LITMIR.BIZ

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food cooking.

      Children played with a dog in the dust outside our door and I sat down to watch them, after I had groomed my faithful Banthos. It appeared that they were playing Heracles, with the dog cast as the Nemean Lion. It kept forgetting to be fierce and licked them. They were charming. Their laughter, high and innocent, followed me inside as it began to get dark.

      I rolled myself in my cloak and lay down on the Artemision's sheepskins, favouring my bruises. I noticed that after only a few days I was becoming stronger, more able to ride for a long time, less sensitive to the strong light and the wind and the rigours of travel. It was a really interesting world. I had never watched it from the outside before.

      I woke in the dead of night because someone was crying softly; crying like a child or a slave cried, muffled for shame, trying not to attract attention. I touched Orestes but he was asleep beside me.

      I had to do something. Tears started in my own eyes in response. I had cried many nights like that, my face buried in my pillow or my doll, hoping that no one would hear and ask me why. I had to help her.

      I crawled to the brazier, which had a glow right at the centre, obtained a coal and lit the oil lamp. A tiny bead of flame illuminated the white-washed walls. Cassandra, Chryse Diomenes and Eumides clasped together under their cloak. Four slave women were asleep in a row, snoring.

      One maiden curled up in a ball, weeping as though her heart would break.

      I knelt beside her and whispered, 'What is wrong?'

      She opened her wet eyes and said miserably, 'It is nothing, Lady.'

      'No, it is something,' I said as gently as I could. I noticed that she was hiding her right hand, and touched it. 'Are you hurt?'

      'My mistress ordered me to weave an ell of cloth today,' she muttered, allowing me to unfold the injured hand and look at the red mark across the knuckles. She was badly bruised and must have been in considerable pain.

      'And you could not do it, and she struck you?' I asked.

      'She struck me so that I could not do it. Tomorrow she will flog me for not completing my task. She is an old wife and there is an old master and he favours me,' she said very quietly.

      'She will maim me if this goes on, and then the old man will sell me, and what use shall I be to anyone? I might as well be dead. I can't please the mistress by refusing the master or he will beat me.'

      'We can at least prevent tomorrow's beating,' I said. Poor maiden, she scraped back her dark hair and stared. How?'

      'Where is your loom?'

      'There against the wall, Lady, but you can't-'

      'Can't I? And we will wake a healer to look at your hand. In the morning I will speak to your mistress. What's your name?'

      'Clea, Lady.'

      As I stood up, she embraced my knees in gratitude, though it was a small enough favour.

      I woke Cassandra from between her lovers and she sat down to compound an ointment for the injury, while I stood to the loom. I examined the rows which had already been woven. It was a simple pattern, a herring-bone weave very common amongst the poorer families in Mycenae. It is very satisfying to weave and I could manage it half-asleep in the dark.

      I unpicked a couple of miswoven rows, wound the shuttle to the correct tension, and began to weave. I found myself singing Neptha's work song as the heddle lifted and fell with the correct flat clack against the wall, indicating that the line of wool was absolutely straight.

      

       Until the light fails,

       Pallas is weaving.

       While the sun lasts,

       Pallas is working,

       Weaving a fine cloth

       For her brother,

       A fine red cloth

       For a healer's gown.

      

       While the light lasts,

       Pallas is weaving.

       While the rain falls,

       Pallas is working,

       Weaving a fine cloth

       For her little sister,

       A thick warm cloth

       For a baby's gown.

       While the sun shines,

       Pallas is weaving.

       While the wind blows,

       Pallas is working.

       Weaving a fine cloth

       For her grandfather,

       A double woven cloak

       To warm his bones.

      

       While the sun shines,

       Pallas is weaving.

       Until the dark comes,

       Pallas is working,

       Weaving a fine cloth

       For her lady mother,

       A purple brocade

       For mistress's gown.

      I heard Cassandra's quiet voice cease. She was listening, although it was just a work song, such as women and slaves sing to while away the weary days and regulate the work of their hands. It is the work of women's hands which clothes and feeds the world. Clea's injury, if it proved permanent, would lower her value to that of a water-carrier, indifferently fed, unsaleable, despised.

      The cloth grew under my hands. I stopped to rewind my shuttle - if the wool was of Clea's spinning then she was an excellent spinner - and resumed my song.

      

       Until the light fails,

       Pallas is weaving.

       When the snow comes,

       Pallas is working,

       Weaving a fine cloth

       For her bridal,

       A red gauze veil

       For Pallas the bride.

      I wove and sang my way through all of Pallas's relatives, refilling the shuttle as the cloth grew. I sang of her brother, the soldier, and her uncle, the potter, and her friend, the maiden; and then the verse describing the making of the ceremonial cloth which we weave every spring for Persephone, Kore, the Maiden, for the festival which celebrates her return from the underworld.

      

       Until the light fails,

       Pallas is weaving.

       While the wind howls,

       Pallas is working.

       Weaving a spring cloth,

       A cobweb tracery,

       A sacred offering

      For Demeter's child.

      I

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