“Gab-Gabrielle!” Xena’s ferocious bellow cut the air of a narrow dirt street lined with trees, small houses, smaller businesses. People stared: too many of them. Athens had grown in the past year. Gabrielle, already halfway across the dusty, broad square, turned and blinked at her mounted companion as if uncertain who she was. Xena cast her gaze briefly skyward and tried to keep rising irritation from her voice. Not very successfully. “Gabrielle, we’re lost.”
Gabrielle laughed and shook her head so hard that her hair—pulled back in a severe, sensible blonde plait that went well with her simple Amazon boots, brown skirt, and short bodice—flopped wildly across her shoulders. She shoved it aside impatiently. The laugh had been edgy; the smile that replaced it was tight, and her eyes were stormy. “We are not lost! I—look, Athens is surrounded by sea on three sides, how lost can you get? And—” She turned, waved her staff at the sparsely leafed trees lining the dusty avenue. “See the length of those shadows! It’s getting late, we’ll miss the—miss the—” She shook her head again, cast up her eyes, and plunged off down the boulevard.
Xena swore between clenched teeth. “Lot of inhabited, hilly land between us and the goddess-blasted sea.” She stood tall in the saddle and looked all around her: A baker’s. A potter’s. Someone who dried herbs and sold them in tiny, fancy, beribboned (and doubtless expensive) bundles. Two bored-looking young girls sat behind a trestle table piled high with the decorative bundles, rings of dried flowers crowning their hair. Three houses had been built since the last time she’d come this way—including one with a small fountain set inside the portico.
Ostentatious display of wealth, and plenty of pointless bits of material possessions on which to spend it. “Good thing we left Lemnos with Queen Persephone,” Xena mumbled, a grin quirking the corners of her mouth. The little cook would be enraged by the gulfs she’d already seen this morning between the haves and the have-nots.
“Ah.” Her eyes fixed on the street’s eyesore, an old-fashioned, full-service stable—probably a good one when this part of Athens was new. Now it seemed to be nothing more than two elderly buildings, roughly connected by a thatched roof over a dirt walkway, around which the rapidly encroaching city had swollen. A year from now, it would likely be gone—she couldn’t imagine the seller of herb bundles or the owner of that fancy little fountain appreciating the aroma of horse with their afternoon wine.
A squat, dirty boy limped out of the shadows, leading a wet, tired-looking horse. Xena slid from the saddle and tugged at Argo’s bridle. He ambled along behind her, then gently veered toward the long, moss-covered stone trough that jutted into the street.
At least one of us is calm, Xena thought wryly as she patted her four-legged companion. There wasn’t anything as maddening as an obviously lost person who wouldn’t take the moment required to simply stop and ask directions, thereby saving hours or days of pointless wandering. The only thing more maddening to Gabrielle: me finding someone besides her to ask.
The boy leading the horse gave no sign he’d seen her—deaf or gods-touched, perhaps. But as she cleared her throat, an extremely grubby, middle-aged man clad in disreputable leathers came up the walkway. He blinked as his eyes took in all of her: long, well-muscled legs and arms, fighting leathers, and a variety of weaponry, her figure enhanced rather than hidden by the cut of her garb. “Ah—” He swallowed, then licked his lips as she stepped toward him. “Ah, your horse needs tending?”
“No, thank you. I need directions.”
“Oh. Lost, eh?”
Her mouth twisted, and her expression was sardonic. “If I weren’t lost, would I need directions? Women’s foot races—where?”
“Races—uh, mmm. Well, of course, I can get you there from here, no one better than old Argo.” She blinked; he glanced at her and grinned broadly, exposing surprisingly neat teeth. “Means gold, y’know. My poor pop thought his boy’d benefit from such a name—poor old fool. Now, let’s see—” One of those, she thought sourly. Talk your leg off. But they’d still get where they were going faster, in the long run. Barely. “Now, well, of course, you must know Olympics aren’t happening for—”
“No. Women’s races, I said,” she put in sharply. She turned to keep an eye on Gabrielle, who was well down the narrow dirt avenue. The man’s eyes followed her gaze; he laughed shortly and without much humor.
“You don’t want to let her get far down there,” he observed, his voice and words suddenly crisp and to the point. “Bad area, especially since so many men’ve come home from the war for that hussy Helen.” Something about her sudden stillness warned him: he gave her another flash of disconcertingly even, white teeth. “Your little girl’s going the wrong direction, anyway.”
He turned, then pointed the other way. “Go there, a matter of—oh, fifteen cross streets, ’til there’s an olive missing all the branches on the street side. King’s guard thought ’em a nuisance, all the traffic these days. At the olive tree, take yourself a south. Go another four cross streets, where Tom the Tinsmith has a stall, ugliest building and the largest wife you’ll ever see.”
That would take some, Xena thought, an amused grin quirking the corners of her mouth. After all, I’ve met lsyphus. She brought her attention back to the little stable hand. Argo, oddly enough. Her own Argo had slaked his thirst and was lipping the brass on her near shoulder—after the salt, seemingly. “Now, make an east at Tom’s, and go ’til you hit the water,” the man went on earnestly. “Ah, that’s a matter of, say, two big squares, a statue of Athena, a fountain to the war dead from back when Sparta and Athens went at it—hideous thing it is, too, flowers and harps and . . . Anyway, you’ll know it! Then go south once more, through the wine merchants’ market; it’s just past that. Watch your purse in the wine merchants’ market; there are cutpurses everywhere and not half enough guards to stop ’em.”
“I’m not too worried.”
He grinned and laughed heartily, blasting her with breath that was mostly garlic, and a little bad mead. “You don’t look it. You proof to quick fingers as well as swords? Just a warning.” He looked beyond her. “Better go after the little girl, she’ll get away from you.”
“Good point.” Gabrielle apparently hadn’t yet realized she was alone down there. And the little man had said it wasn’t a good area. Typical. Xena tossed him a copper and a grin of thanks as she leaped onto Argo’s back, turned the horse, and urged him forward.
Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder; there was no sign of Xena anywhere. “Now where did she—Well, she’ll just have to catch up,” she muttered under her breath. “We’ve already missed the early prelims, I know we have. But—”
“Awww, isn’t that cute!” A gravelly male voice off to her right rang out. Someone else laughed unpleasantly, and an inebriated-sounding woman tittered. Gabrielle tightened her grip on the staff and spun around. The neighborhood had deteriorated since she’d last paid much attention to the buildings around her, going rapidly downhill from new stucco and fine carvings, or neatly smoothed stone, to ugly little shacks of warped and rotting wood, and teetering piles of stone obviously dragged from ancient ruins. Just in front of her, the building was made of woven sticks and, by the smell of things, it was the kind of tavern where the strength of the drink counted for more than the taste. The sour odor of bad wine mixed with that of unwashed men, an uncleaned pig sty or sheep pen, something rotting nearby—and wine that had come back up again—nearly cost her her own breakfast.
It took her a moment to make out the two men lounging at a table well within the shadow of the overhanging roof, and the skinny, wild-haired woman leaning over the shoulder of a third man not far away.
Great. Comedians. All they need is the masks with the big goofy smiles, and a ridiculous play about frogs—or maybe mosquitos. Men like that—men who drawled insults at women—deserved a lesson in manners. I can ignore them, but if I do, they think they got away with something. Then they get worse. . . . Manners—right. But she could almost hear Xena overriding such a thought. Yeah, Gabrielle, three of ’em you can see, goddess knows how many others inside the inn. Ignore them, she decided, but she could feel the heat of anger in her face as she turned away.
“Woooooo. Really cute,” the second man responded; his words were slurred; drunk already or drunk still. Probably couldn’t even get to his feet. So, no threat—well, not much. It wouldn’t look at all heroic, but she could no doubt outrun anything in that tavern.
She kept walking, her jaw set. “Hey, darlin’, where you goin’ so fast?” the first man yelled after her in his grating voice. She took two more paces, then spun around as heavy steps pounded up behind her. The staff was already up and out. The lout grinned, revealing bad teeth, then spread his hands wide as if to indicate he was no threat, unarmed. “Asked you a question, ya know. Don’t like rude women. Too good for the rest of us, are you?”
“Just going,” Gabrielle said evenly, a nervous little smile spoiling the chill effect she wanted. She shifted her grip slightly on the staff, then began moving the ends in small circles, preliminary to a strike. He eyed her in disbelief, glanced at the staff with sudden caution, and took a short pace back. “You got any problem with that?” she added sharply.
“My friend said he don’t like rude women,” came a deep voice at her left shoulder—this one not inebriated at all. Gabrielle jumped, then risked a quick glance that way as she sidestepped to bring the owner of this new voice into view without losing sight of her first problem. This one had the look of a mean drunk—a big mean drunk, she thought as her eyes went up . . . and up. Worse yet, if he’d swallowed enough bad wine to slow him down, it didn’t show. “I don’t like Amazons,” he added shortly, and swiped at her staff with an enormous hand. He was slower than he thought, fortunately; she had the weapon out of his reach without much trouble. “Hey, Agridon,” he shouted tauntingly toward the ramshackle tavern, “you’re drunk! What’dya think you’re gonna do with this bit of yellow-haired fluff?” Gabrielle bit back a nasty comment as a third man staggered into view.
“Awww,” he mumbled. “She is cute. Here, shweetie, gi’ Agri—Agi—give us a smooch, eh?” He lurched between his friends, arms spread wide and lips puckered. The end of the staff caught him under the chin with a sharp click, his eyes rolled back, and he went down in a boneless heap. She took another step back, sent her eyes toward the brute at her left, then the gravelly-voiced man, who was staring glassy-eyed at his unconscious companion. Less problem than the monster, she decided, and aimed a jab at his stomach. But he was already backing away, hands high.
“C’mon, Hadros,” he mumbled, “help me with Agridon, will you?” The enormous Hadros shook himself, then glared down at Gabrielle and the staff that was once again weaving a controlled pattern just short of his elbow. Oops. Not going for it, she thought, and lowered into a ready crouch, but all at once he backed off with exaggerated caution. The gravelly-voiced man moved in a sideways half-circle, well away from her, grunting as he bent down to grab the moaning Agridon by his collar. Hadros snagged Agridon’s nearer arm and yanked. Agridon began yelling wordlessly as they bumped him across the dusty street; his cries could be heard long after they had vanished in the gloom of the tavern.
As she watched them go, Gabrielle managed a smug smile in spite of trembling knees, then squared her shoulders and brought her chin up. Well! Guess I do okay by myself!
“You’d do better if you kept an eye on what’s behind you once in a while,” came a low, hard voice at her ear. She yelped and spun around. Xena stood right behind her, arms folded, her lips twisted in an expression of extreme irritation. Gabrielle swore an oath that raised her companion’s eyebrows, then slammed the end of her staff into the road; dust billowed around her feet.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess—they saw you and that’s why they backed off, right?” The warrior shrugged broadly. “You have any idea how—how maddening that is?”
“You have any idea how maddening it is for me to lose sight of you and then find you in the middle of a mess like this could’ve become? Come on,” she added flatly, “you’re the one who’s in a hurry, and this is the wrong direction.” She gave a tug on Argo’s rein and headed back toward the square. Gabrielle’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed heavily. With one smoldering glance toward the interior of the now silent and deserted-looking tavern, she turned and caught up with her companion.
Silence for a long moment. They reached the square, turned and walked past the stable, then down the street, which gradually widened. Gabrielle sighed again, cleared her throat, and eyed the warrior nervously. “Look, I’m sorry!” She didn’t sound it; Xena gave her a quick glance and laid a hand on her shoulder, silencing her.
“Don’t be sorry, that’s not useful. Especially not if you get hurt or killed. Just be more careful, and a little more aware of what’s around you. All around you. All right?”
“All right.” Xena wasn’t really mad at her, then; more likely worried and sharp-sounding because of it. Sometime, Gabrielle told herself flatly, you really will make her that angry, and what then? Xena wouldn’t just leave her behind. Gabrielle swallowed against a very dry throat. She didn’t think Xena would do that. It took her two tries to get the words out. “Honestly, I do try—”
Xena glanced in her direction, then turned her attention back to the increasingly busy street and the people pushing past them. Her face was still expressionless, but her voice wasn’t as clipped-sounding. “I know you do.”
“It’s just—no one takes me seriously! They call me ‘little girl’ and—and ‘cute.’” Her nose wrinkled with distaste. “They laugh at me! And it just—I just—”
“I take you seriously, Gabrielle.” Xena glanced at her. “But remember what I told you: sometimes it’s handy not being seen for what you really are. Especially against odds like you were facing there: three men, one of them that big. You catch them off balance, just the way you did, it makes the odds more in your favor. Only one thing you do differently: next time, don’t forget someone could sneak up behind you.”
“Like you did. Sure.” She sighed quietly. “It’s nice of you not to remind me I shouldn’t have gone down there at all. I was just—just—”
“I know you were,” Xena said evenly. She glanced across Argo’s shoulder, then gave her companion a smile. “Gabrielle, I know this means a lot to you. But you can’t save time by wasting it.”
Gabrielle brightened. “That sounds almost like a riddle! Now, wait, let me think . . .”
“No riddles,” Xena said firmly, but her lips twitched with amusement. Gabrielle had taken to riddles as hard as any other of her sudden passions—even more so, probably, since this passion was literate. A bard thing.
The girl was smiling, her arms spread wide. “Aw, Xena! Just because you couldn’t guess any of mine!”
“I can’t guess the answers to anybody’s riddles,” Xena replied. “I don’t like them; I never liked riddles. I have better things to do with my time.”
“Well, but—you could get them, I know you could, if you’d just pay attention and then think about them before you come up with an answer. They’re really a lot of fun.”
“For you. Save them for someone who likes them,” Xena said very firmly. And before Gabrielle could add anything else, she indicated a small building with her chin; a hideous clatter of metal and hammering came from the interior, and just outside, on a shaded bench, sat a mountain of a woman carefully stringing tin pots and cups on a length of rope. “We turn here—that way.”
“Gosh,” Gabrielle said very quietly after they’d left the tinsmith’s behind. “Did you see her? She’d make Isyphus look small!”
“Mmmm.” In the first large square, a soldier in the king’s colors was chasing two beggars away from the statue of Athena. Gabrielle was quiet, visibly trying to keep an eye on everything around them. Xena cast her a sidelong glance as they left the square, and lengthened her stride. The girl was almost vibrating with her need to be there. Right now. “We’re close,” she said as they came into the second square. The old stableman was right about the fountain; it was grotesque, the statues not even close to proper human proportions.
“I can smell the sea,” Gabrielle said suddenly. She gave the memorial a startled look and snorted. “That’s—who’d waste stone on a thing like that?”
“Statue to the war dead,” Xena said. “They probably don’t care what it looks like.”
“No, probably not.” Gabrielle was walking on tiptoe once again, craning her neck in a vain attempt to see over the crowd around her. “If we go straight out to the water, we can probably see the—”
“No shortcuts, no changes. I have directions. Turn south here.” Silence. “See the awnings down there? That’s the wine merchants’ market; races are just on the other side.” She shaded her eyes with one arm, glancing skyward. “We won’t have missed much, maybe the first run for the young girls. Atalanta wouldn’t waste her time on that one even if she were young enough to qualify for it.” Despite her best efforts to remain outwardly neutral for Gabrielle’s sake, she could hear the sour note in her voice. Gabrielle cast her a quick look. “Almost there,” Xena said, and smiled.
“Oh—” There was a question in the girl’s voice, which she abruptly seemed to think better of. “Oh, right. Great!” They eased into the shadow beneath the main awning that marked the entry to the market. Gabrielle, who was looking around with a good deal of interest, suddenly stopped dead and stared. “Oh, would you look at those cups? I never saw a glaze like that in all my—!”
“Gabrielle, what would you do with a nest of wine cups? Pay attention to what’s around us. The stableman said this place is full of cutpurses. In fact, why don’t you give me your purse?”
Gabrielle blinked, then stepped away from the counter with one last yearning look at the sky-blue glaze. “Why don’t I—oh, no! Not a chance! Last time I did that, you went after some guy who was thumping on his kid, and I didn’t have money to buy food or anything. I didn’t even get anything to eat until nearly sunset! I could’ve starved!”
The warrior laughed shortly; her eyes were amused. “I did that to you, didn’t I? I’d forgotten. Well, then, why don’t you put it where someone isn’t going to get it without you knowing about it?” She drew her own small pouch from its usual strap and shoved it under her sword belt, just below her ribs. Snug fit—it wasn’t going anywhere. Gabrielle opened the neat little coin bag that had been a parting gift from Queen Penelope, checked its contents carefully, then snugged the strings and shoved it down the front of her top.
Xena chuckled; Gabrielle eyed her sidelong, then laughed as she moved her shoulders to settle the bag. She winced, used her hand to settle it a little better. “Yeah. None of the tales go into how uncomfortable this is, do they?”
“None I’ve heard.”
“Well, I’ll know if someone tries to take it.”
“I hope so.” Xena drew her purse out once more, flattened it better, and shoved it down next to the chakram. Very tight fit.
“That’s pretty fat,” Gabrielle remarked in sudden surprise. “When did you pick up so much coin?”
“Not so loud,” Xena murmured, and gestured sharply at the bustling crowd around them: mostly men, a few women, plenty of servants. King’s guard everywhere, but from the sounds far down the aisle, someone had just lost an earring to a thief. Gabrielle frowned.
“Just pay attention. And don’t draw attention to yourself in a place like this. In answer to your question, it was a gift from Queen Penelope; I couldn’t find a way to say no without hurting her feelings.” She grinned at her companion. “Shoulda let you talk, huh?”
To her surprise, Gabrielle suddenly looked solemn and shook her head. “No. Because she could afford a gesture like that, and because it made her feel good to do something for you.”
Xena cast her eyes up, very briefly, then went back to her study of the people around them. “For us. You did a little to help ease matters back on Ithaca, you know.”
“Well—sure. But nothing like you did.”
“She said it was for us both. So you wouldn’t have to sleep on stones, wrapped in a threadbare cloak.”
“And I haven’t, have I? That really was nice of her. But it bothers you, doesn’t it? Like—she’d tried to pay you for what you did? Gave you a reward?”
Xena considered this, then shrugged. “Mmmm—maybe.”
“Well, then, think of it this way: if some other brute shows up on Ithaca, then there’s that much less of Odysseus’—ah—” she glanced around, the corners of her mouth quirking, “his you—know—what for them to take.”
“Hmmm. Hadn’t thought of it that way,” Xena admitted.
“Besides, you know you won’t hoard it to yourself,” Gabrielle reminded her. “In fact, that last village—Khyilos?—I wouldn’t be surprised if something got left there.” Her eyebrows went up. Xena shrugged.
“You saw what the need was.”
“You’re a good steward for it, then. I wager she knew how you’d use it—and not just to get me used to more soft living.”
“Possibly. Keep your eyes open,” Xena added sharply, and set a hand over her dagger as a commotion erupted ahead of them. A wave of people fanned out, running toward them. “Hang onto the stirrup tight,” she snapped, “so you don’t get dragged away in this mob.”
A boy’s golden curls shone in a patch of sunlight, moving at high speed against the main direction of the crowd, two tall, horse-tailed bronze helms right behind him. Laughter followed the guards: apparently the boy was someone known to the market, and he was once again making away with some prize right under the guards’ noses. Xena stretched as tall as she could, watching the movement, one hand on the dagger nearer her purse, the other holding Argo firmly to the spot.
He was a boy, just beginning to shade into manhood, though he probably still spoke in a boy’s high-pitched tones. The golden curls were lovely, as was the sun-bronzed skin of his arms and face. Tattered rags barely concealed his body—he was painfully thin. A wonder he can run so fast, Xena thought angrily. He doesn’t look like he’s had a proper meal in all his life. The boy was heading straight for her; eyes of an impossibly deep blue gazed straight into hers for a brief moment before he turned to glance across his shoulder. The guards were much nearer than they had been. Xena gestured with her head—That way! The boy nodded very briefly and skittered around Argo and Gabrielle, sending the latter whirling like an eddy in his wake. Xena shoved her shoulder and her weight into Argo, who stepped toward his right, blocking the guards.
“You, woman! Move the horse! Now!”
She ducked her head in assent, mostly to hide the smile, as she dragged at the rein and let the guards slip past them. “Gabrielle?” Uproar all around them; possibly the girl couldn’t hear her. But she was no longer clinging to the other side of Argo’s bridle—not anywhere close, Xena realized as she ducked her head under the horse’s golden neck. “Gabrielle?” There—an unmistakable golden head, several paces back. Shoved there by the crowd, apparently. “Gabrielle!” She pitched her voice to be heard and to quiet the babble all around them. She got momentary silence, then Gabrielle’s astonished voice.
“Did you see him? He looked like—like the paintings of Helios back on Ithaca! Ohhhh!”
And then another voice, warmly and resonantly masculine. “Gabrielle? Beloved Calliope, it couldn’t possibly be anyone else! Gabrielle!” Xena turned as a small, slender man pressed through the milling crowd. Dark blond curls bounced as he hugged the girl tightly.
“Homer!” Gabrielle’s voice soared high with delight. “I can’t believe it, Homer! What are you doing here?”
The young would-be bard wrapped one arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “I can’t believe it, either! I figured you two would be gone from Athens for years! What are you doing here?”
“The races. Women’s races.”
“Didn’t know you ran, Gabrielle—or is it Xena who’s running?” A dimple bracketed the near corner of his mouth. “Oh,” he added cheerfully, “didn’t see anyone with you at first, Gabrielle. You are—? Of course you are,” he added with a heart-melting smile in the warrior’s direction. “Hello, Xena. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Yes,” Xena replied dryly. “So Gabrielle’s told me. Always nice to meet someone she speaks so highly of.”
“Races,” Gabrielle said firmly, and tugged at his arm. “Can you walk with us a little way? I don’t want to be any later than we can help. And no, we aren’t running, either of us. That is—it’s Atalanta. But Homer—or are you still going by Orion?”
“I’m sticking with Homer. You were saying?”
Xena cast her eyes up and kept one ear on the pleasant babble between the two as she fought them a way through the milling crowd. If anything, there were more people here than there had been when they entered the awning-covered aisles. A brief glint of sun off distant water gave her direction. Gabrielle kept one hand wrapped around one of Argo’s straps and the other around one of Homer’s hands.
“Saying? Oh, yeah. I didn’t think you would be allowed out like this. I mean, just wandering around the market. Isn’t the Academy supposed to be tougher on first-year people than that?”
He laughed self-consciously. “Well, I passed first levels—”
“Already? That’s terrific!”
“Well, maybe it is. I have to admit I borrowed a couple of your tales, altered with a male hero—sorry—for oral finals, and that’s probably what put me over the top.”
“Ohhh,” Gabrielle replied, laughing. “Probably not—or more likely, it was the way you told them.”
“Thanks. Anyway, once you pass first levels, they let you outside the main gates to tell tales for coins. Then if you get lucky, they let you come down to the market and pick up new tales to cast into verse. You’re supposed to bring back three every day you’re out, but no one holds us to that. Sometimes, one can get away with telling his own tales for the people out here. Of course,” he added rather shyly, “if you don’t tell them well enough, the crowd lets you know. Not so much here, they don’t. But most of us avoid the produce market.” Gabrielle laughed at once and clapped her hands together. It took Xena the least moment longer: Produce market: overly ripe fruit and lettuces. Right. “Anyway,” Homer went on cheerfully, “two of the older students are leaving, so we’re having a party tonight. I have permission to buy the wine cups and jugs. In other words, I have permission to waste the better part of a day coming up with a pottery design that will suit those being honored. You’re just as well off not being at the Academy, Gabrielle. You can’t believe the amount of time that gets wasted on such trivialities.” Xena could hear him fumbling at something; a bit of unglazed crockery scraped across another, setting her teeth on edge. “Like it?”
“That’s a nice shade of blue,” Gabrielle replied doubtfully. Garish, she means, Xena decided, and bit back a grin. “But—ah—d’you really think it needs all those dryads? And Bacchus and Silenus and . . .”
“You don’t think it’s too complicated a pattern, do you?” Homer asked anxiously as her voice faded away. “I think this is what I really should get, because for his final ode, Demarus did the epic of the cherubs and the grape harvest and the great thunderstorm. And the instructor, Betiven, did the music—really wonderful stuff. I hope you get to hear him someday—the poor man’s utterly deaf, can’t hear his pieces outside his own skull. Well, anyway, Agrilion has such a thing about dryads, swears he saw one in his father’s woods when he was small, still thinks he can find her and convince her to love him, if his poetry is pure enough. I just got the one small cup so I can check it against other things before I make a final decision; that way I don’t have to carry an entire basket of crockery with me.”
Gabrielle laughed. “Well, if that’s your reasoning, I think the pattern is perfect. I wish I could’ve heard Demarus and the music. And I’d wager Agrilion can win his dryad if he really wants her.”
“You know,” Homer began warmly, “you’re such a—a nice person, Gabrielle.” He caught his breath sharply, and Xena stopped to stare at him; he was gazing down at Gabrielle, his hazel eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. “Wait a moment, you said—you did! You said Atalanta? Dear Athena, you did say that, didn’t you?” Xena cast her eyes heavenward—or at least toward a grubby strip of once-white awning figured in blue and gold keywork. Behind her, the horse came placidly following, and, because she was still holding onto the strap, Gabrielle. And so did Homer, who at the moment was firmly attached to Gabrielle.
Crowd swirled around them, and somewhere off to Xena’s left a woman yelped indignantly, “Just take your hands off that, young man! I’m old enough to be your mother!” A shift; people moved out and away as a tousled head of golden curls seemed to float through a sea of bodies, then sharply changed course as someone else—a man this time—swore: “That’s my purse, you!” On her other side, she could hear Gabrielle and Homer talking earnestly, oblivious to their surroundings.
“Of course I said Atalanta—I’ve heard about her forever, you know,” Gabrielle replied breathlessly. “And I’ve always been so—so amazed by what they say about her. But I never had the chance to meet her.” Lucky you, Xena thought sourly. “And so,” Gabrielle went on, “when I heard that she’d be here for the races, I said we just had to come, and we did.”
“Atalanta,” Homer breathed reverently. “All the tales I’ve heard of her since coming to the Academy—say, you wouldn’t mind if I came along with you, would you? I mean, no one at the Academy has ever managed to even get close to Atalanta, let alone talk to her so we can cast her story into the epics. After all, she’s supposed to be goddess-blessed. I mean, all those stories about how her father set her out in the fields to die after she was born because maybe he wanted a son instead, except there’s the story about maybe her mother having laid with Ares, and—”
Gabrielle put in hurriedly, “You know, if you think about it, you might realize why the lady doesn’t talk to any of you Academy types. Would you want some overeager bard shoving his nose in your sister’s face and asking whether her mother was unfaithful to her father?”
“Huh? Oh. . . .” Homer was quiet for several moments. “Oh. Right. Never thought of it that way before.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I promise I won’t ask any questions of that kind today, if you’ll let me come with you. You don’t mind? Honestly?”
“Well, of course not,” Gabrielle began quickly. She seemed to consider this a moment, then added warily, “Xena? Ah—you wouldn’t really mind, would you? I mean, if—”
“Not at all,” Xena put in smoothly. “Someone for Gabrielle to talk to about all this.” That earned her a long, uncertain look from Gabrielle. She’s literary, Xena reminded herself. Looks for meanings where there aren’t necessarily any. I meant just that: she and Homer can talk about how wonderful Atalanta is. I won’t have to contribute a thing to the discussion. “Look,” she added and pointed across Argo’s neck. “There’s the water, and there’s the racecourse.”
“It is?” Gabrielle craned her neck, then fell back and said gloomily, “Guess I’ll have to take your word for it, all I can see is bodies.”
Homer laughed quietly and said, “Well, I can make out the water, and a lot more people down on the hard sand than you usually see this time of day. You know, that reminds me of a riddle—”
“Hey! You like riddles?”
“You can’t avoid them at the Academy just now; they’re all the rage. But, yes, I do like them. Have you heard the one—” Xena shook her head as his voice dropped a little. More riddles. At least they wouldn’t be directed at her.
The crowd was thicker near this western edge of the market, and passage was slower. Stealthy fingers made contact with her thigh; she snatched at them, dragging hand, arm, and astonished owner off his feet. A grubby boy who couldn’t have had ten summers under his tattered tunic stared at her with very round, would-be innocent eyes. “If you want to keep these,” she said in a clipped, low voice as she squeezed his digits, “keep them off me.”
“But—but I didn’t—“
“You did. Don’t do it again, or the fingers are mine. Got it?”
“Ah, ah, ah—got it,” the suddenly pale little thief stuttered.
“Good. Pass the word. Me and the two on the other side of the horse, hands off. You do it right, I’ll reward you with two coppers at the end of the races out there.”
“You—you would?”
“Swear. I don’t break my word; see that you don’t break yours.” She let go of his arm as he nodded vigorously, watched as he shoved his way through the crowd, then turned her attention to the crowd around them. No one seemed to have paid any attention to the little byplay between her and the boy, least of all her two companions.
“Oh!” Gabrielle held up an arm to shield her eyes against the midmorning sun as they came into the open once more. “That’s bright! I’ll wager all the best places on the other side of the course are taken.”
“Well, not necessarily,” Homer said. He was craning his neck now, staring over the people around them. “It’s women’s races, after all; they won’t have the kind of crowds the men do, or the Olympics.”
“Yeah,” Gabrielle said sourly. “Oh, well, I guess that’s good for us. Can you see a way to get closer to the water?”
“I think maybe I can just—” Whatever else he said went unheard as a new fuss broke out behind them, deep within the wine merchants’ market, while before them a horde of very young girls shrieked and squealed as another race began.
“Oh!” Gabrielle sounded wildly distressed; she let go Argo to begin working her way forward. Homer eased ahead of her and took hold of her arm. Xena bit back a grin and followed them. All at once there was room to move, a cool salt breeze blowing over them, hard sand underfoot, and little girls everywhere. “Oh,” Gabrielle said again, less enthusiastically this time. “It’s just the second run for the child-class girls. No rush—we’re early.”