Medea: Priestess, Princess, Witch by JJ Taylor EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: JJ Taylor
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.5 MB
- Price: Free
MEMORIES
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TODAY, AN OLD WOMAN REMEMBERING.
I’ve paid for my freedom in blood that drowns me in my dreams. I see it on
my hands as I walk through my days. I smell its fetid heat when I pass the
candles in the palace. And yet faces I saw so clearly as I ended their lives
are now vague impressions, and that is a blessing. The gods may not forget,
but we do, and I, with the bodies piled at my feet, can take some comfort in
it.
Granted, the days are less saturated with it than they were. As the lines
have appeared on my face, a map of waterways and roads I’ve both
willingly and unwillingly travelled, the blood guilt has diminished
somewhat.
I studied the oak and beech trees blanketing the hills around me, and
took in their varying greens, their size and solid presence. The Athenians
were wrong to strip the hills for their temples. Better to be here, in Egrisi,
flanked by lush trees and mountains rather than out in the open on a sterile
hill, wondering why the gods had forsaken them.
“You’ll catch cold, Medea.” Alkippe shuffled into the room and laid out
my clothes for the day.
I glanced at her, unwilling to look too long, for the old woman I saw
was not the young companion who had set out with me on my journey so
long ago. I too was moving closer to Hades’ hearth. Grey threaded through
her once raven hair and lines travelled her once smooth skin. Fear of seeing
the same kept me from the looking glass most days. “If the gods haven’t
taken me for what I’ve done, they’ll not take me because of a chill.”
“You of all people know better than to speak of the gods’ will.” Alkippe
made a sign against evil. “And what has you staring so?”
“I was thinking about our trips across the sea. How long they were! And
how different.”
Desma, my newest young servant, looked up from where she sat sewing
in the corner. “What made them so different? Surely it was the same sea
both times? Sea is sea, after all.”
Alkippe cuffed her. “Have you no more sense than to question your
betters? Learn your place, girl.”
Desma dropped her head and let her tears fall, though she had the sense
to cry without sound.
“They were different, though, weren’t they, Kip? We are not the women
we were.”
Alkippe made a grunting sound but didn’t reply. There was no need.
After so many years together, and so much horror, there was little need for
words.
Words were dangerous.
“Do stop crying. You’ll ruin that linen with your tears.” I snatched it
away from Desma and examined it. “You have a neat hand,” I said before I
handed it back and turned to Alkippe. “Where is my son this morning?”
Alkippe snorted. “Likely lazing with his pile of whores. He hadn’t been
to the hall yet when I was last there.”
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