Athenais’ attention leaped back from her memories to her present predicament. The storm continued to spew its wrath and fury upon the fleet that slowly and doggedly continued to make its way West. Due in large part to her near constant seasickness, Athenais had not been bothered over much by anyone. She had been secured to the deck so that she could not dive into the sea and end her life, a precaution the Greeks had instituted after another one of their newly captured female slaves had done just that, but otherwise she was not encumbered in anyway. In those brief interludes when both the waves and thunder paused enough to allow sounds upon and below the deck to be heard, she had heard weeping, cursing, and screaming from some of the enslaved Trojan women and derisive male laughter from the Greek sailors. It seemed that those in charge of this vessel had allowed the sailors to ease the suffering and fear caused by the storm with the captive Trojans. Strangely, Athenais had not even been approached by any of the Greeks nor had anyone, Greek or Trojan, remarked upon this fact. Since she had been to busy offering up what little sustenance she had been given to Poseidon on an almost constant basis, she had not taken the time to think about that fact until just that moment. As she began to work it out in her head, she began to realize that perhaps Athena had not abandoned her after all. As soon as that thought came to her she curled into a ball under the thread bare blanket she had been given by the her captives and fell into an exhausted sleep. The last thing that she was before falling under the complete dominion of Sleep was a pair of warm grey eyes that seemed to be filled with love gazing at her.
When Athenais awoke, rested and refreshed as she had not been in far too long, it was to see the sun shinning brightly in a cloudless sky. The winds had changed to a gentle and steady gust out of the east and the sounds of the sail flapping it and the constant dipping of the oars appeared to be what had awakened her from slumber. She kept hunched down in her blanket though and kept her eyes mostly lidded and tried to hear what was going on around her before it was discovered that she was awake. From the snatches of conversation around her, it appeared that the storm had finally broken shortly after midnight of the previous evening. When Apollo had mounted the sky with chariot of the sun, it was discovered that the fleet of Menelaus had lost five of its ten remaining ships and was nearly to the northern most tip of the Peloponnese. From there it was but two more days sail and then two days riding after that to reach Menelaus’ city of Sparta. She also learned that those captives, such as her, who had not already been apportioned amongst Menelaus and his men or lost at sea, would be put up for selection to be chosen from amongst those men who had guarded the city in Menelaus’ absence. It seemed that her ultimate fate would be decided within the next week. She only hoped that whatever thread the Fates had woven for her would be short and she could quickly join Agathon in the Elysian Fields.
I know that this is probably much shorter than anyone anticipated, but I had trouble figuring a way to get Athenais across the Agean without spending a huge amount of time or space on it. Once she reaches Sparta, the pace should pick up a bit. Any suggestions for getting Agathon there as well?
YOU ARE READING
Quest of a Goddess
Historical FictionA surviving warrior of Troy must take up the charge of a regretful goddess and save the one person neither he nor the goddess can exist without.
