I replied that I did not understand the lady's question.

I command one other thing of you. Will you perform it?

I swore I would.

I order you one day to take an action purely for your own sake and not in service to another.

You will know when the time comes. Promise me. Say it aloud.

I promise, lady.

She rose then, with the sleeping infant in her arms, and crossed to a cradle between the beds of the other girls, laying the babe down and settling it within the soft covers. This was the signal for me to take my leave. I had risen already, as respect commanded, when the lady stood.

May I ask one question, lady, before I go?

Her eyes glinted teasingly. Let me guess. Is it about a girl?

No, lady. Already I regretted my impulse. This question I had was impossible, absurd. No mortal could answer it.

The lady had become intrigued, however, and insisted that I continue.

It's for a friend, I told her. I cannot answer it myself, being too young and knowing too little of the world. Perhaps you, lady, with your wisdom may be able to. But you must promise not to laugh or take offense.

She agreed.

Or repeat this to anyone, including your husband.

She promised.

I took a breath and plunged in.

This friend… he believes that once, when he was a child, alone at the point of death, he was spoken to by a god.

I pulled up, minding keenly for any sign of scorn or indignation. To my relief the lady displayed none.

This boy… my friend… he wishes to know if such a thing is possible. Could… would a being of divinity condescend to speak to a boy without city or station, a penniless child who possessed no gift to offer in sacrifice and did not even know the proper words of prayer? Or was my friend hatching phantoms, fabricating empty visions out of his own isolation and despair?

The lady asked which god it was, who had spoken to my friend.

The archer god. Apollo Far Striker.

I was squirming. Surely the lady will scorn such temerity and presumption. I should never have opened my cheesepipe.

But she did not mock my question nor deem it impious. You are something of an archer yourself, I understand, and far advanced for your years. They took your bow, didn't they? It was confiscated when you first appeared in Lakedaemon?

She declared that fortune must have guided me to her hearth this night, for yes, the goddesses of the earth flew thick and near at hand. She could feel them. Men think with their minds, the lady said; women with their blood, which is tidal and flows at the discretion of the moon.

I am no priestess. I can respond only out of a woman's heart, which intuits and discerns truth directly, from within.

I replied that this was precisely what I wished.

Tell your friend this, the lady said. That which he saw was truth. His vision indeed was of the god.

Without warning, fierce tears sprung to my eyes. At once emotion overwhelmed me. I buckled and sobbed, mortified at such loss of self-command and astonished at the power of passion which had sprung seemingly from nowhere to overcome me. I buried my face in my hands and wept like a child. The lady stepped to me and held me gently, patting my shoulder like a mother and uttering kind words of assurance.

Within moments I had mastered myself. I apologized for this shameful lapse. The lady would hear none of it; she scolded me, declaring that such passion was holy, inspired by heaven, and must not be repented or apologized for.

She stood now by the open doorway, through which the starlight fell and the soft babbling of the courtyard watercourse could be heard.

I would like to have known your mother, the lady Arete said, regarding me with kindness.

Perhaps she and I will meet someday, beyond the river. We will speak of her son, and the unhappy portion the gods have set out before him.

She touched me once upon the shoulder in dismissal.

Go now, and tell your friend this: he may come again with his questions, if he wishes. But next time he must come in person- I wish to look upon the face of this boy who has sat and chatted with the Son of Heaven.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexandros and I received our whippings for Antirhion the following evening. His was administered by his father, Olympieus, before the Peers of that officer's mess; I was lashed without ceremony in the fields by a helot groundsman. Rooster helped me away afterward, alone in the darkness, down to a grove called the Anvil beside the Eurotas to bathe and dress my stripes. This was a spot sacred to Demeter of the Fields and segregated by custom to the use of Messenian helots; there had once been a smithy upon the site, hence the name.

To my relief Rooster did not treat me to his customary harangue about the life of a slave, but rather limited his diatribe to the observation that Alexandras had been whipped like a boy and I like a dog. He was kind to me and, more important, possessed expertise in cleansing and dressing that unique species of ruptured laceration which is produced by the impact of the knurled birch upon the naked flesh of the back.

First water and plenty of it, bodily immersion to the neck in the icy current. Rooster supported me from behind, elbows braced beneath my armpits, since the shock of the frigid water upon the opened weals rarely fails to knock one faint. The cold numbs the flesh swiftly, and a wash of boiled nettles and Nessos' wort may be applied and endured. This stanches the flow of blood and promotes the rapid resealing of the flesh. A dressing of wool or linen at this stage would be unendurable, even applied with the gentlest touch. But a friend's bare palm, placed lightly at first, then pressed hard into the quivering flesh and held down, brings a relief whose effects approach ecstasy. Rooster had endured his own share of thrashings and knew the drill well.

Within five minutes I could stand. In fifteen my skin could take the soft sphagnum, which Rooster pressed into the blotted mass to suck out the poison and to inject its own subtle anesthetic. By God, there's not a virgin left, he observed, meaning a space that was still God's flesh and not ruptured and reruptured scar tissue. You won't be humping that hymn-singer's shield across this back for a month.

He was just launching into another venomous denunciation of my boy-master when a rustle came from the bank above us. We both wheeled, ready for anything.

It was Alexandras. He stepped into view beneath the plane trees, his cloak furled forward, leaving his own throttled back bare. Rooster and I froze. Alexandros would buy himself a second whipping if he was found here at this hour, and us with him.

Here, he said, skidding down the bank to join us, I picked the surgeon's locker for this.

It was wax of myrrh. Two fingers' worth, wrapped in green rowan leaves. He stepped into the stream beside us.

What have you got there on his back? he demanded of Rooster, who stepped aside with a look of blank astonishment. Myrrh was what the Peers used on wounds of battle when they could get it, which they rarely could. They would beat Alexandros half to death if they knew he'd purloined this precious portion. Get it on him later when you peel off the moss, Alexandros directed Rooster. Wash it off good by dawn. If anyone smells it, it'll be all our backs and more.

He placed the wrapped leaves in Rooster's hands.

I have to be back before count, Alexandros declared. In an instant he had melted away up the bank; we could hear his footfalls vanishing softly as he sprinted in shadow back toward the boys' stations around the Square.

Well, bend me over and root me senseless, Rooster spoke, shaking his head. That little lark's got bigger globes than I thought. At dawn when we fell in before sacrifice, Rooster and I were called out from our places by Suicide, Dienekes' Scythian squire. We were white with dread.