HETAERA: Daughter of the Gods

by Coffey, J. A.

  But I could not refute the twisted words Aidne spewed like venom into an already gaping wound. She was a powerful priestess. I was only an inductee and I had no proof. For once, I was innocent, and yet I could do nothing. Of all the betrayals I’ve experienced in my life, I think this one to be the most painful.

  “Sita,” he began. He stopped and eyed the faces in the chamber, and those of the priests in the hallway. Then, shamefaced and red, Merikos rose and stepped to the tunnel. His eyes were no longer kind, but hard and angry, solidified by the thought I had ruined him.

  “I’m sorry, Sita,” he said. He spared one last glance for my mother who shook her head at him and turned her face to the wall. “Do as you must. I am finished here.”

  And he fled.

  Just as before, he let someone take my mother from him. He was nothing more than a coward. The world spun. I would like to say I fainted, and I did not witness the murder of my family, but I cannot. They held me fast between them. The sacred priests speared me with black glances, while Aidne laid the blade to my mother’s womb.

  “The gods take you, Sita. Stop fighting me and let me ease your pain.” Aidne said.

  My mother gagged and one of the women held a basin for her to vomit into. Several of the priests edged closer to the hall.

  My mother’s arms and legs began to shake uncontrollably and she shook her head. “I will never stop fighting, Aidne.”

  “Then let me save your son, if I can.”

  I do not know what I wanted, only that I prayed for my mother to live, as my father did not. I wanted her to smile at me and whisper of my future as a Bacchae whilst we dandled my brother on her knees. I wanted so much to live in happiness without the stain of my guilt touching every secret desire of my soul.

  “You wished him to die,” my mother whispered. Aidne said nothing, but her eyes glittered. “But you will save him now, for me?”

  Aidne considered for a moment. “There need be only one sacrifice,” she said.

  My mother nodded and closed her eyes.

  “No!” I cried and struggled to go to her. They let me drop down beside the pallet. “Do not let them!”

  My mother’s eyes opened and she gazed at me. There was a terrible blue tinge around her lips, and her sour breath was labored and weak.

  “Whist, Dori. I must do this thing. I am already lost.” Her breath was labored. “You must be strong. For him and for me. Let me live on in his eyes. Be strong.” And then she closed her eyes again and nodded at Aidne.

  “Stay,” I begged her. It no longer mattered that my brother should be born alive. She could bear other sons, even Merikos’, I thought graciously. I would allow anything if only she should live.

  “My daughter.” She opened her eyes and reached up to finger a tendril of my hair. “So much like the two hearts that bore you. Remind him of me.” Her hand dropped to the pallet.

  “No, Mamita,” I sobbed. “No.”

  “Do it, now, Aidne.” My mother squeezed her eyes shut.

  I gripped her hand while Aidne cut her apart, slicing her terrible blade along the painted line. I stayed, though my mother screamed and lashed between the grip of the two women. Aidne enjoyed it, I think, though at one point I saw a single tear slide down her cheek. Perhaps it was only perspiration.

  When she had gutted my mother with the precision of a sailor, she drew forth my brother from the ruptured womb. For the child was, indeed a son as prophesied. My mother raised her head in the final moments to peer over the bleeding mound of her split stomach. She saw the cord, purple and slippery with blood, wrapped tight around his neck. He was not breathing. He never did.

  “Ahhh…no.” My mother cried. “Delus. Forgive me.” She turned to look at Aidne, who stared at her with something akin to pity and triumph.

  Mother fell back against the pallet and closed her eyes, her lovely face turned towards me. The moment I had looked forward to with anticipation and excitement was cut short in one fell swoop by the hand of a jealous priestess. My mother bled to death. She joined my brother and my father in the Underworld, and I was left to carry on here without them.

  I could do nothing but tremble and weep.

  At some point Aidne shook herself visibly and rose to wash and leave. “Toss that abomination on the hillsides for the wolves.” She jerked her chin at my brother’s tiny body.

  “What shall we do with the girl?” someone asked.

  I was amazed that anyone remembered me. Everyone I’d ever loved was dead and Merikos had abandoned me to Aidne’s revenge.

  “She is unclean to us. Unfit for the gods. Take her to the slave pits,” Aidne said. “Let her spend her days serving a lesser master and keep her unworthiness far from our sacred grounds.”

  And so, they did.

  Chapter Seven

  I didn’t think they would do it.

  I spent the night racked with sobs so fierce that my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen shut by the time they came to fetch me. Aidne had dosed my mother with pennyroyal to make her lose the baby, and my own initiation cup--which I’d thought to ease my mother’s pain--had killed her. If only I had been clever enough to spot the truths behind the temple’s lies. I tore out hanks of hair and wished the pain could dull the agony of my soul. My actions left me with only a sore, matted scalp and a speared heart.

  After the morning broth, which I refused, a pair of temple guards positioned my right hand over my left and bound them with backs together, so my wrists were tethered and my healing tattoos did not show.

  My mind was numb with grief and fear. My entire family was horribly, wrongfully murdered. I feared to face the grim light of morning outside the temple mountain, as a slave and alone.

  I saw Mara. Her face blanched as white as the marble effigy of Dionysus when they led me out of the Throat of Orpheus. Her hand twitched as if to take mine when I passed, but a stern whisper from one of the Bacchae stopped her.

  I willed her to remember me kindly despite what the others might say. I knew my name would be blackened from the temple.

  Terrible thoughts dogged my heavy footsteps on the path to slavery. I was sold to a dark haired trader named Cyrus, garnered outside the temple. We traveled south along with three other slaves--an elderly Samothraki and two young males, scarcely out of boyhood, who never spoke. They stank of fear and resignation.

  Cyrus was a harsh and unforgiving man. Grecian blood tainted his features and stained his skin a sallow shade of amber. He never asked what crimes I’d committed to be ousted from the temple, nor did he see to my basic needs.

  We stopped so infrequently throughout the next three days that I was forced to wet myself. Urine burned my legs and soaked the bottom of my chiton. Cyrus puffed his lips in annoyance. Shame burned my cheeks. I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. The acrid stench burned my nose and sunlight seared my eyes. It was no more than I deserved.

  Cyrus’ damnable rope dragged me ever onward. We journeyed over rocky paths that bruised my heels. I trudged under a blinding hot sun until my shoulders turned to red fire and blistered in fierce, white pustules.

  I was a stupid girl. If I had been more cautious, more vigilant, I would have seen the signs that pointed to this end. Aidne’s words, the odd scent lingering around her like a mantle of cloth. Herbs that made my nose tingle and my eyes burn--herbs that when ingested by some could be as poisonous as a serpent’s kiss.

  “Eat.” Cyrus tossed me an overripe onion and a strip of dried meat. “We reach Abdera soon.” I made no move to catch them with my bound hands, but his aim was good. I let them fall from my fingers into the dirt.

  Cyrus took one menacing step towards me.

  “Here, I will help.” The old Samothraki slave gathered them both and poked the dried meat at my chapped lips. Cyrus’ eyes narrowed but he moved away.

  “I don’t want it.” I brushed the meat away. My shoulders ached from the tether rope and I stank from urine, sweat and my mother’s birthing blood.

  “The trader g
ains nothing if you perish on the road to Abdera,” the old Samothraki whispered. His eyes darted back to Cyrus. “He will feed you and shelter you only until you are sold. You must eat if you wish to escape your bonds.”

  I surprised him with a bitter laugh. “I do not wish to escape, old man. I wish to die.”

  His eyes widened. “There are quicker ways to die than starvation. Cyrus will not exercise that force, for all that you might wish him to, girl. You are no use to him dead. Eat now. You’ll find death soon enough.”

  But I vowed I would not eat. Not then, and not the rest of our journey out of the mountains. I prayed daily for death until at last I gave up voicing my pleas to the gods. When Cyrus held me down and forced water between my cracked and bleeding lips, I gave up the gods altogether. The days were a blur of piercing azure skies and rocky terrain. They passed in a haze of despair and desperation that never gave me respite from my guilty conscience.

  I was utterly alone.

  Once Cyrus came to me at night and laid on top of me, stinking of sour wine and murmuring filth and curses into my ears. I fought at him with my bound hands. He pinched my nipple so hard I thought it would burst. I remembered how Mara and I had giggled about taking a lover. So, this was to be my first.

  Tears leaked from my eyes into my hair and my cracked, bleeding lips moved in a soundless wail. When the old Samothraki remarked into the evening air that I would fetch a better price with my maidenhood intact, Cyrus rose from my motionless, stiff body and dealt the old man a blow that should have killed him. The trader let me be afterwards.

  For the old Samothraki’s sake, I managed to swallow a bit of dried meat with water that morning.

  *** ***

  We marched for almost a week. Seven hundred stades of blistering trek over snow-covered mountain passes and ragged countryside until at last, bleeding and emaciated, we arrived in the port city of Abdera.

  After months of frigid earthy air in the temple depths, the lure of the sea breeze in Abdera was a welcome change from the desperate cold of my despair. Abdera, the city founded by Herakles after his companion, Abderus, was slain by Diomedes’ mare. It was larger than any city I had seen. Not even Perperek compared to its size and bustle. Our pace quickened as we wound our way down the mountains to the city.

  We passed the main gates with little trouble. The cacophony was deafening. Abdera was arranged in a maze of paved streets and stone walls, much like the fortress of Perperek, and segregated patches of land into property. The main roads and alleyways led down towards the large open air marketplace, the agora.

  Birds screeched and wheeled over the mobs clogging the roadway. Scents of humanity, exotic spices and perfumes, and filth of beasts assaulted my nose. My empty stomach churned, but I could not stop gaping. That is, until Cyrus laughed unkindly at my open mouth and tugged harder on the ropes binding my wrists together.

  Then I remembered the purpose in my journey and I closed my mouth with a snap.

  “The slave market will be nearer the water,” said the old Samothraki. “On the far side of the agora.”

  I shrugged. What did I care on which side of the marketplace it was? My family was dead. I wanted to join them.

  I’d violated my father’s dying wish and I’d lost my family and my heart forever.

  We trudged through the side streets, dodging other beasts and travelers. Around the agora on all sides stood several temples, military headquarters, the city records office and a prison—like the fortress of Perperek but on a much grander scale. The inner walls were decorated with murals depicting the city’s history. As we passed the law courts, I heard the crowds shouting at the unpopular speakers at the morning’s assembly.

  Market stalls constructed of timber, rope, and cloth or straw canopies afforded some shade from the oppressive heat. Slaves carried baskets of strange fish, eels, and mussels through the crowds. They stacked jugs of wine, olive oil, and vinegar for sale and hung twisted ropes of onions and garlic from wooden pegs. Slave boys darted through the crowded market place, avoiding the curses and cuffs of citizens and house slaves alike.

  One winding, lopsided avenue held the stalls of the metoikoi, the tradesmen. The poor also labored in workshops beside the metoikoi, crafting leather sandals, dyeing cloth and other tasks, in hopes of learning a trade or gaining enough coin to feed their families. The two worked in such harmony that it was difficult to tell the difference between metoikoi and those too destitute to claim citizenship.

  I was so preoccupied with the stalls that Cyrus jerked my lead hard and I fell to my knees into a puddle by the tanner. A wealthy woman squawked angrily at me, her brass and copper adornments jangling, and sidestepped to avoid my splash. Cyrus slapped at my ears. I scrambled to my feet to avoid another blow. My scraped knees began to flush and burn from the lye in the scummy puddle.

  “Move.” Cyrus muttered. “This way.”

  Slaves are common in Thrace and Greece. Even some of the families in my village had housed slaves, though I’d scarce took notice of them. And now I would be sold to some family, to cook food, mend clothing, and tend their children. My life would no longer be my own. Oh, how my father would be crushed!

  When we reached the slave pits, the sheer numbers of people for sale shocked me. Most slaves were barbarians captured by pirates or soldiers. Others were the children of slaves or had been abandoned and rescued by slavers like Cyrus, who roamed the rugged hillsides looking for souls to ply his trade. I had no idea there would be so many of us.

  Live free, my father wished for me with his last breath. And I’d failed him, as I’d failed my mother and unborn brother.

  Hot tears blinded me as Cyrus maneuvered us towards the pits. I bowed my head, thinking to hide my face behind the curtain of my filthy hair.

  “Sssst, girl,” the old Samothraki hissed. “Cease your tears else it will go worse for you. Wipe your face. Pray for a kind master.”

  “Pray? To whom?” I moaned. What god would save me from the Hell I had created in my naivety?

  My ears still rang from Cyrus’ blow. My reddened knees felt as if a hundred stinging insects crawled on my flesh. I stank. I hurt. I could not face this humiliation, not without someone to guide my steps. What I wouldn’t do for my near-sister to comfort me, now. But Mara was far away, hidden in a nest of traitorous vipers.

  Cyrus pulled me to a long table, where they wrote my name and a price on potshard. The shard had a hole through it and a leather lace to suspend it from my neck.

  Thracian girl, I read. One hundred drachmas.

  One hundred drachmas? So much? Cyrus was a madman. The scribe raised his brows at Cyrus’ price, but wrote it just the same. I felt his dark eyes on me when he finished and handed the shard to Cyrus.

  Cyrus gathered up the shard for the old Samothraki and set a price on the two boys, to be sold as a pair. Even together, their price was not half of my own.

  “This way,” Cyrus ordered. He tugged my lead toward the rocky stretch of beach beyond the slave stockyard. The old Samothraki shrugged his shoulders at me. Apparently this was not typical.

  “Where are you taking me?” I dared to ask.

  Cyrus gave me a dark look and wrinkled his nose. Then we took a short detour and went around the backsides of what appeared to be private homes. The walls were low and coated in white plaster that reflected the sun’s rays. They were crumbling in a few areas from neglect, or the sea salt in the air, I guessed, and some of the small gardens were overgrown. Still a few had courtyards that seemed tidy enough.

  When he found the gate he was looking for, Cyrus whistled sharp and high. The shrill sound nearly split my ears. A woman poked her head out the rear door of the dwelling.

  She frowned. “What do you want?”

  “She needs a bath and a fresh chiton,” said Cyrus. “Nothing fine. How much?”

  The woman’s eyes shifted toward me. She shrugged in indifference and named a price that made Cyrus tighten his hands on my lead. As they haggled back and forth, the
old Samothraki edged closer to me.

  “You will fetch a higher price when your beauty no longer hides behind your filth. Be thankful you have such a clever trader to bargain on your behalf.”

  Oh, yes. Cyrus was clever.

  “He has only spared me the worst of his attentions,” I whispered back. “It will not save me from being sold against my will.”

  The Samothraki tightened his lips at my words, but his irritation did not make them any less true. Coin was coin for a slave trader.

  A tub of unheated water was brought. I was given a cake of soap and made to strip in the rear yard, with Cyrus leering at me all the while. My skin grew pink both from shame and the frigid water. By the time I’d finished bathing, there was no part of me that Cyrus, or anyone else who happened by, did not see. I dressed quickly in a simple coarse chiton that was too large for me by a hand span. The draped neckline was so loose; it persisted in slipping off one or the other of my shoulders. I cringed when Cyrus’ eyes took on a very keen shine.

  The woman came out and helped me rinse and dress my hair. Her eyes flickered at my tattooed hands and she darted a glance at Cyrus. When she picked up an oil ewer, he nodded and she rubbed olive oil through my hair. Then she jerked my gleaming tresses into a sloppy braid. My scalp stung from her ungentle ministrations, but at least I was clean.

  Cyrus tossed a coin to the woman who caught it with a quick hand. She harrumphed her way back into the dwelling and I was led once more towards the slave stocks, with the Samothraki and the two silent boys creeping along behind us.

  *** ***

  My first impression of the slave stocks was riotous noise. The clamor of the morning crowds was deafening, even more overwhelming than the stench of humanity pressed together in a sweating, perfumed throng.

  Cyrus slipped the shards over our necks and led us to a large wooden platform. Slaves of every race imaginable were led in a single file line across the platform. Buyers shouted, inspected, and threw down coins before the most desirable of candidates.