Clarestes. Chapters 5 to 8.

Chapter 5 - “What in Gaia would I do here!? On this farm?”


Mera slept in Clarestes’ bed again that night and once more he slept on the common room’s floor. He woke just before sunrise the next day. He dressed and was getting ready to go outside when Mera opened the bedroom door. He noticed that the last of the dark circles about her eyes were gone, and her face shone radiant and beautiful.

He wished her good morning. She said, “Yeah, yeah,” and then she mumbled something that sounded like a greeting of sorts. She yawned and stretched her long, lithe arms as far as they would go. After that she scratched her armpit and her backside simultaneously as she groaned.

He laughed.

Mera looked at him and then she smiled a little, perhaps in embarrassment. She could not meet his eyes, so she looked aside. “I have never been good for anything in the morning,” she said.

Clarestes chuckled and he said, “I am going out to feed the pigs, milk the goats, and attend to the peacocks. Then the sheep and goats need to go out to pasture. This will take me some time. When I return I will make our morning’s meal.”

Mera said, “No need for me as I will not be here when you return. I wish to thank you for your hospitality and your food. I have nothing with which to repay you though, and for this I am sorry.”

“Your knowledge shared was payment enough and then some,” he said. “As was your company.”

Mera squinted her eyes at him and she asked, “Is that a joke?”

“No,” he said.

She laughed. He asked, “Why do you laugh at this?”

“Because no one has ever thanked me for my company before,” she said. She snapped her fingers and added, “Oh, yes. That reminds me. I am truly sorry that I tried to kill you as well.”

Clarestes laughed and laughed at this. Mera looked at him in confusion, but his laughing was so silly that she smiled and laughed a little herself.

As Clarestes wiped a tear away, he asked, “Where will you go?”

Mera did not know where she was going, and in the past she simply would have lied or told him sharply it was not his concern, but there was something about Clarestes’ question that made a lie or curtness...not called for. She surprised even herself when she simply said, “I do not know.”

He said, “You are welcome to stay here.”

Mera smiled and she said, “I thank you for the offer, but I think you extend this to me out of pity, or some misplaced sense of family bond.”

Clarestes said, “Those are not why I say you may stay.”

Mera looked at him and she asked, “Then why do you say I may stay?”

Clarestes thought for a moment and then he said, “Because, in part, I like your company.”

Mera froze at these words and she looked at Clarestes in disbelief. He was busy getting ready to go outside and so it took him a moment to realize she was staring at him. “What is it?” he asked when he finally noticed her looking at him.

“You are a very strange man,” she said.

Clarestes nodded his head and he said, “No argument here on that. And perhaps that is why I like your company.”

She asked, “What in Gaia would I do here?! On this farm?!”

“Well, you could do farm work, for one,” he said.

Mera laughed at this. “That is a joke, right?” she asked.

“No,” said Clarestes.

Mera said, “I know nothing of farm work. I know nothing of farms. My only knowledge of them is what I have seen in passing through them to get to somewhere else.”

“Well, then this will be something new for you,” said Clarestes.

This was an absurd notion to Mera and one that she could not even fathom. She actually, for a moment, tried to picture herself here on this farm toiling like a slave, but she could not even imagine that. So she laughed raucously. Clarestes did not find her laughing insulting, but he did not find it amusing either. He merely looked at her with a knowing, almost serene, expression on his face, as if this reaction of her’s was something he had seen before.

He said, “Listen, I will not lie to you. This place is a lot of work. What I offer you is not a soft or easy thing. You, I am guessing, are amused by me offering you the prospect of doing slave’s work. In Thrace, farm work is done by slaves. Here in Greece, it is mostly the same, and as you said, it is women’s work as well. Only in a few places here in Greece is farming done by free men. The ground upon which you stand is one of them. My father was no longer a slave but free when he came here. He was the fiercest and strongest man I’ve ever known. Yet he chose this, this woman’s slave work, as the work he wished to do. He chose it to all other things, for he knew what few men know, but what all slaves and women know, save you, being that farming is not undignified or easy work. Indeed, it is grueling work, and I think he loved it all the more for that. I too, like my father, am free. I too have respect, even fear of farming, as sometimes it requires just as much bravery as fighting. So in truth, I ask you if you wish to stay, not only to offer you a place to be, and not only because I like your company, but also as a way to get another pair of hands around here, because this place requires much hard work. These fields and the work here at times require just as much resolve, courage and strength as a battlefield.”

Mera was silent at this speech from Clarestes and when he was done, she laughed even harder than before. “You have to be kidding! None of that is true!” she exclaimed.

Clarestes looked at Mera with the closest thing to hardness she had seen from him. He said, “You have been brave on hard battlefields, no?”

Mera raised her head up proudly and she said, “Yes.”

Clarestes imitated her lip sputter and then he said, “Well so have I. But unlike you I’ve also been on this farm’s fields of hard toil. At times I fear these in equal, as they can be as brutal, and require just as much fortitude as fighting.”

Mera laughed at this nonsense as well. Clarestes said, “You laugh out of ignorance.”

Mera squinted at him as she was growing angry. She said, “Careful with your words, boy.”

Clarestes asked, “With what words?”

Mera said, “With your lie you just spoke. I am not ignorant, and farming is not as hard as battling.”

“Well, I suppose that we will have to agree to disagree on that for as I said, I have stood on both, and I know both can be very cruel,” he said.

Mera glared at him and she said, “You are fucking pissing me off with that bullshit.”

He replied, “Then I challenge you with my bullshit. Spend this day here in toil. At the end of the day if you do not feel and think as I do, that these farm’s fields can be as merciless as a battlefield, then I will admit to my lie, and I will take back all I said.”

Mera sputtered her lips and she said, “It will be a wasted day for me, but to hear you admit such from your stupid, boy’s mouth will be worth it, for I know I will not feel or think such.”

Clarestes smiled and he said, “Then the sport has begun, Mera. As so there will be no morning meal today, for that was to be for you as a pampered guest. We go now to attend to the needful animals. Then after, it is straight off to the long neglected fields.”



Chapter 6 - “Be thankful my tired defeat is stronger than my hate, for that is the only reason you have not been struck as yet.”

Twilight was falling by the time Clarestes and Mera returned to his house after their days’ labor. Mera was exhausted. After attending to the animals that morning, they had spent the rest of the day tilling the never ending fields that she came to realize this god forsaken farm possessed. At first her hands blistered from the hoe and then those blisters broke and bled. Her back screamed from the labor, and the day had turned into an oppressively hot one which she wilted under before its end - and although she tried to keep up with him and do all the work he did, she guessed Clarestes out worked her best effort.

She sat down upon her log at the table and inadvertently groaned a little as she did so.

Clarestes smiled when he heard her. He asked, “Did you say something?”

“Yes, I said you are a fucking ass,” she said.

Clarestes laughed, then he asked with mock innocence, “Who will make our evening’s meal now, you or me?”

Mera was livid and wanted to tell him to fuck off some more, but she knew not how to cook, and even if she did, she would not have the will to do so. Now she was very hungry, as they had not eaten at all that day. All the food Clarestes had made for her previously was so delicious. Indeed, it was the best she ever had. She craved some now very badly. So she swallowed her desired impulse to hurl another insult at him and she merely said, “I will let you do it.”

Clarestes laughed and began to cook the food while she sat morosely upon her log.

When finished, Clarestes put their plated meals in front of both of them (and Mera noted that hers had more as it was all but overflowing) and a jug of watery wine as well. He said a prayer to the gods and goddesses thanking them for the food, and he thanked them for Mera’s help this day as well.

She was so hungry. She took notice that Clarestes had yet again presented her with a freshly made, novel dish. It smelled so good. Nevertheless she stared sullenly at her food for time and she did not move. When Clarestes noticed this, he asked if she wanted something else to eat instead.

With her mouth clenched, she said bitterly, “You win.”

Clarestes looked at her and said, “Do I?”

Mera said, “Do not gloat, for it makes me want to strike you.”

Clarestes laughed and he said, “I am not gloating. You did much hard work today, I think more than I, and you did so without any complaint. I was thinking maybe I lost.”

Mera looked at him and she said, “My back is killing me and my hands are a bloody mess. I don’t think I could stand right now if I needed to, which is lucky for you as it is the only thing keeping me from pummeling you.”

“Well lucky for you, and for me, you need not stand any more this day. Sit and eat, the work is done today,” he said. His eyes squinted at the cloth srips she had wrapped around her hands and for the first time that day he noticed the blood coming through. He cringed as he saw this and he became ashamed of his inattentiveness and for his cruelty, for he had worked them both very hard that day. He stood and retrieved one of the bags that hung by ropes from a rafter. He brought it to the table and began to riffle through the bag’s contents.

Mera asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

He said to himself in relief, “Thank Hestia, here it is.” He pulled out a clay jar. To Mera he said, “This is a salve with herbs that is of my mother’s making. I know of no better to clean and heal wounds. It will also help with the pain. And these are washed dressings. Please, give me one of your hands,” he said as he came around the table and knelt before her.

Mera laughed at him and she said, “Are you serious? You can’t truly think you’re going to put those things on me!?”

“Yes,” said Clarestes. “Those hands need to be cared for and right now, as they should have been attended to hours ago.”

Mera said, “You are such a prissy, bossy, know-it-all and no, they don’t. But if they are cared for, it will be I, and not you, that does it. Your present closeness sickens me and makes me want to strike you, and be fearful for now I don’t have to stand to do so. You are lucky my tired defeat is stronger than my hate, for that is the only reason you have not been struck as yet.”

Clarestes did not balk at this and he said, “It will be easier for me to attend to them, and I wish to see the damage done. So I beg you...”

Mera pursed her lips and shook her head in disgust, and then she did something that perhaps she would have done for no other. As she swore and said some of the angriest and most insulting things to Clarestes that he had ever heard anyone say, she let one of her hands drop on the table before him.

“Don’t think I’m going to not eat while you doctor upon me,” she said. As Clarestes started to unwrap the cloth she had wrapped around her hand, Mera, with her other hand, angrily stabbed some of her food with her fork and shoved it in her mouth. She froze and she said, “Sweet Demeter, your food is so good. What the fuck do you put in it to make it taste so good?”

Clarestes smiled and he said, “More of my mother’s spices and herbs. Enjoy them while they last, for they are mixed in another jar and when they are gone, which will be soon, I will not be able to fully recreate her magic.”

By this time he was gently pulling the last layer of bloody stuck cloth from Mera’s hand (to which, he noted, she did not wince or complain as he did so) to finally reveal it. Her hand looked terrible and was even worse than he had feared. He hid his anger at himself, indeed he was furious with himself, as it was his pride and self-centeredness that did this to her. But he said nothing as he feared she might change her mind at any moment and pull her hand away. He began to put his mother’s salve upon her palm and fingers.

Mera froze as he did so. She thought the first layer of salve would sting to Hades (Amazonian ones always did), but it instantly brought delicious relief to her, and she was surprised at the effect Clarestes’ own touch was having on her. Normally she absolutely hated anyone touching her, but his strokes upon her hand shocked her as they felt so very good as well. She had never felt anything like this before. It warmed and flustered her, and she was also afraid of it.

Clarestes felt her freeze up. He asked, “Is this causing more pain?”

She was stone still for a moment. Then she said with what she hoped sounded like bored indifference, “No, it is fine.”

Clarestes nodded his head. As Mera put another forkful of food into her mouth and then picked at her food thoughtfully, Clarestes finished with the salve. Then he dressed her hand and tied it off. He did not even have to ask her for her other hand and she willingly plopped it in front of him. Again he smiled. He tended likewise to her other hand, and then he bandaged and tied that off as well.

He stood and rehung the bag from the rafter. He sat back down at the table and began to eat.

“Thank you for permitting me to do that,” he said.

“Whatever, you ass,” she said as she was returning to her old self.

Clarestes smiled. He could not resist and so he said, ““I mean nothing beats holding hands with a pretty girl, no?”

Mera leaned back on her log, closed her eyes, and she said, “Apparently you do have some Ares in you, as that is disgusting. I so, so, so wish to strike you.”

Clarestes laughed, but then his face became solemn. He said, “I am ashamed of what I did to you today. Like you, I wanted to win, and so it was my mean pride that did this to you. Today I did the wrong thing, and so today I won nothing but regret. Now I ask for your forgiveness, and tonight I will be asking the gods and goddesses for their forgiveness for that as well.”

Mera’s response surprised him, but also eased his conscience to a degree. She snorted and said, “You are such a fucking pussy. You think this hasn’t happened to me before? As a girl this happened to me many times. Practicing with shields, spears, swords, javelins, slings and bows, all day long. I too will be asking the gods for forgiveness tonight, for my weakness. I should not have even admitted my pain to you. You worry too much. You do not have to feel guilty about not noticing my hands before as I hid them from you, you dumb ass. Do you not see? You did nothing wrong this day. The only thing you did wrong was feel pity for me. You should not be feeling anything for me now, other than the utmost contempt.”

Clarestes brow furrowed deeply at this and he was shocked into silence at her words.

Mera said, “We Amazons are tougher than anyone. Well, they are anyway. Those women are harder than nails, they eat their fear, admit no weakness, and deny all pain. All of those were but a few of the ways I did not fit in among them. I am so glad to finally be out of there. So be at ease and do not worry so much. All this is not your fault.”

Clarestes did not agree with Mera’s judgment or reasoning in absolving him for his mean behavior that day, but he nodded his head to her nonetheless. They ate in silence for a time, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Clarestes picked the wine jug that was upon the table, brought it to where the other jugs were and swapped it out. As he returned he said, “I forgot about this.” He poured some of the new jug’s wine in her cup and then into his.

He said, “This wine is of both my parents’ hands. It is undiluted by water and stronger, and it has herbs in it that will help to ease your pain.” Mera drank some and it had a very sharp bite from the spirits, but was still tasty. And when Clarestes got up to attend to something, she, behind his back, quaffed all the wine in her cup hurriedly, quickly refilled her cup to the brim, then drank some more to lower its volume. She tried to look nonchalant, cool, and not guilty when he returned to the table.

“After we finish eating I need to bring the animals in from pasture and attend to them once more,” Clarestes said.

She said, “I will go as well.”

Clarestes leaned back on his log and he said, “You do not have to. Stay here and rest. You have worked all you should today.”

Mera said, “No, I will go and help as well. And I’m sure I will drag as I do so. Relish it, boy, as it will make your victory this day complete.”


Chapter 7 - “I wouldn’t stay here now if my life depended on it!”


Later by torchlight, Mera watched and helped Clarestes as he led his goats from one of their pastures and into their pen. The goat’s pen had a lean-to that provided them with relief from the elements. The lean-to was in bad repair as one side was damaged and slumped down to the ground. Nevertheless, all of the goats made their way to the compromised protection of it. The last to make it there was a mere baby and very small, and she limped a little as she did so.

Clarestes said, “There is something amiss with that kid’s hoof. Would you hold my torch for me, so I can see to her?”

Mera received and held both torches so that their light shone for his best viewing. Clarestes pulled the goat’s foot up and examined it. He worked his fingers carefully into her hoof. He said to Mera over the beast’s bleating, “There is a thorn that has become stuck between her toes. It is deep in there.” After a while he said, “There, it is out.”

Mera watched all this with interest. Clarestes rubbed the baby goat for a time. As he did so the goat calmed, then rested her head upon his shoulder. He laughed and patted her head. “They are very friendly,” he said to Mera as he stood.

Mera said nothing to this and so he looked to her. She was smiling. “That baby goat is so fucking cute,” she said.

Clarestes laughed and he said, “Yes.”

Mera continued to look at the baby goat with a strange smile upon her face, a smile that was perhaps yearning, or maybe even forlorn.

Clarestes asked, “What would you say if I asked you to take care of these animals tomorrow?”

Mera said, “What do you mean?”

“I am asking if you would take care of these animals tomorrow for me. I am asking you to stay here yet another day. Tomorrow, in the morning and in the evening, will you care and attend to them? Will you do everything you’ve seen me do with them today? Will you feed the pigs, collect the peacocks’ eggs, put the goats and sheep out to pasture in the morning, and then bring them back in before dark to their pens. And anything else you think needs to be done for their welfare. They too, like these farm’s fields, have been neglected after my parents’ deaths. That will leave me more time to do field work,” he said.

Mera asked, “You do not want me to work in the fields as well?”

“No,” said Clarestes. “Your hands would not be up for it. Nor are your hands needed there, for with your help today that work is caught up and they need only my hands tomorrow. It is the care of the beasts of this farm that needs to be caught up now.”

Mera’s brow furrowed at all this. There was a strange and strong pull upon her to say yes to this. Perhaps it was the softness of the light from the cracking torches she held that lit up the farm’s nearby surroundings, or maybe it was the inviting tone of Clarestes’s low voice. Or maybe it was the friggin’ cute baby goat that was huddling up against her mother for the night. Or maybe it was the pain numbing, sweet booze flowing through her veins. So she said, “I will think about it,” but that was just for show, for in her mind her decision was already made, as she was already thinking of, and trying to recall, all the things that Clarestes had done in feeding and taking care of his animals this day, for tomorrow she wanted to do all that right, and not forget anything, and not make any mistakes.


The next evening when Clarestes arrived back to his home after working in the fields, he saw Mera out among the sheep in their pen. He saw, with alarm, that she was attempting to brush and groom the old ram. That ram, he knew all too well, was one of the wildest and most ill tempered beasts to ever walk Gaia. He was about to call out to her such, but then he noticed the beast was actually submitting to her brushing without throwing a fit. Indeed, the ram, Clarestes noted with shock as he neared, actually seemed to be enjoying it.

Then he saw that all the surrounding sheep were brushed and cleaned. Next he saw that the goat’s lean-to had been repaired and now stood proper. He saw the fences about both the goats’ and sheep pens had been fixed and set to right as well. And all of the dung that had been about their pens had been removed and was gathered together in a neat pile outside of the sheeps’ pen.

Mera saw him looking at the pile of dung and she said, “I’m sorry if that is not where that shit is supposed to be piled. I saw no signs of a previous pile, so I decided to put it there. If that is not good where it is, then tomorrow I will move it to where it should go.”

Clarestes smiled and he said, “It is fine there and does not need to be moved until it is brought out to the fields. Actually, come to think of it, that is a better spot for it to be. This all looks amazing.” Mera smiled shyly in surprise.

Clarestes then smiled wryly at her and he said, “Tomorrow?”

Mera blushed and Clarestes’ smile looked so smug that she got mad and said, “Yes, if that shit pile was not where you wanted it, I thought I would stay tomorrow and move it before I left. But you can fuck off, for I changed my mind on all that. In fact, I’m leaving right now, whether it’s good there or not, or anything else I’ve done for that matter!”

Clarestes laughed and this only made Mera more angry. Then the old ram rubbed his horns against her legs and she was thrown off balance by this. She pushed him away from her and she said, “Stop it.” Yet he continued to butt her. She asked Clarestes as she was being buffeted around, “Why is he rubbing and butting me?”

He watched for a time and then his eyes lit up. “He wants you to brush him some more,” he said.

“Well, of course he does,” she said sharply. “He is filthy and his fleece is all tangled and matted. As were the rest of your sheep. You should be fucking ashamed of your lack of care and piss poor stewardship over them.”

Clarestes nodded his head. “As I said, they have been neglected. They look much better now, and happier,” he said as he noted the sheep were gathered in a small circle about her.

“And they still look like shit,” she said. “This was put a quick once over, as they need a much better brushing and cleaning, and soon.”

Clarestes nodded his head again. “That is true. But I do not have the time. Perhaps, you could do such...tomorrow?” he said as he smirked and teased her.

“Fucking fuck off, you fucking ass. I wouldn’t stay here now if my life depended on it! You are such a…” said Mera, but then the old ram bumped into her again and this time she was lifted off her feet and landed on the ground. She started to swear at him and push him away, but this did not bother the ram at all. He started to smell her face while snorting, and then he started to lick her face as well.

Clarestes broke out into uncontrolled laughter, and as Mera tried to push the beast away, she asked, “Great fucking Zeus, what is going on with this animal?!”

A smiling Clarestes said, “He likes you. He doesn’t want you to leave. Nor do I.”

“Well, you can both fuck off,” Mera said. But she was feeling sorry for how ill cared for and filthy the ram was, and she was already thinking about what would be the best way to go about getting him properly cleaned the next day.



Chapter 8 - “And you think I am not worried to madness about you out here as well?”


Mera did stay the next day. She tended to the animals. When Clarestes came home from his fields that evening, the sheep were as white and fluffy as clouds...and they gazed up upon her fondly.

She tended to them the next morning as well. But after she put them out to pasture, she retrieved a hoe and met Clarestes out in the field he was tilling. He protested and said her hands needed more time to heal and that he did not need her help, but she ignored him and tilled the fields with him that day.

And the next day as well.

She grew quiet and Clarestes did not know what to make of this. She would ask him questions from time to time as she wanted to do a good job with all she did, and she knew that in order to do so, sometimes she needed to know what he knew. But she left her few questions to nothing but farm things and she seemed very disinterested in him himself. She spoke not at all of herself or her past anymore.

He, naturally, was curious about her. Once he asked her how she learned to speak Greek so well, as her spoken Greek, while always somewhat accented, was extremely impressive. Yet she chose to use only a fraction of her fluency in her answer to him. “How I learned the small bit of clumsy greek I know is not important,” she responded, and she did not even raise her eyes from her hoeing to look upon him as she brushed him off.

Although she talked little and was distant from him, Clarestes thought she seemed content enough. Indeed, one day when a field was prepared and ready, he showed her how to cast seed upon it, and how to do so properly so that the seed fell even, and not too thin or thick, and what was the best way to do so with a breeze and such.

Like everything she did, Mera picked up on all this quickly. Clarestes saw her smiling as she deftly threw the seed into the air and watched it fall well and good to Gaia.

When there was no more tilling to be done, Clarestes moved onto all the other work that needed to be done and Mera helped him with these tasks as well. She sheared the sheep with him. They pruned the grape vines, as well as the apple and olive trees. Every morning she collected the peacocks’ eggs and milked the goats. They collected herbs and wild flowers together to add spice for their food and for medicinal wine and salve. Clarestes, at Mera’s request, shared his knowledge with her as they did so.

These things were very pleasing to Mera and she wore her small half smile as she did them all.

She smiled again when she saw that seed she had cast turned into little shoots of green. She got down on her knees and looked at them very closely.

She was very diligent and her eyes were always upon her work. Well most times, for every once in a while Clarestes would look up to find her eyes upon him and then leave him as his eyes met hers. He thought she was probably just watching him for a moment to learn some farm technique.

Indeed, at times, that was exactly the reason as to why she had been watching him. But that was only sometimes...

Every night she slept in the bed and every night he slept on the common room’s floor.

Then the dry season stirred and remembered who it was, and soon Gaia drank through those fortunate rains that came before. It grew very hot. The ground cracked from dryness. And those little shoots of green that Mera was so pleased to see and greet, they began to yellow and wither, as did the rest of their crops as well.

One day after Mera put the animals out to pasture, she found Clarestes in a field. With a yoke upon his shoulders he was bringing up buckets of water, two by two, from their creek, trying to save the crops that would be their winter’s store. Without those crops they would suffer hard that winter, or worse.

She asked if he had another yoke so that she could help him. Clarestes said after a strange pause that this was the only one they owned. She told him to give her the yoke and she would take turns with it and spell him.

Clarestes said, “I do not want you doing this. It is dangerously hot now and this work is brutal.”

Mera grew angry and she said, “I’m brutal as well.”

Clarestes said, “I know, but I am fine. I need no spelling.”

Mera looked at him. He was all sweaty and he already looked taxed. She had never seen him as such. “You are lying,” she said as she became more incensed.

“Mera, I do not want you doing this. Nobody should have to do this,” he said.

She just stared at him for a time with what looked like rage, but actually it was closer to betrayal, she felt wounded that he would not let her help him. She looked at him hard for a moment, and then she turned on her heel and left.

A short time later he saw her returning, striding angrily across the field toward him. She was carrying something big and when he made out what it was, he grew afraid of what was to come.

“Oh, look at what I fucking stumbled across as I was rummaging like a raging, mad woman through one of your sheds!” she shouted. It was another water bucket yoke.

Clarestes looked sheepish and was about to say something, but Mera cut him off screaming, “Do not even think of speaking to me!”

She had found two buckets in that shed as well. She was ready. She began to bring up buckets of water from the creek. Everytime Clarestes tried to speak to her, she growled like an animal at him. This actually scared him, and so he stopped trying to talk to her.

He was amazed at the amount of work she did. She made more trips than he did. He worried gravely for her, for one could fall ill or even perish under such labor and heat.

When darkness fell they stopped, and as they walked home she gave him the silent treatment in full. Clarestes was exhausted and he could only assume that she must be as well.

She met him in the fields the next day after tending to the animals. They did the same as the day before...and the next. Each day extracted more of a toll. Clarestes’ back stooped over under the weight of the yoke, even when he carried no water in his buckets. His muscles ached and they cried out for him to cease. Most times he felt as if he would be sick from the work, the heat, and from blazing Apollo above.

Mera was suffering as well. Her lovely, fair skin became burnt, her lips cracked, and at times she staggered under the weight of the yoke. The nights were almost as hot as the days and they offered no relief. Clarestes slept poorly in that unrelenting heat, if at all. Mera was having trouble eating and she lost weight. Her beautiful arms and legs grew too too thin.

Clarestes’ heart hurt as he saw this, but whenever he told her to cease for the day or tried to get her to stop altogether, she laughed, swore at, or ignored him, and so he knew not what to do.

Day after day they hauled water. The water that could be brought to fields like this was so little, and yet Clarestes blearily noted through his mind numbing pain that between the two of them, much of the crop was being saved, and surely much more than would have been saved by him alone.

And Mera’s iron will was bloistering his own. He knew for certain he would have quit by this time if it weren’t for her help. His respect for her grew, and then it turned into outright admiration at her determination.

One day she stumbled and fell hard. Between her yoke and the rocks she fell upon, she was bloodied and bruised. Clarestes went to her and gave her his hand to help her up, but she slapped it dismissively away.

“Mera, I wish for you to go home now,” he pleaded with her.

She laughed wildly at this, as she picked up her yoke and continued on.

“This is a battle you need not to fight,” he said, striding next to her.

“No?” she cried. “Why not? Which one should I be fighting? I think this is exactly the battle I need to fight.”

Clarestes contemplated, for the first time, interceding physically in order to stop her from working, and as she was so strong and quick, he actually wondered if he would prevail. Before this day he would have leaned toward no, but she looked very spent, presently he thought he might be able to take her. He placed himself in her path to halt her, and then he saw some blood running down her skinny leg from her fall. And then...and then...he lost it. Everything that had occurred for the last many days; the intense heat, the unrelenting work, his worry about not having enough food for the winter, and last, but most importantly, his dread concern for Mera, finally overcame him and overcame him completely. He grabbed her yoke from her shoulders and threw it aside. He put his hand upon her chest and pushed her in the direction of home.

He said harshly, “Damn it Mera, you are done here. I am tired of asking you to stop. Now I am telling you. You are making me worry about you to one end!” he continued, his voice rising to a yell. “Leave this field and go home! Go!”

Mera froze in front of him and she held her body at an odd angle. Her bedraggled, dirty hair hung down in front of her face and her eyes were downward, so Clarestes could not read them. He thought, perhaps, that she was stealing herself to give him blows. His chest heaved and he was ready.

But that was not what she was thinking of doing, for when she raised her eyes to him, he read in them only too well what she was thinking.

She was crying.

When finally she was able to speak she said as she tried to keep it together, “And you think I am not worried to madness about you out here as well? But then her voice broke and she said, “Do not tell me to go. Do not tell me to leave you out here alone. And do not send me off to be alone.”

Clarestes stood still in utter shock at this. He could feel his being curling up inside him. His anger left him instantly, and it was replaced by sorrow for his meanness, and so his heart ached.

“All right,” he said quietly and in shame. “All right,...I will not speak of such anymore.”


When Clarestes awoke the next morning he did not rise right away and he thought about what should be done. Then he came to his decision. Neither he nor Mera would carry water today. It was just too dangerous and he would gamble that they would have enough food to make it through the winter. Then he smiled a little and thought about the confrontation that might occur with her about this. This too would be a gamble and he imagined himself being thrown and pinned by her upon this very floor, or beaten by her, or worse.

He heard something that made him tense rigid. He leapt up and went to the door and opened it. It was raining softly, but steadily. He stepped outside and dug into Gaia with his hand. She was soaked through. He had slept through it all. It had been raining for hours.

He wanted so badly to go into Mera’s room and awaken her and tell her thus. But he fought that desire as he decided that she needed all the sleep she could get.

He dropped to his knees upon Gaia and thanked the gods and goddesses for this rain. Then he thanked them for Mera. And then, as his tears merged with the rain that fell upon his face, he thanked the goddesses for this as well.