Hand of Fire

by Judith Starkston

  At a moment when she most needed her mother, she was alone. Each time in the past when she’d had to do some important rite, her mother stood with her, even when her sickness had grown terrible. Briseis had never imagined being the only one alive in Lyrnessos who knew the rites and skills of a healing priestess, never weighed how heavy that privilege would sit upon her. Her mother had been sick for months, but that hadn’t meant she would die, not to Briseis. Even now it seemed impossible that each day would go by without her. She felt crushed by an idea that kept insinuating itself into her thoughts—that her mother had chosen to abandon them. She wanted to shake her mother awake and immediately blamed herself for such a foolish thought.

  Briseis stood in front of the shrine next to her mother’s body and tried to put aside her anger. She knew from other rites she’d performed that she could empty her thoughts in order to allow the goddess to fill her mind, and an almost frightening clarity would take hold of her. She needed to make a similar space for her mother’s spirit, but anger, if she let it, would demand to be heard. So she focused on the shrine, a place she held in awe throughout her childhood. It sat on legs shaped like a stag’s—Kamrusepa’s sacred animal. Its broad doors, each as wide as Briseis’s arm spread, swung on large bronze hinges. The polished wood, carved from ebony and cedar, shone black and burnt red against its ivory inlay. It had beauty and grace, a place in which her mother would happily reside and join the other ancestors who kept her family safe. Briseis felt a sharp pain pushing against her chest. The shrine’s ivory designs swirled and danced before her tired eyes. Her mother’s voice sounded softly in Briseis’s ear, barely a sigh, without distinct words, but enough. She clasped the leather bag to her chest tighter and thanked her mother for this blessing.

  Briseis opened the doors wide, revealing rows of small statues of their gods, mixed in with more humble objects like amulets, belts or daggers representing family members from past generations. She held the worn leather bag to her face, breathing in its smell, then kissed it and laid it on the shrine’s middle shelf where Briseis had cleared a wide place for it.

  Her father poured a libation into Antiope’s silver cup and drank, passing the cup on to each of her brothers. His eyes were red and puffy, but as he held out the wine to her, one side of his mouth turned up in a lopsided, gentle sign that he loved her and knew how hard this was for her.

  Briseis took the cup and sipped the wine, letting the sweetness on her tongue remind her of her mother. Please let my prayers be strong enough. Her hand felt slippery with sweat against the smooth wine cup.

  She drew in a breath and let it out slowly before placing the cup next to the bag and beginning the prayers. “Let this be your spirit’s pleasant home with food and wine among your family to protect us.”

  She took lavender from a handkerchief knotted to her belt and sprinkled the sweet blossoms over the satchel, crushing them between her fingers to release their perfume. She spoke the prayers for this rite, letting the rhythm of her recitation, rather than the words themselves, express her inner longing. When she completed the final cycle of prayers, she felt sure her mother had settled in this familiar place.

  Before she closed the shrine, she leaned forward and kissed the bag once more. A tear fell among the dried blossoms.

  Following Antiope’s death, Briseis had to contend not only with the raw pain of losing her mother, but also with her new duties supervising the household. She settled quarrels between the servants, kept track of how many lambs or pigs should be slaughtered, how much goat’s milk should go to producing cheeses, which serving women should be set to grinding grain and which to weaving, and a never ending flow of other tasks. The constant decision-making overwhelmed her at times, but she had observed her mother do these things and had taken on some of them during the long months of illness. The servants now treated her with the same deference they had formerly given Antiope. She felt strange about that at first, but realized her transition from girlhood was complete—in all ways except marriage.

  As Briseis took on the running of the household, Eurome gave her sound advice. Briseis had always loved her nursemaid, but instead of trying to escape her nurse’s chatter and scoldings, she now discovered a steady common sense she had underestimated. She was glad that by tradition she would take Eurome with her when she married. It provided the one consolation each time she thought of her upcoming wedding.

  She had been betrothed to King Euenos’s son, Mynes, since they were infants. Her father grew up as Euenos’s closest companion. In adulthood, he remained the king’s strongest comrade in battles and counsel. The betrothal made everyone happy. As a little girl she'd liked the idea of becoming a princess when she married and living in the palace, which was grander and more beautiful than her family’s home.

  Then when she was ten, her mother brought her along to assist Queen Hatepa, who suffered from ill health. Hatepa endured frightening bouts of breathlessness. In the worst times, a strange blue color spread through the queen’s fingers and face. A cough kept away sleep.

  On this occasion, instead of observing her mother’s cures, she secretly watched Mynes from a distance through a crack in the door curtain, curious to observe this person of such importance to her future. He and a slave child played knucklebones on the floor. When the slave’s throw won the game and he gave a shout of glee, Mynes struck him so hard, his head slammed into the wall and he lay motionless on the floor. Briseis started toward the child but she stopped in shock, still shielded by the door curtain, when Mynes kicked the slave child in the belly. “Just remember who’s going to be king.”

  Briseis retreated unseen, shaking in fear at his vicious power. That violent boy would be her husband.

  On the way back from the palace as their cart bumped along, Briseis whispered what she’d seen to her mother. She had to know if such things were allowed for princes.

  “No one,” her mother said softly, “should ever strike out like that, especially not because they’ve lost a game and cannot bear such a minor disappointment. Mynes is young enough still, I suppose. He has time to learn to be gracious when he cannot have what he wants—as important a lesson for a ruler as for you, young lady. You and your brothers don’t always remember that, either, you know.” Her mother’s voice sounded far more worried than usual, however.

  Her mother had chewed the edge of a fingernail, an unladylike habit she scolded Briseis about whenever she caught her doing it.

  “I’ll speak to the queen about it,” Antiope said, as much to herself as to her daughter. “Perhaps I’ll have to ask your father to mention it to Euenos. I’ve seen it before, this temper in Mynes—” Her mother pulled Briseis close in a hug. “You shouldn’t have to worry about such things.”

  The look on Mynes’s face when he kicked the slave stayed with her, and she did worry. Duty required her to marry the prince. Her parents had no choice either, with such a longstanding betrothal.

  A few days later, when Briseis and her mother were seated alone together, spinning wool by the hearth, Briseis asked if she’d spoken to Hatepa about it.

  “Yes, I did.” The small band of muscle running down her mother’s neck went taut as it did whenever she was angry. This was one of the only outward signs her mother ever gave of her ire, along with a tenseness to her speech, a slight over emphasis on each word. “The queen replied that a future king should not be humiliated by his servants. I told her she misunderstood the importance of her son’s actions. She changed the subject.”

  Antiope had closed her eyes. When she opened them and looked at Briseis, she swiped away a tear. “I’m sure there will be ways to guide Mynes once you’re married.” Briseis had taken comfort in the idea that her mother would know what to do when the time came and would give her advice about her husband. But now her mother was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Warriors

  The rules of modesty kept Briseis and Mynes apart in childhood, and after watching his violent temper, she didn’t mind the dista
nce. She admitted he was, even to her dubious eyes, a handsome man with a broad chest, dark wavy hair and dramatic eyes that seemed entirely black. They reminded her of a hawk’s, which made her shudder a little. She knew boys grew and learned to control their tantrums; she had too, she admitted. She’d seen it often enough with her brothers—a wooden cup flung in anger, or a yelled, unkind word, but always taken back later. She hoped Mynes was maturing into a gentler man than the boy she had observed.

  Sometimes she overheard her brothers when they returned from practice with the other young warriors, muttering about the dangers of getting too close to Mynes’s sword if he was frustrated, and then the sharp bands would tighten around her forehead and the pain in her head would force her to lie down.

  Almost two cycles of the moon had gone by since her mother’s death. Soon King Euenos and her father would have to agree upon an actual day for the wedding. Spring was the preferred season, and spring had just begun to show its arrival. She wished she had more time—perhaps the marriage could be delayed somehow.

  After Antiope’s death, Briseis and her father continued their daily habit of walking through the fields, vineyards or pastures, wherever the activities of the estate were busiest. Briseis much preferred being outdoors. Now that her household duties had increased and kept her inside, she appreciated her father’s old habit of consulting her about the estate. It provided a good excuse to escape.

  She studied her father one morning on their walk. Glaukos wanted to check the vineyards nearest the cart road that went to Lyrnessos, so they headed along the path in that direction. Her father wasn’t old, but his gait had slowed since Antiope’s death. His lean body didn’t have the same spring and the numbers of gray hairs amidst the black curls by his temples had increased.

  Her parents had few shared characteristics. Her mother’s connection to the goddess—the intimacy she felt with the unseen world of the divine and the power it gave her to heal others—had mystified her father; he preferred the feel of plowed soil in his fist or a well-shaped sword haft. Such differences hadn’t prevented them from loving each other. They had relied on mutual advice, and during her childhood Briseis understood that their physical closeness provided them some essential reassurance, especially for her father. Now bereft of Antiope’s presence—his wife’s hand on his arm when bad news arrived—he sometimes plodded as if his feet weighed too much for him to lift.

  Despite the lines of sadness around his eyes, his smile when he looked at his daughter walking by his side warmed her. They reached the first rows of grapevines, still leafless but ready to burst into green, and started walking over the clods of upturned soil where the workmen had dug the weeds between the vines.

  He studied the budding plants, considering how much pruning back of branches would need to be done to provide the right sunlight for the grapes later. Briseis turned her eyes up to the slopes of Mount Ida. Her grandfather had cleared the pines and oaks from many of the surrounding slopes and built terraces with rough stone walls, which he planted with apricot, fig and pomegranate trees and with olive groves. The dense forest patches seemed to flow in green waves to the edge of the more widely spaced and grayer tones of the orchards, where many of the trees had not yet leafed out. She loved the mountain and its hidden places. She wondered how often she could walk in Ida’s woods once she’d married and lived further away in the palace.

  She wanted to overcome her shyness with her father on the subject of her marriage and ask him if it could be postponed. She could explain her need for delay without bringing up Mynes’s temper. To admit that she feared Mynes would be too hard for her father to bear, although she knew he saw Mynes’s faults. She should be having this conversation about her marriage with her mother, but now she would have to discuss it with her father as best she could. She rubbed her forehead and beside her eyes.

  “Papa?”

  He had bent down closer to the branches and now looked up at her with concern. Her voice must sound strained, at least to an astute listener who loved her.

  She took a deep breath. “Do you think King Euenos and Mynes would be terribly upset if you asked them to postpone the wedding while I grieve? I know it’s been two months and I don’t want to cause trouble, but I’m struggling with so many new duties since Mama died. I can’t imagine taking on the palace household when I’m only just learning this one without Mama’s advice...”

  Her father stood up. She saw him fighting tears. He pulled her against him for a moment and then started walking through the vineyard again while looking into the distance up the slopes of Mount Ida. She recognized this behavior. He found both her marriage and her mother’s loss hard to talk about.

  After a while he said, “King Euenos will be disappointed to postpone your marriage.” At this her temples pressed tight. “But you are my daughter, too precious for placating even my old friend. I can tell him I’ve lost my wife and I can’t lose my daughter so soon after. He needn’t know you want the delay.”

  Relief loosened the bands around her forehead. “I will miss my mountain when I marry.”

  “Your mountain?” Her father laughed. “I guess it is yours, after all, in spirit if not in purchase. The mountain’s woods and springs were your favorite places to play as you grew up, you and Iatros. Was that because you spent so much time looking for healing plants, or did Kamrusepa put this love inside you to draw you to her sacred places?”

  She gazed up at the mountain. “I’m not sure. I always loved the woods.”

  He patted her arm. “As to your marriage, you’ll be a fine queen for Lyrnessos. Don’t worry about the palace household. Your mother did her best to prepare you and she succeeded. I haven’t got any doubts about you, even if you are headstrong.”

  He looked into the distance again. The lines of worry returned to his brow. “Delaying the wedding will be good for Mynes also. Young men like Mynes need high spirits when they face their enemies in battle. We raise them to be fierce, but to listen, to control the temper—these qualities are also important.”

  He broke off a dead branch from one of the vines and tossed it to the ground. “Mynes needs some time to acquire these skills before he can rule well. Euenos thinks your marriage would stabilize Mynes—he talks of that often—but I’m happy to delay it until Euenos has had a chance to cultivate these virtues in his son. Your thought matches mine. Don’t feel distressed to have asked me.”

  The clatter of a chariot and horse approaching the estate sounded on the nearby cart road, and they both looked up. “A summons for me from the king,” said Glaukos. “I’d better go.”

  “There goes your day,” said Briseis with sympathy. “I hope it’s not anything too serious. I’m going into Mount Ida’s woods. I’ll restock the supply of horn bush for my healing work while I’m not needed in the house.” She kissed her father’s cheek and headed toward the trail leading up the slope.

  A gentle warmth radiated up from the dirt path as she climbed through the orchards where her father’s workmen cleared dead weeds from around the trees. As she slipped into the forest, the coolness of oaks and pines greeted her like an old friend. She breathed in the earthy scent of mulching leaves underfoot and the sharp tang of pine needles as she pulled them through her fingers in passing. She focused on her search for a horn bush. It should have tight purple buds this time of year.

  Briseis enjoyed gathering the mountain’s medicinal offerings, the gifts Kamrusepa had revealed to her healing priestesses. She found time for this task whenever she could, although both her grandmother and mother had left much of the locating of herbs, roots and bark to Maion, now the oldest servant on the estate. He had overseen the fields and orchards until age overtook him. When Maion was a boy, Briseis’s grandmother had nurtured his instincts for finding plants and understanding their uses. Briseis had received her lessons in plant lore from him, with Iatros tagging along more often than not.

  She sighed, remembering the temple duty for Kamrusepa that she should be attending to but had
been dodging for weeks. As a healing priestess her duties differed from the priestesses who worked in the temple precinct. She travelled around to those who were sick, and she had no required duties on a daily basis in the temple, but she was expected to participate occasionally in the rites of the goddess’s care and sacrifices. Briseis would never doubt her ability to serve her goddess if Kamrusepa only required her dedication here in the woods and, of course, in her work amongst those struck by illness or other disharmony with the gods. The temple rites, though, made her uneasy. She hadn’t spent as much time learning them. She suspected her mother, for whom temple duties were a nurturing force, had never realized that they were something you had to study and grow accustomed to. Antiope had spent as much time as possible caring for Kamrusepa in her temple home, but she had preferred to make her devotions alone.

  Briseis secretly thought Kamrusepa preferred her mountain haunts to the elegant sanctuary, but she’d never whispered such a sacrilegious idea to anyone. Unfortunately, now she had to assume her mother’s role in the temple. Her excuse of a mourning period had gone stale a month ago, but she still avoided her responsibility. She hurried her steps and pulled aside the overgrowth, looking for her blooming quarry.

  The Kamrusepa of the woods was also, in Briseis’s mind, the Kamrusepa who brought Telipinu back to his home—a handsome, young warrior god whom Briseis felt was her special protective deity. The source of this belief remained mysterious to her. All the tales showed Telipinu loved the forest as much as she did, but that didn’t account for her conviction. She even admired Telipinu’s famous fury—he’d stood up to everyone with courage when he felt his honor had been insulted. This year at the Spring Festival she would be the one to recite the tale of how Kamrusepa soothed Telipinu’s rage and returned him to his proper place, along with the fruitfulness of the fields and herds. This was the most important duty of the healing priestess each year. Her special bond with Telipinu had grown since her girlhood. He was her sheltering deity, even while Kamrusepa was the source of her healing skills and inspiration. She thought of her marriage and hoped she would not need Telipinu’s divine protection.