Clouds Over Greece 1/2 (Crossover with island in the Sea of Time, By S. M. Stirling.)

[Ben Breeck]

This piece of Fan Fiction Makes The Following Breaks from the Xenaverse as
depicted by Universal Studios and Rennaisance Pictures:

1. All the anachronisms are cleaned up whenever possible. Julius Caeser is
now Nebuchadnezzer I of Babylon (really lived, and was roughly
contemporaneous with the events of the Trojan War. The Nebuchadnezzer who
conquered Judah and built the Hanging Gardens was Nebuchadnezzer II) There
is no Persia. The site of Rome is inhabited by various Italic and Etruscan
tribes. The Latini may or may not have diverged by this time. Autolychus
is long in his grave.

2. All Greek names have been Hellenized whenever possible. The
Franco-Hebrew Gabrielle is now Gabaela. Salmoneus is now Salmoneos.

3. No divine intervention or manifestation of godly avatars, save whatever
pulled Nantucket back in time. (Read Island in the Sea of Time for more
info on that.)

4. Many so-called mythical beings are re-interpreded in a less fantastic
light. (For instance, the Centaurs are now a Barbarian people called the
Kentauri.)

5. Appearences may vary from the show. My interpretation of Xena's
appearence is somewhat different from Unniversal Studio's.

6. Due to outside events, the chain of events shown in the show will be
irrepairably altered. Suffice it to say, there is no subtext to be found in
this story.

Enjoy, and please give your opinions on what I have so far.

Disclaimer: Island in the Sea of Time, its characters, situations and places
are Copyright S. M. Stirling, used without permission. Xena, and all related
characters, situations and places (except those lifted straight out of
classical Greek mythology) are Copyright Universal Studios and Renaissance
Pictures, used without permission. The use of all these Copyrights is not to
be construed as a challenge to said Copyrights.

Permission is granted to reproduce this story in any way, shape, or form,
provided that this disclaimer is kept intact, and no one except S. M.
Stirling, Universal Studios, or Renaissance Pictures receives financial
remuneration. Historians Note: This story begins In the Year 3 AE in the
Island timeline, and roughly seven years before the Hercules episode "The
Warrior Princess." This story contains spoilers for that episode, as well as
the Xena episodes "Sins of the Past," "Orphan of War," "Girls Just Want to
Have Fun," and "Remember Nothing." It also attempts to clean up the
Anachronisms introduced into that period by Universal Studios.

Clouds over Greece By Ben Breeck.

Chapter 1.

June, 3 AE

Gabaela of Potidaea was cursed by the gods. It was not the curse of
incredible prophecy, such as was inflicted on Cassandra of Troy, but rather
a curse that many would consider an unmixed blessing. Hers was a musical
curse. And now, even at age ten, she could play the lyre, front flute, side
flute, pan pipes, and even the bullhorn. She had the voice of a songbird,
and could sing all day at full tone and volume pausing only to take breaths.
She could even read and write; the product of countless lessons with her
grandfather, the village headman. Understand that this is not as easy a feat
as it sounds, even to a twentieth century American whose spelling was only
nebulously related to his or her pronunciation. While the later classical
Greek gave the world the word "alphabet," Heroic Period Greeks had to make
due with a much clumsier script: Linear B. Each symbol had only one meaning,
true, but the symbol reflected a whole bite of speech, like the Sequoyah
syllabary for writing Cherokee. And where the syllables of Cherokee are
relatively simple (only one consonant and the vowel after), Achaean Greek’s
were much more varied. Thus more than five hundred symbols needed to be
memorized. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that she was of
low parentage; her grandfather had been elected to the rank, her father was
a fisherman and her mother a housekeeper.

Why was this a curse? Because it attracted the attention of those in power.
They included men such as Sisyphus of Corinth, Jason of Thebes, Menaleus of
Sparta, and Agamemnon of Mycenae. True, a natural songstress was not
valuable to an ambitious ruler the way a sibyl was, but such were more
flattering. The kings in Achaean Greece were vain men. Gabaela’s father had
been approached by three groups of men, each of which wanted to buy her.
While debt had never been a real problem for him, living off the sea was a
tricky affair even in the best of times. Now war had broken out between Troy
and most of the Greek states. His boat had been turned back by warships and
even fired upon by flaming arrows. They missed, but they still delivered the
message that this was no longer his sea.

* * *

August, 3 A.E.

The commander of the army unrolled the scroll and read its contents. She was
tall, for her time. At five foot six she could look most men in the face.
Her Mediterranean dark face was framed by glossy black hair and featured
incongruous baby blue eyes, two blade scars one on each cheek, and a smile
featuring a gap where her upper right canine should be. That canine had been
lost in battle. She rolled up the scroll and handed it to one of her
lieutenants.

She had come to her position through a series of remarkable events. She was
born exactly twenty years earlier in a coastal town named Amphipolis.
Amphipolis had been a colony of Athens, but the operative tense was past.
Her father, Atrius, had been a common sellsword, or so he told her Mother,
Cyrene. In fact, the commander later found out, he was a king and father of
kings. She had at least three half brothers, in addition to Toris, Lyceus,
and Euklestes, her full brothers, though none would count her their equal,
even if they knew. Cyrene had been an innkeeper. Now, no one, not even the
commander, knew where she was or what she was doing.

The Commander’s name had come to her mother in a dream. In it, a muscular
woman gave it to her as an allegory and pun, "for she would be a foreign
thing unto the land." She grew up exceptionally strong, and tongues began to
wag about her achievements. Suddenly, her father disappeared for parts
unknown when she was six. Still, she wished she could be like him. She
studied the sword, the spear, and pankration, even though her mother told
her that it was unladylike. She eventually gained a position in the village
militia. When she was sixteen, a warlord named Courtzes struck at and
destroyed Amphipolis just as Athens had agreed to withdraw its garrison,
leaving only the militia. In that battle, she had received that first scar
on her left cheek. She had been knocked out during that battle, and woke up
two days later in a clay vat. A band of Amazons, led by Queen Pentheslea
took her out of the rubble of Amphipolis. The commander spent the better
part of a year with them, and in the process gaining a new respect for light
cavalry.

She left them and struck out on her own, forming her own army. She lost her
brother Lyceus and her first lover Maphaias. She then gave birth to her
second lover, Borias’s son, Solan. No one would guess that he was hidden
with some of her greatest enemies. She also assembled a fleet and used it to
raid the Black Sea. During one such raid, she accidentally captured
Nebuchadnezzer I of Babylon. She quickly released him and he made a
wonderful alliance offer. It was all a ruse. He captured her and sentenced
her to death. It was only sheer dumb luck that saved her.

It took at least a year to recover from her wounds, regain her conditioning,
and rebuild her army. She was slowly reconquering Thrace. Right now, she was
surrounding the village of Cirrah. She was going to starve the place out, a
relatively easy objective, as it wasn’t a fishing village. The scroll was by
a spy she had placed in Agamemnon’s court. Apparently the High King of
Mycenae had contracted a company of foreign craftsmen and mercenaries under
the leadership of a one-eyed warrior named Wakaros. Wakaros himself had
three wives, two of them obviously northwestern barbarians, and the third of
an unknown people. He looked like such a barbarian himself, but he didn’t
speak with their accent. He also knew the secret of ironsmithing, and had
brought along two others who were specialists in the craft as well. Now that
was somewhat more interesting. Iron was a relatively new metal. The
knowledge of ironworking had been hoarded by the Hittite Empire for
generations.

If the Myceneans had gained that secret, it wouldn’t matter what happened
when Agamemnon went to war with Troy to recover Helen from Paris. Sure, she
would be facing a rump garrison, but it would be a rump garrison that could
cleave through any sword, shield, armor or spear point she had. Nor was she
in any position to do anything about it. At this point, she only controlled
Amphipolis and everything within a thirty-mile radius of it. There were
still the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, Macedonia Thrace, and Thessaly to
reduce before she could deal with the Greek heartland.

She summoned her political adviser. Nikomachos was a short, portly, balding
man. He was also a former chamberlain to Sisyphus until his drinking began
to severely impair his discretion. He was bitter at his former employer and
ruler, to the point where he would work for anyone who could remove him,
even a warlord. Even a woman. Nikomachos caught the commander’s eye through
his knowledge of Aegean and Peloponnesian politics. He knew where the bodies
were buried, sometimes literally.

"Is what the spy said in the scroll true?" asked the commander.

"I’ve never known him to lie, and I’ve known him longer than you." Answered
Nikomachos.

"So, in three years, when I’m ready to face the five major states of Greece,
I’ll be facing the dregs that didn’t go off to Troy, only they will have
Iron swords and Iron rimmed shield and Iron spear points and Iron armor?"

"It’s worse than you think. Read that third paragraph. It seems that they
demonstrated some new siege engine."

"Everybody has a new siege engine idea."

"Oh, but this one was truly new." He shuffled back and forth. "It was simply
a round bronze tube with a hole on one end into which a black substance was
poured, followed by balls of stone, iron, or lead. Then a small string was
inserted into the other end and lit on fire. When this string burned into
the tube, suddenly there was a loud noise and the ball or balls were ejected
with far greater force than the greatest of ballistae and onagers. He
likened it to Zeus himself hurling lightning bolts. He claims that not even
the legendary walls of Ur, of the great Utter East, could withstand a
pounding from such a device."

Which meant that she would be facing all of Agamemnon’s troops when it came
Mycenae’s turn, complete with iron weapons. And she had better not be forced
on the defensive. Briefly, she wondered if the Oracle at Delphi had a
different future in mind when she said, "If you proceed with your campaign,
Greece will be united." She shook her head. Second guessing herself,
especially in matters like this, was extremely dangerous.

"What about Athens? How are things going there?" She asked.

"Quite well," replied Nikomachos, "The king has been deposed. They are
setting up there the most preposterous method of government imaginable. They
’ll fight like lions for it, of course, but the day they decide to actually
fight will be the day Dionysios shares some of his ambrosia with me."

"Don’t ever say that name in front of me!" The commander growled. She had
had a rather unpleasant experience with that god. Since then his cult had
not exactly been banned, but it was not state supported either, not where
she ruled.

"Sorry" He fingered where his collar would be if he wore a shirt. "The
Hittite Empire is on the move again. Seams they may back Troy after all.
Then again, they might be moving against the Assyrians. I feel sorry for
them. The Assyrians, that is. Between the Babylonian resurgence and the
Hittites, they are being ground by the proverbial mortar and pestle."

"How are things going in Thebes?"

"Jason’s seen better days. He seems to be spiraling into madness. It doesn’t
help matters for him that he doesn’t have a wife and an heir, not even a
bastard."

"How pitiful. What do the towns under my rule think of me?"

"Well, Opinion is mixed. They like your laws and justice system, especially
the method of punishing rape, but they resent the blood tax you’ve imposed.
They don’t care for some of your governors, or the way you treat camp
followers either."

"I’m so sorry to hear that," she said, in a tone of voice that said she wasn
’t.

She could only be so charitable. Her army was designed to survive off the
land. When she needed to establish a supply train, she created official
channels to expedite the matter. The only real function camp followers had
was to slow down the march and get in the way.

Her "blood tax" was a requirement that every town she took had to present
all its men aged sixteen to forty-five, as well as all unmarried women to
her for her personal inspection. Midwives, clerics, healers and professional
craftsworkers were exempted. Those who were found to be acceptable she
trained herself for the first six weeks, then sent over to her lieutenants
for more specialized training. Even the women were trained as soldiers,
usually in the light infantry.

Her method of punishing rape was to rape the bastard himself. The method
involved having the rapist hog tied and presented to her bedchamber, where
she would then without using knives or drugs induce an extremely painful
erection. She would then proceed to give him the experience that,
unaccompanied by the induced erection, earned her the loyalty (if not the
trustworthiness) of her lieutenants and the Immortals, her personal
bodyguard. Punishment for the second offense was a repeat performance,
followed by either hobbling and sale to the Amazons, or castration and sale
to Pharaoh or the Great King of the Hittites. Most of the first time
offenders looked at sex the way they did at urination and defecation after
punishment.

She dismissed her adviser.

She didn’t have her subordinates use any titles with her because the one
title she did have a claim to no one else would recognize unless she made it
absolutely indisputable. In another timeline, she would die under recorded,
the record of her deeds forgotten in the wake of the Dorian invasion. By the
time any record of her had resurfaced, it would be denounced as a fraud
without any real examination of the evidence. The only serious reader was a
small film company in New Zealand, which took a core of fact and then began
to weave a web of anachronism far greater than any woven upon the story of
King Arthur or the Goths during the fourth century AD. Only a contemporary
of hers, Hershel the Gadite, would receive a greater historical injustice.

But in this timeline, there would be a chance for her to win the recognition
she otherwise wouldn’t have. That timeline began three years ago.

Her name was Xena. She had already earned the ironic nickname "the Warrior
Princess." Only she knew it was in fact genuine.

* * *

June, 3 AE
"Captain on the deck," called Commander Hiller as the boson’s whistle
sounded. Everybody not hauling rope or cranking for windage suddenly stood
stiff as a board. "At ease," Captain Marion Alston said and walked over to
the commander.

"So, how is our new harpoon gun doing?" She asked him.

"Quite well; ma’am," Tom Hiller said, grinning. "Leaton knew what he was
doing.
We hauled in a right wonderful right whale."

"Don’t pull in too many of those," she said, watching the deep green sea.
"We want them to breed. We would rather get humpbacks, whites, and sperm
whales if at all possible. How’s she shaping?" She asked with slight
trepidation.

"Pretty good, ma’am. Not as well as when she had her pig iron ballast, but
now we can fire the guns at something like three-fifths pressure with the
granite ballast. Two thirds if we’re really desperate."

That WAS good news. The Eagle was a Coast Guard training vessel. Originally
a steel hull windjammer named Horst Wessel and built by Bloomberg and Voss,
she had been taken by the U.S. as war reparations for World War II. She
spent the next fifty or so years training cadets at a certain Connecticut
institution that no longer existed, or maybe it still did. She had been
stranded more than three thousand years in the past along with the island of
Nantucket. One of the things that had to go was all that pig iron ballast.
Without it, she drew eight less feet, but her center of gravity was raised
so high that a single shot from either of her two eight-inch guns (she had
one on each side) would swamp her as surely as a broadside blow of hurricane
force winds at full sail!

"Well that was wonderful to hear. So, how are things going on the other side
of the pond, according to Rapczewicz, Hendriksson, and Ortiz?"

"Ma’am, the Iraiina and the other tribes have finally settled down, trading
posts have been established in Ireland, and trade in the Mediterranean has
picked up substantially."

"What in?" There was an edge to the captain’s voice.

"Iron," said Hiller, sighing in resignation. "Looks like Walker’s settled
somewhere in there. His friend Isketerol must now be king of Tartessos, if
what he said about monarchical succession was true. A rather big if, in my
opinion. God damn William Walker!"

At the mention of his full name, everybody within ten feet, including
Captain Alston, spat.

Commander William Walker had been the executive officer aboard Eagle until
he organized the hijacking of two sailing yachts appropriated by the newly
constituted Republic of Nantucket Fleet, the Bentley and the Yare,
kidnapping the island’s best blacksmith, John Martins, and his wife,
Barbara. The Bentley was a distraction while the Yare sped its way to
Britain and the tribes waiting there. He became a chief of the Iraiina under
their king, Daurthunnicar. It took a year and a half of intervention to foil
Walker’s plan of domination, but he hadn’t been captured, and he had
switched to Plan B. Plan B was apparently to set up in the Mediterranean,
probably Greece, and peddle his goods and services to the highest bidder.
Captain Alston had a special reason to hate Walker. He had cost her her
singing voice in that final fight by nearly giving her an amateur
tracheotomy. Before she had gone into the Coast Guard, she had contemplated
a gospel singing career. While she could still talk fine, now she sang like
a vulture.

They went over the duty roster for the coming week, the menu, and other
necessary inconsequentials, anything to take the taste out of their mouths.

* * *

August, 3 AE

John Martins was taking a break from the forge. He filled his cup with water
from the pitcher and began reflecting that you could never really know some
people. Someone could be your best friend in the world, and then he kidnaps
you, enslaves you, and makes you forge swords instead of plowshares,
battleaxe heads instead of wood axe heads, spear points instead of tree
spikes. Not even good swords like katanas, wakizashis, tachis, scimitars, or
dhas. No, just heavy, thick gladii, spathae, and forward curved khurkris and
machairas. He downed his cup with one gulp and poured himself another
helping.

He had been born in 1950 in Aurora, Illinois, a town that would be put on
the map by Wayne Campbell and Garth Alger. At the time he had been born, it
had been just a small town north of Chicago, not a suburb. He had straight
As all the way through school. He entered the University of California at
Oakland in 1967, just after participating in the "Summer of Love." Despite
that, he majored in materials engineering until 1970 when he dropped out of
school to join a commune. He spent the next fifteen years of his life with
his friends reading books and beating on metal. In 1985 when the commune
broke up, he went to an association of blacksmiths to take an apprentice
test. He walked out of the building that day with a Master’s Certificate. It
would take two more years of studying before he officially gained his
specialty in Japanese weaponry. He gained great fame among his peers,
including Dan Fogg and Tiny.

Then in 1998, he had been trapped on Nantucket attending a convention when
the dome of lights filled the sky. Suddenly what had been looked upon as
merely a quaint folk craft patronized by the eccentric rich turned into a
priceless trade, which could mean the difference between survival and death.
He had more students than he ever had before at one time and they ALL hung
on his every word. Then one day one of his students, a Coast Guard officer
named William Walker barged in on him while he was making up some
horseshoes. He had a gun and he used it to force John and his wife Barbara
out of the workshop and onto the Yare.

Except for his time with Barbara, life since then had been a living hell.

He finished his drink and went back to work at the forge. He lifted out the
stock in the coals with a pair of tongs and gave it a look-see. It was
glowing orange. Perfect. He took it over to the anvil and went to his tool
rack and selected a fuller. Today the order had come in for ten breastplates
for Agamemnon’s private guard, size A. He went over to the anvil, held the
stock hard against the anvil with his tongs and began pounding away.

Ding! Ding! Ding! What a wonderful sound that anvil made. When and if he
ever escaped this nightmare, he would compliment Mr. Leaton on the marvelous
anvil he had poured.

* * *

William Walker was sunning himself on a balcony in the palace of Mycenae.
The future was so bright, he had to wear shades, to quote Timbuk 3’s hit
song. Agamemnon was eating out of his hand, Bill Cuddy was making miracles
with his milling machines and lathes, and Rodriguez and McAndrews were
training the troops better than he hoped. Even Martins wasn’t slacking off
at the forge. Life was good.

Alice Hong, M. D. strode onto the balcony. She was wearing an expensive blue
dyed linen and cotton dress with a worked gold belt in the likeness of a
snake with emerald eyes swallowing its tail. On her head was a silver tiara
studded with pieces of amber and yellow star sapphires that set off her
brown eyes perfectly. She bore a wooden rod with a spiked ball made of
bronze leafed with gold, the symbol of her office as a priestess of Eris,
goddess of hate, pain, torture, and in her words, "good times in general."
One night she confessed to Walker that part of her wanted to go to Finland
instead, where she could have joined the clergy of Loviatar. It took some
convincing to make her change her mind about that. "Besides," said Walker
that night, "I highly doubt that she was actually worshiped that much. How
many early Christian Missionaries found priests of Loki among the Vikings?
How many priests of Set did Herodotus find among the Egyptians? How many
priests of Ahriman were there among the Persians?"

She walked over to him and sat on the couch beside him. She had that happy,
contented look: the type you normally associate with the consumption of a
delicious seven-course meal and no indigestion of any kind afterward. "What
makes you so happy?" asked Walker. "I discovered a traitor to our host, a
spy of Paris’." She answered.

"Oh really?" asked Walker with pained but concealed amusement.

"Yes really. You see, I found him feeding the pigeons. He was doing more
than just that. He was also tying notes to their legs. I caught one of them
and tried to read it. I then realized how much I didn’t know about Achaean
writing. When I showed it to the seneschal, he took it to the Great King
himself. When Agamemnon received the news, he let me put him to the question
myself. Boy, was he a crybaby."

"I can imagine," said Walker dryly, remembering that time she had
interrogated the Earth People straggler in Britain. "What did he report to
Paris?"

"Only about the iron, and the cannons. He did not find out about gunpowder,
or the muskets."

So Troy might try to a war of maneuver, or maybe even surrender without a
fight. That would definitely put a crimp in his plans. How could he batter
down the walls of Troy if the gate surrendered peaceably?

Well, he thought, tomorrow he would know for sure. Tomorrow he and his crew,
and a couple of their wives each, would board a galley and shove off bound
to the western coast of what he used to think of as Turkey. He ought to feel
something-anticipation, worry, excitement, dread, anything, but he didn’t.
He wished he could, but he couldn’t.

Chapter 2

August, 3 AE

"All right, which Deimos possessed fool gave the order to torch the town?"

All of the officers in Xena’s army from Hekotonarch on up were assembled in
front of her command tent, receiving a thorough dressing down. It was not a
pretty sight. Most of the people present would rather have faced the
legendary Numidian Lion, or one of the Gorgons, than face Xena in this
condition. The problem had happened when the army entered the town. Someone
must have dropped a torch on a haystack or roof thatch. Cirrah burned like
kindling, but that was not the worst of it. Some of the people had escaped
into the mountains and had somehow collapsed the pass leading into Thessaly,
leaving only the most obvious route for her to invade through. She didn’t
know how they did it, but the valley now smelled like a cross between a
shit-burning oven and a volcano.

Xena was pacing like a predator. "Darfus," She said, "Did you do it?"

"No, Xena," Darfus was a big man, and one of Xena’s high lieutenants. But he
didn’t sound that big just then.

"Dagnon, what about you?"

"Not me either."

"It must have been a soldier’s carelessness. Well, this must stop. Inform
them that equinox festival leave is canceled, and what’s more we’re spending
this winter in training."

"Yes, Xena," all the officers chorused.

* * *

Well, so much for that invasion route, she thought. Tyldus probably has the
passes filled with archers. And it looked like such a sucker punch. At least
Cirrah was no longer a thorn in her side. So, she thought, how do I attempt
the conquest. Wait a minute, there is a possible route by sea. Doesn’t a
navigable river run through Thessaly? She checked the map. Yes it does.
Amphipolis had an excellent harbor, but it wasn’t big enough for all the
ships she would need. She needed a second staging area.

She had avoided attacking Chalcidice because there really wasn’t anything
there she really needed. The place had only two poloi, Olynthus and
Potidaea. There were no deposits of copper, tin, or calamine. The wood was
not a particularly high grade. Olynthus and Potidaea were not particularly
large or prosperous, only 2,000 people in the entire region. It seemed to be
to Greece what the appendix was to the digestive tract. But that marvelous
harbor! True, Potidaea would be indefensible if it were attacked, with the
sea facing it east and west, but it would make a marvelous staging area, and
after she had united Greece under her rule, It would be a marvelous
commercial center, if not capital.

The river route would be a complete strategic surprise, if she could keep
spies from her area. Thesallians might be formidable warriors, but King
Tyldus was a dimwit. She would order that the frontier from Pella to Moseia
be patrolled. Well, in for a drachma, in for a mina. Till death or she ruled
all of Greece, she would continue the fight. She made the appropriate
orders. Today her lieutenants had failed her. She sent for the priest of
Eros to serve his god by serving her. Dion was a very pious priest.

* * *

August, 3 AE

This can’t be happening thought Gabaela. I am going to wake up and Mama and
Papa are going to hug me and say that this was all a dream. But it WAS
happening and it WASN’T a dream. Potidaea was in flames. Her Grandfather had
refused that she-wolf Xena’s "protection," and look what it gained the town.
In all, fairness, her grandfather was starting to forget people’s names, and
would probably have been replaced in the election after this harvest. No! It
was Xena’s fault! Potidaea did nothing to deserve this.

She had to escape. Hey, there was Papa’s fishing boat! Remembering what Papa
said about seawater, she lifted some buckets of water into it, along with a
few pieces of salt fish. She cut the rope holding the boat to the dock and
began rowing for all she was worth.

In the distance, she saw the public forum on the acropolis collapse in on
itself in flames. The sight of this made her weep. But she had to keep
rowing. The tears stung her eyes and her cheeks, and ran all the way down
her chin into her dress. If she could do anything, she would do it.
Silently, she made an oath to Poseidon, to somehow avenge her father and
mother and grandfather and village. She would do it or die trying.

* * *

August, 3 AE

Boom! Boom! Boom! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

Well, Walker thought, the Trojans decided to do it the hard way anyway.
Thank Heaven for small miracles. No, he corrected himself, thank Sky Father
and Hepkwonsa and Ares for Paris’ pigheadedness. Troy should be ready for
the sack and slaughter in another two hours. Well, if Homer sang of the
Trojan horse that ended the ten-year siege, now he would sing of the
bellowing worms that ended the three-day siege. Menalaus, Agamemnon and Ajax
would be congratulating each other right now on a job well done.

It was good that the war would be over so quickly. Now he could busy himself
with making Mycenae the powerhouse it hadn’t been since the death of King
Pelops about fifty years ago, and intriguing to frame Orestes for something
or other. One thing was certain: he would be a real stud for Ekhnonpa
tonight!

There she was right now, looking every bit the queen in exile. She had been
present when Daurthunnicar had declared Hwalkarz to be his heir, moments
before he had expired from his still bleeding wounds. Of course, Sky Father’
s children had by then deserted them, both their Rahax and their god. She
was dressed in flowing gowns right down to her feet. She was wearing gold
earrings studded with pearls and either spinels, or rubies, he hadn’t been
able to determine which. Cuddy might know, he thought. Keruwthena was at
home, looking after little Hwalkarz and Althea.

"So, my husband," said Ekhnonpa; "how are you this day?"

"Wonderful," he said.

"Do you think we could convince them to help you with your claim?"

"We could, but we won’t yet."

"Why not?" she asked, pouting her lips in a way that didn’t bode well for
that night.

"Because we don’t have enough men or equipment or pull for a long term
commitment to try yet" he answered.

Ekhnonpa relented. He knew more about politics and was probably right, but
it was still rankling. She walked back to their tent, and hoped that Alauza
was out blessing the troops or healing them or interrogating the prisoners
or some such.

Ohotolarix walked up to Walker. He was one of the few people he could trust.
Hong, Jacobs, McAndrews, even Bill Cuddy and Miguel Rodriguez were in this
for personal gain and therefore were merely valuable. Ohotolarix was
actually loyal. Walker had personally saved him from fates worse than death,
and he knew, or at least believed, that he would never repay that.

"Hwalkarz," he said, "I have some interesting news."

"Oh, really?" Walker answered, "Tell me about it."

"It seems that there is a new warlord in northern Achaea."

"And your point is- Oh, Shit!" that last part in English, when he realized
that Ohotolarix used the grammatically feminine form of the word. "How could
she know already?"

"Not to worry, lord, the woman in question was only as dark as these locals.
Already she’s taken all the northern ports, though, and she is next planning
an attack on the central plains."

That was cause for concern. He tried to think back to his History classes.
She was probably Pentheslea, queen of an Amazon band and half-sister to
Paris. "Did she have a name, by any chance?" asked Walker.

"Yes, lord. The sailor called her Khayna, or some such."

That name scratched at one of his memories, but he wasn’t sure which one.
Well, he had better go back to the cannons to see how they were doing. He
strolled back, thinking about the news.

* * *

September, 3 A.E.

The port city of Argos was celebrating the victorious return of her troops
home. Right now, there was a classic triumph going on. The horns were
bellowing, the soldiers were on parade, and people were passing wineskins
around and putting empty inflated ones where they might be sat upon. There
was singing. There was dancing. There were games scheduled by royal decree
for two weeks.

One person in Argos had no reason to celebrate. Gabaela had been in the city
for three days. She was tired. She was hungry. She was sore, and nobody
would listen when she said that there was a menace to the north.

One person noticing her plight was a man named Salmoneos. He was tall and
fat, with a graying beard, and breath reeking of stale ouzo. Originally from
Athens, he had been exiled from that city for bribery, selling short weight
and trying to sell the then princess into slavery. He supposed that with the
king overthrown his exile might be over, but better safe than sorry.

He came up to her and asked how she was.

"How I am is not important. But I tell you, there is this evil woman. She
destroyed Potidaea. She’ll destroy here if she’s not stopped."

"Shhh, I believe you." He said, crossing his fingers behind his back. "Hey,
why don’t you come into my house. Then we could discuss this over lunch. My
souvlaki is wonderful. Trust me."

* * *

Salmoneos was rubbing his hands together. That girl, Gabaela, had spent most
of an hour stuffing herself. Stuffing herself and talking about how what a
wonderful place Potidaea had been and what a terrible person Xena was.
Potidaea wasn’t really that hot. The people there were tightwads without any
real sense of humor. The food was bland, and the wine was served too young
and was sometimes rather sour. Also, Xena wasn’t quite the harpy she made
her out to be either. True, she always opened up a crate and tested the
product beforehand, but every sword, shield, or spear she took she paid more
than he asked for. Apparently Gabaela had never been warned by her father
never to step into a stranger’s house. She could not have known that the
soup had been drugged. She passed right out, and if her expression was to be
believed, was dreaming about a happy home. Salmoneos kept her in Morpheus’
arms for a while. He had big plans for her.

He had been born thirty-two years ago. He his mother was a prostitute who
happened to look like the local priestess of Athena. Naturally she had been
a hit at parties. She wanted to graduate to the position of Heirata, but she
never had much luck with patrons. Finally, while one month pregnant with
him, she managed to gain the attention of the son of one of the more
prominent merchant families. It turned out that he had been disinherited and
was now just a coppersmith, but by then, the wine had been drunk and the
vows made. To make sure that her son had the kind of life she had been
denied, she had her husband apprentice Salmoneos to a merchant galley. While
he had to start out beating the time for the galley slaves, he quickly
learned the ins and outs of selling. Because anything he made could be
confiscated by his patron if it got too high, he had to quickly hide his
profits. He bought out his contract with a "loan" from a shipyard that he
had been investing in, then he blackmailed the proprietor with the threat of
exposing their shoddy building techniques (they helped supply the Athenian
navy) if he didn’t stop demanding "repayment." Then he went into partnership
with a Tartessian named Isketerol. It went swimmingly for seven years. Then,
Salmoneos had a wonderful plan that backfired. It nearly got him lynched. It
did get him exiled. If he ever came back, whoever killed him would have free
meals in the Pritaenium.

Briefly, he wondered if something similar would happen if he tried this with
her. Then he shook his head. Eudice had been a princess, and the daughter of
a popular king. Gabaela, songbird or not, was a nobody from a village of
nobodies in an area of Greece that was like that part of the back one just
couldn’t scratch when one itched there. Isketerol, king or not, would love
her.

Chapter 3

September, 3 A.E.

It was a wonderful day right at the autumnal equinox and the Eagle was doing
its turn patrolling the western Mediterranean. There was not a cloud in the
sky. Marion Alston was at the wheel. She didn’t like the calm. For one
thing, it made sailing slow going, especially in these honeylike
Mediterranean currents. For another, calms usually portended disaster. As
Tonto was wont to say, "Kemosabe, it is too quiet!" She had especially
remembered the hurricanes that had seemingly boiled out of nowhere.

She had been born in the barrier islands of South Carolina. Her father had
grown corn and rice and raised hogs and cattle and chickens to feed his
family, and tobacco and indigo mold to sell so that the bank didn’t
repossess the farm. It wasn’t the best of childhoods, but it was hers. She
had always loved the sea, and when she was eighteen, she joined the Coast
Guard (The Navy didn’t allow shipboard service for women back then.). She
then spent the next eight years on various boats as an electrician and
machine gunner. She began studying martial arts, first as a hobby, and then
something to take her mind off the sheer tedium of shipboard duty. She
managed to meet and then fall in love with John, only to find out three
weeks into their marriage that he was a hard drinking, foulmouthed, wife
beating son of a bitch. Then came the OCS test, which she passed with flying
colors and the trip to Danbury, Connecticut where she entered the academy.
Then came the commission as a captain, and the kids. She had been lonely and
bitter when she met Jolene. Unfortunately, the divorce decree had not been
signed by both parties and that had given John tremendous leverage. He got
the house, which she had paid in cash for. He got full custody of the kids,
not even visiting rights, and she could not lift a finger against it.

Then, four years after that charade, she had been blessed, or cursed,
depending upon how one saw it. She had been assigned to the Eagle for five
months when it had been stuck in the weird phenomenon that sent it back to
1250 BC. She would never see her kids again even if the law changed, but she
had found love again. Of course, it hadn’t happened under the most
auspicious of circumstances. Swindapa had been a party favor from the Eagle’
s first expedition to Britain. A princess of the Fiernan Bolughi (which
meant earth people and which she bet was the origin of the term "firbolg")
and a novice priestess of their moon goddess, she looked like your average
American cheerleader, if a bit short and large cheeked. She didn’t look at
all American when she was harvesting grain, though, nor when she was leading
the blessing of the harvest.

As Alston mused on these events, she suddenly saw smoke! There, on the
horizon, off starboard, was a slow rising plume. "Hard starboard," she
called. As the orders were relayed and broken down for the crew members, she
wondered what caused the ship to catch fire and whose ship it was.

The ship was turning to face the fire while speeding straight to it when she
called for Mr. Arnstein. He was the one on board with the greatest skill in
languages. He knew Tartessian, Greek, and Phoenician, as well as Sun People
and Fiernan. Also present were Corpsman Anderson and his Two EMTs. As the
source of the smoke came into view, someone on deck whistled.

"I’m sure I’ve never seen a ship like that in the history books," said
Alston.

"It does look strange, doesn’t it?" replied Arnstein, "It looks like a
fifty-two oar bireme: four banks of thirteen oars and two banks to a side.
That is a rudder I see in back; looks like this baby’s steered by that
tiller bar. The sail arrangement looks anachronistic, too. What do you call
it?"

"Sloop rigged."

"That’s it, sloop rigged. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?"

"Depends," answered Alston, "I’m thinking that this is another one of that
freebooter Isketerol’s ships. Either that, or it’s one he had modified under
contract from someone else. Damn and double damn, but we shouldn’t have
invited him to Nantucket."

"Well, hindsight is only 20/20."

"We are in rowboat range," yelled the Sailing Master, Mike Willis.

"Assemble the boarding party," ordered Captain Alston.

"Aye, Aye, Captain," replied Commander Tom Hiller.

* * *

The ship turned out to a trading vessel. There were wineskins, beerskins,
honeycombs filled with honey, various unidentified herbs, calamine, gold,
and what looked like hematite. Nor were goods the only commodity she
stocked. In the lowest hold, there were slaves for some market or other.
They were all dead now, from the water that had sprung from a half-meter
gash in the floor. Just as well, the place smelled worse than a pigsty. Just
opposite from the captain’s quarters was a room for a special prisoner. She
was still alive, but barely. They had to work like mad to get the shackles
off and carry her to the rowboat. Halfway to the Eagle, the merchant ship’s
top deck disappeared below the water. "Get her straight to sickbay" yelled
Petty Officer McNair, the man who found her, who placed her on the stretcher
for Corpsman Anderson’s orderlies. They went straight there.

At sickbay, Mark Anderson was getting ready for the potential flood of
patients.
Then the orderlies came in carrying the young girl. "Here’s your patient,"
one of the orderlies said.

"Just one?"

"Just one."

He then went to work on trying to save her life.

* * *

"Well, Captain, it looks like she’ll pull through." Said Corpsman Anderson.

"What did she have?"

"Dehydration, dysentery, a few minor deficiency diseases, and a couple of
infected cuts on her back."

"Did they fish her out of that lower hold?"

"No, thank god. Compared to what was in there, she was in a relative
paradise!

We didn’t even get anyone out of that place."

"Oh, too bad, but I’m not too surprised." Said Captain Alston, imagining the
sort of experience that group might have had. Her own ancestors had had the
same experience coming to the new world, sold into the experience by
enemies, tribal rulers, and even desperate friends. She shuddered at the
thought. Turning to Arnstein, she asked, "what do you make of her?"

"Sorry, but until we talk to her, I won’t know for sure." He answered. "We
could be dealing with an Iberian, an Italian, a Greek, possibly a
Phoenician. She may even be a Berber, for all I know."

"Well, keep me posted," Alston said, and walked out of sickbay.

"So," said Anderson, "What do you want for supper? Mackerel Surprise or
fried sea bass?"

"Bass sounds nice. Hey Doctor, looks like she’s coming around."

* * *

Gabaela awoke to find herself in a strange silvery room on a very soft and
warm bed. She seemed to have woken from a nightmare. First, her home village
had been put to the torch, then came the tortuous trip to Argos, where she
was the guest to that man. He must have put something in the food she ate.
Then she woke up in that room, chained to the walls. The sway told her she
was on a ship, but that was all it told. The people there said she was
valuable, but didn’t say what for. The food was bland and the water tasted
funny, but at least she had a chamber pot. Still, they beat her, they
pinched her, and they said nasty things to her. Then, she woke up here.

I must be in Elysium, she thought. Right there at her bed, robed in white,
must be Aesclepius, and right next to him, in the yellow shirt was Apollo!
No, she thought, she was NOT in Elysium. She wasn’t sure, but the dead in
Elysium didn’t have splitting headaches. They didn’t have strange tubes in
their arms either, she didn’t think. She wondered what was going on!

The man in the yellow shirt came up to her and began talking to her. The
first thing she didn’t understand. The second thing sounded like "what is
your name" in Tartessian accented Greek.

"Gabaela," she answered, smiling. Not even that merchant in Argos had been
this curious. He also seemed trustworthy, for some reason. Almost like Papa,
she realized. She asked him his name.

"Ion, Ionarnstain," was the reply, or something like that. He then began
asking about where she was from.

"Potidaea. It was a fishing village. It was a wonderful place. It’s gone
now." Memories began to surface. Happy memories, "My father was a fisherman.
He used to catch anything in the sea. Salmon, anchovies, herring, even
abalone, shrimp, and squid. Grandfather led our village. He taught me how to
write. He said that there are so few people able to write in Achaea that
there are more people in this village." Unhappy memories, too, "He’d dead,
they’re all dead. They killed them all."

"Who killed them all?" He asked, there was a curiosity to his voice.

"Xena’s Army killed them. Destroyed all of Potidaea, too." She pronounced it
‘khaina.’

"What alien? Was she the queen of an Amazon band?" The man asked.

"No, she’s Greek, too, From Amphipolis, or so she said. That’s just her
name."

The discussion lasted until suppertime, then Ian went to the mess hall.

* * *

"Well Captain," said Arnstein, "looks like she’s had a rather harrowing time
of things. First her hometown is burned, then she rows for two days to get
to some port, where she is sold into slavery." Of course it was more than
that, but that was acknowledged and unsaid.

"What else?" asked Captain Alston.

"Well, she’s something of a musician and poet. Knows two types of flutes,
three if you count the pan pipes as well as the lyre, and some sort of horn.
She is also a good singer, not that we have any songs in common. She’s even
literate! Man, now we don’t need that trip to Crete after all, or at least
not as badly."

"That’s good. Tell me about the political situation. Have there been any new
warlords or craftsmen popping up?"

"I’m sorry, but except for this Khaina lady she kept talking about, she
doesn’t know diddly about politics. Walker may be there, or he may be in
Siberia or Sub-Saharan Africa, for all we know."

"Oh, he’s definitely in Greece, or at least the Mediterranean." Partially
this was because of the reports of massive amounts of iron being traded
there. Mostly, because of the fact that Walker had blabbermouthed it to her
in the night they discovered where they were.

"Captain," said Commander Hiller, "there’s something you aren’t telling us.
Out with it!"

"Well, I was just thinking" She said.

"Thinking is what got Walker in trouble," said Ensign Fieldhouser. Everybody
flashed him an evil look.

"About the name of that woman warlord."

"And," said Arnstein impatiently, "Don’t keep us in suspense."

"I remembered a comment from Ms. Kathryn Hollard about a combat maneuver she
saw on television. Well, I asked myself how the name of our warlord would
look, written with the Greek alphabet, then transliterated into the Roman
one.

"The result was, X-E-N-A. Spell that out."

"Holy shit," said Arnstien.

Holy shit was right.

Chapter 4

September, 3 A.E.

Tyldus the Great, King of All He Surveyed, Lord of Thessaly and High Renix
of the Southern Kentauri, was sitting on his throne, his elbows propped upon
the arms of the throne supporting his chin, in a most unkingly gesture. He
was not a happy camper. True, he had acquired that firepowder from Agamemnon
(boy, did that cost an arm and a leg,) and sent it to Cirrah where the
refugees used it to collapse the pass behind him, but that had only bought
more time. The report from his last spy, from just before his head was
delivered to Tyldus by a company of Xena’s men, said that she was thoroughly
closing her borders and fortifying her side of the pass. Not only that, but
she was drilling her army starting right after harvest. Come spring, she
would probably try to force the pass, and he wasn’t sure he could stop her.
For one thing, she outnumbered him two to one, and she had beaten enemies
when she had been outnumbered herself. He could not hope to get more
firepowder. Agamemnon’s men said that they would demand double the price,
and an oath of fealty to the wanax of Mycenae himself.

His problems were compounded by the fact that the Kentauri were a minority
in Thessaly. One hundred and fifty years ago, or one generation after the
Kentauri had discovered that two bronze loops worn at the sides of a horse
allowed it to be steered as with reins without using hands, the Kentauri had
boiled south out of their homeland in what would now be known as Moldavia.
When they had gotten to Thrace, they split into three groups. These were the
Northern Kentauri, who settled in Thrace, The Eastern Kentauri, who settled
in Asia Minor, sandwiched between the western city-states and the Hittite
Empire, and the Southern Kentauri.

What kept the Kentauri from being assimilated into the local population were
three things. First, the Kentauri sponsored the worship of their foreign
gods, a no-no in Greek culture until the Hellenistic Period, which would
never happen in this timeline. Most of the gods worshiped by the Kentauri
the same ones worshiped by the local Greeks, more or less. That is to say if
you called Dias Pedher, and Zeus the same god, or Ares and Korihos. There
were two, however, that figured prominently in Kentauri mythology that had
no Greek analogue. They were Heb’kwansra, the Lady of the Horses, and her
son, Ikhshium. Ikhshium was the mythical father of all Kentauri, and their
promoter. He would be remembered by the Classical Greeks as Ixion, in a
future that now would never happen.

The second thing was the law that all records of the kingdom would be
written in Kentauri, in a pictographic script supposedly devised by Ikhshium
himself. It combined the most complicated aspects of Chinese and Mayan
writing systems. Sentence clusters were arranged "as the ox plows," right to
left, then the characters reversed and left to right on the next line, then
the characters reversed and right to left again, et cetera. These records
were written on parchment, and were eventually burned. They were never
recovered.

The third thing that set apart the Kentauri was that only they were allowed
to ride horses or fight in wars. This was seen by the native Thesallians as
an outrage. Rebellions kept popping up every thirty or so years, but they
were crushed quite easily. Still, they were worrisome. If the passes failed,
he was a goner.

He wondered how Kalieapus and Theseus were doing. The Renixi of the Northern
and Eastern Kentauri were technically allies, but each was having its own
problems. Kalieapus had been forced out of Thrace and back into Moseia by
Xena, while Theseus faced the Hittites and their iron. He sighed. He could
not aid them and they could not aid him. All he could do was pray and hope
the gods answered.

* * *

October, 3 A.E.

It was a mild autumn day, with light winds blowing off the sea, and William
Walker was going through his reports. The hearth finery was proceeding well,
in another two days he could have blister steel. The mines were doing well,
too. The shipyards were busy churning out his designs made his way. He had
even been granted land on which to build a city on the site of Arcadia.
Idly, he wondered if he ought to have begun his intrigues, then shook his
head. He needed to worm his way further into the politics of Mycene first.

He summoned Franz Aurbecker. Aurbecker had been a spy until the fall of the
Wall, and had been a tourist during the Event. He signed on with Walker
because he wanted to do what he did best, spy and manage spies. This meshed
nicely with Walkers needs.

"Well," Walker asked him, "What is happening in the world?"

"Not much," answered Aurbecker. "Sparta is having political problems; they
keep saying how Menalaus is an outsider (He is) and how much nicer things
would be with a native Spartan. Jason is madder than a hatter, but Thebes
still loves him because he recovered the Golden Ram from the pirates.
Sisyphus is getting long in the tooth, but is still hale. He would be even
stronger, though, if he stopped worrying about finding a method for eternal
life. Oh, here is something interesting: it seems there’s a war brewing
between the warlord who unified Thrace and Tyldus of Thessaly."

"Really, now? That is interesting. Wasn’t he the guy who bought that keg of
gunpowder."

"Yes, sir, but he still doesn’t know what is put in to make it, and he
especially doesn’t know what it’s put in to."

"What’s that warlord’s name, Khayna, or some such?"

"Yes, Khayna. Say, how come that name seems so known, yet we have never
heard from her in Homer or some other epic poet?"

That floored Walker. It was a legitimate question. Then he answered, slowly,
"I suppose that she wasn’t the type of woman any self-respecting Greek would
want remembered."

"True. Wait a minute, wasn’t there a television show that talked about a
woman in the Greek Heroic Age who had been a warrior?"

"Yes, Xena, Warrior Princess, Filmed on location in sunny New Zealand. A
more inane show would be unimaginable. The same person meeting Hapshepsut
and Cleopatra? Helen of Troy and Caesar?" He snorted in contempt, "What
nonsense!"

"So, the legend of King Arthur combines Celtic, Sarmatian, and Christian
myths, yet has a basis in fact."

"If that show had a basis in fact, I’m the scarlet pumpernickel!"

"But, if you wrote Khayna’s" name in the classical Greek Alphabet, what do
you get?"

"Well, let’s see. ‘Kh,’ that would be X. ‘Ay,’ that would be , N,- Jesus H.
Christ on a fucking rubber crutch!" Walker exclaimed, and suddenly realized
that he ought to have changed clothes.

"Well, after you have tried on your mask, rapier, and duckbill, we can
discuss how this alters your plans for world domination." Said Aurbecker,
wrinkling his nose at the smell.

* * *

October, 3 A.E.

"Any news about the south?" Xena asked Nikomachos. She was reclining on her
couch after a hard day’s training. She knew she had to take a bath first,
but she could not resist pumping her political adviser and spymaster for
information, if nothing else.

"Jason has just named his good friend Ephicles his heir, Sisyphus is at odds
with Mycenae over Megara, and Mycenae is building new ships."

"Really now, what are they like?"

"They are built weird. Instead of rabbetting the planks together and then
putting in the frame, they build the frame first and then nail on the skin,
twisting the planks as needed. They caulk between the boards to keep the
water out. Not only that, but they are pure sailing ships, no oar ports in
sight." That was a strange way to make a ship, and a stupid one. All one had
to do was splash some acid on the hull and it would leak like a sieve. She
snorted. "Have you managed to find out the ingredients to the thunder powder
yet?"

"Yes Xena, Three parts charcoal, two parts sulfur, and fifteen parts
saltpeter."

"Excellent." She was smiling beatifically. "How’s about a reward? No, not
that," she said as she saw Nikomachos’ face, "you aren’t my type either.
There are five hundred minas waiting in your tent just ready to be spent."

"Thank you, and also, Tyldus is swollowing your feint."

"Really, Wonderful. Now go, and have fun." But have fun only in the
barracks, please she thought. It would be disastrous if he got drunk
anywhere else.

Well, she thought, things couldn’t get much better. Once she destroyed
Tyldus she’d be impossible to beat. She was certain.

Chapter 5

October, 3 A.E.

"Why are we going home, ma’am?" Asked Ensign Fieldhouser.

"Because if we don’t do it now, Ensign, We won’t be able to do it at all
until spring. We’re pushing it as it is. Don’t you want to come home to
Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas Ham?"

"Yeah, but"

"No buts," said Captain Alston, "we’re going, and that’s that."

"Aye, Aye" said Fieldhouser, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. She
watched the Ensign leave, then walked over to Arnstein. He was sitting on
the deck, watching the sea.

"Well," she asked, "How do you like the trip."

"It’s okay, I want to get home though. I’d like to be there when David or
Hannah is born." He and Doreen had agreed to those names because with
electricity temporarily rationed, there was no way to decide right away.
They had fallen in love two years previously, on the Eagle’s first trip to
Britain. They were the entire diplomatic corps. They returned to the island
to get married. Currently they were on the Executive Council of Nantucket,
among other groups.

"I know the feelin’," replied Alston. Swindapa was there, too, looking after
Lucy and Heather. They were two babies found last year, orphans of war.
Heather was the newborn child of an Earth People village. Already she was
starting to show a crown of fire red hair. Lucy was the child of George
McAndrews, the sole black deserter to Walker’s camp.

He was in it to insure that Africa got a leg up on the honkies so that the
Middle Passage would never happen. Alston made a mental snort. So Cleopatra
might have been black. So what? That would be twelve hundred years in the
future, a future that would have unfolded starting in 800 BC when Nubia
conquered Egypt. At this point, any villages in Africa that were cities by
even Olmec standards would be either so rigid that any visitor would be
killed before he learned what he did wrong, or so anarchistic that it
amounted to the same thing. When she finally caught him, she had half a mind
to maroon him in one of
those villages with a bug attached so she could listen to his screams of
pain.

"So," Arnstein said, breaking her reverie, "Do you think that those
ostriches will be grown yet?" The Eagle had taken them as eggs a year ago
during an around-the-word journey the year before. They had also taken moa
eggs from the trip, stopping by a New Zealand that the Maori had yet to
discover.

"I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and ask Angelica when we get back."
Angelica Brand ran Brand Farms, Nantucket’s main agricultural operation.
"Say," she asked, "How’s that kid doing?"

"Gabaela? She’s doing fine. She only has nightmares once a night, as opposed
to every dream. We are also starting to establish a rapport. I think that
she sees me as some father figure, for some reason."

"So David or Hannah may have an adopted big sister?"

"I won’t bet on it. I think she’s simply still mourning her family. For now,
I’m simply going to listen to her." Arnstein said and walked into the cabin.

"Oh," Alston said. She turned to Commander Hiller, her Executive Officer.
"We’re going the Gulf Stream Route."

"If you insist," He said. That route was faster than the Viking route, this
time of year, and there were no icebergs. The problem was that it was
hurricane season. Well, there were risks either way. "So," he asked her, "do
you think we’ll be coming back here next year?"

She shook her head. "Isketerol’s closing it up. We just barely got past the
straits. We’ll have to find another way to get at Walker."

"Too bad. I guess this means we’ll have to wait a few years to get at that
mother fucker."

"Language, please, Mr. Hiller. You’re on duty, after all." But there was no
heat in her voice. She had similar sentiments herself.

"Sorry. Did you have something planned out for Thanksgiving?"

"Well, I was going to cook a turkey with the Cofflins. I don’t know if you
could come, I’ll ask when we get back."

"Thank you. How is that little Greek girl doing."

"Ian says that she’s doing fine, considering what she’s been through."

"Oh. So what do you think of the duty rosters"

* * *

October, 3 A.E.

John Martins woke to another hellish day. That ogre who walked and called
himself William Walker wanted him to do up some gun barrels. Very well, he
told himself, He would do them.

He got up, splashed water and soap and more water on his face, and said
hello to Barbara. She smiled back at him and looked at little Ragunath,
their child, who did not look at all Marathi. He was squalling, demanding
his first meal. She got up and put down her bra cup. Mother and son smiled
as she put him to her breast. John smiled too.

He left that pretty scene, put on his leather apron and gloves, walked into
the forge, and began kindling the fire. While the fire was warming up, he
began selecting the stock and the tools he would use. He decided on a
twenty-pound piece of blister steel, the heavy anvil, the hammer, flatter,
fuller, and sate. By this time, the hearth was crackling hot. Using the
heavy tongs, he carried the stock to the fire and set it on the coals. He
was very grateful for the windmill, which was pumping the bellows. John then
sat down and poured the first drink of water for the day.

When the stock was glowing, he used the heavy tongs to carry it over to the
heavy anvil. He picked up the fuller and began pounding away. The stock was
so heavy he didn’t need the tongs to hold it down. Bong! Bong! Bong!

By the time he had gotten all the bubbles out and beaten it into the
semblance of a flat sheet, it was starting to cool. So using two pairs of
tongs, he transferred the stock back to the coals, and poured himself
another drink of water. When he finished, the stock was glowing brightly
again. He carried the stock on the tongs back to the heavy anvil and
selected the flatter. This time he needed to use the tongs. By the time he
had finished making the stock into a flat sheet, it was time for lunch.

He got up and walked to the kitchen. The local help had learned how to make
a really nice cold cut sandwich. As he was passing through the hall, he
suddenly had a knife to his throat.

"Don’t move or cry out," the voice whispered in Greek, which he could barely
understand, "Just move like I show you."

"Whatever you say, man," Martins subvocalized in reply. They went through a
side hall, where his kidnapper led him to a loading bay, where he saw
Barbara and Ragunath!

"Quickly," he said, "Get in here," gesturing to the wooden box.
Martins looked sideways at him.

"Don’t worry," Said their captor, "there are holes in it so you can breathe.
Now!"

"All right, man," he said. After all, how much did he really have to lose?

* * *

William Walker was with Bill Cuddy, talking to him about the new bloomery
and the coke oven, when Ohotolarix came in with an announcement.

"Wehaxphotis," he said, "Martnz, your ironsmith, has escaped, along with his
wife. They found his forge banked"

"Oh, Shit!" Walker exclaimed, and ran to his Megaron Hall. "Emergency,
Emergency!" He shouted in Greek and Iraiina. "Search the hall, and the
surrounding countryside for a muscular, graying, bearded man about my
height. He’s my blacksmith. Now!"

As his guards searched the building, he wondered what else could go wrong

* * *

When Martins’ blindfold was removed, he blinked, trying to adjust his vision
to the light, colors and textures. He was in a tent. Just in front of him
was a throne that to all appearances looked to be a gilded Shaker chair with
armrests. Seated on that throne was a woman.

She had black hair, blue eyes, a deeper tan than Walker, and two scars, one
on each cheek. When she smiled, she gave a gapetoothed view worthy of Alfred
E. Neuman. She was somewhat short, only coming to his throat if she were
standing, Martins estimated, but built like a contestant for the Ms. Olympia
contest. Her clothing was straight from Byzantine’s of Hollywood: A leather
one piece bathing suit like garment, it had bronze plates sewn at intervals,
except for the plates covering her breasts, which were either gold or gold
leaf bronze. Below her waist, leather strips, with bronze plates riveted to
them approximated a knee skirt. There were no sleeves to this ensemble, and
Martins could see muscles that he could easily picture having come from a
forge. They weren’t all that massive, but rather incredibly defined and
corded. Her hands were callused, like a soldier or craftsworker. A
one-handed sword with a ball guard over her right shoulder and a dagger in a
similar style at her waist completed the picture.

Martins swallowed.

"I’ve been told you speak Achaean," she said. "I have an offer for you, Dzon
Martinz," struggling over the foreign sounds.

"What do you want?" Martins asked.

"I want you to teach ten of my men the art and craft of the ironsmith. In
return, I will find you a place where you and your wife can live, unmolested
by me, or anybody else."

"Like, How do I know you aren’t just selling me a bill of goods?"

"Inquisitive, I like that. And that’s a wonderful phrase. To tell you the
truth,
you don’t. But look at me."

Martins did.

"I’m not the type to coerce someone by threatening the consequences to a
third party, except for warning village headmen about the dire fate to the
entire village if they don’t surrender. If you accept and then do a
deliberately poor job, it’s you I’m sending to Tartarus, not your wife or
child."
Martins believed her. He said so.

"Good. Now, do you agree?"

He really didn’t have any choice in this matter either. At least it wasn’t a
lifetime job. "Yes" he finally answered.

"Thank you. By the way, you don’t really know who I am, not that it matters
really. My name is Xena." She pronounced it "Khaina."

Martins nodded, quicker on the uptake than Walker or Arnstein had been. His
last thought as he was leaving the tent was that she didn’t really look like
Lucy Lawless.

Chapter 6

October, 3 A.E.

Gabaela of Potidaea was seasick. This Ocean of Atlas was incredibly choppy,
compared to the calm waters of the Mediterranean. It didn’t help that they
were caught in a storm. The ship swayed. The ship tossed. It did everything
imaginable to make her nauseous. In all fairness, the Eagle was a ship of
wonders. It was made almost entirely out of metal. Almost two hundred cubits
from flying jib to stern guard rail! Ninety cubit masts of iron, with more
cloth for sails than in all of Argos!

Not only that, but there were wonders inside the ship themselves. All
throughout it, there were round glass things that kept the ship lit up
better than any oil lights could. There were the indoor latrines, made of
pottery. When you pulled down on the metal projection on the side, water
came in and washed away your wasted. Gabaela had never seen anything like
it. (She had never been to Knossos) There were workshops all throughout the
ship. There was a carpentry shop, which had strange tools that made roaring
sounds like a chorus of a hundred lions in Tartarus and which left an
inordinate amount of sawdust and wood shavings. When they had showed it to
her, they made her put on those strange resin eye coverings. There was also
an iron working shop, but they didn’t let her in there. She was disappointed
but really surprised. In Potidaea, she had not been allowed into the village
bronze castery.

Then there were the people. She had never seen such variety! There were
people who looked like Iberians, northwestern barbarians, Egyptians, or
Nubians. And those were the types of people she could identify. There were
people with deep tans, with eyes that were thin and long. There were people
with even deeper tans, small lips, and large noses. They all spoke the same
language, with what sounded like the same accent, except for the headwoman
of the ship, who looked like a Nubian, and a few others.

One person on the ship had been especially wonderful. He was extremely tall
and was the only one who could speak Achaean.

Ah, yes, the language. It seemed simple, compared to Greek, but it had all
those irregular verbs. Why not say "goed" instead of "went," or "beed"
rather than "was" and "were?" Well, she supposed, every tongue has things to
make it special.

Gabaela sighed. She couldn’t wait to get to Nantukt, or whatever that island
’s name was. On a more practical note, she wanted to get off this ship. It
was wonderful, but at the moment she was starting to get really nauseous.
She bent down and started to throw up.

* * *

"So you see, Chief, there are more players in this drama than we thought,
over." Said Captain Alston into the microphone.

"And I thought things turned strange when Walker hijacked the Yare and
Bentley. Who’d have thought that one of the worst, most popular shows in
syndication turned out to be at least partially true? Over" a New England
voice crackled back over the static.

"At least this time Martha’s safe at home. Over."

"That wasn’t funny, over!"

Alston was in the Radio Shack with Tom Hiller, talking to the Chief
Executive of the Republic of Nantucket, Jared Cofflin. There was little
other traffic on that frequency, or any other, for that matter. The problem
was that they were broadcasting from the tail end of Hurricane Bubba. They
really didn’t know if he was the second storm of the season, but Angelique
had already raged through Republic bases on Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and
Cuba, then elbowed south across the Gulf of Mexico, rampaging all the way to
the Olmec city-states. Thankfully, most all of Eagle’s sail had been struck
three hours before the surf got rough. Even so…

"So tell me, how are things going fifty knots due east of the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay? Over."

"Oh, it’s all rock and roll from here. She’s rockin’ and stomachs are rollin
’ that is. Over."

"Ya should have plotted better. You could have shredded some sail. Over"

"Sail is replaceable, if you weren’t bullshitting me. Sailors, masts, cables
and yards are what I’m worried about. Over."

"That’s water under the bridge. Swindapa misses you, and Martha wants the
ship’s log so that she can copy it. I’ll look forward to your turkey and
your full report. Over."

"Roger that. Over and out."

"So, Captain," Hiller Said, "you wanted to get there the fastest route. Are
you so sure now?"

Alston looked at him with a pained expression. "Look on the bright side."
She said. "At least we hit Bubba from the best possible angle, we had plenty
of time to strike ‘n lash, and he’s only a category two. Imagine if he had
come on us head on, or at broadside with full sail, or he’d been a category
four? Besides, if we had gone north, we’d have had to take on icebergs.
Hurricanes might sink this ship, icebergs definitely will."

She was right, and he knew it. On the other hand, he was right, too. "We
still need more routes, ma’am."

"So instead of taking both the current and wind, we ought to travel the dead
zones, tacking along at three knots at best? We would run out of food and
fresh water before we got halfway along. Still, I’ll see what I can do."

Under the circumstances, that was the best Hiller could expect.

* * *

November 3 A.E.

It was a bright, cold, autumn day, and Xena had never felt more alive. After
washing her hair in the mountain stream, she put on her cloths and armor,
secured her sword sheath across her back and her dagger to her waist. She
then walked to the middle of the camp and blew the conch shell that served
as a bugle. One single note that served as a reveille sounded throughout the
valley, signaling out the training day. Then she took a stick, thrust it
into the fire until it caught, and lit the time candle for the day.

Almost as one, thousands of would-be soldiers shambled out of their tents,
complaining and moaning, like undead arising from their graves. Behind them,
officers and Immortals came running too, much wider awake. It was time for
their early morning run. It was a chase through five miles of creeks,
meadows, forests and swamps. There were cliffs with rope ladders that had to
be climbed down, and cliffs that had to be climbed up the same way. About
the only things that it didn’t have, which a modern army obstacle course
did, were the tires and the monkey bars. At the end of the course, they were
back at camp, where breakfast was cooking. Breakfast consisted of salt pork,
a raw apple, pita bread, and wheat porridge. After breakfast, the army split
into groups. The greenest of them went to Xena. These groups learned the
hardest lessons first. These lessons were line discipline, formation
marching, and keeping in step. Troops further along in their training went
to one of Xena’s other officers to receive training in their respective
specialties. Troops that specialized in light infantry, for instance, went
to Markos the Nubian. (Not his real name. His real name was unpronounceable
to any of the Greeks.)

When the time candle burned down to the yellow, the army took a break for
lunch. She left with Drakon in charge and went over to a drained cave, where
a constant clangor told her that Dzon Martinz was teaching his students how
to work iron.

"I keep telling you, you got to keep drinking water to keep what you sweat
out." She overheard him say.

"Everybody stop and rest. I need to talk to your teacher." Xena said.

There was an uneven chorus of "Yes, Xena," as the five apprentice
blacksmiths walked over to a spring with the cups they brought with
themselves. As they were filling their cups to drink, Xena and Martins began
to talk.

"How well are your five students learning?" she asked.

"Right now, we have only gotten to the point where they can smelt the stuff.
It’ll take at least six months. A year, if you want them really good at it."

"I see Could you please tell me about Alauza and Wakaros? What sort of
people they are like?"

"Walker wants to create an empire. Those who help him he gives high
positions, gold, or women, that is, until they are caught helping him. He
never lifts a finger to help those who were hurt even by his own schemes. He
would never put himself between any of his comrades and death, but would use
his entire army as a rearguard so that he personally could escape and set
himself up elsewhere. His biggest problem is that he has no ultimate loyalty
to anyone, any principle, or anything but himself.

"Alice Hong is even worse. I don’t think that her fighting skills are
anything to worry about, but she loves to give and experience pain. She
could make a tree beg to be put down. She is a healer with knowledge and
skills that even you wouldn’t believe even if I told you. Lots of poisons,
lots of drugs. Hong’s madder than a ferret, though. She worships Eris, if
that means anything."

"Eris or Eros?" Asked Xena.

"Eris"

That was interesting. Wakaros was a marvelously skilled warrior, an
impressive war deviser, a deft politician, and a thoughtful strategist and
tactician, but in his deepest self, this would be son of Ares was a hubris
filled coward. She could use that fact. She would also have to get a taster,
at least until she dealt with Alauza.

She left Martins and walked back to her tent. The midday meal was over. For
the afternoon, the army would have target practice, followed by unarmed
sparring. Targets were crude statues of soldiers. She heard the twanging of
bows and slings, the whooshes of thrown spears, and the thocks and tinks of
missiles connecting with targets. She picked up a bow. It was a new design,
made with the help of Martins’ suggestions. No larger then the old design of
bow, it had several improvements. The stave wasn’t made from a solid dowel,
but rather from strips of wood from several parts of the yew tree. In
stringing the bow, the arms were curved back from the natural pitch. The bow
featured a handgrip, allowing it to be held much more easily. The most
dramatic change in the bow though, was the pair of bronze wheels on either
end of the stave. It required nearly twice as much line to string, but it
put an arrow incredibly far.

Xena drew an arrow, nocked it and sighted down the fletching at an eye of a
target. It was the stereotypical caricature of a Kentauri warrior, the head,
arms, and upper torso of a man and the legs and lower torso of a horse, a
bow in one hand, a sword in the other, and a quiver over the back. She
marveled at the incredibly low draw weight. A child could draw this bow, she
thought. She released the arrow at the target. It stuck at the bridge of the
nose. My aim is off, she thought. She took fifteen more shots.

Chapter 7

November, 3 A.E.

Agamemnon, king of men, son of Atrius and descendent of Ares was planning
his strategy. Thanks to Wakaros’ help, he was a match for any one of his
rivals, perhaps any two. But he could not face all four. He may have bigger
and better ships than any of Athens, but they still outnumbered his ten to
one. The Athenian navy could blockade Argos and Tyrins and have ships to
spare to round the Peloponnese, enter the Gulf of Corinth, and launch
flaming faggots and rotten fish over the walls of Mycenae. This by itself
wouldn’t save Athens, but Sparta or Corinth could then enter the fray. The
five main states of Greece were at peace in a treaty that would turn all on
the first aggressor.

So, He had to look elsewhere. Thessaly would be nice. Flat and fertile, with
good grassland and ample rainfall (for Greece), Thessaly was potentially the
best farming and horse country in Greece. It was even under the rule of
savages, the barbarian Kentauri. The people would welcome an invasion with
open arms. The problem with Thessaly was that it was inconveniently located
in the north. Thebes would have the most logical claim to Thessaly.

Crete? Well, the people of Crete were decadent, and their galleys were the
old open-faced models their ancestors two generations back had used.
Unfortunately, the locals did have a concept of military discipline, and
decadent or not, they were more numerous than he cared to face at that
point. Cyprus had fewer people, and those marvelous deposits of copper. That
island was a little far for comfort, though, and attacking it would place
Mycenae under the ban at Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon.

How about Sicily, he thought. Sicily was rich in natural deposits. It was
disunited, too. No chieftain controlled more than five miles in any
direction. Nor would any other nation dispute Mycene’s claim. Agamemnon
smiled.

* * *

November, 3 A.E.

Thank God I’m back ashore, thought Ian Arnstein. The sea had been beautiful,
except for Hurricane Bubba, that is. Even so, it got old. So did fish and
hardtack. He walked off the gangplank at Steamboat Wharf, grateful to have a
surface under him that didn’t change its angle every other second. He then
ran into the waiting arms of the hugely pregnant young woman who happened to
be his wife, Doreen.

"Easy, Easy there. You might break my water and wouldn’t that be
inconvenient?" She admonished playfully.

"I missed you." He replied. "You don’t know how much I did."

"Thank you. I love you too. You missed New Year, but only half the community
wanted to celebrate it."

"Really? It seems I have been gone too long. Which half?"

"The half that won’t eat pork, ostrich, or moa. The half that has started to
wear robes everywhere along with their skullcaps."

"Oh? When do they want to celebrate it?"

"In early March, five weeks before Weeks and Passover. The time it was
celebrated before the Babylonian Captivity."

"How’s Rabbi Goldman taking this?" Despite being the only rabbi of a
congregation of just two hundred, or maybe because of that fact, The
forty-four year old rabbi had refused to become a part of the Ecumenical
Christian Church. The only other groups that had refused to join were the
Quakers and the Shakers. Not only that, but the Shakers were
septa-and-octogenarians who hadn’t bothered to adopt any new members from
the Alban War orphans because they probably wouldn’t live to teach any
adoptees everything it took to be a member of the United Society of
Believers.

"He keeps talking about how we ought not to be divided against ourselves,
like Judah and Israel. I feel sorry for him. Half of the people don’t want
to listen to his sermons on the need to eat kosher, the other half think he
should resign because his office is an insult to the priesthood, and he the
piggy in the middle." The community had three different families of Cohenim,
the Cohens, who were of English-Jewish ancestry; the Conez’s who were
Sephardic, and the Kahns, who were of Polish-Jewish ancestry.

"It’s not like he’s a Mormon," Ian pointed out.

"True, but try to convince them of that." Doreen said. "Besides, it’s not
like anyone would know the difference." There were no Latter-Day-Saints on
the Island during the event, which was probably a good thing, all things
considered, especially during the weirdness of Year One.

"I hope nobody tries to pull a Lisketter and goes down to Egypt to free
Moses’s Blue Sweet Jews."

"It hasn’t come to that yet. So tell me, have you met any new people on the
other side of the pond?"

"Yes. There’s this cute little Greek girl we rescued from either a life of
slavery or a watery grave- Don’t look at me like that! She’s only ten years
old." After Britain last year, Doreen Arnstein nee Rosenthal was a very
jealous woman.

"Oh, so where is she?"

"Here she comes now."

* * *

"Oh, I missed you so. I kept a candle to Moon Woman burning for you every
night." Swindapa of the Star Blood line of Kurlelo said. She was hugging
Marion Alston within an inch of her life.

"Thank you. I’ve missed you too, Sugar." Alston replied.

They separated.

"How have Lucy and Heather been?"

"Still sweet as new butter, except when they cry at night, or need their
diapers changed."

"Sorry. Glad I’m back. Absence does make the heart grow fonder."

"So, what have you seen while the Eagle was dancing across the waves?"

"Oh, we’ve rescued a little girl. She’s Greek, named Gabaela. She’s staying
with the Arnsteins’. She’s really wonderful. Sings beautifully, knows lots
of songs." Not that Alston understood a word of them. "She has night
terrors, though. I would too, if I had seen my village razed and then was
sold into slavery."

"I was, too, you know." Swindapa said, slightly miffed.

"You weren’t sold into it by your own people, were you?"

Swindapa’s eyes bugged out.

"Poor sparrow."

"I was thinking ‘dapa, why don’t you talk to her when she learns more
English?"

"Certainly. First, though, here’s what I would like…"

* * *

"So there you have it, Chief." Said Marion Alston.

"I see. Well Marion, how about a promotion?" Said Jared Cofflin, Chief
Executive of The Republic of Nantucket. "Would you like to be an Admiral?"

"Not unless I get one of those fancy fore-and-aft hats. Besides, for the
next twenty years or so, the fleet really wouldn’t rate one. I’ll just take
Commodore, if it’s all the same to you." She answered.

"It isn’t, but point taken. You’re a Commodore. We’ll do the formal ceremony
in January. So how do we deal with Xena?"

"Well, originally, she must have broken her teeth and faded into obscurity.
That could happen again, or maybe not. Walker’s probably thrown things
completely out of kilter there. Maybe she’ll beat him like a drum, or maybe
he’ll get to take his hatred of me out on her. I don’t know. Perhaps they’ll
destroy each other and the land with them, but I wouldn’t bet on it."

"So we continue the plan?" Cofflin asked.

"Certainly. Either winner would be a real threat. Even if Xena wins, she
would still have cannon and muskets and our ship designs and potentially a
third of the world’s population under her control. She may not have the
administration theory down pat, but quantity would have a quality all its
own. Let’s not assume she doesn’t, either."

* * *

November, 3 A.E.

William Walker was sitting on his chair in the Megaron hall at Arcadia,
thinking. So far, he had been very fortunate. His only major loss in the
past year had been Martins. The Hearth Finery had been completed, though,
and work proceeded apace on the Bessemer converter. Agamemnon had ordered an
invasion of Sicily for next year. Sisyphus had made peace offering of Megara
in exchange for Tyrins. Tyrins wasn’t strategic anymore now that Argos had
been fully developed. Walker would bring more than his share of soldiers to
the campaign. Who knows? Maybe he could become the governor of Sicily, or at
least choose the governor. His spinning wheels, looms, and sewing machines
were making his liege king rich. As soon as he got some cotton plants from
his buddy Isketerol, he could really begin showing these people a thing or
two.

The printing press was doing well, though lead ink was scary. He would have
to have someone look into some substitute. The rag paper mill was doing
fine. As soon as Macedonia and Thrace were taken, he could go into wood pulp
paper. That was a little premature. Right now, he had the ear of the ruler
of the largest and most powerful state, but it only controlled a little more
than half the Peolponnese. Sparta controlled the Laconian lands that
comprised most of the rest.

Finally, there was Xena. She could be the monster that drives everyone into
an alliance that could be turned to his benefit. Of course, that strategy
could backfire. Greek Nationalism could win out over Greek sexism. It was
not beyond the realm of possibility, especially since he had rubbed Menalaus
the wrong way at Troy.

He would have to talk to Franz about that. He had been busy making contacts
in Attica and Boetia. He would be returning for the Dionysia festival next
month. His reports should be interesting.

Walker yawned, got up, drew his sword, and started on a kata.

Chapter 8

December, 3 A.E.

"And so it was, with the Death of Creon, That That Dynasty in Thebes came to
an end."

There was a thunderous applause in the amphitheater of Mycenae as the drama
ended. Looking on at the sight were Agamemnon, the king, his son Orestes,
and Wakaros, his favorite vassal. Wakaros had been responsible for many of
the great triumphs of Mycenae in the past year. He had helped level the
walls of Troy, forced Sisyphus to the bargaining table, brought new looms
and spinning devices, which allowed Mycenae to corner the trade on cloth
throughout the Aegean, and created new ship designs and shipbuilding
techniques that made all others on the Mediterranean envious.

Agamemnon stood up.

"I now pronounce the beginning of the Festival Games of Dionysios. Today, we
will have short running, single jump, discus throw and tumbling." There was
another thunderous cheer as the amphitheater’s front row emptied of
athletes.

"May I have your leave, my king?" asked Wakaros.

"Yes, my chief friend. Go forth and compete." Was Agamemnon’s reply. Wakaros
stood up and climbed down and out of the booth.

The lavishness of this festival had been purchased with the newfound wealth
Mycenae had gained form Wakaros’ endeavors. The Wanax had even offered him a
seat as a judge of the events. "No," had been the reply, "My king, I am but
a foreigner," He used the word ‘barbaros,’ "besides, I wish to compete in
the games." Agamemnon had never learned which games he had decided to enter.
It looks like Wakaros will enter the Single Jump, he thought.

* * *

December, 3 A.E.

"And so we offer these things in thanksgiving to the gods for this past
year. "We offer to Dameter, a gift of a sheaf of wheat. We offer this in
thanksgiving for the bountiful harvest we received."

Xena’s eyes watered as she watched the ceremony in the public square of
Amphipolis. The priests were bringing their offerings to the makeshift altar
at the center of the square. It had taken her two years to get the town
restored completely. She had made a vow to all the gods that Amphipolis
would never be sacked again while she was alive.

"We offer to Apollo, a gift of gold. We offer this in thanksgiving for
providing wisdom to our great leader."

"We offer to Ares, a gift of a ram. We offer this in thanksgiving for the
great gains in war we experienced this year."

They hadn’t been as great as she would have liked, but that wasn’t Ares’
fault.

"We offer to Hera, a gift of a cow. We offer this in thanksgiving for the
domestic bliss of the past year."

Actually, Xena’s laws had had more to do with that than anything else.

"We offer to Poseidon, a gift of three fish. We offer this in thanksgiving
for our prosperity at sea."

And also to placate the god of sea for next year, when we could really use
his help, Xena thought.

"We offer to Eros, a gift of a rabbit. We offer this in thanksgiving of the
new babes of the last year."

"Finally, We offer to Zeus, a gift of a bull. We offer this in thanksgiving
for his blessings on the other gods as they bless us."

One of the acolytes then threw a torch on the offerings. There was a whoosh
as the things on the altar caught fire, then the smell of burning fur and
roasting meat. Except for the priests and priestesses who were maintaining
an overnight vigil, everybody else was going home to a private feast.

* * *

December, 3 A.E.

"Push!"

"Errumph!"

"That’s it. That’s it. I see the crown."

Doc Coleman was coaching Doreen Arnstein through the last stage of birth, at
the business end of the birthing table. Holding her right hand was her
husband, Ian. Also in the room were Marion Alston, Swindapa of the
Star-Blood line of Kurlelo, and Rabbi Nathaniel Goldman. Alston was wearing
full dress blue-and-whites, well almost: she was wearing pants rather than
the skirt. Swindapa was wearing the green and yellow sweatsuit she had
received on her first trip to Nantucket, way back when. The rabbi was in
skullcap, robes, and collar.

"Uh-oh, here comes another contraction." She said in pained tones.

"Relax, then." Coleman said. Pushing during a contraction would speed up the
birth, but that was inadvisable unless the mother didn’t care to enjoy sex
ever again, especially the first time.

"It’s through."

"Good. Push again."

"Uhumm!"

"Wonderful, wonderful." Suddenly, another sound effect was added to the
scene. A baby’s voice began crying.

"You can do it, Doreen, that’s it." Said Ian "It’s almost over."

"Next time, you have the baby!" She answered breathlessly.

Please, put me back, thought Marion Alston, remembering the line from Look
Who’s Talking. She also remembered how Michael and Caroline felt, as they
left her own womb and entered the world.

"One last time." Doc was saying

"Erumph!"

"Yes! It’s a boy."

"Thank God" Doreen and Ian Chorused, though in different tones. It took
thirty seconds for the umbilical cord to stop pumping. When it did, Doc
Coleman cut it with the sterile scissors and handed him to Doreen, who
unashamedly put him to her breast.

"May I talk to you for a moment?" Doc asked Rabbi Goldman.

They stepped out of the Delivery Room, closed the door, and began a heated
discussion.

"So, how did it feel to have your first child?" Ian asked his wife.

"It probably felt like shitting a fully inflated basketball, with the added
sensation of a kick to the crotch." Marion said.

Doreen nodded her head.

"How’d you know?" She asked.

"That’s how it felt to me when I had Michael and Caroline."

"What’s his name?" Swindapa asked in a curious voice.

"David. After his grandfather." Doreen said.

"David is a wonderful name." Said Ian Arnstein. "He sounds like a David."

"Thank you, Sweetie. Now, can anyone get me some food? I could eat a party
sub."

From outside the Delivery Room, Doc Coleman’s voice could be heard: "Fine,
but if he has any infections from it, all bets are off!"

* * *

December, 3 A.E.

The former ensign, Martin Fieldhouser, could no longer use his nose. He
never learned the reason for his sudden demotion and reassignment. One
minute he was the officer in charge of the spanker, the next, he was pumping
the bilge out and cleaning the bathrooms.

Now that the Eagle was docked in Providence Harbor for the time being, he
had been reassigned to Brand Farms. Now his job was shoveling the manure and
other compost from town onto the fields. Because of the winter it was no
longer hot work, but it was still sweaty and smelly work. His nose had gone
four days ago. They had to give him a special coat that absorbed the sweat;
or else he would die of hypothermia.

He wondered how he landed in this predicament. He remembered disagreeing
with Captain Alston over when to depart for home. Then the next day, he
rolled out of bed, only to find himself on the top bunk in the able crew
sleeping quarters. He later learned that all his quarters had been emptied
and all his posters had been thrown overboard. He then learned that he was
put in Lieutenant Nguyen’s group, the Quartermaster and Commissary Unit. His
career had gone downhill from there.

"Back to work" Angelica Brand shouted through her bullhorn. "And put your
back into it."

Fieldhouser dug hard into the half-frozen manure, making a scritching sound.
He flipped it over his shoulder in an economical maneuver. He did it again.
Then he turned around and plopped some more topsoil over the manure. He then
pulled the wagon over a little more and repeated the process.

He was starting to conclude that the captain simply hated him.

Chapter 9

January, 4 A.E.

People watched at the Atheneum as the ceremony reached its "main event," so
to speak: the formal promotion of Marion Alston to the rank of Commodore.
Marion was dressed in her best blue-and whites. Beside her, on stage, was
Jared Cofflin, who was dressed in a black Saville Row suit looted from a
mansion whose owner was off the island during the event, and a black power
tie that matched only in color the rest of the ensemble. Also on stage were
Prelate Gomez, in the red-and-green vestments he wore at this part of the
liturgical year, and Ian Arnstein, who wore a tweed gibbon suit and
polka-dot bow tie that looked ridiculous on him. Both had already spoken
their parts. Now, Cofflin directed Marion to place one hand on the bible,
the other in the air, and repeat what he said.

"I, Say your name."

"I, Marion Alston-Kurlelo,"

"Do solemnly swear,"

"Do solemnly swear,"

"To uphold the constitution, laws, and ideals,"

"To uphold the constitution, laws, and ideals,"

"The people, government, and land,"

"The people, government, and land,"

"Of the Republic of Nantucket,"

"Of the Republic of Nantucket,"

"To protect it from all enemies foreign and domestic,"

"To protect it from all enemies foreign and domestic,"

"And to uphold its reputation and interests on the high seas."

"And to uphold its reputation and interests on the high seas."

"I will not abuse my position or authority,"

"I will not abuse my position or authority,"

"For gain, power, or gratification,"

"For gain, power, or gratification,"

"Therefore, by the power invested in me by the Town Meeting and the
Executive Council as Chief Executive of the Republic of Nantucket, I, Jared
Coflin, on this day the fourteenth of January in the year 4 after the Event,
do officially commission Marion Alston-Kurlelo as a Commodore of the Coast
Guard Fleet of the Republic of Nantucket and the Supreme Commander of its
Armed Forces. Congratulations, Marion. Everybody is dismissed."

There was a loud din as everybody crowded out of the Atheneum like a Chinese
fire drill.

* * *

"What sort of jackass barque is that?" Asked the newly minted Commodore
Alston-Kurlelo.

"A four masted one." Captain Victor Ortiz replied. Alston groaned at the
pun.

They were looking at the blueprints for the newly proposed Revolutionary
class. At 1:200 scale, the blueprints showed a four-masted vessel inspired
by the German nitrate sailors of the late nineteenth century, but with
additions the Germans never thought of. The first of these was a double
gundeck with four pound quick-firers up top and twenty-four pound heavy guns
on bottom. Not only that, but she had four swivel mounted fifteen pound guns
on the main deck to insure that she was not completely defenseless if
someone crossed the T on her. They also spoiled her lines. Her foremast and
mainmast had the usual complement of six square sails, while the mizzenmast
and rearmast were divided. The lower halves of those last two used Bermuda
sails secured by boom rather than the usual spankers. The tops of those two
rear masts, however, displayed top and topgallant sails. The result was a
trade off between maneuverability and ease of reefing in bad weather.

This was one of the four designs that together would make up the backbone of
the Nantucket fleet. The Abolitionist class ships were to be skirmishers,
commerce raiders, and shallow water craft. Those were topgallant schooners
based on a mid-nineteenth century Swedish design. Carnival class ships were
five mast schooners to be used as troop transports, along with the Eagle.
Despite their names and relative size, Carnival class ships were anything
but cruise ships, though a variation on the design without all the bunks and
toilet facilities was in construction for sale on margin to merchant
shipping. The Liberator class, still on the drawing boards, and the
commodore’s personal project, was a modified British tea clipper along the
lines of the Cutty Sark and the Norman Court, to be used as a frigate for
flanking and mobile reserve.

The behemoth depicted in the plans in front of them was to be the
prototypical ship of the line for the Republic of Nantucket Coast Guard
Fleet.

"This monster’s longer than Eagle! How are we going to build her with just
wood? And look at that keel! Could we ever get her into one of those shallow
Mediterranean harbors?"

"One question at a time. She’s heavier and tubbier than her inspirations, so
she’s not quite so fast. She’ll only do fifteen knots reliably, but she’s
far more maneuverable. The scale model could manage fifty-five degrees to
the wind. As to how we plan to use her in the Mediterranean, we don’t plan
to use her in the harbors there, just the deepwater areas where she can do
her best. Besides, the Baltic and the Persian Gulf have deep enough harbors
for her to use." "How the hell do you plan to keep her from capsizing when
you fire a full broadside volley?"

"She’s got a fifty-four foot beam, that should help. Another thing, most of
her ballast will be found in the crease of her keel. She will have a
perfectly low center of gravity."

Commodore Alston-Kurlelo snorted.

"I know I ought to give this the ax, but I will let you build this joker
anyway on two conditions. Number one: you don’t breathe a word of this to
the Town Meeting or the Executive Council except under oath. Number Two, it’
s your project, and therefore your foot in your mouth if this baby’s a
lemon. Got that?"

"Yes! Yes! Thank you Commodore."

"Don’t thank me, I just gave you an opportunity to fall flat on your face."

* * *

January, 4 A.E.

Xena admired her new sword. Made of iron, it had been a test project of one
of Martnz’s pupils. Martnz himself had said it was only mediocre, but it had
chopped through bronze like it was wood. She couldn’t wait to get her hands
on a good sword.

It was straight and double-edged. The hilt was a span and a half long,
wrapped in bronze wire (brass was expensive and tarnished too easily, while
a solid hilt would be slippery in a sweaty or bloody hand). The blade was a
cubit and two spans long, about a span shorter than her old sword. It was
only about a fourth of a span wide, though. The blade took a better edge
than her old sword, though it needed to be sharpened harder. The sword was
lighter, too, nearly half the weight of her old weapon.

Xena cut the air with her weapon. The balance was perfect. The fighting
posture came naturally to her, the product of eight years of practice. Legs
spread, knees slightly bent, her sword on her inside side and her off arm
slightly bent at the elbow as counterbalance. She brought the sword up over
her head and brought it down in a vertical chop, the apple cutter. Next she
crossed her right shoulder and with a hard exhale cleaved diagonally down
and to the left. Then she drew back and made a hard diagonal cut down and
right.

As she continued her sword exercises, she thought about how wonderful it
would be if everybody in her army had one of them. She was glad she took
Nikomachos’ suggestion, risky though it was. She decided to keep the old
bronze swords around, though. They would make great double weight practice
weapons.

* * *

January, 4 A.E.

"So that’s where he is." Said William Walker.

"Yes, Martins is indeed with Xena," Aurbecker replied. "And he’s teaching
the locals blacksmithing. Looks like he’s doing a good job, too."

"Why didn’t you try to have his throat slit?" Demanded Walker.

"His tent has almost as many guards as Xena’s. They knew how to guard, too.
They were facing away from the campfire."

"Your man could still have torched the tent."

"Not when the guards had one hand on their respective swords, and one hand
on buckets of water that Martin’s students so kindly made."

Walker muttered under his breath.

"Beg pardon?" Aurbecker said.

"I said, ‘that fucking traitor.’"

"It’s not as if he came willingly. As I recall, you had to threaten Barbara
to get him on the Yare."

"I know, I know. Arghh, but this complicates things."

"Indeed. Well, the other lords of Achaea don’t really hate you, they just
consider you as fair game, just like each other." The lands under Mycenae’s
grasp could teach eighteenth century France a thing or two about cutthroat
noble politics. And unlike in France, those intrigues weren’t just
one-upmanship; a lord could gain new lands and wealth, not just more
prestige and a new title that wasn’t worth the vellum and ink it took to
write it on.

"Good. Are the whispering campaigns bearing fruit yet?"

"Not yet. You need time for rumor to work. Give it another month."

"Okay."

* * *

Give me a shotgun to kill Walker please,
Hail, Hail, and blow the man away.
Oh, how I’d like to give him greiv-i-ous injuries,
Hail, Hail, and blow the man away.
It’s just a trigger-pull for a fatality,
Hail, Hail, and blow the man away.
It’s only his murder would satisfy me,
Hail, Hail, and blow the man away!
Hail, Hail, Blow the man away,
Hail, Hail, Blow the man away,
Hail, Hail, Blow the man away,
Someone get a shotgun and blow the man away!

Captain Gerta Hendriksson looked on as the Sojourner Truth took delivery on
its shipment of new cannon. They were beautiful things. Truth was to get
eighteen of them. Sixteen were the expected twenty- pounders, but two were
something else. She went up to Leaton, who was supervising the shipment
himself.

"What are those two," She asked, pointing to the low caliber, but long guns
being pulled up the gangplank.

"Those? They’re just the two new twelve pound chasers. They’re rifled."

"Why can’t you make all of them rifles?" She asked.

"We tried. Our steel isn’t good enough, while bronze is too soft. You’d
shoot the rifling out."

Well, she thought, now they would have to practice firing these babies.

Chapter 10

February, 4 A.E.

"I never got your human songbird. How dare you accuse me of cheating on a
debt!" Isketerol, King of Tartessos, Son of Arrucatag of the Sea, husband of
the Grain Goddess, and all the other royal cojumens, shouted in outrage.

"But I sent her out on one of MY galleys. The Sea Ray. Are you saying she
didn’t come in?" asked Salmoneos of Argos.

"Indeed, my guest friend," said Isketerol, gritting his teeth. "She must not
have."

"By Poseidon, what could have happened to her?" Wailed Salmoneos. It was not
for the ship, or her most valuable cargo that he mourned. It was for the
lost profits that ship could have provided.

"The girl, or the ship?" asked Isketerol, really starting to lose patience
with this buffoon. He could not believe he had put up with this man for so
long. Eight whole years! True, the man had a nose for business, but he had
also nearly gotten Tartessos placed under the ban at Athens and Egypt, and
Isketerol himself executed for breaking numerous treaties.

"Both!" said an anguished Salmoneos.

"Well, they could be lost to storm, fire, shipworms, mutiny, slave revolt"
That later was only a marginal possibility, but it still could happen.
"Carelessness on the navigator’s part, any number of things."

"There were no storms along the way, I checked with all the other merchant
skippers. No shoals either. You’ve been on that route yourself. You could
navigate it in your sleep."

"Arrucatag of the Sea! Leave me at once."

Salmoneos was escorted out by two guards. He looked visibly shaken at his
royal friend’s rage.

Isketerol hunched over, his elbows on the arms of his new throne. What could
have gone wrong? Then he thought about the new enemies he had made through
his association with Walker.

"By the Hag!" He shouted and slapped himself. It must have been the Eagle
People. His ships had reported them just running past the Pillars of Heaven.
Well, when he met them, that would be another grievance he had against them.

Several guards looked at him sidewise. He glared at them and they stood at
attention again.

* * *

February, 4 A.E.

Nebuchadnezzer, of the Second Dynasty of Nin, The Fourth Dynasty of Babylon,
Son of Marduk-Zulkir-Shumi II, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, sat on his
throne. He was contemplating his reign. He had come to the throne five years
before, and in that time had lifted Babylon to a height not seen since the
time of Hammurabi. He had conquered the Elamites and restored the Great Idol
of Marduk to its proper place in the Great Ziggurat. He had warred with the
remainder of the Kassites who not a century previous had for four hundred
years pretended to the throne of Sumer and Akad, calling the land
Kur-Duniash, and broke them. He had even managed to capture a port on the
great North Sea.

But for all those achievements, his greatest victories had yet to be won.
Indeed, they had yet to be fought. He had yet to face the Hittites, who four
hundred years previously destroyed Babylon, carrying off an idol of Marduk
that had yet to be recovered. He had not fought Assyria either, whose sack
of the sacred city was only one century in the past. Finally, he had not
truly avenged the humiliation to his person, when that barbarian pirate
woman had sacked Shoppar and carried him off, too. He had nearly executed
her for her impudence, but she had managed to somehow crawl away somewhere.
According to the spies, she was now building her army again, and her navy,
too.

He would have to be ready. He had just begun a rebuilding of his army from
the ground up. His chariots were of the Hittite design. Lighter than the old
Amorite and Akkadian styles, with sloped side walls and a different axle,
they were still just as strong. Those chariots were to be pulled by Arab and
Armaen horses. They weren’t as strong as Mesopotamian breeds, but they didn’
t need to be. They simply needed to be fast, which they were.

The bows of his army were of the Iranian variety. Made of a laminate of wood
and horn, they were bent in the opposite direction of their natural curve
when strung. They were much more powerful than the old bows of the past. His
spear points were diamond shaped, so as to penetrate armor better than leaf
headed spears. They were also better balanced, to make them easier to wield
or throw. A courtier came in with a tablet newly baked. Nebuchadnezzer
picked it up and read it. Apparently there were new ships on the Western
Sea. These ships were tremendous in size, for one of them was as long as
three mighty Egyptian galleys, and those were the wonders of the world! As
soon as he had Shoppar rebuilt, he thought, he would be rich.

He summoned the chief priests.

They came in their usual pomp and circumstance. They then began to pronounce
their omens.

Those omens were in obvious conflict. The Astrologists said that the kingdom
would certainly benefit from these circumstances. The Dicers said that there
was the opportunity of tremendous wealth, power and influence, but also of
death and destruction. The Augurers were more decisive: they predicted doom
and defeat within five years. And no, they weren’t hitting him up for money
either.

He dismissed them and began thinking.

What was he going to do about the omens?

* * *

February, 4 A.E.

"Right, Left, Right, Left,"

William Walker was watching McAndrews and Rodriguez train the backbone of
his army. About one thousand musketeers and pikemen were lined up in five
squares of two hundred each. Each musketeer also carried a short sword at
the waist that could double as a bayonet, with a loop that fit snugly over
the rod at the end of the musket, similar to the Nineteenth Century French
design. Their flintlock long guns were patterned on the British "Brown
Bess," but with pistol grips and semi-square buttplates like a late
Twentieth Century hunting rifle. The pikemen carried Swiss style pikes with
diamond cross-section heads and crossbars rather than the Greek fluted head
and no crossbar. They also carried a loaded flintlock pistol each. The
formation was based on those used by Gustavus Adolphus. He had toyed with
the idea of going with nothing but muskets. He decided against it because he
would probably be facing lancers at one point or another. If Tyldus won,
Kentauri would be flowing south with swordsmen in stirrups. If Xena won, He’
d be facing more of the same. It was the phase out of the pike that made
lancers a viable option again. He didn’t have the machining to do reliable
breach loading weapons in any meaningful number, according to Cuddy.

"How are they doing?"

"Pretty Good. They can fire volleys. The next step will be coordinating with
the artillery." Answered George McAndrews. The artillery at this point
consisted of six bronze four pound guns, which were given two wheel
carriages. They were to be pulled by four horse horse teams descended from
Bastard and the local horses. They wouldn’t be quite as fast as Gustavus
Adolphus’ artillery, but only because Bastard was a quarterhorse, not a
Percheron or a Clydesdale.

"Keep up the good work."

"Certainly. Say, when do I go off to see Pharaoh?"

"When we can get away with it. Right now, we’d be saying ‘I’m thumbing my
nose at you and every other great nation by claiming to be one when clearly
I ain’t. Please punish me for my insolence.’ Do you really want to see a
whole bunch of Egyptian galleys pull up on the beaches?"

McAndrews sighed. "Cheer up," Walker said, "I promise that we’ll be able to
do it in four years. Maybe less, if you do better than I expect. Please
pleasantly surprise me. Understand?"

"Yes, I understand." I understand you’re dragging your feet, McAndrews
thought. I understand you’re milking this deal for all it’s worth. I also
understand that there’s nowhere else I could go. He didn’t know enough Greek
to order baklava, whatever that was. His knowledge of local customs was
rudimentary at best, and a misspoken word or a too high a bow could get him
killed. The things he himself knew about manufacturing were sketchy, at
best. This was not to mention the fact that Aurbecker and his associates
were on the prowl. If he was lucky, he’d simply be poisoned through his food
or murdered in his sleep. If he was unlucky, there was crucifixion , or
possibly even a date with Alice in his future. A very hot date.

Walker walked over to Jack Mason, at the guns. "How are the crews doing,
Jack?"

"Pretty Good, sir. We’ve gotten down to forty-five seconds." Mason replied
in his Texas twang. Former Gunnery Sargent Jack Mitchell Mason had eight
years of experience in the USMC. After mustering out of the Corps, he became
an electrical engineer and part time Civil War re-enactor, specializing in
artillery. He was helping to connect Nantucket to mainland power when the
Event happened. He was about to resign himself to a life of relative boredom
when a Coast Guard officer named William Walker talked to him after a hard
day’s work when they were at the Brotherhood of Thieves. That had been the
beginning of a beautiful friendship, to use the cliché from Casablanca.

That was pretty good. Gustavus Adolphus’ four pounder crews had managed
better, but by that time they’d been practicing twice as long as Mason’s gun
crews had now. "See if you can push them a little more. Try to get them down
to thirty-five if you can."

"Will do, sir." Said Mason.

Walker smiled. Why could all of his men be like Mason, he wondered. There
was no lip, no irrelevant or pointed questions, no attitude, and no constant
small problems with him. Just a pleasant smile and a can-do outlook were all
Walker could expect. Those, and results, too.

* * *

February, 4 A.E.

"So we could cast off when the snow melts?"

"Yes, Xena."

"Excellent. When I comeback with Tyldus’ head, you will be perfectly
rewarded."Phillotheoi, master of the main shipyards at Amphipolis was
smiling as if he had been offered ambrosia. He had every reason to be
smiling. Since Xena had rebuilt Amphipolis, the people had been busy
building ships and making weapons. Gold, jewelry, and precious goods had
flowed in. But luxuries for the most part couldn’t be eaten or imbibed, so
food and various wines and meads flowed in, too.

Xena smiled, too, and turned to Drakon. Drakon was only two years older than
Xena herself. Originally from Pylos, he had wandered Greece for two years,
going from mercenary contract to mercenary contract. That was until two
years ago, when he was captured by Xena’s army. He had refused to fight her
when she challenged him. She quickly singled him out for her Immortals. He
rose meteorically.

"Do you think that the troops are ready?" Drakon asked her.

"Unless Tyldus has something he’s been hiding from us, we are."

"Can we stand a charge from their horsemen?"

"We should be able to. We have iron arrows and spearheads, after all. (Well,
the Immortals have them, anyway.) We also have iron horseshoes and iron
stirrups. We outnumber Tyldus two to one. It would take a personal curse
from Poseidon or Ares for us to lose." This from a woman who usually never
talked about victory in such tones.

Drakon grinned like a wolf. So did Xena.

Chapter 11

March, 4 A.E.

Darfus was sitting on his horse. It so helps to be wearing stirrups, he
thought. He looked back at his men. There they were, lancers arranged in a
wedge out in front, swordsmen at the flanks, horsearchers at the rear, and
infantry at the center.

Seated in the horse next to him was Theodoros. Theodoros had been
conditioned to complete loyalty to Xena. This was Darfus’s first command,
and Xena probably chose Theodoros to insure that he didn’t try to deviate
too much from the plan unless necessary. A wise decision, he thought. If he
were Xena, he wouldn’t trust Darfus.

"Are we ready?" He asked Theodoros.

Theodoros tossed his head yes in reply.

"Then let’s proceed.

"Standards UP!" he called. Brass and golden gars went up on twelve-foot
poles. So did cloth images of the same.

"Tight formations!" Suddenly lines and blocks were neat and dressed as if
for parade.

"Drummers!" Actually, it sounded more like bongo drums than snare drums, but
there was a steady beat.

"And Forward!" he cried.

As one, twelve thousand feet began marching south instep into the mountain
pass. The magnified clomp- clomp-clomp was an awe inspiring sound.

* * *

"And if we should die, Ikhshium and Heb’kwonsra shall meet us in the great
feast hall in the sky. We may even be invited into their war host."

Tyldus the Great was giving his men a pep talk at the pass. He was trying
to, and succeeding at, taking his troops’ minds off the fact that the enemy
was far more numerous than they were.

"Besides, they are mostly mere footman. We could easily take them"

Suddenly he heard a horse wicker. Turning around, Tyldus saw a scout riding
back from the pass. What part of his hair wasn’t matted and clinging to his
neck and back was flapping like a loose piece of sail. His horse was
lathered and stumbling, shiny like polished metal, though as he came closer,
Tyldus noticed the stallion didn’t smell nearly as poetically as he looked.
The rider dismounted, and the horse collapsed.

"My king, they are moving through the pass." The scout reported.

"Where are Karphos, Kassias, and Enkeyan?" Tyldus retorted.

"Dead, my king. They were shot down as we fled."

"Well men, now that whore is upon us. Forward! Forward for Korihos the Ram
of War! Forward with Ikhshium!"

The men cheered, and mounted their horses.

* * *

The end of the pass was in sight. So was the enemy. After looking at
Theodoros and seeing his nod, He ordered "spread out." The five thousand
strong army complied.

"Lances, down" Three hundred lances left their rest and pivoted down to
spearing position.

Nine hundred yards and they were at the mouth of the pass. They were still
five hundred yards away from the Kentauri.

"Stop," he called. "Draw arrows." There was a creaking sound as bows bent
and wheels at the staves turned.

Six Hundred and fifty Cubits.

Six hundred.

Five hundred and Twenty-five.

"Shoot!"

Arrows flew, first in one volley, then in an unstructured fusillade. The
first rank of the Kentauri was unhorsed. Some of them flopped off their
stallions, others slumped over as if to go to sleep. Horses went down, too,
bucking like fish out of water and screaming like dying cats, only at the
volume only a horse could produce. Still the Kentauri ranks pressed on.

Three hundred seventy five cubits,

Three twenty five

Two seventy-five,

"Lancers charge!" Darfus roared, and spurred his horse into a gallop.

* * *

Tyldus was fighting for his life. His men had been split down the middle by
that lance charge. He had been convinced that the lances would have been
torn from the wielders’ hands’, but they managed to continue for three
passes, until the lances broke.

He was currently being harried by the spearmen. They didn’t have enough
ground to gain enough momentum for another charge, and they were feeling a
hail of spears from the enemy infantry. The enemy sword cavalry was also
hurting his army, as far as he could tell. They were inflicting more
casualties than skill alone could account for. Then he got a glimpse at the
sword one of them was carrying. Why was he wielding a silver sword?

Because that sword wasn’t silver, that’s why. "Holy Heb’kwonsra," he
subvocalized, stunned. It was iron! He had heard that the Hittites had it,
and so had the Southern Greeks, now, but he never thought that Xena had it,
too. Suddenly he heard someone riding in behind him. Without thinking, he
thrust his sword behind him backhanded in an ice pick grip, and withdrew it
bloody. The enemy soldier flopped over his saddle, dead, clutching the wound
just below his xyphoid process with his free hand.

Something’s wrong, Tyldus thought. It wasn’t simply the iron, it was
something
fundamentally more important.

He looked around. The enemy was too few, though they had been inflicting
casualties far in excess of their numbers. But that couldn’t be it, he
thought. What else could it be? He spied where two enemy horsemen had ganged
up on one of his. Roaring an oath to Heb’kwonsra, he swung back his sword.

Five minutes of hard fighting later, he realized that it wasn’t what was
there that was important, but what wasn’t. There were plenty of standards of
the gar that symbolized Amphipolis, but the leopard that was Xena’s personal
device was missing.

"Retreat! Retreat!" he yelled, wheeling his horse around. This must have
been a feint. He might be able to face them at right angles, but there was
no way he could form a front to his rear.

* * *

"Looks like they are running," Darfus said to Theodoros.

"I see, well, we begin gathering the locals. They may know Xena’s
reputation, but they are suffering under the perceived oppression of the
Kentauri. We can probably gain a lot of support for Xena, if we treat the
people reasonably well." Theodoros replied.

"Alright, men, cease pursuit. Lets clean up" Said Darfus, in his field
voice.

Lower officers repeated his order, and couriers mounted their horses to
spread the word. There were graves to dig, sacrifices to Ares, Hades, and
the Fates to make, and even less pleasant tasks to complete. He looked
around.

The place looked like a typical battlefield. Men were sprawled out as if
sleeping off too much drink from a grand party. Some even moaned, as if
suffering through hangovers. Partygoers didn’t have their horses sleeping
beside them though. Nor did they bear such ghastly wounds, either. Some had
dished in skulls. Others bore slashed legs. There were even those with their
share of various stages of disembowelment.

Partygoers also didn’t smell quite as bad as the dead of a battlefield
either. The ambient smell was like your garden variety shambles. He could
smell blood, sweat, bile, various ichors, and shit. Then there were the
different shades of smell. Horse sweat had a different tang to it than did
human sweat, for example. The same could be said for human and horse shit.

Providing an example to his soldiers and officers that would do Xena proud
if she knew, he got out the shovel from his saddle pack and began digging
himself.

* * *

Xena smiled as she saw the walls of Larissa. The city itself wasn’t the
object of her glee. It was smaller than Amphipolis, and the palace was
smaller than her mother’s inn. No, it was the fact she had penetrated
unopposed all the way to the capital of Thessaly. She ordered her men to
start building the battering ram as soon as possible. She wanted to take the
city with as little damage as possible.

As they were working on it, she rode over to oversee the setting up of the
camp. According to Martnz, it was best to place the water collection
upstream from the town, and the latrines downstream from it. She oversaw
that act, then watched the tents going up. That was when her scouts spotted
a lone rider.

He came galloping down the hill towards the camp. As she saw, he slowly came
into a better view. He was garbed in the traditional Kentauri manner:
goatskin breaches, red dyed woolen shirt. He had no bow or sword. In one
hand he bore a bough and an olive branch in one hand, while the other hand
gripped the reins of his horse.

He dismounted his horse and walked into camp. A couple of her soldiers drew
bows. He held up his hand and asked to talk to Xena. He wanted to discuss
the terms of the Kentauri surrender.

* * *

They were seated in her tent, with Dagnon, Markos, Xykos, and Kleston. Xena
asked the young man why they had a change of heart. "Does Tyldus really want
to give up his throne?"

"After he ordered a retreat, though the Kentauri still outnumbered your men,
there was a meeting of all the chiefs.

"There, he tried to explain that you weren’t with your men at the pass. He
thought you were somewhere else. The chiefs though, they didn’t believe him,
and voted to renew the attack on your men the next day and to remove Tyldus
as Renix. They accused him of cowardice. The day after their victory, they
would execute him for poor leadership.

"They never got the chance. That night, while they were sleeping, Greek
peasants put the camp to the torch. They killed the chiefs and ran all the
horses off. The next morning, word came that you were attacking up the mouth
of the river. Bur rather than meet you there, or your troops to the north,
they fought among themselves to see who would be Renix. This lasted for two
days, but by then, only five hundred men were left in all the Southern
Kentauri. Our new Renix’s first act was to send someone to Xena to negotiate
our surrender. Better that we die in a show execution, than that we kill all
of each other ourselves, or the peasants string us hand and foot, like taken
game, and draw and quarter us in time to dancing music."

Xena had only one question for him. "How do we know that this is not some
ruse?"

In answer to that question, the man wordlessly reached into his pack. There
was a sound of knives being drawn as he pulled something out. They were
resheathed as the thing he drew out cleared his shoulder, but there were
still gasps by everyone else but Xena.

The head in front of them was unmistakably that of Tyldus, his mouth twisted
into a leering grin.

Chapter 12

April, 4 A.E.

"And Tyldus never had the opportunity to escape?"

"No, He didn’t. There is a custom stronger than any law among barbarians, or
at least, Indo-European barbarians, that one does not retreat from a
numerically weaker foe, and that was compounded by the fact that the foe was
infantry against their cavalry, and enemy ruler was a woman. I don’t really
need to tell you this. You’ve seen it yourself among the Sun People."

Indeed Walker had. Still, though, it always amazed him how barbarian honor
could screw up their ability to pursue a war with anything like
semi-competence. Compared to the strategic and tactical withdrawal, march
discipline and volleying had been easy to drill into the Sun People. He
suspected that had he not been Hwalkarz the wizard, he would have met the
same fate as Tyldus. "Do you think we could capitalize on this to get people
to cooperate against Xena?"

"No. The area was mostly Greek in ethnicity. She could portray herself as a
liberator, rather than a conqueror, and she did. Furthermore, the other
states are embroiled in their own affairs. The Hittites could invade, and
nobody would notice. They’d notice when Xena knocks on the door of say,
Thebes, or Athens, but not before."

"Indeed. Well, two weeks from now, I go to Sicily. You, Franz, are going to

Thesally. See if you can dig up as much dirt as you can."

"Certainly."

* * *

April, 3 A.E.
Well, Xena thought, now comes the hard part. Thesally greeted her as if she
were the incarnation of a goddess, but she had to put the place back on its
feet. That was easier said than done. Most of the fields had been allowed to
grow thorny, or rocky. The few areas that had been under cultivation were
suffering the effects of monoculture and a lack of fertilizer. Apparently,
the peasants hadn’t been allowed to grow much beyond fodder for the Kentauri
horses.

That had to change. Starting now, she would have to order work done
clearing, hoeing, plowing, and sowing so as to make Thesally the breadbasket
it could be. Well, she thought, what would she do?

She could collect no taxes in food this year. There was simply none to be
had. First thing she would do would be to move everybody off of their farms.
They were nearly worn out. It would take three years of fallow to restore
the soils to an acceptable level of fertility.

Then for this year, at least, she would have to offer bounties. Bounties for
every field cleared of weeds and roots. Bounties for each field properly
fertilized, and for each new field under seed. She would also need spies, of
course, to prevent people from abusing the rewards.

Xena sighed. It would be difficult. On one hand, Tyldus was dead. On the
other, Wakaros was slowly gaining influence in Mycenae. With his knowledge
and Mycenae’s resources he could be a deadly opponent, coward or no. And
being a coward, he’ll simply fight like an animal if he believes he has no
bolt-hole.

She would have to halt her southern campaigns for at least a year. However
Wakaros does not completely have Agamemnon’s ear. Under her breath, she
thanked Apollo and Ares for that.

She would have to send for Nikomachos.

* * *

April, 4 A.E.

Agamemnon, king of men, was at the port of Argos. There, he and his favorite
vassal Wakaros were looking at the ships Wakaros had designed for the
upcoming war in Sicily. When he got to the Harbor, he was amazed at their
size.

They were quite breathtaking. They were over fifty cubits long each, over
ten cubits wide, and boasted masts fully as tall as the ships were long.
Each ship had only one mast, but each mast must have had at least six sails.
They also boasted twelve of Wakaros’ cannons. He had a few questions for his
vassal.

"Why do all of the sails on the ship fly flush with the length?" He asked.

"Those sails are to help steer her by, my king. With those, you can use the
wind itself to turn the ship. You can also sail much closer to the wind than
before." Wakaros responded.

"I see but a single steering oar, but no way to move it."

"It’s steered by that wheel on the deck, there." Wakaros pointed to it.

"You seemed to have used a lot of iron to build them. Those nails, and how
you built the masts. Will these ships float?"

"Certainly, my king. The nails don’t really add much weight. They do make it
easier to build the ship. It takes half as long to make a ship this way. And
it’s easier to make ships bigger this way."

In response, Agamemnon made a warding gesture. They were passing by a forge,
where he heard the characteristic unmusical clangor of iron being worked
under the hammer and the hiss of hot metal being plunged into quenching
liquids.

"So much Iron! And to think that I had to trade for copper on Cyprus, and
calamine all the way from the Chalk Islands! It is amazing that we have so
much Iron here in Achaea."

"Indeed it is, my king," If he hadn’t seen the Ordinance Survey maps they’d
bootlegged from Nantucket, Walker wouldn’t have believed it himself.

* * *

"Are you sure we’re ready?" Asked William Walker.

"I’m ready, I know that. I have my scalpels, my antiseptic, my gloves. I
know that our needles will run out soon, so I have arranged a substitute. It
’s amazing what you can do with bone."

"Everything is packed?"

"That’s what I just said. Couldn’t you please let me take along a few dildos
and other toys?"

"No. You are the only full physician I have. I don’t want to have to trust
my body to priests of Aesclepius because you are too busy diddling yourself.
Besides, when we get back, you can have all the fun you like. Within reason,
of course.

By the way, is there anything you might want?" He finished.

"Yeah, sure. How’s the wood alcohol distellery doing? It’s a shame wasting
the stuff dressing wounds. And could you arrange Isketerol to open up a
rubber trade? These alcohol dipped leather gloves chafe something fierce."

"I’ll see what I can do. Will you need Kyelfra, or Missura? I think they
make perfect assistants."

"How would you know? But, yes, they do. I think Kyelfra. Missura could
benefit more from the experience, but that would be an unacceptable risk. I
don’t need Velarix, thank Eris. Besides, I need to administer the rites of
my goddess, too. I can only do so much at one time."

"Just don’t have any fun at the expense of any prisoners while we are at
Sicily, okay? I would just hate having to explain it to Agamemnon and
company." And I would hate even more having to kill you because you did it,
because I will if you do. You are valuable, but you aren’t absolutely
indispensable. But that went unsaid.

"So tell me," Walker said, "should we leave Ekhnonpa or Keruwthena in charge
while we’re gone?"

"Ekhnonpa. Keruwthena has more skill in this task, but they don’t listen to
her. They listen to Ekhnonpa."

"You aren’t just saying that, are you?"

"Will, Will, Will, You of all people ought to know it. Hell, Ekhnonpa is
their exiled queen. Keruwthena is just a concubine captured from the
Tattuanna."

She was right, of course. Well, tomorrow they would shove off for Sicily,
beginning a string of victories that would hopefully unite all of Greece,
and eventually the bulk of the civilized world.

Hopefully.

Chapter 13

May, 4 AE

"There they are," said McAndrews. He was looking through the binoculars at
a ridge.

"Lemme see," retorted Walker, taking the binoculars.

There they were. About five thousand or so spearmen, swordsmen, and
slingers. Maybe more or less; it was difficult to tell from the ledging
there. Hmm, he thought, seven to two odds. Given the relative armament, it
was a perfect way to blood his army.

They seemed to have spotted him. That was somewhat worrying. This was
difficult terrain. If he tried to take the fight to them, they would have
the upper hand. Muskets didn’t shoot straight up that well. He wouldn’t
have enough room to unlimber his cannons either.

He needn’t have worried. The warriors were slowly climbing down the
mountain toward his army.

"Okay, folks, listen up. McAndrews, Rodriguez, order your men to form
squares and load their weapons. Mason, unlimber the guns. First load is
ball, second is grape, third is case. Use your imagination after that, but
mix it up.

Alright, let’s move, people."

* * *

Lanaxis of Arcadia had originally been a farmer. He was neither rich, nor
influential, nor well born. When word came from his new lord that he was
seeking new warriors and that he only wanted common born recruits, he
immediately added his thumbprint to the list. For a while, he regretted it,
as his lord and his handfast men had him running all over the place,
carrying clubs and singing stupid songs, spearing sand bags and fumbling to
shoot his musket.

Suddenly, he heard Mekandrus, his lord’s officer in charge of them, and a
Nubian, shout those magic words: "Load in nine times." Almost on instinct,
his musket left his shoulder where it had been slung.

At "Handle Cartridge," Lanaxis pulled a rag paper tube off the sash he wore
over his chain mail armor. At "load" he pulled the tab, tearing the tube.
He poured the black evil smelling powder into the iron tube of his musket,
followed by the lead ball. Then came "draw ramrod," where he pulled out the
iron rod that normally held the sword when it was attached. At "Ram," he
pushed the rod down hard into the tube, as ordered. Next was "replace
ramrod," followed by "Prime." He thumbed back the hammer of his weapon, and
in an economical maneuver drew his priming powder flask from its place in
his sash, thumbed the spout causing a pre-measured amount to enter the pan,
and replaced it where it came from. The last three orders came in quick
succession. "Ready, Aim, Fire." There was a click, then a loud pop as his
comrades’ and his guns shot their bullets. Then he had to repeat it.

After the third shot, he heard the order, "prepare to take a charge." There
was a rasping sound as swords were drawn. These were either fixed to the
musket or shifted to the sword hand, as the soldier preferred. Lanaxis
fixed his to his musket. He would rather block a blow, than simply parry
it.

* * *

May, 4 AE

Gabaela of Potidaea was reading a book in her room. It was called "The Cat
in the Hat." While the drawing was better than most of the art she had
seen, the poetry itself was, well, inane. She could have found more
meaningful poetry among the Kentauri.

In all fairness, she had no real reason to complain to the gods. True, she
was a stranger, and the island she was on was itself strange, but the people
here were no better or worse than any in Potidaea, except that they didn’t
worship the gods. Well, most of them didn’t. Those that didn’t, instead
worshiped some god who was one, yet three. It made her head hurt, and
sounded as absurd to her as the Egyptian idea that the world was supported
on the back of a giant cow.

There was a knock at the door. Now who could that be, she wondered. She
got up and went over to the door and opened it. There, dressed in a blue
shirt and blue pants and wearing those strange native sandals was that woman
who lived with the headwoman of the iron ship. She had an air of authority
about her. Not the type that made Gabaela want to jump if she pointed at
her and said "rabbit," but instead the type that if you asked her a
question, she would give the true answer.

"Hello, may I come in?" she asked Gabaela.

"Yes."

"Thank you. You must be Gabaela. Ian told me about you. Oh, I’m being
rude. I’m Swindapa of the Star Blood line of Kurlelo, Daughter of Dhinwarn,
wife of Marion Alston, and co-mother of Lucy and Heather Alston-Kurlelo."

"My, that’s quite a mouthful of an introduction. I guess I should match it.
My father was named Heroidos, after the queen of the gods, Hera. My mother
was named Hestia, after the goddess of orchards, springtime, and motherly
love." Gabaela’s eyes drooped.

"I take it they’re dead?" Swindapa asked. Gabaela tossed her head yes in
reply.

"They were killed by Xena, when she destroyed Potidaea, my town."

"Well, let me tell you a story. Once, there was this beautiful princess.
She had a strong but gentle lover. Then one day, he was crippled in such a
way that he couldn’t walk, or do anything else to help his people,
especially the princess. He eventually gave up the will to live and died.
Furious with what happened to him, the princess ordered an attack on the
savages who maimed her love, which she led herself. She was captured,
beaten, raped and forced to serve the savages in the dirtiest ways possible.
Then, by accident, or the will
of the gods, she found herself in the hands of a great warrior, who not only
taught the princess how to fight, but taught her that life was more than
fighting. Eventually she confronted the savages again, and killed the
particular savage who raped her. But as she was about to order them all
exterminated, the warrior and the warrior’s ruler stepped in and made her
see that if she did that, she would be no better than the savages, and
probably worse."

Gabaela sat down, contemplating what Swindapa had said. Then she remembered
how the bulk of the largest group of foreigners always treated her with such
respect.

"You were the princess!" She said, pointing an accusing finger at Swindapa.

"Yes, indeed I was. But you are missing the point. If you dwell on revenge
to the exclusion of everything else, it could destroy you. It nearly did
me."

"I see. Say," Gabaela said, changing the subject, "I think I’ve just
dreamed up another song, in my people’s language, of course. Do you have
a, uh… harp? Lyre?"

"No, but I can have one made."

"Really? I didn’t think you were so rich."

"I’m not. It’s just that some people owe me a few favors. That’s all."

* * *

May, 4 AE

"Okay, that’s the last of them." Said Jack Mason.

"Good work." Said Walker. It was a good campaign, long enough to blood the
troops, short enough not to kill them all.

It was also a rich campaign. Sicily had sulfur deposits, iron deposits,
even nickel and chromium. That, combined with the saltpeter from the future
sight of Dubrovnik, made the place a very rich find.

"Say, Jack, how’d you like to run this place?"

"Really sir? I’d love to. But why me?"

"You’re hard working, self motivated. You have a working knowledge of mines
and mining. You know how to give and take orders. Ohotolarix just isn’t
cut out for administration, but you know that. I don’t trust Rodriguez or
McAndrews, not here. (And don’t you dare repeat that where they or their
friends might hear.) I need Cuddy with me. And finally, Sicily is too far
from where the political action is. So do we have a deal?"

"Sir, I’d be a damned fool not to accept, and you can quote me on that."
Mason replied.

And if you can survive the assassination attempts your position generates,
you would be amply qualified to succeed me in case young Hwalkarz turns out
to be a congenital idiot. Walker was starting to learn that the phrase
"Loyal to a Fault" was not necessarily an oxymoron. Not that Mason wasn’t
bright, far from it.

Ohotolarix came up as he was turning around. He had a piece of rag paper in
his hand for Walker.

"Wehaxphotis," he said, "Alauza sends this." Handing the sheet to Walker.

It was the butcher’s bill. Fifty-two casualties, thirteen dead and
thirty-nine wounded. Considering the odds they were up against, and the
fact that he had rushed their training, that wasn’t half bad. Also, there
were requisitions for more rubbing alcohol, gauze, and scalpels. Walker
sighed. He would approve the first two items, but scalpels where too
expensive, yet. He prayed to any god that would listen that she wasn’t
abusing her position, in any way.

He began mentally rehearsing his debriefings to Agamemnon, hoping that he
didn’t sound like a liar.

* * *

"So, He’s taken Sicily, has he?" Xena asked as she lounged in her throne.

"Yes, Xena. I do suggest that we hold off on your first assault idea.
Within two years, he will have control of the sea. By all the gods, how did
he get control of such marvelous ships?"

"That, Nikomachos, is for me to worry about. I hope Agamemnon realizes that
he is Wakaros’ puppet and cuts the strings quickly. He’d be a more powerful
king, but less formidable on the battlefield. Tell me about those recruits
who tried to pick up a few drachmas."

"They are spies. They don’t know who they work for, only that the man who
hired them had an accent they had never heard before. Then again, it’s not
like they are any of them widely traveled."

Which meant that they could have been in the pay of Pharaoh or king
Zakerbaal of Sidon, and not know it. More likely, they were employed by
someone who had a reason to spy on her. That meant either Agamemnon, well
Wakaros really, or Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. She would have to be very
careful in how she rooted out spies.

"That was good of you. There will be one thousand minas waiting for you at
your tent."

As Xena watched Nichomachos leave she decided to summon Darfus. She needed
to talk to him.

Chapter 14

June, 4 AE

"So you wish me to make your handfast man Mason the Gwaesillios of Sicily?"
Agamemnon King of Men asked as he sprinkled the jeweled goblet of wine with
water. It was a made from grapes that originally came from Wakaros’
homeland crossed with local grapes. Wakaros barbaricly took his without
water. It was an excellent vintage, and Wakaros said it tasted better than
the old grapes of either land. A little bland for Agamemnon’s taste,
though.

"Yes, my king. He is strong, able, and loyal. He has no greater ambition
than to be the greatest warrior he can possibly be. He desires not power,
wealth, influence at court, or even glory. He lives only to harry the foe."

"I see. He reminds me of a warrior in my retinue. I suppose, though, that
Achilles is rather younger and much less mature. Very well, I shall will it
so. Now I wish to talk you about Menalaus. My brother in Sparta is acting
most rudely. It is not simply that he treats me with an unbrotherly
coldness, but he is so churlish he doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that
you rescued his wife Helen from Paris of Troy. This is not good."

"You could call a meeting of the Alliance members to get them to pressure
Menalaus."

"No, my chief friend. The Alliance is for mutual defense. It is impossible
to use the Alliance in the way you mean."

"Maybe we could reroute the road through Pylos."

That could be done. There had been no negotiations for one of those strange
charcoal black roadways Wakaros had created. It would also make a fine ally
out of Nestorios. Pylos wasn’t that big a port, not like Megara, or Argos,
or Tyrins or Athens. Though it only had three hundred people inside its
walls and could claim twenty times much in borders Agamemnon and Menalaus
would both recognize, the city barely fed itself in grains and fish! The
soils were thin and rocky. Well, they were thin and rocky everywhere in
Greece outside of Thessaly, but there, the problem was acute. Another thing
was that the area of the southwestern Peloponnese didn’t have rivers, it had
waddis. There wasn’t any other way to describe them. During the Spring and
Fall, they overflowed from rain, only to disappear in the summer. The
phenomenon occurred throughout Greece, but only in that area was it that
bad. Everywhere else, there was at least a trickle during the offseason.

It would also tweak Menalaus’ nose a little, but not Sparta’s. True,
Nestorios had been about the only king who did not send troops to Troy (even
Odekweos of Ithaca had sent some, and himself. Wakaros befriended him there
and escorted him back to Ithaca himself.) but neither Nestorios nor his
predecessors had ever challenged the ancient border with Sparta.

"That is a wonderful idea, my chief friend. Is there anything else you’d
like to ask about?"

"Well, one thing or two. I have an idea for new games for Dionysios. I
propose a few events I used to compete in in my homeland. We would try to
ride unbroken horses, the more ambitious of us rode without a saddle, but
only a knot tied to the shoulder of the horse. We also rode bulls, and even
wild aurochs. We also wrestled steers and even saw who could tie up a calf
or a lamb the fastest."

"These sound like worthy deeds for a capable athlete. Please tell me more."

* * *

June, 4 AE

"You have honored your end of the bargain, Martnz, now I will honor mine."

"Thank you. I hope you got that guy, Estragon’s his name,’s newest sword."
John Martins said as he drank the water. She may be as much of a bitch in
her own way as Hong, but Xena always kept her word. Like now.

"The one he showed me last week, Sure I did." It was a reproduction of the
16th century katzbalger, though with a two handed hilt no landsknecht ever
considered asking for.

"Well then its time to be off." She said, and motioned toward the wagon. It
was a reproduction of a nineteenth century stagecoach that had been built
with Martins’ input. It looked a little cruder than the ones he had seen at
the Blacksmith Championship held that year in Crossfire, California. The
brass door handles were instead a crude bronze, and they were deadbolts
rather than door knobs. There were no hinges, rather the doors pivoted on a
post. There were also more nails in the structure than Martins remembered.

It was also heavier than the stagecoaches at Crossfire, requiring eight
horses. It had a hundred-fifty pound general-purpose anvil that Martins had
poured himself. That, and one of every type of smithing tool. Well, there
were no hardies, but then Martins had brought no hardies with him, and
preferred the chisel and sate anyway.

"Like, I hope I never see you again." He said as he got in the coach.
Barbara and Ragunath were already tucked in. The driver climbed onto the
front stage and saluted Xena. She returned the salute. The driver whipped
the reins up and down. There was a crack, and the coach was off.

Xena watched as it drove off northward. It would be taking him to a cabin
she had ordered built in what would have been known as Yugoslavia. It
probably wouldn’t be called that now. For one thing, all the proto-Slavs
were living on the upper Don, Dniester, and Volga rivers. She had had that
cabin constructed long before she even heard of him, as a possible retreat.

Now, she needed to win.

* * *

July, 4 AE

"So, how are you doing on the project?" Marion Alston-Kurlelo asked. She
was talking to Ron Leaton as the two were walking to the area of the shop
that housed the project in question. All around them there were the shouts
of foremen to their workers, the gvv sound of screws being torqued by
machine tools, the high-pitched whine of metal cutting metal, and the faint
tapping sound of sparks dropping. All in all, it was a typical mid-summer
day at Seahaven Engineering.

"Well that depends. I’ve got a working prototype, but that’s not what you
are asking me." Leaton said as they rounded the final bend. Alston shook
her head.

"We need something that can go straight to production." She answered him.
"I was afraid of that. Here it is." He said as he pulled the tarp off of
the "project."

Marion stared. It was beautiful, in an abstract sort of way. At first
glance, it looked like a normal cannon. But if you looked closely, you
would notice little things. Little things like the hole near the breach
going in a diagonal angle up and to the left. Little things like the
massive length of metal with a projection on its right, like an incredible
door bolt. It was on a carriage that was braced with the hydraulic shock
absorbers of a big rig stranded on the Island during the Event.

"And it can fire once every eight seconds?"

"Yes, with practice."

"But?"

"Well two things. As you see, we had to build this thing out of bronze.
That’s because we don’t have enough steel of the right qualities to build
even one right now. The iron ore we’re using is piss poor. It’ll be
another fifty years before we can refine it to an acceptable quality. There
are ores that’ll work, but they’re in Alabama, the Great Lakes, and Sweden.
I take it from your face you aren’t going to those places just yet. Can’t
says I blame you. That’s not to mention finding the necessary nickel,
vanadium, and all the other metals that go into producing a piece like this,
or even smelting and refining them."

"And the other thing?" Alston asked, bracing herself as if for a storm.

"The brass. We don’t have enough for the small arms. How in God’s name
are we going to have enough for something like this?" Leaton answered.

"What about the primers?"

"That’s the one bright spot. While trying to mix for percussion caps results
in something really cruddy, making primers for the ammo for this baby
results in a halfway decent burn. I suppose that the ingredients must be
easier at this scale."

"Thank you, and sorry for this complete waste of time."

* * *

"Well Captain, looks like you were a little too ambitious." Marion
Alston-Kurlelo said as she read the shakedown cruise report. "Any
explanations or excuses?"

"No, Commodore. One minute she was handling beautifully for her size, the
next minute she was taking on water like a giant whale." Captain Victor
Ortiz Replied.

Alston smiled tightly. "I think I know what the problem is. The keelson is
too long to be made of wood. It can’t take the strain."

"So when can we fix this?" Ortiz asked. He suspected he knew the answer.

"Not unless fiberglass becomes a damn sight cheaper to make. That, or a
whole load of no sulfur iron mines pop up that we don’t know about. Cheer
up. You said it yourself. ‘She handled like a dream.’ Think of this as a
learning experience. At least all of the crew made it to the lifeboats."

Captain Ortiz just sighed, turned around and hung his head.

* * *

July, 4 AE
"Tell me, how are things doing with the people here in Thesally?" Xena
asked Nikomachos as she performed her daily sword routine. Right now she
was in an overhead chop into a diagonal upward slash into a thrust.

"Well, there have been a few who were abusing your bounties, but not many.
The fields are cleared, plowed, and most importantly, fertilized. No new
spies to report, but that only means that they might be hiding better."

"Indeed. Well, are the provisions for resupply in order?"

"Not yet, I am afraid to say." Xena wasn’t the type to kill the messenger,
but she still wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to bear bad tidings to.
"They are still being organized. These things take time. You can’t just
snap your fingers and expect it to appear."

"Careful," she said in a conversational tone. Nikomachos blanched. Xena
was in a ready position and poised to take his head of. She could, too,
what with her new sword and all.

"Now-now X-x-ena. You know it’s t-true." Nikomachos stuttered. He had his
hands out in front of him, palms up, in a supplicating gesture.

"You still tell the truth, not just tell me what I want to hear. But you
tell it nervously, which means you understand your place. Very good." Xena
said, as she sheathed her sword.

For once, Nikomachos fainted and peed on himself, but not because of binge
drinking. She personally picked him up and dragged him over to the well.

As she was doing so, a though crossed her mind. Why not pay a diplomatic
visit to her eldest half brother. She could do it, if she took enough
bodyguards, say, five, and a spare taster or three. Besides, she wanted to
see this Wakaros for herself, and Alauza too.

Chapter 15

August, 4 AE

"So, How do you like things now?" Walker asked Alice Hong as they were
riding through his domain. The Conestoga they were on could handle good
roads and bad remarkably well, thanks to the four-wheel independent
suspensions Cuddy had dreamed up. Nor was that the only thing that was new
around the countryside. There were new buildings going up, which resembled
the architecture of the Old West more than Heroic Greece, or even Classical
Greece or Rome. This was not surprising. Walker himself hailed from the
Bitterroot Country of Montana, a cattle area that combined the dryness of
West Texas with the cold of Alberta, Canada. Before signing on at Danbury,
he had competed in junior rodeos in places like Wolf City Wyoming, Muskogee,
Oklahoma, and Las Vegas, New Mexico.

There were iron smeltries, copper smeltries, zinc smeltries, nickel
smeltries, iron smithies, bronze and brass casteries, and even a
Siemens-Martin style steel converter. Also present were wineries,
breweries, bakeries, tanneries, gristmills, a distillery that was under
Walker's direct supervision cranking out corn whiskey and corn syrup rum,
and a mint. The latter was a special surprise to Agamemnon. Before it,
monetary units consisted of standard strips of gold and silver tape which
were broken off at the perforations. There was no way, short of melting it
down, of finding out if the metal was cut with some filler and what it was
cut with. The words "Drachma," "Mina," and "Talent" were standard weights
for a given purity, sort of like the original penny (which weighed a
standard pennyweight) or the first pound sterling.

"I think it's much better, especially now that you've installed those flush
toilets. It could be better, though. I want more Verbena, and you keep
stalling on the wood alcohol still." Verbena was used as an oral
contraceptive. As a morning after pill, it had a fifteen percent chance of
failure, but it was also a diuretic in heavy doses. By Walker's decree,
there was a two-acre spread of the stuff. They were learning, though, that
it was a very temperamental plant. It also was a very low yielding plant,
for the safe parts. The unsafe parts also worked, but had such nasty side
effects as internal hemorrhaging, violent mood swings, and even
hallucinations.

"I could only afford to do two acres. We also have those cotton plants to
worry about." Walker had acquired seedlings of them, along with tomatoes
from his friend Isketerol. The first year, they would be saved for their
seeds. Besides, there were other things to worry about. The rolling mill
was soon to come on line. Then he would have iron goods out his ears.

"I know, but still. Couldn't you also get some rubber seeds, too?" Alice
said as she adjusted the bust of her dress. They were the new vestements of
the priestcraft of Eris. She had designed them herself. They looked pretty
good on her, not like the "Leisure Suit" of vinyl and leather she wore
during her "Private Devotions" and "Confessions."

"Where are we going to grow it? Italy maybe? It's not like we already have
that empire." Walker was wondering whether she was taking her fun too
seriously. He shook his head. Since she took over here, there had been
only one instance of the runs among the people of Walker's charge. And
Harushurix of the Krathanna teuatha had deserved it, calling Walker a coward
in front of everybody when Walker himself had carried him off the
battlefield at Sicily! No deaths in childbirth at Arcadia either, except
for that one, and that was breach. "Listen, why don't you make a list, and
I can give it to the next outbound trader to Tartessos." He said.

"Sure," Alice replied, missing the sarcasm. "Well, there's my stop. See
you later." As Walker reined in the team, Alice gathered her dress and
stood up. She climbed down from the wagon and strode into a temple that
looked like a Gothic cathedral. Well, mostly Gothic; the walls were
whitewashed, the stained glass windows were of a more abstract design than
any walker had seen on any cathedral Walker had seen, there were no stone
gargoyles, and it was rather smaller than what one would consider a
cathedral. Walker had never been inside the temple, and really didn't care
to take a tour.

* * *

When Walker got back to the Megaron Hall, a messenger from Agamemnon was
waiting for him. Ptolmey was a pretty good herald, knowing six languages
and several dialects of each. The message was as follows.

"All of my Vassals and Chief Friends are to come to me to welcome a guest
from a far away place twelve days from now. They are to be dressed in their
best clothes, and must conduct themselves in the best manner possible. They
will treat the guest in the best manner possible, and no one shall break
protocol and insult the guest."

It must be Xena, thought Walker. The word "guest" was rendered in its
grammatically form. This was good. It afforded an opportunity to see what
she looked like up front.

* * *

September, 4 AE

"Let me introduce Xena, Oinarch of Thrace, Despotina of Chalcidice,
Despotina of the Isle of Thassos, and Wanaxa of Thessaly." Said Estragon as
the woman in question moved into the doorway. Walker made a silent whistle
as she came into view.

She was dressed like a real queen. There was a crown on her head that
looked like a gold mortarboard, though without any tassel. She wore an
Egyptian linen bodice with gold thread sewn in, dyed in a gorgeous pattern
of red and aqua-blue. Her skirt was black wool, from what seemed to be
merino sheep, adorned with what appeared to be pieces turquoise, lapis
lazuli, and red ochre. On Xena's wrists were bronze bracelets suggestive of
big cats swallowing their respective tails. Then, there were the sword
strapped over her back, the dagger at her side, and the blister steel rimmed
discus at her other side. That last weapon must have been given to her only
recently. The only things missing from the picture were shoes worthy of a
queen, (she wore only disappointing plain sandals) and painted fingernails.

As impressive as the clothes was the woman who wore them. She was short,
being only two inches taller than Alice Hong. True, she'd never win the
Mrs. Universe pageant; the scars on her cheeks and bare midriff belly and
the missing eyetooth would insure that. But she was quite stunning. That
stomach was a washboard Kiana of "Kiana's Flex Appeal" would envy, Xena's
calves were better than Madonna's on her best day, and her arms would put
any female guest of any show of Billy Blanks' to shame. Her raven black
hair was done up in three braids that were tied by cord. She wore no
makeup, but with her eyes, she didn't need them. She was walking somewhat
awkwardly, which was no surprise. She probably preferred walking in pants.
Walker sympathized with her.

She smiled.

"My brother is more than generous." She said in a husky contralto. The
voice struck a cord deep in Walker, and he suspected, most of the male
population in Agamemnon's chamber.

Agamemnon was not charmed. "How do you call me brother." The word they
used was phrater, cognate to Latin frater and English brother. Translated
literally, it meant "member of the clan within the same generation, sharing
a parent." It was not quite as intimate as Adwelpheos or "sharing the same
womb." Still, between Greek rulers, words of relationship were only used in
their strictest, most literal sense. To do otherwise could be construed as
a pretension to the throne of the other.

"By the father we share. Truly you remember how Atrius fled from the wrath
of his father King Pelops, only to return several years later, to save your
life and drive the usurper Thyestes into exile. Where do you think he went,
all these years? Mount Olympus, maybe? No, it was to a small fishing
village. There he met and married a woman named Cyrene, my mother.
Together, they made four beautiful children; me and my three brothers. Then
he abandoned me, my brothers, and my mother. It was only by chance that I
learned my true heritage."

"You slander my father, who stood by my mother Aetope even as she committed
adultery with the usurper Thyestes!" Agamemnon shouted. Suddenly all of
Agamemnon's men were at attention, weapons drawn. Even Walker and his men.
Xena's bodyguards likewise drew theirs. It looked like a Mexican standoff.
"If you say the word, blood will run in this room. Many lands will be
without rulers." She said. "Why don't we discuss this matter in private.
If you catch me in a lie, you can have me executed. If not, you can
recognize me then and the meeting can start again from then."

They went into a secluded room. Roughly five minutes passed, and Agamemnon
came out, visibly shaken.

* * *

The dinner was quite delicious. It consisted of generous helpings of rack
of lamb, goat chops, several steak cuts, kotopitas, spanikopitas, shrimp in
ouzo and sour cream, and some unnamed casserole featuring eggplant and
potatoes. This feast was washed down with wine from Agamemnon's private
reserve (about as good as Boone's Farm or Marco Petrie or Sodder Mills) and
beer from Walker's. (a novelty. Apparently lager yeast hadn't been
developed yet.)

During that time, Xena and Walker made eyes at each other, constantly. It
reminded McAndrews of something out of 9 1/2 Weeks.

Apparently, these people didn't believe in dessert. After an instrumental
on a recorder, everybody retired to their respective rooms for a good
night's rest.

* * *

Xena went to her room, secure in the knowledge that she'd accomplished the
first part of her plan. For a while, she considered Wakaros' invitation.
She decided she would sleep on it.

Wakaros was incredibly handsome. His face was completely unmarred except
for the scar running from his temple, across his cheek, and disappearing
into that eyepatch. He had the chest muscles, neck muscles, and biceps of a
god! He wore a two-handed sword at his side about only slightly longer than
her own. His hands were calloused from sword work, but as capable of fine
manipulation as hard grasping. Xena learned this from his ability to use
those unnatural eating tools.

She decided that the next night, she would accept. She was a Thracian,
after all. Thrace was the sort of area where there just wasn't much to do
for fun except drink and have sex. And given the acute shortage of
birth-herbs (a shortage she had ordered rectified) it was mostly drink. By
the time she was thirteen, she was drinking her mother's patrons at the inn
under the table. She had remained a virgin until after the fall of
Amphipolis. Either that, or she had had a much tougher hymen than she
remembered.

* * *

Walker snuggled in with Ekhnonpa. He loved his wife. The thing he most
loved about her was that she wasn't jealous and said so. He hoped that Xena
accepted his challenge.

He had been raised on a two hundred acre spread in rural Montana. His first
experience with alcohol had been at his grandpa's knee. He had never had
more than one heavy night a month. He had seen his dad, grandpa, and
several uncles destroy themselves in slow motion in response to the
conspiracy of Uncle Sam, the climate, and disease that destroyed that ranch
bit by bit.

Then he realized how childish the game was. If he won, he would quite
possibly wind up with her as his enemy forever. Anger may cloud the
judgement, but long time hate focuses it like nothing else. Walker of all
people knew that. If he lost, the Sun People in his retinue, at least,
wouldn't look at him in quite the same way again.

Still, he had challenged.

Walker snuffed out the alcohol lamp.

Chapter 16

September, 4 AE

"Hear, Hear, I now call this meeting of the Executive Council of the
Republic of Nantucket to order." Said Chief Executive Jared Cofflin,
rapping his gavel.

The sound of general murmur trailed off into silence. Everybody looked at
Cofflin, expectantly.

"First item on the agenda." Cofflin said, "We need to expand the drunk
tank. There have been far too many arrests among the Sun People for D&D
than we have space to keep them, even for their standards..."

"...I know that paganism has been going out of style since the Lisketter
incident, but this is ridiculous." Interjected Joseph Starbuck, Councilor
of Finances, trying to be funny.

"You know what I mean," said Cofflin, not in the least amused. "But anyway,
we need more space to hold them."

"Do we really need to build more jail space? It seems wrong, somehow. I
don't think we should intrude on other people's private lives. The
government's big enough as it is." Asked Sam Macy. Macy was a libertarian
type. Laissez Faire and all of that.

"I don't know about you, Sam, but I don't like when people lose control of
them selves when they get toasted. I'm a father, and I don't want to send a
message to my little Marion saying that it's okay to drink yourself into a
stupor. Besides, the Sun People are especially mean when they're drunks.
We have three assaults with a deadly weapon, an assault with intent, and
five vagrancies down at the docks on Richard's docket." Stephen Richard was
the temporary criminal court judge. Or referee, given how seriously
Nantucketers were taking juries and jury duty these days.

"Okay, okay, I get your point, but I don't have to like this. Do you know
any place we can use?" Asked Sam Macy, switching the subject. Macy was the
Councilor of Building Supply. He was also head of a lumber operation on
shore that supplied a great deal of the Island's timber needs.

"As a matter of fact, we do. There's this mansion down on Ocean View Drive,
not quite to Brand Farms. I was going to have the place torn down until I
received the news that we needed more jail space."

"Does it need much work?" Macy asked.

"Other than new doors and door frames, none whatsoever. The foundation is
concrete and incredibly sound."

Everybody nodded. Ron Leaton, Councilor of Manufacturing stood up. "I move
that we vote to send this to the Town Meeting." He said.

Marion Alston, Councilor of Defense, also rose. "I second the motion." She
said.

Cofflin rapped his gavel twice. "All those in favor stand up. All those
against stand up. Motion passes. Next Item: We need to deal with Walker.
Ms. Alston has kindly offered us two possibilities. Ms. Alston." He said,
gesturing to the Councilor of Defense.

Alston stood up again. "The first possibility is that we round the Cape of
Good Hope and sail up into the Persian Gulf, make allies with Babylonia, and
use their manpower to fight Walker. We could then use the alliance to
create trade zones we could capitalize on.

"There are a few problems with this arrangement. First of all, this is the
longer of the two routes, and while we are on the trip, the island will be
ripe for a Tartessian attack. Secondly, we don't know as much about the
language as we would hope. We have just one Babylonian date merchant for a
teacher, and his lessons to Ian and Doreen are going rather slow. I don't
want to permanently alienate them before we deal with Walker. Third and
most importantly, Babylonia's population is about two orders of magnitude
higher than Greece's, and they are a damn sight better organized. Anybody
who can cast a statue can cast cannon. They may only have oil in abundance
in their core area, but they can easily get at the cedar of the Levant and
the Iranian Highlands, and the iron ore in the Zagros Mountains.

"The other possibility is that we sail into the Baltic, and paddle up the
Vistula and Bug rivers, then transfer to the Dnieper and Dneister rivers,
building bases and securing alliances with the locals along the way. There
are fewer potential recruits, but that's as much blessing as curse, since
they could never be a threat to us. This plan also has the advantage of
being both shorter in supply, with no need to give Isketerol any big
temptation, and more unexpected to Walker. If that plan is chosen and if it
goes forward without a hitch, we could catch him with his pants down."

"How fast could you start work on either of them?" Asked Martha Cofflin,
Councilor of Education.

"That depends. We could start work on the second plan right now, pending
approval from the Council and Town Meeting, of course. It would simply take
about seven or so years to properly build up a proper staging area. This
assumes, of course, that there are no special unforeseen problems and Walker
doesn't catch wind of this or have a bee in his ear to go exploring Crimea.

"The first plan will require a few more years of studying Akkadian and
assembling a 'Grade A' diplomatic team. Maybe five or six more years are
needed. Ian could say more. Ian?"

Ian Arnstein, one half of Nantucket's Diplomatic Corps, stood up. "We've
gotten past the 'Me Tarzan, You Jane' stage. We can discuss the weather in
a passable accent, I think. I don't know for sure; Shamesh-Nasir-Kuddru has
a bad habit of telling us what we want to hear rather that what we need to
hear. The big problem will be assembling items for a truly royal embassy.
We will need jewelry, cosmetics, perfume, luxury foods, possibly even exotic
animals."

"Well, you're going to have a moa, at least." Said Angelica Brand of Brand
Farms, Councilor of Agriculture. They took about four years to reach sexual
maturity.

"I see problems with both courses of action." Said Macy. "The first
requires us to hand our trust to a group of people who definitely do not
share our ideas of good government and good religion. The second requires
us to divert countless resources to an eventual invasion that could be
better used building the Republic up."

"No plan is perfect." Retorted Alston, starting to lose her patience.
"Listen, the only thing worse than screwing this up is diddling around while
Walker consolidates his position and builds his empire."

"What if Xena comes out on top?" Asked Ron Leaton.

"Walker is dangerous. Xena is potentially only marginally less so." Alston
Replied.

"So we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't?" Macy asked.

"Look's like it." Arnstein said. "I move that we put this item to a vote."

"And I second it." Followed Joseph Starbuck.

"I see." Said Jared Cofflin. "Well, which course of action shall we send
to the Town Meeting? All those in favor of plan 1: Mission to Mesopotamia,
say 'one.'"

There was a chorus of 'one.'

"All those in favor of plan two: the Baltic Route, say 'two.'"

There was a louder chorus of 'two.'

"All those in favor of neither, say 'nay.'"

There was a pregnant pause.

"Well, looks like we send proposal two to the Town Meeting. Next item up:
Do we uproot the parking meters for their metal?"

* * *

September, 4 AE

"...And so I decided that I would rather be a conqueror of nations than
second-in-command of some ship, even a ship as grand as the Eagle. So me,
Isketerol, and all of my men went down to the harbor and hijacked a likely
vessel." Walker said as he tossed down another shot of white lightning.

Xena was listening to Walker confide his thoughts and past to her. She
hoped she remembered all this stuff in the morning. Well, most of it.
While it was fascinating that he came from more than three thousand years in
the future, the idea that that future would ultimately remember her only in
low comedy dramas was not very comforting.

That was nothing compared to the information she was learning from this man.
He was indeed the sort of scoundrel she had suspected. He didn't mutiny
against his people because they had abandoned him the way Athens abandoned
Amphipolis, but because he was simply bored.

"...But I've talked too much about myself already. I really want to know
about you." Walker said.

Taking a long pull of her ouzo, which she preferred to Wakaros’ rather bland
lightning spirit, Xena began concentrating on what she wanted to say.

"Once, long ago," she slurred, "there was this beautiful woman, named
Cyrene." Xena pronounced it K r-ee-NAY. "She was an innkeeper. She was as
good an innkeeper as anybody could be without offending Hera and Dameter.
Then, one day, a man came into town. He was handsome and dashing,"
Literally, "athletic." "And he claimed not to have any wife or anyone else
anywhere else. He was named Atrius. When, Cyrene met him, he ingratiated
himself to her. They fell in love, and married.

They had four children. The oldest was Toris, who grew to become strong,
and became the champion wrestler in his age group. Then came a headstrong
daughter, named Xena, a child of prophecy, according to her mother. Next
was Lyceus, the scholar of the family, who knew all the laws and their
ultimate origins. Last but not least, was Euklestes, the performer of the
group..."

She continued her story for quite a while, always referring to herself in
the third person. Xena mentioned several moments. There was the time when
she killed a maddened bull by punching it in the nose. She related her
participation in the Rites of Artemis with Melilla, and the loss of her
virginity to Maphaias. The sack of Amphipolis she related in iron tones,
while the conception of Solan and her decision to place him with the
Northern Kentauri was delivered almost sobbingly with tears streaming down
her eyes. She even spoke of her near impalement by the king of Babylon.

"That's pretty good." Said Walker. He rose up and kissed Xena. She
grabbed he back of his head by his hair, but didn't yank him back.

* * *

Xena woke the next day with a splitting headache. She smelled herself. She
caught odors of liquor, animal musk, incense, the fishy scent of vaginal
secretions, and the sweet, slightly rich and ripe odor of cum. Hers, and
some man's. Wakros', she thought.

She could still feel a pleasant ache in her crotch, belly, and on her
nipples. She got up. Yes, she was in her bed, thank Eros for small
miracles. Like the miracle of life. The one feeling she wasn't
experiencing, but should have was nausea. The only other time she had not
had nausea with her hangover was that heady night with Borias. That wasn't
a good sign.

She reached into a leather package and poured a measured amount into her
cup. Then she filled it with water from the pitcher. One of her tasters
had already drank form that pitcher and the cup, which had been washed
afterward. Xena brought the cup to her lips.

And pulled it away, a snarl of anger curling on her lips. Some jackal had
substituted dried parsley for her birth-herb. When she found the bastard,
she would personally gut him. Or her.

Well, there was no real guarantee she had conceived, but she would know for
certain if she found herself feeling unnaturally giddy and carefree in a few
days, or if she started missing her Moon Bleeding.