Amazon Moon (14 page)

Doors were unbolted and the women emerged. Then the unexpected occurred. A startled dog began furious barking. An Amazon archer silenced the animal, but it was too late. Soldiers peered from their temporary barracks, saw the clustered females, and shouted.

Amazons and freed hookers began running toward the waiting horses, while hastily armed soldiers poured into the streets. The strongest Amazons stayed at the rear to hold the Greeks at bay. Female archers were effective, dropping several soldiers as they burst from doorways.

But other Greeks fanned out rapidly, loosing arrows and spears from all sides. Aletha, who hadn't donned her armor after playing decoy, was killed by a javelin that plunged into her back and emerged from her front. Hulta, the beefy battler, took an arrow in her abdomen and fell groaning. Running with the escapers, the childlike prostitute who had been the brothel sentry died with an arrow in her back. So did another freed concubine.

Soldiers lunged forward and engaged the retreating Amazon rear guard. Leeantha decapitated one with her two-bladed ax. Working in pairs, Amazons caught attackers between them and dealt fatal blows from behind. But a male swordsman killed the tall Amazon Kalleen after she tripped and fell backward. Another Amazon named Tantia was cornered against a building by three soldiers and chopped to death.

To reach the horses in the woods, the Amazons and freed prostitutes crossed a narrow bridge. Leeantha let them pass to safety, then remained on the bridge, striking down each male soldier who tried to cross. Then she too withdrew to the sheltering trees. When the pursuing soldiers rushed onto the bridge, waiting Amazon archers toppled them. Other Greek pursuers retreated from the hail of arrows. In the darkness the women mounted and fled up the Thermodon Valley. Some of the rescued women, untrained as riders, clung frantically to galloping horses.

Dawn was streaking the sky as they entered our secret enclave. Some dismounted by the pool. Wakening villagers poured out to meet them. The gathering was solemn. One Amazon, still in the saddle, bled from a leg wound, staining her horse's side. Mitha, unhurt, gave me a faint wave from her steed as I stood near the slave quarters.

"Aletha was killed," the War Queen announced flatly. "So were Tantia and Kalleen. And I'm sure that Hulta is dead by now."

Grim silence followed.

"But we took down a dozen soldiers and rescued eighteen from the brothel."

Women came forward to greet the new members of the colony and lead them to breakfast.

As I listened from the edge of the gathering, dismay filled me. Both Tantia and Kalleen had called me to their beds and I remembered them fondly. Not only the curves of their bodies and their rapturous embraces, but also their laughter and nighttime talk flooded back to me. And Aletha had been earnest and appealing as she recounted her escape from temple prostitution. I felt pain, loss, regret. As for Hulta, although she caused me to be flogged, I merely considered her ignorant and did not wish her dead.

That morning, Octos and I were assigned to dig clay from the downstream bank for brickmaking. As I labored knee-deep in water, lifting scoops of clay to the sitting one-legger, I unloaded my gloom upon him. My mentor listened quietly, nodding. Finally he answered:

"Death is as common as birth. It is just part of life. I saw it constantly in the Greek army. The Amazons suffer it in raids. It is expected. Yet it always hurts.

"I don't know why it is so painful, since each of us must die. We all are doomed. There is no escape. With death inevitable, we should resign ourselves to accept it calmly and try to be more helpful to each other while we live. Instead, people pretend that death isn't coming, and go right on battling with neighbors.

"To avoid facing death, people invent heavens and let priests bamboozle them with promises of awaiting joy. They believe it because they desperately want to believe it. But they are lying to themselves. They will die, dead, like every person who ever lived, like every animal and plant. Tantia and Kalleen and Aletha met it while they were young and pretty and strong. The rest of us probably will meet it when we are old and sick and feeble. But we all have the same destiny. There is nothing we can do about it."

Oddly, his morbid and depressing talk gave me comfort.

* * *

The following day I observed a difference between males and females. The muscular Leeantha, hero of the raid, was praised by Amazons who flocked around her. With such popular support, a male champion might gather followers and eventually challenge the top commander, seeking to become the new leader. Men crave status and dominance. Rivalry comes naturally to them. But women seem more inclined to cooperate.

In the evening, an outdoor meeting of the council was held at a bonfire by the pool, with numerous Amazons joining the circle. Saria stood with Leeantha and embraced her.

"As you know," she said, "Leeantha fought heroically as we liberated the Balaris women. She is an inspiration to our fighters. I need a second-in-command. I hereby appoint Leeantha my chief lieutenant, to lead our warriors alongside me and take charge if I fall."

Cheers filled the village. Wine flasks were passed among the women as twilight shadows settled.

20

Strange news arrived. Two runaway women, a mother and daughter who had fled from a slave farm in Thrace, reached the Amazon colony via the secret two-vine route. They told of happenings in the outside world, including a report that Amazon warriors had massacred a Greek patrol near the Hellespont, part of the channel linking the Aegean and Black seas.

The village buzzed. Our warriors had conducted no such raid. Evidently a different band of Amazons existed. Rumors of other fighting females had been heard over the years but no evidence had surfaced before.

The War Queen, the Home Queen and the council discussed the matter. As scribe, I recorded their conclusions. It was decided to send two horseback Amazons dressed as young men to visit the land near the Hellespont, a two-day ride to the west. The chosen pair included Leeantha, who had been born in Ionia and knew the language spoken along the eastern shore of the Aegean. Her companion was Theba, daughter of a prince's concubine. They were instructed to avoid men, but to make inquiries at isolated homes where only women were present. Women of the Hellespont region were as subjugated as other Aegean females, the council knew, and they presumably had secrets not told to their male masters.

The pair of searchers loaded food into saddlebags and departed. Remaining villagers returned to the regular routine: tending crops, milking goats, hunting deer, plucking grapes from the vineyard, bathing in the pools, plus nighttime bed duty for us male slaves. Six days passed.

Late in the afternoon, shouts arose. Leeantha and Theba had returned. Riding with them were two proud women on horseback wearing shiny armor. The village poured out to greet them.

"Queen Saria, Queen Hella, council members," Leeantha announced, "I present Queen Aspasia and her companion Edena. They have come to form a bond between our communities."

The riders dismounted and greetings were exchanged. The visitors were shown the village. No interpreter was needed because Aspasia and Edena also were Greek. A large communal dinner was shared by the pool. Wine from the vineyard was poured. Spirits were high. As scribe I was summoned after dinner to record the important exchange.

Leeantha explained how she and Theba found the new Amazon group: "We were fortunate. At the second farm we visited, we met a slave woman whose daughter had run off to join the fighting women. The daughter occasionally slipped home at night to visit. From her, the mother knew that the Amazons occupied an abandoned religious commune in hills near the seacoast. When we found it, we were welcomed as sisters."

Queen Saria told the visitors how our secret colony had been formed by slave women who escaped from Arab traders, and how it grew by raiding caravans, freeing women in bondage, and receiving runaways.

In turn, Queen Aspasia said her colony was smaller and newer, but similar in nature. Standing by the evening fire, she told the assembled Amazons this saga:

"Long ago, my ancestor Aspasia was the most renowned woman in Greece. Of course, it was easy for her to stand out, since other Greek women were sequestered and anonymous. Aspasia was a brilliant young beauty from Ionia, but when she came to Athens she was an alien forbidden to marry an Athenian man. So she became a famous courtesan, a learned hetaera who hosted banquets in her home and also lectured on logic and science. She invited other lovely and intelligent young women to live in her home and become mistresses to important men. They enjoyed partial freedom in a city where most women had none.

"The greatest minds of Athens attended Aspasia's dinners and shared discourse with her. The famed Socrates was her admirer, praising her publicly. Eventually the mighty ruler Pericles visited her home and fell in love with her. Pericles divorced his wife and lived thereafter with Aspasia, adoring her conspicuously in a way that offended Greek custom.

"In witty dinner conversations, Aspasia laughed at Greece's many gods, the Pantheon on Mount Olympus, which she called a ridiculous fantasy. Reports of her skepticism spread among Athenians, especially among political enemies of Pericles. The comic poet Hermippus publicly denounced her as an atheist and a sexual procurer. The penalty for doubting the gods was death, a fate later suffered by Socrates.

"Aspasia was tried before a jury of fifteen hundred Athenian men. As a foreigner, she was not allowed to speak in her own defense. But Pericles the ruler pleaded for her life with eloquence so moving that he wept. Stirred to pity, the jury released her.

"During the Peloponnesian War, plague struck Athens, killing vast numbers including Pericles. The horrible disease upheld Aspasia's opinion about gods. The great historian Thucydides wrote that pious people who prayed and sacrificed died just as painfully as sinners did.

"Later Aspasia lived with a wealthy sheep dealer. She bore a daughter, also named Aspasia. And that daughter eventually bore another, likewise named Aspasia, and the tradition continued through generations, producing me. From mother to daughter, the fiery spirit of Aspasia, the rebel who laughed at custom, was passed down.

"I was born in the Aegean seaport of Cratos. My father was a small wheat merchant, but crop failure stripped away his wealth so he could not pay a dowry for me to marry. Therefore, on my fourteenth birthday, I was given to the Aphrodite temple to be a sacred prostitute among many living in the holy shrine. With our bodies, we consecrated women served thousands of men for the goddess, especially sailors arriving at the Cratos harbor. We were called priestesses, but in truth we were sex slaves, forced to perform in bed continuously. We earned much gold for the temple and its priests.

"However, after the death of Alexander, a change occurred in Cratos. Sanctimonious men gained control of the Assembly. They banned temple prostitution. The priests found a final way to earn money from the thirty women in their harem. First, all children who had been born to the temple priestesses were sold to be Greek farm slaves. Then we women were sold to an Ionian slave merchant who loaded us into a small cargo ship driven by sails, not oars. We headed across the Aegean for the slave market at Seltis.

"We women were placed in the hold and four armed guards took turns watching our hatchway. A captain and four crewmen handled the ship. One afternoon a storm struck and tossed the vessel violently. We were miserable in our churning, shuddering chamber. I climbed through the hatch, followed by three other women. We found only one guard on duty and he was seasick, hanging over the gunwale, his weapons lying beside him. In the noise of the storm, he was unaware of us.

"On blind impulse I rushed behind the vomiting guard and upended him into the sea. We grabbed his sword and dagger, and looked for the other guards. We found their cabin, facing onto the deck, just as they emerged, seasick and unarmed. We took them by surprise, flailing with the weapons and heavy wooden buckets. Quickly they too were dumped into the sea.

"Inside their cabin were bows, arrows, swords, shields and dirks. More women emerged from our hatch. We armed all who felt capable of using death instruments. Then we confronted the crewmen, who were struggling to stow the sail they had lowered. They stared at us, surprised to be facing armed women.

"I commanded them to lower a lifeboat, get into it and row away, leaving the ship to us. But they didn't move. They began to protest. Edena and another woman fitted arrows to their bowstrings. With a curse, the burly captain lunged toward us—but fell instantly, shot through by an arrow. The other crewmen backed away, lowered the boat, and departed across the stormy sea. Alone in the ship, we looked at each other, amazed that we had defeated men. Although untrained in the use of weapons, we had won.

"Darkness arrived and we drifted at the mercy of the roiling sea. Unable to do anything else, we crawled into cabin berths and slept. Next morning, the storm was over. In the distance we could see a hilly shore. By trial and error, we managed to raise the sail and steer with the tiller. The shoreline was uninhabited. We sailed up a deep inlet until the vessel was invisible from the sea. The storm had driven us north of Ionia to a region with few people.

"We explored the countryside. On a plateau we found an abandoned farm that once had been a religious commune, centering around a shrine to Asclepius the healer god. Many people believe that if they sleep beside a statue of Asclepius, their illnesses will be cured. But nobody remained in the commune, and numerous graves lined its edges. We wondered if the commune members perished of diseases, unprotected by Asclepius.

"Like you, we fugitive slave women pledged to form a loyal band, live together, and protect each other. The group chose me as queen. The farm's vineyard and olive grove remained fertile. In a barn we found seeds to replant the fields. We plundered a wheat merchant's caravan for more food, and a horse dealer's drive for steeds. We trained daily with weapons until we became skilled warriors. Thus our history is almost the same as yours."