Chapter Fifty-Four
We needed this. I needed this. I needed a distraction from the load I already felt weighing me down, from the pressure of the women’s expectations.
Phile had overseen the wages, the spending and the saving, to ensure that no one went without.
Hirtus oversaw who traveled to other villages and took skins and game to their agoras to sell.
He was the one who fixed things and made tools for us.
The one who purchased produce we could not get in Ninniya.
Now I would be responsible for it all or for finding women who could do the tasks instead.
I had no intention of shirking my responsibilities, but first I wanted to taste that freedom again.
We walked mostly in silence, at a pace closer to a jog than a walk.
This was the first time Aina and I had traveled alone together.
Iphinone had always accompanied her daughter to the horses, and often Damaris or Althea had joined us too.
But I did not want an audience for what I assumed would be a disaster.
“I am not with child,” Aina said once we were outside the village.
They were the first words she spoke since leaving the house, and I stopped in my tracks.
“My bleeding came yesterday. I was worried. I want children, but I did not want his. And now I know I am not with child.”
“Then that is good,” I said, offering a fleeting smile as Aina began walking again, slower this time.
“Do you think it means I cannot have children?” she said a few moments later. “My mother does not. She says that not all seeds are meant to be planted.”
“I believe the same.” Cleon’s words rose in my mind. How he had told me I could consider it a gift not to have born Morsimus’s children. Anger and pain flashed through me, but I fought them down. This was not the place for my pain. “I am sure you will have a child in time if that is what you want.”
“Is that what you want?” As she looked at me, I knew that only a truthful answer would suffice.
“I do,” I said. “And though no seeds have ever taken root within me, I am still hopeful. I am years younger than when my mother birthed me.”
“You do not speak of your mother. What was she like?”
It was not a question I had been asked since my arrival here, nor for many years before. I felt a tug of guilt within me. I had let the image of my mother’s face slide from my mind. I should have done better.
“Her hair was a mass of curls that could not be tamed, and she had little patience with jewelry or cosmetics,” I said, recalling her features as I spoke.
“But to me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her laugh could make an entire room smile. She did not think of volume or restraint when she laughed or when she danced. It was unwomanly, according to my grandparents, but my father loved that about her.” I allowed myself to slip into the memory.
My mother taking my hands, our feet gliding across the cold tiles of the courtyard floor.
My father’s eyes focused solely on my mother as if she were the most mesmerizing creature he had ever laid eyes on.
That was what I had believed marriage was. Marriage and love, hand in hand.
“Do you think about them often?” Aina’s voice broke my daydream, and I drew in a long breath before I replied.
“I do. Morsimus severed the link between us over time, and I was so concerned with being a good wife that I believed I was doing right by not seeing them. We have not spoken in years.”
“Would you ever seek them out?”
“No,” I answered immediately.
“Why not?”
I could have laughed at the comment, not for how it was spoken but merely that it was.
“What would I say to them if I saw them again? That they sold me to a monster? That I have murdered my husband? That I persuaded women to rise up and take their freedom and that I could throw a knife and strike a boy’s heart?”
“He was not a boy. He was a man, and he deserved that knife.”
Aina’s face was stone, and her jaw locked as she fixed her gaze on me.
“You are right. I am sorry. And I do not regret what I did. I would do it a thousand times over. But how could I explain this to my parents, who loved and respected each other? Who believed in the harmony of the home? No, it is better this way. Now come, tell me the best way to mount Erebus for the first time.”
For the remainder of the journey, Aina talked about the animals, and the closer we got to the horses, the straighter her back became.
“You need to use the strength in your arms and legs to control him,” she told me. “But do not grip too tightly. And do not shout or scream, even joyfully. It will startle him. I learned that the hard way.”
Her face cracked into a smile, which I expected to fade swiftly, but instead it stayed, the way it always did when she spoke about the horses.
“Do you think he will let me ride him?” I asked, my nerves tickling my throat.
“I think we should wait and see.”
The herd was in the forest when we found them. Aina noticed the tracks in the damp earth and, only a few minutes after we entered, had found them grazing on the grass. As always, Erebus was at the center.
“It seems the gods are as eager for you to ride him as I am.”
It took me a moment to realize what Aina was referring to.
Erebus was standing with his herd, but this time his left shoulder rested against the trunk of a tree.
Only a foot or so above him, a thick branch extended over his back.
It was the perfect position from which to lower myself down onto him. First, though, I needed to approach.
Despite our months apart, his ears barely flickered as I wove my way through the other horses and placed my hand against his side.
“You remember me, don’t you? Remember the agreement we made?”
Myrina was nuzzling at Aina, and although Aina embraced the horse with both arms around her neck, she made no attempt to mount her.
Instead, she watched me. Had it not been for the intensity of her gaze, I might have abandoned my goal, for it felt as though Erebus had grown two feet since our previous encounter.
“What do you think, boy?” I asked, attempting to ignore Aina’s presence. “Should I climb the tree? Is that the best way?”
I moved my hand farther down his neck, and his nostrils flared, though with no sign of animosity, for his ears stayed forward.
My eyes on his, I traced a line lower still to the place where I would sit.
He was such a height that I could place both palms flat against his spine.
With my pulse pounding, I pushed down, watching his expression and testing his temperament to help judge my next move.
His ears flicked back, though he remained where he was.
“I don’t think we should go for the branch, do you?” I said to him. “I think we should find another way.”
With a wave of my hand, I beckoned Aina over.
“Can you help me?” I asked.
“How?”
“I will pull myself up onto him. I need you here to ensure I do not topple backward should he move.”
She nodded.
“Ready?”
I placed one hand on his back, and with the other, I grabbed a handful of mane. Again, Erebus’s ears snapped back, but he did not move.
“Three, two, one!”
I jumped, all my weight tugging at Erebus’s mane or else pressing down on him, and it was not a sensation he enjoyed. Ears pinned back, he turned in a circle, but Aina was there, slowing his movements and holding me steady.
“You need to lift your leg over!” she said. “You are nearly there. Sit astride him!”
It took every ounce of power I had to lift myself up. With my chest against the back of Erebus’s neck and Aina’s hands holding me in place, I grunted and heaved and hoisted my leg up and over him.
Panting, I lay there, my sweat-soaked cheek stuck against the coarse fur of his mane. My heart pounded, but only half from exertion. I was on Erebus.
For a brief moment, I considered ending on such an achievement, sliding my leg back over, dropping to the ground, and cherishing my accomplishment. But as I opened my eyes, I saw Aina’s face. The beaming light that I feared had been lost from her glowed brighter than I had ever seen before.
Slowly, so as not to alarm Erebus or myself, I sat up.
I saw the scream of excitement building within Aina, her fists clenched with glee.
“I shall ready my horse,” she said and grinned, only the slightest squeal to her tone. “Then we can ride.”