In a ramshackle barn around the back lot behind the Inn, Xena locates a hunting bow and quiver. She exits the barn to find Gabrielle waiting patiently by the compost heap, watching the townspeople conduct their business further through the alley out on the market compound. Xena pauses a moment to study this enigmatic young woman. Well, surely, she is strange; that isn't in question. But smart. Perhaps she is sent to me by the Fates, muses Xena, slinging her longbow over her shoulder.
"Hey, blondie!" she calls. Gabrielle turns in her direction and offers an intimate smile. She really does act like she's known me for years and not just an afternoon, thinks Xena. "Can you hunt?" she asks as she approaches her puzzling friend.
"I prefer not to," answers Gabrielle, to which Xena shakes her head and chuckles.
"What a creature you are," she says, smiling strangely, "Come on. Watch me. I'll teach you how to use a bow like Artemis herself." She starts off in the direction of the woods, trusting Gabrielle to, again, follow her. So, she's much cockier too, Gabrielle laughs in the privacy of her own thoughts. She has to check herself too, for a moment, because even this young Xena is surprising to her. If she expected Xena to follow her blindly, to listen more easily in her youth–– well, Gabrielle had better prepare herself to be challenged. Xena was never a follower; she was a born leader: It's in her blood, pumping through with virility, with preternatural strength; it's in her walk, her tone, her curious smile, her guarded eyes. Yes, this is going to warrant some caution on Gabrielle's part. Indeed the loom of the Fates––the fabric of our lives––does warrant caution; the cloth may rip irreparably, given a careless stitch. She hurries to catch Xena's long strides.
"Isn't there some other work I can do in repayment for your generosity?" asks Gabrielle, now walking easily at Xena's side. The younger woman rolls her eyes.
"Nah, you're far too interesting to let wander too far."
"You think I'm interesting?"
"Sure. More interesting than anyone in this town. You'll meet my other brother, Lyceus, at dinner tonight. I think you'll like him. Better company than Toris, at least. Unless, of course, you've already met him in some dream." Xena laughs softly, but there is an edge of distrust to her voice.
"No, I haven't," Gabrielle assures, "Look, Xena, just because I had that dream of you, doesn't mean I claim to know you. I don't want to you to think that I'm trying to tell you how you are. As much as that Xena from the dream seems real to me, I know that this is what's real now. You are who you are, right now in this moment. And I'd like for us to be friends." Gabrielle knows she has struck a vulnerable place in Xena's careful armour. She knows in the way her companion sets her shoulders a little straighter and pauses in between the trees.
"No other agenda?" she asks, fixing an unsettling stare on the blonde woman.
"None," Gabrielle replies.
"Honest?"
"I swear by my own heart, Xena of Amphipolis, I will not mislead you."
Xena holds her stare a moment longer, then utters in a low voice, "And I swear by mine, Gabrielle of Potidaea, I'll cut out yours if you do." Gabrielle shivers, her chemise feeling much less modest than it had earlier. She swears in own heart, not to mislead herself. A truce between them now, the two women continue on their hunt through the trees.
Much later, the sun deep in the purplish western skies, Xena and Gabrielle make their way back toward the Inn. The blonde woman now carries the bow and quiver over her shoulder, for Xena carries a string of dead fowl and a good-sized doe over her own rounded shoulders. They stop for a moment on the crest of the hill overlooking Amphipolis, near the spot where Gabrielle had woken earlier that day. Behind the blood-matted fur of the deer, Xena smiles brilliantly in the twilight. It is directed at her companion, who had successfully brought down two of those wild turkeys. Gabrielle purposefully omitted to her friend's younger counterpart that she herself had given Gabrielle many lessons in the art of archery. Never mind all that training with the Amazons. And so when this cocksure young woman handed her demure blonde companion the long-bow, she was in for quite the surprise. Gabrielle considered it a small victory. Especially now, in that smile, her face with a smudge of dirt and sweat, that smile illumining the fields in the fading light. As in her younger eyes, there is a feral quirk to that mouth, a wild pleasure in the thriving world. If Gabrielle had not thought it before about her illustrious companion, she thinks now that this woman is among the most truly alive. With another breath, they continue down the embankment which leads to town.
They find the Inn as crowded if not more so than it had been in the afternoon upon entering. Xena struggles through the few people obstructing the doorway, knocking her dead hinds into them. A few of the farmers seated below on the low-standing benches let out a whistle at Xena's stock.
"Wish I had me a son like you, Xena!" one of the men yells.
"Wish you had a daughter like me, ya son-of-a-sow!" she calls back. The men guffaw and raise their mugs of port in her direction. Gabrielle marvels at the sight of a young girl gaining the respect of grown men. Figures, she smiles to herself. "Hey, Lyceus!" Xena calls suddenly. A young man, with curled dark hair turns at her voice and relishes such a wide smile at his sister's arrival. "Give me a hand here, brother!" He hands the platter he had been carrying to a passing barkeep and hurries over to help unburden his sister. From her shoulder, he takes the string of birds and they continue through the crowd toward the kitchen. Xena half-turns and beckons Gabrielle onward with a flick of her eyes.
In the kitchen, Cyrene is once again tirelessly directing traffic. She seems to thrive in the chaos though, and Gabrielle has to wonder again at the similarity between the woman and her daughter. Cyrene's eyes alight at the game Xena and Lyceus bring in and she stops mid-instructing one of her aproned helpers.
"Oh, Xena, you're good for something aren't you!" she exclaims.
"Ain't she?" Lyceus jests, shooting his sister a fond look.
"Just put it over there in the stock pile and we'll have the girls plucking soon enough. Vernix will dress the doe out back."
"Gabrielle here got two of those birds," Xena says, unloading the heavy deer where her mother had instructed. She breathes a sigh of relief, mopping her brow with a blood-stained hand.
"Is that so?" says Cyrene, looking to Gabrielle still with the bow, "Good to have someone useful around." She smiles warmly. Lyceus appears at Xena's side, throwing a casual elbow on his sister's shoulder; they are dead even in height and look more like fraternal twins than siblings born three years apart. They look so much more similar than Xena and Toris. Gabrielle knows where allegiances lay, not that that had been a secret thus far. But right now, right in this moment––with the kitchen in an uproar and the two people she loved best near her and no burden of responsibility save a good day of hunting–– Xena looks more happy, more content than Gabrielle had ever witnessed in their other life. The vision is one that makes her harden her resolve. I can save them, she thinks. If only but to preserve that look on my friend's face.
"You gonna introduce your friend, Xe?" asks Lyceus, looking at the blonde woman.
"Gabrielle meet my younger brother, Lyceus," Xena gestures between them. The young man smiles, warmth flooding his handsome face.
"A goddess among peasants," he says, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Gabrielle."
"The pleasure is mine," the woman answers sincerely. Xena shoves him playfully aside.
"Sweet talker," she chides, "Come on Gabrielle, lets go get cleaned up for dinner".
Outside, the sun is nearly disappeared from the sky. Xena relieves Gabrielle of the bow and stores it back inside the barn. She leads her around the other side of the Inn to the horse stable, then to a water trough that sits nearby. Beside the trough, is a sunken wood structure which houses the spring. Xena disappears into the springhouse and exits moments later with two buckets of water in each hand. She walks back to Gabrielle, then slops the water into the trough. She sets the buckets down, then begins to wash her hands. Gabrielle follows suit, splashing the cool water over her heated face.
"My brother is in love with you," Xena says suddenly. Gabrielle sputters and coughs, then looks up at her friend.
"He just met me!" she protests.
"Yeah, but I know that look of his. He falls in love too easily." She smiles at the thought. It does not go unnoticed by her companion. "Are you in love with him?" Xena asks, quirking an eyebrow. Gabrielle looks to Xena, smiling in spite of herself.
"I don't fall in love that easily," she says. But she knows that she does indeed. Love comes so easily, so effortlessly to Gabrielle at the sight of this young girl, with those wild blue eyes, with her wild black hair, and her dirty face. And Gabrielle finds herself seeing with fresh eyes her long-time companion; she falls down– down–– down into the quickness of her love for this woman; she feels all over again, that rush of emotion that overtakes her when she looks into Xena's eyes. Gabrielle has a fleeting awareness of a tense metallic weight coiling its way through her chest. This can't be fair, she thinks. Am I manipulating her? Will I change her in a way she'll never forgive me for? The young woman in question shakes her head, begins to wash that dirty face of hers. Gabrielle resumes the task herself, letting that niggling worry be washed away by the refreshing water.
Heaped upon the table are two of the prepared turkeys, large bowls of smashed potatoes, small clay dishes of oiled olives, some boiled and salted cabbage heads, four loaves of flatbread. Gabrielle takes a seat near the head of the table, in which place settles Cyrene. Across from Gabrielle sits Xena, and to her left sits Lyceus, but not before politely asking her for the privilege. Xena was right, her younger brother was certainly a charmer. Earlier, on their way back from the springhouse, Xena had explained that on the same day every cycle, her mother arranges a meal with all their cousins and extended relations still living in Amphipolis. Tonight just so happens to be one of those family dinners. And so, Gabrielle takes a seat, eager to witness Xena in this particular situation. Her mirth nearly bubbles over at the thought of the grown version of the woman at a dinner like this; she'd have been so bored, so annoyed that she was made to sit through all this. But this younger Xena seems to relish the gathering of her kinfolk; it means she has an captive audience. What Xena would need an audience for is the only troubling thought in Gabrielle's head. Other than that, she is content to eat ravenously and enjoy everyone's company.
Toris appears a few moments later, taking his place next to Xena, and conversations erupt between the dinner guests, loud exclamations of business dealings, comments on the good weather that held all the day long. Gabrielle talked to many people around her, answered questions about her self and her day of work. No one, it suddenly occurred to her, had even asked her name. It didn't seem to matter; if you ate at this table, you were considered family. It was so different from the silent dinners that she and her family in Potidaea had shared in her own youth. She glances to Lyceus, who is deep into the telling of his day at the market to his family.
"And I swear, no one had anything but cabbages!" he laughs, tears forming at the corners of his eyes, "So I grabbed an armload of the damn vegetables and staggered over to old Legas, you know Mufias' father, and I asked if he had any cabbages for sale. Poor bugger says, 'Aye, Lyceus, had o' good turn with t' cabbages this season!'" Gabrielle smiles more at Xena's loud bark of laughter that escapes from her throat at her brother's retelling. Lyceus glances suddenly to his dinner companion, to see if she found his story amusing. She relents a genuine smile to him and registers that blush that creeps over his fair skin. Maybe Xena's right, she amuses herself.
"So, Gabrielle," says Lyceus, "tell us about yourself. What do you do for work? Or do you just roam the countryside, befriending beastly village girls?" Gabrielle has the grace to laugh. She catches the mock-threatening look Xena sends in his direction.
"You have a talent for words," Gabrielle counters.
"I'm a bard," he says, "Or, at least I want to be one eventually. But, tell us. Where do you come from?" A bard? Gabrielle is stuck on the admission. Xena never told me her mourned and deified younger brother was a bard. She files the information away.
"What a coincidence," she says, "I also think of myself as a bard." Lyceus' smile widens, if it could pull any wider.
"Xena, you didn't tell me that!" he threw at his sister. Xena is looking at her friend strangely again.
"She never divulged to me," she says evenly, taking a sip from her mug of port.
"It didn't come up," soothes Gabrielle, turning her attention back to Lyceus,"Anyway, we should savour the crowd and tell some stories tonight. Maybe when everyone is a bit drunker."
"I like this one," Lyceus aims at Xena. Xena smiles slightly, tucking into her salted cabbage. Suddenly, there is a louder voice above the din of conversing people.
"Ho, all right listen up!" he booms, "I got here some information fer all of ya." Lyceus informs Gabrielle that this is one of the village elders, their great uncle. "I know tell has been spreading, like wild fire here in this town, that the raiders are headed west." There is a collective gasp. "They've crossed the bay at the Northern Sporades, soon they'll hit Meride and Potidaea before they make their way north to Amphipolis." Gabrielle silently curses this man, for he brought the world crashing back into their few stolen moments of youth and bliss. The sound of her hometown from the elder's lips sends a jarring wave of reality over her once more. She feels Xena's eyes trained hard on her reaction. Gabrielle reaches back into the history scrolls she had read so long ago in her local library; had Cortese sacked Potidaea in his rampage over Thrace? She couldn't remember. She damned her memory. Xena's eyes still bore into her.
"So here's the question, folks," continues the elder, "How much crop, how much grain, how much livestock are we willing to part with when the army passes?" A low murmur rumbles through the dinner guests.
"I hear there's a cabbage surplus this season," offers Lyceus. Toris emits a soft yelp of barely contained laughter; even Xena cracks a smile. But the latter young woman's attention turns serious once again, focuses back on her great uncle's hulking form.
"Ah, yes. Good suggestion, young man. Milfirth, how are the sheep holding in the southern pasture?"
"Good! Good! Only two lambs picked off by the foxes this week," answers a man whom Gabrielle determines to be Milfirth. Then, there is a cacophony of voices offering up meager evaluations of their warlord tithes. Gabrielle senses rather than sees the fire building in Xena's eyes. She watches the dair-haired young woman open her mouth and speak a few words that get drowned in the louder voices of her kin. And, like the gesture she had made earlier at lunch, Xena stands, then decides to up the ante by stepping one boot on the seat of her chair. Once properly standing above the gathered patrons of the Inn's dining room––half the town it seems––she lets out a loud yell, sounding eerily like her battlecry.
"What's his name!" she roars. Her kinsmen and neighbours quiet, and the noise settles like a valley between them.
"Xena!" her mother admonishes, but only half-heartedly.
"What's that, Xena?" asks the elder, a weary note in his voice. This must be a regular occurrence, thinks Gabrielle and the thought makes her feel pride in her friend. Xena never had a problem with speaking her mind. Or being heard.
"I said, what is his name," she says again, still standing on the chair.
"Whose?"
"The warlord's, the bloody commanding general of the raiders! Whose army is coming this way?" Her voice is grated and impatient.
"Anyone get the name?" the elder casts about. Many blank faces meet his query. Xena utters an oath under her breath. It suddenly occurs to Gabrielle what Xena is doing. It is an excellent tactic in any rhetorician's or good general's repertoire: withholding information for the purpose of discovering the extent of her subjects' knowledge.
"His name is Cortese," she intones. The room, if possible, gets even more silent. "Now, I found this out a week ago from a passing tradesman. An entire week has gone by. A whole week full of gossip and rumours and whispers of marauders. And not one of you bothered to find out his name. You think you're prepared to face an army like this? It's been many many seasons, and many moons since last Amphipolis was threatened by bandits. Too long have we lived peacefully, that we forget what war is like!"
"Nor do you, Xena! You're but a runt, yet!" calls out one of the men.
"An informed runt," she snarls. The man sneers at her. Gabrielle feels her blood running cold through the entire exchange. "Listen, I know what you all think. You think we'll hand over a couple wagonloads of cabbages to this Cortese and they'll just ramble on and save their pillaging for some other poor town. Let Larissa get razed, let Pheree be ravaged, let Meride get burned, let Potidaea burn too," she catches Gabrielle's eye, "but we'll be spared, of course. We're good people. Why would the gods punish good people? Here is a fact, Thessalia is burning in the wake of this Cortese. Here is another fact, he will not spare us. He will kill all our men and enslave our women."
There are a few shouts of protest. She has them hung on her every word.
"Cortese will do this, but only if we let him. I say we keep the fruit of our labour to ourselves, to ensure our own prosperity, to ensure that our own children have plenty to eat come harsh winter! We worked hard for what we have, and we have a very prosperous land. Why give it up to murdering warlords? Just because they frighten us into submission!"
"Xena––" Toris warns. A worried look is shared between Cyrene and her two sons. Xena does not seem to notice.
"I say, we fight for what is ours!" she yells. Her eyes are wide, sparing no person their fierce touch. A loud jeer of approval greets her from those in the tavern. Gabrielle suddenly realises where the Destroyer of Nations had come from, how the demon forces of War had corrupted Xena's gifts of leadership and intellect. She can see the naked pleasure in the clear eyes of that young woman. Gabrielle can see how it invigorates this young Xena, that she can so sway those men who claim to be her elders, her superiors. What a struggle for domination all this is for her; how much misplaced pride in her homeland and her kin and her own power she must have possessed to want to ignite this fire. Her own heart is stirred at the vision; it is a fearful stirring. All right, she decides, the time for passivity is long past. Gabrielle stands as well.
"Wait!" she yells at the top of her lungs. "Listen to me!" Cyrene and her children all wheel to fix the strange blonde woman with their attention.
"And who are you?" demands the elder. Ah, now they want to know my name, admits Gabrielle.
"She's my friend," says Xena, warring for the crowd's attention.
"My name is Gabrielle. I have kin in Potidaea, a village not far from here on the warpath of Cortese," she says, trusting in her ability to regale a crowd of inn patrons. "What Xena says is true. This is a dangerous army. If you do not prepare yourselves, you will fall vicim to their cruelty." She can feel Xena's eyes on her. "Preparing for all out war is not the answer, however. It will only get you all killed."
"What then, do you suggest we do, young lady" asks the elder. Gabrielle allows herself a moment to gather her thoughts. This is an important facet of her plan, to get the townspeople and Xena to trust her.
"Put together small defence groups. Begin training with the weapons on hand. I assume this village has one trained in the martial arts?" Many of the faces turn toward Xena. "Right," Gabrielle continues, "begin some training. I'm sure if we put our heads together, we can think of some tactic to pool our resources and the advantage of defending familiar territory. Aside from physical defence strategy, however, we must be willing to negotiate with Cortese and his officials."
"Here we go," mutters Xena. Lyceus shoots her a glance.
"I think that if we pose even a little bit of a threat, or a willingness to meet with force, that Cortese will move on. Think about it: He will have to have had some major accumulation of loot from other unprotesting villages, he will have to be tired from his long campaign through Thessaly and Thrace. This is why I think he'll pass us by in favour of easier pickings. And remember, the goal here is to evade a full-on attack, to spare not a single life," she directs her words right to Xena's ear, "But if we are met by force, let us not think it cowardice to give them their bounty in favour of sparing our lives. It is not cowardly to want to live; but to rest on our laurels and do nothing in our ignorance, that is to bring shame on our families."
"Here, here!" a man toasts, and the crowd erupts in a unanimous cheer of agreement. Across the commotion of the table, Gabrielle meets Xena's eye. The young woman has that strange look again, almost willing to believe in the divine as she digests her new friend's words. Perhaps this Gabrielle is of the gods; the thought passes not for the first time through her mind.
Once the excitement had died down, dinner finished, and the townspeople shuffling about and ready to return home for the evening, Lyceus approaches his sister's older friend.
"That was quite a show," he said, referencing her speech. Gabrielle blushes. "I'm serious, that was something else. You're a wise woman, Gabrielle. Not everyone can put Xena in her place. I hope you'll be staying with us for a while." At that jibe, Xena materialises next to the pair.
"I'm going to bed," she reports in dark tone, "You two be back before dawn now, huh?" Gabrielle catches her meaning before Lyceus does. Again, she blushes.
"I'm pretty tired too actually," she says quickly. "Where did you say I could sleep again, Xena?"
"With me," she growls. Gabrielle swallows at the thought of sharing a bed with that animal of a temper. Xena turns and stalks off through the tavern, toward rear exit. Gabrielle turns back to Lyceus, fixing him with a sympathetic look.
"She always that testy?" Gabrielle asks.
"Most of the time," he confirms, "Sorry about that, you know? She likes to be in charge of things."
"Yeah," agrees Gabrielle, "she does. Well, it was nice to meet you Lyceus. I'm sure I'll see you in the morning."
"Have a good night, Gabrielle. The gods' blessings on your silver tongue where my sister is concerned". Lyceus leans to plant a chaste kiss on the woman's cheek. Gabrielle feels herself warm. There must be something magic in this family's blood; each one can get a rise out of her. She smiles at his retreating back, then resolves herself to go in search of the brooding young rebel.
