Nerissa screamed an instant after the axe came down. The pain she’d dreaded didn’t come -- or maybe it all was in her curling toes. Over by the ram’s pen, the severed half of her right foot seemed to writhe in torment. She knew it must have been propelled there by the force of Tragus's swing, but it might as well have bolted on its own.
She didn’t fall. She wouldn’t let herself. Instead, she forced her vision back to the gushing stump. Tragus watched it, too, tight lipped with what looked like jealous rage. It was if he hated her for forcing him to do this. He spat onto the ground, grimaced one last time, then marched away.
Hesper rushed forward with an iron stave. Tragus had said nothing about a death sentence, but Nerissa only wondered if Hesper meant to stab or brain her. Typical of her cruel master to leave the eternal stain of murder on a slave. She’d probably done for Daphne, too. On that first day when she’d explained the range of punishments in this evil place, Hesper had known all the details.
As the old woman stopped in front of her, Nerissa saw that the stave’s top third glowed red with heat. Without a word, Hesper pressed it against Nerissa’s wound. This time, the pain was like all the world’s suffering compressed into a moment. A moment that only intensified as it went on. There was a swirl of acrid smoke, accompanied by a horrifying hiss. Moisture condensed against her face. The stench that filled her nostrils brought a rush of bile up her throat. She forced it down, unwilling to let Hesper see her vomit.
“Put your weight on me and hop,” said Hesper. “I’ll take you to the ewe shed.” “Why are you helping me?” Nerissa asked between clenched teeth. She savored the agony to keep from blacking out. Remaining alert to hear Hesper’s answer seemed more important. “Did Tragus order you?”
“He didn’t say a word. But I knew he’d blame me if I let you bleed to death. Just like when a ewe is injured. You still have value to him. He’ll expect you to resume your duties once you can walk.”
“He never replaced me with another girl?”
“I’ve done all the work alone for seven years. Except serving in his bed. Even Tragus isn’t so hard up, he’d touch this shriveled flesh. When he feels the need, he uses harlots at the tavern. But he’s vicious for days afterward. It’s obvious he wanted you. When he’d stagger home, I often heard him cry your name just like a lovesick boy.”
“So you did everything? The flock, the rope, the cheese, and all the housekeeping?”
“I did. You can’t blame me for not wanting to continue. It wasn’t right. Sheep-fucker doesn’t care if I live or die, just that I earn money for him to piss away.”
“That’s why you kept watch last night. Tragus never ordered that. You woke him when you saw me leave.”
“I know what you must think of me, but even a broken hag still loves her life. Is it too much to want a bit of ease in my last years?”
They’d reached the shed. They went inside, then Hesper let her sink down by the post. The same place where she’d spent so many hateful nights. The old woman went to a shelf in back, then returned with the tar bucket. She brushed a glob onto Nerissa’s wound, just as she’d treat an injured sheep. Then refusing to meet Nerissa’s eyes, she reattached the chain.
“Thank you for stopping the bleeding, Hesper… you’re right -- I can’t blame you.”
She could only blame herself for this. After all, hadn’t Tragus given her the choice of what he’d cut?
“I couldn’t let him steal the chance I’ll ever have children to love, could I?” Nerissa mumbled before she gave in to a flood of darkness.
Nerissa spent the next month drifting in and out of dreams. Hesper had acted in time to prevent her life draining away, but the cauterization failed to deter fever. Within a day, Nerissa lay shivering so violently, her chain’s rattle unnerved the ewes. The next morning, she was so hot, sweat dripped off her brow. Mother would have known what to do, or the hermit might have worked a cure, but Hesper had no knowledge of nature’s medicine.
Some days, Nerissa woke sputtering for air, because the old woman dripped milk into her mouth. Though she had no appetite, Nerissa choked it down. It was easier than spitting out the warm liquid -- Hesper would only force more into her mouth. It felt like drowning many times, only to be pulled back to the world. Nerissa could well remember this terrible sensation from the shipwreck. She had no wish to experience it again. All the while, Hesper’s cracked voice insisted that she take another swallow.
Nerissa also remembered sometimes waking to the scrape of a rough sea sponge, soaked with icy water from the stream. On rare days, she felt ravenous, gulping ladle after ladle of warmed barley mush. But mostly, food’s aroma sickened her. She’d push it away, clamp her teeth shut, then return to Morpheus. The most capricious of all Gods, he’d bring joy one minute, sheer terror the next:
Trembling, Nerissa held her knife above Mother’s bloody throat. Her hand shook so badly, the blade looked like a shiny blur. Or maybe this was just the thick tears welling in her eyes. Somehow, they refused to fall.
“Do it,” Mother whispered. “I didn’t cut deeply enough.”
“I can’t… I don’t want you to die.”
“Wanting has nothing to do with what’s required. I taught you better than that, Nerissa.
When will you learn that duty and honor are two halves of the same face? If they’re out of balance, all you have is ugliness.”
“But I need you, Mother. We all need you to stay.”
“Do you think I want to leave? I go, because we have no other choice. Just finish the cut. Do it deep and quick -- that’s the best way.”
“I can’t. My hand won’t move.”
“You must find strength. I know it’s in you, just as it’s been there through all our line.”
“I do have strength. Enough to find some prey. Let me bind your wound, and then I’ll search the forest.”
“You’ve tried for days. There’s no game here on Laestrygon, and no fish in the bay. You know that’s why I led you off the beach, where the others wouldn’t see.” Even now, there was an iron tone in Mother’s failing voice. “Your father’s sinking fast. He won’t recover from his fever without fresh meat. But if your heart’s too hard to care about the man who gave you life, think of your baby brother. He’s skin and bones. Mavros won’t last another week without food. Chloe and Aristides, too. Not to mention you. Someone must stay alive to tend the family altar.”
“I will. I promise, if it comes to that. But don’t leave us. I can save you, if you let me. I know the herbs that will build back your strength. You’ve taught me that, and so much more.”
“Nerissa. You’re a woman. It’s time to act like one. Our lives are nothing without sacrifice.”
I’m sure that there’s a lion here on Laestrygon. I’ve heard it roar. I’ll find its tracks, hunt down its lair, and kill it with my sling.”
“A lion? Good. They might believe that… None of them have ever tasted such meat… You can tell them that… you slew a stringy patriarch… It was too big… to drag back the… whole carcass… so you cut off… portions… from the… loins.”
Mother’s breath was ragged now. Nerissa stared at the blade in her numb hand. Its vibrations had slowed to a small shiver. If she just waited a few more minutes, she wouldn’t have to do this unpardonable thing.
But no, she realized. I’ll still have to cut up the flesh and haul it back. I’ll have to convince the others that a lion killed Mother. That I buried her out in the forest before tracking it down. I’ll have to cook and eat the meat, myself, pretend that it’s delicious.
And then there was a lion. A massive, creature with a great black mane. Just like the one on Theoton’s cape. When it snarled, strings of drool looped between teeth as long as knives. It turned to come at her, but Nerissa drove it off with a stone flung square into its nose. It sprang away, then bounded up a rock-strewn slope.
She tracked it to its lair between two boulders. When she entered the dim place, the creature changed into a human giant. Suddenly, a blue light glowed behind this man. He stepped toward her, crunching Mother in his jaws. And though it made Nerissa despise herself, she ran. She couldn’t stop her legs as they crashed down the broken slope and through the forest. Heart quaking at the thunderous noise pursuing her, she reached the bay. But a troop of giants broke off boulders from Laestrygon’s mountaintops. Hurling them, they smashed the ship, then ate Mavros and Aristides.
Before the first one’s dripping jaws reached Nerissa, before he could grind her into pulp and swallow her to mix with Mother’s gore, she jumped down a gaping shaft that opened on the beach. She slid all the way through the vast blackness of Erebus. So it was true -- there was an ancient void that each dead soul must traverse before reaching Charon’s ferry. It seemed to stretch for years.
Finally, she landed on the Styx’s somber beach. She was surprised to find that Mother hadn’t yet crossed over.
“How did I taste?” asked Mother.
“Taste? What are you saying? You don’t think I asked the giant back on Laestrygon?”
“Stop speaking nonsense, Nerissa. You know there were no giants. That isn’t how I died. And that isn’t who ate me.”
“What? You can’t mean--”
“Of course I do. It took hours before you used your knife. You made me suffer gravely. But I won’t complain. For once, you carried out your duty. Stop slouching and look me in the eye. You can hold your head with pride. The next time you make the journey here, I can claim you as a daughter. By obeying me, by bringing food to save your family, you’ve earned the right to join those who came before us.”
As Charon’s lantern approached, cutting through the murky atmosphere, Nerissa saw the arm band sparkling on Mother’s wrist. It was the one carved with Persephone eating six pomegranate seeds, the one that Mother had sold in Smyrna to buy a day of food, the last possession handed down through all their foremothers back to Colophon.
“What are their names?” Nerissa asked. “You’ve never told me that. Other than Aunt Cythera, the hetaera, I never met one person from your side. You always refused to say anything of them.”
“Of course I did. That’s how your father wanted it.”
“But why?”
“Before we married, I vowed their names would never pass my lips again while I drew breath.”
“You aren’t alive now. You’ll break no oath if you tell me my grandparents’ names.”
“That’s true,” Mother relented. “Very well. My father was Peraton of Smyrna and my mother was Selitia of Sardis.”
“But weren’t they-?”
“That’s right. Laedron’s parents. He’s my brother.”
“So Baron Iadros is your uncle?”
“Yes.”
“That makes you noble, Mother.”
“It makes you noble, too. Now do you understand why I always insisted on propriety?”
“It never occurred to me to wonder. It’s the essential part of who you are. Whether nobility or not.”
But it chafed all the more to know that Mother had always held her up to an impossible standard. An invisible one at that, one she’d vowed never to disclose. She’d expected Nerissa both to be a paragon of high born virtue, and the hardest working daughter in their peasant village.
“That reminds me,” she said. “Why did your parents let you marry Father?”
“They didn’t. Your grandfather was killed fighting against the Lydians. Your grandmother came under the protection of Baron Iadros. And he never would have allowed a fisherman into the family. But I’d fallen in love after I saw your father at the blessing of the boats. He was so handsome and so self-assured. When he tossed me a garland from his deck, it was like Adonis reaching out to me.”
Father as Adonis? thought Nerissa. She knew that Mother revered the ever youthful god. The son of Phoenix, according to Hesiod. Like many Smyrnan women, Mother planted a fastgrowing herb garden each spring. At midsummer’s day, she’d sow lettuce and fennel, then join other women mourning with loud lamentations. They wore diadems of blood-red anemones to mark the death of beautiful Adonis on the tusks of jealous Artemis's boar.
But Nerissa couldn’t picture Father reborn as a deity, even at his height of youthful power. He was a scholar, not the sort of great beguiler that Goddesses fought over. Yes, he had a smile full of gleaming teeth, but Nerissa simply couldn’t see him as the sort of seducer who’d carry off a fair young woman’s heart. She loved him, too, but couldn’t understand why a haughty daughter of nobility would fall for a poor fisherman.
“So you and Father managed to see each other secretly?” she asked.
“‘See’ is a nice way of putting it,” laughed Mother.
Her tone was so unusually bright, Nerissa could only gape. She’d never once heard Mother jest in life. If any of Father’s friends passed a ribald word, she’d glare hard enough to turn the man to stone. Naturally, the children never dared to use strong language anywhere near Mother. She’d never told them what the punishment would be, but hardly needed to. They’d all feared being the first to discover it.
“Didn’t the Baron ever learn about your trysts?” Nerissa asked.
“He did. That’s when we ran off and were married at the Temple of the Sphynx on Chios. By the time my uncle’s men found us, I’d already given birth to Kestides. Iadros couldn’t have your father killed, so he offered him a captaincy. Not on a fishing boat, you understand, but in his naval fleet.”
“And Father refused?”
“Of course. So they sent him to the wars as a common soldier. But your father not only survived, he fought with great distinction. After that, Iadros left us alone. That is, until you failed to stop Andrastus and Euredon from trying to take that cursed bullock.”
“You still blame me? I was just a girl. How was I to stop them?”
“I blame you for everything,” said Mother’s shade as it began to drift across the Styx with Charon. “You’re the last scion of a once great family. It was always the women of our line who preserved the clan. I’d hoped enough strength and intelligence made its way to you…”
The waves were down to light swells in a quiet sea. Nerissa could rest her head against the timber without water rushing down her nose. For some reason, the wood was painted olive green, the same shade as Andrastus's eyes. She couldn’t remember when Father made this change. As far back as she could remember, the ship’s mast had been white.
Andrastus nudged her in the shoulder.
“We mustn’t fall asleep,” he said. “We’ll let go and drift off. Tired as we are, we might not notice as we sink. We’d better talk some more.”
“All right. What do you want to talk about?”
Nerissa couldn’t think of anything. They’d been clinging to the mast for days, ever since it broke loose in the storm. She’d never forget the feeling as it dragged her overboard with a loop of tattered sail. She went under many times, each time filled with terror, each time dying then reborn at the last moment with a choking gasp of air. Nerissa couldn’t disentangle herself before another huge waved crashed over her head, swirled her in the darkness without top or bottom, made her breathe its water.
She would have drowned if Andrastus hadn’t leaped into the sea to save her. He freed her from the twisted sail, laid her over the mast at its crosstree, and pressed the brine out of her lungs. But they couldn’t get back to the boat and Father couldn’t turn it.
“I don’t know,” said Andrastus now. It was five blistering days and five interminable nights since the storm. If it hadn’t rained on the third morning, they would have died of thirst. “We’ve talked of everything from the Lydian wars to milking cows. But I do know we must think of something interesting if we want to stay awake.”
Oh, I know something interesting, thought Nerissa, if you can call a love-bound maiden’s hopeless wishes interesting. Do you even have the slightest notion how I feel about you? Do you know I’d chance the wrath of all the Gods for just one taste of your cracked lips? Do you know I’d trade my life for just one moment in your arms?
But she could never say these things. Not even in this enchanted sea, now sparkling bright gold. Rising from its depths, winged Nereids arced through the glittering sky. Triton’s chariot shot past, pulled by a brace of armored dolphins.
She couldn’t say she loved him. Especially since the storm had torn away most of their clothing. Though only their heads and arms were exposed out of the dark sea, she could sense his body right beside her. She knew this melting hunger at her core was sinful.
Andrastus was her brother now. He’d gone through the ceremony known as poiesis. It was every bit as binding as when Smyrna accepted immigrant metics as citizens. The only way that they could marry was if Father renounced the adoption. Which he’d never do. Andrastus was admirable in every way. He was brave and kind and clever and hardworking. Not to mention beautiful. Remembering the glancing blow she’d taken from the mast, Nerissa turned her face away to hide the ugly swelling on her temple. But then it only sprouted an antler. Though the good side of her profile was toward him, she feared that Andrastus could see the highest tine above her head. When a mermaid’s splash distracted him, she plaited hair over the horn.
But restoring herself to beauty would scarcely improve her chances with Andrastus. She’d overheard Father and Uncle Clemon discussing the auspicious prospect of a marriage between him and Chloe. They’d make a very handsome pair, Andrastus strong and tall, Chloe ripe with womanly perfection. Better still, both were favored by the goddess Demeter. While they were cousins now, they weren’t blood related. And they’d long looked at one another with desire, according to Aunt Melissa.
But wait. Wasn’t Aunt Melissa dead already? And Uncle Clemon lost on Tenedos to Circe? Or had that all been in a different life? Nerissa didn’t know.
Even if there were no plans for Chloe to wed Andrastus, he’s never shown the least amorous sign toward me. He’s never blushed, he’s never stammered. He’s completely comfortable around me. He teases gently, exchanges news of the day, watches out for me as any good brother would do.
He always thanked her politely for the food she made, the clothes she washed, the rips she mended, but never took the opportunity to gaze into her eyes. They’d wrestled many times as children, but now he avoided the slightest touch. When she’d hand him something, Andrastus took it quickly, as if it were improper for a brother and sister to let their fingers come in contact. So even here in this magical sea, even as warm wine misted down from heaven, she couldn’t talk to Andrastus of a future together.
“What do you want to do with your life?” she asked instead. “When we reach land, that is. Or do you wish to stay upon the sea forever?”
“As a fisherman, you mean? No, I’d rather have a farm. Not that I don’t love the life your family’s given me. I’d work forever for your father if he needs my help. But I’ve long dreamed of buying back the land my parents owned. Or if that isn’t possible, then another farm much like it. Hauling fish out of the sea is marvelous, don’t get me wrong, but there’s nothing so satisfying as growing a crop from start to finish. For a man, it must be the closest thing to giving birth.”
“I suppose. Except, you don’t have to pass this thing you cherish through your--” Mother’s disapproving face loomed at Nerissa from the sky. “Well, never mind how the child’s born. What I meant to say was that a crop doesn’t come forth with pain.”
“Oh, but it does. A farmer fights the elements, the heat, the hail, the dearth of rain or sometimes too much rain, a late thaw, or wind storms. And then you have the insects and the blights, the rodents, deer, and birds, and every other threat imaginable. A fire could sweep across your land or drought or flood could ruin it. Your bullock could die just when you need his strength to pull your plow, leaving you no way to make the crop and earn the coin to buy another beast. Worst of all, marauding soldiers could steal every grain of wheat you’ve stored and lead off all the livestock. But in the rare event that none of these hazards come to pass, a good year simply means that all the granaries are full and then the price drops very low. Of all the folk inhabiting the earth, I think that farmers live with pain the most.”
“Then why do you want this daunting life?”
“It’s who I am. It’s who my father was and all of our ancestors. I can no more change my blood than fish can sing.”
“The nerve!” said a large mackerel, his mustaches twitching with pique. “As if your voice is so melodious.”
“My apologies,” said Andrastus. “We farmers are simple people. We sometimes forget how to speak politely.”
“More like it,” grumbled the mackerel as he turned into a Persian dignitary with an elaborately curled beard. “But watch your tongue in future.”
Nerissa watched him bound away across the golden sea.
“So you’re to be a farmer,” she said to Andrastus. “I understand the hardships now, but I’m glad you told me of the satisfactions, too. There must be nothing so fine as feeding your children with food you’ve grown yourself. Didn’t you once tell me your father raised a small plot of melons in addition to the grain?”
“That’s right. They were the green fleshed ones called kasabas. He got the seeds from a trader, who said his caravan brought them from an Anatolian town of that same name.”
“If you grew melons like your father, you could eat them any time you wanted. And never tire of them. Unlike we fishing folk, who sometimes cannot bear to eat another bite of herring. In summer, there’d always be ripe fruit to eat, topped with fresh cream from your cow. And in winter, there’d be pickled rinds, or maybe melon slices stored in honey.”
What she meant was that as his wife, she could make a wonderful tragemata from preserved fruit. As Andrastus well knew, it was her favorite food.
“That does sound very good,” he said. “And you, what sort of life do you see for yourself? If you could do anything, I mean.”
Wasn’t it obvious? Was he really so blind? Or was he even better than her at pretending? Nerissa much preferred this interpretation. That Andrastus adored her, not as a brother, but a suitor. That only their close kinship prevented him from covering her with kisses, from her mouth down to her neck and chest, and then… The ocean turned into a heated bath. Steam rose from it, fortunately, covering her flushed face.
“I’d never thought much about it,” she lied. “I’ve always assumed I’d live this sort of life forever. When the time comes, I suppose I’ll marry a fisherman. I’ll help like I help Father, until our sons are big enough to fish.”
“But is that really what you want?” asked Andrastus, now in the guise of his dead bullock Atlas. “I wasn’t asking what life you expect. I meant the one you’d pick, the one that’s closest to your heart.”
“It’s you, you fool!” she shouted. But fortunately, Triton blew an enormous conch shell at this moment, drowning out her answer. As the echoes faded, Nerissa had a moment to find safer words. “I said, I’d be a scholar if the choice were up to me.”
“But that’s for men.”
“I know. But you asked me to choose anything at all. And when I study Father’s scrolls, that’s when I feel the best about myself. There’s so much wisdom in them, and they seem to speak to me so well, it’s like I gain something of these great philosophers’ insight. I’d like to read every poem and play and treatise ever written. I’d like to master the languages in which they were composed.”
“And when you’ve done all that?”
“Why, I suppose I’d pass this knowledge on to others.”
“You’d have a school? Has a female ever run one?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, it’s just a dream. I’ll never really be a teacher.”
“If I were rich, I’d gladly send my sons,” Andrastus said. “I’ve always thought your mind’s as brilliant as all the stars together.”
Then in a lucid moment, Nerissa remembered what had really happened. They’d washed onto a beach that evening. With only enough energy to pull themselves out of the water, they’d laid huddled on the sand. There was rain again that night, relieving their thirst, but it also made Nerissa shiver hard. So Andrastus used the last of his strength to untie a piece of sail cloth still clinging to the mast. He gently spread it over her.
When she woke hours later, Nerissa rearranged the cloth to cover them both. She slid alongside Andrastus, then fit herself into theΣ shape of his legs and back. The rain had stopped and she’d stayed dry under the piece of sail. Feeling warm and replenished now, she wrapped her arms around his chest to warm the slumbering Andrastus, too.
As heat and moisture built within, she put a leg over his thigh. She stroked herself with one hand, while she ran her fingers across his shoulders with the other. She stilled her motion briefly when her sighing made him turn.
She let him fall back into sound sleep with his left arm draped around her waist. She took his right hand and placed it where her own had been. She pressed it there as her moist cleft parted. She felt his member stiffening against her thigh.
She reached and stroked it into full attention. She had an urge to kiss it, but feared that this would wake Andrastus. So she only kissed his mouth with light brushes of her lips. But these developed into something more, their tongues exploring passionately. Groaning now, Andrastus found her nearest breast. In the six months since Tenedos, her breasts had plumped to a nice size, maybe not ripe melons like Chloe’s, but they were now as big and firm as pomegranates.
Andrastus grasped it eagerly, rougher than Nerissa had expected. She drew back, inhaling sharply, but then decided that she liked this. She held still for several seconds, watching the flutter of his eyelids in the moonlight.
Relieved he didn’t come awake, she pushed her groin against his right hand’s fingers as his left hand squeezed her breast. Now making urgent noises, Andrastus rolled on top of her.
He had both hands on her breasts. He kissed her mouth with urgent hunger. He kissed her eyes, her mouth again, her neck, and then her nipples. He ground his hard erection’s shaft against her ready cleft. She reached down and guided him to the right place.
“Aah, Chloe,” he moaned as the swollen tip slid into her.
Nerissa knew she was deceiving him, but it felt too wonderful to stop. She knew Andrastus didn’t love her. That she’d be punished for eternity because he was her brother. She told herself that it could be forgiven because they’d have to live together on this deserted isle for the remainder of their lives. That Father’s boat would never find them. That it had probably capsized in the storm. That they’d need a son and daughter to carry on some day. That Andrastus wasn’t really her brother any more, not with her parents dead…
Twelve days later, she sat against a tall palm’s gracefully curving trunk. Side by side with her, Father leaned back on its partner. The two trees had the comfortable familiarity of long married mates. Like she’d pretended with Andrastus until Father’s battered boat limped into the bay. Nerissa wondered if there were male and female in the world of plants.
Father munched on dates, savoring the sweetness after so much loss. To get the fruit, Nerissa had rolled the hem of her chiton past her knees, then climbed the jagged trunk of a shorter palm nearby. Most indecorous, but a lot better than her naked state when Father’s boat first came. Besides, Mother wasn’t on the beach and Father’s characteristically buoyant mood was back.
Though she’d failed to crush these wishes that her idyll with Andrastus could continue, Nerissa also felt elation. She surged with happiness to learn her family had survived the storm. Better yet, they’d finally come to an hospitable island. Once they explored past the beach, they’d discovered that the inhabitants were friendly and food plentiful.
Apparently, the storm had blown them far to the south. The weather here was very mild. Overhead, the sky was ceiled with streaks of purple. A warm breeze carried the fragrance of blue lotus. Best of all, she’d just spent an hour discussing Hesiod with Father. It was the first time since he’d given her the sling six years before that Nerissa had Father’s sole attention for more than a few minutes.
“Ah, it’s grand to lie here on this gentle beach. The only thing sweeter than eating these exotic fruits is your sweet company.” Father turned his weathered face toward her, the bronze curls of his hair and beard shining in the sunlight. “But I suppose it’s time to get back to the boat’s repair. We have to scrape the keel