Chapter Thirty-Seven
Melitta was scrubbing a pot with sand in the kitchen when I returned home. Morsimus had taken his coin and headed to the tavern, so she and I were alone. Wordlessly, I took the pot, then her hands, and twisted her around to face me. Confusion clouded her expression.
“Mistress, what is it?”
“Melitta, something will happen tonight,” I said, keeping my words as vague as I could. “Something I believe the gods support.”
“Mistress?”
“Stay in the room. Do not come out. Whatever you hear, do not come out. Do you understand?”
Melitta’s face paled. Her eyes locked momentarily on mine before they traveled down my arm to where the bow sat loose in my grip, as natural as if it were part of me.
“Mistress?” I heard the fear in that single word.
“When tonight is over, you will be a free woman.”
“A free woman?” The words were not spoken with the same sense of elation that I had expected. “Free? Where would I go?”
“That is your choice. There will be nothing to hold you back.”
“But could I stay with you?”
Her words tugged at my heart more than I could have imagined.
“Always,” I replied before I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “I will always have a place for you in my home.”
She nodded, then looked past me to the doorway.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
“Now?” I said. “Now we wait.”
The hours passed slowly. I sent Melitta to her room after finishing our supper, then took a seat in the hallway with my bow beside me.
I did not know which women had taken the hemlock wine or who planned to use knives on their husbands while they slept.
My mind twisted constantly as I waited for Morsimus.
“Mistress?” Several hours had passed since I had told Melitta to retire to her room, yet there she stood at the end of the hall. “I am sorry that it has come to this, mistress. You are so young.”
“I do not feel young. I feel tired and old,” I said honestly. “Tired of the hurt. Of the pain. Of the loss.”
Melitta came and took a seat beside me, and not for the first time. I wondered how old she truly was or if she even knew. Was it the weight of age that had curved her spine and creased her skin or the weight of life?
“Perhaps if you do this, you will find your youth again,” she said before we fell into silence.
That was how we sat, side by side, not so much as a whisper passing between us, yet it brought me comfort. For a while at least.
“Is it best just to sit and wait?” Melitta said quietly some hours later.
Her thoughts echoed my own. Some nights, Eos’s painted dawn was making way for Helios’s chariot before Morsimus finally stumbled through the door.
Would I be able to stay awake until that hour?
And how accurate would my aim be when I was groggy from lack of sleep?
Yet I could not close my eyes. Not until Morsimus had an arrow through his heart.
A heaviness was seeping into my bones when a single owl’s hoot caused me to straighten in my seat. Even before I heard the footsteps on the ground, I knew something was amiss.
“Is that him?” Melitta’s confusion matched my own.
The crunch on the stone path was fast-paced and purposeful, not the sloppy strides of a single staggering drunk. By instinct, I reached for my bow.
“Go back into the chamber, Melitta. This is not your fight.”
“I am staying with you.”
I could not argue with her, not because I did not want to but because I was listening.
It was not one man who had come to my house that night.
It was many. These were men with whom Morsimus drank most frequently.
Lycurgus was among them, as was Chrysothea’s husband.
But never had another set foot in our home before now, which meant only one thing. They knew.
“There is nowhere to run, whore,” Morsimus shouted out into the night. “We know what you have planned.”
It was as if I became cloaked in a shadow of dread as I stood there, his words reverberating through my very breastbone.
“Let us see if you’re as brave as you claim to be. Will you hide in there like a coward, or will you come out and let these men bear witness as I kill you?”
Melitta grabbed my hand. “Please, mistress. Go around the back. Run. I will distract him.”
“There is no running now, Melitta. Not for me.”
I stood up and took my bow. Judging from the way Morsimus bellowed, he was still some way out. Near the gate perhaps. If I opened the door with an arrow already nocked, I could send it flying into his chest before he had the chance to draw another breath.
Then I would need to deal with the others. I drew the fleshing knife from my belt and handed it to Melitta.
“You do not have to do this. You do not have to go against your gods,” I told her. “I would never ask that of you. But if you choose to, I believe your help would be appreciated.”
Without hesitation, Melitta took the knife from my hand.
“I shall go out first,” she said. “They will not be expecting that.”
I nodded. I was putting her in harm’s way, something I had hoped never to do, yet she was right. Their confusion could buy me some time.
“I will be behind you. My arrows will fly if they take one step toward you.”
She offered a small smile that barely flickered at the corners of her lips.
“How is your aim?” Her voice hinted with a humor that I reciprocated the best I could.
“The women believe I am gifted by Artemis herself.”
“Then I will believe it too.”
We needed the door to open swiftly, which was no easy task, considering how it stuck on the jagged tiles.
With one sharp yank, Melitta used all her weight to tug it open.
A second later, I saw them. There were not two or three men standing outside, as I had hoped, but a half a dozen, although my eyes did not linger on any of them for long.
Not on any of the men, that is. For there, in front of them all and standing next to Morsimus, was Thalassa.