*
Melaina jolted from her daze. The rider stopped and came back to the chariot, motioned for Kallias to get out and follow him. Kallias tied the reins to a tree, and the two disappeared into the brush up the hillside. Melaina developed a chill, and the night noises frightened her. Soon, Kallias and the young man came running back. They led the horses off the road into a grove of trees, stopping to listen.
"Horsemen," Kallias whispered. "Probably friendly, but…"
After dousing the torch, they calmed the horses, silencing their snorts with hands held over the horse's noses. Kallias put two of them in Melaina's charge, and she felt soothed by their warmth, the velvet-soft nostrils. Her heart pounded, but she focused on the sounds of crickets, the rustling wind in treetops, and hugged the long bony heads to her.
Hearing faint voices from the road, Melaina made out her native tongue.
Kallias said, "I know one of them." He stepped from their hideaway. "Hey! Kimon, by the gods, is that you, man?"
The horsemen's torch extinguished and all went quiet.
"It's Kallias, Kimon. Have you forgotten your old boar-hunting companion?"
The response was slow in coming and little more than a whisper. "Kallias? That you? Or some daemon calling us to our doom?"
Kallias stepped forward to greet them, lowering his voice to match theirs. The young man traveling with Kallias relit the torch, and she saw not two but four men traveling together. After a few words, Kallias motioned for the young man to join them. Melaina, now alone, was grateful for the stout presence of the horses. Shortly Kallias and the young man returned.
"I'll not deceive you, Melaina," said Kallias. "Two of these men are from Paiania, a village not far ahead. They were trying to get home but ran into a band of Persians and Thebans blocking the road. These men turned back, not realizing the countryside behind us also swarms with the enemy. We've but one hope: come upon them swiftly, catch them asleep, and pass through their camp before they know what's happened."
Melaina avoided his eyes. He was the most muscular man she'd ever seen, arms bulging from his sleeveless tunic. She hoped he hadn't noticed she was trembling.
"These men are joining us," he said, leading the horses from the grove. "You'll lie low in the chariot wrapped in the deer skin." He mounted the chariot and turned to her again. "Under no circumstances are you to raise your head above the railing. Do you hear me, Melaina?"
She finally managed a weak, "Yes."
They groped by the light of the full moon as it peeked from behind clouds. Melaina tried to calm herself by thinking hard thoughts toward traitorous Thebes. The ancient city was north of Eleusis, opposite Mt. Kithaeron, and a natural enemy since the time of Oedipus. But she'd never imagined that the Thebans would side with Persia. Each moment seemed interminable. She hardly breathed, expecting the Persians to descend upon them at any moment. Still, on they went without being molested, horses' hooves clattering a steady beat.
Their five companions in the lead slowed. "Persian camp ahead," one whispered back.
A loud voice erupted from up the road, sliced sharply through the cold night air. "Halt! Identify yourself!"
Kallias cracked the whip. "Ha!" he shouted, and the chariot lurched forward.
Melaina sunk to the floor and covered herself with the deerskin, peeking from a frayed edge. She was thrown about until she was sure all her bones would be broken. As they came into the torchlight, a great commotion erupted in the Persian camp. Barking dogs and the bray of a donkey mixed with shouts of the barbarians.
The chariot took a shattering blow to its undercarriage as fire exploded around them. Looking back, Melaina saw they'd overrun the campfire. But the horses reared up, pawing skyward and bringing the chariot to a standstill. A foul stench hung in the air.
Melaina could resist no longer. She raised her head and looked beyond the horses at a sight she couldn't believe was real. Something, perhaps an animal, rose up before them, a huge deformed beast not born of anything earth-walking, and staggered into the road. It was as if the great god Pan himself had appeared to inspire panic in the horses. Melaina's scream escaped before she could suppress it. Kallias plied the lash to the stallions, cursed them unmercifully.
The chariot lurched forward as the horses regained their courage under the stinging whip. A rain of arrows and spears descended on the carriage. As they swept past the hovering shape, Melaina ducked back below the rail just as a spear penetrated the sideboard, ripped into the deerskin and lodged in the carriage's opposite side. Melaina's head hit the rail with such force that she momentarily went senseless, the pain in her side so great she thought the spear had dealt her a fatal blow.
As the chariot cleared the Persian camp, Melaina, lodged beneath Kallias' feet, was kicked, beaten about and stepped on. The once-proud horses regained their wits on the far side of the foul beast and, manes flowing, hunkered down to the business of putting it behind them. Persian torches gradually dropped from sight.
When they were in the clear, Kallias reined in the horses and called the others to him. "We may have lost the maiden," he said, his voice without its usual strength.
Melaina thought he might be right, but her groans and complaints at having being trampled on were welcomed with cheers and smiling faces. After they extracted the spear from the chariot and released the deerskin pinning her against the sideboard, she could finally breathe. Except for her throbbing head and some bruised ribs, she was sound. Her saffron chiton, on the other hand, had been penetrated front to back, which caused the men to murmur. "Eyie!" said one.
"Wasn't the Persians that frightened me," said Melaina, "but the fell beast."
"You sons of a mountain goat," Kallias said, turning on the men from Paiania. "Why didn't you tell me about the camel?"
"We didn't know. As Iris, the Oathgiver, is our witness," said Kimon.
"No horse can endure the sight or smell of a camel. We could've died."
"What's a camel?" asked Melaina.
The young man traveling with Kallias walked off laughing, causing Melaina to blush at her own ignorance.
Kallias shook his head at the young man. "A poet with a strange sense of humor."
So the quiet young man is a poet, Melaina thought. This pleased her no end.
Satisfied they were all in one piece, the group proceeded, without light, the terrain gradually becoming more mountainous, the forest crowding in on the road. They entered a village, and the road disappeared into a maze of dark, abandoned streets. A barking dog came to greet them. The men talked among themselves, then Kallias came to Melaina. "This is Paiania," he said. "We were to stop here, but it's deserted. We'll go on to Phlya."
The weary riders passed through the village, again braking out onto the open road. Just when Melaina wondered if they'd ever stop, at the foot of a mountain thrusting up into the stars, the chariot took a less-traveled trail north. "We're beneath Mt. Hymettos, sacred to Zeus," Kallias told her. "Soon we'll be at the farm of Mnesarchides."
The trail steepened up the foot of the mountain, and they picked their way through deep woods, which finally opened onto a clearing where the light of a home shone as a beacon. The stone building sat on a moonlit hilltop. Kimon and his three companions went before them, at times trading shouts with sentries. The black stallions whinnied at the workhorses pulling wagons stacked high with goods, which were on their way to Athens and the coast.
As the chariot drew closer to the home, Melaina saw that the place swarmed with people. Bonfires twinkled in the surrounding forest, and she saw a herd of horses, fully loaded wagons and oxen, fellow refugees sleeping in bedrolls. A baby cried.
The chariot pulled up before the stone building. At first she thought the men milling about were slaves, but some sported a hoplite's heavy armor. The hair on the back of her neck bristled. They were warriors. An army was encamped here.
As the riders dismounted, several men came to meet them, some to help with the horses, others to escort them inside. Wo
men stared, whispered among themselves. Melaina overheard one say, "I tell you, it's her. The other is inside. Prophecies speak of the return of the two goddesses."
Melaina cowered under the women's scrutiny.
Kallias, with Melaina trailing behind, entered a large foyer through huge double gates that swung wide. Kimon followed, but the others remained with the horses. Melaina was disappointed that the poet who'd blazed their trail for them hadn't come with them. She'd wanted to get a good look at his face.
Slaves carried sacks of grain from storerooms lining the foyer and stacked them into wagons. Others carried clay jars. At the far side of the foyer, the large double doors into the heart of the home opened and closed on squeaking hinges, but Melaina was not to enter this area. Kallias took Melaina by the arm and led her to a side room through a small door to the left. As he pulled it open, bright light and voices spilled out. They were engulfed by the smell of food.
Just inside the women's room, the mistress of the house turned to inspect them, her stern face set hard as stone. The townswomen ate alongside their children. The room fell silent as all eyes fell upon them. The refugees' belongings were piled high along the walls: clothes, bedding, carpets, chests. The women turned back to eating, and the din returned.
Melaina felt uncomfortable as the stocky, heavy-set mistress scrutinized her. Though of no mean stature herself as the wife of a wealthy landowner, the woman was obviously transfixed by Melaina's presence.
Kallias and Kimon disappeared through the far doorway, but Melaina stayed put. She knew her place in the world of men. Still, she felt abandoned among all these strangers. Fortunately, the mistress came to her instantly, folded Melaina's small hands within her own chubby ones, and pulled them to her warm midriff as if they were precious. She led Melaina into a corner, where a sullen little boy with heavy eyelids sat on a carpet, pillows stacked about him.
"Are you injured, my dear?" the woman asked Melaina. "I administer to those who'll allow a woman."
Melaina blushed scarlet. She hadn't noticed that Kynthia had shed blood on her, but there it was, the spray of scarlet drops, now black, speckling her saffron chiton. The mark of the bear's claw across her breast had also soaked through. With one side of her head nearly bald as well, it was no wonder she attracted so much attention.
"No," answered Melaina, "just tired and sore."
"I'll give you something to lift your spirits, soothe aching bones." This large woman kept staring at Melaina. "May I ask your name?"
"Melaina, from Eleusis."
The woman relaxed, smiled, handed Melaina a steaming posset in a tiny clay cup. "I'm Kleito," she said. "Your mother and I were childhood friends, before we each married. And now the war has brought us back together. We've been anticipating your arrival. This pest is my little Euripides."
The little boy climbed into Melaina's lap, burying his head in her bosom.
"Drink slowly," Kleito said, "and conceal it from the others. The recipe is said to have come down to us from the centaur Chiron, who invented it to heal the wounds of warriors."
Melaina smelled the posset, spiced milk curdled with hot wine. Its taste sent a warm glow through her. Euripides moved about restlessly. Holding him was an unexpected comfort, even if his sharp-edged limbs poked into her tender ribs. His little body was as warm as glowing coals. He held a waxed tablet and stylus in his tiny hands and had scratched the first letters of the alphabet: α, β, and γ. The posset, beginning to do its work, Melaina relaxed and drifted toward sleep along with Euripides. Then Kleito spoke again.
"Your mother is here. Did you know?"
Melaina's eyes fluttered open, and she jumped to her feet, wondering if she'd heard correctly. Just then, Kallias returned. "Follow me," he urged, leading Melaina down a hallway to a chamber of solemn men, who mumbled over a meal. Melaina saw mounds of cheese and barley cakes, boiled pigs' feet, lambs' legs, ripe olives and leeks, morsels of underdone entrails. Oh, she loved sweet entrails!
A shout rose up from amidst the din, and a woman rushed toward Melaina. It was Myrrhine, her mother. Myrrhine came out of the room and reached for Melaina, her hands all over the girl's face and limbs as if to check for the source of all the blood. "You look like a lamb led to slaughter," her mother said.