Hirodias sat alone with Glausus in a small enclosed yard behind the Chieftain’s yurt to break their fast. They were surrounded by a wall of bamboo and several pots where miniature versions of trees were propped up on stands of varying levels. Though there were people moving about beyond the bamboo, none of the sounds entered this small yard.

“I bring forest in my home,” Glausus said, scooping a bit a mashed steamed yam with his finger and slipping it into his mouth. His face was clean from the white paint from the day before, revealing aged eyes along with his weathered face. “Quiet here, yes?”

“I am no stranger to quiet,” Hirodias said, looking at the yam on a banana leaf in front of him. “I have spent many days in a hole in the ground, with no light nor sound but for the noise of the water I drink, or…the sound of my own chewing of boiled potatoes.”

“Bad memories, I understand,” Glausus nodded, taking Hirodias’ yam away. He turned toward the door of his yurt and called. “Afaireste afto!”

His daughter Velias entered the yard and took the mashed yams away.

“Ferte skatharia,” Glausus said as she turned back toward the yurt.

Velias dipped her finger in the mash and stuck it in her mouth as she walked away.

Glausus took a sip of the tea before him. “Iosifus say slave you are. Bad for everyone. Everyone hurts.”

“The Yghr slavers did not hurt,” Hirodias said. “I was used as a toy for years. They had many purposes for me. When I was old enough, they turned me to violence. I did not know who I was until an elder saw my mark. It was then when they took turns telling me about my past, about my family. I would break bone by day, and listen to stories by a different elder every night. They helped me plot my escape, but I could not even save them from the Yghrs.”

“You remember Arkromenyon?” Glausus asked, setting his tea down.

“I remember almost nothing about the forest or the city,” Hirodias answered. “My remembrance is more about certain feelings, not places.”

“Your father Herodotis had, how you say, sofia, about forest,” Glausus said. “He knew forest deep.”

“Sofia. I do not know this word.”

Glausus rubbed his fingers together. “Knowledge. Ah, know what to do. Done before. Sofia.”

“Wisdom,” Hirodias said.

“Wisdom!” Glausus slammed his hand on the table. “My Eastern tongue is not good. Not like Hirodias, son of Heroditis.”

“I would trade all the prose of the Eastern tongue for a handful of words of my native language.”

“For six moons, Eastern man stay here, with me, and I learned words,” Glausus patted himself on the chest. “I learn fast. For six moons, you stay with me, and you learn fast too.”

“I am not certain we will be staying here for six months,” he replied.

Glausus nodded. “Land is big. So much to see. You must learn forest. This land, very holy, very holy to us.”

Velias returned with a bowl fashioned from a coconut shell and set it before Hirodias. “Psito skatharia,” she said.

Hirodias looked into the bowl and picked up the brown chips. He tossed them around in his palm. “Roasted beetles,” he said. He had tried it only once, when an elder slave had caught enough to roast. The elder had offered him a few during an evening storytelling session, after he had just finished a boxing match. He tossed the handful into his mouth. It was mild, and tasted like nuts.

Glausus stopped Velias by grabbing her elbow before she could leave. “Velias can show you forest.”

“Patera, eimai apascholimenos,” she said.

“Kori, apascholimeni mazi tou,” Glausus replied. He turned to Hirodias. “Velias show you village.”

Hirodias emptied the rest of the beetles in his palm and scooped it all into his mouth. When he was done chewing, he stood up and bowed his head to Glausus before turning to Velias. “Good morning to you. I follow your lead.”

Velias entered the yurt without acknowledging him and continued into the courtyard of the village. It was still early morning but the village had been awake for hours. For Glausus’ folk, the day began at dawn for everyone.

Velias wore a simple white tunic with a long leading tail that she wrapped around her torso and tucked into a small leather band around her waist. Secured behind her waist band was a sheathed dagger, the carved hilt poking out from her lower back. Her arms were bare but for the black bracers on each wrist. She wore green-dyed leggings with leather stitching down the side of each leg. While the women in the village wore sandals, Velias had knee high boots.

They walked past several men and women in an outdoor cooking area. There were three fires; two of them had cauldrons of simmering water filled with peeled yams. The other was a smaller fire, with several strips of dried meats hovered over red embers. On a thatched table, slices of mango, currants, and other fruits Hirodias did not recognize were laid out against the sun to dry.

He picked up a pale brown seed that looked like a nut.

“Min to fas,” she said.

“Min to fas,” he repeated. He popped it in his mouth and immediately regretted it. It was the most bitter thing he had tasted, and he spat it out. “I do not like this min to fas.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Velias stepped on his dark spittle and ground it into the dirt. “Min to fas means do not eat it. The shade-seed is for boiling into a bitter tea.”

“You speak the Eastern tongue,” he said, spitting more of the bitterness from his mouth.

“Of course, yes,” she said. “I learned with my father. I picked up more words. The Eastern man who lived with us for six months taught my father. I was his guide for over a year. Come.”

They continued to what Velias called the Still House, where there were several tall clay vats of clear, fermented drink. She sipped a bit of the strong liquor from a small coconut shell, then offered it to him. He drank it in one gulp without making a face.

“I can tell this is not a safe place for you to stay,” she said. “You will finish all of our drink.”

He heard some laughter around a fenced area and walked toward the sound. When he turned the corner, he saw three women washing clothes. Two were squatting over tubs of water, scrubbing cloth against ridged boards of wood while the other wrung the water back into the tub and hung the clothing on a line. One of the women’s top hung loose down past one arm, exposing her bosom while she did the wash.

Hirodias turned away from the sight.

“Something is wrong?” Velias asked.

Hirodias kept walking. “Bad memories.”

Velias looked at the laundry women and then caught up to Hirodias. “You were bothered. You’ve seen a woman’s body before, yes?”

“You are nonsensical,” he snapped. “Half the slaves in Isimil were forced to be naked.”

“Have you been with a woman?”

Hirodias stopped and hung his head. “You are far too forward, girl.”

“Apologies,” she said. She looked back toward the camps and started walking toward where his people were staying. “I’ll take you back to the others.”

“I have been with women. I have been with men.”

Velias stopped and waited for him to join her.

“For years my body did not belong to me,” he said, his head still hanging, looking at his bare hands. “As a slave, your body is used for work, for pleasure, for violence. There are no choices. You cannot even choose death, for such choices result in the death of those close to you. And so the slavers keep their control, and you stay silent, and they defile you until there is no part left of you that is not dirty. You become soil for others to till.”

“I am sorry.”

“It was not until I became a boxer in their fighting pits did they begin to relent. They needed me to have the energy for them to win the matches for their wagers. But they never truly stopped coming to me at the dead of night, for work, for pleasure, for violence. Even now the stench never goes away. It is the smell of me. This is who I have become.”

She walked to face him and saw his eyes were red. “I want to show you something. Come with me.”

They walked through the village and entered the forest. He followed closely as they barely spoke. The life of a slave had many things of which he could not speak with outsiders, and he knew that similar stories could be shared by Palimedis, Symian, and even Andreus if he were still alive. Every boxer in the pits had a body that was not theirs.

She led him through a path set with smooth stones as steep steps. Together they climbed and walked past several people who greeted her. Soon they arrived at stream and they followed it until they came to a pool that was fed by a waterfall. There was a person swimming in the pool who waved but then continued swimming.

“We have reached the Three Sacred Pools,” she said. “The Pools are why our village is settled here. This is Nero Zois, or Pool of Long Life. Many bathe here to find health and healing, but there is nothing for us here. Let us continue.”

He followed as she hiked up a trail to come upon a smaller pool that fed the pool below. “This is Nero Agapoun, or the Pool of Love. One cannot have a healthy life unless that life is one of love. Nero Agapoun feeds the waters below without fail.”

“You have brought me here, to teach me some lesson about love,” he said, crossing his arms. The pool had another waterfall at its far end.

“No, there is no love for you here,” she said. “Come, let us continue.”

The trail became more difficult as it required scaling a sheer stone wall. When they reached to top, they came to the third pool, a soft waterfall trickling from rocks above.

“This is Nero Synchoresi, the Pool of Forgiveness. Forgiveness is the water that feeds all. There is no love without forgiveness, and here is where one finds it. Here is where the stench of the past can be washed away.”

“You’ve brought me to a Pool of Foolishness, girl,” he said, turning away. From here he could see the tops of many trees. He didn’t realize how high they had climbed. He turned back to Velias, who had been undressing.

She slipped off the last bits of her clothes and set them on a flat black stone at the edge of the pool. “Enter the pool with me.”

“No.”

“You are already here. You have come this far. You have spent your life fighting everything, can you open your arms for once and receive?”

Her body was bronze and lean, much more curved and muscular than her clothes offered to reveal. On her back by her right shoulder was a marking of an animal.

“It is a bear,” she said, noticing that he was looking at it. “Have you seen a bear before?”

He shook his head.

“These waters cannot rise to meet you. You must come to it.” She dove into the water.

Hirodias shook his head again, this time ridding himself of the thoughts of the past. He took off his clothes and set them beside hers. He stood beside the water, his toes by the pool as he towered above her in his naked form.

The water wet his toes. Velias had splashed him.

“I lied,” she said. “You are already wet. Now you have to come in.”

He stepped into the pool, and it felt like walking into rain. He was waist deep when he neared Velias, who was submerged to her shoulders. Her long black hair was wet and hung to her back.

“Come closer,” she said.

The sun glinted off her hair as she told him to come even closer. Drops of water hung on her lashes, and her dark eyes were as clear as a waking dream. He felt his body rise as he was now beside her.

“This is close enough,” she said. “Bring your face to mine.”

He lowered his face until his mouth was near hers. He looked at her teeth, at her wet lips. He could feel her breath.

She cupped her hand and filled it with water, then ran the water on the top of his head. “These waters forgive you.”

Hirodias was taken aback. He didn’t understand.

She ran more water on top of his head, wetting his long hair and beard. “Nero Synchoresi forgives you.”

The words stung his eyes and nose. He felt like getting out of the pool.

She ran more water, streaming down his forehead and cheeks. “Gaia forgives you.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

She brushed the wet hair from his brow. “Everyone has forgiven you. It is now your turn to forgive yourself.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head again. He tried to protest, but the words got caught in his throat.

She put her palm against his cheek. “Forgive yourself. It is time. Let it all wash away.”

The years of pain, of anguish, of being alone—they were all at once choking him and he let it all come out through tears and crying. No one was there to hear, though it felt as if everyone was there to hear.

He cried over the death he had seen, over the loss he had suffered. He cried over every time he had been violated, over every person who fought against being violated and was killed when he could do nothing. He cried for all the times he felt helpless. He cried for every person he had left behind. He cried for being denied a family.

When his crying slowed, he saw that Velias was already out of the pool. She had been sitting sideways from him, listening to his crying, still naked as she looked out toward the warm sun.