Ichor and Ambrosia

The nights were short, and the days were too long; the seasons in the Greek cyclades passed like years, it seemed. The soldier came and went as his honor called, taking up his long, misshapen sword with the bronze hilt textured with fish scales. On the nights before Heron would take his leave, Acacius would polish and sharpen the blade with a whetstone and grease, and on the evenings when the soldier would return, the boy would clean the bloodstains and dirt from its crevasses. Heron carried a shield as well; a solid wood aegis with a façade of stretched sheepskin painted long ago by a local artist with the likeness of Athena. Over the years, it had become worn and marred, and by the time Acacius reached the age of seven, the goddess, bearing an owl on one arm and an olive branch in the other hand, was faded and torn to no repair. Even so, Acacius would diligently clean the blood from the sheepskin and oil the wood to prevent splinters. Acacius did all this while Heron told epic tales of his missions in the mountains and hills, or his expeditions on the sea to far off places. In any instance in the presence of his master, Acacius never dared to speak.

“We saw the great temple in Athens,” Heron began one day, when Acacius was eight. The sword was fresh-polished and sharpened, resting on a rack above the hearth’s mantle where Myrrhine cooked lamb over the fire. Acacius held the shield and an oiled rag in his hand as he worked it across the surface of the wood and faded leather. He sat in the floor of the stone house, in front of his master who lounged in a large wooden chair, his long salty beard braided with bronze rings and his bald head donning old war wounds. “The great statue of the goddess Athena—the very one who used to grace my shield—is there. Beautiful and tall, it is. I envy the commander, he prays there before he ever sets foot on a ship.”

“To Athena?” Myrrhine eyed Heron quizzically. “Poseidon is the lord of the seas. He won’t take that kindly.”

Heron replied with a harsh voice, “We’re soldiers, we pray to the one who guides us to victory. It makes no difference whether that victory is over a swordsman or the sea.”

The lady nodded meekly, for even she couldn’t speak out of turn to her husband. “I understand. Please, continue your story.”

He sighed, heaving his great belly. “Where was I? Oh, yes, the praying. I docked in Athens not long after I departed from the port at Kamares, only to have to retrieve the captain from his prayers and board another, larger ship, and sail for Evia.”

“I’ve heard stories!” Myrrhine gasped. “Is it truly as beautiful as the merchants say?” The lady would linger to converse when she took Acacius with her on periodic trips to the coast towns. While the boy bought fish, wood, linens, and the like, Myrrhine would lean on the wooden stalls and ask the sailor-merchants about their trade routes, and sights they had seen. Evia was not mentioned often, but it was fabled to hold beautiful coasts and secret hideaways.

“Oh, yes,” Heron smiled at her. “We found all the nooks and crannies, swam in the blue waters. We played more than we worked, in truth. I think the commander only brought us there to swim.”

In recent years, the cities of Greece had quelled their fierce independence for a moment and lowered their swords. It used to be that Heron only left to fight, but now they did more mapping and travelling than fighting; every now and again, they’d stumble upon some violent villages or defensive ports or holds, he mentioned not long before then, but most of what he took his sword to was game or vine. During times when her husband was away, Acacius liked to think Myrrhine got lonely, because she would spend more time with him than usual, and would even help him with his work. Sometimes, she might allow him words, or to eat at the two-seated table with her, or to sleep on the wood floor in the stone home rather than the cold ground in the slaves’ hut. She would take him to the coast; they would herd and butcher their sheep, plant seed and harvest crop, and clean the house together. On particularly stormy days, when no work was to be done, Myrrhine would warm some expensive spiced wine for herself over the fire and might have even let Acacius have a sip. Heron and Myrrhine were never able to have kids of their own, so Acacius dreamed that maybe she thought of him as a child, in a way. Despite this, the inked numeral still burned in his forehead, grayed now with age. Every few months Myrrhine would buy fresh ink to mark him anew and keep the brand fresh. It served as an everlasting reminder to him that no matter how much kindness she showed him, he was her property.