She nodded. “I thought you would say that. You are true to your wife, though I think she is not true to you. It makes you a good man.”
Sam stared at her. “She—how could you know such a thing?”
She made a bitter laugh. “I know the nature of lovely women, having so longed to be one. She finds you dull. She is a fool.”
Sam did not know what to say. He suspected she was right. But what could he do?
After a time he responded to another aspect. “You are not an ugly woman. Wona is.”
She laughed. “Thank you, Sam. I understand what you mean.”
That made Sam think of something. “I have two daggers. Not as nice as the ones I was to trade for, but good enough. You must take one, until your father conies here. So that if we should be surprised—”
“What have I left to defend?”
This provoked him into a statement he hadn’t intended to make. “Your life! You are still a nice young woman, with a very nice body.”
“Oh, now you are interested in my body?”
“I was always interested in—” He caught himself. “No!
I’m married. But if I weren’t—”
She was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I am bitter, but I know it’s no fault of yours. With my face, all I had to offer a husband was my maidenhood, and now—”
“No!” But of course she was right. So he amplified his thought. “My sister was raped, and I could not help her, any more than I could help you. I could not even avenge her against the man. It has been my shame. But her life continues.”
“Your sister? You didn’t say. Which one?”
“Flo. The eldest. She had a baby, and had to leave it in the forest. I think that hurt her more than the rape did. If I had only been grown, then, as I am now—”
“You would have thrown that man hard against a tree.”
“Yes. After that, I might have treated him unkindly.”
She had to smile. “At least you did that for me, and I thank you. He just rose up off me and flew through the air! But your sister—what of her, after that?”
“She married when I did. A man who had been injured, so could hardly walk. But when he recovered, he was a good hunter, and a good man. They made her take him, so that I could have Wona. She had a better bargain than I did.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but it came out.
“So Flo is happy now, and you are not?”
“Yes.” Then he paused, surprised to hear himself say it. So he had to try to explain it. “I was cursed to love an ugly woman. So I tried to break the curse by marrying a beautiful one. But it’s only her body that’s beautiful; her spirit is ugly. So I did not escape the curse.”
“Didn’t you say you had a daughter?”
“Yes. Wilda is three. But Wona has no interest in her. She wanted a son. So Flo takes care of Wilda and Flint, and Wilda thinks of Flo as her mother. So Flo has a full life, despite what happened to her. You should be able to have one too.”
“I wonder.”
“I have your amber necklace. Will you wear it again?” He reached over his shoulder, into his pack, and pulled it out. “It can be repaired.”
Snow began to cry, as they sat in the cave. But finally she took the necklace, tied its broken ends together, and put it on over her head. Then she settled down for sleep.
Sam was greatly relieved. Snow had accepted the notion that her life, like the necklace, might not be beyond repair.
The next day it snowed. They remained inside the cave, huddling together for warmth. Sam found himself wishing that he had not turned down her offer of sex, yet knew that it remained open, and said nothing. The meat was running out, and so had the tubers, so it seemed best to save their energy, he told himself.
The snow made their tracks visible, and that was dangerous. But it also made animal tracks visible, and that helped. Sam tracked a rabbit and caught it with a stone, and they had food again. This time they risked a small fire, trusting that the smoke would not be visible in the night.
“My father should come soon,” Snow said.
“He is making sure he doesn’t lead the raiders to you.”
“Yes. But they won’t stay in our village forever. After they finish feasting and raping and killing all the women and girls, they’ll pack up and go home. Then my father will come.”
“Yes.” They didn’t speak directly of the utter disaster that had wiped out the village. They kept the focus narrow, as if this were merely an inconvenience. It was the only way to stop the tragedy from overwhelming them.
The snowfall didn’t last; it was too early yet. But was a warning of the coming winter. The cave would not do for that; they would need to find a regular house for Snow, and Sam would have to travel back across the mountains to home before the pass became impassable.
When half a moon had passed, they got bolder. They explored more widely, looking for signs of human presence. There was a column of smoke in the direction of the village, which meant the raiders weren’t yet gone. No raiders seemed to be out ranging the land, however. “They must be getting careless,” Snow remarked. “They are sleeping off their indulgences, resting for the journey.”
“Yes. But we dare not approach too closely.”
“Yes.”
“Soon they will be gone, and my father will return. He is staying clear to be sure the raiders have no notion where we are.”
“Yes.” But that rationale was wearing thin.
Otzi staggered through the pass as night came. He was dead tired, but he hadn’t dared rest. He had seen two more raiders with dogs, and he knew that if the animals got any whiff of him in his present state, it would be the end. He would have gone to the cave long ago, if it hadn’t been for those dogs, because the animals could follow his trail to it even days later. So he protected his daughter by staying well away from her. Soon the raiders would be gone, and then he could check on Snow and Sam. Until then, he had to keep moving through the most difficult reaches of the peak pastures.
He moved out of the pass to a high gully that would shelter him from the cutting wind. It was getting cold again, and he was inadequately dressed for it. But he had handled bad times before. One, two, perhaps three more nights up here; then it would be safe to check on the village, and if that was clear, he could go to the cave to fetch the others.
He leaned his bow against the face of a rock abutment and sat down on the ground. The bow was unfinished; he had been working on it the past ten days while he avoided the Green Feather raiders. If only he had had his regular bow with him when the raiders struck! Then Snow would never have been raped; the two raiders would have fallen before they completed their ambush. He had been stupid ever to let his guard down, even when working around the village, and it had cost him and his daughter horribly. The only saving grace was the visitor Sam. Sam was a decent man who would take care of Snow, even if he wasn’t looking for a wife.
He brought out his last scrap of dried meat and slowly chewed it. He had stretched it out as long as possible, but now he had to eat or starve. Tomorrow he would see about netting a bird; that would be better. Tomorrow maybe the raiders would be gone. Tomorrow maybe he would see his daughter again. Tomorrow would be better.
He finished the meat and tossed aside the remnant of gristle. It was dark; time to sleep. He arranged his cloak and lay down on the side that didn’t hurt. The air was fiercely chill, but he could handle it. He was so fatigued that he sank immediately into a halfway pleasant daze, and then into sleep. He didn’t even notice that his ear was folded over against the ground. Tomorrow…
There was another snowfall, heavier than before. Sam knew it would be heaviest on the peaks. If Otzi was still up there, he would have a difficult time.
But after several more days, the smoke died out, and they ventured to the village. It was in ashes; the raiders had burned down every house before departing.
Snow stared. Sam knew she had insulated herself from this reality, but now she had to accept it. Ther
e was nothing to return to.
“Father,” she said plaintively. “He should be here. He would have seen the smoke.”
Sam wanted to argue, but couldn’t. She was obviously right. Otzi must have been caught by the storm. That meant he was dead.
“Oh, my father!” Snow cried. “I thought I had lost everything, but it was nothing! I should never have let him go alone.”
“We could go back to the pass and look for him,” Sam suggested weakly. “He was going to stay in the peaks until—”
“There is nothing there I want to find. I don’t want to see my father dead.” She looked at him, her eyes abruptly blazing. “Cut my hair!”
The sign of mourning. For marriage it was stylishly cut, but for mourning it was hacked off. She had not mourned for the folk of the village, insulating herself from what had happened there, but the loss of her father was too real. Sam understood, but was loath to oblige. “Maybe he crossed the mountains, leading the raiders far afield—he will return later—”
“Cut my hair.”
So, reluctantly, he brought out his dagger he had forgotten to give her to carry, and used it to cut off her beautiful snow-blond tresses. She became a wretched creature of grief, with no remaining asset above the neck.
She took the silken hanks of hair and hung them up on the edge of a stone outcropping. Then she screamed out her misery, beating her little hands against the rock until they were bruised and bleeding. She scooped up dirt and ashes and rubbed them across her face and remaining hair. Sam turned away, unable to watch or interfere. He listened as her grief wore itself out, or at least her voice did, sinking at last to faint sobbing.
As darkness closed, she recovered awareness of their situation and joined him, a miserable creature in appearance and attitude. Her copious tears had turned some of the dirt on her face to mud. “What am I to do?” she asked plaintively.
Sam had been thinking about that. It was obvious that she could not remain here. Snow was in no condition, physically or emotionally, to even make the attempt to survive alone.
“I will take you home with me,” he said. “You can do well with my family. My sisters will accept you.”
“But you are married.”
“But my brother Ned isn’t. He is very intelligent, and he doesn’t judge people by appearances. I think you would like him, and he would like you.”
“But I have no value.”
“He wouldn’t care about that. I don’t; none of us do. Because of Flo. We know it is character that defines a person, and you are a nice and competent woman.”
“Then I will go with you,” she said, as if it were a simple decision. Perhaps it was, considering the low esteem in which she now held herself. “In the morning.”
They foraged amidst the ashes for scant materials, and found some stones and bits of half-burned wood to fashion a temporary shelter of sorts. They lay down together, as brother and sister.
As he drifted to sleep, he felt her sobbing quietly again. The first fury of her grief was ebbing, but it was far from spent. There was nothing he could do about it. Her grief was real, and had to be expressed.
Tomorrow they would set off for his home. Sam hoped Ned would like Snow. Yet that thought was tempered by the realization that Sam liked her himself. It was true that her face was not beautiful, and her smashed nose and shorn hair hardly improved it. But she was a brave, honest, and feeling girl who would never treat a man the way Wona did. In fact, Snow was an ugly woman Sam realized he could love. If only he weren’t married. But he was married, and there his speculation ended.
What happened to Otzi? As it happens, we know that with considerably more authority than we know about his life or family. He was injured in the rib-cage, and deadly tired, and so hungry that his body was metabolizing its own substance, and the climb to the pass was wearying. As evening came, he decided to rest, hoping to restore himself before going on. He lay down on the ground and sank into a deep sleep. Too deep; he was chilled, and his state became more like a coma. He was in the lethargy of hypothermia. And so he just kept sinking, as the night came on and chilled his body further. The snowstorm came and buried him, and he never roused. He was frozen where he lay.
The snow did not melt with spring. It became part of a glacier. It tried to carry his body down the slope, but he got hung up in a gully and remained. For five thousand years. Until the year 1991, when the snow finally melted in that region, and his body was exposed. This discovery made quite an impression on the modern world. He is now known as the Ice Man.
Chapter 10
TRIERES
Circa 430 B.C.E. Greece was one of the centers of advancing civilization. The polis or city-state was the essential political economic; and social unit Most were not large, by later standards; populations of 5,000 to 50,000 might have been typical. Athens, with 250,000, was a giant, and thus one of the dominant cities of the region. Its main rival was Sparta, about a hundred miles distant by air, but considerably farther by foot. Most cities were oligarchies, with about 10 percent of their populations having power; Sparta was a monarchy. Athens was unusual, in that it was a democracy—that is, run by male citizens, not women, slaves, or foreigners (there are, after all, limits); each year 500 citizens over age thirty were chosen by lot to govern it. However, the principal power was wielded by a board of ten generals who were elected for one-year terms. Popular generals could be re-elected, so some became quite powerful. An example was the statesman Perikles, who was in power at this time, having been in office for twenty-eight years. He was a clear thinker and a great orator, able to use both reason and emotion to guide his followers. He was one of the factors in the greatness of the city.
But this was now threatened. Athens and Sparta went to war in 431 B.C., and because of their networks of alliances, this meant that most of Greece was involved. Athens was matchless on the sea, while Sparta dominated on land. Sparta marched her army into Attica, which was the home territory of Athens, and ravaged the countryside. The Athenians, outnumbered two to one, had to retreat. The population of Attica poured into Athens, hiding safely within its walls while the Spartan forces ranged outside. But Athens was not in much trouble, because her fleet of ships kept her supplied from elsewhere. Her fleet also launched naval raids against Sparta and her allies. Thus Athens more than held her own despite being under siege, and Sparta had to withdraw. It was a standoff. But the war was far from over; it was merely in remission for a few months. These were surely not great months for the residents who returned to their devastated farms and dwellings.
One family lived on the large long island of Euboea, to the east of the Greek mainland. They were in the hinterlands, and had not had to flee to the city walls, but they, too, had surely felt the ravages of the war. The island had been strategically significant during the Persian wars, being a staging area for the Greek defense, and was widely regarded as Athens’s most important possession. It was a vital region for grain, being better than Attica for farming. When the war broke out, the people of Attica sent their cattle and sheep to Euboea for safety. Yet the association was not entirely easy; there had been a rebellion before the war, and would be another during it. So though there was no enemy invasion of the island that we know of it was under stress. This family’s resources had been severely depleted by the required “voluntary” support for Athens; and its fields had been overrun by poorly tended cattle belonging to others. The neighbors were in similar straits. They had to take strenuous measures to ensure their survival.
JES BROUGHT IN A BUNDLE of wheat stalks she had scavenged from the leavings of the rogue cattle and dumped it down before Flo. “What they didn’t eat, they trampled on,” she said, disgusted.
“That’s the point,” Flo said, shrugging. “To starve us out.” She squinted at the bundle. “This is good enough; we’ll thresh it and get enough.”
Lin agreed, opening the bundle. She picked up her makeshift stalk beater.
“We need more.” Jes turned to go back to the sma
ll coastal pocket of arable land that was their farm. Damn these cattle! She and the men would have driven them off, but the animals had been unstoppable, and they were not allowed to kill them. Three men, a boy, and a woman were not enough; they would have been trampled too. So they had had to hide like cowards, and let the creatures do what they wished. That meant the destruction of their gardens, severe damage to their house, and trampling of their crops. But it was not as bad as an enemy raid would have been; their men had not been killed, their women had not been raped, and their children had not been enslaved. They had been able to come out the moment the cattle left, thus saving some of their things. On the whole, they were well off, compared to those in Attica who had fled to the nearest walled settlements.
“Stay,” Flo said, looking around. “We have something to do, while Sam is away fetching supplies.”
Jes had heard that tone before. “Wona?” she asked.
“Yes. You know the problem?”
Jes glanced at Lin, who at twelve was becoming a lovely young woman. Except for those fingers. “Maybe.”
Lin looked up. “She’s seducing Ned.”
So they did know. “Ned told me, and I didn’t like it, but I kept his secret,” Jes said. “We’re close. He keeps my secrets too.”
“I have no quarrel with that,” Flo said. “Trust must not be broken. But I suspected, so I had Lin spy on them to verify it. I think you will break no trust if you tell us the rest of it now. We need full information before we act—and we must act.”
“Now, while we can,” Lin said. “While Sam is north, and Ned is buying wool in Geraestus.” That was the city on the extreme southern tip of Euboea, their closest metropolis. They were country folk, but they did need supplies, and a market for their weaving.
Jes felt a load leave her. “She wants to bear his child, because he’s smarter than Sam. She came on to him, and he—he was inexperienced, and didn’t know how to stop her. She—he said she had overwhelming sexual appeal. It was like a conquering army, and he was vanquished before he ever tried to fight.” She paused, ruefully wishing she herself had appeal like that. Ned had told her about it in excruciating detail, and she was ashamed to admit even to herself that it had driven her into a private sexual ecstasy of desire and frustration. “Then when they had done it—really, when he had stood still and she had done it to him—she told him that if he told, she would tell Sam he had raped her, and that Sam would believe her. He knew Sam would. Sam—”She shrugged, and both Flo and Lin nodded. Sam was a good man and a good brother, but what he didn’t know about women would fill a long scroll. “Ned wants to get out of it, but doesn’t know how.”