The Minoan Rhapsody

A Promise

Myrina, Surá and Scorilo were talking and drinking apricot juice at a table by a fruit juice maker's shop on Poliochne's main market. Hypsipyle was in Surs arms.

Surá scoffed as she saw three women approach them. "We can't enjoy a fresh cup of juice before someone approaches with gossip or complaints."

"They are my soldiers," Myrina said. "This is how we endure."

"Myrina, my Lady," one of the three women called as she sat with them.

Surá looked at her out of the corner of her eye. Who invited you?

"Do you remember Helice?" The woman asked.

"Yes, of course," Myrina answered.

"She died."

Surá raised her eyebrows, "How?"

"She got rid of her child like my Lady asked. She bled to death."

Myrina pressed her lips as she stared down her cup. She took a drink.

"I don't understand," Surá frowned.

"She was late in he gestation," Myrina explained. "She had maybe a moon cycle or two to go before giving birth-"

"Myrina told her to get rid of the child as punishment to her husband. Now she's dead," the woman interrupted.

Silence followed.

"Don't you have anything to say?" The woman asked, irritated by the lack of a response.

"Nobody made her," Surá snapped. "How many of us have died at the hands of our husbands?"

Myrina placed her hand on Surá's thigh. "What's done its done. No words can bring her back."

"That's it?" the woman asked. "Do you care? It seems you are no different than any of our husbands!"

"How dare you speak like that to our Lady?" Surá raised her voice making Hypsipyle cry.

Myrina took the child in her arms and rocked her. "What do you suggest?" she asked the three women who were looking at her in judgement. "Should we do nothing and condemn all of us to remain as we are?" She exposed a breast and started feeding the child. I am sorry for Helice. She was a good woman, but you didn't see her when she made her decision. She was as resolute as I am. You look like you need some time to think things over. Let me get you a drink."

Scorilo sneezed.

Myrina looked at him and raised an eyebrow. She sniffed rubbed her itchy nose. Her attention shifted across the street to a ruckus inside a kapeleia. "Go home," she told Surá as she handed her Hypsipyle. "Scorilo pay for the drinks. I'll meet you back at the house."

"What happened?" The woman asked.

"Godly matters," Scorilo answered as the faint smell of flowers lingered in the air.

Myrina left them behind, following the sweet scent to the kapeleia, which was packed. Men were laughing, drinking, some were singing. It was morning still, yet all behaved as if it were midnight on a festival.

Myrina wandered through the crowd, bumping shoulders with careless men who looked at her as an intruder. She made out the voice of Thoas who was speaking to an old man accompanied by a hooded boy. The smell got stronger as she got closer. It's him. The old man. I'll be with crows if he isn't a God of some kind. She made sure not to be seen by her husband.