Master of All Sorrows: Book Two of the Ellix Saga

[CharmedFan28]

Well Jocasta has given birth and it was a struggle as I imagine most births are. Especially considering the time this story is set in. I am glad her and the twins survived. Marophon and Jocasta are parents and I am very happy for them! Excellent writing and I hope you have a great weekend too!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I know! A whole new generation, and yes child birth was a gamble. We almost weren't sure if Jocasta would make it. But now Manaen is a proud grandfather.... and his boyfriend is the father! Well, who says there's only one way to be family???

 

[ChrisGibson]

FAR AWAY ON THE MAKADAKAN BORDER, JOCASTA HAS BORN TWIN SONS TO MAROPHON AND UNITED THE ANAXIONADE TO THE CLEOMANES FOREVER, TONIGHT, DOWN SOUTH, WE MEET MELISSA AND THE BEE PRIESTS.... COUSINS OF XIAN, ECO.


Now out of all the sacred figures in Ellix, the three most important are women, The Pythoness, whose power is Delphi, the Priestess of Iacchus, who reigns over Phocia, and the Priestess of the Bee, Melissa, whose Vale is in the northwest of Arcady. Of these three, it is the Melissa who is the oldest, who holds sway over all Ellix, and whose origins are unknown

from -A Brief History of Ellix
by Photeus Nikias



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MELISSA

Μελισσά





“LET US DOWN,” Melissa called from her litter.
“So imperious,” her sister murmured.
“Oh, shut up.”
Maia who merely shrugged as the litter was lowered.
But it was Maia of the bare feet and green hair who had inherited all the Oread strength of their mother, Maia who had been a princess, wed to a prince, the mother of the Queen of Akxa,
They were beside the sea now, but it was difficult not to be near the sea, here in Ellix, the fingers of Tethys reached into touch the land and dig their canyons. Here was no canyon, but the white sand beach and when the litter was let down, Melissa, bronze robed, gold thread through the gown which clung to her hips and yet hung lose about her, the other priestesses reached out to her, but she shook her head.
“I can walk,” the auburn haired woman smiled, “on my own”
Maia leapt out onto the sand behind her sister.
Too long had she been away from the Place of the Bees, but she would return soon enough, and as her priestesses, in their yellow gowns and gold gowns and yellow bronze gowns murmured, “Yes, Melissa. Yes, Melissa,” they sounded as they were buzzing. The wind rose up around Maia and her sister, blowing blow back their rich dark hair. The sun shone on arms still strong after all these years, red brown like the people of Arcady, the oldest of people. They stepped away from the others across the beach to the water that glinted back the pale gold light of the sun like a sheet of blue silver. Beyond it the small western isles and then, beyond, Cyra, which was no less of a danger because it was unseen.
Now the sand grew soft, wet, siltly. Now the sisters stepped into water so clear they could see crabs moving about, little life moving in the shells and barnacles of the water. They stepped further into the water, and how long it took for the water to be truly deep. What a long time it was before the water rose to their knees, and a little higher, before Melissa said, “You will help me.”
“No,” Maia said, for the first time stern. “You must trust your own blood. You own power.”
Melissa frowned and smiled, and to Maia it seemed as if she was still that serious girl, at turns afraid and doubtful or her power. It was some time before the Priestess of the Bees dared to call.
Her hands were open. Her eyes toward the sun, and her fingertips touching the water. For a time she thought of those waiting for her, but then she reminded herself that she was Melissa, and it was their pleasure to wait. She took in the smell of the sea, the salt, that indescribable sharpness of the fish, of the clean air and now, as she felt the change around her, she opened her eyes.
The water was moving now, like a whirlpool under the surface before her. And then as if the water was growing heavier, water more water than water. And before she could describe it, rising up from the water, as solid and strong limbed as her, red brown in color, but her great hips and ample breast robed and wet and blinting blue, was a Okeanid.
“Sisters,” the sea woman said.
Melissa placed her fingertips together, and beside her, Maia bowed her head..
“Greetings, sister,” she returned. “I wanted to know if I still had the gift, if the sisters of the sea would hear me.”
“We heard you,” the woman said. Her hair was glistening, but not soaked, thick lovely tangles woven with seaweed and shells, and her eyes were wide and bottomless.
“The day is coming when the Oreads and the People of the Land will hold council in Arcady.”
“Would you have us there?” the Okeanid asked.
“If you would come. I did not know that you would, but you are always welcome.”
“We will travel by the inlets and the rivers,” she said.
“I had thought that perhaps you might think that our concerns were not yours.”
“Everyday,” the Okeanid said, we see the deeds of men who no longer believe in or reverence the powers of the sea. None know so much of Cyra as we whoses waters touch its every side, and who like us has heard the grief as our waters touched the shores of the cities they burned. So do not worry, Oread’s daughter. On the day the Melissa and her sister call, we will come to you.”


She had been a girl when she came to the House of the Bees to learn the magic of the Bee Priestess. Mother had never withheld magic from her, but until then the magic was loose and untrained, undedicated, for Mother always spoke solemnly of dedication. Maia, ever barefoot, green hair always wild, did not seem meant to be dedicated, but Mother said, “Every witch is dedicated to something,” and that was the first time Mother said they were witches.
All of their lives in Black Castle it had just been the three of them, and the people around the house who were servants, she supposed, but who didn’t seem like servants. After all, she had always made her own bed and Mother cooked all the food. They retained the house together, and if they called Mother Mistress, well then, even Melissa was in awe of her mother.
But at fifteen she was sent to the House of the Bees. The Southern Wars were taking place then, and Mother surrounded her with spells. The whole night before, Maia had wept, and Mother said, “Don’t you worry, you’ll be going on your own way soon enough.”
The journey had been nearly a month, and when she had come to the Glade she remembered the smell of honey, the scent of lilacs through the night, the moon high up in a purple sky. It was summer then, near the time of The Great Dance.
“You must be tired,” the woman who came to her greeted her.
Melissa remembered her manners and curtseyed, “Lady.”
“There will be time for all that later,” the woman had said. He face was round, small mouthed and lovely, her hair long, and her almond shaped eyes wise. The woman led her into a little house with a private room, and there was hot bread and butter, a jar of honey, and a jug of milk.
“You will stay here tonight,” the woman said. She was in a green gown that went to the floor, and from a black cord about her neck hung a small white crescent moon. Now, in the light, She could see the lady’s hair was thick and red.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “You will enter the House of Maidens. You are old for it,” she added. “You won’t stay long. I believe your mother sent you so late because she had trained you so sufficiently.”
The girl still sat before the table and the woman said, “Eat now! Before it is cold. I will sit with you.”
She sat down and the woman said, “Do you have any questions?”
“Uh,” the girl said as she tore the bread open and steam rose up, “So many, actually.”
“Well,” the woman smiled. “Start with one.”
“Your name?” the girl said, hopefully. “If I can be so forward.”
“Oh!” the woman threw back her head. “I am so foolish.”
Her voice was so rich.
“Elektra, my dear, by birth I am Sorcha, but now I am Melissa the Mistress of Bees.”

In those days she was not yet Melissa. When she woke the sun was bright in her face and she wondered whIn ere the night had gone. But just a few more moments, just a few more moments of sleep, and then she would get up. It was as if she fell into blackness, and when she woke up again, she had no idea how much time had passed.
“I have to get up,” she murmured, yawning.
Through a wall came hot bread and honey, butter and orange juice, Next, through the slot, hot coffee. She sat up, blinking, and poured the coffee into the glass cup, poured the milk, watching white clouds roll into the coffee, mixing it with the clumps of the warm sugar. In this hut she was treated more like a princesss than ever she had been in a house full of servants. When breakfast was done, she padded across the floor and walked out of the house, looking around, and a few minutes later was met by a dark haired boy about her age.
“I was told not to wake you.”
“How late is it?”
“A little after noon.”
“Noon!”
The boy laughed. “Relax. There wasn’t really anything you were going to do here today anyway.”
“Oh,” Elektra said, “Then, are you a servant here?”
He laughed at her.
“I mean… I thought only women were here.”
“Not at the Place of the Bee,” he said. “And I am Calyx.”
“Well, then I have a lot to learn,” Melissa decided.
“I’ll be glad to show you,” he told her. “And then, of course, you’ll learn a lot more at dinner tonight.”
They were in a valley like a bowl, and Melissa looked back to see she had left one house among a clump of houses, and toward the center was an orchard. Toward the center of the valley were several buildings, and Calyx said, “Some people live here their whole lives, the children of the priests and priestesses, the workers, those who never became priests or whose children were. Some live outside of the valley, but come here as well. That house there, is the House of Boys, and that is the House of Maidens, the first places where you go before you are initiated. Over there, that bigger one, is the House of Acolytes, the people who have gone through their first Degree. Then there is the House of the Priests, for those who have passed through their Third Degree. Some leave after this but most priests and priestesses enter into the House of Mysteries, the largest house, and you can see it is close to the very Bee Temple itself.”
The House of Boys and the House of Maidens stood alone, but the remaining houses were surrounded by other little houses, and sometimes those houses surrounded by fences and gardens, and everywhere each building was square up to a point and then became a rounded, bevilled hive even to the Temple which was the greatest of hives. The taller buildings had smaller domes, but all of them were like this in various shades of gold, pale yellow, golden brown. All through the orchards were the hives and beekeepers, the scent of flowers and she wondered, “Why didn’t Mother tell me of this place? It is so strange and beautiful.”
When Calyx stood, smiling at her, she said, “But it is beautiful, isn’t it?”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to dive back into this story. I enjoyed learning of Melissa and these other characters. This really is a big world with lots of different people to learn of and places to hear about. Excellent writing and I hope you have a great weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I'm gld you enjoyed it. Whenever I read it I see how undeveloped and in need of proofing it still is, but it is nice to take a break from Geshichte Falls and see some place new and different (and weird).

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND SO WE RETURN TO THE WORLD OF ELLIX....



They spent the day together, and Elektra asked Calyx what he usually did when he wasn’t skipping stones with her on the lake.”
“I am in the House of Boys for another year,” he said. “So I will see you. From what I’m told you’ll be in the House of Maidens and then we’ll probably go onto the House of Initiates together.”
She wondered what it would be like, and as she was thinking of the future and looking at the reedy lake, the willows hanging, when she heard a faint music.
“What is that?”
“The Temple hymn for the evening,” Calyx touched her hand, and she shivered. He sat there listening, and she could not make out the words. But of course he knew them. He was smooth faced, long limbed, and now his eyes were closed as his mouth moved along with the words. When the song was done they rowed on.
“It would have been nice to go to the Temple,” he said. “We could go tonight if you like.”
“I think I would,” Elektra said, blinking over the music she had just heard as they began rowing across the lake.
“For now, though,” Calyx said, “it’s time to eat.”

In the great hall they sat dining, and Elektra looked about the room seeing the young women and men in plain clothes as she wore, the priests and priestesses, in their white robes and in deep bronze, some in shimmering copper. The sun still came through the windows, and as they sat at the long tables, with their flower pots, and their pewter ewers of water, Sorcha said, “How did you find the place?”
“I love it,” Elektra said.
“Your mother loved it too,” Sorcha said. “And did you all get on?” she turned to Calyx as he forked the boar meat and put some on his plate.
“Oh, yes, Mother,” Calyx said.
“Mother?” Elektra blinked.
“Calyx is my youngest son,” Sorcha said, touching the back of his head as he grinned at Elektra.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Did it matter?” he asked. Then he said to his mother, “She thought I was a servant.”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
Calyx skipped over this and said, “Tonight we are going to the temple to hear the night song.”
“Well make sure that afterward you go directly to bed,” Sorcha told them. “In the morning you both have school. You can stay with me tonight,” she told Elektra, “and then tomorrow you will move into the House of Maidens.”

But she hardly slept, for all that night Sorcha talked with her, and the next morning, when she entered the first of her classes with Calyx, Elektra understood Sorcha had been probing out how much she knew. They were studying the history of the Four Lands, and later that day, learning to recite the Old Law and the Great Rule from the Book of Honey. She came to that class in a soft unbleached gown, and Calyx sat beside her in a tunic of the same, a white band tied about his black hair.
After the morning lessons, she entered the House of Maidens, a great dormitory where girls slept five to a room. She had never shared a room with others and was surprised at how easy it was, how gracious Melan and Caillean, Marsys and Shaylan were.
But what she remembered even now, as they journeyed away from the sea and toward the mountains of Arcady was that very first night, when she and Calyx stood on the parapet surrounding the temple and heard the priests and priestesses below, singing from inside the temple, their voices coming from the windows and open doors.

At the end of the day, the Radiant Star,
the Great Light that fills the sky,
The Lady of the Evening appears in the heavens.
The people in all the lands lift their eyes to her.
The men purify themselves; the women cleanse themselves.
The ox in his yoke lows to her.
The sheep stir up the dust in their fold.


That night, as the priests and priestesses chanted below, Calyx took his hand in hers, and even though she only turned him a slight glance, Elektra knew she was in love with Sorcha’s son.




The first Melissa, the very first Priestess, was the great Goddess of the Garden, and the Tender of Secrets. Some say she was the teacher of Eve, the first woman, and some say that she was also the foster mother of Zeon, and some said even his siblings, in those days when the Elder Gods ruled the world. She did not feed the young gods on milk, but rather honey. She tended all the goddesses, and in time those who tended and in turned were tended by the goddesses, favored by them, were called the Mellisae. This Temple, this Valley, is not the original Place of the Bee. There was another one, long ago, but waves and water, time and tempest took it. In later stories Melissa became not one but many, not a great priestess, or a great goddess, but the name of all the nymphs who cared for the the god Zeon as a baby. But even the first story is not the original, for long before men spoke of Elder Gods and Younger, there was Melissa.
There were several mighty Mellisae. Some bringing up kings, raising heroes, always teaching mighty sorcerers. The truth is lost in time, or hidden in the Mysteries. We were the origin of basic institutions and skills. We taught the civilizing behaviors. The tales say Melissa first found a honeycomb, tasted it, then mixed it with water and fermented it as mead. She taught others to do this, and thus the bee was named for her, and she was made its guardian. It does not matter which Melissa it was, for they are all Melissa. This was part of the priestesses achievement of bringing men out of their wild state.
The Melissae were not all sunshine and beehives. They were the priests of Demeter as the Dark Mother, her bees, initiated into her underworld mysteries. Indeed, as a girl of seventeen and then later as a girl of twenty, she had gone through the Dark rite. The other story surrounding the Melissae was of an old priestess of Demeter, named Melissa, initiated into her mysteries by the goddess herself. When Melissa's neighbors tried to make her reveal the secrets of her initiation, she remained silent, never letting a word pass from her lips. In anger, the women tore her to pieces, but Demeter sent a plague upon them, causing bees to be born from Melissa's dead body. But there were some who said, no, Melissa was the name of the moon goddess, and the goddess who took suffering away from mothers giving birth. The souls of men, turned over and over again on the Great Wheel, were symbolized by bees, and it was Melissa who drew souls down to be born. She was the Mistress of Secrets, the Wheel of Regeneration.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to read about more Melissa. Elektra and Calyx are cute. I don’t know if they are allowed but I hope in the end they are together. This was great to read after a big day at work and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Sometimes its nice to have a cute couple. So much intensity, so much craziness! Well, I admit to not knowing what happens, but I'm sure Elektra and Calyx will be just fine. We will return to the folks we know soon enough, but it is nice to take a trip to the Bee Temple and meet some new folks.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Pessimism and unbelief are the luxury of the wealthy, and the bolster them against the swirling storm which is God.

-Clio Aristikion



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FORCES

ισχύς



“EXACTLY WHO IS IN charge of the city now that the Autarchs are off in Makadakan and not even Manaen is around?”
“Manaen was never in charge of this city,” Ikides said.
“Make no mistake,” Arcis countered, “Manaen has been in charge of this city for the last three years, and without Creon, now the Anaxionade are the only people controlling things.”
“And you?” Ikides said.
“I do not control,” Arcis said. “I merely maintain.”
Arcis, straw haired, blue eyed and lion faced, was a lean prince of the city, impeccable in white robe and mantle, a thin line of blond beard about his face. Beside him, rigid and pale, sat his oldest son named for the dead king, Creon, and he said simply, “Thebes can either be ruled by a king or by an Assembly, but when we are waiting for overlords to return and control us again, things can’t be good.”
“Good for whom?” Cyron said.
“It’s only because you’ve gone to them,” Creon said.
“Them are you,” Cyron said. “Them is the head of your family.”
“My father,” Creon said, “is and has been the true head of our family.”
“That,” Cyron counted, “is not the law.”
“Oh, how much you’ve changed in the last year,” Arcis scowled as they sat in the great flagstoned common of the Cadmea. “How much this city had changed.”
“And most people would say it’s changed for the better,” Cyron noted. “Much of Phocia would say it’s changed for the better.”
“And you people act as if it were not the blessing of the gods,” Xeno added. “As if you were not here when the God came.”
“The gods rule the heavens and the earth, the rivers and the winds,” Arcis declared, linking his fingers. “They do not rule politics. That is for men. Whatever women’s witchcraft the Anaxionade worked, it ought to be forgotten so that we might return to more sensible things.”
“More sensible things?” Cyron said.
“You would have said the same thing this time last year.”
“I would have,” the older man said, “but I have seen things more sensible than the sensible. We all tasted it. We all met the gods. Our world was changed. We were all there.”
“What?” Arcis said. “When reports of madness came from the sea? When weather was better than usual and people’s imaginations were carried away? When grown men who should have known better were fucking in the streets, and noblewomen were giving head to their servants? That foolishness.”
“And in the great hall of Assembly,” Cyron pointed to the tall pillared huse before them, “when the God came, and his satyrs, and the lions and the tigers came through—”
Arcis looked at him hard, challenging him as if he had not been here.
“And Merope herself was changed into a tree, and all the animals fell at the feet of Clio.”
“I do not deny illusions,” Arcis said. “I do not deny that during those days much of the city was carried away.”
“Do you deny the tree that now stands in the hall of Assembly?” Xeno asked.
“I do not deny that it was planted there,” Arcis said. “That a young god, who looks a like our Autarch, turned Merope into a tree, I do deny.”
“Then I am fascinated,” Zeno said, “as to what you think did happen.”
“It’s easy to see what happened,” young Creon said.
“Easy since you were as yet not a man, are not allowed into the Hall of Assembly, and therefore were not there,” Cyron noted.
“Yes,” Creon agreed, “for it is sometimes easier to see through illusion if you are not party to it. It is well known the Axumi are party to dark magics, and the Anaxionade practice them. What their nature is I can not understand. I believe much of it is illusion. But it seems Mykon made himself into the God—or maybe did so to Pyramus—and then slew Merope and brought in tame animals to honor his own cousin and make her high priestess.”
While Arcis nodded proudly at his son and folded his arms over his chest, Cyron declared, “That’s a load of old shit.”
“People were intoxicated,” Creon went on, “but not all people. I certainly wasn’t. No one in our house was. But there are herbs and mushrooms that can be put in the water, and in the drinking supply, that can make people feel things, especially if they want to. The Anaxionade did this.”
Cyron almost felt sorry for them. He remembered when his heart was closed and those days before the coming of the God when he had hardened himself against him. And then that last night when he had dreamed of himself, twenty years younger, still lean, still beautiful, and how Manaen had spurned him, how Manaen and Marophon had loved each other so openly, and he knew all of his rage and anger against the Anaxionade had been for this. That whole next day he’d wept like a child, but it felt so good to be so sad, to finally understand he had not been rejected, it had nothing to do with him, That they had loved each other and maybe, if he had been honorable, they might have loved him. As day turned to night, and the water tasted like wine, and the sky went purple, the fragrant air whispered that all was not lost, that there was redemption and a second chance. and now, dreamlike, more himself than ever before, but not himself at all, he stumbled out of his house naked, and followed the direction of his thick erection to the house of the Anaxionade.
“Take me in! Take me in!”
And at last, without stint, under the direction of the God, Manaen had given himself. Mykon had given himself. All night they had given themselves, and he had given himself too. And no one had to understand it, all could look askance if they wished, but this is what had happened. He had been open for the very first time to see the God appear, and his satyrs and the maenads, and now he understood why Arcis did not want to see it. The vision had been wonderful, but it had been terrifying, and it had shattered him. This is why in the old tale, King Pentheos, who rejected the God, was torn apart and his head ripped off, because that man must be torn apart in the end.
“We have been done in by illusion,” young Creon said, placing his hands behind his back while Arcis, his father, nodded, “It is so very clear to me that people see what they want to.”
“And it is equally clear,” Cyron noted, “that they blind themselves to what is displeasing.”


THE BEE TEMPLE



It has been a long time since her girlhood days in the Bee Temple. Her first youth is gone, and only being what she is lets her remain in this sort of youth with the thick auburn hair hanging down her back as she rides in the sedan beside a green haired sister who never seems troubled by anything. Tonight they will stay with Lord Clermocos in the largest castle outside of Pylos. Pylos is the last city on the rising slopes before they enter the highlands of Arcady. Almost, but not with complete absence, Melissa touches the heavy golden bee hanging from a black cord over her breasts.



Weeks before her seventeenth birthday, on a full moon, Elektra was led from the House of Maidens to Sorcha’s house where she took her bath and then put on a white shift. For the last three days she had been eating nuts, berries, drinking water, praying and meditating, and now the priestesses marched ahead of her singing.


The Holy One stands alone in the clear sky;
On all the people of the land
The Lady looks in sweet wonder from
the midst of Heaven;
The People parade before holy Ashtoroth
The Lady of the Evening, Ashtoroth is lofty
Ashtoroth I would praise as is fitting
The Lady of the Evening is lofty on
the horizon
At evening the radiant star, the great light
fills the sky
The Lady of the Evening comes bravely
forth from heaven

She was led into the Temple, where she had never been, up the steps and past the pillars, through the great porch and through the folding brass doors and then they closed, and she stood in the dimly lit anteroom surrounded by the Initiated. Including Calyx, there would be three others to go through the rite during this full moon, but all of them came separately. Now she realized Calyx, Initiated the night before, might be in the small group surrounding her.
Sorcha stood before her, regal and strong, white robed, a silver disk held by a cresent moon mounting the silver circlet on her head. Her voice was solemn.
“O thou who standest on the threshold between the pleasant world of men and the dread domains of the Lords of the Outer Spaces, hast thou the courage to make the assay?”
Sorcha placed the blade against Elektra’s chest and spoke:
“For it were better to rush on my blade and perish, than make the attempt with fear in thy heart.
“Elektra had studied the words and replied, “I have two passwords. Perfect love and perfect trust.”
And Sorcha said: “All who have such are doubly welcome. I give thee a third to pass thee through this dread door. Take heed, ye Lords of the East, that Elektra is properly prepared to be initiated a priestess and witch.”
Now, Sorcha lifted her blade and pointed ahead of them, and the doors swung open that lead into the Temple proper. Never had she been past the narthex and rarely, here, but now she saw a great hall, most of whose beauties were still hidden for only for candles midway into it lit the expanse, shining dimly on pillars reaching up into darkness, and on ancient flagstones.
She had never called herself a witch, nor had Sorcha ever used the word, but even as Elektra thought this, Sorcha lifted her head and shrieked, and those about her began to turn in a circle singing:

“Eko, eko Azrak
Eko, eko Azrak
Eko, eko Azrak
Eko eko Iaccus ak!
Eko eko Hermes ak!
Eko eko Damilak!”

Sorcha called: “Halt!”
A man with a black, leather mask like a bird’s face rang a bell three times as others moved to turn Elektra toward the altar. Sorcha held oil now, and now she knelt, dipping her fingers in the thick oil, and then touching Elektra as she sang:

“Blessed be thy feet, which have
brought thee in these ways;
Blessed be thy knees,
that shall kneel at the sacred altar;
Blessed be thy womb
without which we would not be;
Blessed be thy breasts,
erected in beauty,
formed in strength
Blessed be thy lips,
that shall utter the sacred names.”

At each blessing, Sorcha kissed her, and anointed her with oil, and so, as more of the candles were blown out, Sorcha was lead into the Mysteries.

TOMORROW: NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well it looks like there might be a power struggle for power in the city as Manaen and the others are away. Elektra has been initiated. I look forward to seeing what happens next in both parts of the story. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow with Nights In White Satin.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well it looks like there might be a power struggle for power in the city as Manaen and the others are away. Elektra has been initiated. I look forward to seeing what happens next in both parts of the story. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow with Nights In White Satin.

While the Manaen's away the mice will play for sure, and that's going to be an interesting adventure. Meanwhile we wrap up our trip to the Temple of the Bee Temple, but I'm sure we'll be back there soon. I'm just getting to comments now, and haven't even done the post for this evening. Good Lord, this site looks so much better with the improvements!

 

[ChrisGibson]

HARMONIA LONGS TO CLAIM THEBES FOR HER OWN, BUT QUEEN XANTHE CAUTIONS AGAINST IT. MEANWHILE, IN THEBES, MAROPHONS BROTHER STIRS DISCONTENT

“It seems you’ve come all this way for nothing,” Queen Xanthe said.
Harmonia was surprised by her words, but she listened again. The white haired Queen was tall as ever, grey eyed, reminding her of the very Goddess of Heaven, save she wore pale lavender and a golden circlet on her head. When Harmonia searched her face for insult, she found none.
“You came here seeking support, but none is needed. Your city awaits you,” Belecane said, “and if you do not return, I think they’ll forget you. Men are like that.”
Harmonia said, “I never thought Thebes would accept me. I told you of the Oracle.”
“The Oracle said you would be queen in name if you returned immediately, but Queen in deed if you did not.”
“I’ve never understood what it meant,” Harmonia said. “I assumed that what it meant was I had things to learn. I did not think I would return at the head of armies.”
“Will you marry this Mykon?” Xanthe asked, stepping down from the dais to join Harmonia.
“I’m surprised you’d ask that question.”
“Because I am an Amazon?” the Queen said. “But I am a Queen first, and no matter what tales the men of the south have of us, a Queen rules by reason. In this land we take no husbands, and the tradition is old. But in your Thebes, to be a Queen one must have a husband. This is the way it has always been. How can I fault them for saying no woman will rule them when in Akxa no man will rule us?”
“But things could change.”
“Yes,” Xanthe said, earnestly. “As they did here. But things change not only with determination, but time. And wisdom. I have heard much of these Anaxionade, and of this Mykon. Once, when he and his army were outcast, we rode with them. We were not sure about it, for we rarely ride with men, but we had to fight the Kentari. Do you know what men who lead armies do to those they conquer?
Harmonia opened her mouth, but she said, “Actually, I know so little.”
“They kill the men, and to curb the fury of the men, they rape the women. So many of the women who became my soldiers came from other lands raped and nearly killed after battle, desperate for a new life. Rape is the habit of soldiers, but especially mercenaries. We thought, when Mykon and Marophon came, we will have to teach these men.”
“They took a village, and I was riding to a man who had opened a girl’s legs when I saw, suddenly, an Achilles of a soldier, blond and blue eyed, running like a demon. I thought, surely this bastard is going to take his turn on the girl. But just like that, he took out the flat of his sword and brained him.
“The Army of the Anaxionade does not do that! You know that!” he said.
Harmonia nodded, putting her hand to her mouth.
“Later that night,” Queen Xanthe said, “I sat around the fire with these most extraordinary men, asking them about themselves. The general Mykon explained they were called the Sacred Band, the first three hundred of them, men pledged to each other, who preferred each other as the women here often prefer women, and that the other men in their army were pledged to Mykon’s father, that they came from a household where men and women stood equal, and even that they abhorred slaves though, I saw that some had them. But those that did treated their slaves as I’d never seen a man treat his servant. The golden haired man I had seen earlier—the Achilles—he had a servant he loved like a brother, and I could not tell who was serving whom. He explained he would never stand to see a woman harmed, for every woman was his mother, was his sister. What strange men they were. This blond one said he was Chiton, the youngest brother of General Marophon, and was devoted to his cause. And now these men rule in Thebes. If you go to them, Harmonia, I think you will be Queen in deed.”
Harmonia nodded.
“The truth is, part of me hoped to be like my aunt, to never marry. But that is foolish.”
“This Mykon would not be like other husbands I do not think,” Xanthe said, “I have met him, and the light of the Gods is in his eyes.””
“I will speak to Aeon and Aramache,” Harmonia said. “And then, if you will allow it, we will set out for Thebes.”
“Not Thebes,” Penthesilea said. “Makadakan. For the Anaxionade are in Makadakan.”
“But Thebes is my city.”
“No, my dear,” the Queen shook her head. “Thebes is your city when your allies are there.”



“The letter has come from Makadakan,” Pyrrha said, handing it over to Naxodus.

“Just now?”

“Yes. From Aegina, for the Lady Polyxena.”

Naxodus nodded and took the letter from Pyrrha, thanking her. The others had stopped working, and Naxodus cried, “What are you looking at?”

He turned to the living room where the Lady Polyxena sat with her daughters and their children. Master Arcis was present today.

“Naxodus,” Arcis acknowledged him, and the slave bowed.

“A message for the Lady Polyxena. “From Aegina.”

“Oh, yes!” girl like she reached out for the letter, and Naxodos noted, “A similar one was sent to the house of the Anaxionade, and to the home of Lysander and Clio.”

“It can only be good news,” Charis said.

“Not necessarily,” the dark haired Xenia disagreed.

“Xenia, please,” her mother begged, reclining on the couch as she unsealed the letter.

Looking to her own daughter, Thalia, Charis said, “Maybe there is news of your father as well.”

“Joy!” Polyxena put the half read letter to her chest, “Jocasta has born twins, and both healthy. A boy and a girl. The boy is named is named Titus. At last, the Cleomane have an heir. I thought Maro would never have children.”

“Mother, not to make too fine a point of it,” Arcis said, “but Maro is the only one of us who hasn’t had children.”

“They were twins before,” Polyxena remembered. “But things turned out badly for Arena. Oh, but I cannot wait to see these two. The girl is called a most long name to satisfy everyone, Marophonix Nikamache Phoebe, but if I know Jocasta they will call her Phoebe.”

“It was her mother’s name,” Charis said, helpfully.

“Yes, I remember Phoebe. She was a good girl. Much better than that Ianthe.”

“Well,” Chiton slapped his knee. “We’ll have to have a party when Maro gets back. “We’ll have to have a party now, in fact. Let the whole city know.”

Arcis rose from his couch, scowling, and declared, “You’re acting as if you’d never had a nephew or a grandchild,” and stalked into the garden.

“Do you want to check on him?” Xenia asked her sister.

“No,” Charis said, taking the letter, “I want to find out when Pyramus is coming back home.”

“I will see what’s gotten into old Hades,” their brother said, getting up and jogging after Arcis.

“Can you imagine it!”Chiton said, as they entered the garden, “Maro, finally a dad! And you know how much he doted on your kids. And then Pyrs. And then, when he and Mykon… You know he raised Mykon like a son.”

“Until he started fucking him.”

“That’s dirty,” Chiton said. “It’s foul to discuss what we all know happens between a boy and his mentor and what we, in fact, encourage. And he still treats Mykon like a son. And now, look, they are brothers by marriage, and he has a beautiful daughter and a prince for our clan. At last.”

“At last?” Arcis said. “For the last twenty years, while Maro’s been either fighting in a battle or getting fucked in his ass by Manaen, I have held this family together. Me and my sons, and we have controlled it in everything but name and now, suddenly, because at the ripe age of damn near forty, Maro rolls off of Manaen and onto his daughter long enough to produce some bastards who are Anaxionade in all but name, the baby is now the new head of the family.”

“Yes, Arcis!” Chiton said, stung. “Because his father is the head of our family. Maro is the head of this family, and always has been. Maybe you chose to forget that he was the greatest general we ever had, and that when this city abandoned him and our family, it was with Manaen’s help that we became the most powerful family in the city again. I have forgotten none of it.”

“It’s because you’re a soldier too, right out there with him in that troop of mercenaries Manaen made, and you think the sun shines out of Maro and Pyr’s asses. You and Charis and Mother. And probably Xenia too. But when we were shamed—because those asses couldn’t win the war with Cyra—it was I who kept our wealth together and our presence in the Assembly. I who sided with the King—”

“And against the Anaxionade.”

“Because we are a great family! Are we to watch as the Anaxionade take over everything including this family? Clio has already replaced Merope as high priestess of Iacchus.”

“Clio is born of the Aristikion and married into the Eutrache.”

“Ah,, but she is Manaen’s niece and the granddaughter of that witch Phocis—”

“Who is from one of the oldest Heraklid families—related to my mother-in-law, in fact.”

“Who is half Axumi and the matriarch of the Anaxionade, and in similar way they now do to us, fucking into the great families, and like cuckoo birds slipping in their children with old names to take over everything. So now, despite my children or your children—”

“Brother do not try to make me envious—”

“The children of this strident bitch who barks like a man and pisses standing up, and clearly named them herself against tradition will now supercede my own.”

“Arcis,” Chiton said, gently, “they always would have. That is the way of it. You just hoped Marophon would not do his duty, and Jocasta helped him do it. Jocasta is part of us now, and one day she will be the matriarch of this clan, and how she pisses will not matter. Respect her, and love her children.”

Chiton bowed his fair head and walked away, but he stopped, and before going back into the house he said, “And do not make trouble for our brother.”

MORE LATER

 

[ChrisGibson]

AS WE CONCLUDE THIS CHAPTER, HARMONIA AND HER COMPANIONS MAKE ALLEGIANCE WITH THE AMAZONS, AND TONIGHT WE FOCUS ON MAROPHON'S YOUNGEST BROTHER, CHITON


“For Hermes!” Basil said, pouring the first of the wine into the water as they looked on the harbor.”
“Shouldn’t it be for Eidon?”
“The harbor is the place of merchants, so Hermes,” Basil said, “and Hermes is mightier than Eidon anyway. No matter that the stories make him a teenager running errands for the gods.”
“I would not know any of that,” Aeon said. “All I know is I have to get to my sister, and I will pour vats of wine to Eidon and Hermes for that.”
Aeon sat beside Basil, both of them swinging thir legs over the dock. “I love Harmonia, but she has our destiny and I have mine.
Basil was long and tall, browned, browned hair, good looking with grey blue eyes, and he looked out over the water and said, “Well, that’s true, but aren’t you breaking your word if you leave now?”
Aeon looked at him, sweeping the pale geen hair out of his face.
“Were you not vowed to accompany Harmonia to the end of her journey?”
Aeon did not answer, and Basil laid a long hand on his shoulder.
“Look, when you talk of going to Cyra, I want to go with you my friend. If you’d like.”
“I’d love it!” Aeon said. “All my life, except for Eco, I’ve been surrounded by women.”
“And I know you want to go to other places. Truth is, though, we don’t even know where Xian and Eco are right now?”
“I want to go back to Arkady, and down into the south, to the lands where everyone is struggling and the Empire is trying to get a hold on Ellix. And then I want to get to Axum, and this is where I believe Eco and Xian have gone. I would go there, and then after Axum—”
“Kemet.”
“Yes!” Aeon said. “I want to see the oldest of lands. I want to make those journeys now. It’s all I long to do.”
Basil nodded and he said, “I understand this. I understand all of it. How long have you known me?”
“Since I was a boy.”
“Right? And you know that dreams come to me. Senses. I know things without knowing them.”
Aeon nodded.
“Ae, trust me when I say that unless you remain with Harmonia, nothing that you want to happen will happen. Not in the right way. I know you itch to leave, to remain in Akxa, but you are not done yet.”
“Well, if I must go to Makadakan, what about you?”
“What about me?”
“If I continue on my self exile, then you have to go with me.”
Basil nodded.
“There is only so much to do here. A Prince of the Amazons is nothing. I have no problem with exiling myself.”

It was not true that a Prince of the Amazons was nothing. Like anyone else in Ellix, Aeon had been raised on tales of savage women who forced their men into onorous household tasks, but this was only because they were told by savage men who made their women lives a drudgery and so they saw no other way. When he had first met Basil, long ago and away from Akxa, he had been living in his father’s house and never mentioned his Amazon mother and at that time his Grandmother was still Queen. They had lived on the edges of Arcady in those days. And then their father had died, and Queen Camiro has invited them to live with her. When they had come to Castle Acrys, Aeon had not known what to expect. He had certainly not foreseen a ship full of well dressed men come to greet he, his mother and his sisters.
“Your mother is Chief of the Warriors for the Queen of the Amazons,” Aeon had whispered as he sat beside his old friend, a friend Eco had introduced him to.
“Your mother in wood nymph.”
“This really is taking your mother jokes to a new place,” Aramache had commented.
“It’s only…,” Aeon had whispered, “you never brought that up.”
Basil cleared his throat.
“Friend,” he said, “When does one bring such a thing up?”





“Will you go when she goes?” Niobe asked after they had made love.

Aramache reclined on one shoulder sweeping the thick curtain of her rose colored hair from her face.

“But not off your shoulder,” Niobe whispered, leaning forward and threading her fingers through it. “I love to see you there, all of that gorgeous hair on your shoulders. You are the only woman I’ve ever met from the outside strong as an Amazon.”

Aramache laughed and Niobe watched her heavy breast, brown nippled, jounce.

“Well, the Queen is my cousin.”

Niobe opened her mouth. Closed it, and then lay on her back, her breast firm little hills.

“Two questions.”

“What is the first?”

“Queen Xanthe? Cousin or no, will she prove wise as her grandmother was?”

“Camiro was a phenomenal queen, and so will my cousin be. But your question,” Aramache leaned forward, kissing Niobe, entangling her limbs with the other woman’s, savoring the scent of her body, kissing her shoulder, running her hand over these breasts which had brought children into the world and were no longer firm and hard as young fruits but ripe and moving.

“I only want to know,” Niobe said, moaning as Aramache touched her, “when you are leaving me, and for where?”

“I came with Harmonia, and I am pledged to leave with her. If she leaves.”

“She is leaving, for Makadakan.”

“Makadakan?”

“I think. Do you think she can really be a queen.”

“Not as my cousin is a queen,” Aramache said, and this time she did sweep her heavy pink hair over her shoulder. “That is not possible. But if you mean is she strong and clever, and can she rule in her own way, make something new for herself, I believe she’s proved herself in the last nine months. She has even made herself battle ready.”

“I agree,” Niobe said. “I was not sure when she first came to us. And I honor your pledge to her.”

Aramache seemed to be thinking and Niobe said, “I am not a fool. I know you are pledged to serve Queen Xanthe, but what I am saying is I will go with you. If you will have me.”

When Aramache did not speak immediately, Niobe proudly said, “You do not have to have me—”

“No!” Aramache said, quickly. “It is only, no one has ever pledged themselves to me, and I was taking it in. Only men who have asked for my hand and bid me follow them, and I have never had interest in following a man. And now you, Amazon that you are, would follow me. How could I not be speechless? But of course. If you would have me, then I would gladly have you.”


THAT NIGHT, AFTER IASON poured the last ewer of water into the deep tub he asked, “How long before I come back, Master?”

Chiton opened his eyes, His blond hair was plastered dark to his head, and his usually pale skin was flushed.

“You shouldn’t come back at all,” he said, gently. “I feel when a man can’t wash his own ass he really is useless. You’ve done enough. Go to bed.”

“Will you be needing anything else?”

“Yes,” Chiton said, “but not tonight. Iason, can we talk to you? As two men? You have always been frank with me.”

The dark haired man rolled his tongue around in his unshaven jaw, thinking, then said, “Well, yes Master, mostly likely. And if I feel I should not answer, I will tell you that too.”

“Good,” Chiton nodded, sitting higher in the bath.

“You know that all through the city the families struggle for power. Now the Assembly is overpowered by the new Autarchs, and the great families are divided. No one knows who should control what. The old princess lives in the palace. The new one lives far away. How do you feel about our Autarch? About the way things are?”

Iason did not think very long about this. He said, “Master, begging your pardon, I am a slave. For us who controls what matters very little. The rich will always be rich and when and if I am no longer a slave, then I will be a poor tradesmen and work for the richest houses I can, and you all will fight with each other. To me and all other poor folk it will only matter who keeps wheat and wine and water in the city and who saves us from other enemies.”

“I see,” Chiton said. He began to scrub one long arm with the sponge.

“I am a fool,” Chiton said. “We all are, really, thinking that the people who serve us would be concerned about the same things we are when, truth to tell, we are so often unconcerned about them.”

“But there is this—” Iason said. “You have the power to make my life good or make it hard.”

“I—” Chiton frowned. “But you are my responsibility. You are my friend.”

“You see it that way because you are a kind and just man. It never would occur to you any other way. You can’t even imagine another way of being. You let me talk freely to you and don’t take advantage of me, and so I would never take advantage of you. But this is not the way of it with all masters. So, I am loyal to you whatever, because you are loyal to me. My fortunes are bound to you, and that’s a fact.”

Chiton frowned.

“I don’t deserve that. Really, I don’t. I only did as my father would have taught me. But, if you believe that, I have a letter beside me, and I want you to go in the morning and take this to my brother in Makadakan. Will you do that?”

“The Lord Marophon? Yes. He was always a just a fair man.”

“Thank, you Iason,” Chiton sank into the bath. “It is late now. Take your rest, and do not wear yourself out on your journey tomorrow.”

THAT'S ALL FOR THIS WEEK.....

 

[CharmedFan28]

Those were two well done portions! Sorry I didn’t get to the first one yesterday. So much going on! Family tensions and news and people travelling between places. You’ve given me a lot to contemplate. Great writing and I look forward to more next week!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Those were two well done portions! Sorry I didn’t get to the first one yesterday. So much going on! Family tensions and news and people travelling between places. You’ve given me a lot to contemplate. Great writing and I look forward to more next week!Well, I just hope you have

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I just hope you enjoyed reading. There secertainly wasa great deal going on. I think I missed that you didn't read. So it hardly matters. We can't do everything all the time.

 

[ChrisGibson]

The strong do what they will. The weak suffer what they must.

-Thucydides

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE STRONG

δύναμη​

That morning, as young Creon watched the two sedan chairs make their way into the courtyard, and the second lower slowly after the first, he murmured to his father, “I do not see why we have to go through this farce.”
“This farce,” Arcis said, “is the stuff of politics. This farce is playing the game.”
“I do not like playing games.”
“Perhaps if we had played more games,” Arcis told his son, “we would be the leading family in the city. Now make nice, and be respectful.”
Robed in white, a garland of flowers in her hair, the Lady Clio stepped from the first sedan, and she held her hand out as, dressed in the same, but with a gold circlet in place of flowers, came Alexandra Anaxion, younger daughter of Manaen.
Clio inclined her head to Arcis who inclined his to her and then, drawing Alexandra to Creon said, “At last we meet. Unfortunately my uncle and cousins cannot be here, so I am here to represent them.”
“How… unusual,” Arcis said.
Clio ignored this and said, “It is a joy to make the ties between my uncle’s family and your own ever stronger. We should let the young people speak, get to know each other.”
Clio bowed to her cousin, and motioned for Arcis to come with her.
“Lord Creon,” Clio heard Alexandra say as the two of them fell out of earshot.
“Lady Alexandra,” he retured, “my future wife and the newest coup your father is trying to pull, and from a distance at that.”
“This is no more a coup than any other marriage,” Alexandra said. “If it even happens.”
“So, if you were my wife, then what? My uncle is married to your sister so you would be my aunt?”
“Well, if you want to be stupid about it then yes,” Alexandra said, not even deigning to look at him. “I would be your wife, and my sister is hardly a sister to me. It would be just as Clio said, tightening the bonds of family, and you know bonds aren’t tight until people are related at least three different ways.”
Creon snorted at this and Alexandra said, “I’m not thrilled with you. I never have been. Out of the Cleomene, you certainly didn’t get the looks. Even your father, wicked and jealous as he is, is nice to look at once you get past the eyebrows. Your uncle. Really, both of your uncles! Quite something. But Maro’s such a fool.”
“You think so?”
“And you’re a fool for thinking you and your father will overtake him.”
“We are the leading family in the city no matter what Father thinks.”
“You’ve never been the leading family in the city,” Alexandra said, sitting down and untying her her dark hair so that it fell down her back. “There were, of old, fifty Sparti and fifty Agae families, and they are so twisted and untwisted and bred so many ways it hardly matters as much as you think. Every family in this city has Agae and Sparti blood. You all just have the name, and Cleomanes is not one of the original names. It is a Heraklid name. You ancestors married into the Agae you take so much pride in, but it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. What matters is we are here to make a marriage and cement some type of alliance if this is what you want.”
“So you can spy for your father, like Jocasta will?”
“You’re an idiot,” Alexandra said. “You’re an idiot with a nose like a rudder and slightly pockmarked skin, who is a little too thin but has made good choices with his hair by letting it grow out. Jocasta is for Jocasta. She is no spy whatever I think of her, and I… I cannot forgive how Manaen took me from Merope and her house, from my mother’s people.”
“Yes,” Creon said, “that was a bad business. And Merope dead.”
“Yes,” Alexandra’s voice changed.
“I heard you were in trouble with your family because you accidentally told your aunt about the Princess Terpsichore and almost endangered her life.”
“It was no accident, and I am not trusted by them.”
“One so tender, and so young,” Creon said.
“Don’t make me call you an idiot again.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen. Nearly fourteen. I can’t tell by your pockmarks your age? Maro is almost forty. Your father is… not quite. You are? “
“Twenty this winter. We will marry,” Creon said. “We’ll marry this winter. The whole city will see it, and not even understand what it is seeing, and we will not marry in your father’s house like my uncle did and tie ourselves to the Anaxionade. You will be my wife, married to me in this house, living in this house, a Cleomane in the truest since or not at all. What do you say to that?”
For the first time, Alexandra was looking directly at him. Dark of skin, creamy and golden like the women of Kemet, and damn those eyes! She was beautiful no matter what. He’d let her call him anything, but he couldn’t make out what she was thinking, and he had to admit, he enjoyed that.
All she said was, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”


Their bodies strained together. Mykon was not entirely sure he’d wanted this until now. Their mouths met hungrily, and his hands moved over the smooth compactness of his body, a body that was not entirely like Manaen’s. Ah, but if he had wanted Manaen, and he did, he could have him, so Eco’s similarity to Manaen was attractive, but so was his difference, the almond tilt of his eyes, the pink of his hair, even pink in this night, the scent of myrrh that clung to him. They strained against each other, quiet except for the small creaking of the bed, and unflexing feet and toes, clinging together, they both came. As Mykon felt the semen shooting out of him, he also felt the change in Philip’s body that said he was coming too. They clung through the silent climax, and then clung together when it was over, lying side by side, quietly rejoicing in the strength, the moistness, and the heat of their bodies.
I don’t even want to talk.
—We don’t have to, then.
Suddenly, in the dark, his hard cock still pumping the remnants of semen, Mykon opened his eyes.
“I didn’t speak,” he rasped. He’d always had a hard time speaking after sex.
“You didn’t need to,” Eco said. He smiled sleepily. “You probably never need to.”
“We spoke to each other… without speaking.”
“It can be done,” Eco said, more interesting in curling his thighs with Mykon’s, pressing his firm penis against Mykon’s soft buttocks.
Can you do it with everyone?
-No, We were just as close as two men can be. And there is magic in you. It is different from mine ,but it is there. So everything, all walls are down between us.

I was thinking of my father when I was with you. Thinking of how like him you are. Thinking of how different.
-Thinking of how you would like to sleep with him and me at the same time.

Yes.
-Because you are your father’s lover.

We love each other, yes.
-I think I knew that.

Does everyone?
-No. I think I knew it because I think nothing of it. Or rather I respect it. I want to be part of it. If you would let me.

We share everything. Everything important and special. We can both go to him.

Mykon said, “Aeon?”
-Yes.
He is handsome and… I love him. I have never met him, but when I kept seeing him, long, tall, a bit like Maro’s younger brother—except for this fantastic green hair—I was filled with so much love for him. I felt like, while we were making love I was seeing other things, seeing your past, seeing where you had been seeing how you love him.

-I love him the way you love Manaen, and I have been separated from him for some time.

“Well then you should stay here,” Mykon said. “Stay with me.”
“Stay?”
“Yes,” Mykon told Eco. “He’s on his way.”


“You are as marvelous a lover as your son said you would be,” Autolykus declared, leaning across the bed in satisfaction.
Across the room, Phocis stood naked in the lamplight, her hair down her back, her breasts heavy and full, and cocking her head she smiled and said, “I don’t imagine for a moment Manaen ever said I was a marvelous lover.”
“He said you were a woman and had needs and desires like any other woman,” Xian said, crawling from the covers to lean against Autolykus, running her fingers along his stomach, “and yet,” Xian bit her lip, “your needs exceed those of any woman I’ve ever known.”
“Well,” Phocis said as she she pulled on her white shift. and sat on the side of the bed, “Manaen was always the most pragmatic of my sons.”
“Lady, you had another?” Xian said.
Autolykus opened his mouth, but Phocis said, “It was another life. I was a wife, another kind of woman. After the Battle of the Seven Gates my husband came into the city in chains and my son’s corpse came on a shield. Even though he’d died fighting on the wrong side he was still considered a hero, one who honored the city by honoring his father. I was treated with some measure of honor for that. And then I stood with Antha and Manaen, and we watched in the agora as their father’s head was chopped off and put on a pike.” Phocis laughed. “Now that does take the shine off of being a war widow.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Lots going on as the families battle for power and try to forge alliances by marriage. That session of sex and talk at the end was very interesting too! Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I just hope you enjoyed reading. There secertainly wasa great deal going on. I think I missed that you didn't read. So it hardly matters. We can't do everything all the time.

I enjoyed the fact that Manaen's mother has a thriving and slightly scandalous sex life.!

 

[ChrisGibson]

MANAEN AND aNTHA HAVE A MOMENT OF REFLECTION. MEANWHILE, IN THEBES, CHITON REMEMBERS HIS WIFE AND PROCRIS, GIVES HIM COMFORT. NEW INTRIGUES BOIL


In the night, Antha found him standing on the sandy hill over the beach, the wind flapping the cape he wrapped about himself.
“Sister,” Manaen greeted her, brushing the hair from her face as the wind whipped it.
“Is it nearly time to go home?”
“It’s nearly time for all of us to go home. I do not trust the city without us.”
“Clio is there.”
“But she cannot do everything on her own.”
“How do you think the engagement with Creon went?”
Manaen cleared his throat, “I think I should have been there.”
“How badly could it have gone?”
“Oh, I think it went well,” Manaen said, sitting down and patting the sand down so his sister could do so too. He took her hand and said, “Easy, old girl.”
“You’re the old girl,” she swatted him, laughing.
“I think Creon and Alexandra are getting on like a house on fire. He’s a resentful pockmarked twit—”
“With good hair and nice eyes.”
“True. And she is just waiting to push a dagger into my back.”
“Do you ever think you do Alexandra an injustice?”
“No,” Manaen said, “save the injustice of leaving her in Merope’s care. I should have brought her to my house the moment her mother died.”
“Ianthe!” Antha sighed.
“Yes,” Manaen agreed. “But I was so grieved by the passing of Phoebe I thought that I would never love any woman so I might as well marry… any woman.”
“She never did anything so courteous as to die.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say,” Manaen turned to his sister.
Antha snorted, and then, chuckling, she said, “I know.”
Manaen stared at her and she said, “Stop trying to hold a straight face. You never could.”
While they tried to stifle laughter on the beach, Antha said, “What would Father say? What what Aiax say, “If they could see us? Do you ever think of that.”
Manaen sighed and leaned over his knees, crossing his arms over them.
“No,” he admitted. “And I don’t think I ever shall.”



“Why doesn’t Nestor ever make me feel like this,” Procris purred as she ran her hand over Chiton’s side.
“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his finger almost playfully, “I thought we wouldn’t discuss your husband when I was in your bed.”
Procris lay on her back and stretched, moaning, and Chiton told her, “Actually, I don’t really care. Discuss what you wish.”
“Discuss why you don’t take another wife.”
“It doesn’t suit me.”
“Nonsense,” Procris said, sitting up in bed and taking the pomegranate that was already open. She pulled it apart and handed the red fruit to Chiton.
“When you were married to Daphne, you were more happy than anyone. Save my brother and Clio. She and Lysander are remarkably, sickeningly happy.”
“Yes, they are,” the blond young man said, “and I don’t know why every time we’re together you choose to bring up painful things.”
“Because sex is like a wound,” Procris said as she ripped apart the pomegranate. “You don’t come to me to escape. You come to feel more than you’ve ever felt before. That’s why we keep sleeping together, why I’m thrilled when you come. You aren’t like other men. You want everything. And you tend to give everything too. Better be careful or you won’t have anything left.”
“When you talk about Daphne it makes me unbearably sad,” Chiton said. “And I am usually known for being happy.”
“You should be unbearably sad,” Procris said. “It’s a testament to how incredibly happy she was, what a wonderful woman she was. How wonderful you were together.”
Chiton straightened, sitting up in bed and looking away from Procris.
“Chiton,” she said, tenderly. Then she said, “I should have shut my stupid mouth is what I should have done.”
“No, no, it’s good,” Chiton said, though he said it breathlessly. “Being with you is always good. I don’t need the mindless, feelingless walk in, walk out fucking. Who needs that? And I don’t need not to feel. It is good to feel,” he said, almost fiercely, his fist clenching. “It is good to feel. And… maybe I like to punish myself.”
“Punish your…”
“Nevermind.”
“I won’t then.” Procris said. Then, “Chiton, whatever we are, you know that we are friends.”
“Of course,” he turned to her, his hair a ragged fringe over his face.
“You are the best man I know—”
“You should know better men.”
“Shut up and listen, because I’m not entirely sure what to do with this. My husband Nestor, and your brother—”
“Arcis?”
“Of course Arcis. They have loose lips when wine pours, and they have a plan, and I was hoping you could help me.”
“Tell me about it,” Chiton said, “and I will do what I can.”





Chiton loved Procris. He was not in love with her. She was not the love of his life, but there were many kinds of love and all true love was a healing love. Only a couple of times had he been able to stay the night, evenings when they knew Nestor would be whoring all night, or when Clio or her sister covered for them. Tonight he needed so desperately to be with her, or any woman who would love him all night, take the pain, the loneliness and the sorrow that took him by surprise now and again. He clenched his fists for the loneliness as he walked home. If only those who hailed him as a hero could see him now, desperate, sad and hard as a teenager, wanting not just to fuck, but to place himself deep inside of something, someone who would hold him and drain this awful pain. Twice he had turned away from the whorehouse. He envied the men that went to fuck for pleasure. He went to those places in desperation, and left ashamed that he’d left some woman or some boy with all of his sadness, paid them to put up with his pain. He felt dirty for it, and he was at that place where he was weighing if feeling dirty in the morning was worth the price of relieving his distress tonight.

Here was the old herm before the Clelanide household, the squared stone pillar like a horse post belonging to the god of boundaries, and this herm did not possess the youthful face and body of Hermes, the messenger son of Zeon, but the bearded ugly old face from an older time. The Wandering God who wandered, finding the sorrows of men.

“You understand me,” Chiton said, his hand still on the stone head, not petting him, but holding to the god for some energy.

“It is good to feel. And… maybe I like to punish myself.”

“Punish your…”

“Nevermind.”

Punish myself for still living. Punish myself for being the shit father I am to our children. Punish myself for every time I make love, and it isn’t to you.

“Think!” Chiton said outloud. “Think! Think! Think!”

My pain is not what matters.

No, his glorious self pity didn’t matter. He needed to clear his head. Action needed to be taken. It should be taken as soon as possible, but he couldn’t do it tonight. He’d have to hope nothing happened before tomorrow. He’d have to get past this pity and pain. He was there, before the open door and the laughter, the drinking of the tavern below, the promise of whores above. He straightened his back. This pain and pity was bullshit. His coin was good, and frankly he was the best looking man they would see tonight, the only one who would treat them courteously, and fuck it if he wept a little, if he passed out drunk and naked and, possibly to their relief, did so before he even got inside of them. He slapped his thigh and took a breath that was, if not refreshing, at least bracing.

He could feel like shit in the morning.




“Who’s there?” Terpsichore shot out of bed, her sword drawn.

“Princess!” a voice hissed, and Terpsichore moved to light a lamp.

“Chiton?” she said after a moment. “Marophon’s brother?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Why do you have a dagger, and why is there blood on it?”

How calm she is, Chiton marveled. But he said, “Because I have had to kill a man. I had to get to you.”

“You are an ally of Manaen,” she said, cautiously.

“Yes, and we have to go to Makadakan. You must gather what you need as soon as possible. There is a plot to kill you. I cannot prove it, and if you scream then I am a dead man.”

“No,” Terpsichore said, laying her sword down. “I know this city well. The Assembly has not been easy with me living in this palace, and I feel more like a prisoner than anything else. We have been at a stalemate.”

As Terpsichore went though her wardrobe, she said, “Before they left, Pyramus came to me and asked me to go with them, but I said no. I said I should remain to remind them there was a princess. But I am not the Princess anymore. That is Harmonia, and she is not here. Things have to change, and if fleeing is part of that change, well then.”

When she had come out of the wardrobe, she was in the thick warn brown cloak she had ridden across Attika in, and she had—Chiton wondered how—a peasant’s gown.

“This is all I need. The less clothing the better. Is food ready?”

“Yes,” Chiton said.

“Now,” Terpischore murmured, as she moved over the bed, “if we can just form these pillows so it looks like I am here. And draw the curtains. I wish I could a leave message with the maids. Tell them not to disturb me for the next few days. Tell them…. Well…”

“Lady, I have already arranged to give us a day. It will be put about that you are not well. No one will look for you until tomorrow and no one will look for me at all.”

When they left the room, Terpsichore was surprised to see Cyron, looking nervous, standing outside the anteroom.

“Your Grace, I’ve already seen to food and horses.”

“Cyron?” she said, And then, “Thank you.”

Chiton embraced Cyron, and said, “Thank you, old friend.”

As the two men clasped each other, the older parted from the younger and said, “Do not come back here until you know you are safe.”

Terpsichore, straightening her back, declared, “We will not come back here until this Assembly is crushed and my brother’s daughter rules Thebes in truth.”




MORE TO COME