“You see, Stevictor? Already she has turned us into rivals. Is Dymitria not remarkable in her guile?” He said it good-naturedly, but I thought I detected his nose swerving just a wee bit out of joint.
“Remarkable,” I agreed.
“More wine?” Dymitria held the jug over my glass.
“No thanks. I think I’ve had enough.”
“Are you afraid your specialized godhood might be affected?” She was laughing at me.
“Not at all.”
“Well, wine sometimes works that way with men,” she remarked. “But I suppose it’s different with gods.”
“I suppose so,” I replied noncommittally.
“You have seen evidence of his godly talents?” she asked Alexander.
“I have.”
“As strong as the evidence of your own godhood?” A hint of sarcasm.
“Dymitria dare not come right out and say it, but she has doubts about my godhood,” Alexander told me. “One day I may have to prove it to her by striking her with a bolt of lightning.”
“Don’t be drastic,” I advised him. “Even a god would spare such loveliness.”
“Why, thank you, Your Godhood,” Dymitria purred.
“Then I am to be spared an exhibition of your own godly talents?”
“You certainly are!” Alexander was firm. “But if you doubt them, I have no objection to Stevictor showing you the proof.”
“Oh, I’d like to see that!” Dymitria clapped her hands.
“Modesty forbids,” I muttered.
“A modest fertility god?” Dymitria shook her head. “Doesn’t that hamper you in your work?”
“Nonsense!” Alexander was insistent. “Show her the proof!”
There was no way out of it. Delicately, I lifted the skirt of my tunic. Dymitria dropped her eyes in a ladylike fashion, looked, and then averted her gaze.
“You see!” Alexander said triumphantly as I straightened my tunic.
“I see.” Her voice was without inflection.
I wondered what she really thought. I was still wondering later that evening when I was drifting off to sleep. The next morning I found out.
Dymitria was a skeptic.
The way I found out said she was a lot of other things as well. It happened in the morning, before the day’s march got under way. I had finished breakfasting with Alexander and was strolling around the campsite by myself. It had been set up in a clearing to one side of a deep well. Now the well was deserted as the army formed itself to leave. It was deserted, that is, except for Dymitria. I spotted her as I walked towards it.
She was engaged in a very odd activity. She was gathering very heavy rocks from around the clearing and piling them up alongside the well. There was quite a stack there already, and as she saw me coming, she ceased her activity. “What are you doing?” I asked her as I reached the well. “I’ll show you,” she answered pleasantly. “Look here.”
She leaned over the edge of the well and pointed downward.
I leaned over beside her and looked. “What?” All I could see was pitch blackness.
“There. Lean way over and you’ll see.”
I leaned over. “I still don’t see anything,” I told her.
“Lean over further.”
I leaned over further. “I still don’t--”"
Dymitra shoved hard against my buttocks and I went plunging over the side of the well!
Flailing with the initial impact, I somehow managed to twist my body so that my feet were descending first. My hands barely grabbed onto a narrow ledge running around the inside of the well at about ground level. It stopped my dive and I hung there precariously by my fingertips. Dymitria leaned over the well and started pegging small rocks at my clutching hands. That was the moment when it flashed through my mind that Dymitria was a skeptic. She didn’t really believe I was a god.
At that moment, I didn’t exactly believe it myself. Gods don’t drown in wells. But the numbness setting into my fingers told me I was scant seconds from doing just that. Perhaps closer, I realized, as one of Dymitria’s stones bounced off a knuckle.
“What are you doing?” Alexander’s voice, from the world beyond the well!
“Nothing.” Dymitria was too calm. “Just dropping pebbles in the well. I like to hear them splash.”
Splash, hell! “Help!” I screamed succinctly.
Alexander’s face appeared over the side of the well.
“Bitch!” He pushed Dymitria away. He grabbed the rope holding the bucket and swung it to where I could reach it. I almost fell grabbing for it, but luck was with me. With Alex pulling the rope from above, I braced my feet against the sides of the well and managed to climb out.
“Phew!” I gasped for breath. “Thanks,” I said when I was able to speak. “That was close. Why did she do a crazy thing like that?”
“To prove to me that you are not a god.” Alexander scowled. “When I find her, she’ll be punished.”
“Where did she go?”
“She ran off to the woods. But she’ll be back.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” I told him sincerely. “She tried to kill me. She may try again.”
“Perhaps. Just stay away from wells when she’s around.”
“Why wells? Won’t she try some other way?”
“I don’t think so. Wells are her favorite form of execution.”
“What do you mean?”
He explained. It seemed that a couple of years back when the Greek city of Thebes had been in rebellion against Alexander, he had fallen on it with his army like a ton of masonry. He’d decided to make an example out of Thebes for the other city-states which grumbled under his rule. So he’d ordered his conquering troops to destroy the city, to pillage it thoroughly, to burn all the buildings, to kill every man, woman and child they could lay their hands on, and by all means to rape every Theban female before slaughtering them.
One of his Macedonian officers had led a marauding band to the home of Dymitria’s father. Here, all in the household had been killed and Dymitria had been repeatedly raped. However, before his death, Dymitria’s father had hidden the wealth of his household. The Macedonian officer was loath to put Dymitria to death before finding out where the treasure was hidden. So, logically, he decided to torture the girl to make her reveal the hiding-place before killing her.
But Dymitria surprised him. Before the torture could begin, she succumbed to the mere threat of it and agreed to take him to where the treasure had been concealed. The officer’s men were still busy looting, burning and killing, so he accompanied Dymitria by himself. That was his mistake.
She led him to a well behind her father’s palace and told him the treasure was at the bottom. It was a very shallow well, and if it had been daylight the Macedonian could easily have seen the bottom. But it was night and even by the light of the moon he couldn’t quite make out whether there was anything in the well or not. As she had with me, Dymitria urged him to lean farther and farther over the edge until he was in position for the shove that pushed him into the well.
Since it was shallow, the fall merely shook him up. Immediately, he began shouting for his men to help him. But there was no one in earshot save Dyrnitria. And she was obsessed with only one idea-—to still the voice which had commanded the indignities forced upon her.
She could have fled and perhaps gotten away completely. But her urge to vengeance was stronger than her urge to survive. She stayed and began bringing large rocks to the well and dropping them over the side, one by one. She labored for hours in the moonlight, continuing to drop the stones long after the voice was stilled. Stone upon stone she dropped into the well. And when Alexander’s men found her at dawn, the well was filled with rocks almost to the brim. They didn’t even attempt to extricate the Macedonian. It was obvious that the mere weight of the stones covering him must have been enough to kill him. instead, they brought Dymitria to Alexander so that their leader might devise some fittingly diabolical punishment in keeping with the murder of one of his officers.