Chapter Thirty-One
Another advantage of those winter months was that Melitta had time to work on my gift.
“This will not work,” she said when I told her my plans for the leather scraps. “Some of these pieces are so thick I will break a dozen needles trying to make this creation of yours.”
“Then I will buy a dozen needles. I do not need to know how difficult it will be. I need to know if you can do it. If your sewing skills are not up to it, I will ask around the village and see if there is a seamstress proficient enough to manage the task.”
Melitta understood I was goading her, yet it worked as I had hoped. She straightened her shoulders.
“What about size? How big am I supposed to make these?”
“She is a child, but make them on the large side. If they are too big, we can tighten them with a string. If they are too small, we will have to tear out some of your stitches. And considering how difficult you have told me this will be, I would hate to do that.”
Despite her protests, I believe Melitta was pleased to have the task.
There was little to do in the cold months; the dust did not blow so frequently into the house, and my clothes were less dirty now that I was not at the tannery.
So once she had made food, Melitta would retreat to the back room, cutting and stitching the leather, snapping many a needle as she went.
Aina’s gift was ready well before the snow began to melt, yet I held on to it.
I knew exactly when I would give it to her—the one day we celebrated in the cold, where we sang and danced and offered all our praises to one god.
One god to whom the men in particular owed their greatest sacrifices: Dionysus. The god of wine.
The day before the Dionysia, clear skies covered the grass with frost that crunched beneath our feet, while the air was rich with the aroma of freshly baked bread and slow-cooked meats.
“Even with the pyre, it will be cold,” Morsimus said to me as we prepared for the feast. “We will need to wear our furs. I assume you have sufficient.”
His comment caught me by surprise, for despite living in the same home, we barely exchanged two words these days. My purpose, I had discovered, was to be invisible to him, a task at which I proved to be exceptionally talented.
“Yes, yes, I believe so.”
“Good,” he said. With that, our conversation ended.
Once outside, a surge of confusion ran through me.
The village was alive with song and laughter.
Lamps, candles, and a pyre burned so brightly that the dancing flames lit the world almost as fiercely as Helios’s sun.
Several boys had drums and were beating rhythms to which the younger women danced and laughed.
It was a festival indeed, and had it not been for the memory of bruises that mottled my back and thighs, I could have believed that this was how the gods intended us to live.
We had barely reached the well when Thalassa saw me coming and raced toward me.
“Otrera, come join us.” Behind Thalassa, her husband, Xanthus, stood watching.
It was the first time I had seen him up close.
Despite the long scar that puckered the skin from the corner of his mouth to his ear, he was a beautiful man, broad and tall, with narrow, piercing eyes.
They were a striking pair. Damaris had called Thalassa “besotted” with her husband, but I recalled the way she had struggled to hold a fleshing knife the week before it got too cold to work, for Xanthus had squeezed her hands so tightly her knuckles no longer formed a straight line.
“Thank you,” I said. “I would love to join you, though there is someone I must find first.” My gratitude for the offer was genuine, and I hoped she would not take my words as a slight. I could wait no longer. I needed to find Aina. “Later?”
“Of course. Yes. Later.”
“I will fetch us wine,” Morsimus said, having spotted Kallista with her amphorae, generously filling cups to near overflowing. He did not wait for me to respond before he marched away.
“Come,” I said to Melitta. “This is your doing. I wish you to see Aina’s face.”
* * *
I found Aina standing with her mother and a young man.
“Otrera!” She bolted toward me and took me by the hand. “Come, you must meet Ereas, my brother. I have told him so much about you.”
She did not even notice the package in my hand as she dragged me away. There was no mistaking Ereas, for he was a reflection of Aina. He had the same dark hair, the same light freckles, the same bright smile.
“So you are Otrera,” he said. “My sister has spoken of no one else all winter.”
In the manner that only siblings can do, Aina promptly thumped her brother on the shoulder.
“I have not,” she scoffed, but from the smile Althea offered me, I suspected Ereas spoke the truth.
With the strike on her brother landed, Aina turned back to me.
Her cheeks had been pinched pink by the cold, making her smile all the more luminous.
“I cannot wait for spring. Mother will not let me walk to the horses when the weather is like this, even though they do not travel too far south. Four days at most.”
“You would camp that long in this weather just to see Myrina?” I asked.
“I would sleep in this weather every night if I got to be with her.”
I did not doubt that, and as she had already brought up the horses, it seemed an appropriate time to offer her my gift. I held out my small parcel to her.
“A gift,” I said. “For the Dionysia.”
“For me?” Her eyes widened.
“There is no one else I believe could make use of such a thing.”
A deep flutter of anticipation and excitement filled me as I waited for her to pull away the thin cloth wrapping.
“What is this?” Aina asked as she unfolded the garment.
It was, without doubt, the greatest example of Melitta’s skill that I had ever seen.
She had matched the leather scraps in color the best she could so that rather than looking like a mismatched patchwork, the bifurcated garment appeared to fade in gradient, while the hems were so smooth and straight it was near impossible to believe that an old woman with fading eyes and weakening hands could have produced such an item.
“They will hopefully protect your legs from the sores you get riding,” I said.
“They are for riding.” Her jaw hung open as she turned the fabric over and over in her hands.
“I had Melitta make them for you,” I said. “If you wear them under your robe, it should save your skin from abrasion. The Persians call them anaxyrides.”
Aina’s response was immediate, and she turned to Iphinone, her hands clasped in prayer.
“Mother, please, can I go and find Myrina now?” she said. “Please. They are perfect. I will be able to ride longer than ever before.”
The warm glow of the pyre caused Iphinone’s smile to burn all the brighter as she reached out and took the anaxyrides from Aina to inspect. “Spring is on its way. You can wait until then. But for now, I think there is something you have forgotten to say, is there not?”
With a flush of embarrassment, Aina turned back to me and squeezed me so tightly she nearly stole my breath.
“Thank you, Otrera. Thank you, thank you.”
Once I had been released, she turned to Melitta.
“Thank you, Melitta,” she said and embraced the old woman almost as tightly.
I was about to suggest that Aina check whether the garment fit so Melitta could address any alterations swiftly when a voice stole my attention.
“Ereas? We are waiting for you. It is time for the plays to begin.”
I turned to find a young man watching our group. A light beard graced his chin, and even in the firelight, his eyes shone such a vibrant blue I found myself dumbstruck. I had stepped forward, compelled to ask for his name and introduce myself, when Ereas turned back to me.
“I should go. Otrera, I’m honored to meet you after all my sister’s swooning. I do hope you enjoy the plays.”