He hit the brown water and started flailing before anyone else reacted. Captain Horem leapt over the rail, yelling orders to his crew.
“Get that fool out of the water before the crocodiles make a meal of him!”
Heavy ropes were dropped into the water, the sailor was hauled out. When he knelt, sputtering on the dock, Horem turned disbelieving eyes on the Greek warrior. Geb and the Amazons were staring at Xena, too stunned to move. Only Gabrielle recovered, running to the hero’s side.
“Xena! What in the world is going on?” She asked, in a forceful whisper.
Her lover looked at her, brows climbing into her black hair. She shook her head once, then passed a hand across her eyes. “I-”
“You! Greek! What in Ptah’s name are you doing tossing my crewman into the water?” Horem demanded, fury in every line of his lean body.
“He insulted Gabrielle. He was lucky to get away with only a dunking.” She heard herself say, a tremor of anger rippling in her voice.
It brought Horem up short, the barely restrained rage that met his own surprised anger. The Greek looked ready to pull steel and gut him, for confronting her. Geb the Nubian stepped in, laying a hand on the Captain’s arm.
“I’m certain that this was an act of regrettable necessity. I’m sure that I can explain the particular bond between my companions, if you would indulge me. Perhaps a skin of good Harrian red wine, such as I might possess, and the privacy of your cabin?” Geb gently steered the Egyptian away from the Greek warrior, talking all the while.
“Well. Remember that this crew is mine to discipline.” Horem said, his hands rising in a gesture of warding.
The black haired woman with the uncanny eyes just glared at him, until he turned away, muttering a curse against all moody foreigners.
“Excellent. I will accompany you, as soon as my party is peacefully settled on board.” Geb said, giving Horem a slight push back toward the barge.
Geb turned, conscious of all the curious eyes watching their every move. Egyptian hands had strayed to belt knives, Amazons hands forcefully gripped their spears, ready to explode into action to defend the Greek hero. He ignored the blue balefire stare of the warrior, and shot a hard look at Gabrielle.
“Get her on board, and don’t let her talk to anyone but you.”
Geb stalked away on rolling legs, bristling as fiercely as he ever did as a chieftain of raiders. The sailors of Horem’s crew gave a wide berth to the Amazons already on board, and skirted even the Greek’s shadow when Gabrielle took Xena’s hand and led her on board. The warrior went silently, brows lowered over eyes dark and conflicted with unspoken thoughts.
Captain Musu arraigned her Amazons in a half circle on the deck, and gave them their ease. They sat or crouched near the rail, watching with fascination as the Egyptian sailors pushed the barge away from the dock with long poles, and maneuvered toward the current.
Gabrielle led Xena to the bow where the deck of the barge rose in a graceful curve. The warrior sat, unresisting, when Gabrielle pointed to a pile of cloth. Gabrielle sat at her side, watching the crewmen flinch away from the brooding hero’s eyes. People hadn’t reacted to Xena with this level of fear in years, since she started to change her reputation as a conqueror in Greece.
"You want to tell me what’s going on?" She asked, rubbing her hands on her thighs.
Xena’s dark head turned slowly, as if the air was very thick. "He insulted you." She said, as if this explained everything.
"Xena, you threw him in the river."
"I didn’t kill him." Xena said, sullenly.
"One minute I’m leaning on you, the next you’re across the dock, tossing that poor man around like a sack of grain. I didn’t hear him say anything. I’m trying to understand what happened for you."
"He…said you were like a monkey. But the word has another meaning, and he gave it that meaning, too. He’s lucky I didn’t snap his neck." Xena’s voice dropped down into a growl.
Gabrielle drew in a sharp breath, then let it out soundlessly. Xena’s eyes were fixed on her hands, clenching as if the man’s neck were between them even now. The clenching and unclenching of those large hands sent a thrill of fear through Gabrielle. They moved as though they were independent of the warrior’s brain, instruments not of her will, but of any random violent impulse that flashed into her mind.
Normally, she would have thought nothing of reaching out and stopping the action of those hands by simply touching them. She moved to do so, and checked. It was a whim, but for the first time, Gabrielle wasn’t sure that a simple touch from her could cure the warrior’s deadly mood. Ashamed at the thought, Gabrielle lowered her hand onto Xena’s. The restless, crushing movement froze into a claw.
"Xena." The bard said, softly.
"I hope you are happy, great killer. You frightened ten years off the life of an Egyptian sailor, doubled our fee to transport us to Alexandria, and cost me my last skin of Harrian red, to mollify the Captain. What madness possessed you?" Geb stood in front of Xena, thumbs hooked into his broad leather belt.
"Geb, I don’t think this a good time take that tone-" Gabrielle began, but the dwarf ignored her.
"What, am I now to fear the barbarian? Come on, storyteller, I have known the Ghoul-"
The Nubian never finished the sentence. Xena was on her feet, looming over Geb.
"He insulted Gabrielle. I will not have anyone insult Gabrielle." She snarled down.
The dwarf kept his stance, unmoved by the towering warrior. "How do you know he insulted your woman? You don’t speak Egyptian. And I was standing close enough to hear him clearly speak the dialect of Upper Egypt." Geb said, reasonably.
Xena sat back down, mouth open. "But…I understood what he…"
Geb took one hand out of his belt and lay it on the warrior’s broad shoulder. "You are not yourself, hero. I have secured a cabin for you, go be with your woman. If any can talk sense into you, it is she."
The cabin was small, little more than a box with space to lay a sleeping pallet. Gabrielle thought with envy of the Amazons, who would sleep under the glory of the Egyptian night sky on the open deck. The cabin provided a moment of privacy, which was sorely needed right now. Geb was right, Xena wasn’t acting like herself.
The bard watched the warrior slump down with her back to the wall. She sat down opposite Xena, their knees touching. For a moment she let the silence rest, let the awareness overcome them both of what was happening. The warrior raised her head to look at her lover, blue eyes cool and distant under the weight of knowledge.
"Ghost sickness?" Gabrielle asked, softly, hating every word.
"I don’t speak Egyptian. I didn’t feel myself move. I felt a flash of anger, then I saw the sailor flying through the air. I don’t remember lifting him." Xena said, speaking with a small space between each word, as if translating them from a language vastly different from Greek.
"What can we do?" The bard asked. She wasn’t ready for Xena’s answer.
"Take my steel. I…don’t think I could let anyone else do it."
"Xena, no. I won’t." Gabrielle knew what it was costing the hero to say the words, no matter the calm surface she kept. When she had been arrested by the Amazons of Dahomey, she had been willing to fight five thousand spearwomen rather than surrender her steel. The sword and chakram were a part of her, as articulate as her limbs, as vital as her strength and courage. It would shred her inside to set them down. "We rely on you carrying your weapons. Our lives sometimes depend on it." Gabrielle argued.
" Next time, I might gut a man who leers at you before I can think about it. I don’t want to be standing in front of you covered in gore before I know what my limits are. I can’t be trusted." The softness of Xena’s tone irritated Gabrielle.
"You’re taking this too calmly!" She snapped.
The warrior’s eyes glittered feverishly for a moment in the shadowed cabin, then dulled. "I have to. Until I know what’s going on with me, I can’t get angry."
The bard reached out and touched her face. "I’m sorry." Tears came to her eyes, blurring the green. "What can I do?"
"Take them from me. I…can’t." Xena said, in the unnatural tone.
Gabrielle took the chakram from the belt hook first, and set it to her right. When she reached behind Xena to take the sword hilt, she saw the muscle in the warrior’s shoulder twitch as if she’d been branded. The hero sat like a statue cast in bronze, hands open on her thighs, fingers splayed out. She barely breathed while Gabrielle wrapped the weapons in a blanket.
Gabrielle returned to sit facing her lover. "Now what?"
"If I thought it would hold me, I’d have you chain me to an oar. But I think I could snap the oar and get away." Xena said, and tried to smile.
"You sound like you’re getting ready to remove yourself from the group." Gabrielle felt the thrill of fear run along her veins, settle into her stomach like a ball of iron.
"Right now, all I know is that I have no control. I’m less of a danger to anyone on this barge surrounded by Amazons. Musu is strong. She might be able to overpower me, with some help, if it came to that." Xena said.
"I don’t like you talking like this." Gabrielle said.
"I have to talk like this. If something happens, it’s my responsibility."
"So we plan on who gets to knock you out if you go mad?" Gabrielle asked, her voice rising. "Sorry. I can’t accept this."
The warrior leaned back against the wall, pressing her shoulders into the wood. "Gabrielle…listen to me. You need to think about finding another place to sleep."
The look of shock on the bard’s face stopped the warrior’s words. She took a deep breath, and tried again. "Just until this is over."
"No." Gabrielle didn't hesitate. She spat the word out, showing her contempt for the very thought.
"Gabrielle."
"No. If you were sick, or wounded, I’d never leave you. I’m not leaving now. How could you ask me to?" The look on Gabrielle’s face was heartbreaking. Xena felt her tight control start to crack, and feared it.
"If I were sick, I wouldn’t be a danger to you." She said, tightly. "If I did something to you, I wouldn’t live long enough to regret it. My ghost would be on the banks of the Styx, crying for you. Don’t you understand that?"
Captain Musu sat cross-legged on the deck in the circle of her Amazons, her spear across her corded thighs. Her sisters broke out dried meat and wayfarer’s bread, making a cold meal. There was no telling what Egyptians ate, and it was best not to take chances. The Amazons were aware of the sideways looks the sailors threw at them, the mingled curiosity and admiration at the appearance of these tall warrior women. Musu shrugged. The sailors were small compared with her sisters, most of them not reaching to the Amazon’s shoulder. The life on the river kept them fit, but there were lean as cats, all whipcord, not muscled like warriors. At best, she mused, they’d be tenacious in a close fight with the belt knives they all wore. At worst, they’d just get in the way. Musu accepted the strip of beef her lieutenant handed her and chewed it slowly.
The Greek hero and queen had disappeared into a cabin as soon as they’d come on board. Musu glanced toward the closed door, then let her eyes fall away. She could feel it in the air around the hero, something wasn’t right. Musu had seen the Greek toss the sailor in the water and completely approved. Any man who spoke ill of an Amazon queen deserved that much at least. But the hero seemed troubled by her actions, as did the Nubian dwarf, and the queen. Xena hadn’t killed the man, what was the trouble? She thought, but that wasn’t it. The hero wouldn’t have tossed the man had she been herself. She might have strolled lazily over to him and glared at him with her cold panther’s eyes, let her very silence menace him until he quailed.
One of her soldiers had had ghost sickness-three years ago, no, four. She’d been a good soldier, very focused. But after she lost her wife defending Dahomey from a border raid she grew withdrawn. All it took was a single dance, a plea to the orishas, and she’d met her fate on the road to the cemetery. It was like that with some, Musu thought. They can hear their own death coming for them, they call to it like a favorite hound. Xena had never struck her as such a one. True, Death walked at the Greek’s right hand, grinning it’s fleshless jaws, leaving footprints in the mortal dust. If you listened, you could hear the whine of the gates to the cemetery swing open when the Greek walked past. But it was the threat of death for others that she wore like a mantle, like a shroud, not her own. The cable that anchored her to life was a strong one, and well tested. So what ailed her?
The cabin door swung back, and a red eyed queen walked out, looking bruised. The hero ducked out the door after her, wearing only her leathers. The armor and weapons were gone. The queen walked to where the Nubian sat tossing dice with the first mate, and asked him something in a low voice. Musu’s ears pricked up, even though she couldn’t speak Greek. From the look of open mouthed shock on the Nubian’s face, it was something unusual. The Nubian shook his head, more in disbelief it seemed than negation. He spread wide his hands in acceptance or supplication, looking at the hero. Geb stood up from his dice game and brushed at his trousers. He looked toward the circle of Amazons, and strode across the deck.
Captain Musu stood, to show respect to the approaching Queen and her hero. The ambassador was still an unknown quantity for her. He spoke excellent Dahomey, knew the customs and manners of her people, had ever charmed Nzinga herself into making him a representative of the nation. Yet, he was no Amazon- he was a man, Nubian by birth, Egyptian by training, and a chieftain of desert raiders by choice. What was she, an Amazon others pointed to as the very model of honor, to make of this Nubian dwarf? Musu had the feeling that he was laughing up his sleeve at the world, his beautiful words somehow contained the serpent’s sting in them.
Musu was a warrior to the bone, a spearwoman of Dahomey, a Captain appointed by the hand of Nzinga. These things were her pride and definition, and she had always thought, the very sum of her self. Some warriors might style themselves as musicians, or dancers, or artisans, might brew excellent beer or bake bread that rivaled the delicacies of the City of Har. Musu was a warrior mind and heart, born to the spear, to the clash and clangor of battle, the stench of blood like a perfume in her nostrils. She had never troubled herself with philosophy, or religion- a strong right arm and a sharp spear, the heart of a lion, and a willingness to do anything for her nation were her hallmarks. Anything for the Amazons, and the Queen. Anything for Nzinga, whose sadness this past year had moved the stoic warrior to private tears.
The tenderness she felt for her Queen’s pain surprised Musu, so she didn’t much think on it. It was natural for every woman in Dahomey to feel this way about her Queen. Hadn’t Nzinga just lost her third wife, the handsome, laughing Mazena? It was natural for any loyal Amazon to have her heart ache with sympathy for her Queen’s pain.
Nzinga was only in her fourth decade, a woman in her prime, as beautiful, Musu thought, as the dawn, strong as a wildfire, wise and gentle- the mother of four fine daughters, all a credit to her house and nation.
Musu had trained with Enomwoyi, the eldest of Nzinga’s daughters, when they had both taken the spear. They were of an age, yet Enomwoyi had a wife and daughters of her own, while Musu had never married. It was said, when the brawny Captain was not in earshot, that Musu was too in love with war to ever marry. No woman might supplant the grip of the noble Captain on her spear. So it was said, and so it must be- for Musu took on any dangerous mission offered, always was at the fore in battle and the hunt, lived like a bachelor girl in a hut by herself, concerned only with her weapons and training.
Women had tried to catch the eye of the towering Captain, enticing her at a dance, bringing her gifts from the hunt, leaving meals on her doorstep. Some had shared the Captain’s sleeping mat for the night; a few had shared it for many. There was that dancer from the village near the Harrian border- Shalalo. She had captivated Musu for months, and there had been talk of cows being exchanged. Yet, Musu’s soldiers had woken one morning to find a glowering Captain barking orders to ready for a border patrol near Ethiopia, while it was rumored that Shalalo had chosen to go study dance among the Harlots in the temple of Har.
It was around this time, if anyone counted back carefully, that Captain Musu had turned her mind to wrestling. Whenever she was not on patrol, not training with her soldiers, she took to the practice ground to perfect her grappling.
There were sound reasons for this, as she told her warriors. In battle, you may become unarmed, your spear shaft may break, and you may cast it away, and be left only with your hands. It befit a warrior to know how to use her body as a weapon. The Amazons of Dahomey are as competitive as any nation, their young warriors full of the bursting pride of powerful thews and excellent training. When no war is threatening, it is best if a Queen finds a way to curb the virile energy of her young warriors, before they start trouble in the nation out of boredom. Periodic athletic contests are a staple of Amazon life.
Musu took to wrestling in her twentieth year. By her twenty-first, no woman in her squadron could match her. By her twenty-fifth, no woman in the surrounding villages could hold her down. By her thirtieth year, no Amazon in all the nation could best Musu in wrestling. The strength of her arms, the corded columns of her legs, the broad sweep of her back and shoulders were the envy of many fighters, and the object of much sighing and staring. If all this effort was indeed the result of Shalalo’s departure, more than one woman wished Shalalo well.
When Musu stood up on the deck of the Feather of Ma'at, an Egyptian sailor gasped at his oar, seeing the leonine height unfolded before him. This woman was a figure out of myth, a full six and a half feet tall, built with an excessive musculature that terrified the smaller Egyptians. She casually leaned her spear on her shoulder, drawing their eyes to the shelf of muscle that the hardwood shaft rested on, bulging under the smooth basalt skin.
The Egyptians of Upper Egypt were used to Nubians, with their deep red brown skin, Harrians with a bronze complexion so like their own, Ethiopians of a hue of the richest earth, often called the handsomest men in the world. The Amazons of Dahomey were a wonder to them, glossy and sleek as panthers, gorgeous and strong as lions, taller than any Egyptian man ever dared boast of being. And Captain Musu was the tallest Amazon ever seen outside of the borders of Dahomey.
Musu threw back her head, shaking out her braids. If she had ever married, her wife would array her braids with cowry shells, as a mark of favor. As yet, Musu wore her braids unadorned.
The Nubian dwarf turned ambassador paused in front of the Amazon Captain, and hooked his thumbs in his belt. The Greeks stood at his right side, the hero watching the Nubian, the Queen watching the hero. It was amazing to Musu, the love that Gabrielle showed in every glance, every gesture, when she was near her hero. These two were soul bound, how had they never been wed? She had heard a rumor that they hadn’t even been lovers until a few weeks ago, when they’d journeyed to the City of Har, and been seduced by atmosphere of the Goddess. Musu frankly disbelieved this as nonsense. Any fool could look at the Queen and the hero and see that they had been in love for years. Greeks couldn’t possibly be so backward as the story claimed. It was simply rumor, Musu decided, to make a good story- the hero and the Queen discovering their love in the midst of setting the Great King and her wife on the throne of Har. Any woman knew you couldn’t believe every story you were told.
Geb cleared his throat. The Amazon looked down at him, politely waiting for him to get around to speaking. He started, faltered, and then started again when the Greek hero poked him in the back.
"The Greek needs to ask something of you, and doesn’t have the words. It seems she is not quite herself, and there is a small matter of control that needs to be tested, you understand, and with the natural abilities of the person in question, well, it seems like a lot to ask, but she was sure that you might be the one. So to speak. "
Musu looked at the Greek hero, and saw that her sword and round killing thing were gone. That was odd, the Greek never removed them. When she’d been under arrest by the nation, she’d only agreed to hand over her steel to her lover. She deciphered what the ambassador was saying.
"You want me to stick my arm down a lion’s throat." Musu said, in her deep voice.
Geb smiled, sheepishly. "Well, not as such, but…look, noble Captain, no one else has a prayer in hell of even surviving this experiment the hero is convinced she needs."
Musu looked at the hero. There was a smoothness to the Greek woman’s countenance, as if she were removed from the conversation by a great distance.
"You want to fight me?" She asked Xena directly.
"Yes." Xena said, understanding the words, or the tone, or both.
"She wants you to beat her until she goes mad." Geb added, quickly.
"To see if I go mad." Xena said, in Dahomey.
"Ghost sickness." Musu said, softly. "You need a griot, maybe an exorcist, hero. Tell her I will do as she asks, ambassador. She is a friend of Nzinga’s, all the Amazons are at her call."
Geb repeated it, and Xena smiled.
"Where?" Musu asked, looking at the small space left on the deck.
"The barge anchors at a village tonight. There will be space there, out in the wasteland, where you may be undisturbed."
Musu nodded. "Then we will meet on the plains under the moon."