Hetaera--Suspense in Ancient Athens (Agathon's Daughter) Read online

  Melaina crushed more artemisia with her pestle, pounding the fern-like leaves into a pulp, mashing the yellow flowers, as she thought about her marriage.

  After a year of absence Agathon returned—not alone, but bearing an infant in swaddling. His whore’s. He’d pleaded with Melaina, begged her to raise the baby as her own, but she’d refused. A mistake, in retrospect. Agathon hired a wet nurse who stood guard over the infant day and night, leaving no opportunity to send the evil Ker to her death.

  Melaina pushed away the memories, focused on her work. With quiet concentration, she added the flower paste to an earthen pot of wine that simmered on the brazier. Taken as a tonic, artemisia acted as a narcotic, inducing sleep. Used to anoint a corpse, the elixir ensured the slumber of the deceased would be eternal; it had the same effect on those still living. As she stirred the brew with a wooden spoon, the vision of her son’s future grew vivid—a golden path leading to the acropolis. She would walk beside him.

  With help, all her dreams were possible. And that help would come from Lycurgus.

  For twenty years, she had held their secret. For twenty years, she’d played the martyr, putting up with the bastard daughter—a constant reminder of Agathon’s infidelity; and her own.

  But that would change.

  She bent over the brazier and blew on the embers, inhaling the artemisia’s intoxicating fumes. Sweat beaded on her forehead, ran into her eyes, and stung. Feeling faint, she removed the concoction from the brazier. Steadying her knees, she searched through her basket and found a stick of rosemary. She held it to the glowing coals. The smoke would dispel evil spirits—dispel Hestia, the Pandora who wreaked havoc on the house.

  Mumbling a prayer to Hecate, Melaina ran the smoldering rosemary over her husband’s corpse. She studied the nose broken in battle, the rough-hewn mouth that seldom spoke to her.

  From a funerary flask, she poured olive oil into an alabaster bowl, then added the artemisia. She dipped a scrap of linen into the oil and ran the cloth over the soles of Agathon’s feet, circling to the left to release him from this world.

  “Go quickly,” she said.

  The doorway’s curtain swayed.

  “Who’s there?” Cloth in hand, Melaina ripped open the curtain.

  Hestia hobbled away, as fast as her lame foot allowed.

  Melaina hurried after her. “I told you to scrub the kitchen hearth. If you’ve finished, the chamber pots need emptying. Remember, I’m your Master now.”

  Hestia turned to face Melaina, her expression defiant.

  “Your son is Master of this house.”

  Melaina’s hand came down on Hestia’s face, leaving a red mark. She hadn’t meant to strike, hadn’t meant to lose herself. She’d meant to exhibit self-control, but the girl was impertinent. Hestia should be falling to her knees, begging forgiveness. Instead, she stood her ground, her eyes—bluer than a bruise—penetrating, invasive.

  Melaina stepped back from the girl, aware of servants watching, listening. Summoning her most commanding voice, she said, “I’m sorry I slapped you, but you drove me to it.”

  The girl rubbed her swelling cheek. “I drove you to hit me? I didn’t know I had such power.”

  Melaina raised her hand again. “I’m warning you. Today I have no patience.”

  “When do you ever have patience?”

  Melaina’s hand shook as she lowered it. Her eyes remained fixed on Hestia. She found it impossible to look away. The girl was a sorceress, just like her whorish mother. “Now that Agathon is dead, you answer to me,” she said. “Blood follows blood, and you take after your mother. But you must change.”

  “According to the Master, my mother was a goddess.”

  Melaina’s throat tightened, her breath catching in her chest. She grabbed Hestia’s wrists, locking her fingers around the delicate bones. She dragged the girl into the curtained annex, pointed at the corpse. “He won’t protect you now.”

  Melaina stood, triumphant, watching with satisfaction as Hestia’s stance grew limp.

  Reaching out her hand, the girl stroked the dead man’s face.

  “Don’t touch him,” Melaina said.

  Hestia bent her head in supplication, tears gleaming in her eyes.

  The display of grief annoyed Melaina. “You will leave this house after my husband’s funeral.”

  “My father’s funeral.”

  “What did you say?”

  The girl’s probing eyes met Melaina’s.

  Heat drained from Melaina’s body, replaced by icy clarity. Hestia knew. Agathon had told her. “You have no proof.”

  Hestia turned to leave.

  Melaina followed her. “What proof do you have?”

  Before the girl reached the doorway’s curtain Melaina caught her by the arm. Tripping over her weak foot, Hestia stumbled. A small object fell from the folds of her chiton, rolled across the tile, circled once, and came to rest with a clinking sound.

  Melaina tried to snatch the gleam of gold, but Hestia reached it first.

  A ring of intertwining snakes glinted on her finger.

  Sickness gurgled in Melaina’s stomach. “Where did you get that ring?”

  “It belonged to my mother.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “This ring is proof of my bloodline. My father gave it to me.” Hestia’s eyes, disturbingly placid, like the sea before a storm, gazed into Melaina’s.

  Melaina licked her lips, noticing that they felt parched. Confronted with the girl’s vibrant youth, she felt her body shriveling. With annoyance, she noticed Hestia’s slender form beneath the folds of her robe. Despite her defect, men would find her attractive. She’d bring a good price at market.

  “Give it to me.” Melaina reached for Hestia’s hand. Her fingers brushed the ring, and sparks flew from the gold. A jolt of heat rushed through her body, and she cried out, “It burns!”

  Hestia watched, calmly. “The ring belongs to me,” she said.

  “That ring proves nothing except that you’re a thief.” Melaina sucked her scorched fingers. “If I claim you stole it, you will be stoned to death. But that would be a waste. Rather than see you dead, I prefer to sell you to the highest bidder.”

  Hestia’s eyes darkened to a blue as deep as lapis. Like whirlpools, they sucked Melaina in.

  “Sorceress!”

  She grabbed Hestia’s hair—annoyingly yellow—and yanked the girl against her chest. Hestia tried to scream, but Melaina clapped the cloth soaked in artemisia over the girl’s nose and mouth. With patience born of suffering, she waited for Hestia’s knees to buckle, for her body to grow limp, for the accusing eyes to close.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Diodorus had seen death in battle, men speared through by a javelin or trampled by horses, but nothing prepared him for the sight of his father laid out on the bier. In his mind, he still heard his father’s voice, still saw his face. Agathon’s death seemed inconceivable.

  Unable to bear another moment in the claustrophobic house, Diodorus felt compelled to escape the pall of death and find respite in nature. He passed through the Archanian Gate and strode along the dirt road, glad to leave the city. He chose to walk rather than ride. Walking allowed him to notice details, an odd insect, the petals of a flower, unusual stones. He found nature fascinating. In any case, his father’s horses had seen better days and needed to be replaced.

  Farmers headed home from market, their carts rattling past him, wooden wheels splashing water from the recent rain. Up ahead, an old woman walked slowly beside an over-loaded donkey. His long strides quickly overtook hers. Diodorus greeted the woman with a nod and continued down the road.

  He paused at the Eridanos River and stared into the rush of water fed by snowmelt from the mountains. He thought of his father and said a prayer to ease Agathon’s crossing of the river Styx. Tears blurred his vision as he crossed the bridge and continued walking.

  The sun had passed mid-heaven. Soon relatives would be arriving—aunts and uncles, cousins
, a gathering of the clan—to mourn his father, the one man he’d admired more than Pericles, more than Socrates. His mother expected him to stay at home to greet the guests as the new Master of the house. But the hives needed tending. He hadn’t visited the bees since his return to Athens. For the past two years, while he served his mandatory time in the military, his father had tended the hives with help from the slave girl, Hestia.

  Diodorus had known Hestia all his life, and though his mother discouraged it, he’d always thought of her as a sister. Until now. When he’d left Athens she had been a child, but now she’d become a woman. And unlike other girls he knew—his cousin, for example, whose only interests seemed to be clothes and giggling—Hestia enjoyed reading and discussion of ideas. Despite the defect of her limp, Diodorus found her strangely beautiful. He would have enjoyed Hestia’s company. Like him, she understood the bees and cared for them. But she’d been busy scrubbing the kitchen when he left the house. Now that he was Master he would lighten her duties. Maybe even make her his hetaera. A man of his means could afford to keep a woman.

  Leaving the road, he veered toward the distant hills. Following a path that cut through his father’s land, he wandered through a meadow. His leather boots, the boots he’d worn as a soldier, sank into the mud. The path followed a creek, and the sound of running water washed the awful night from his mind. The path narrowed, meandering through a tangle of trees and scrub, broken by occasional cypress. By the time he reached the apple orchard, the trees just beginning to blossom, he caught himself singing. The orchard brought back happy memories. He’d first gone there with his father. They’d built the hives together, captured a colony of bees. Agathon had taught him to be gentle. Some people liked to smoke the bees in order to calm them before collecting honey, but patience served better than smoke.

  The hives lay beyond the orchard, sheltered by a knoll. Diodorus broke into a run, his boots sliding in the mud. It felt good to run, good to sweat. It felt good to forget, if only for a moment, that his father was dead.

  Rounding the bend, he saw the hives.

  He approached the six domes with anticipation, surveying them for damage. The first hive appeared intact. The mud walls were cracked, but could be repaired. He drew a fistful of straw from the opening, fearing what he might find—the ravages of winter, the pillaging and plundering.

  The dead.

  A lump formed in his throat. He thought of his father, lying on the bier. Everything he knew of bees he’d learned from Agathon. Everything he knew of life.

  His heart surged when he heard the hum of wings, language of the gods. Bees flew from the hive and buzzed around his head. He could almost taste their honey, liquid gold within the wax. He welcomed this sign of life, the promise of renewal lightening his grief.

  After all, he’d had his fill of death serving in the navy. He’d sailed with Pericles to the island of Sicily and fought under the great commander during the uprising in Euboea. Called back to Attica, they’d clashed with the Spartans. The rift between the former allies now seemed irreparable. But Diodorus had no desire for more bloodshed, for death.

  Socrates might argue death is eternal sleep. But what if Socrates was wrong? What if death led to an afterlife where souls were tortured, like Prometheus, forced to endure eternal suffering?

  Diodorus dreaded death, dreaded returning to the house, his house, his mother insisted. But it would always be the House of Agathon for him.

  He yearned to experience all that life might offer, dreamed of travel to distant lands like those described by Homer. He wanted to experience adventures, as Agathon had. His mother pushed him to pursue politics, to marry a good Athenian girl. He had a healthy appetite for women, but not the bland fare his mother tried to force-feed him—silly girls who couldn’t read or think. He wanted a woman of substance and intelligence, not only a wife, but a friend.

  Someone like Hestia.

  He focused on the hive, trying to drive the slave girl from his mind. Of course they could never marry. She was born of unknown parentage, and the new laws of Pericles demanded an Athenian marry an Athenian. Otherwise, his sons would not be citizens. She could be his pallake, his concubine bound to him by law, though their children would be illegitimate. That would be enough for him; but of course his mother would object.

  Melaina would object to any plan that didn’t lead him into politics and power. Sometimes he wished he weren’t a citizen of Athens, the golden crown of civilization. In truth, he wanted none of his mother’s grand plans.

  Out here, beyond the turmoil of the city, he felt free. Socrates claimed a man could not be fully free unless he was temperate; a man could not be truly happy if he were enslaved to anyone, including himself. Diodorus gazed at the distant hills attempting to control his inner turmoil. In Athens the arts flourished as did democracy. But he questioned his freedom.

  Bees swarmed around the hive. Freed from their prison they basked in the sunshine. Diodorus leaned toward the opening, tried to peer inside. A gust of wind brought a putrid stench. He slapped his hand over his mouth, tried not to retch. No doubt an intruder, a rat or some other rodent, had been stung to death by guards. Holding his breath, he searched the shadows of the hive. The cork oak had survived, but the wicker work showed signs of gnawing teeth. Some of the fennel stems, bundled together in imitation of wax cells, had not withstood the winter. His gaze fell on a lump of wax. It lay amid honeycomb and tiny winged carcasses.

  He reached into the hive, clenched his fist around the gruesome finding and withdrew his hand. He stared into his palm. The bees had done their work, meticulously encasing the rat’s head inside a sarcophagus of wax.

  How many worker bees had died to protect the hive from this intruder? Bees, some claimed, were born of rotting flesh. According to common belief, king bees were conceived in spinal marrow, worker bees within the entrails of an animal. But Diodorus had watched bees carefully, studying their every movement. The strength of the hive depended not on useless drones, not on a fictitious king, but on a fertile queen.

  In the world of bees, males were disposable, driven from the hive in autumn. Drones were a stingless aberration, useful only for mating with the queen—a final act that caused their death.

  The rat’s head slid out of his palm. He watched it fall onto the ground and disappear into the new grass—a tribute to the thriving queen, still alive and dangerous.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hestia drifted through fog, images appearing, morphing, and then disintegrating.

  She stood on a precipice overlooking a valley veiled by mist. Beyond the valley lay the Gulf of Corinth, gray and distant. Fog rolled up the rocky hills, vapors swirling at her feet. Fog wrapped around her body, a moist cloak. Through that shroud a temple appeared.

  “Come,” a voice called. “Come to me.”

  She strained to see who spoke.

  Waking with a start, she stared into darkness. A bitter taste filled her mouth, and her tongue felt dry. Cruel fingers dug nails into her skull. Her ankle throbbed. She tried to sit and banged her head.

  Reaching out her hand, she touched a ceiling no more than a palm’s length from her face. She breathed the scent of cedar. She was in some kind of box, a chest. Tracing her fingertips along walls that hugged her shoulders, the rough grain of the wood threatened splinters. She eased onto her side, releasing pressure from her ankle, the only movement the cramped space allowed. Breathe, she told herself, don’t panic.

  She rolled onto her back again. Pressing her spine against the casket’s floor, she bent her knees for leverage and shoved her palms upward—heard the rattle of a lock.

  “Help,” she called out, but her voice sounded weak.

  She listened, hoping for a reply, heard only her own shallow breathing, the thump of her heart.

  She remembered a struggle, an unpleasant odor. Thinking she might be dreaming, lost between sleep and waking, she closed her eyes then opened them to penetrating darkness. Fear fluttered in her stomach. She made a fist,
pounded the lid of her coffin. A feeble sound. She tried to scream.

  Footsteps shuffled somewhere beyond her prison, somewhere close.

  Summoning her strength, she clawed the casket’s ceiling.

  The footsteps stopped.

  “Who’s there?”

  She recognized the trembling voice of the old slave, Therapon.

  “Help,” she said, her voice barely audible.

  She heard the clank of the casket’s latch, the creak of the lid opening. Light flooded her eyes and air rushed into her lungs.

  Hestia blinked at Therapon’s puzzled face. Hands shaking, he bent over the casket and took hold of her shoulders. With a grunt, he raised her to sitting.

  “Water, please.”

  Therapon nodded. He returned quickly with a cup.

  Cool liquid filled her mouth, a burst of sweetness as she swallowed, soothing her parched throat.

  Memories tugged at Hestia, but her mind couldn’t hold them. Grasping both sides of the casket, she ignored the jolt of pain shooting through her legs and ankle. The damp wool of her chiton clung to her thighs as she climbed out of the chest.

  “Who did this to you?” Therapon’s eyes shifted toward the door.

  “The Despoina. Is she here?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone,” Hestia repeated, the word not registering.

  “The Master would never have allowed this.” Therapon’s voice grew louder, sounded angry. “The Master—”

  “Is dead.”