Infamia, second part of conclusion

[theholyinnocent]

INFAMIA
PART XXI-B: CONCLUSION
XWP AU
Link to first part of conclusion and all previous parts

Notes: This is it! The last part.

I'd like to thank everyone who has stuck with the story over the years. Your patience is greatly appreciated. I know it took an unacceptably long time, and trust me, I wish I wrote faster too!



Tea and mockery

Her memory is a lake, disrupted by ships of dreams: That first voyage to Rome and those days and nights of brutality, contrasted with that first voyage to Alexandria, the sight of the lighthouse, and Xena’s hand a gentle compass resting against her skin.

Gabrielle wakes in a cradle of pain: her face hurts; her side hurts even more. Every breath is an aching effort. Her eyes focus warily on the dark wooden beams overhead. She’s in a bed, eerily in motion even while lying still. If that is not clue enough, the overwhelming scent of briny water is. She turns toward the only source of light: A small portal window that reveals the unhappy marriage of a leaden sky to a brusque, choppy sea.

It figures, she thinks. Hell would be a ship. Well played, Hades.

When a wave of nausea hits her and she dry heaves over the bed, however, she starts to worry that she is actually alive. Possibly a slave again? No-she would be chained in some dank hold with rats nibbling at her wound. Instead she’s in a rather decent, clean bed, and the wound in her side is stitched and bound with the tidy efficiency of a competent healer. She is too weak, and her throat too dry, to call for anyone. So she waits, drifting in and out of sleep, until the sound of the opening door wakes her.

An elderly man with a limp, carrying a steaming mug of something foul, enters. “You’re awake. About time.”

Weakly, Gabrielle pulls the coarse blanket over her bare torso.

The man laughs. “Come now, it’s nothing I haven’t seen a million times, and trust me, you aren’t the envy of Aphrodite.”

Petty insults and shitty tea. Yes, Gabrielle thinks, I am definitely alive.

“Now your friend, on the other hand-“ he chuckles coarsely. “Hera’s tits, she’s quite a specimen.”

Friend? She struggles to sit up, tries to get the word out of her mouth. The old healer ignores these pathetic attempts and gently pulls down the blanket for a cursory glance at the bandaged wound. “No bleeding. Good.” He thrusts the tea at her. “Drink.”

Desperate for any beverage, she gulps it down and, ignoring the hopeful rush of blood pounding in her ears and aching in her chest, finally manages to croak: “My-friend?”

The healer laughs archly. “Yes, that beautiful, bossy Greek bitch who says she’s just a fisherman’s wife but swears like a sailor and ties fancier knots than a Alexandrian whore. She’s a good worker but she keeps trying to run the damn ship. Sound familiar?”

Tentative, Gabrielle smiles and sighs. The empty cup loosens in her grip. “Very much so,” she replies slowly. She falls asleep again.

Ashes and light

There is something in the world called snow, Cleopatra thinks.

Xena had told her of this phenomenon, of the soft, cold white fluff that falls from the sky-like frozen rain-in colder climates, like the mountains in her native land, and like the far-off Nordic regions that the Queen of Egypt only ever read about in scrolls. Cleopatra still remembers the lovely fluttering of Xena’s fingers as she mimed the soft, random fall of snow. So soft, so gentle-a single flake can dissipate in a second on the heat of one’s tongue-and yet when amassed in great quantities, it can be as impenetrable and imposing as a pyramid.

On the balcony of her palace Cleopatra imagines that snow is somewhat similar to the ash floating through the air around her. Except that the fresh, swirling ash is warm and gray, almost stinging upon the skin. The scent of burning parchment grows stronger by the minute. Does snow have a smell? she wonders. It has been days since Octavian’s forces had arrived, besieging the city of Alexandria and making good on their threats to lay waste to the city’s most valuable asset: the library.

The fire in the library started a day ago. At one point it seemed contained and eliminated, but renewed fighting reignited it. The old librarian, Apollonius-once her tutor, who babysat her with scrolls and stories and was more a constant in her life than anyone in her family ever was-had refused to leave. She arranged to have him drugged and smuggled out of the city. She could not bear the thought of him witnessing the mass destruction of his life’s work.

As for witnessing the obliteration of Alexandria-well, that is her duty. It is her city, now hers alone. Xena’s alliance paved the way, although the treacherous yet useful eunuch who, at her behest, snapped the neck of her brother proved essential as well. She stands as the sole ruler of Egypt. But Xena’s last words to her, which lacked any form of recrimination or regret, have haunted her since: The power you wanted, the city you wanted-it’s all yours now. Remember well the responsibility that comes with it or it will eat you alive.

The ashes roll aimlessly like the ghosts of locusts haunting the sky. The last occupant of her bedroom is an asp hungry for her blood, waiting for the moment when she releases him, for the moment when the Roman soldiers are banging at her door.

World enough

The next time Gabrielle awakens, Xena is sitting on the edge of her bed, as if she were a goddess easily summoned by thought alone. Her appearance, however, is distinctly ungoddesslike: She’s dressed in commoner’s clothes, a simple brown cloak and dusky, dull brass armor that designate allegiance to no one but herself. She looks tired and drawn-shadowy crescents lurk under her bright eyes-but she is alive and apparently uninjured.

Immediately Gabrielle attempts sitting up, winces in pain, but before she falls back onto the pillows Xena catches her in a gentle embrace. Their lips are too close and the inevitable happens too soon; even the softest kiss overwhelms Gabrielle with the memory of what she believes she does not have and will never earn. She breaks the kiss, and the resultant dueling emotions of Xena’s disappointment and her own resentment leave her momentarily exhausted; the residue of these wearying feelings are a greasy overlay-a dirty window upon a clear day, a distortion of what should be proper happiness.

Xena carefully lowers her back onto the pillows. “Relax. Don’t say anything.” She offers Gabrielle water from a cup.

Gabrielle drains it quickly; the restorative effect of cool water always a marvel to her. Nonetheless her simple question still takes effort: “Where are we?”

“On a ship. I told you, don’t speak. We can talk later. But we’re safe.”

The idiotic, obvious answer frustrates her. She sucks in as many breaths as possible to keep going. The mysterious healer had said Xena was “a good worker.” Why was the Empress working and not running the ship? “Where-“ she coughs, “-are we going?”

“Home.”

Now I remember why sometimes I wanted to kill you. “Where is ‘home’?”

“Wherever you want it to be.”

If Xena thinks her cryptic, unflappable answers are meant to sooth with their dubious charm-and obviously she believes that-then she is tragically mistaken. Impatiently, Gabrielle tries again. “What-what’s happened?”

Xena pauses, considering what to tell the fragile yet increasingly enraged invalid. Uncharacteristically, she plays it safe. “Rather a lot.”

With feeble fury Gabrielle attempts tossing the cup at Xena, aiming for her head but merely grazing her elbow. “Why are you still so fucking annoying?” she cries.

Xena manages a look of dignified, wounded affront, an expression that her late husband coached in her to marvelous effect. “Will you settle down and stop fucking swearing for a moment?”

Unwelcome tears cloud Gabrielle’s eyes.

“Please. Don’t. I’m sorry.” Xena leans forwards and gently cups her face. The edge of her thumb catches a rivulet of sadness.

Something is different, Gabrielle realizes, something greater and more substantial than her fuzzy mind had previously allowed. The hand caressing her face feels-strangely lighter: Xena is not wearing her signet ring, the intaglio of power that marked her as the Empress, that heavy golden ring that had run a sensual course over every dip and turn of Gabrielle’s body. As much as she had loathed what the ring represented, she loved the cool, solid reassurance of knowing who touched her.

“I’m sorry. Much has happened,” Xena is saying, “so much so that it’s hard to present a concise account. The battle you participated in is over, but with heavy consequences on all sides. Octavian claims victory, if only because he is the only one who survived. Marc Antony’s ship was destroyed and he died a hero’s death. Save for Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, exiled in the remaining members of the so-called triumvirate died in battle.” Xena pauses. “Even the Empress.”

“Even the Empress?” the puzzled Gabrielle echoes. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps I am dead, or crazy? Again she glances at Xena’s bare right hand. Or else it’s the greatest gift ever?

“I’m afraid so,” Xena continues. “Turns out the damn fool couldn’t properly prepare Greek fire after all. Pity. I hear she was rather a stunning beauty and a woman of superior character-“

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Gabrielle rasps weakly. Already, she thinks, they have fallen into that familiar pattern and while she despises the weakness of falling so quickly after so much has happened, she loves that the foundation they have-comprised of and/or based on precisely what, she has no idea-is still present.

“Yes, she did have a dubious reputation. Regardless-I regret to inform you that the former Empress of Rome is dead. But the woman who loves you is very much alive.”

“Oh.” It feels anticlimactic, if only because one little stubborn fortress, one defiant section of her heart always knew it for truth. Gabrielle looks for something to throw at Xena again, but there isn’t anything except her pillow, and she’s loath to give it up. “So now you finally say it.”

Never one for admitting errors, Xena pinches her brow and acknowledges this serious tactical mistake in courtship: “Yes. Perhaps you think it too little too late, but I’ve been rather busy and you were in some kind of-sleeping state, so declarations of love seemed rather pointless. Words usually fail me unless-I’m being insincere, and I’ve never wanted to be that way with you.” Xena looks down and takes a deep breath. “But. I have surrendered all that I know for the opportunity to wake up next to you every morning. I have enough coin to get us both a place to live and enough parchment for you to write a thousand epics. I will steal scrolls for you if you like-as you know, librarians are terrified of me. We can get you a cat, maybe like Timon. You will admit they are easier to care for than children. And I will not tire of loving you because there is no one like you anywhere in this world.” Xena pauses; the gods have not yet struck her down for speaking sincerely. “I know as far as proposals go, this is even less romantic than even Caesar’s flat proposition to me so long ago, because I can’t offer you an empire, or a world you’ve never known. All I have is the truth of what I say, and what I feel.” Her moment as a prospective suitor at an end, Xena fiddles anxiously with the leather stay of a bracer. “Will it do?”

“Yes.” Gabrielle takes her hand. The lines mapping the palm are world enough for her. “It will do.”

The ring

He calls himself Augustus now.

Pullo remembers his as a youth: gangly and thin, strange and awkward. His new role as a warrior-emperor, however, has transformed him into lean elegance. But his face still betrays the look of the ascetic, as if he would rather be performing rites at a mystery cult than ruling the Empire he has held together with calm tenacity.

A winter rain has left the bare branches of the trees outside luminous with raindrops that scatter in the wind and glitter in fierce bursts of post-storm sunlight. Pullo watches the drops fall, waits for Augustus to deliver his fate-and, indirectly, Xena’s as well. For several long minutes the Emperor has said nothing, which is something that would drive a lesser man mad. And while he is not known for his patience, Titus Pullo is known for his loyalty. He will accept whatever befalls him, if only because he has no choice.

The Emperor turns from the window. “You saw her body?”

The rowboat lurched through choppy water, further and further away from the hell on sea composed of the flaming carcasses of three ships-theirs, Antony’s, and one of Octavian’s. The remaining two vessels-one significantly damaged-were in retreat. Pullo figured they wouldn’t risk taking Kassiopi; they had no idea what forces awaited them.

He took turns rowing with Lucius. Xena, wounded, was barely conscious. Her shoulder was bandaged sloppily, and he feared that somewhere Ping was cursing him for his lack of skill in the healing arts. As Kassiopi came into sharper focus, Pullo was startled out of a moment of exhausted reverie when Xena grasped his hand with surprising strength, pressing her signet ring into his callused palm.

“I’m dead.” Never before had she looked at him so intently, and for so long. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Emperor.” Pullo pauses, uncertain of offering more detail. But Augustus remains gazing at him calmly, like a child expecting more of a story. “She was mortally wounded with an arrow. Before she died she gave me the ring and instructed me to present it to the next leader of the Empire.”

“Not me, specifically.” Augustus says wryly.

“With all due respect, the Empress-the former Empress-was not an oracle.”

“You have always spoken bluntly, Pullo. I see that has not changed.” Augustus’s thumb brushes against Xena’s signet ring. “Why did you not try to claim her body? To give her a proper burial?”

Pullo shifts nervously and hopes that Augustus interprets this as accompaniment to the lie he unfurls: “When you’re running for your life, you’re not stopping, not giving much thought to the dead, but rather trying to avoid their ranks.”

Augustus snorts derisively. “The gods have mercy on your craven soul, Pullo.”

Relieved, Pullo dips his head, accepting the chastisement and remembering the last he saw of Xena some four months ago: In the full regalia of a centurion they had lifted off a dead man, right down to the helmet that disguised her sex and the armor that protected her wounded shoulder, striding through the port of the seaside town with only one thing on her mind: Finding the gladiator, dead or alive.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Augustus asks quietly.

Pullo’s head snaps up, the clicking in his neck only slightly alarming in comparison to the sudden close proximity of Emperor.

Augustus’s smile is chilly. “A man as loyal as you would not leave the woman you served to the depths of the merciless sea. Even if her body were cold and dead. No, Pullo, you would have dragged Xena’s corpse to the shores of Kassiopi and given her a funeral that would have rivaled Caesar’s in splendor and fire.” He takes steps closer to Pullo, all the while still caressing the ring with his fingertips, and to Pullo’s astonishment speaks even softer, in a frightful, reverential whisper: “Would you have dared defy Mithras so?” The Emperor is as tall as he, and his calm, expressionless eyes are those of a man who knows true power. “Do you want to kill me now, Pullo? Now that I’ve exposed your lie?”

Pullo stiffens. The moment they start talking about lies is the moment they start preparing the executioner’s block. “Emperor, please-”

Augustus interrupts gently. “I’ve no wish to harm you. Rather, I applaud you. Loyalty is an invaluable characteristic. Worth more than gold-no wonder Xena kept you around. But since you returned to Rome, I assume your loyalty to the Empire trumps your temporary madness: allegiance to a Greek. You are truly a soldier of great merit and, if you’re interested, I should like to retain your services. But before we begin those tedious negotiations, I’d like to clarify: I’m not interested in whether Xena lives or dies. As popular as she once was, she remains infamia: A Greek. A woman. A sexual deviant. And nothing without Caesar. No Roman would follow her now.” Augustus holds up the ring. “No. I’m interested in this. And why she gave it all up.” He give Pullo an expectant look.

“It’s very simple,” Pullo begins.

“Then please do enlighten me.”

“Love.”

“Love?” Augustus repeats incredulously.

Pullo nods.

The Emperor laughs, and with that Pullo releases the breath he’s been holding for nearly a minute, unfurling a coil of anxiety wrapped deep in his gut. “Really? Is that it?” In amusement Augustus seems young again as his nose crinkles in disbelief. “With that-that unbathed gladiator?”

Pullo nods again, while refraining from commenting that Gabrielle was probably the most hygienic gladiator he’d ever encountered; in fact, she bathed so often he feared for her health-it didn’t seem normal. Didn’t she know the protective properties of dirt?

Satisfied with Pullo’s answer-the simplest answer is usually the true one, the Emperor believes-the relaxed Augustus sprawls on a divan and continues to admire the signet ring that glitters within his grasp. “I supposed it makes sense.” He shakes his head. “Just like a woman.”

Three years later

As a town elder, Eusebius was generally accorded the respect his age merited, even though Gorgos thought the old man was basically an idiot. But when the giant arrived in town and started terrorizing everyone and eating all the livestock, Eusebius had suggested, with surprising common sense, that the town pool their money to hire mercenaries to take care of the giant. He even had two excellent candidates for the job: former Roman slaves, one of them rumored to be a gladiator, who lived in one of the coastal villages and who were known to make themselves available for such tasks.

And so it was arranged that Eusebius would take the money to the mercenaries-the meeting spot a dodgy tavern just outside of Corinth-accompanied by Gorgos, widely considered the strongest and bravest man in the village. But when Eusebius led his young comrade through the tavern to a secluded back room and two strange women, Gorgos nearly throttled the old man. They were, he believed, about the waste the entire town’s resources on women, probably whores, who would abscond to the city with their funds.

Before he could snatch the money pouch away from the old man and leave, spry old Eusebius sat down and engaged the women in conversation. He bought them new drinks and proceeded to spool out the long, mind-numbing story of Cliff the giant, so named because when drunk he would sometimes fall asleep up in the mountains and roll off a cliff. Unfortunately, the drunken falls had little impact on Cliff’s physical well being.

Upon closer inspection, Gorgos thought the women did not seem like common-variety hetaeras. In fact, they wore armor and carried swords. The short blonde one politely interrogated Eusebius; despite her gentle demeanor she sat with the attentive, ramrod posture of a soldier and her wary, sea-colored eyes restlessly scanned the tavern for potential disturbances. The other one was even more intriguing: unusually tall for a woman and possessing the elegant coiled menace of a brooding cat; her chilly blue eyes were half-lidded with boredom as Eusebius droned on about Cliff. But it wasn’t until a dropped cup clanged noisily-prompting a curious, controlled tilt of her head that revealed a handsome profile, a profile seen on a coin some years ago-that Gorgos nearly jumped out of his skin.

Like all the major players at the Battle of Actium, the Empress of Rome was presumed dead. Unlike the Brutus and Antony, however, her body was never found-just a signet ring produced by a loyal soldier who claimed she perished on her sinking ship. Rumors persisted that she still lived, that she roamed Greece performing good deeds for the citizenry, and that some day she might emerge once again as a leader of the nation-her nation. He thought it all a crock. Until now.

Gorgos snorted and giggled.

The woman he believed to be Xena, the former Empress of Rome, stared at him, and not in a good way. “I hope you have good reason,” she muttered imperiously, “for smirking at me.”

He snorted and giggled again, this time adding a derisive, barking laugh: “Ho!”

The smaller woman now looked displeased as well, and her hand strayed to the gladius at her side. “Did he just call you a whore?” she asked her companion.

“No, no,” Gorgos protested. “It’s not that. It’s not that at all.” He shook his head. “I can believe this. You’re Xena, aren’t you? The Empress of Rome, as I live and breathe, so do you!”

“Boy, are you drunk?” embarrassed old Eusebius asked.

“Don’t you see, old man?” Excitedly Gorgos gestured at the tall woman. “She’s the Empress! All the stories are true-she’s not really dead!”

“Zeus’s balls, Gorgos.” Eusebius shook his head. “You always cause trouble, no matter where you go, making people uncomfortable. I asked them to let me take Demetrius instead, but no-“

“Damn it, you fool, are you blind? Look at her!” Gorgos’s voice rose. A barmaid glanced at him.

As he thrust his hand at the woman once again, the object of his scrutiny seized his wrist, twisted it, and pinned it to the table. Tendons crunched, her thumb plunged into his veins, and his vision grew spangled. He would’ve passed out but for her velvety voice, issuing the most seductive threat ever: “Let me make this perfectly clear. You’re quite mistaken. I’m not the Empress of Rome. I’m just a humble widow who owns a horse farm and a vineyard by the sea with my, er-”

“-cousin,” the short blonde interjected.

“-yes, cousin, and I do odd jobs every now and then to get by, because sometimes the vineyard business is kind of slow-”

“-because sometimes you think you can make good wine out of brambleberries but you really can’t,” her companion muttered.

The stare that Gorgos found so petrifying had no effect on the short blonde, and prompted the woman who may have been the Empress of Rome to whine: “Are we going to go through this again? In front of people? It was an experiment-“

“-that went so horribly, miserably wrong it should never be repeated.” This blunt assessment is undermined by her companion with a gentle, teasing smile.

The woman who is maybe perhaps most definitely Xena returned the grin-and would have happily drowned in that smile because she remembered all too well a time when this woman, her beloved, did not smile at all-until Gorgos squawked in pain. Guiltily, she released his wrist. “So we’re understood, Gorgos?”

Nodding violently, he rubbed his wrist and leaned back in his chair as far as possible.

Awkward silence bullied its way into the room. Until Eusebius risked closing the deal. “Then it’s settled? You’ll take the job?”

The women looked at each other. Xena shrugged, Gabrielle nodded, and Eusebius shoved the money across the table.

“Great. Another fucking giant,” Xena sighed.

Mercenaries for good

The tavern, situated on the city’s acropolis, looks down on Corinth. The first thing Gabrielle does in the room is open wide the shutters and gaze, with quiet excitement, at the urban sprawl below them. In contrast, Xena flops fully clothed onto the bed, which releases a cloud of dust and in her mind justifies her decision not to remove her boots. Are such accommodations fitting for the former Empress of Rome? Perhaps not, but after some food and wine fill her belly and she has put the bed to proper use, she won’t mind. Still, she coughs dramatically.

Gabrielle indulges her with a smile before returning her attention to the sprawl of Corinth. Rome it is not; in comparison, it’s little more than a backwater. But Rome seems another lifetime, another lifeline etched in cruel carelessness along her palm. She remembers all too well those nights of witnessing the city from the window in Cato’s kitchen, of knotting together torches and constellations into something grander, something better than she had ever experienced. Perhaps something like the life she has now.

Of course, she mistrusts these pacific moments; her mind begins racing, worrying that Xena is not really happy with their lot together. She looks at Xena, limp across the bed. Is she bored? Unhappy? Merely sleepy? “I’m sorry it’s another giant,” she says.

“Why? It’s not your fault.” Xena pauses. “But this time we’re handling it my way.”

The last giant they encountered benefited, however briefly, from Gabrielle’s attempt to negotiate with him. Her appeals for “behavior modification for the greater good,” however, fell on large, deaf ears. She would have been crushed to death if not for Xena’s unerring toss of a spear that severed the giant’s carotid.

“So no talking to the giant?”

“Only from a safe, respectable distance, and only for five minutes. No invitations to tea.”

“Pine needle tea is usually very calming-“

“It tastes like piss and I’m not risking you getting crushed by some clod again.” Underneath the humor is a tone that brooks no argument.

Still, she wonders if Xena is truly happy living this life. They are “mercenaries for good”-Xena’s term for what they do, which assuaged her wanderlust and her need of a powerful purpose. As strong as Greece was, it was like a jeweled necklace: impressive when strung together and as such invaluable, yet easily broken. Being on the other side-Rome-had revealed that to her. Greece needed protection, she had once said to Gabrielle.

They had been safely ensconced in a rather nice inn-drinking by a fire, and waiting for the right time to intercede in a rather nasty dispute between two city-states. Protection from what? From who?Gabrielle had asked.

Xena had smiled grimly. Protection from someone like me.

When they did not roam the countryside for things to do, people came to them, to the ramshackle vineyard where they lived: The buildings were old, the vineyard itself dubious, but they had both been so enchanted by the view of the sea that Xena threw her last solidus at the owner, who had inherited it from his dipsomaniac uncle and was eager to unload the property.

Initially the idea of being a vintner had appealed to Xena. In addition to a fine palate she had the stubbornness of the weeds that had overrun the fields. Thus far her efforts had yielded nothing drinkable; the infamous brambleberry wine, in fact, had made Gabrielle throw up. After that Xena focused all her nonmercenary activity on her second true love: Horses. Ostensibly their “official” reason for being in Corinth-not that anyone would really ask-was to purchase a fine young palomino. Not unlike an expectant mother, Xena had already given the beast a name-Argo-and had cleaned and lined a stall at home with fresh, new hay.

In between these peaceful gaps, they disposed of giants and defeated warlords, freed slaves, and negotiated resolutions-sometimes at the point of a sword-to precarious skirmishes between city-states. Much to Xena’s dismay, their reputations spread. Octavian (as Xena still called him: “Augustus my ass, he will always be skinny, dull little Octavian to me”) possessed a long memory and, perhaps, an even longer reach. Nearly two years ago Pullo had got word to them-in a message calibrated and concealed in the code he learned from Xena so long ago-confirming that the Emperor knew Xena lived, but seemed relatively unperturbed by this fact. That could change, they realized, at slightest perception of Xena amassing any kind of political power in Greece. Her existence, Gabrielle knew from the start, was an open, dangerous secret. Everyone knew who the “Warrior Princess” was; that many were willing to let the mystery be was an invaluable token of gratitude.

Much to Xena’s paranoid annoyance, however, Gabrielle recorded their activities in her scrolls. Xena suggested that instead she write her own history: the stories of being a gladiator. Even years later, it was too soon. Every day, no matter where they were, she awoke with the wolf of her past at the door. Someday, she thought, she will write it all down. Her life. When we are old, and the only adventure is getting out of bed in the morning.

Xena yawns. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to Corinth.”

“Village girls, slaves, and gladiators don’t get around as much as pirates or Empresses.”

“Truth to tell, you haven’t missed much.”

Always identifying with the underdog, Gabrielle is compelled to defend poor simple Corinth: “There is a library here.”

This brings about a derisive snort from the well-traveled Xena. “It’s nothing like what you’re accustomed to, my dear.”

Gabrielle dreams of a mission that will take them to Pergamum; Xena promises that one day they will visit the library, now the most fabled in the world since Alexandria became ash. Ever since news of the fire and Cleopatra’s death reached them, she has thought of Apollonius nearly every day. Did the old man perish with his beloved scrolls? Or rather, did the enormity of what happened to the library kill him? Either way, she could not imagine him surviving the catastrophe of the loss; it wounded her as significantly as anything she had withstood as a gladiator. She hopes that, dead or alive, he hears her thoughts.

Uncanny as always, Xena senses the fluctuation in her mood, and encourages gently: “But you must go. Maybe tomorrow, before the play.”

“Play?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to a play?”

“Yes.”

“But you hate plays.”

“True, but the problem is I love you, and I know you love plays, and you’ve humored my reclusive nature enough recently. So I figured since we’re in the big bad city, we’d see a play. It’s Aristophanes, I’m afraid.”

“I like Aristophanes.”

“He’s kind of an asshole, don’t you think?”

Gabrielle laughs. “That’s not very insightful criticism.”

“Give me a good playwright and I’ll give good insights.”

“So you’re not worried about being recognized?”

Xena sighs, sits up, and sheds her cloak. “Oh, I don’t know why I even try-“

“So you’re not going to wear that red wig?”

“You’d like that. You’re such a pervert.”

“Says the woman who would teach Sappho new positions.” Gabrielle leans into the open window. Years ago, she thinks, she would be tongue-tied and terrified to even joke in such a fashion. But now? The warmth of the sun mixes with the slight chill in the air. It’s the recipe for spring, for light kisses upon her neck that are not unexpected, for yielding to the hands that knead her hips, beckoning her to turn around.

They kiss. The sun seeps into Gabrielle’s back and the languorous moment draws out, fueled by the warmth of reflected light and the day’s promise unfurled before them. Until Gabrielle, finally noticing how Xena is not attired, pulls away with a squawk of protest: “Get away from the window! You’re half naked!”

Indeed, Xena is topless, save for a bra. “I’ll be fully naked soon.” She wastes no time in undoing Gabrielle’s vest. “You better catch up.”

Gabrielle maneuvers them away from the window and toward the bed-Xena’s goal all along; she was always the superior strategist. “I thought we could walk around,” she mumbles between kissing, “explore the city-”

This time Xena halts the kissing, with a disgusted look.

“All right, I would explore the city while you drink wine and look bored.” Aside from the library, there is one destination that Gabrielle is determined to seek out on her own. Alone. But she has already planned that particular errand while Xena examines horseflesh tomorrow. For now Xena has carefully stripped her, admiring the revelation of her body as if Gabrielle were her own creation. In a way, she is; formed and changed by Xena’s perceptions, by love itself. Together they fall into bed effortlessly, as they’ve done many times before, and she pulls Xena atop her. “But perhaps we can do that-later.”

“Yes. Later.” The back of Xena’s hand brushes along her shoulder, her breasts, her torso, teasing even lower, before returning to touch Gabrielle’s face. She does not miss the ring: the signet ring, the gladiatorial ring, the rings she traced in the lonely Roman nights. She smiles into Xena’s touch, into the fingers that tenderly trace her lips. “Much later.”

Flesh and blood

With the shawl covering her head, she could be any freewoman in the city entering the Temple of the Fates, and not the blonde-haired gladiator who was at one time more famous than the Emperor and Empress themselves. Even though her companion now eclipses her in fame, she is always cautious to avoid recognition. How fortunate, she thinks, that such a modest, simple covering so easily corrects the burden of infamia.

In the temple her fingers writhe through the candle’s flame, pausing only briefly for the punishment of heat, the threat of blistering skin. The thick incense lays heavy as a winter cloak yet with the summery, cloyingly sweet scent of jasmine; the silvery smoke diaphanously drapes the angular figure of the priestess, who stands erect, half-naked, and unwavering as statuary.

The priestess, brandishing a silver cup, demands a blood sacrifice; any animal will do, she says.

I am an animal, Gabrielle replies.

The priestess considers this, and shrugs compliance.

Lips pressed together in anticipation of pain, Gabrielle takes out her knife and slices open her palm. As her blood winds its way into the chalice, she wonders what on earth she’s going to say when Xena notices the wound. A fight, of course. Xena would believe a fight. The priestess gestures for her to kneel, and she does.

In the candled dusk the priestess recites prayers in a dialect so archaic Gabrielle can’t understand half of it, but the incantation summons the fates and their loom. Head bowed and on her knees, Gabrielle listens as the singsong voices of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos weave multihued skeins of possibility within her life. The fates confess that the glittering and darkened threads of her life were altered; nonetheless, they will always remain forever entwined with Xena’s. They tell the tale of what now has never happened: A girl who becomes a bard and a warrior rather than a slave and a gladiator. A warlord who is a broken, haunted woman, but who becomes a heroine for all time. The price of redemption, calculated too high. A lonely life half-lived. A mantle never desired. The wrong conclusion to the right story.

It answers all her questions, the questions that began the day she first met the Empress of Rome. Trembling, she binds her bleeding hand and with a million thoughts crowding her mind, begins to rise.

“Wait,” the priestess commands. She steps closer to Gabrielle, who remains kneeling. A knife rests on the priestess’s open palm, the veins of her wrist sing in the struggle for perfect repose.

Cut the threads, Atropos says.

And all shall be as it was before, Lachesis confirms.

The priestess anticipates the unspoken question in Gabrielle’s heart. Dark eyes respectfully downcast, she gently challenges the goddesses: And if she doesn’t?

Clotho the weaver, who knows the bounty of the loom and every thread’s rich possibility, answers: Want nothing and you will have everything.

The knife remains in the priestess’s hand.

With a bow of acknowledgment to the priestess and the Fates, Gabrielle rises. The bandage has loosened itself around her hand and she tightens it, staring at the criss-cross weave against her skin. Is the loom of the fates truer than the loom of her hand-the lines of flesh and blood, the ragged gossamer of a bandage? She will never know. And, the Fates help her, neither will Xena.

She walks out of the temple and into the sun.

The End