A little while later I was sitting at my desk that Xena had made for me many seasons ago to mark our bonding day. I was reading through some of my earliest scrolls and I couldn't help but notice that although they are filled with our exciting adventures of those first four turbulent years. They never really told the story of what is was like travelling and living with Xena, the legendary Warrior Princess. So I've decided it's time to put quill to parchment and write about it.
As everyone knows by now we first met when Xena rescued me and my sister Lila from some slave trades. We were down by the river doing some washing when they kidnapped us along with four of our friends. We were quickly rounded up and thrown into the back a cage on top of a wagon and driven away from the village before anyone even realised we were even missing.
Two days later Xena coincidently stumbled across us, she never liked slave traders not even during her worst times as a Warlord. The Warrior Princess soon sent all four men to Hades and then set about freeing us. She knew that we would never find our way home by ourselves so she had no choice but to show us the way.
All of us were in our mid-teens and none of us had ever been this far away from home before. All the girls where more then a little intimidated by Xena's size and bearing, after all she is just shy of being six feet spent most of her life honing her fighting skills she was and still is quiet a formidable woman.
My friends and little sister tended to stay away from her but I was fascinated by her and I wanted to know every thing there was to learn about her. After all this was the first time that I had ever met an actual Warrior and a female Warrior at that too.
Xena also happened to be Ares chosen of legend, the Famous or should that be infamous Warrior Princess. Also known as The Destroyer of Nations because she and her Army had over run and conquered most of the known world at some point. That was until she had enough of all the killing and led her army back home to Greece.
That was the way the Bards were telling the tale, they told of how Xena had tried to order her Army to stand down when they were about to attack a small village not unlike her own home town of Amphipolis.
Her army turned on her that day and made her ran the gauntlet, which left her battered, beaten and near death which of course was the whole point in doing it I suppose. None of her men had expected her to survive the night and they rode off leaving her to her fate. Xena's remarkable recuperative powers are almost as legendary as she is herself and by morning she was able to mount her warhorse Argo and find a place of safety.
Xena's Army quickly fell into disarray after that, it soon disbanded and broke into smaller factions all led by a new wannabe Warlords. Xena didn't know at the time but the changes she felt in her heart were placed there by her true mother Athena the Goddess of wisdom and just wars.
For years Athena had been chipping away at her brother's hold over her daughter. Ares had filled her heart with vengeances and battle lust after her younger brother Lycues was killed by the Warlord Cortez when he attacked her home town. Ares believed that Xena was his own child and Xena believed it too until the fateful day when Caesar nailed us to his damn crosses eighteen and half years ago.
Ares had bedded her mother Cyrene a few times disguised as her husband Titus; he was a solider in the Athenian army and was often away fighting in some battle or other. What Ares didn't know of course was that Cyrene had already prayed to Athena to give her a girl child and her wish had been granted two days before Ares started bedding her.
Xena inherited her goddess mother's formidable fighting skills and her battle strategies soon became legendary. Ares took full credit for all of it not knowing of Xena's true parentage at the time. Once Athena was able to break Ares hold over Xena she wasn't allowed to help out in any other way.
Zeus had decreed that his children had messed enough in his granddaughter's life and it was up to her to make her own choices now. Unable to help her child directly she asked her half brother Hercules to go to Xena and set her on her rightful path of fighting for the greater good. Hercules convinced Xena that her destiny now lay in helping others and spent a few months showing her what a difference she could make in peoples lives.
Rescuing me and my friends was Xena's first taste of doing exactly that all by herself. We had all come through the ordeal virtually unharmed thank goodness. Although I had a few bruises that showed I had taken a beating at some point in the last few days.
Xena tried to talk to me about it whenever she got the chance but I keep changing the subject or asking Xena some questions of my own which I had an almost inexhaustible supply. I told Xena of my love for storytelling and that I longed for adventure and that I wasn't really cut out to be a farmer's wife.
Being the Stoic Warrior type that she was she never commented one way or the other no matter how many times I said it. Having spent three days in her company walking back towards home I realised that I could make quite a difference in the sullen, brooding Warrior's life if only she would let me.
Xena of course would ever consider the idea; for one thing my non stop talking was starting to have an effect on her, only the wrong one. On the last evening that we all spend together she turned to me and said. "The only time you ever stop talking is when you're fast asleep or eating and boy can you eat, where do you put it all little one".
"Little one indeed", I thought slightly indignant, I might only be a little over five foot one but I deeply resented anyone reminding me of the fact. I have my father's temper but thank goodness my mother's kind and loving nature so it's not often that my temper gets the better of me.
Having already asked her a thousand and one questions and thinking my thoughts aloud to her as often as she would let me. I knew that she thought that I saw the world with a childlike wonder."The innocence of youth", was the one and only comment I managed to get out of her at some point.
From the stories that I had heard about her at the time I don't think Xena knew too much about that innocence of youth herself having killed for the first time not long after her fifteenth full season.
All too soon we arrived back home in Potidaea and all my friends were returned to their families. I couldn't help but give it one more try and I asked Xena point blank to take me with her. She refused telling me that I was better off staying at home were I was safe and cared for, before riding off on her large beige warhorse Argo without so much as a backward look.
What Xena didn't know of course was that I wasn't safe at home. My father was the one that had beaten me just a couple of candle marks before I was captured by the slave traders. He didn't approve of my storytelling or of my daydreaming ways as he called them and often beat me for it.
Finding a husband for me was turning out to be more difficult then he thought it should be. None of the local young men wanted anything to do with me, they knew of my ways too and life in Potidaea was hard. They wanted a wife who would work beside them not make up stories about things they didn't know or couldn't understand.
My father had finally found a match for me but he was as old as he was and it was well known within the village that he had a bad temper and wouldn't put up with any nonsense. That night instead of having a happy homecoming I was once again soundly beaten for still refusing to marry him.
I felt that I didn't really have any choice but to run away from home and I set out to find Xena hoping I could get her to change her mind about having me with her. I knew she was heading towards Amphipolis and it was only a two day walk by road. Shouldering my backpack containing one sleeping shift, a change of clothing, a thin blanket and some food. Being mindful of my sore and battered body I set off hoping to catch up to her before too long.
Finding Xena wasn't as difficult as I first thought, she hadn't seen her family in over twelve years and she was more than a little worried about what sort of welcome she would receive. The not knowing was making her anxious and nervous and she decided to stop only two hours into her ride to work off some of the nervous energy by doing some sword drills. Having worked herself into near exhaustion she fell into her bedroll and slept soundly.
I stumbled quite literally upon her camp just before sunrise in my quest to find water. Xena was well aware of my clumsy approach long before she could see me. Knowing that whom ever it was stumbling about in the pre dawn light, they weren't a threat to her or her safety she adding more wood to the fire so she could heat up some tea and waited patiently for whom ever it was to come closer.
When she realised it was me she jumped to her feet and rushed over to me knowing instinctively that I was hurt but not knowing how or why. Sliding the pack -gentle off my shoulders she helped me to sit down on her own sleeping furs before handing me her own cup of hot tea that she quickly sweeten with a generous dollop of honey before asking me what had happened.
I knew that if I had any chance of staying with her I would have to tell her the truth so I told her everything. About my life at home and the way I had always been treated by my father and his plans to marry me off to someone who was just as bad as he was. By the time I had finished sobbing out my story the sun was up and Xena could see for herself the results of my father's handy work upon my face.
I could barely keep my eyes open at this point and she gentle helped me to lie down in her own soft sleeping furs. Leaving me to sleep while she contemplated what to do next, she had told me much later that what she wanted to do was ride back to my house and beat the crap out of my father, but she knew that would only make her feel better and not me.
While I spent most of the day sleeping fitfully, Xena would gently lay a large hand on my head as I whimpered in my sleep and would tell me that everything would be all right and no-one was ever going to hurt me like that again. When I finally woke up, a pot of hot rabbit stew was bubbling away on the fire and I realised that I hadn't eaten anything since yesterday lunch time.
It smelled delicious and I was staving but I also knew from experience that Xena was a pretty atrocious cook. Handing me a large bowlful I cautiously tasted it and was more than a little surprised to find it tasted just as good as it smelled. Xena couldn't keep the smile of her face at the expression on mine and she told me that one of my friends mothers had given her the stew as a thank-you for bring her daughter home safe and sound.
Once we had both eaten our fill Xena helped me up and took me off to a nearby hot spring so I could have a hot bath to help soak away the worst of my pain for a little while at least. I was more than a little shy and quite reluctant to get out of my undergarments at first. The only other person that has seen me completely naked since I was a little girl has been my sister Lila and we grew up together.
Xena wouldn't take no for an answer though and threatened to get me out of them herself if I didn't strip down and get into the water by the time she had counted to three. Blushing from head to toe I unwrapped my chest binding and let it fall to the floor and slipped down my undergarments and stepped out of them and into the hot spring before carefully sitting down in the warm water.
Xena stripped out of her own clothes and got in opposite me and began to wash both our undergarments and the short thin cotton shift she had been wearing under her leather battle dress. Once she had finished wringing out the clothes with her big powerful hands she quickly washed herself before turning her attention to me.
Having let me soak in the warm water for a good quarter of a candle mark she moved beside me so she could wash my hair, neck and back carefully checking my bruises as she did so. Even though her hands were large and callused they moved gently and softy across my bruises. I closed my eyes as she moved in front of me so she could check the rest of them out.
"Nothing broken little one, you'll be as good as new in a week or two. Some of those bruises are pretty deep though", she added as she handed me the wash cloth and soap so I could finish the rest myself. Getting out of the water she got herself dried and put on a clean sleeping shift.
When I had finished washing she held up a piece of dry linen and said, "come on it's time to get out of there your starting to wrinkle".
I stood up and she carefully wrapped the linen around me being mindful of my many bruises as she began to pat me try. Once I was dry enough she slipped my clean cotton sleeping shift over my head and helped me to get into it. Leading the way back to the fire she settle me back down into her sleeping furs and got in beside me.
"That thin blanket you brought will be a little too uncomfortable to sleep on with all your bruises so until you can buy your own sleeping furs you'll have to share mine. I know you're not that sleepy at the moment so do you want to talk about what you want to do now". She asked in a quiet, kind and gentle tone that I hadn't quite expected. In fact that's the way she had been treating me since I first showed up at her camp-site.
"No matter what Xena, I'm not going home", I replied in an uncompromising tone. "If you don't want me to come with you then I'll just wander around Greece by myself".
I think she knew that I was going to say that even before she asked me the question. And she knew that she was going to be stuck with me at least for the time being.
"Gabrielle it's not a question of whether or not I want you with me it's the fact that the road is a very dangerous place. Anything can happen out here and we only have ourselves to rely on. Look it's still at least a good day's walk to Amphipolis why don't we wait and see what happens there before we make any definite plans".
"Okay Xena but I have already told you that I want to travel around and experience life I don't want to get stuck in another boring old village".
"Well only about I thousand times my young bardic friend", I heard her mutter not quite under her breath. "Do you feel up to telling me a story tonight? I really liked the last one you told me and while you tell it I'll make us both a nice hot cup of herbal tea. It well help us to fall asleep so we can get an early start in the morning".
Xena had added a little something into the herb tea to help me sleep and I was soon out like a light long before I had even finished the story. Xena also had a hard time waking me the next morning. We spend the day in quiet reflection as we walked towards Amphipolis I knew Xena was quite worried about her return and I didn't know what to say to help easy her worries.