blood, and beans. You saw how Eutaktos treated me when I came to him with valuable information, didn't you? Made me a prisoner! An officer from any decent city would have filled my mouth with silver.'
I said, 'You came to tell the Rope Makers about me.'
'Yes, I did. It was quite clever of me, I think. You see, I had heard the Rope Makers were going through the city asking all sorts of foolish questions and paying no attention to the answers. They'd ask someone where he'd eaten dinner, and most would say in their own houses, and a few at some friend's house, and one or two at an inn or a cookshop; but it didn't seem to matter, no matter what they said. And after I'd listened to half a dozen stories like that, it dawned on me that they were looking for a man who didn't know. That had to be you.'
Io asked, 'What's my master ever done to you, fellow?'
Eurykles grinned. 'Why, nothing. But I didn't think they were going to harm him, and I still don't. Judging from what Eutaktos says, Pausanias is just as apt to honor him. Besides, they would have found him sooner or later anyway-I was too late, actually-and I may still get something out of it.'
'I thought you didn't want to be their prisoner.'
'Yes, but it's their ingratitude that rankles. Anytime I really want to leave, I'll just render my person invisible and stroll away.'
Then the last of the Rope Makers came out of the city and we left, each shieldman with his slaves marching behind him and carrying his hoplon, helmet, and spear, as well as the other things, and Io, Eurykles, and I behind Eutaktos as before. Now we are camped by a spring, and Io has reminded me that before I sleep I should write down what happened today. A woman with two torches and two hounds is beckoning from the crossroads, and when I have finished writing this I will go to see what it is she wants. CHAPTER XXII-The Woman at the Crossroads
The Dark Mother frightened me. She is gone, but I am still afraid. I would not have thought I could be frightened by a woman even if she held a knife to my throat; but the Dark Mother is no common woman.
When I left the fire and went to speak to her, she seemed nothing more, a woman such as anyone might see in any village. Her eyes were dark, her hair black and bound with a fillet. The top of her head came only to my shoulder. She held a torch in each hand, torches that smoked, sending up black columns to the night sky.
Her dogs were black too, and very large-I think of the kind kings use to hunt lions, though I cannot remember ever having seen such a hunt. Their muzzles came to her elbows, and sometimes their ears stood erect like the ears of wolves. Their spittle was white and shone, even when it had dropped from their flews to the ground.
'You do not know me,' the Dark Mother said, 'though you have seen me each night.'
When I heard her voice I knew she was a queen, and I bowed.
'These dogs of mine could tear you to bits, do you know that? Do you think you could resist them?'
'No, great mistress,' I said. 'Because they are yours.'
She laughed, and at the sound of her laughter, things stirred among the trees. 'That is a good answer. But do not call me mistress [The word Latro used was probably despoina (Gk.?????????). -G. W]; that word means an owner of the earth, and she is my enemy. I am Enodia, the Dark Mother.'
'Yes, Dark Mother.'
'Will you forget me, when you see me no longer?'
'I will strive not to forget, Dark Mother.'
She laughed again, and the stirring told me the things waiting among the trees were so near they could almost be seen.
'I am the woman of poisons, Latro. Of murder, ghosts, and the spells that bring death. I am the Queen of the Neurians; and I am three. Do you understand?'
'Yes, Dark Mother,' I said. 'No, Dark Mother.'
'Today you passed many farms. There you must have seen my image, cut in wood or stone-three women, standing back to back.'
'Yes, Dark Mother, I saw the image. I did not know what it meant.' My teeth warred in my mouth, the teeth above against the teeth below.
'You do not remember, yet you have looked often at the moon and seen me, as I have seen you. Once when I heard a certain one called the God in the Tree, I came while you stood in water. I sought him but found he was not He whom I sought. Do you recall me as I was then?'
I could not speak; I shook my head.
As the darkness vanishes when the moon steps from behind a cloud, so she vanished. In her place stood the lovely virgin I had seen beside the lake after I had slept with Hilaeira.
'You remember now,' the virgin said, and smiled. 'Earth's power is great, but I am here and she is not.' She held a bow, just as I remembered, and there were seven arrows in the cestus at her waist. The Dark Mother's hounds fawned on her.
'Yes,' I said. 'I remember. Oh, thank you!' and I knelt and would have kissed her feet but that the hounds bared their teeth at me.
'I am no friend of yours, save as you are the enemy of my enemy; and when I am gone, you will forget me once more.'
'Then never go!' I begged her. 'Or take me with you.'
'I cannot stay, and you cannot go where I go. But I have come to tell you of the place to which you will go soon. It is my country-do you understand? Call me Huntress now, for that is what they call me there, and Auge.'
'Yes, Huntress.'
'Once it was Gaea's. I sent my people, and they took it for me, breaking her altars.'
'Yes, Huntress.'
'You must not seek to loose their grasp, and because you will forget, I desire to send a slave with you who will remind you. Happily, there is someone with you who has sworn to serve me without reservation, and thus is mine wholly to do with as I choose.'
'And I, Huntress.'
'Hardly, though I know you mean well. Look at this.' She held out her hand; in it writhed a little snake no longer than my finger. 'Take her, and keep her safe.'
I took it, but I had nowhere to put it. I held it in my hand, and in a moment it seemed to vanish; I held nothing.
'Good. Down that road is a farmhouse.' The Huntress pointed with her bow. 'It is not far, and you need not fear that the shieldman set to watch you will wake. You must go to that farm and make its people give you a wineskin and a cup. When you meet the one who has dedicated himself to me, you must make him drink, and you must put my serpent into the cup. Do you understand?'
'Huntress,' I said, 'I have lost your serpent.'
'You will find her again when the time comes. Now go. I send my dogs before you to rouse the house.'
As she spoke, they flashed from her side. For an instant I saw them streaking down the road she had indicated; then they were gone.
I turned and followed them, knowing that was what the virgin wished me to do. When I had taken fifty steps or so, the urge to see her once more overwhelmed me, and I looked over my shoulder.
I wish I had not, because she was gone. The Dark Mother stood where she had stood, holding her torches; wisps of fog and dark, shapeless things had left the trees to be with her. Someone screamed and I began to run, though I could not have said whether I ran to give aid or to fly the Dark Mother. The farmhouse was like a hundred others, of rough brick with a thatched roof, its farmyard surrounded by a low wall of mud and sticks. The gate had been broken; I entered easily. Inside, the wooden figure of the three women had been thrown down, though the altars to either side of the door had not been touched. The door was whole, but as I approached it a man with staring eyes flung it open and ran out. He would have collided with me as one horseman rides down another, had I not caught him as he came. I asked, 'Are you the father of this hearth?'
'Yes,' he said.
'Then I can take away the curse, I think; but you must give me freely a skin of wine and a cup.'
His mouth worked. I think it would have foamed had there been any moisture there. The screaming inside had stopped, though a child wept.
