VII.
O city in pain! O city nearly dead!
City whom the dark Past could bless:
Body galvanized back to life to suffer such tremendous pain,
You are drinking in dreadful life once more! You feel
The ghastly pale worms flooding back in your veins,
And the icy fingers prowling on your unclouded love!
The Poet says to you: "Your Beauty is Marvelous!"
The tempest sealed you in supreme poetry;
The huge stirring of strength comes to your aid;
The Poet will take the sobs of the Infamous,
The hate of Galley slaves, the clamour of the Damned;
And the beams of her love will scourge Womankind
Her verses will leap out: There's for you! There! Villains!
-excerpts from "The Parisian Orgy", Arthur Rimbaud
In the grey light of dawn, Xena clasped her hand around a root vine brittle from the cold; it crumbled like talc and she felt herself falling, falling down the sheer face of the cliff. Catching herself on a minor ledge, she felt her muscles pull taut like a rope and she couldn't help the loose shale that tumbled down beneath her. Below, the warriors on the forest floor looked up saw the woman hanging precariously from the ledge.
"Archers!" she heard one shout.
"Son-of-a-Bacchae!" Xena swore, just before the first arrow flew dangerously close to her head. Snatching another out of the air, she used the arrowhead to dig it into the compacted moss on the cliff wall and climb up. She barely registered the brief pain of another projectile embedding itself in the back of her calf. With a deep, steadying breath, Xena launched herself over the ledge and clung to a jutting rock. Another frenzied scurry and she pulled herself over the lip of the peak and disappeared from the soldiers' view.
The warrior woman lay for a moment on the weatherworn peat, attempting to calm her wracking breath. Beyond her vision, over the vast blue Aegean, rose one of the most splendorous sunrises she had ever witnessed. Any appreciation, however, was locked away with her heart in that command tent of the Shah of Caria. Gabrielle, she thought. Xena felt sick.
Slowly, she sat up and took a cursory look at the arrow wound in her leg. The shaft of the weapon had broken off in her climb, but the head still lay buried in her torn flesh. Gritting her teeth, Xena unsheathed the short service knife from her boot and—without any preamble- plunged the tip into her wound and dug out the offending iron shrapnel.
Holding up the arrowhead briefly under her nose, she thanked the gods the arrow wasn't dipped in poison. Xena licked her bottom lip and discovered the metallic taste of blood: she had bitten her lip with a sharp incisor in effort to keep silent. She wished she had a flagon of water to wash away the taste. She remembered when she gained almost a sexual satisfaction from that taste; she remembered a few body slaves during her warlording days and how they would satiate that particular craving. Violence and sex were so tangled up in her mind, each aiding and pursuing one another, that she had given up pleasures of the flesh altogether. In fact, Xena realized many seasons ago, that she and Gabrielle would have allowed such intimacy if it were not for the warrior's stoicism and resolve. Xena wasn't daft; she recognized the telltale flush over Gabrielle's fair skin, her own heart aflutter, the long-held looks, and the unreasonable touches. In fact, she remembered one night, not too long before their Fated trip to Brittainia when Gabrielle had demonstrated quite plainly her desires:
Xena leaned across the length of the table and swiped gracefully at her friend's mug of wine.
"I think you've had enough," she said, smiling at Gabrielle's half-slumped posture and how she leaned a little too heavily back in her chair.
"Zeus' britches! Canna a bard hava drink?" she slurred, knocking a lazy fist against the table. When Gabrielle drank, her normally loquacious and refined vocabulary was reduced to the rapport of a bawdy sailor.
"You've had four," Xena replied, trying to keep the amusement out of her reprimand.
Gabrielle drunkenly considered this, tallying up a number in her mind. "Actually…" she giggled, "five. Had one 'fore, when you were stabling that damned horse."
"Hey, just because you're liquored up, doesn't mean I'll allow you to insult Argo."
"All ya care about's Argo," Gabrielle said, forlornly. She draped herself over the tabletop, burying her face in her arms.
Xena frowned at the turn in conversation; she reached out a hand and laid it over the bard's forearm. "Hey, that's not true."
"Yesh it is," came the mumbled reply.
Xena leaned further over and placed her mouth close to Gabrielle's ear. "I care about you," she said.
"I don't believe you."
Xena heard tears in the bard's voice. Pushing back her chair, the warrior rose and swept to Gabrielle's side. Gently, she knelt next to her chair and placed her hand on her friend's thigh. Gabrielle looked up at this, tear tracks down her ruddy cheeks; something broken appeared in those green eyes.
"Let's get you to bed, huh?" said Xena.
The fight gone out of her, Gabrielle merely nodded and allowed the warrior to hoist her up. Throwing a few dinari onto the table, Xena helped her friend through the thinning tavern crowd to the back staircase. At the foot of the stairs, however, Gabrielle paused. She extracted herself from the warrior's aid and leaned against the wall. She tried to focus her vision on the woman next to her, succeeding only in looking tired and somewhat angry. Xena raised an eyebrow.
"What?" The look in the bard's eyes begged a hush in Xena's voice.
"I'm a coward," she said.
Xena pursed her lips, "No you're not. Come on, sweetheart." She tried to egg the bard on up the narrow staircase toward their room, but Gabrielle was determined.
"And you're a coward."
That effectively got Xena's attention. Not just anybody called the Warrior Princess a coward and kept all their limbs intact. One glance, however, at the attempted seriousness and gravity in the bard's stare quelled any notion of anger. "In some things, yes," she replied.
"Why d'ya think I drank s'much ta'night?" she queried.
"Long day?" Xena attempted, unsure where this conversation was headed.
"Liquid courage," Gabrielle replied, a note of resignation and sobriety in her voice.
And then, without any warning, Gabrielle pushed herself off the wall, stood on her toes and pressed her wine-scented lips to Xena's. The kiss was brief but so pregnant with intent and promise and passion. It left the warrior in a heady daze, the taste of mulberry on her lips, feeling like she was the one who had consumed too much wine. Gabrielle leaned heavily against Xena, resting her cheek against the warrior's breastplate, letting her arms dangle at her sides.
"Take me to bed, Xena," she whispered.
Her heart jumping like a flame at those words, but knowing that she couldn't take the bard's inebriated words seriously, Xena scooped Gabrielle in her arms and ascended the stairs.
Now, on the peak of this cliff, on this cursed island, with a sizable puddle of blood pooling beneath her leg, Xena smiled at the memory. She remembered how she had tucked the bard into their pallet and how Gabrielle was already asleep; she remembered crawling in next to her, drawling the blanket around them and blowing out the candle. She remembered that, the next morning, neither of them mentioned what had happened the previous night- Xena unsure if Gabrielle remembered, and Gabrielle too embarrassed to remind her. And what with the insanity of Dahak and Hope and Elusia and their unprecedented anger toward one another- the sentiments had all but faded into half-vanished memory.
"I want another chance," said Xena aloud, letting her words carry on the wind and out to sea. "By the gods, Gabrielle, I want another chance."
Newly resolved, Xena tore a piece of her shift and tied a tourniquet just under her femoral artery. She crept to the edge of the cliff and glanced down, searching for the Persians. There, scaling the same path she had taken earlier, were her pursuers: she had to act quickly. Xena stood and walked to the other side of the cliff; and for some unknown reason, she scanned the horizon where the faint outline of the Athenian coast could be distinguished from the sky and sea. There, like a toy in the distance, was the unmistakable three sails of an Athenian warship. Her spirit soared with renewed hope.
"Leonidas, you jewel," she laughed, shaking her head. The king must have known that something was wrong when the contingent failed to return, and launched a rescue fleet. That, or he planned on forcing Tetram's hand and attacking them with a superior navy. To do that, Leonidas would have to drawl the Persian fleet out into open water. Smiling a feral smile, Xena glanced down the fifty or so meters into the waves crashing against the rocky coast.
Behind her, she heard the telltale movement of the Persian footsmen, hot on her trail. Turning, ebony hair whipping in a gust of wind, she caught the eye of the leading warrior as he crested the lip. He looked surprised to see that she had remained atop the cliff for them to catch up.
This'll be easy, thought the soldier, his comrades surfacing behind him, famed warrior my arse.
"Tell your Shah I'm comin' for him!" called Xena, her voice fractured with malice, "and if he hurts my friend, every last one of you will die."
Then, choosing her timing very carefully, just after the crest of a wave, Xena leapt from the cliff into the sea. As she fell, she thought of Artemisia, and her similar flight—a leap into the vastness of her feeling, drowning in a sea of love.
"Xena," said Tetram, "the name itself, I have forbidden to be spoken within my kingdom."
"That must have been hard for you," said Gabrielle, her voice growing weary and her eye swelling closed, "to watch your mother be so deceived and then betrayed."
"You don't know the half of it, bard!" he growled, raising his hand again to strike her.
"Please!" Gabrielle cried, sinking beneath the shadow of his hand. She was bone-weary, rendered delirious with fatigue and pain. She knew she must keep her wits about her—all that experience and training with Xena told her that she had to keep alert for an opportunity to escape. Nothing had presented itself yet, and she felt her nerves wrought with worry: She could barely breathe at the prospect of Xena out in those woods, running like a hunted animal, pursued by three-hundred bloodthirsty men. If anyone could survive such conditions, however, Gabrielle knew it would be Xena. And so thus, her hope and her silent prayers remained steadfast. She closed her eyes, waiting for the blow.
"My liege!" the tent flap parted to reveal one of Tetram's lieutenants.
Tetram's attention was diverted, and Gabrielle thanked the blessed intrusion.
"What is it?" barked the Shah, reverting to his mother tongue. The warrior's eyes were wild as he related information to his king, the words of which Gabrielle tried desperately to understand. She heard Xena's name and tears sprang to her eyes. Please, please, please… she chanted silently, please let her be alive.
The Shah showed signs of growing anger and for a moment he looked down; it seemed a cloud of rage built up around him. He glanced back to his lieutenant, bloodlust filling his eyes.
"Bebakhshid," he murmured before drawling his knife and slitting the man's throat in one clean, remorseless movement.
Gabrielle strangled her scream of horror as she felt droplets of blood rain down upon her. The warrior fell to the ground, his body still twitching with the last remaining dregs of life.
Tetram wheeled around and yanked Gabrielle up by her chains. The pain was undeniable, and the bard couldn't help the weakness of her yell as the Shah dragged her close. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, her whole body quivering in agony.
"It seems your Princess has leapt to her death," whispered Tetram, his breath tickling Gabrielle's face, "which is fitting, considering how my mother met her own."
"You lie," said Gabrielle, ashamed by the level of her fear, "Xena wouldn't leave me."
"Oh? And what makes you so sure?"
"You wouldn't have killed the messenger if it were good news."
"To the contrary, fair one, I killed him because he deprived me the pleasure of her blood on my hands," Tetram snarled.
Gabrielle considered this, how it did not seem too farfetched based upon the barbarism she had yet seen in the Shah. But she had to keep her faith alive. She decided to play her cards:
"So kill me then," she sneered, "you've no reason now to keep me alive." If he agreed, then she would join Xena soon in the afterlife and if he didn't, she would know Xena was still alive.
To her utmost surprise, Tetram smiled. "Ah, very good, bard," he said, "you have called my bluff."
"So she is alive," breathed Gabrielle, relief flooding through every vein.
"Regrettably." Tetram pushed her roughly away, so that she stumbled backward and fell across the armory chest. The pain could not pierce her joy, however: Xena was alive!
"It seems your King has a fleet of ships in harbor," said Tetram, "he is a stupid fool to believe I would contest in the waters, when I have such advantage on land."
"Perhaps," Gabrielle said wearily.
Turning, Tetram swept to the tentpole and snatched his cloak off the peg from which it hung. "I'm off to win a war long in the making," he said, "I won't be long my dear."
With that, he withdrew the flap and disappeared into the startling sunlight.