BRUTUS DIPPED THE PADDLE GENTLY INTO THE WATER, guiding the boat toward the small beach. His eyes were fixed on the island, his body rigid, and he ignored the evermore frantic bleating of the goat.
As the bottom of the boat scraped the sandy bottom of the small bay, Brutus climbed out, careful not to splash his clean waistcloth. He grabbed the rope in the stem of the boat and tugged it closer to the beach, grunting as he eventually hauled it above the high tide mark in the sand.
Once he’d secured the boat, Brutus glanced one last time at the forest of black-hulled ships standing out to sea, then turned and studied the landscape beyond the beach.
The sand rose gently some twenty-five paces toward some rocky ground sparsely foliated with gray-green spiky-leaved shrubs that after another thirty paces, gave way to a dark forest of pine.
Even through the thickness of the trees Brutus could see that the ground rose steeply toward the island’s central peak he’d seen from the ship.
He’d have a climb ahead of him.
It didn’t matter.
Brutus carefully lifted the struggling goat from the boat, untied its legs, and set it on its feet, keeping tight hold of the rope attached to its halter. Then he leaned back into the boat, took the flask of wine and the bag of herbs, and carefully slung them over a shoulder.
Once he was set, Brutus gave a tug on the goat’s rope, and led it up the beach toward the forest.
G £ w £,————
THEY CUMBED UPWARD FOR WHAT FELT LIKE HOURS but which, Brutus realized from the occasional glimpses he could see of the sun through the pines, was probably not much longer than the morning. The going was steep, but not otherwise difficult. No vegetation grew beneath the pines, and the forest floor was soft and thick with millennia of discarded pine needles. Apart from the occasional movements of birds overhead, there was little evidence of life- No smoke from village fires, no soft whistles from wandering shepherds, no sound of domesticated animals, not even any sound of the wildlife he might have expected in the forest—squirrels, foxes, hares. This was a forest of the gods.
In the hour before noon Brutus led the goat into an almost perfectly circular sunlit glade close to the summit of the peak. Here gray, weather-worn rock had pushed its way through the ground, creating a smooth hard surface covered in part by irregular patches of soft, emerald-green moss. The rock sloped gently toward the center of the clearing where stood an altar pedestal made of the same gray, weather-pitted rock. Before it a shallow basin had been smoothed out of the rock.
To one side of the glade Brutus could hear the soft murmur of a natural spring.
He drew in a deep breath, then he tied the goat to a tree at the edge of the glade, carefully placed the bag of herbs and flask of wine to one side, and walked about the edge of the clearing to reach the spring under the trees of its far side.
He crouched down by the small pool of clear water and carefully washed his face and hands,
murmuring a prayer as he did so.
Then he walked back to where the goat stood waiting, very still, its ears pricked and its dark eyes following Brutus’ every movement. Brutus picked up the bag and flask, untied the goat, then led it toward the depression before the altar.
There, placing the bag and flask again to one side, Brutus quickly and cleanly slit the goat’s throat, angling its neck so that the blood flowed into the depression.
The goat collapsed, kicking, and Brutus held it tight until its struggles ceased and its eyes glazed in death, then he arranged its corpse so that its blood would continue to dribble into the depression, and walked back into the woods.
There he spent some time collecting fallen pieces of wood and handfuls of pine needles and cones, returning every so often to pile them beside the goat’s carcass. Once he had a good-sized pile of fuel, Brutus set about building a fire before the depression filled with congealing blood.
2G When he had laid the fire to his satisfaction, Brutus said a word, and flame sprang to life within the depths of the stack.
Soon a fire roared.
As it burned itself down into coals, Brutus butchered the goat, taking great care not to mark or to stain with blood its beautiful white pelt. Once he had freed the skin entirely from the carcass, he spread it pelt-side up to one side of the blood-filled depression, then went back to butchering the goat.
Once the meat lay neatly in joints, Brutus took his bag and, again murmuring prayers, rubbed the meat with herbs and oil from a small flask kept in with the herbs.
Then, very carefully, he spitted the joints, and laid them across the coals of the fire.
As they cooked, Brutus sat back on his haunches, waiting silently, his gaze never leaving the meat.
Finally, as the sun dropped from its noon position toward the western edge of the glade, Brutus lifted the cooked meat from the fire, and laid it before the depression of blood.
Then he took the flask of wine, unstoppered it, and sprinkled both meat and blood with a small portion of its contents.
‘Goddess of the woods!” he cried, standing now, and holding out the flask of wine as offering in one hand while with the other he gestured toward the meat and blood. “Goddess of the hunt! Thou who art privileged to range over the celestial and infernal mansions, come to me, accept these my poor offerings.
Speak to me, I pray, and say to me in what land I will build new Troy. Blessed Artemis, accept my homage. I am your man, and all I have and command is yours.”
He finished, and stood motionless, arms still outstretched, head thrown back slightly, eyes closed, waiting.
The wind rippled about him, lifting the flap of his waistcloth and pulling at his long black hair caught in its thong at the nape of his neck.
He waited, confident both in himself and in her.
‘Brutus,” she said, and his mouth twitched in a smile. He did not otherwise move, and did not open his eyes.
‘Brutus.” He could feel her now, moving about him, inspecting the offerings he had made, judging the quality not only of the meat and blood and wine he had brought her, but of the man who stood before her.
‘This is a fine goat,” she said eventually, “and you have slaughtered it well and with honor.”
He opened his eyes.
Artemis stood slightly to the side of the altar, looking at the blood-filled O depression, the meat, and the white pelt that lay beyond it. Her hunting garb was gone, and she had gowned herself in an ankle-length ivory linen robe, cinched at her waist with a twisted piece of wild silk the color of the sky at dawn. Her deep auburn hair, worn coiled atop the crown of her head on her previous visit, was now loose over her shoulders and back in a mass of shining curls and waves, Her face was pale, and very still, and when she raised her dark blue eyes to Brutus his breath caught in his throat.
He had never seen a woman so beautiful, so desirable, and so untouchable.
‘Will you drink of the wine I have brought you?” Brutus said. “It is of grapes grown in virgin soil, and trod with the unstained feet of virgin boys.”
‘I thank you,” she said, and took from him the flask. She raised it to her lips, and drank of it deeply, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand when she was done.
‘It is good,” she said, and handed the flask back to Brutus.
He too drank, his eyes never leaving hers, and when he’d done, and had wiped away the red stain from his own mouth, she smiled, her teeth startlingly white against her crimson lips.
‘We shall eat of the meat you have prepared,” she said, and gestured to Brutus that he should sit beside her on the white pelt that, despite Brutus’ careful cleaning, still stank of recent death.
She picked up a haunch of meat, took from it a small bite, her eyes steady on Brutus, then offered it to him.
He bit into it, his eyes likewise on hers, and when he handed it back to her, he laughed.
‘And this meat is good also,” he said. “As it should be, since I dragged that beast protesting all the way from the beach to this mountain glade.”
She smiled, and lay the meat aside. She drank deeply of the flask once more, handing it to Brutus so he could also wash the meat from his mouth, then took it once more from his hands and laid it aside also.
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