREADY GATHERED OVER drinks in the Senior Common Room by the time I arrived. Because of my mad dash to the fencing club I had been in too much of a hurry to freshen up, and as I entered the room I could hear a few mumbled comments about Miss America being late for dinner again. But I merely smiled and pretended not to hear them. For all they knew, I could have been at the library, comatose over an ancient manuscript in some dusty corner—a perfectly valid excuse for showing up, as they themselves were wont to do, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, looking as if one had stumbled right out of the Renaissance.

  Sadly, I was fairly sure the appellation “Miss America” was not intended as a compliment. While it might be true that I was half a head taller than most people and equipped—as my father pointed out whenever I unleashed my blond curls—with a deceiving angelic exterior, the nickname was almost certainly a comment on my breeding, or perceived lack thereof. It would seem I could never run away from the fact that my mother was American, and that her vocabulary had ruled my childhood home. Even though my father was perfectly British, and I had been surrounded by Brits growing up, there were moments when American expressions came more naturally to me. Evidently, some of the senior faculty members had overheard me turning dustbins into trash cans—or possibly even seen me jogging past college for no other purpose than the rather vulgar desire to stay in shape—and had immediately made up their m
inds that further investigation into my personality was unnecessary.

  “Diana!” My mentor Katherine Kent summoned me to her side with an impatient wave. “How was the conference?”

  As always, her machine-gun manner caught me off-guard, and I felt my courage running for cover. “Not bad at all. Quite a good turnout, actually.”

  “Remind me of your topic?”

  “Well …” I tried to smile. There was no safe way of phrasing the fact that I had ignored her advice. “I was in a bit of a rush—”

  Katherine Kent’s eyes became arrow slits. Set in a face marked by mental discipline and framed by hair cropped so short it might have been mistaken for a fashion statement, her eyes were always strikingly vivid, a rare, incandescent turquoise, like crystals set in pewter. More often than not these were sparkling with irritation, but I had come to appreciate this as her natural mode of interaction with people who had, in fact, earned her respect.

  Just then, a surge of enthusiasm went through the room. Relieved to find Katherine momentarily distracted, I turned to see who had managed to arrive even later than I and still be the toast of the party.

  But of course. James Moselane.

  “Over here!” Katherine’s arm went up once more, with the impatient flick that never took no for an answer.

  “Kate.” James greeted the grande dame with the handshake she expected. “Thank you for the review in the Quarterly. I am sure I don’t deserve it.” Only then did he notice me. “Oh, hello, Morg. I didn’t see you there.”

  Which was just fine by me. Because whenever James Moselane entered a room, it always took me a few minutes to rein in my frontal lobes. At a ripe and responsible twenty-eight, it was dreadful to find oneself scrambling to come up with a morsel of sophistication, and—even more distressing—I was fairly sure everyone around me noticed my rosy cheeks and drew exactly the right conclusion.