New Xena Fic: "In the Valley of Disregard" - Chapter 2
FINALLY!!! For cryin' out loud, this was slow... Chapter 3 will appear much sooner (much of it is already written).
Find the Prologue and Chapter 1 here.
Disclaimer: This all belongs to Renaissance Pictures and Universal. I wish I could say it was all mine. Truly I do. But I'm just borrowing this wonderful world with all due respect.
Title: In the Valley of Disregard
Author: LadyRowan (rowandarkstar@gmail.com)
Rating: Mature
Spoilers: Through "When Fates Collide"
Categories: Angst, hurt/comfort, multiple realities, Xena/Gabrielle, hints of Xena/Ares UST
Mucho thanks to my betas: Teddy E, elsieaustin, vampire_cookies, and triciabyrne1978
IN THE VALLEY OF DISREGARD
by
Lady Rowan
Copyright (c) 2009
Chapter 2:
The first time she opened up to me, really opened up to me, we were in the dark. We'd stopped a warlord from ravaging a small fishing village. We'd tried to help out a family with a sick little boy, a mother who could hardly pay for their food, let alone the care and help the boy needed. His father had been killed years ago. We'd done all we could to secure their futures. I had left their drafty little hovel promising we would come back soon to make sure they were okay. Then, Xena had disappeared for a half hour into a barn at the edge of town, slipping off to talk to someone I didn't know.
We left the village in late afternoon. I expected to camp at the first decent patch of dry ground, but Xena wanted to keep walking, well past dark. She said she wanted to be in Macelon in time for a coronation, that there was a political conflict, that we might be able to keep the trouble to a minimum. The kind of information Xena always seemed to have but I never seemed to see her get. I didn't doubt the truth in her intent. But she relayed the information with the fewest words possible, and walked on in silence through the night.
I chattered off and on, got the usual grunts and one word replies that told me her thoughts were elsewhere. She held Argo's reigns and warrior and steed lead the way. I let the words go and fell into silent steps behind her.
Then out of the darkness, Xena said simply, "I killed him, Gabrielle."
I didn't understand.
"The boy's father. I killed him. I killed him just to take his horse and his sword. Because he served my purpose."
It wasn't the first brutal or sickening revelation she had offered without apology. It wasn't the first time I'd been glad for cover of darkness to hide the revulsion in my eyes. But it was the first time the bitterness in her voice had been missing. And I realized in that moment that the bitterness was armor, and that the armor could slip.
I couldn't summon any words to speak. What comfort could I offer? Could any good I pointed out outweigh the horror she had committed? Her name slipped across my lips, but that was all I had to give. A cloud settled over the moon, and the darkness was blinding. I moved up behind Xena, matching her footsteps by feel, a hand reaching instinctively to brush against the flaps of her skirt.
We walked twenty paces more. Then the simplest of sounds tore at my soul. Xena drew a slow breath through her mouth...and I could hear the tears.
By the Gods. My heart nearly stopped. The darkness lay so thick, I could hardly make out her form. But I could hear her unsteady breath, feel the slight slowing of her pace. Ever so gradually, I moved up beside her. In a rush of gentle bravery, I slipped an arm around her waist. And she leaned into me and caught a shuddering breath. We kept moving, letting Argo guide us through the sea of dark. I couldn't see Xena's face, she couldn't see mine. Not a word was spoken. In the silent black the moment could as much have been dream as reality.
But I remember it all too clearly. The broken soul shivering against me in the night, carrying a weight I couldn't begin to comprehend.
The question I carried was far less virulent, if no less confusing. How could the kind and gentle Xena I slept beside ever have been the monster that runs through her dreams? Tonight I find myself wondering...if I am about to step into her place.
I woke just before dawn, the first twinklings of orange light creeping through the high narrow window. For long moments, I couldn't move. I thought if I kept still in the haze of predawn, if I didn't turn my head, the last day would prove to have been a dream. If I didn't roll over, Xena would be behind me, sleeping the sound sleep that so often eluded her grasp. The blissful sleep she'd been blessed with while she was pregnant with Eve. Restful oblivion, gentle peace. How many nights had I been the one to lie awake guarding mother and child? A small price to pay in return for so many years of her constant and vigilant protection.
Ares flashed red in my mind's eye, vivid and real, almost present in the room. I startled into full consciousness, found myself questioning whether his image was a figment of my subconscious or a more literal visitation.
Eyes open and scanning the small room, I found empty shadows. Momentary relief faded into a quiet weight on my chest. My sweet moments of denial had shattered and I lay staring at the worn and leaky roof of the only inn in the village, feeling every sore muscle beneath my skin, the gentle crink in my neck, the scrape on my leg from my run through the rough underbrush. My first clear thought was a vehement refusal -- of my situation; of the task with which I'd been charged. Anger felt good, bestowed some measure of control. Ares. Ares? When in Tartarus had we ever taken Ares at his word? For all of Xena's inexplicable attachment and dysfunctional loyalty to the god of war, she had never once truly trusted him. My own confidence was thinner than Xena's. Ares' was the only word I had for where I was, what was happening, what was to come. How could I know any of this was true? What if I was a part of a scheme? Some grand joke to break my soul while he lured Xena back into his court? The pictures Ares had painted for me, the task he had dropped in my lap... All of it was too surreal, too out of my frame of reference to grasp or hold. Last night I had run. Run from the sickening blood-stained images Ares had burned into my mind, run from the mere notion of my world having been turned upside down. Run from a reality more fitting for my nightmares than my days. Ultimately, I had run from the one seed of truth in Ares words that made me believe...if only for a moment...this might ultimately be a task I could not allow myself to fail.
I pushed that memory from my mind.
Eyes closed once more, I stretched out my stiff muscles in the stingy confines of the bed. Xena would have hated this place, beds far too small for her endless legs. I had come to this village, these cliffs beyond, not on Ares' orders, but on a long learned sense of direction. Toward Xena. She was the only grounding point in these foreign seas. Find Xena. The rest I could wrestle later. I doubted Ares would disappear nor let me forget the task at hand. This was his game, and he loved to keep a close eye on the battlefield. I would take what time I could to find my own way in the darkness.
The orange light widened and deepened on the narrow strip of visible sky. Ares had said first light; Xena's ship could have been touching the shore even as I lay in the quiet of the inn. And she had never been one to sleep in.
I rolled onto my side, tucked my knees nearer my chest beneath the warmth of the ragged blanket.
I should have been on the move, forging the short trek from the hilltop inn to the cliffs. But as much as my compass had pointed me toward Xena, the reality of meeting her now, of her presence drawing close on the waters that waved in my ears...cinched a knot in my stomach I hadn't felt in many summers. Xena the Warrior Princess. Xena the Warlord. Xena years before we met. Xena before Caesar's betrayal. Did I know anything of this woman?
My own words rang back to me, spoken to a child who had yet to be born (might not exist...would Borias live? Did he and Xena meet? Would Lao Ma die at the hands of her child?), "This is the only Xena I’ve ever known. I find it hard to understand the hatred that she gets sometimes, when we travel-- from people who just don’t know her the way I know her."
The only Xena I'd known.
That was about to change.
I braced myself against the cool morning air and pushed away the scratchy wool blanket.
I'd never unlaced my boots.
*****
"Hey, there, miss. You're an early riser, aren't you?" The weathered woman who had brought my bath water the night before now knelt before the dining room fire, tending the morning's porridge and tea. The room wasn't especially spacious, but it was clean, cared for and inviting. I descended the last of the steps into the otherwise deserted hall.
"Porridge won't be but a few more minutes, though. Something warm in your belly before you set out," she offered with a smile.
I gave the woman the warmest smile I could muster, a bit dazed by the simple domestic comfort in the scene, the tranquility clashing so sharply with the turbulence in my head. "It sounds wonderful," I managed aloud, "but I'm afraid I have to be off right away."
The woman pushed to her feet from a crouch before the fire, bracing a hand on her knee and giving an unabashed groan at the muscular effort. "In such a hurry are you? Town's hardly awake, ya know."
I nodded. "I know. I'm...meeting someone. It's all right. But thank you."
The woman smiled at the courtesy, though her eyes held a mix of curiosity and concern.
Part of me, absurdly, wanted to stay in this place. But where would that lead?
Ares or no Ares, out the door was the only way forward.
*****
Curse my lifestyle that taught me to travel light. I had on me very little in the way of supplies. Only my basic clothing, my sais, and my pouch with a few dinars and the makings of a basic poultice usually best mixed by Xena. Xena's bags had housed our hair comb, my sleeping shift. Tesla's bags had held my latest scrolls. I contemplated stopping in the village shop to see if I could bargain down a cloak for the crisp winds off the water. But the sun was rising and I was looking for delays. I could snag a cloak later in my journey. For now, my place was at the shore.
The path from the inn to the cliff tops was steeper and more jagged than the route I had taken the night before. My legs protested the climb, but I welcomed the exertion, the physical distraction. The sun was warming my shoulders and the brisk wind seemed to sweep my scattered thoughts to neat rows at the back of my mind. The dim warmth of the inn felt a lifetime away.
When at last I reached the open clearing at the top of the cliffs, the wide vista before me nearly took my breath. As I moved toward the edge of the land, the morning sun off the water shone like liquid gold, and I remembered a sunlit morning on the shores of a surreal river, where the white fish swam and the Rheingold would stay, and Xena smiled at me like for a moment...her world was okay. That was always the core with Xena; the beauty, the rightness she'd sought for a lifetime only ever came in moments too slippery for her grasp.
As I reached the edge of the cliffs, my eyes found the precarious stone steps marching up from the sea.
And then at the rickety dock far below my eagle's perch....a good sized ship, and a smattering of men spilling onto the shore.
I dropped to a crouch behind a flowering bush and peered through the spindly branches. I could clearly make out at least a dozen men moving from the ship, down the dock toward the base of the stone steps. Still others remained onboard, shouting unclear words to those below. Then vaulting effortlessly over the railing of the gang plank and onto the sand -- a woman. Impossibly long hair tangled with strands of gold dangling from her headdress. Deep purple silks on her legs, and gold billowing sleeves escaping a bejeweled leather breastplate. Her skin was a deep sun-bronze, and the smile on her face was vivid even from this distance. She stopped for a moment on the shore, feet set wide, hands on her hips, and surveyed the land before her. She called out something toward the men ahead of her on the sand, and a few heads turned, voices replied, then the group moved on. Xena broke into a light jog to catch up with them, calling something over her shoulder to the men on board. I squinted into the sunlight, struggling to see more detail, catch every subtlety of expression, every movement of long legs. I would have near killed for a magnifying crystal. But as Xena once again turned her attention toward the shore, I needed no more than my naked eyes to catch the arrogant smirk I had seen a thousand times before. She reached out and smacked one of her men on the back of the head as she passed. The man ducked and turned sharply, but there was a bit of laughter in his carriage, and Xena never broke her smile.
I watched until the imposing group disappeared at the foot of the cliffs, beginning their ascent of the steps, then I pushed to my feet and moved a few paces from the land's edge. My heart was racing like the leaves trembling in the ocean breeze.
Xena was on her way up to where I stood. And all I could think about was disappearing as fast as possible.
******
Xena and her men were halfway between the cliffs and the inn when the three burly men from the village spread their stolid forms into a human road block across the path.
I could see the mistake a mile away.
Small villages are all the same, and I've yet to see one not at least mildly suspicious of strangers. These men were clearly the local self-appointed muscle sent to determine if Xena and her crew were appropriate visitors to their precious village. I respected the notion even as I pitied them their foolish bravery.
A gently amused smile pulled at Xena's lips as she slowed her pace and measured up her morning's challenge. From my perch in the prickly tree limbs I had a relatively unobstructed view of the potential disaster and hoped the distraction would work to my advantage as they passed nearest my hiding point.
Two of the three men were near Xena's height, the third a good half a head shorter. They were dressed in nondescript peasant clothing, farmers or tradesman. None was particularly clean, and all of them a bit round in the belly. Only the youngest, and smallest challenger, appeared as though he could put up any real fight at all.
Xena stood, hands on her hips, silks fluttering in the saltwater breeze, and locked gazes with the center man, clearly the spokesman for the group. She held eye contact in silence just long enough to make the men shift their feet, forcing them to make the first move to break the silence.
"'Mornin'," the front man said, giving a slight nod of his head.
"'Morning," Xena returned, her clear voice carrying easily on the wind and settling in my stomach to slither and burn.
The man cleared his throat. "Something we can do for you today?" he asked, tone a little more forceful, his attempt at re-taking control of the situation.
Xena pursed her lips and raised dark eyebrows in mock consideration. A soft snort escaped one of her men. "Oh, that depends," she began silkily, "what have you got to offer me?" Her pseudo-seductive tone was playful and dangerous.
"We're just a fishing village, lady. You have business here?"
Xena's eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to the men. "I believe my business here...is my...business." Her words slowed and grew deliberate, smooth voice dropping register.
The men tensed, but did not step back. Another mistake.
"Now, if you'll excuse us...we intend to pass down this road."
They eyed their blue-eyed intruder for a long moment, their gazes taking in Xena's jewels, the knife handle protruding from her boot, the weapons at each of her men's sides. The villagers held no visible weapons. The front man said steadily, "We think it might be best if you all just turned back around. You might find somewhere else more suited to your needs." She had to admire his confidence. Or stupidity.
Xena tilted her head to the side, closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. "Perhaps you didn't hear what I said. You see, we intend to pass this way. Now either you move out of the way, or we take care of that for you. Understand now?"
"We're asking you to leave quietly. So no one gets hurt," the man said, crossing his bulky arms stiffly across his broad chest.
Xena drew her teeth ever so slowly across her lower lip, then gave a simple nod. "I see," she said softly.
Before I could blink, Xena was in the air with a roundhouse kick to the front man's head and he was on the ground. At her cue, Xena's men took advantage of the temporary shock inflicted upon the other locals and pinned their arms behind their backs.
"Tie them to the trees," Xena commanded, never looking up from her quarry. The man lay panting, his back to the dirt, Xena's boot shoved into his throat.
She held one of his arms up by the wrist at an awkward angle.
"Now," she mock simpered, "let's get this straight. My men and I are going to pass down this road. We may stop in the village for food and supplies. We may leave in a day. Or maybe we'll like what we see, and take it for our own. And if we choose to do so, there's not a damned thing in Hades you could do to stop us." She bent one of the man's fingers back at a painfully sharp angle and he stifled an injured cry. "Do you know how much territory I rule? Do you know Amphipolis? Cerdylium? Argilus? Do you think your pathetic little village could breathe a day without my permission?"
He gave a muffled sound that could have been a word.
"What was that?" Xena barked, bending the finger further and extracting another pained cry.
"You're...you're Xena," the man managed, eyes wide with recognition and the familiar mixture of wonder and fear.
Xena quirked a smile of genuine pleasure. "You've heard of me? I'm pleased. Perhaps I'll let you live. With only two broken fingers." Her last words sharpened on a grunt of effort as she audibly snapped two of the thick fingers in her capable palm. The man's deep cry brought a snort of derision from Xena. His companions were too gutless to even voice a protest.
"You bore me," Xena spat, and she shoved the man's crippled hand toward his chest and shoved off his throat with her foot as she stepped away.
The man coughed and clutched at his throat with his good hand. Xena took two steps away, scanning her men's handiwork tying the others to the trees. "Strip them of petty cash," she ordered with a sniff. "Poleneus, take their clothes and throw them back over the cliffs. That should slow them down."
"Yes, Xena," said a young man -- a boy almost -- in blue trousers and a black blouse who hovered a few steps behind and to Xena's side. He moved quickly into action at her words. I wondered how long this boy had been under Xena's hand, and from what life he had come.
Her men finished their tasks with impressive efficiency and Xena gave one last kick to the prone man's ribs that turned my stomach, then she started down the path toward the inn. "Come on," she called to her men, "I'm hungry." One of the men emerged from the crowd and suddenly he was all I could see as a wave of memory mixed with the present.
This man slipped a bold, dark arm around Xena's waist as she strode away, and he even lifted her hair to place a playful kiss to the back of her neck. "Aren't you always hungry?" he asked, all the double-entendres clear in his voice.
Xena allowed a deep-throated chuckle before she smacked the back of her hand into the man's stomach with no real force to the gesture. "For better than the likes of you, Marcus." And they were all moving down the path, away from the three naked villagers and the misplaced warrior hiding up a tree.
******
The road to the village left little opportunity for covert surveillance, but I had learned from the best. I followed Xena and her small band down the very path I had climbed just candlemarks before, able to make out my reverse tracks as I progressed. Xena's long legs covered the path with ease, and she soon entered the town to concerned looks and wary movements. Tracking grew easier as we merged into the market square; the village had come to life in my absence. At the public well, Xena snapped her teeth and snarled at a staring child, sending him running through the dusty streets. She picked up the heavy ladle the child had dropped and helped herself to some water at the well. I saw her eyes settle on the eatery across the square, and she gestured that direction and said something to the darkly bearded man at her side.
I moved ever so sedately through the increasing number of bodies in the square, trailing the intruders' movements. I was tracking my prey with practiced fluency; hovering in the early morning shadows, watching Marcus feign gallantry as he held the heavy wood door for Xena. Of course, the Xena I knew (not the Xena who snapped innocent villagers' fingers and ruled Amphipolis for personal gain) could hear movement miles away, sense eyes upon her from distances that defied comprehension. But I had turned all her own tricks back upon her, even pulled off a few slick turns of my own. I'd been damned near invisible, I was certain. Right up until I found myself slammed toward the side stone wall of the eatery, my back against a leather breastplate and a sun-glinted blade at my throat.
Dark hair slid over my shoulder and I caught the scent of a thousand nights.
"Who are you, Amazon? And what gives you the right to follow me?"
**
(End Chapter 2, Continued in Chapter 3)
Find the Prologue and Chapter 1 here.
Disclaimer: This all belongs to Renaissance Pictures and Universal. I wish I could say it was all mine. Truly I do. But I'm just borrowing this wonderful world with all due respect.
Title: In the Valley of Disregard
Author: LadyRowan (rowandarkstar@gmail.com)
Rating: Mature
Spoilers: Through "When Fates Collide"
Categories: Angst, hurt/comfort, multiple realities, Xena/Gabrielle, hints of Xena/Ares UST
Mucho thanks to my betas: Teddy E, elsieaustin, vampire_cookies, and triciabyrne1978
IN THE VALLEY OF DISREGARD
by
Lady Rowan
Copyright (c) 2009
Chapter 2:
The first time she opened up to me, really opened up to me, we were in the dark. We'd stopped a warlord from ravaging a small fishing village. We'd tried to help out a family with a sick little boy, a mother who could hardly pay for their food, let alone the care and help the boy needed. His father had been killed years ago. We'd done all we could to secure their futures. I had left their drafty little hovel promising we would come back soon to make sure they were okay. Then, Xena had disappeared for a half hour into a barn at the edge of town, slipping off to talk to someone I didn't know.
We left the village in late afternoon. I expected to camp at the first decent patch of dry ground, but Xena wanted to keep walking, well past dark. She said she wanted to be in Macelon in time for a coronation, that there was a political conflict, that we might be able to keep the trouble to a minimum. The kind of information Xena always seemed to have but I never seemed to see her get. I didn't doubt the truth in her intent. But she relayed the information with the fewest words possible, and walked on in silence through the night.
I chattered off and on, got the usual grunts and one word replies that told me her thoughts were elsewhere. She held Argo's reigns and warrior and steed lead the way. I let the words go and fell into silent steps behind her.
Then out of the darkness, Xena said simply, "I killed him, Gabrielle."
I didn't understand.
"The boy's father. I killed him. I killed him just to take his horse and his sword. Because he served my purpose."
It wasn't the first brutal or sickening revelation she had offered without apology. It wasn't the first time I'd been glad for cover of darkness to hide the revulsion in my eyes. But it was the first time the bitterness in her voice had been missing. And I realized in that moment that the bitterness was armor, and that the armor could slip.
I couldn't summon any words to speak. What comfort could I offer? Could any good I pointed out outweigh the horror she had committed? Her name slipped across my lips, but that was all I had to give. A cloud settled over the moon, and the darkness was blinding. I moved up behind Xena, matching her footsteps by feel, a hand reaching instinctively to brush against the flaps of her skirt.
We walked twenty paces more. Then the simplest of sounds tore at my soul. Xena drew a slow breath through her mouth...and I could hear the tears.
By the Gods. My heart nearly stopped. The darkness lay so thick, I could hardly make out her form. But I could hear her unsteady breath, feel the slight slowing of her pace. Ever so gradually, I moved up beside her. In a rush of gentle bravery, I slipped an arm around her waist. And she leaned into me and caught a shuddering breath. We kept moving, letting Argo guide us through the sea of dark. I couldn't see Xena's face, she couldn't see mine. Not a word was spoken. In the silent black the moment could as much have been dream as reality.
But I remember it all too clearly. The broken soul shivering against me in the night, carrying a weight I couldn't begin to comprehend.
The question I carried was far less virulent, if no less confusing. How could the kind and gentle Xena I slept beside ever have been the monster that runs through her dreams? Tonight I find myself wondering...if I am about to step into her place.
I woke just before dawn, the first twinklings of orange light creeping through the high narrow window. For long moments, I couldn't move. I thought if I kept still in the haze of predawn, if I didn't turn my head, the last day would prove to have been a dream. If I didn't roll over, Xena would be behind me, sleeping the sound sleep that so often eluded her grasp. The blissful sleep she'd been blessed with while she was pregnant with Eve. Restful oblivion, gentle peace. How many nights had I been the one to lie awake guarding mother and child? A small price to pay in return for so many years of her constant and vigilant protection.
Ares flashed red in my mind's eye, vivid and real, almost present in the room. I startled into full consciousness, found myself questioning whether his image was a figment of my subconscious or a more literal visitation.
Eyes open and scanning the small room, I found empty shadows. Momentary relief faded into a quiet weight on my chest. My sweet moments of denial had shattered and I lay staring at the worn and leaky roof of the only inn in the village, feeling every sore muscle beneath my skin, the gentle crink in my neck, the scrape on my leg from my run through the rough underbrush. My first clear thought was a vehement refusal -- of my situation; of the task with which I'd been charged. Anger felt good, bestowed some measure of control. Ares. Ares? When in Tartarus had we ever taken Ares at his word? For all of Xena's inexplicable attachment and dysfunctional loyalty to the god of war, she had never once truly trusted him. My own confidence was thinner than Xena's. Ares' was the only word I had for where I was, what was happening, what was to come. How could I know any of this was true? What if I was a part of a scheme? Some grand joke to break my soul while he lured Xena back into his court? The pictures Ares had painted for me, the task he had dropped in my lap... All of it was too surreal, too out of my frame of reference to grasp or hold. Last night I had run. Run from the sickening blood-stained images Ares had burned into my mind, run from the mere notion of my world having been turned upside down. Run from a reality more fitting for my nightmares than my days. Ultimately, I had run from the one seed of truth in Ares words that made me believe...if only for a moment...this might ultimately be a task I could not allow myself to fail.
I pushed that memory from my mind.
Eyes closed once more, I stretched out my stiff muscles in the stingy confines of the bed. Xena would have hated this place, beds far too small for her endless legs. I had come to this village, these cliffs beyond, not on Ares' orders, but on a long learned sense of direction. Toward Xena. She was the only grounding point in these foreign seas. Find Xena. The rest I could wrestle later. I doubted Ares would disappear nor let me forget the task at hand. This was his game, and he loved to keep a close eye on the battlefield. I would take what time I could to find my own way in the darkness.
The orange light widened and deepened on the narrow strip of visible sky. Ares had said first light; Xena's ship could have been touching the shore even as I lay in the quiet of the inn. And she had never been one to sleep in.
I rolled onto my side, tucked my knees nearer my chest beneath the warmth of the ragged blanket.
I should have been on the move, forging the short trek from the hilltop inn to the cliffs. But as much as my compass had pointed me toward Xena, the reality of meeting her now, of her presence drawing close on the waters that waved in my ears...cinched a knot in my stomach I hadn't felt in many summers. Xena the Warrior Princess. Xena the Warlord. Xena years before we met. Xena before Caesar's betrayal. Did I know anything of this woman?
My own words rang back to me, spoken to a child who had yet to be born (might not exist...would Borias live? Did he and Xena meet? Would Lao Ma die at the hands of her child?), "This is the only Xena I’ve ever known. I find it hard to understand the hatred that she gets sometimes, when we travel-- from people who just don’t know her the way I know her."
The only Xena I'd known.
That was about to change.
I braced myself against the cool morning air and pushed away the scratchy wool blanket.
I'd never unlaced my boots.
*****
"Hey, there, miss. You're an early riser, aren't you?" The weathered woman who had brought my bath water the night before now knelt before the dining room fire, tending the morning's porridge and tea. The room wasn't especially spacious, but it was clean, cared for and inviting. I descended the last of the steps into the otherwise deserted hall.
"Porridge won't be but a few more minutes, though. Something warm in your belly before you set out," she offered with a smile.
I gave the woman the warmest smile I could muster, a bit dazed by the simple domestic comfort in the scene, the tranquility clashing so sharply with the turbulence in my head. "It sounds wonderful," I managed aloud, "but I'm afraid I have to be off right away."
The woman pushed to her feet from a crouch before the fire, bracing a hand on her knee and giving an unabashed groan at the muscular effort. "In such a hurry are you? Town's hardly awake, ya know."
I nodded. "I know. I'm...meeting someone. It's all right. But thank you."
The woman smiled at the courtesy, though her eyes held a mix of curiosity and concern.
Part of me, absurdly, wanted to stay in this place. But where would that lead?
Ares or no Ares, out the door was the only way forward.
*****
Curse my lifestyle that taught me to travel light. I had on me very little in the way of supplies. Only my basic clothing, my sais, and my pouch with a few dinars and the makings of a basic poultice usually best mixed by Xena. Xena's bags had housed our hair comb, my sleeping shift. Tesla's bags had held my latest scrolls. I contemplated stopping in the village shop to see if I could bargain down a cloak for the crisp winds off the water. But the sun was rising and I was looking for delays. I could snag a cloak later in my journey. For now, my place was at the shore.
The path from the inn to the cliff tops was steeper and more jagged than the route I had taken the night before. My legs protested the climb, but I welcomed the exertion, the physical distraction. The sun was warming my shoulders and the brisk wind seemed to sweep my scattered thoughts to neat rows at the back of my mind. The dim warmth of the inn felt a lifetime away.
When at last I reached the open clearing at the top of the cliffs, the wide vista before me nearly took my breath. As I moved toward the edge of the land, the morning sun off the water shone like liquid gold, and I remembered a sunlit morning on the shores of a surreal river, where the white fish swam and the Rheingold would stay, and Xena smiled at me like for a moment...her world was okay. That was always the core with Xena; the beauty, the rightness she'd sought for a lifetime only ever came in moments too slippery for her grasp.
As I reached the edge of the cliffs, my eyes found the precarious stone steps marching up from the sea.
And then at the rickety dock far below my eagle's perch....a good sized ship, and a smattering of men spilling onto the shore.
I dropped to a crouch behind a flowering bush and peered through the spindly branches. I could clearly make out at least a dozen men moving from the ship, down the dock toward the base of the stone steps. Still others remained onboard, shouting unclear words to those below. Then vaulting effortlessly over the railing of the gang plank and onto the sand -- a woman. Impossibly long hair tangled with strands of gold dangling from her headdress. Deep purple silks on her legs, and gold billowing sleeves escaping a bejeweled leather breastplate. Her skin was a deep sun-bronze, and the smile on her face was vivid even from this distance. She stopped for a moment on the shore, feet set wide, hands on her hips, and surveyed the land before her. She called out something toward the men ahead of her on the sand, and a few heads turned, voices replied, then the group moved on. Xena broke into a light jog to catch up with them, calling something over her shoulder to the men on board. I squinted into the sunlight, struggling to see more detail, catch every subtlety of expression, every movement of long legs. I would have near killed for a magnifying crystal. But as Xena once again turned her attention toward the shore, I needed no more than my naked eyes to catch the arrogant smirk I had seen a thousand times before. She reached out and smacked one of her men on the back of the head as she passed. The man ducked and turned sharply, but there was a bit of laughter in his carriage, and Xena never broke her smile.
I watched until the imposing group disappeared at the foot of the cliffs, beginning their ascent of the steps, then I pushed to my feet and moved a few paces from the land's edge. My heart was racing like the leaves trembling in the ocean breeze.
Xena was on her way up to where I stood. And all I could think about was disappearing as fast as possible.
******
Xena and her men were halfway between the cliffs and the inn when the three burly men from the village spread their stolid forms into a human road block across the path.
I could see the mistake a mile away.
Small villages are all the same, and I've yet to see one not at least mildly suspicious of strangers. These men were clearly the local self-appointed muscle sent to determine if Xena and her crew were appropriate visitors to their precious village. I respected the notion even as I pitied them their foolish bravery.
A gently amused smile pulled at Xena's lips as she slowed her pace and measured up her morning's challenge. From my perch in the prickly tree limbs I had a relatively unobstructed view of the potential disaster and hoped the distraction would work to my advantage as they passed nearest my hiding point.
Two of the three men were near Xena's height, the third a good half a head shorter. They were dressed in nondescript peasant clothing, farmers or tradesman. None was particularly clean, and all of them a bit round in the belly. Only the youngest, and smallest challenger, appeared as though he could put up any real fight at all.
Xena stood, hands on her hips, silks fluttering in the saltwater breeze, and locked gazes with the center man, clearly the spokesman for the group. She held eye contact in silence just long enough to make the men shift their feet, forcing them to make the first move to break the silence.
"'Mornin'," the front man said, giving a slight nod of his head.
"'Morning," Xena returned, her clear voice carrying easily on the wind and settling in my stomach to slither and burn.
The man cleared his throat. "Something we can do for you today?" he asked, tone a little more forceful, his attempt at re-taking control of the situation.
Xena pursed her lips and raised dark eyebrows in mock consideration. A soft snort escaped one of her men. "Oh, that depends," she began silkily, "what have you got to offer me?" Her pseudo-seductive tone was playful and dangerous.
"We're just a fishing village, lady. You have business here?"
Xena's eyes narrowed and she took a step closer to the men. "I believe my business here...is my...business." Her words slowed and grew deliberate, smooth voice dropping register.
The men tensed, but did not step back. Another mistake.
"Now, if you'll excuse us...we intend to pass down this road."
They eyed their blue-eyed intruder for a long moment, their gazes taking in Xena's jewels, the knife handle protruding from her boot, the weapons at each of her men's sides. The villagers held no visible weapons. The front man said steadily, "We think it might be best if you all just turned back around. You might find somewhere else more suited to your needs." She had to admire his confidence. Or stupidity.
Xena tilted her head to the side, closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. "Perhaps you didn't hear what I said. You see, we intend to pass this way. Now either you move out of the way, or we take care of that for you. Understand now?"
"We're asking you to leave quietly. So no one gets hurt," the man said, crossing his bulky arms stiffly across his broad chest.
Xena drew her teeth ever so slowly across her lower lip, then gave a simple nod. "I see," she said softly.
Before I could blink, Xena was in the air with a roundhouse kick to the front man's head and he was on the ground. At her cue, Xena's men took advantage of the temporary shock inflicted upon the other locals and pinned their arms behind their backs.
"Tie them to the trees," Xena commanded, never looking up from her quarry. The man lay panting, his back to the dirt, Xena's boot shoved into his throat.
She held one of his arms up by the wrist at an awkward angle.
"Now," she mock simpered, "let's get this straight. My men and I are going to pass down this road. We may stop in the village for food and supplies. We may leave in a day. Or maybe we'll like what we see, and take it for our own. And if we choose to do so, there's not a damned thing in Hades you could do to stop us." She bent one of the man's fingers back at a painfully sharp angle and he stifled an injured cry. "Do you know how much territory I rule? Do you know Amphipolis? Cerdylium? Argilus? Do you think your pathetic little village could breathe a day without my permission?"
He gave a muffled sound that could have been a word.
"What was that?" Xena barked, bending the finger further and extracting another pained cry.
"You're...you're Xena," the man managed, eyes wide with recognition and the familiar mixture of wonder and fear.
Xena quirked a smile of genuine pleasure. "You've heard of me? I'm pleased. Perhaps I'll let you live. With only two broken fingers." Her last words sharpened on a grunt of effort as she audibly snapped two of the thick fingers in her capable palm. The man's deep cry brought a snort of derision from Xena. His companions were too gutless to even voice a protest.
"You bore me," Xena spat, and she shoved the man's crippled hand toward his chest and shoved off his throat with her foot as she stepped away.
The man coughed and clutched at his throat with his good hand. Xena took two steps away, scanning her men's handiwork tying the others to the trees. "Strip them of petty cash," she ordered with a sniff. "Poleneus, take their clothes and throw them back over the cliffs. That should slow them down."
"Yes, Xena," said a young man -- a boy almost -- in blue trousers and a black blouse who hovered a few steps behind and to Xena's side. He moved quickly into action at her words. I wondered how long this boy had been under Xena's hand, and from what life he had come.
Her men finished their tasks with impressive efficiency and Xena gave one last kick to the prone man's ribs that turned my stomach, then she started down the path toward the inn. "Come on," she called to her men, "I'm hungry." One of the men emerged from the crowd and suddenly he was all I could see as a wave of memory mixed with the present.
This man slipped a bold, dark arm around Xena's waist as she strode away, and he even lifted her hair to place a playful kiss to the back of her neck. "Aren't you always hungry?" he asked, all the double-entendres clear in his voice.
Xena allowed a deep-throated chuckle before she smacked the back of her hand into the man's stomach with no real force to the gesture. "For better than the likes of you, Marcus." And they were all moving down the path, away from the three naked villagers and the misplaced warrior hiding up a tree.
******
The road to the village left little opportunity for covert surveillance, but I had learned from the best. I followed Xena and her small band down the very path I had climbed just candlemarks before, able to make out my reverse tracks as I progressed. Xena's long legs covered the path with ease, and she soon entered the town to concerned looks and wary movements. Tracking grew easier as we merged into the market square; the village had come to life in my absence. At the public well, Xena snapped her teeth and snarled at a staring child, sending him running through the dusty streets. She picked up the heavy ladle the child had dropped and helped herself to some water at the well. I saw her eyes settle on the eatery across the square, and she gestured that direction and said something to the darkly bearded man at her side.
I moved ever so sedately through the increasing number of bodies in the square, trailing the intruders' movements. I was tracking my prey with practiced fluency; hovering in the early morning shadows, watching Marcus feign gallantry as he held the heavy wood door for Xena. Of course, the Xena I knew (not the Xena who snapped innocent villagers' fingers and ruled Amphipolis for personal gain) could hear movement miles away, sense eyes upon her from distances that defied comprehension. But I had turned all her own tricks back upon her, even pulled off a few slick turns of my own. I'd been damned near invisible, I was certain. Right up until I found myself slammed toward the side stone wall of the eatery, my back against a leather breastplate and a sun-glinted blade at my throat.
Dark hair slid over my shoulder and I caught the scent of a thousand nights.
"Who are you, Amazon? And what gives you the right to follow me?"
**
(End Chapter 2, Continued in Chapter 3)