Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (easy books to read TXT) 📗

Her skin blistered, peeled off in flakes, and darkened to a ruddy brown. No one objected. When her hair grew too matted to comb, she persuaded Elpis to cut it. She began to understand that at Brauron, the ordinary rules of life were suspended. As long as she kept inside the boundaries of the sanctuary, she was like Artemis, a free child of the woods and marshlands. No one threatened her or shamed her. No one put a distaff into her hands.

As spring turned to summer, she explored the woods. She shinnied up the trees, and ventured out on the flexible branches, daring them to break. Korinna provided flint and iron, and Melisto spent hours striking sparks onto tinder, building small fires and extinguishing them with earth. She gathered food plants and gnawed them determinedly. She wove garlands for the wooden statue of Artemis and scattered seed and salt for the animals that visited the sanctuary.

The construction of a rough shelter absorbed her for weeks. She dragged fallen trees into a lean-to, lashing them together with vines and willow boughs. By the time she finished, her arms and legs were crosshatched with scratches, but she was proud of her work. The girls were encouraged to make such shelters. There were festival days when elders and priests came to banquet at Brauron, and on such occasions the dining couches belonged to the men. The little girls took their bear-cloaks and camped outdoors. During a squall, Melisto’s shelter proved surprisingly weather-worthy. She had built it on a knob of rising ground, and it did not flood; it rocked a little when the wind gusted, but it kept her and Elpis dry.

For some weeks, Melisto avoided the open-air spaces where the girls pitched their looms. She knew that at some point, she would have to weave one of the bear-cloaks for another Bear, but no one ordered her to begin work, and she put it off. When she snagged her yellow chiton on a tree limb, it ripped from hem to neck, and she knew she would have to make another one. Grudgingly she set up her loom under the stoa. She strung the warp threads, bundled them, and tied clay weights to the ends.

She had woven four inches when Klotho, the handmaid in charge of wool work, called the girls over to admire the even tension of her weft. Melisto listened with her mouth ajar. Neither Thratta nor Lysandra had ever praised her: they were perfectionists. Now she saw that their strictness had served her well. Her pattern was good, and her hands were deft. Melisto took up her beating pin with a light heart. If she was going to be good at weaving, she might not hate it so much. With a thrill of insight, she understood that what she had really hated was the confinement of the weaving room. She had been too close to her mother.

Now she was free of Lysandra. She could wield her shuttle without having to brace herself to duck or dodge. No matter what she did at Brauron, no one yanked her hair, or shook her breathless, or stung her with poisonous words. If sometimes she missed Thratta, there was Korinna, who could be adored from a safe distance. If she grew lonely, Elpis was always underfoot, sometimes a joy, more often a nuisance, but never a danger.

Such happiness could not last. At the age of ten, Melisto was one of the oldest Bears. She would not serve Artemis for long. Once she began to turn into a woman, she would be sent back home, and Arkadios would find her a husband. The rest of her life would be spent indoors. There would be endless wool work, slaves to command, and children to bear. She was the daughter of a wealthy man, and this was the life to which she was entitled. All the same, she did not want it. She peered under her arms for the first shadowing of hair, and pinched her small nipples, dreading the day when her breasts would begin to swell. So far, so good: her round and sturdy body was still a child’s.

She almost forgot about the amber sphinx. At the back of her mind was the knowledge that she would have to go in search of it, though it lay outside the boundaries of the sanctuary. The necklace belonged to Artemis. It was Melisto’s duty to deliver it. Her mother must not die in childbirth, and her father wanted a son. The last thought hurt like biting her tongue or touching a sore place in her mouth. If Lysandra gave birth to a son, Arkadios’s affection would be divided. She, Melisto, would be eclipsed.

There was yet time. Lysandra’s child was not due until midwinter.

The nights at Brauron were different from the days. On moonlit nights, the Little Bears went to bed knowing that their sleep would be interrupted. One of the priestesses would enter the dormitories with a torch, summoning them to worship. No disobedience, no delay, was tolerated; the girls rose in a rush, stifling their yawns, knotting the belts around their tunics, finger-combing their hair.

Melisto never knew what to expect on those nights. It seemed to her that there was no pattern. She knew only that disobedience was unthinkable. She, who had been the most wayward of girl children, never opened her lips to ask a question.

The children gathered around the altar outside the Temple of Artemis. Some nights there was a sacrifice, usually a goat. One night it was Melisto who was chosen to distract the animal with handfuls of grain so that its throat could be cut. The goat was affectionate, nibbling Melisto’s fingers. Its innocence pierced her heart, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying. All her life, she had seen animals sacrificed. It was a woman’s job to shriek when the priest wielded the knife and the blood began to flow. Now she learned to catch