The Soul of Time

by Jennifer Macaire

  ‘I’ll be fine after you wash me and shave me.’ He fingered his uneven beard. ‘I can’t see myself, but I imagine I must look fairly barbarian.’ His voice was still a broken whisper.

  Plexis helped me, and soon Alexander was clean, shaved, and propped up against a tree. He swallowed his fish soup carefully, grimacing when his throat muscles moved. The stitches held, although a thin ribbon of blood trickled down his chest. I waited until he had finished the soup. Then I examined the wound. It was still clean, not inflamed. I washed it carefully with boiled water and marigold, then bandaged it again with a clean cloth. Alexander wanted to see the stitches so we held up Plexis’s mirror. His eyes grew very wide and he turned white.

  ‘By Arachne’s web, that is a terrifying sight,’ he whispered nervously. ‘Who would have thought of sewing skin together?’

  ‘You would have preferred us to cauterize it perhaps?’ It was Plexis, a teasing note in his voice. He looked almost as as ill as Alexander though, and his hands shook.

  Phaleria strolled over, twisting some cabbage leaves into a bowl. She caught sight of the stitches and the leaves she was holding slipped from her fingers. Her face drained of all colour, and she hastily made signs to ward off evil as she backed away. ‘It was true, I didn’t imagine it,’ she gasped. ‘He was dead; the druid did cut his throat. I saw it, I saw it, but I thought … by Lug, I thought I had just imagined …’ Her voice climbed skyward and several women looked at her curiously, but they didn’t speak Greek.

  I quickly covered his neck with clean linen and got to my feet. ‘Don’t be afraid, it’s only stitches,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound reassuring. However, Phaleria looked at me now with the same expression everyone wore when they found out I was supposed to be Persephone the Terrible, Queen of the Underworld, the Queen of Ice and Darkness. And the look she gave Alexander was so full of awe it was positively overflowing. The Great Iskander indeed. How many times had he been resurrected? Three thousand years later there was still no rest for him. Twice, time-travellers had been to see him. That was unheard of. No one was visited more than once. However, I’d managed to convince the Institute of Time Travel and Study to send me to him. And look what happened. I sighed and pressed my forehead to my knees.

  ‘Are you all right, Mother?’ Paul sat down by my side, taking my hand in his.

  ‘I think so.’ I smiled. ‘I was just thinking about the first time I saw your father.’ My voice was wistful.

  ‘When he captured you?’ Paul always loved that story. He lay his head on my shoulder and snuggled close. ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I arrived here in the past dressed in the fine linen robes of a Mesopotamian priestess. I was supposed to pose as an onirocrite. That was part of the plan to get Iskander to talk about what he wanted to do, because no one ever understood why he’d decided to conquer Sogdia, Bactria, Lydia, and go all the way to India when he’d already beaten Darius. He was already king of Macedonia, Greece and Egypt; they thought it should have been enough.’

  ‘He wanted to unite East with West,’ murmured Paul, half asleep.

  ‘And we wanted to find you, our child of the moon,’ I said softly.

  ‘When you met Father you fell in love, and he captured you.’

  ‘I guess that’s what happened, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I only knew he was special. I was under his spell, so I didn’t fight as much as I could have when he dragged me out of the Time-Tractor beam.’

  ‘He said it made a blue light all around you, and that you were silver with frost. His soldiers screamed in fright and wouldn’t go near you, but Father threw down his sword and reached into the cold crying, ‘I shall save you from Hades, my Lady Persephone, and you will be my oracle!’’ Paul chuckled quietly, then yawned.

  ‘I wasn’t really Persephone,’ I said, stifling my own yawn.

  ‘Hmm. Father said he was surprised you turned out to be mortal.’

  I hugged Paul. ‘Well, that was how I met him.’

  ‘Then you were kidnapped, and when I was born, I was taken away from you. We were separated for seven years.’ Paul’s voice turned fierce. ‘If I ever find out who did that I’ll … I’ll He broke off, his fists clenched. His vehemence didn’t surprise me. Paul had spent the first four years of his life as a hostage, taken from one end of Persia to the other by our enemies. He’d been too young to truly understand, but it had been a solitary, precarious existence.

  ‘Sometimes things happen, and they seem one way at the time,’ I said carefully. ‘Then years go by, and you look at them differently. You see the whole picture not just the details. You were kidnapped, and that was one of the elements that led your father to India and made his legend what it is now and what it will be three thousand years from now.’

  ‘It was a horrible thing to do. I suffered for years because of it. I had no parents, I was all alone except for Maia, and then she died,’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears.

  Maia had been his Sogdian nurse. She’d taken care of him from when he was four until he was nearly ten. She’d been his guardian and had died on the way to Babylon. ‘I can’t change your past, Paul. No matter how hard it was, you must try and forget. It is in the past, and it cannot be put right, so you just have to learn to live with it. Perhaps someday you will be able to step back and see that it was just a small part of a great whole, and you will understand.’

  Paul looked unconvinced, but exhaustion made his mouth tremble, so I put his head on my lap and stroked his bright hair until he fell asleep.

  I looked over at Plexis, sitting protectively near Alexander. His head was slumping forward with the effort of staying awake, but it would never occur to him to lie down and sleep while there was danger. Every once in a while he’d stand up and stay perfectly still, listening and looking around in every direction. Then he’d sit back down, slowly, as if his muscles hurt, and take Alexander’s hand in his. What would Paul think if he knew it was Plexis who’d arranged my kidnapping?

  I didn’t know, and it worried me. He was too young. He would feel betrayed. He hadn’t had the time to be able to look back and see the whole picture. He wouldn’t be able to see, because he was the bright golden thread running through the tapestry of the tale.

  We rested until the sun climbed past midday. When it was late afternoon, Plexis ordered the women to cover all traces of the campsite, and we left in the same formation as before – Plexis leading and Alexander lying on his shield with Phaleria and another strong woman carrying him. I walked in front of Paul, and the rest of the women and children followed close behind us.

  Phaleria carried Alexander with even more care. Sometimes she’d glance at me and try to smile, but her eyes flickered nervously. I sighed. I would have to have a nice long talk with her. We walked until the sun was a low, red disc in the sky. Then we set up camp.

  We had gone through a marshy land, skirting the flank of the mountain where the going would have been rougher. The bog was disagreeable, even if it was easy to navigate. Millions of bugs swarmed around us: horseflies, deerflies, mosquitoes, and midges. All were intent on sucking our blood. We pulled up handfuls of lemon balm leaves, rubbing them over us. We wore woven crowns and necklaces of fragrant plants. It didn’t work. Believe me. Nothing worked. I wrapped a linen cloth around my head because the most aggravating flies were those that buzzed around my ears and bit my scalp hard enough to leave bleeding holes. Even so, midges slipped through the cloth and settled in its folds, nibbling happily at my skin.

  We were all exasperated by the bugs. Children were crying fretfully, everyone was tight-lipped and haggard, and even Alexander had begun to wriggle, making it harder for the women to carry him. Then I slipped and fell with a resounding splash into a deep puddle. I staggered to my feet, absolutely covered with sticky mud. It dripped off my fingers and nose, matted my hair and glued my eyes closed.

  ‘Agh!’ I gasped. ‘What happened?’ I swiped the mud away from my eyes and peered around. Everyone had stopped and
was staring at me as if I were the Bog Monster. I spit a mouthful of mud and sneezed. Then I stood still for a minute. ‘You know what?’ I said to Plexis.

  ‘What?’ he asked, eyeing me dubiously.

  ‘My bug bites feel much better. As a matter of fact,’ I said, watching as everyone swatted and slapped. ‘They have ceased to bother me.’ I bent down and picked up a handful of mud and smeared it on the back of my legs, which were still clean and still under attack. ‘There, that feels better.’ I sighed. The mud was cool and soothing. It felt wonderful.

  I coated Alexander’s skin with mud, being careful not to get it anywhere near his wound. Then everyone had a dip in the mud hole, the children enjoying it thoroughly. When we moved on, we looked like a group out of a horror movie. I could imagine the title – The Attack of the Mud People. I didn’t care. It was such a blessing to be rid of the flies. They still buzzed around us, but in lesser numbers. They were stymied by the thick mud on our skin. As soon as it dried and flaked off we covered ourselves with more mud. In the swamps there was plenty.

  Chapter Twelve

  We camped as soon as we reached dry ground. It was just on the edge of the swamp, though, so we didn’t bother to wash off the mud. I’d never slept with a coat of mud before. It was most uncomfortable, drying, cracking and pulling my skin, but there were fewer bug bites, and I actually slept deeply for a few hours.

  In the morning, I unstuck myself from the ground, crawled out from under the sheltering branches, and stretched in a shower of dried mud flakes. I examined the crackled effect of the mud on my arms and legs and rubbed an itchy bit off the end of my nose. The mud turned to a soft grey dust. I brushed most of it off with the back of my hand.

  Melodious bird songs came from the marsh but that was the only sound in the air. I was surrounded by silence. It was a mysterious silence, wrapped in a light fog and sealed with the rays of the sun’s first light.

  The sun hadn’t really set, so one couldn’t say it had risen. It was hiding behind a thick, pink mist. Fog hung low over the marsh, hiding the tops of the hazel and hawthorn, and making the taller larch and blackthorn trees appear to float in eddies of opal cloud. I advanced to the edge of the clearing and peered down.

  We were camped between the edge of the marsh and the beginning of the mountain’s steep flanks. The land rose abruptly, and the stream we’d been following suddenly splashed at our feet in a small cascade. On each side of the waterfall grew thick clumps of fiddlehead fern. We ate our fill of them for dinner. The stream led us to a grove of tall pine trees, and we stayed there for the night. Well, for the half-light, half-dark hours that marked the middle of the night. It was hard for me to judge how late or early it was any more.

  Right now, it was time to wash off in a crystal clear pool at the base of two large, moss-covered rocks. The water was icy, straight off the mountain, but it felt invigorating. I scrubbed the mud out of my hair and body, and was rewarded with clear, glowing skin and shiny, clean hair. The mud had done more than just keep the bugs at bay. It was a complete beauty treatment. I washed my clothes and hung them on an ash tree to dry. Then I shook my cloak out and draped it over me, Greek-style, using a long thorn to pin it closed. I wondered where I’d lost my fibula. I had a gold one from Persia that I’d used to keep my cloak fastened, but it had fallen off somewhere in the pine forest. Perhaps someday it would be found and an anthropologist would conclude that the Persians had traded with the Valerians.

  Pausing, I admired the mist obscuring the swamp. I loved the way it moved – almost like ethereal water in soft eddies and curls around the huge willow that marked the end of the marshland. Now we would be heading uphill, through the narrow pass I could see between the high peaks. Then we would trek through the great pine forest that stretched all the way to the coast. However, I didn’t dwell on the journey – instead, I headed back to our clearing, wondering what we’d eat for breakfast. My stomach was growling.

  I was not the only one awake. Plexis still hadn’t slept. He was sitting next to Alexander, slowly coaxing a flame from a heap of grey ashes. Two other women were awake; one was nursing a small child and the other was quietly gathering dried wood for the fire. Phaleria was sleeping, curled up in her cloak, and so was Paul – only his hair was visible from under his cloak. He looked warm, though, hidden under a sweeping pine branch.

  Almost everyone lay half hidden under massive pine trees. The branches reached out several metres from their trunks, forming a sloping roof. Underneath, layers of pine needles carpeted the ground, making a soft, springy – albeit prickly – bed.

  I sat next to Plexis and put my arms around him. He smiled and nuzzled my neck. ‘Good morning,’ I whispered. ‘Do you want to sleep now? I’ll take over the watch.’

  His mouth twitched. ‘I’m not tired.’

  ‘You haven’t slept in two days,’ I said, tracing the line of his jaw with my hand. I twirled a lock of hair around my finger and let it bounce back. He was irresistible. Whenever I saw him I wanted to … well, let’s just say he had an enormous amount of sex appeal. Even as haggard and exhausted as he was now. The circles around his eyes only made him look sexier.

  He gave a soft laugh. ‘All right, I’ll sleep. But first I want to start this fire again; I let it burn down last night. Afterwards I want to bathe, and I want to see about getting food for everyone. If I can snare a few rabbits we can eat them tonight.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘Do what?’ Plexis asked, gathering a handful of pine needles and poking them in the fire.

  ‘Bathe, what else?’ It was Alexander. His voice was stronger. He stretched carefully, wincing at all his hurts, and then managed to sit up by himself. ‘I feel as if I might live,’ he said, and he sounded surprised.

  Plexis nodded. ‘You sound better. You look better too. But you need to rest and get your strength back.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said wisely. ‘You’re not out of the woods yet.’

  Alexander had heard me use that expression before, but Plexis hadn’t. ‘Of course he’s not,’ he said. ‘We’re all still in the woods. And we’ll be here for quite a while, too.’

  ‘She means I’m not better yet,’ said Alexander, eyeing his friend. ‘You look terrible. Why don’t you go have a bath and get some sleep? Wake Paul, he’s capable of setting snares, and I’m sure Phaleria can spear us some fish. There must be at least one or two women with us who can gather vegetables and fruit. Tell them to hurry.’

  ‘He might not be out of the woods,’ said Plexis, ‘but he’s getting much better. When he starts giving orders, you know he’s back to normal.’ He couldn’t hide his relief, and his face was illuminated with a huge grin.

  I saw Alexander’s eyes become hooded. Plexis did that to everyone. I didn’t think it was what Alexander needed at the moment, so I took Plexis by the arm and said, ‘Let’s go, I’ll help you wash.’ Before we left, Plexis woke Phaleria and told her she was in charge of breakfast.

  She nodded, sitting up and stretching and plucking pine needles out of her copper hair. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage.’ She rubbed a clump of mud off her chin and scratched her nose. Even covered with dust and with pine needles poking out of her hair like porcupine quills, she looked capable of doing anything.

  I took Plexis down the game path leading to the small pool I’d discovered earlier. Plexis shrugged off his tunic, still favouring his arm. When he was undressed, he took handfuls of soft sand and scrubbed himself all over. Then he plunged under the water.

  ‘Oh, that feels good,’ he said, standing in the hip-deep water and shaking his head, making the water droplets fly off his curls. He looked like a faun, or some water sprite. The mist lifted and the sunshine filtered through the trees, dappling his skin with green. He sank back into the water, swam a few strokes, then he stood up in a patch of warm sunlight, tipping his head back. All around him was a deep green darkness, the water at his hips swirled clear as jade while his shoulders and head were illuminated. The silenc
e around us was broken only by the trilling of a bird in the mossy oak growing by the pool. I watched my lover, my heart both glad and apprehensive.

  I knew I had to tell him sometime soon, but the time had never been right. I wasn’t even sure if now was the time, there were still too many uncertainties, but he caught my mood. He waded over to the rock where I was perched and leaned his good arm upon it. ‘What is it?’ he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  ‘What is what?’

  ‘Don’t play that game with me. You have something you want to say. I can tell.’ He leaned closer and kissed me. ‘I feel so much better now,’ he murmured.

  ‘Now that you’re clean or now that you’ve kissed me?’

  ‘Now that we’ve saved Iskander and Paul.’ His hazel eyes were serious. ‘What is bothering you? Is it the Eaters of the Dead? I know they will be on our trail, but I’m not worried. Before the day is out, we’ll have met up with Demos and Nearchus and what remains of the villagers and the Roman soldiers.’

  ‘And if the druids won?’

  ‘Then we’ll meet up with them, and we fight to the death. Whatever happens, will happen. Why worry about it? It will be as the gods wish.’

  ‘I forgot how religiously backward and superstitious you are,’ I said.

  He looked at me quickly, then saw I was joking. ‘Tell me,’ he said again, gently.

  ‘I think I’m pregnant.’ I said, lowering my eyes.

  ‘Mine?’ he asked.

  ‘Yours,’ I agreed.

  ‘Are you glad?’ He tilted his head to the side, a mimic of Alexander.

  ‘Of course.’ I smiled. ‘You know how much I love babies, and Alexander was begging for another.’

  ‘Perhaps not mine,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said tenderly, and I kissed him again.

  He nodded and looked down at the water, but a smile tugged at his mouth. ‘Well, that was fast,’ he said, a note of teasing in his voice. ‘We only made love twice since I was wounded, and look what happened.’