A/N: Some sexual situations and harsh language in this chapter. Read at your own discretion.
VI.
We often see
Fire burst
From an ancient volcano
We thought too old
There are, it seems
Blackened fields
That yield more wheat
Than the best of April
And when evening descends
The sky in flames
Le rouge et le noir
Do not wed
Ne me quitte pas
I will invent for you
Senseless words
That only you understand
I will speak to you
Of lovers then
Who have seen twice
Their hearts ablaze
I will tell to you
The story of a king
Dead for having met you
Ne me quitte pas
-Excerpts from the song, "Ne Me Quitte Pas" by Jacques Brel
[liberally translated from French by myself]
Xena ran; she ran until her lungs sang with fire, until she travelled with the ease of smoke. So far, she had managed to take out a dozen of Tetram's men—moving with the night to strike unseen. And yet then, with the bodies of their fellow warriors piling at their feet, the Persians acted like spooked horses, jumping and turning at every snap of twig, every jarred leaf. Xena tried to remain close to the camp, keeping that lone fire always to her right as she made a wide circle, waiting for her chance to steal to Tetram's tent and reach Gabrielle. But for now, she had to run.
"It seems the Warrior Princess is living up to her legend," said Tetram. He raised his mug of port in the bard's direction: a gesture of mocking rather than reverence.
Gabrielle sat on the ground, her wrists chained to a heavy wooden chest of arms. She looked forlornly at the Shah, her cheek beginning to bruise and her lip bleeding from his beating. She studied the Shah's face, admitting to herself that the man was devilishly handsome with—she imagined-his mother's dark eyes.
"Embellishment is not really needed when it comes to Xena," she answered, shifting some to try to alleviate the chaffed skin beneath tight, iron cuffs. "Tell me," began Gabrielle, "what do you hope to gain by this?" She raised her hands.
Tetram sneered, "It is quite simple, young bard. I wish to make Xena suffer. She cares for you. If she did not, she would be gone from this island. And that means that I have power over her." The Shah crept closer to Gabrielle, until he was kneeling in front of her. Reaching to her manacled hands, he wrapped a few thick fingers around the chain and yanked it toward him. Gabrielle flew forward, her body falling into the damp fur of Tetram's coat. With the other hand, he smoothed a thumb over the line of her jaw, then over her lips. Gabrielle winced more at the unwanted touch than the sting of her cut. She struggled, righting herself, and shuffled as far from the man as the chains would allow- which was, unfortunately, only a footlength.
Tetram chuckled evenly, itself a harsh sound, providing no ease or pacification. "Relax. I will not kill you, nor shall I take you. Maidenhead only rouses me these days, and as you are Xena's, there is little doubt that you have been ravished of it. Though you are sweet to smell," he gathered a lock of Gabrielle's honeyed hair and passed it under his nose, "Aye, much gold would I have paid to pluck your flower."
"Xena," Gabrielle breathed- please, hurry she finished in her mind.
Incensed from her nearly silent plea, Tetram varied the method of his torture: "Tell me, little girl, how much did the Warrior Princess pay for you?"
"She didn't buy me. In fact, she rescued me from slavers. I chose to follow her."
This seemed to surprise the man. "And you remain with her of your own will?"
Gabrielle nodded.
A knowing, wicked smile spread over Tetram's gruff features. "O' course, Xena is a master of her craft. I have witnessed it myself," he chuckled again, his accent becoming thicker and betraying his increasing drunkenness, "surely, you remain enslaved to her body. What does she do to you amongst the furs, fair one?"
A pained look passed over Gabrielle's features; Tetram had found her weakness, unknowingly of course. Nevertheless, she felt deftly exposed, as if the Shah had stripped her naked upon the cold ground.
"Does she touch you?" Tetram continued, that leer still upon his face, "Does she press kisses to your breasts, mine your cunt with her rough fingers? Huh?"
Tears leapt into the placid green of Gabrielle's eyes, then rolled down over her cheeks, mixing with her blood, and dripped from her chin.
"Answer me!" Tetram roared, not used to being denied his pleasure. He advanced once more and took the bard's narrow shoulders in his hands, trying to shake the lurid confession from her, "Answer me, you whore!"
"Yes!" Gabrielle lied, "Yes."
Tetram smiled a vicious set of teeth, "Tell me."
Gabrielle trembled, gathering her knees into herself; she shook her head, refusing to allow this man any further into the privacy of her own secreted fantasies. Tetram retreated onto his haunches, the movement oddly like the animal from which his coat was skinned.
"Aka Manah," whispered Tetram, entreating the god of desire, "You're in love with a murderer." He took a long draught from his port, letting it dribble down the nappy curls of his beard. "That's it. You love her. My mother made that mistake too, for she loved Xena very much. Yes she did. More than her dead husband, more than Caria, more than her people, more than me…"
A curious expression passed before the Shah's eyes, rendering them those of a child's. And as Gabrielle looked on, Tetram the Great began to speak of his mother:
The fronds of the olive trees did not stand a chance against Tetram's curved tulwar sword. Roughly hacked from their stems by that dull blade, they fell limply, casting their salted fruit to the ground.
"Tremble beneath my might!" cried Tetram, in a voice still broken with boyhood. He slashed viciously once more, curling his lips over his teeth.
"Ah, young prince Tetram," came a voice from behind him. The prince wielded his sword around in a wide, careless arc. It was stopped luckily by a metal bracer upon a thick forearm.
"Aye! Watch where you swing that thing," said the Shah of the Persian Empire.
Upon recognizing who had almost struck, Tetram sunk down to his knees, pressing his face onto the ground. "Apologies Great Shah," mumbled the boy into the soil, "I did not know."
"You need not sink beneath me," said Xerxes, hoisting the boy up by his tunic, "and what are you doing all alone this fine day? Where are the playmates I have given to you?"
Tetram looked up at Xerxes, squinting at the sun low in the sky behind the Shah's shoulder. "I sent them away, Aghaye. I wished to be alone."
"Aye, boy. Sometimes I long for a thousand solitudes," agreed Xerxes, resting a hand on Tetram's shoulder.
"Will you conquer Greece?" ventured Tetram, rather boldly.
Xerxes guffawed at that, smiling from ear to ear. "I like a man who speaks plainly. But I cannot answer your question. War is a nefarious thing. I would sooner have it end, then fight for much longer. However, I do believe us very close to victory. And we will venture even closer with the wisdom of leaders like your mother."
Tetram dug the point of his sword into the dirt and twisted it round and round so that it corkscrewed down and down. He nodded, seeming to process what the Shah had said. War is bad? Why, then, do men fight them?
"Say, my Prince," said Xerxes, "have you seen your mother as of late? She was not in her rooms."
"Baleh, she was walking the east gardens; she wished also to be alone for she sent me away."
"You and I and your mother are all quite alike," said Xerxes, with a strange note of wistfulness.
Again, Tetram nodded.
"I bid you search for her and send her to me."
"Baleh, Aghaye," replied Tetram.
Xerxes patted Tetram's shoulder once more. But, before he turned, he offered in a gentle voice, "The kings of Persia and I will go hunting on the morrow. Would you like to join us? I have a horse just suited for you."
The boy's eyes lit with the glow of youth and wonder. "Oh, yes, my Shah. I would like that very much."
"Then it shall be settled. Shab bekheyr!" With that, Xerxes turned and made off through the muscari, the tulips and the irises, the sun setting at his back.
Tetram nearly skipped his way under the trellises of the promenade. Hunting! With the Shah! Nothing could have made the boy happier. Through the half-crumbled stones of the east garden gates, he passed. For some reason, he quieted his steps and thought it a good joke to hide from his mother and frighten her from the trees. It was hard to surprise her, and it was a game they often played- to see who could scare the other first. And so, through the thick-growing laurel he stole.
Hearing voices nearby, Tetram crawled on his stomach and parted the foliage to peer through undetected. What he saw was his mother and another dark-haired woman standing close in a small clearing; they looked to be in an argument. The woman looked to be a slave and Tetram wondered at her audacity to be raising her voice to the Queen of Caria. From a very young age had he been trained in Greek and thus understood the Grecian tongue they spoke in.
"You said it would be taken care of!" hissed the strange woman.
"It's not my fault your man got himself killed," replied Artemesia, "he was, of course, carrying a lot of coin with him."
"Cow shit! You arranged to have him murdered. I know it!" The woman sunk low, her energy reeling off in bright gasps; she circled his mother, like a wolf circling its prey.
"I have denied it too many times already. Once more will not make you believe me." Artemesia turned with the woman as she circled, always keeping her in sight.
"Rasmus was loyal to me; that's hard to come by." The woman shook her head.
"Yes, I know," said Artemesia, rather forlornly, "I am sorry about your friend."
"I'm more sorry about my money," she answered with a sneer, "I don't suppose you'll offer reimbursement."
"Why is it you need so much? What is it for?"
"My business, not yours," said the woman, invading his mother's personal space once more. But the Queen was undaunted. Moving easily, she grasped one of the woman's hands and held it before her eyes to inspect is palm.
"Callouses," murmured the Queen, "and the manner in which you move, like a predator. The way you speak, like a sailor. That you did not seek to kill the Shah and that you are a Greek… you're a warlord. Are you not?"
The woman smiled a feral, low-lidded smile and Tetram, from the trees, felt a pull deep within at the ferocity of her beauty.
"Yes," she drawled out the word, "come to ravish beautiful Queens of their treasure and chastity."
"Treasure have I, chastity have I not," replied Artemesia, smiling and stepping closer.
"Don't think I'll settle for just one," whispered the woman, allowing the Queen to drawl her arms around her hips.
"Pray, I ask for one thing only."
"And what is that?" replied the much taller woman, dragging Artemesia's hands from her hips to her shoulders; in their stead, she placed her own hands and pulled the Queen closer still.
"Your name, my dark beauty," answered Artemesia.
The woman leaned down and placed her lips so very close to her captive's ear. Tetram had to strain to hear the whispered name, the name that would haunt him for years to come.
"Xena," the Queen sighed as the warlord molded their bodies together. She drew her hands down the sides of Artemesia's hips and bunched the material in her hands, hiking it up past her thighs. Gathering the dress in one hand, the warlord disappeared her other beneath the hem, reaching up between the Queen's legs. She then swallowed Artemesia's cry into her own mouth, and picked up the smaller woman, only to slam her down against the flat of a stone bench. Falling into the cradle of the Queen's hips, the warlord found the sway, biting and ripping the material from her concubine's body. The Queen's hands lost themselves into that mane of thick, trinket-laden dark hair and her sighs turned to moans. "Xena!" she cried.