Chapter Twenty
The sunset had set the hill alight with amber, though I could barely lift my head to look at it. Morsimus charged ahead of me while I dragged myself forward. Each breath felt like splinters in my throat.
“Morsimus, no! Phile! Please, stop. Please stop!”
I do not know where I found the strength to continue, but I scrambled toward the tannery. The dogs were barking loudly, yet Morsimus was not deterred.
Let Hirtus answer, I prayed. Let Hirtus answer. Phile employed others, but they were old and weak. Only Hirtus’s presence could stop him. With a sickening dread, I recalled what the hunter had said about travel plans. He might have left as soon as we departed the tannery.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I stumbled on, offering prayers to every god there was. I did not discriminate. From Athena to Ares, Cybele and Attis, and even the great god Zeus—I needed only one to hear and answer me.
“You have been stealing from my wife!”
I heard Morsimus’s voice and the hammering of his fist on Phile’s gate, and I hastened my pace.
“Morsimus, do not do this,” I screamed despite the agony it caused me.
“Phile is a good woman. I will get you more money.” I was on my hands and knees by the time I reached him and the gate was creaking open.
“Please. I am sure there has just been a misunderstanding. Maybe she did not realize she paid me less.”
Morsimus turned to face me, offering only a growl in response.
This was not his normal anger; this was darker still, fueled by the shame he felt.
Shame I had caused. If anything were to happen to Phile, it would be because of me.
As the door opened, my last dregs of hope faded; Phile stood before us.
“Morsimus, please, let us return home. I will come tomorrow to Phile. We can talk then, can we not?” I pleaded with my eyes and voice and every other part of me. “Maybe I can earn more money another way? I will do that for you. For us, Morsimus. Please.”
I yanked on his arm, but I had no strength, and he remained fixed to the ground, his gaze locked on Phile. For the first time since we had arrived at her home, she spoke.
“You are Morsimus, husband of Otrera, are you not?”
He balked at the insult. A man’s name was given with his father’s, especially one as respected as Morsimus’s. Never would he be described as belonging to his wife.
“You are a whore.” He spat at her, flecks of saliva flying through the air, though Phile paid them no mind. Her relaxed stance remained exactly the same. Totally at ease.
“Not a whore, no. Come in. Perhaps you would like another cup of wine. I see you have already had plenty.”
“I would not drink your wine, whore. Give me my coins.”
She arched an eyebrow and created such a silence that even the cicadas could not penetrate it.
“I have invited you into my home. Offered you drink. I wonder, are you so foolish that you would risk the wrath of the gods by insulting and attacking me here?”
“I will not ask you again,” Morsimus growled.
Phile took a step toward him.
“You have earned no coins from me. Your wife is the one who keeps your cup full. You might do well to remember that before you next lay a hand on her.” Her eyes flitted quickly to me.
“I pay my workers fairly. If you have an issue with that, then I suggest your wife find employment elsewhere. Though I can tell you, even the women in the porneia would struggle to earn as much as you wish to drink.”
“You are a fucking whore.”
He lunged forward, but then Hirtus stepped out from the shadows, casting a silhouette that was twice his already-magnificent height.
Morsimus stopped, stunned, as was I. This was not the former slave who came to the tannery to teach the women to fire arrows.
This was not the man who had greeted me the first time I came here and drunk cups of wine on the couch.
No. This man wore just a scrap of leather around his waist and held a dagger in his hand.
This was a hunter, a hero, a magnificence.
He stepped forward, his teeth bared, though he did not utter a single word but made a guttural growl.
“He does not take kindly to men who insult me.”
Phile spoke with the same calm tone she had used since Morsimus had first hammered on her gate, as if she did not have a hint of fear within her. Perhaps it was Hirtus’s presence that allowed her such a luxury, though I could not believe it was that alone.
Morsimus’s hands clenched at his side as he frothed. How I longed for him to go for Hirtus in that moment. For him to be thrown aside like a rag toy. Yes, that was what I wanted, but while my husband was a foolish drunk, even he could tell such an act would not end well for him.
“She needs a proper wage,” he hissed again, though Phile barely blinked.
“She has a proper wage. Go home, Morsimus. Sleep off this drink.”
“I will not have a woman order me around.”
At this, Phile stepped forward.
“Yes. Yes, you will. Look around you, Morsimus. Every single home in this village keeps oil in their lamps and food in their bellies because of my tannery. Every single man owes his life to the job I give his wife. Jobs I can rescind as quickly as the wind changes. You come at me, and every one of them will come at you. You have no allies in this place, Morsimus. No allies at all, I suspect. Now go home. I will not tell you again. You have broken xenia enough that the gods would forgive any action I might take from this point forward.”
I had never seen anything like it before in all my life.
Power radiated from this woman, and not because of her strength or money but because, as she said, of her community.
As far as I was concerned, this woman deserved her place in Elysium a hundred times over.
Yet it was the words she spoke when Morsimus grabbed my wrist and twisted me back around that confirmed her place among the heroes.
“I would drop Otrera’s hand now, Morsimus. You risk bruising it, and she can’t work injured. Remember that. One more bruise on her body, and I may not have employment for her in the morning.”