Chapter Seventeen
Despite the wound, which was not as deep as the blood had initially led me to believe, the joy of that moment stayed with me for days afterward.
And when I returned home, I gave the greatest offering I could spare to Cybele, thanking her for the gift of nature.
The bruise from Erebus’s bite was twice the size of any Morsimus had ever given me, yet this one I did not cover while I worked.
I wore it as a badge of pride, a visible sign of my accomplishment.
And though I earned myself a reputation for recklessness, from that day on, Aina would not leave my side.
By the next morning, however, I had genuine worries.
I knew something was amiss the moment I reached the road that led to Phile’s.
The same cluster of women met at the corner each morning, waiting until we were all gathered to leave for the tannery.
Some days, I would be among the first to arrive, but no matter when I walked onto that dusty road, Eleni was always there before me. Only that day, she was not.
“Perhaps she’s sick,” Thalassa suggested. “Perhaps one of us should go see.”
None of us offered. None of us wished to trespass on a man’s home, no matter how well we knew the woman who lived within.
We waited until the sun was up and we could wait no longer.
We decided to head to the tannery, tell Phile, and hope she would send one of the elderly men who worked in her home to inquire after Eleni.
Yet as we readied ourselves to leave, a silhouette appeared behind us.
“She is limping,” someone said.
Limping seemed too weak a term for what Eleni was doing.
Her back leg dragged behind her as she struggled, resting her weight on the walls where possible, gritting her teeth in pain when it was not.
Damaris and I rushed to her aid. When we reached her, we covered our mouths in shock.
Eleni’s eyes were bloodshot and her skin was ashen, though mostly it was obscured by blooming bruises and dried blood.
“I did not expect you to wait.” Her voice was watery, strained, the timbre of one who had spent several hours crying. Or screaming. “You should have gone on ahead. I could never forgive myself if Phile docks your wages because of me.”
“Phile has never docked a wage in her life.” Althea confirmed what I already suspected as she placed a hand on Eleni’s shoulder. “Come. We will go to Phile. You cannot work like this.”
“I would prefer to be with you,” Eleni replied.
It was two of the older women who helped guide her, shooing the rest of us away when we tried to help. When we reached the gates of the compound, Phile was there, waiting.
“Come, child. You are not to work today.”
Tears broke in Eleni’s voice. “I will be fine. Please, let me work. Let me earn my wages. Let me work.”
“This is not a punishment, my daughter. You will be paid. You can rest. Please.”
Sobbing, Eleni nodded. Wordlessly, Phile swept her up in her arms. When she had taken several steps toward her house, she turned back and looked at us.
“She will be fine. The rest of you get to work. The skins will not tan themselves.”
It was later, standing with Althea at a soaking pit, that I learned more of Eleni’s situation.
“She is his second wife. The first one died of a wandering womb. That is what Eleni told us anyway, though few believe it.”
Wandering womb. The general term given to any affliction suffered by a woman that could not be seen by a physician.
Any illness that might cause a woman to weep from an invisible pain.
Any act of defiance against a husband or spoken desire to better oneself.
Any emotion that a man did not consider fitting. All were blamed on this “hysteria.”
“You believe he beat her to death?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“That or she chose an eternity with Hades over another day with that tyrant.”
I could not respond. I despised Morsimus and being his wife, but I had never considered such an act. My heart ached as I tried to imagine how alone one would have to feel to believe there was no other choice.
“I was told you are a widow?” I asked, needing to steer the conversation away from Eleni, though I immediately feared that I had fallen upon an equally tender subject.
Rather than blinking away tears of grief, however, Althea nodded and smiled. “Some two years back. Though sometimes I still wake in the night, certain I can hear his footsteps.”
“How did it happen?” I asked. My childlike curiosity bordered on rudeness, yet once again, Althea only smiled. “I am sorry. You do not need to tell me.”
“I have no concerns about you knowing,” she said. “All the women here do. My husband was bad-natured when sober and vile when drunk, the type of man who would pick fights with anything that moved. It is possible that he picked a fight with the wrong person that night.”
“Possible?” The comment was peculiar. What was she implying?
“He was found face down with a wound at the front of his head. It could have come from being struck, or he could have easily tripped and fallen. I will never know for sure.”
“But you have a suspicion?”
Althea’s gaze darted around. We were the only two women at the soaking pit that day, and the others in the tannery were immersed in their own quiet gossip. Still, Althea lowered her voice.
“Three days before my husband’s death, he had beaten me. It was not the first time—we all know what our men are like—but this time was particularly brutal. He had tied my hands…and…and defiled me. You may think me strange to say such a thing. He was my husband.”
I shook my head, hoping the action could convey my sincerity. “I do not think that at all. Believe me. I understand.”
Althea paused, distant for a moment. “He broke me that day,” she said. “I would not have thought it possible, but he broke me. He had crushed my throat so tightly with his hands…” Her body shuddered as she grimaced.
In my mind, I saw Althea’s bright green eyes, filled with pain.
“So his death?” I asked, not merely to return to the crux of her story but also to push aside the images.
“As I said, it happened three days after that.”
I took a step closer, stirring the skins at my feet. “Why do you think it was not an accident?”
Again, her eyes flickered. “I could be wrong. I could have misunderstood. But Hirtus does not usually drink at the tavern with the men.”
“Because he was a slave. Is a slave?” I was no longer sure what Hirtus’s status was. Though the man was occasionally discussed in the compound, it was always with reverence, and he was always referred to as Phile’s husband.
“You can pick your reason why the men dislike him,” Althea replied.
“His skill as a huntsman. His height and the color of his skin. His living arrangements with Phile. The fact that he and Phile are responsible for all their wives’ wages and, by extension, theirs as well.
When Hirtus is not hunting, he keeps himself to the house, except on the rare instances he comes here. ”
Rare indeed, I thought, for I had barely seen him.
“That night, he was seen in the town. He drank in the tavern no less. He left before my husband, and no one saw anything. But still, it is a great coincidence, is it not?”
As she paused, I pieced together a picture of that night in my mind.
I suspected a man of Hirtus’s size could hold far more wine than most. But would he do such a thing?
Phile wanted them to be together in Elysium, and an act of murder would prevent Hirtus from joining her there.
Then again, what hero hadn’t slain a monster?
“If any of the men thought Hirtus was responsible, surely they would have done something?” I said. “Had him tried for his crime?”
“And then what of their wives? And their livelihoods?” Althea replied. “What of their drinking money? No, they would not be so foolish. But I will tell you something else—for nearly a full moon, not one woman in the whole of Ninniya was beaten.”
I was still considering this last statement when the gates to the courtyard were pushed open. The dogs that had been lazily basking in the sun jumped up and raced to the entrance, wagging their tails. There, in all his glory, was the man we had been talking about. Hirtus, their master and ours.