The Women of Artemis

Chapter One

The day the debt collectors came, I had started my morning early, pruning the mint leaves and lemon balm in the courtyard with Melitta, the oldest of our servants.

We were waiting for rain. For days, the air had smelled thick with the promise of thunder, yet it continued to evade us.

Instead, a dense humidity slowed every person in Prousa.

I kept to the shadows of the house or to the portico and the courtyard, where breezes could billow through from outside regardless of the weather.

Here, vines climbed up the pillars while light shone through the open roof and across the frescoes painted on the white stone walls.

Of all the paintings that adorned that house, my favorite was one of Apollo.

The god lay in the long grass, a lyre in his hands, while nymphs and mortals gazed up at him in adoration.

Some days, if I studied the image closely enough, I could almost hear the melody as it rose from his strings.

I could allow myself to believe I was in the presence of an almighty god, the beauty of his music flowing over me.

In such moments, I was as close to peace as I ever came in that house.

“I will go to the agora myself, mistress,” Melitta said as she added sprigs of rosemary to our collection. “That kitchen girl is useless. She still lets them charge her far too much.”

“Thank you.”

Melitta was older than my mother, and her confidence when addressing me likely came from her long years serving the family.

She had served Morsimus’s mother, Eriopis, who had since passed, but Melitta continued her service to me.

She had taken me under her wing when I had first arrived as a new bride, showing me the ways of the house.

“Perhaps I will come with you,” I replied. “Morsimus has not yet returned from last night’s festivities.”

“Gambling” was what I really meant, but there was no need to say it. Having lived here since before Morsimus’s birth, Melitta knew my husband better than I did. Her opinion of him was not a favorable one.

As the words left my lips, however, I cursed myself for saying his name aloud, for it was as if the gods had heard and laughed. For that was when the hammering began.

“He cannot open the door.” Melitta’s muttering echoed my own thoughts. It was not the first time this had happened. There were bolts on both the top and bottom of the door, and how easily Morsimus could handle them in any given moment was a solid indication of how much he had drunk.

“You cannot do this. This is my home! This is my home!” His voice rose to a shriek that sent a ripple of fear through me. “This is an outrage!”

No matter how many beatings I had received, I had not grown numb to their effects.

The anger in his voice sent my pulse soaring.

At times, merely the creak of that wooden door was enough to have me seeking a safe place.

I would often flee to the kitchen where our servants gathered, as Morsimus liked to keep his beatings private.

I had already learned my husband could not be appeased when in such a state.

An offering of wine only made the beating come faster, while offering him my body made him call me a useless, barren whore.

This time, however, was different. Morsimus was not shouting at me but at someone else.

“Mistress, come. We should head to the gynaeceum.”

I heard Melitta’s words, but I did not move.

The women’s room was no sanctuary for me.

If Morsimus wanted to hunt me down, little things like tradition and etiquette would not stop him.

He would drag me from that room by my hair or beat me where I stood.

So I remained rooted to the spot, dreading hearing my name on his lips and wondering how close he would come to breaking my bones this time.

It was not my husband’s voice that sounded next.

“We will return at sunset,” said a deep and resonant male voice.

“Please, no,” came my husband’s response.

“You will be gone by then.”

The door slammed shut, and I waited, breath held, muscles tensed.

“Mistress, please.” Melitta begged me to seek safety.

“You go,” I said, handing her the bunch of herbs.

“Go. I will seek you out afterward.” After the beating.

Those were the words I didn’t say. I would seek her out to apply salt water to my wounds.

To rub mallow into my broken skin and crushed flowers of sideritis to the areas that would bruise most deeply. “Please, Melitta. Go.”

The old woman’s eyes glazed with tears as she nodded once, then darted out between the pillars of the courtyard, only a second before Morsimus appeared.

My husband was a bulbous man. His skin was pitted and blotched red from years of drink, his belly rounded, and dark chest hair protruded from the top of his robe.

Had a stranger passed us in a street, they would have assumed him to be my father, yet he was less than a decade older than me.

Usually, my gaze went to his hands; would they be already balled to fists or flexing repeatedly as though to discharge the energy his fingers contained?

But this time, my eyes lingered on his face.

A bright purple bruise was blooming across his cheek and jawbone, while blood trickled from a thin split above his eyebrow.

This was not the first time Morsimus had come home battered, but on prior occasions, he had retreated to his room, declaring that he was not to be disturbed other than for meals and reappearing only once the swelling had subsided and his bruises yellowed.

I would thank the gods and goddesses for the reprieve during such days, even though tension filled my every move and I prayed that his recovery would be slow.

Never before had he come directly to me in such a state. For once, his fingers did not flex nor his hands ball into fists, yet still the chill of the impending beating held me rigid.

Rather than hitting me, however, Morsimus spoke.

“We are to leave today,” he said.

I studied my husband’s face, absorbed by that single trickle of blood that meandered downward and into his eye. I wondered how he could not wipe it away. Were his wounds so bad that he could not feel it? Or did he simply not care?

“Did you not hear me, Otrera? I said we are to leave. Now.”

That was when his hand clenched, and I shook myself back into the moment. I did not ask why we had to leave. I knew. He had gambled away all our money. He was in trouble.

“Where are we to go? Should I tell the servants? They can begin to pack for us,” I said.

“The servants are gone too. They are taking it all.”

I stepped back, unable to steady the flow of air into my lungs.

He had lost the servants. I could barely hold the thought in my head for what it meant next.

As his wife, I was also his property, no different from the men and women he had just discarded without a second thought. What was to be my fate?

“Stop standing, and get moving,” he spat. “We need to be gone before sunset.”