by Lisa Cach
He shook his head, a quick negation. “She’s good only for daughters, and was reluctant to provide even them. But you, Nimia. You may finally give me the sons I need.”
“But . . . I’m a slave,” I whispered. I had never thought he would want me to bear his children. I was too stunned to think or feel what that might mean to me, now or in the future. Just two days past, I’d vowed to run away.
“When you get pregnant I’ll have to free you, of course. My sons must be freeborn.”
Freedom!
What heady wine that promise was. No need to run now and risk death. I could wait a year or two and be a free woman, free to leave when I chose.
And . . . I would abandon my child, in so doing.
I would be more of a prisoner as a free mother than I was now as a slave.
Gods, why must the choices you offer never be easy ones?
Assuming I even had a choice one way or the other, if on the night of my sexual initiation Sygarius discovered I was no longer a virgin.
I could not forget that blade still poised above my neck.
Ariadne wanders, distraught,
Along the wave-beaten shores of Naxos. . . .
I sang, plucking at my cithara. The cithara had eleven strings and a sounding box; it was the sophisticated cousin of the lyre, difficult to master and said to produce such sweet, resounding sounds that it set the hardest of soldiers to weeping.
Her feet bare, her tresses
Blowing in the wind
She cries for Theseus,
Tears flowing down her cheeks.
“Oh, the faithless one,
He has abandoned me.”
I perched on a tall stool in a corner of the triclinium—the smaller dining hall used when there were not so many guests as to require the garden room. My music was unheeded by most as they lay on the three couches, drinking their wine and reaching with grease-sheened fingers into the platters of snails, stuffed mice, and pickled quail’s eggs.
Lady Lydia giggled and flirted next to Childeric, whose eyes returned repeatedly to her lush cleavage. The Frankish king’s color was high, his eyes excited. I guessed that Sygarius had tasked his wife with charming the man, since I had been such a failure—though in truth, I’d hardly tried. I’d been too full of thoughts of Clovis and what we’d done.
Clovis listened to me sing, I knew; he’d chosen a position facing in my direction. I almost wished he hadn’t, as I found it hard to concentrate when I knew his eyes were on me. His gaze was too intent, and made my fingers stumble on the cithara strings as memories intruded of lying under him on the pressing room floor. We’d had no chance to speak in private, since.
Sygarius listened, too, if only with half an ear; he’d requested this piece—a favorite of his—which told the tale of Ariadne. She had helped Theseus slay the Minotaur who lived at the center of the labyrinth, by giving him a spool of thread with which to find his way back out of the maze.
I always wondered if Ariadne had been troubled that the Minotaur she helped to kill was her half brother: her mother, Pasiphaë, had fallen in love with a beautiful white bull, and crawled inside a fake wooden heifer to lure the bull to mate with her. The man-eating Minotaur, half human and half bull, was the result of their union.
What strange deeds love spurred one to commit. Sex with a bull. Imagine. Though I’d rather not . . .
After the Minotaur was dead, Theseus had declared his love for Ariadne and taken her away from her home of Minos, but then abandoned her on the shores of Naxos while she slept.
A bastard, that Theseus.
I’d written the music I was playing myself, but the words were Ovid’s, from The Art of Love. I had no talent for lyrics: my skills all lay with motion and music, and the wordless images that filled my mind when I was swept up in these arts.
What will become of me?
What will be my fate?”
I felt for Ariadne.
My talk with Sygarius earlier in the day had thrown me into deeper turmoil. It was easier to know what I wanted to do when the choice was either stay a slave, or run away for a chance at freedom and finding the Phanne. And a chance to be with Clovis.
It took only a few sober moments to see the impossibility of that, though, if the Franks continued to cooperate with Sygarius. If I ran to the Franks, Sygarius would demand me back, and Childeric would hand me over, no matter Clovis’s wants.
If I couldn’t run to Clovis I would be alone, without help or protection in a world that did not treat solitary young women well. My chances of finding the Phanne on my own were all but nil. I didn’t know where they were. The only thread to follow was to find the man, Maerlin, of whom Clovis had spoken, and as of half a dozen years ago, he had been on his way to Britannia.
I shuddered at the thought. Wasn’t it all dark woods and wolves and cold there? And there would be miles of deadly sea to cross. I had never crossed a body of water other than wading through a ford or walking across a sturdy Roman bridge.
All of a sudden, drums and cymbals,
Beaten and tossed by frenzied hands,
Boom along the shore.
Stricken with terror,
Ariadne faints to the sand.
The procession comes:
Maenads with their hair wildly floating,
Light-footed Satyrs,
Drunken old Silenus who
Berates his long-eared donkey.
And then comes the chariot
Bedecked with grapevines,
The god Bacchus handling the
Golden reins and driving
His team of tigers.
Thrice Ariadne tries to flee,
Thrice fear paralyzes her steps.”
That was me, paralyzed by fear. All paths before me were fraught with danger. It seemed safer to stay frozen in this single moment of time, if such were only possible. The spider was back hanging from her thread, pondering whether to let go or crawl into the semi-safety of her web.
If I stayed I would have my sexual initiation with Sygarius, and he’d likely find out I was not a virgin.
And what of Clovis? my heart asked. My certainty that our lives would be entwined was strong, so how could I stay and let Sygarius breed children on me? How could I not go to Clovis?
“Banish your fears,” Bacchus cries,
“I’ll be a more tender, faithful lover
Than Theseus. Ariadne,
You shall be my bride.”
He leapt from his chariot,
The sand yielding beneath his feet,
And clasped the swooning, helpless girl.
He bore her away,
For a god may do as he wills,
And who shall tell him nay?”
Was Clovis my Bacchus?
I wished it could be so. I wished he could carry me away, with none to tell him nay. Against my better judgment, I had let grow inside me a small flame of hope that he could buy me; that he could persuade Childeric that such was a good use of their gold. It was a foolish, dreaming hope that ignored reality, yet my heart would not give it up.
An idea suddenly struck me: I could persuade Sygarius that I would serve him best as a spy in Childeric’s household. He’d let me go then, surely? His lust for me could not be greater than his lust for holding on to his power.
My flame of hope flared into a fiery torch, joy singing through me at the thought of being sent to live with Clovis. My heart raced, my fingers flying with more energy on the cithara.
And Bacchus told her,
“Your reward shall be
A dwelling in the sky;
You’ll be the newest star
In the heavens
And your bright crown
Shall guide the mariner
Uncertain of his course.”
I tri
ed to see myself living among the barbarian Franks, sharing a tent with Clovis as their army traveled the perimeter of the province, protecting borders and engaging in skirmishes with intruding Visigoths. I’d bathe him when he returned from fighting, smeared with the mud of the battlefield, splattered with the blood of the fallen. His long hair would be thick with sweat, his eyes burning with the sexual fever of a man who has slain another. We’d fall upon the fur-strewn cot before he’d done more than unbelt his sword, and he’d thrust within me without prelude or permission . . .
The god and his bride
Consummated their marriage
On the sacred couch
While all around them sang,
“Hymenaee!
Hymenaee!
Hymenaee!”
Or perhaps Clovis and his father would return to their Frankish stronghold and leave the border-guarding to their generals. I imagined traveling with them on horseback toward their home, passing through valleys, woods, and field . . . and as I imagined, I began to lose myself. The dining hall faded away, and though I still played the cithara and sang, my body was performing the well-memorized piece on its own, with only the smallest sliver of my awareness: it may as well have been someone else who plucked the strings, and whose voice vibrated in my throat.
I heard a distant buzzing sound, growing closer to where I imagined I rode—or did I float?—beside Clovis and Childeric. At the edge of the field we were crossing, I saw the golden swarm, the sunlight flashing off the wings of a thousand hovering bees.
All at once the swarm came toward us, filling the air with the sound of their wings, blinding us with their light. I thought they would swallow us in their cloud, but no: they swarmed upon Childeric, covering his body in a thick layer of bees. I cried out, cried his name, as the bees buried him . . . And then the bees blew away in a burst, leaving nothing behind. Childeric had vanished.
Then I was no longer in the field, but instead saw a clearing in a dark and silent wood. In the center of the clearing was a rock crystal bowl with carvings upon it; I was too far away to see what they were. A chill wind raised the hairs on my arms, and then from the darkness between the trees stepped a white horse. It made not a sound as it walked forward, dropped its head, and drank from the bowl.
Horse and bowl vanished. In their place on the ground lay a pair of crossed swords, covered by a shield on which was painted a white horse curled up like a sleeping child, wearing a saddle worked in gold and garnet.
A hard slap across my cheek shocked me back into the dining hall. Lady Lydia was glaring into my face, her lips quivering, her eyes wide with fear and rage. I found myself standing in the center of the hall, my cithara no longer in my hands, the room silent but thrumming with tension. Confusion swept over me, followed quick on its heels by panic. How did I get here? What happened?
My heart racing, my thoughts all a jumble, I looked past Lydia and saw Sygarius, his face dark red with anger. Childeric had gone pale. Clovis . . .
Clovis, as pale as his father, stared at me with an expression I could not read. He seemed almost to be studying me. Theorizing. His eyes flicked to Sygarius, to his father, then back to me. They narrowed.
Cold. His gaze was cold as snow. My heart ached; it felt as if it were being squeezed in his fist.
In desperation, I looked back at Lady Lydia. “What happened?” It was as much a question as a plea. What did I do? Everyone is angry with me. Clovis looks to hate me. What DID I DO?
“This is an outrage!” Childeric burst out, heaving his mass to his feet. “Such insult!” He wheeled toward Sygarius. “Do you think to threaten me with this . . . this . . . display?”
Lady Lydia raised her hand as if to strike me again; I cowered, holding my forearms up to my face, hunching my shoulders. I didn’t understand what was happening. What had I done? “Please, my lady,” I said. “Please. What has happened? What did I do?”
“Apologize!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I repeated, as if the words were magic, to make everything better.
“Not to me. To Childeric.”
I stumbled toward the Frankish king and knelt at his feet, my head bowed, my hair falling away from my neck and leaving it exposed. For a moment I was certain I would feel the cold blow of a steel blade upon it. “My apologies. My deepest apologies. Some madness overtook me, and I knew not what I did.”
And still didn’t know!
“You shall be put to death,” Childeric said. “My sword! Where is my sword?”
Of course he did not have it; one did not bear arms to dinner. I felt a moment’s gratitude for that, until he laid eyes on the knife plunged into a sheep’s head on a platter. He jerked it free. “This will have to do.”
I hunched lower, my brow almost upon the ground. I shook with fear, the vibrating anger all around me. Oh gods, preserve me!
“Wait a moment, Childeric,” Sygarius said, not stirring from the couch. “A moment.”
Clovis spoke to me from my left. “Your master put you up to this, didn’t he?”
I cast a hurt gaze upon him from behind the screen of my hair. “No one put me up to anything! I know not what I did!”
But he paid me no heed, turning his attention to Sygarius. “What mean you, by having your slave put on such a display? To have her say that about my father? I had thought you an honest, straightforward man. If you were not pleased with our negotiations, you should have had the courage to say so.”
“I am afraid that you have me at a disadvantage,” Sygarius said. “For I do not know what was meant by this slave’s peculiar song. Bees? White horses? Crossed swords? I will swear upon any god you please that I have never heard such from her before. Nor do I know what meaning such images have to you.”
“Do not pretend,” Childeric said. “You know!”
“I am at a loss.” Sygarius held out his hands.
“The white horse belongs to the spirit realm,” Clovis said. “It is an omen of death. Our kings are buried covered in crossed swords and a shield, with their saddled mount above them.”
Silence suffused the hall.
My heart pounded. Oh gods. I’d sung out everything I’d seen in my vision . . . and it meant something to Clovis and Childeric. Something very, very bad.
I’d told them all that the king of the Franks would die.
“Nimia,” Sygarius said, “what meant you by this song?”
“My lord, please. I knew not what I did. I was lost in a vision.”
“A vision.”
“Yes, my lord. Such come upon me when I play music or dance.” I suddenly remembered the swarm of golden bees, landing upon me while I lay on the couch, my sex exposed to his view during the last “lesson.” Not just music and dance, then. But I didn’t mention it since it was Clovis between my thighs in that vision.
“Lunacy!” Childeric said.
“Or a thin excuse,” Clovis said. “This is some mad ploy of yours, Sygarius, to frighten us into giving you the terms you wish. You seek to remind us of our vulnerability; to remind us that you can assassinate my father on a whim.”
“Nonsense!” Sygarius said, and for the first time in my life I heard him on the defensive. “Childeric, you have dealt with me how many years? Have you known me to resort to such underhanded, obscure methods? Never! You are an honorable man, as am I. I have never doubted your loyalty. Nor would I seek to undermine it by such a display. Come, man. You know that such as this could not serve me. The slave speaks truth: she was possessed by madness, and knew not what she did.”
There came a heavy pause as Childeric pondered. “But—”
“But there was still an injury done,” Clovis said. “Give us the slave in recompense.”
I gasped and then bit down hard on my lips, afraid to show the least emotion. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. Oh please, oh please, gods, please . . . Clovis didn�
�t hate me—or did he? Would he kill me as soon as he had me? No, no, he was working this unexpected situation to his advantage; he was trying to steal me away from Sygarius.
Wasn’t he?
“An . . . interesting idea,” Sygarius said. “But let us cool our tempers tonight, and consider recompense on the morrow. Nimia, go!”
I rose and scampered from the room, not daring to meet anyone’s eyes for fear of what they might read in mine.
What was that?” Sygarius demanded.
It was later that night; he’d sent Terix to fetch me from my bed after the banquet had ended and the riled Franks had gone to their slumber.
“I don’t know, my lord. I am so sorry.” I looked at my feet, fearing his wrath, fearing what he might read in my face. Fearing, as well, that my performance this evening had revealed more than I ever meant to reveal to him about the prophetic gifts I might have.
“White horses. Shields and swords. Did you truly have a vision of Childeric’s death?”
I shook my head. “I saw the horse and the rest; it did not mean anything to me.”
“It meant something to them.”
“I cannot help that. They see what they wish to see.”
Sygarius snorted. “I doubt they wished to see that! What other visions have you seen?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Only bees. Lots of bees.”
“What do you see of me?”
I raised my face, meeting his eyes. How tired he looked; how worn by responsibility. It came to me how ill-timed my visionary song had been; how it had complicated his negotiations with the Franks, adding to his burdens. Ever since he’d been old enough to be of help to his father he had devoted all his energies to maintaining the province of Soissons, the last vestige of the Western Roman Empire. The last vestige of advanced civilization, amid a sea of barbarian invaders. I knew he dreamt that someday soon, all of Gaul would once again be Roman, that the emperor in the east would send troops and recapture all of Europe.
I had jeopardized all that this evening, by enraging the Franks. I was lucky Sygarius hadn’t taken my head off.
“I don’t see anything of you,” I said, thinking carefully. “The white horse, the forest . . . it was a waking dream, nothing more. I do not tell the future.” If Sygarius thought I could predict the future, nothing would induce him to let me go. Ever. What ruler would let a seer out of his hands?
