When she was little Gabrielle liked to follow the streams near her house and traipse barefoot through them. She'd pull a branch off a tree and drive it into the water and declare herself Poseidon. Then she'd swing the branch around and try to flick water on Lila-who always sat on the shore drawing in the pebbles and dirt.
When she was older and on the shore of rivers far away from Potidaea she'd watch men with nets and sticks pull fish out of the water as if by magic. A kind boy with a smooth chest, a winning smile and a scar on his chin told her that way was silly. He dragged her out into the river and showed her how to catch the fish with her hands.
"Be still," he said. "Calm. You're setting a trap Gabrielle. Let them swim right in." His breath was hot on her neck and his smooth chest warm against her back.
And then his big hands would clamp like a vice around a fish and pull it up out of the river. She never seemed to get the knack of it though and had settled on string, a hook and a good long stick. "This is how we caught them back home," she said proudly, and the kind boy had smiled and gone back hip deep into the river leaving her cool and dry on the shore.
But one day he did not meet her at the rivers edge. They said he'd grown too still and it was the fish that ate him. They found his body bloated and wrinkly half a day's ride away. His eyes had been eaten by the fish and there was a great crack in his head. She and some of the others like her had buried him beneath stones and asked that Hermes or Death see him safely to the great beyond.
The empress liked to catch fish like that kind boy had. She was taller than him though, and the water only came to her knees. She had to bend a little to lay her trap, but her hands were quick and each time they came above the water it was with a fish firmly in their grasp.
Eve had wanted to learn to fish that way as well so Xena had her sit further down stream and closer to the shore. The water came only to Eve's ankles. So she squatted in it and cupped the river with her tiny hands. She came close to catching minnows a few times, but so far all she'd caught was a fat old frog that slipped from her fingers as soon as she pulled it from the water.
Gabrielle's stomach still ached and the Empress was concerned about the bindings getting wet so she'd been relegated to watching the fire they kept on the shore and enjoying the comfort of the shade. They hadn't taken any guards with them on their little ride. Just Xena's sword and chakram and three strong horses. That had been Gabrielle's insistence. She'd never travelled with guards in Apollonia before and she wouldn't start now just because of Talmadeus.
In her head she'd held a contest to see who was angrier with that decision. Her seneschal, Diomedes, or the empress's guard, Draco. The skinny man and the scarred warrior had both scowled and grumbled.
And now they were back at the palace and she was enjoying a warm breeze and watching her daughter play in the river with Xena. The Xena. Who had told her just the night before to call her that.
And the woman was standing knee deep in the river dressed only in a shift and smiling. She had a wonderful smile Gabrielle noticed. And for an alleged murderer and tyrant she had a way with children. Eve was growing more frustrated by the second with her fishing and Xena had noticed. She moved to squat behind the girl, took her small hands in her larger ones and guided them in the water.
She whispered something in the little girl's ear and Eve nodded fiercely. They both went perfectly still. Their eyes watched the water and looked for the small fish beneath the surface. Then there was a sudden splash and Eve thrust her hands up into the air with a shout.
"Mom! Mom! Mom!" She turned around and ran for Gabrielle, her hands still tightly clasped together.
Gabrielle looked briefly past her daughter. Xena was still standing in the water with her hands on her hips and that smile on her lips. She winked when Gabrielle caught her eye.
Thankfully Eve reached her before the blush could spread from her cheeks down to her neck.
"Look," she shouted and thrust her hands out to Gabrielle. Cupped in her hands was a tiny minnow, still swimming in the bit of water Eve had caught with it.
"That fish is enormous," she said.
And her daughter glared, "It's tiny but I caught it with my hands. Have you ever caught one with your hands," she challenged.
"Once or twice," she said mysteriously, "Now, what do you plan to do with it?"
Eve looked back down at the fish in her hands. "Eat it?"
She offered, "Or you could put it back."
Eve's lower lip stuck out in a pout but Gabrielle held firm. Finally the girl moved sullenly back to the water and more fishing.
Xena then came to sit next to her, but not before flicking a bit of river water on Gabrielle with a smile. "Why'd you make her put it back?"
"A tiny fish like that isn't worth much. Especially when we've got that feast you've been catching all morning."
"So you prefer to only catch big fish?"
Gabrielle bumped her shoulder into Xena's like they were old friends. "Giants."
They sat in companionable silence for a time before Xena spoke again. "Your daughter is fast with those little hands of hers."
"Is that a fact?"
"I used to fish this way with my brother, but we never caught anything besides worms or frogs until we were older than Eve."
"But Cortese came."
Xena studied her a moment, "How do you know that?"
"Before I was a governor or a playwright I was a bard. The story of the Empress and Cortese was popular."
"Now you're making me feel old."
"I did a very romantic version of it. A sister seeking vengeance on the man who killed her brother and in the process ridding Greece of slavery."
Xena frowned, "The ill of this country can be traced directly back to men like Cortese," she said quite seriously.
"And like your man Draco too."
Xena gave her a sharp look and Gabrielle nearly bit her tongue. Stupid, stupid Gabrielle. Draco's past as a slaver probably wasn't common knowledge.
"Either you know that from experience or you're better connected than I thought playwright."
"We're back to that name," she cracked with a smile.
Xena didn't blink. Her eyes now were like chips of glacier ice, cold and hard even in the summer sun. "How do you know about Draco?" Like a dog who'd found its bone.
"I know him only by reputation."
But Xena's face was impassive and still. Down on the shore Eve had given up the game of fishing and was now stomping through the stream. Gussets of water splashed up in the wake of her tiny feet and she sang a song Sappho had taught her once. She stomped to the rhythm and the splash of the river was like rain on the skins of drums.
And Xena still stared. Until, "he came to your village," she said softly.
Gabrielle didn't respond. She watched her daughter sing and play. Xena spoke of Potidaea. Of Draco's love of the area and his fondness for the "stock" he found there. All Gabrielle could hear was the splashing of her daughter's feet, but soon the river was red with blood and Potidaea was crying out in pain and Gabrielle was doing all a brave girl girl could do.
"I'm sorry." An apology. Uttered from the lips of the most powerful woman in the world. It was so rare, she thought. Empresses did not have need of apologies, not when they ruled their realm with a sword. But there Xena was, her eyes now calm and warm like a sun soaked sea.
"Why are you sorry," and she was surprised. Her voice was rough and she realized her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Xena had shifted to no longer lean beside her. She was facing Gabrielle now and sitting cross legged.
Xena frowned. It was brief, perhaps imperceptible, but after weeks of recovery with Xena as her healer Gabrielle had grown accustomed to the other woman's face. It was easier to read now. "Who did he take," she said softly. Steel lined the kind tone and Gabrielle knew she had to answer.
"He took everything."
"Why haven't you said anything—"
"I was seventeen Xena. A lot has happened since." She shifted a little so she could lean against the trunk of the tree behind her. It was rough but solid and eased the strain from her nearly healed wound. "I'm not like you. Or him. Anger and killing don't come so naturally to me. I'm one of those little people warlords like to step on. And when you're the little person there's no room for revenge. It's too costly. So you forgive, because that's all you have."
"Now you're the Governor of Apollonia and one of the most respected and well known playwrights in Greece. You can afford revenge."
Gabrielle smiled and she wondered if the ache in her chest was present in her smile, "But that's the thing, I don't want it."
And it was true. Gabrielle had seen and felt the horrors of the world first hand. She was more intimate with them then any woman her age should be. But revenge? She'd hungered for it so long she'd lost the taste. Now she only wanted this. A cool spring and a happy child and warm company.
And that last desire scared her more than any revenge she'd ever dreamt of.
#
"I'm not like you."
In the course of Xena's tenure as a warlord and empress she'd had the opportunity to experience much derision. She never minded. They could insult her all they wanted but she was the one with a giant army and a realm that spread from Greece to Chin. They were just little people trying to make themselves big.
"I'm not like you." No, Gabrielle wasn't like Xena. Xena never would have let Talmadeus get close enough to skewer her. She never would have been caught living in a palace and governing a land that was not her own and then meekly accepting any punishment meted out.
She also would never write a play that could make men weep and she'd never have a child that loved her as dearly as Eve loved Gabrielle.
They were very different women. So vastly different in build, strengths and desire that any comparison should be a farce. But her words had stung.
For a long time Xena lived only for revenge. Even as the Empress of the Known World she still had some desire for it. Every time she met Caesar under a banner of peace she heard her own legs cracking under the fall of a hammer and his smug laughter ringing in her ears.
To live absent of that particular desire was completely foreign to her.
Yet that was Gabrielle. This little center of serenity.
Only there, briefly for a moment, Xena had seen something else. She'd seen a haunted woman infused with rage. It had been brief, only an instant, but Xena recognized that look and some small part of her recoiled from it.
Not because the kind Governor of Apollonia could harbor such a rage, but because she hid it so well.
Men like Draco and Talmadeus and even Darius were easy. Their guile was transparent. But Gabrielle was opaque. She guarded herself and her emotions well. Like Caesar.
Was their flirting then a game? Was Gabrielle a few steps ahead of Xena? Would she too string Xena up on a beach and laugh as hammers turned her legs to mush?
When they returned to the palace Xena left Gabrielle and Eve in the stables and went in search of Draco. She found him beneath a tree in the courtyard of the guest villa where her soldiers were bedding. He had his sword out and was sharpening the edge with long sure strokes. He didn't stand when he saw her, just nodded and continued with his work.
She stopped directly in front of him. "You didn't tell me you knew my new governor," she said.
He glanced up, "I don't think I do."
"But she knows you."
"Is that a fact?"
From tang to tip the stone moved, shaving off bits of metal and making the sword nearly as sharp as Hephaestion steel.
"I've had enough of games today Draco. Tell me everything."
His face darkened but that long scar turned only a little pinker. "Empress, I did not know the new governor before a few weeks ago."
"You knew her in Potidaea."
"I knew many women in Potidaea."
"Have you raped and killed so many that this one woman could be forgotten?"
Draco suddenly stabbed his sword into the rocky soil underfoot and used the blade as leverage to stand. He lurched forward into Xena's space. "I am not the only one here who murdered their way across Greece."
"I did it to better the world."
He barked out a laugh. His teeth were brilliantly white and perfect. Not the teeth one would expect to see in the mouth of a monster. "Tell yourself that, 'empress,' but don't ask me to believe it. You and I are very much alike."
"Only I'm the Empress and you're the worm beneath my feet."
She darted into Draco's personal space, snaked her leg between his and pushed. As he fell she twisted him around and pulled his sword from the ground and drove it up against his neck. A bright spot of red welled up against the point where sword's edge met skin. Her knees and a hand firmly wrapped into the heavy locks of his hair kept him in place. She leaned down so she wouldn't have to raise her voice. "I know you are forgetful sometimes Draco. That it was my army that smashed yours to bits and my sword that gave you that lovely scar. I'll assume it's why you've forgotten that woman and what you did to her in Potidaea. But she did not forget."
His face was pressed into the dirt so his words were muffled, but she heard them well enough, "You think she plans to hurt me?"
Xena didn't know what Gabrielle planned to do, but she knew she couldn't trust the woman. Not with how carefully she guarded herself. A woman that clever could just be biding her time, waiting for some perfect moment to kill Draco, and Xena needed Draco. He was a bastard, but one of the best soldiers and leaders she had in her army.
"I think you will avoid her Draco. We will leave soon and until then you will give her a wide berth and you will try," she dug the sword a little deeper into the flesh of his neck, "you will try to remember the exact wrongs you committed against her. Understood?"
He nodded.
"Good."
She let his sword fall and stood up lightly, leaving Draco drinking in the dusty earth and desperately trying to remember an act of violence he'd committed nearly ten years before.
#
Gabrielle was waiting for her when she returned to her room. The other woman was still in her clothes from their time at the river. A skirt that went down to her ankles and a blue peasant blouse. Xena thought about telling her how young she looked in the clothes. Like that seventeen year old farm girl instead of the governor and mother.
"Need help getting cleaned up for dinner," Xena asked.
Gabrielle didn't respond. She was watching Xena. Her eyes bright in the glow of the braziers.
The more Xena mused on their time by the river the angrier she became. Gabrielle had been hiding things from her. Behaving more like a Roman than any Grecian governor of Xena's choosing. She found herself reverting. Falling into the easy darkness she'd inhabited before Apollonia. She flirted now, but with an edge of maliciousness in her tone. "No? Well you don't mind if I get clean do you? I smell like fish and the river." Xena quickly pealed off the leather battle dress and breastplate she'd been wearing. Before her shift could follow Gabrielle spoke.
"What did you do?"
The woman had been stabbed and bleeding like a stuck pig and she'd sounded braver then she did now. This woman, who watched her with wide eyes, sounded like a wounded child. Angry and accusatory, and above all, hurt.
"I don't know what—"
"You spoke to Draco. Told him about me."
"You heard."
"You had no right to speak to him." Most retreated when they shouted at Xena. Gabrielle grew closer.
"I had every right."
Xena did the same.
"Why? Because you're the empress?"
She was so close Xena could see the flecks of gold in her eyes.
"Because I am your friend."
And now she could feel her breath. It was hot and not the least bit sour. Xena darted forward. She had a gift for anticipating outcomes. She knew how silly it was to kiss the little governor. Knew how terrible any relationship would end. She didn't care. Because one potential outcome, the one she wanted, would end with a kiss and then sex and then who knew what else.
Only Gabrielle wasn't there. Xena's lips met air. The other woman had taken a step back, too silent and quick for Xena to catch her. That was not an outcome she could have anticipated.
"Gabrielle," she found her self saying the other woman's name like some lovestruck fool. She was desperate. All the anger and resentment didn't mean a thing when the governor was so close.
"I…" Gabrielle fidgeted and looked away. She found whatever strength she needed and turned back to Xena, "My—Sappho arrived while we were out."
She'd heard of Sappho, the lyricist from Lesbos. The woman was said to write songs that made the lame walk and deserts grow wet with the tears of gods. Eve sang her songs sometimes and they sounded good enough coming from the lips of a child.
And Gabrielle had cried for her in her fevered dreams.
Her 'friend.'
Gabrielle did not elaborate on their relationship. She communicated only with a look.
"Oh."
"Homer sent word when I was hurt." She sounded almost pleased, "Apparently she had to break an engagement in Rome to get here."
"She cares for you."
"Yes."
And that was that. There was nothing more to be said. Whatever feelings Xena had were hers and hers alone.
To her credit Xena's voice did not crack. "I look forward to meeting her."
She hoped it was a sad note she caught in Gabrielle's little smile. Like the arrival of the songwriter had her aching as it did Xena.
"Thank you," the playwright said. Her voice was a whisper, but they both knew it reached Xena's ears easily enough. She started to walk past Xena. Paused. Xena closed her eyes reflexively as fingers grazed her hand.
Somewhere Eve cried out. No doubt struggling to get out of a bath she desperately needed.
The warmth of Gabrielle's fingers disappeared and Xena was left alone in her room. A fool in love. An empress defeated by a playwright with a smile.