Sex and Violence: There's affection but no sex, and reflections on the aftermath of violence rather than action. There are however descriptions of the emotional aspects of a woman-woman bond which may offend some readers. Hey, basically it's an alt story without the bonking, all right?

He had been drinking again, and when he came home they had argued, as they so often did these days, over nothing.

Gabrielle knew that he was unhappy, that he hated his job as a cobbler's assistant, that he resented their poverty and his inability to provide her with anything more than the bare minimum. All of these things she was aware of.

What she could not forgive was his blaming her.

After the words stopped he sat in the kitchen, staring sullenly into the fire, while she went outside and re-stacked the wood. It was one of her favourite retreats after a row, to feel the cool air on her cheeks, and to be able to look up and see the clean night sky. She busied herself there until he went to bed.

That was safer than risking giving in to the temptation of hitting him.

Gabrielle presented him with his breakfast, but made no response to his attempts at conversation. He sat at the table and looked moodily at the plate in front of him.

" I heard something at the shop yesterday that might interest you. " he finally commented.

" What was that ? " she asked without enthusiasm.

" About your old friend Xena. "

She stopped shelling the peas and turned towards him. She didn't know whether she wanted to hear what he had to say. Everything about Xena had been bad news of late, and she had always been saddened by hearing it. But when it came to the woman who had once meant so much to her she could not ignore any snippet.

" Mm. Xena. " she replied. She bit her lip. " More - troubles ? "

" Yes and no. " he commented, beginning to eat his porridge. He took a large mouthful and continued:

" You heard she had to leave Corinth in a hurry last month after that business of killing the son of the autarch. Another price on her head. Apparently she's worth so much now that I'm tempted to go after her myself.. "

" Don't. " Gabrielle replied automatically. " You've seen her in action. Do you really think... "

He looked at her in a flash of annoyance. Better not pursue that line right now. She dropped her gaze and returned to a demure inspection of the peas.

He changed the subject. " Well, she went north after that, and apparently she's teamed up with the Thracians to help put down an insurrection in one of their provinces. The Thracians must have liked her fighting style, at first, because they've kept her on. "

" She's fighting for hire these days ? " Gabrielle asked sadly.

" Apparently. Hire and protection. While she's working for them she won't be turned in for the reward. But I don't know how much longer she can hold out. Apparently she caused a ruckus by burning down another village. She does tend to over-do things. "

Gabrielle felt a little wave of horror.

" She burnt down a village ? " she asked.

" 'Fraid so. From what I heard, some rebels went into hiding there, the villagers wouldn't identify them, so she ordered the whole place burnt to the ground. I guess it's one way of fighting an insurrection. "

Gabrielle was silent, but her thoughts were in turmoil. She kept thinking of another village that Xena had burnt in her past, in the bad old days. History had a habit of repeating itself... surely Xena had learnt her lesson the first time ?

Perdicas finished his porridge and wiped his mouth.

" Anyway, Gab, I'm off for now. You doing anything special today ? "

She did not reply.

" Gabrielle ! " he repeated.

" Eh ? " She looked up, startled. " Oh, sorry, I was thinking of something else. What did you ask ? "

" Just wanted to know if you were doing anything today."

" I'll go to the market, I think, once I've finished weeding the garden. "

He nodded distantly.

" Don't spend too much. " he replied automatically.

No, I'll ask the stall holders to give me the food for nothing -

But she bit back the reply. " I'll try not to. " she said.

A man grabbed her shoulders and waved some onions in her face, shouting something she couldn't follow.

She stiffened for a second, then pulled away and ignored him. He continued to vend his wares, while she drifted on.

Xena. Xena. What had happened to Xena ?

After all that they had been through together, how could she turn her back on the good that she had done ?

Beyond the market place, between the rows of aisles and the backs of the more affluent houses, lies a little paved square surrounding the shrine of Aphrodite.

Gabrielle felt a sudden impulse to enter the quietness of the shrine, to escape the hubbub of the market. She hurried to the pronaus and through the narrow doorway, into the darkness of the cella.

Here she paused to let her eyes adjust to the shadows. She stood with her head bowed, breathing the scented air, listening to the buzzing of the insects attracted by the sacrifices.

The image of Aphrodite at the back of the chamber was of ivory, and the statue's arms were permanently raised as if embracing the worshipper. The face bore a quiet reflective smile. Gabrielle looked into Aphrodite's face and sighed. It had been a long time since she had been able to smile like that.

She walked up to the altar slowly, keeping her gaze on the image of the Goddess, and deposited a small coin in an offering basket.

She bowed her head and began to pray.

" I have a question that needs an answer, Goddess. About her. Xena. The Xena that I knew would never do the things that I've been hearing. She was basically good. Oh, I'll admit that she was proud, she was irritable, she could be so uncommunicative sometimes that I used to think that I got more response out of her horse - but no, I didn't come here to tell you her faults."

" I want to know the answer. Why did she turn her back on everything we had done ? Why did she give up redeeming herself? She was doing such a good job of it."

" I just can't accept that the woman I knew could slide so much. "

For a moment she thought she would burst into tears, as the images flooded back into her mind: Xena leaping to her defence, as she had done so often. Xena smiling softly in the light of the campfire. The feel of those strong arms hugging her as she cried, her tears running onto leather armour, Xena's hair caressing her cheek.

Soft moments when she had woken suddenly in the middle of the night and listened to the warrior's slow regular breathing, sensed the solid and reassuring presence beside her.

" That woman - she was important to me, Goddess, and I must know why she went wrong. What caused it. "

Suddenly her scalp began to prickle, and she sensed a faint vibration in the air. The hairs on her bare arms lifted as a wave of goose bumps crawled over her skin.

Her head shot up, alarm in her eyes. There was only one thing that she could recall that had ever felt like this, and that was a genuine divine manifestation.

Had Aphrodite consented to answer her prayer ? Honest prayer does not always go unanswered, she knew, but she had not expected so immediate a response.

The air in front of the altar burst into flashing light, and suddenly the Goddess herself was standing in front of her, all beauty and sensuality, with her hips tilted and a sensual pout on her delectable mouth.

Gabrielle stared for a second, then knelt. She had rediscovered some of her conventional piety since leaving Xena, and it was unseemly not to acknowledge a divinity.

" Oh Sea-born one, Goddess of Love... " she began.

Aphrodite grinned.

" Come on Gabby, no need to be so formal, we've met before." she drawled. " You wanted an answer, didn't you ? "

" Why yes, Aphrodite, about Xena, the reason for her - changing. "

Aphrodite pursed her beautiful lips.

" Xena. " she mused. " Well, the Warrior Babe is more my brother's territory than mine, but hey, I guess what's happened to her falls onto my plate too, so... "

She grinned an impish grin.

" Here's your answer: You. " she replied. " You're the reason, little Gabrielle. Hadn't you guessed that ? "

Gabrielle opened her mouth in astonishment, then closed it again.

For once in her life she was at a loss for words.

The air around the goddess flared, and she was alone again in the temple.

I am the reason ? How can that be ? What did I do ? I never did anything to harm her- we were together right up until I married - she seemed happy to see me get together with Perdicas, she even saved his life the following day, when Callisto tried to kill him.

She thought about that incident. Xena had ridden up just as Callisto attacked. Perdicas, of course, had tried to play the hero, and put his life in danger: that sort of bravado had seemed charming then, though it was only an annoying pretence now. A throw of the chakram had knocked the sword from Callisto's hand. Just in time.

Xena had always been good at doing things just in time.

Afterwards, Xena had picked up Callisto's sword, and looked at it with a curious expression. Anger. At the time Gabrielle had assumed that she was angry at Callisto. But could there be another reason ? Over the years she had become quite good at picking Xena's moods, and the look on her face had been more like the one she wore when angry at herself. Perhaps she felt she should have been there to protect them. Perhaps she felt guilty at exposing them to attack.

Gabrielle had often wondered at Xena's odd response, but had never understood it.

There had been no chance to talk. Xena had simply thrown the sword to Perdicas and said something about his needing it - and she had ridden off.

Gabrielle had never seen her since.

She was distant and silent that evening, and even Perdicas noticed her remoteness. He asked, in his own fashion, what was wrong: but she couldn't tell him. It was somehow wrong to involve him in what had happened. The message had been from a Goddess direct to herself, and it concerned Xena. He could not be part of it.

Gabrielle looked up in fear. An unexpected visitor at this hour never brought good news. And given the lawlessness and rapine going on these days, it might even present a real threat -

Get a hold of yourself, Gabrielle, the raiders don't knock on the door to be let in !

Just for reassurance she glanced up at the fireplace, where Callisto's sword still hung as a memento.

She opened the door and saw a tall, dignified woman dressed in a stained travelling cloak. Her long black hair flowed out from one side of the hood.

Her heart leapt. Was it Xena ? She almost convinced herself of it for a second: then she looked more closely, and recognised the figure.

" Cyrene ! " she exclaimed. " By all the Gods, what are you doing here at this hour ?"

Then she blushed.

" I'm sorry, that wasn't very nice of me ! Come in, Cyrene. It's nice to see you again. "

Cyrene dropped her hood back.

" Thank you, Gabrielle " she said, as she walked into the kitchen. "I should be the one to apologise. I know it's late, and I know you weren't expecting me."

" Well, it is a surprise - but there are pleasant surprises too, you know ! " Gabrielle babbled, feeling flustered.

She had an unpleasant feeling that whatever had brought Xena's mother to her door in the middle of the night would be important, and would concern Xena. There was no other reason for an innkeeper of Amphipolis to visit a Poteidaian farmlet.

" Sit down, make yourself at home. Can I offer you something to eat ? Or drink ? You've obviously been on the road. "

Cyrene nodded with a pained expression.

" I have. I've walked all the way. And I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. "

She took a seat and sighed.

" You've very hospitable, Gabrielle, but before I break bread with you I should tell you why I'm here. "

Gabrielle nodded, aware of the mutual obligations that custom imposed on guest and host. It would be at best awkward, at worst intolerable, to offer hospitality to her visitor if Cyrene was here on a mission that she could not support.

" It's about Xena, isn't it. " she ventured.

" Yes, it's about Xena. Gabrielle, a few days ago I had a prophesy from a priest of Aphrodite who claimed that the Goddess had come to him in a dream... "

Gabrielle gasped and covered her mouth.

Cyrene looked at her in concern.

" I'm sorry - does that upset you ? "

" No - not really - it's just that the Sea-Born gave me a message too - so I don't doubt what you're saying. "

Cyrene nodded thoughtfully.

" I see. And your message was about... "

" Xena. And - me. "

" So it's true then. " Cyrene reflected. " That you are the key to Xena's future. "

" The key to her future ? Maybe... though that wasn't quite the way my message was put... what exactly did your priest say ? " Gabrielle asked tentatively.

" That if I wanted to see Xena start behaving like a decent human being again, I could only do it by getting you to help. You are the only answer, in short. I really don't know how you can help, and I don't altogether understand why it has to be you, but... here I am, Gabrielle, asking you to involve yourself, even though I have no idea what I'm asking you to do."

So I am the answer ! But Aphrodite told me I was the cause. Does that make sense ? How can I be both ?

Gabrielle closed her eyes.

" This is - well, it's a lot to think about, Cyrene. I am the only one who can help Xena ? That puts a bit of a burden on me. " She bit her lip in thought. " And you don't even have any idea what it is that I'm supposed to do ? "

" The oracle did not say. " Cyrene replied. " I got the feeling that you were meant to know. "

" Well - I'm not sure that I do - and I've been thinking about it ever since I had my message. "

Cyrene looked thoughtful.

" It must mean something if we've both received messages from Aphrodite. Did you specifically ask, or did your message arrive out of the blue ? "

" I prayed to the Goddess at her shrine here. And - well, let's just say I had a reply. "

She was aware that she was being somewhat evasive, but she was reluctant to advertise herself as a recipient of divine manifestation. Every second dishevelled lunatic on the street claimed that.

Cyrene smiled.

" I see. No, I only had my reply second hand. I asked one of our priests how Xena could be helped - and handed over the necessary offering, of course - and he reported back to me the next day. "

" I wonder why I'm the only one who can help ? "

Cyrene leant forward and gave Gabrielle an earnest look.

" It did make sense to me, when I thought about it, that you could influence her. You did travel with her for a couple of years, and to be honest, I don't think anyone else ever got as close to her as you did. I think she would listen to you. "

Gabrielle smiled, thinking of the old days.

" Yeah - it was good. We were close. In fact, I don't think I've ever enjoyed myself so much as I did with her. "

But she sighed, and came back to the present.

" Cyrene, it's all very well to say she would listen to me, but I haven't seen her for more than two years, and from what I hear she's way up north at the moment. Somewhere in Thrace. I can't see her just dropping in for a chat. "

Cyrene held her breath, then said slowly:

" No, she won't come here. I think you will have to seek her out. Find her, go to her, then you can talk to her and do whatever you have to do... I know it's a lot to ask. "

Gabrielle nodded. She had come to much the same conclusion herself, but she was reluctant to face it. Perdicas wouldn't like her just disappearing, not when there were so many things to do round the house - the fields would need weeding, harvest wasn't far off, and there were meals to cook and the cleaning and the washing -

" I can't just walk out of here. " she replied weakly. "It's - oh, Cyrene, I'd really love to help her, if I could, but... "

Cyrene said nothing. She simply continued staring at Gabrielle.

She found herself making the decision. It was an odd feeling, almost a physical one, as if her body had decided without consulting her mind. Something in her stomach twisted and she found herself saying:

" But - it's for her, isn't it. Yes, I'll do it. "

Cyrene leant forward and seized her hand.

" I - you don't know what this means to me, if you can help her. "

Gabrielle smiled.

" She means a lot to me too. She was my friend. She was a big part of my life for a long time, and I can never forget that. "

The women were interrupted by a noise from the bedroom. Perdicas was awake.

" Gab ? " he called sleepily. " Who are you talking to ?"

" We've, ah, got a visitor. "

He appeared at the curtain which separated the sleeping area from the living room. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes were puffy.

He stared at Cyrene in puzzlement. Of course: Gabrielle remembered that they had never met.

" What's up ? " he asked.

" Perdicas, this is Cyrene. She's from Amphipolis. Cyrene, this is Perdicas, my husband. "

The older woman stood graciously and greeted Perdicas.

" I am pleased to meet you. " she announced.

" Yeah, pleased to meet you too." he mumbled with less enthusiasm. "So, Cyrene, what brings you here in the middle of the night ?"

She paused for a second, as if considering how to phrase it.

" I have received a prophecy from the Gods concerning Gabrielle, and I felt it was my duty to come here to tell her in person. "

Perdicas looked at her dubiously.

" A prophecy ? So what's going to happen to Gab ? "

" The prophecy suggested that she undertake a journey. "

" A journey ? " he replied. " Hades, it's a bad time of year for a journey, with harvest coming up. Where's she got to go to make the sacrifice ? Hope she can be back in time. "

Cyrene pursed her lips.

" It's not the usual sort of journey. It doesn't say exactly where she has to go, and it isn't to make a sacrifice at a special altar. "

Perdicas frowned. All the divinely ordained journeys that he had ever heard of had been for sacrifices.

" So what's she got to do ? " he asked stupidly.

" She has to - " Cyrene began, but was interrupted.

" Perdicas, I can tell you. " Gabrielle broke in. She was trembling: she knew how he would react to the news.

" I have to find Xena. Apparently I can help her. "

" Help her ? " he demanded. " From what I hear, she doesn't need any help. She's doing quite well slaughtering people on her own. "

" Oh, really ! " Cyrene protested.

" Perdicas - " Gabrielle began " - what if I can stop that ? What if I can help her get back to being the woman we once knew ? If I have any chance of doing that, it's my duty to try. Don't you think so ? "

He shook his head. " It's - insane. How could you do a thing like that ? She'll have forgotten you by now. You'd just get killed. No, Gab, you can't do it. "

" Perdicas, it's a command from the Gods ! "

" Command from the Gods ? Oh, look, it's easy enough to imagine that some dream is a divine sending, but really, we don't know, do we?"

Cyrene moved closer to him and fixed him with her gaze.

" I am sure of my source. " she said simply.

He shook his head. " I won't let her do it." he repeated.

" And even if it's not a divine command, don't you think I ought to try ? " Gabrielle demanded. " Look up there, Perdicas. " She pointed to Callisto's sword.

" That woman saved your life ! Don't you owe her something ? Doesn't that mean anything ?"

He shrugged. " Sure, she helped me when I fought Callisto, but I don't think I really needed her help, I could have handled the situation myself. "

Gabrielle's jaw dropped. She could not believe that Perdicas could make a statement like that with a straight face.

Cyrene broke in.

" Perdicas, it would not be wise to keep her here. We are commanded by Aphrodite herself. "

He made a dismissive gesture. " Sure, you walk in here and tell me that. I don't know it. "

He looked again at Callisto's sword.

" It's too dangerous. I won't have her risking her life, chasing off after Xena again. Supposing you were to tell me that Aphrodite had ordered that I take that sword and cut Gabrielle's throat ? Would you expect me to do that too ? "

" Perdicas, this is hardly the same... "

" No, I think it amounts to the same thing. Cut her throat now, or send her off to her death at the hands of brigands, or maybe even Xena herself, if she got that far. Xena's quite capable of it, you know. From what I hear of her these days, she'd probably do it just for a laugh."

Gabrielle bit her lip. " Perdicas ! " she announced. "Did I tell you that Cyrene is Xena's mother ?"

" Oh. " He had the grace to look abashed for a second. Then he grimaced.

" I can see why you're interested in having Gabrielle help her, then, but I'm afraid the answer is still no. I can't let her go. I won't send her into that sort of danger. "

" Danger ? " Gabrielle demanded. " You mean you don't like the idea of having to do the housework yourself, don't you ? "

He looked angry for a second, but controlled himself in front of Cyrene.

" I don't think that's called for, Gabrielle. "

" I think it is. " she replied.

He shook his head " I'm not prepared to argue with you. Gabrielle, you are not going. "

She opened her mouth to reply.

" No ! " he snapped. " I said - that's enough. "

He turned to Cyrene.

" Thank you for your visit, Cyrene. I'm sorry it was a waste of time. May the Gods speed you on your journey back. "

It was about as blunt as he could be without physically evicting her.

Gabrielle understood him well enough to know how to reply to that. He might be rude, but he would not breach the conventions.

" Perdicas, I have already offered her our hospitality for the night."

He pursed his lips and considered the situation.

" Well, then, she must sleep here, tonight at least. " he conceded.

He looked at the two women for a second.

" I have to get up tomorrow for work. " he announced. "I'm going back to bed. Tomorrow, Gabrielle, we can work out what you're doing for the harvest this year. "

He disappeared behind the curtain.

Gabrielle and Cyrene looked at one another.

Cyrene shook her head in remorse.

" I'm so sorry, Gabrielle, I didn't realise I would be causing you such problems. "

Gabrielle leant forward and whispered in her ear.

" Hey, don't worry. This is nothing really. "

" Nothing ? " She looked horrified. " If that was nothing then perhaps I should just leave now before it becomes something ! "

" Don't be silly. You have our hospitality, remember ? I wouldn't think of you disappearing in the middle of the night. You can sleep in front of the fire, on the sheepskin. In fact, I'll keep you company. "

She indicated a large comfortable chair. Cyrene had noticed the cushions and travelling rug piled on it. "

" Oh, no, Gabrielle, you don't need to sleep out here because of me. You join Perdicas. "

Gabrielle smiled tightly.

" No thanks. Anyway, I often sleep out here. On the chair or on the sheepskin. When - well, when it seems a better idea than sleeping back there. " She nodded at the curtain. " And lately - no, we can talk about that some other time, Cyrene. Let's just get some rest. "

As Cyrene stirred, he turned his attention to her, and at the same time Gabrielle opened her eyes.

" Good morning. " Cyrene whispered.

Perdicas grunted something in response.

Gabrielle stretched, then quickly removed her blanket and sat upright.

" Goodness, I must have dropped off out here. " she announced brightly.

Perdicas scowled as if he was tempted to reply, but thought better of it. He turned to Cyrene and addressed her.

" I hope you slept well. " he said tightly.

" I did. " she replied. " It was a pleasant change from being on the road. "

" Can I offer you some breakfast, Cyrene ? " Gabrielle asked.

" Oh - just a cup of water and some bread, if you can spare some. Perdicas, thank you for the hospitality of your house. I will be setting out for Amphipolis today. "

He nodded as if relieved.

" A safe journey to you. " he replied. " Well, Gabrielle, I'll have to head off myself shortly, and we can talk a bit more tonight. I thought that we should do some planning for the harvest season. "

Gabrielle turned to face him, her lips compressed in anger and a determined tilt to her head.

" Perdicas, you can't have forgotten what we said last night."

He took a deep breath. " And you can't have forgotten what I said !" he stated. " I won't have you heading off after Xena. I'm sorry, but that's it. "

He glanced at Cyrene. She could not read his expression. Perhaps he just didn't like arguing in front of strangers.

Gabrielle turned to her with a bright and totally artificial smile.

" Cyrene. " she stated. " Would you mind just popping out to the well and fetching some water, we're low on it. It's only a couple of hundred paces down the road. "

Cyrene understood. The voices were already raised in argument before she was out of earshot of the house.

She could not help catching Perdicas' shout - " And I tell you, you are not going ! " Feeling guilty and upset, she hurried in the direction of the well, then stood outside the door on returning, unwilling to re-enter the house.

Perdicas emerged a few minutes later. Cyrene watched as he strode off. He noticed her standing at the roadside and glared at her as he passed, but said nothing.

She stood, undecided, until he had disappeared round the corner. Then she tentatively peeped into the doorway.

Gabrielle looked up at her. She was shoving items into a carrying sack.

" Sorry about that. " Gabrielle muttered.

Cyrene shook her head.

" I - I don't know what to say. I never meant to make trouble. I'm so sorry. This just isn't turning out like I expected."

Gabrielle grinned briefly.

" I know that. Don't worry. "

" So, " ventured Cyrene, " what did he end up saying ? "

" That I wasn't to go. "

Cyrene watched her filling the rucksack.

" And ? " she asked.

" I'm going anyway. "

She sighed deeply.

" Is that wise ? "

Gabrielle shrugged.

" Wise enough. I owe it to her. Hell, I owe her everything. If there's a chance to help, I have to do it. "

" And you're just going to walk out on Perdicas ? "

" I'll leave him a note. He can read - sort of. "

In the end she decided that the simplest approach was the best one. The note said simply " Sorry: I have to help Xena. I'll see you when I get back. Love, Gabrielle. "

Gabrielle frowned in concentration as she penned it in large clear letters.

" Are you really sure you ought to be doing this ? " Cyrene persisted. " I didn't intend to come between you and your husband. If I had known he would react like this - "

Gabrielle shrugged.

" We both know that Aphrodite ordered us to do something. Do you mean that you would have ignored the Goddess' command if you thought a selfish so-and-so like Perdicas would be annoyed by it ? That's not showing much respect for a deity."

Cyrene acknowledged defeat.

" You're determined, aren't you ? "

" Yes. And it's my decision, you didn't talk me into it."

She frowned in concentration.

" Right, I've got everything I need. OK, Cyrene, here's the plan. We walk through Poteidaia towards the north, as if we were going to Thessalonica. Smile at everyone you meet. "

" Your townsfolk seem very polite. " Cyrene commented.

" They're seeing me with a stranger and hoping I'll introduce them, that's all. "

" But you're not stopping to talk to anyone ? "

" I just want us to be seen, Cyrene, I can't risk delays."

Cyrene nodded. " You want to make sure Perdicas hears that we left together. "

" Partly. Mostly I'm just trying to keep him off our trail."

Cyrene looked puzzled.

" It's a bit of a trick. I hate doing this, Cyrene, but we can't have Perdicas chasing us. He'll have the horse and he could overtake us easily. So I have to fool him. "

" I see. " Cyrene leant to her and whispered. " We're not really going north, then ? "

" No. When we're out of sight of town we can cut across country and head to Olynthus. Perdicas will think we've gone to Thessalonica, to take the Egnatian Way into Amphipolis. That would make sense, you see, if you were going on horseback, because the Egnatian Way is a much faster horse road. And to get to Thrace you have to go through Amphipolis first, so he'll have worked out that we'll both be headed there. "

Cyrene frowned. She seemed to be resigned to the subterfuge now, and concerned only with the details of it.

" I see that, Gabrielle: but - we don't have a horse. "

" No ! But Perdicas does. "

" I still don't quite see how that would work. "

Gabrielle smiled. " You don't know Perdicas the way I do. He has a horse. So if he were going to Amphipolis he'd take the Egnatian Way. Now, given the way his mind works, if he were going that way then everybody ought to go that way, and he'll be quite happy to accept that we'll do exactly as he would. "

Cyrene reflected on this.

" So he'll believe that we went by the horse road even though we don't have a horse. "

" Precisely. "

" - Only because he would go that way. "

" Uh huh. " Gabrielle nodded. " Come on, Cyrene, you were married once, you know how men think. "

Cyrene sighed. " You mean they think ? " She giggled suddenly. " No, Gabrielle, I know what you mean. "

Soon they had left the town itself, and before long even the outlying farms were behind them. Gabrielle walked slowly for a couple of hundred yards, then stopped.

" Here it is. " she said. She indicated a faint path that cut off through the trees to their right.

" Looks like that nobody's been that way for a while. "

" No. An old woodsman lived in there somewhere, but he died a while back. Anyway, this track will get us through the gully and then out onto the Olynthus road, and we won't be seen from here. "

She grinned as she and Cyrene began parting the undergrowth that almost obscured the path.

" Poor old Perdi. " she muttered. " I can just imagine his face when he discovers that I've gone. And won't he be furious when he searches the road between here and Thessalonica and can't even find me. "

There was something about Cyrene's walk that seemed oddly familiar. Gabrielle found herself fitting into the rhythm of it without effort. Then it struck her that this tall, dark haired woman was Xena's mother. The measures of her walk, the swing of her body, all of these were Xena's.

Suddenly she found herself grinning. It was good to be on the road again.

She began to hum a little tune to herself as she walked, thrusting her staff in front of her and striding. Cyrene turned her head and smiled. Even the smile, Gabrielle decided, was Xena's. The dour warrior had often looked less than enthusiastic about her life, but her rare smiles could light up her whole face in the most delightful of ways. Cyrene shared that ability.

" I was just thinking how much I've missed this life." Gabrielle commented. " being out in the open air with nothing to do but walk. Not knowing where you'll sleep. "

Cyrene winced.

" You enjoy sleeping in ditches and under trees ? "

" You get used to it. "

" I don't think I want to get used to it, Gabrielle. " she laughed.

" Oh, it's not so bad... it's a lot like working in the fields, but nicer. You get the fresh air and the exercise, but it feels good at the end of the day, and not just because you've stopped ! "

Cyrene chuckled. " And I must say that it's definitely more pleasant to be doing it in company. " she added. " It was - not just lonely, but quite frightening at times, coming down by myself. "

Gabrielle nodded. " Mm. Yes, I know what you mean. Being on the road with Xena was marvellous. When we would part company so that she could go off for a while and do the things she had to had to do by herself - I didn't enjoy that so much."

Cyrene thought for a moment.

" I suppose when you get to Thrace you'll be doing quite a bit of travelling on your own. "

" I know. " Gabrielle acknowledged. " And I'm not looking forward to it. It's a wild place, from what I hear."

" Thrace. " Cyrene sighed, thinking of some of the stories she had heard. " Did you and Xena ever go there ? "

" No, we never got that far. I've always wanted to see it, though. Despite the inhabitants. "

" Yes, I hear it's pretty wild. And you know what they say about the climate. 'Four months winter and eight months cold.'"

Gabrielle laughed. " That part never sounded too inviting."

" And the lions, " Cyrene went on. " They say there are still lions there, like the ones that attacked Xerxes when he tried to march through Thrace. "

" Well, I just hope I don't run into any of them." Gabrielle pondered. " Although the human inhabitants worry me more than any lions could. "

Cyrene nodded. " In a funny sort of way, it's a place where I could imagine my daughter being quite at home. Frontiers and danger always appealed to her. "

" They never exactly appealed to me. "

" But you faced them. "

" When I had to, I did ! But of course - she was with me then, and that made it a lot easier. "

" Mm. " Cyrene replied. " I can believe that. "

" My legs. " she groaned. " I've spent too long as an inn keeper, Gabrielle, my calves can't handle much more of this. "

" Well, don't worry. You rest for a while. I can make camp."

" I have to do something - I'll get the food out." Cyrene started to open her rucksack.

Gabrielle smiled.

" And I'll collect some firewood and get a nice fire going. Keep us warm tonight. "

She found herself deriving genuine satisfaction from making these little arrangements, impromptu plans to share camp duties for the evening. It was so like being back with Xena. So like the times she still thought of as the best of her life.

Even after dinner her thoughts were still with the Warrior Princess. She put down her plate and stared into the flames, pondering the dilemma that had defied her since Cyrene's arrival.

I am the cause of Xena's problems. So she said. But I am also the answer to Xena's problems.

No matter how she looked at it, she still could not understand the conundrum.

" Cyrene. " she finally asked.

" What is it ? "

" Have you had much of a chance to think about our messages ? "

Cyrene chuckled.

" Not today. It's been - rather busy. "

Gabrielle smiled.

" Well, I'm still thinking about them. It's funny, you know, that the message I got from Aphrodite was put so differently to yours. Perhaps we just asked different questions. "

" What do you mean ? " Cyrene asked.

" Well... you asked what could be done to help Xena. And the answer you got was - me. I had to help her. Okay. It's not exactly clear why that is, but at least it's unambiguous. Now, what I asked was the reason why she had gone off the rails in the first place. The funny thing is that the answer was the same. Me. Apparently I'm also the reason why she returned to her bad old ways. "

Cyrene looked moodily into the fire.

" I agree that the two answers kind of hang together," Gabrielle went on, " and if I'm the one who caused the problem then I suppose I must also be the one to fix it... what I can't make any sense of is how I could have done anything to Xena to make her act like this. I haven't even seen her since I married. Would you have any ideas ? "

" You never argued, or differed ? " Cyrene asked tentatively.

" Nothing that serious. Sure, we had our squabbles every now and again - I mean, I was practically living with her, of course we'd spat every so often - but we were still the best of friends when we parted company. And she didn't seem too upset about that, abut my marrying Perdicas and leaving her. At least, not that I could pick up. "

Cyrene looked away.

" So - there's nothing you can suggest, knowing her as you do ? " Gabrielle asked.

Cyrene began to look uncomfortable. She opened her mouth as if to answer, but seemed to change her mind. Then she looked her companion in the eyes.

" Gabrielle. " she said abruptly.

" Mm ? " Gabrielle asked.

" There's something I should tell you. I've never told this to anyone else, not outside the family at least, but you should know. You deserve to know. I thought you might already have known, actually, but obviously you don't. "

Gabrielle smiled in encouragement.

" Sometimes we just need to talk about things. " she replied non-commitally, leaving the older woman an opening.

Cyrene snorted.

" I assure you - I do not need to talk about this ! It's not something I especially want to share. But it's something you have to hear, for your own sake, because you need to know it before you go any further with this. "

She paused for a long moment, then went on:

" I wasn't altogether truthful when I told you that I didn't know what the goddess' message meant. I actually have a fairly good idea, and... to be honest, I had already guessed. Even without the help of a Goddess."

Gabrielle frowned.

" Guessed what ? " she asked.

" Xena... " Cyrene began, then bit her lips. " I don't know quite how to tell you this, Gabrielle, but she - inherited something. From my sister, her aunt. I'm pretty sure it goes back in the family longer than that, from something my grandmother said about her years ago, but she died before I ever realised that Xena - had it. They do say it runs in families."

" She had some illness ? " Gabrielle asked. " How strange. She always struck me as the fittest woman I ever met."

" It wasn't that sort of illness. " Cyrene whispered.

A slow suspicion began to dawn on Gabrielle. She felt herself flushing. Part of her didn't want to hear any more. Part of her wanted to cry.

" My sister, you see, always refused to marry. She lived with a distant cousin of hers, a woman a little older than herself, and... well, we knew, but we didn't talk about it. Not in Amphipolis. "

" And Xena. When she was fifteen or so, this was long before Cortese, she started acting very strangely around this girl - making cow's eyes at her and blushing whenever they met - it was obvious that she, well, felt things for her - "

Gabrielle hid her face in her hands.

" Oh, Xena, Xena... " she whispered.

" When you and Xena came to visit me, I saw that same look in her eyes. Whenever she looked at you. I wondered if you were both - you know - but then I heard you had married -"

Gabrielle's shoulders began to move convulsively.

Cyrene stopped talking, and tentatively placed a hand on her back.

" Does it horrify you that much ? " she asked quietly. "So you never even guessed. I did wonder, when I heard you had parted company, if she had said something, and you..."

Strange sounds began to escape from the younger girl. Cyrene frowned. Surely she wasn't laughing ? Then Gabrielle looked up, and she saw the tears streaming down her face. But her expression was bizarrely contorted, and there was almost an element of amusement somewhere.

" No ! " she burst out. " She didn't say anything. Ever. I had no idea ! "

" Gabrielle, it's hard for a mother to talk about her daughter this way. Please give it some thought. She may have had these - impulses - and that's something you ought to know, if you're going to see her again, but she still needs your help, and she's still the Xena you used to travel with-"

" Cyrene ! Please ! I never suspected that Xena felt that way. About me. Or anyone. Oh, Aphrodite, forgive me ! Forgive me ! I did not know. "

" It wasn't anything you did - "

" If only I had known ! " she gasped passionately.

Cyrene's hand stiffened for a second, then relaxed.

Gabrielle turned her face to her and demanded:

" Do you know why I married Perdicas, Cyrene ? Why I had to leave Xena ? "

The older woman made no reply.

" I was terrified of what I was feeling ! For her ! I didn't - I couldn't risk telling her, having her reject me, I never thought that she-" she buried her face in her hands again.

" I see. " Cyrene whispered.

" I thought that if I married I might... get over it, make myself normal again. Forget her. Of course I knew I couldn't be with her any more after that, but it was better - better than having her despise me. Better than revealing a side of me that even I couldn't accept. I thought she would hate me for it if she found out. What an idiot I was!"

She paused for a moment.

" Was it really so obvious to you, Cyrene, that you could see it just looking at her ? "

Cyrene nodded.

" Then why couldn't I see it ? I must have been blind ! Or maybe I was just so scared of it all, scared of myself, scared of her... she meant so much to me, and the thought of her rejecting me - I think I must have been so scared of it being true that I stopped myself from seeing what was right in front of me. "

" So - you felt the same after all. For her. "

Gabrielle could only nod.

Cyrene gazed into the embers of the fire, unable to reply. Finally she whispered:

" Do you still feel the same way about her ? "

Gabrielle paused only a second before replying.

" Yes. " she said simply. " I do. "

Cyrene sighed.

" She is a very special young woman. " she mused.

Gabrielle actually managed to smile while wiping the tears from her cheeks.

" You can say that again ! "

" So you're still... keen on helping her ? "

" Cyrene, after what you've told me, I'd fight my way clear through to Tartarus to be by her side."

They doused the remains of the fire, packed away the bedrolls and utensils, and continued along the coast in comparative silence for the rest of the day.

Eventually they made camp on a grassy dune, near a convenient rivulet, with the sea lapping gently less than a hundred yards away.

After their meal Cyrene leant back against a piece of driftwood, watching the waves and making little conversation. Gabrielle busied herself with tidying up the dishes and re-packing everything that would not be needed in the morning. She tried to engage Cyrene in chat, but the older woman was evidently preoccupied, and made only non-committal responses.

Eventually Gabrielle could find nothing more to do. But it was still too early to sleep. She laid her pack on the ground and stretched herself out, using the pack as a pillow, and stared at the sky, as she and Xena had done so often, losing herself in the patterns of the stars.

It was eventually Cyrene who broke the silence.

" What are you thinking about, Gabrielle ? You look so intent. "

She lifted her head to reply.

" Just a game that Xena and I used to play. Looking for pictures in the stars. You can see all sorts of things there when you try. "

" You think about her a lot, don't you. "

Gabrielle bit her lip.

" All the time. " she finally confessed.

Cyrene sighed.

" I do too... you can't help it when you're a mother. And I've seen so little of her these last few years. I worry about her. What she's doing, where she is, whether she's safe. Isn't that silly ? She's led armies across the countryside, and I worry about whether she's looking after herself properly."

Gabrielle smiled. " I understand, Cyrene. I hope I'd be like that if I ever had a kid. "

The older woman paused, sensing something in the tone of her companion's voice. " It's a personal question, I suppose, but... you and Perdicas have never had children, have you ? "

" No. " Gabrielle replied tersely. " Oh, we did try, but it just never happened. "

" It sounds as if you have a lot of regrets about that."

" Yes, I - I do have regrets, Cyrene. "

It might have improved things between us, made him happy at last. It might have turned it into a real marriage.

There was an awkward silence, which Cyrene finally broke.

" Can I ask you something, Gabrielle ? "

" Of course. "

" You said you were thinking abut Xena. What were you thinking about her ? "

Gabrielle sighed. " Nothing concrete, I suppose. Her, me, us. Our relationship, I guess, and how it evolved. "

" I - oh, look, this is silly, I have no right to probe. I just felt that - she was my daughter, you were such a big part of her life - "

She lapsed into a disjointed silence. Gabrielle sat up and looked at her.

" What was it you wanted to ask ? "

Cyrene pursed her lips.

" If you ever wanted to talk about - the two of you, how it all happened, I'd be interested. Could you tell me that ? I won't ask again if you don't want to. "

Gabrielle drew her knees up and rested her chin on them, staring into the darkness around the camp. She did not speak for some time. Eventually she asked:

" Did you ever hear about how we first met ? "

Cyrene smiled.

" No, I don't think she ever told me. "

" She saved my life. These guys had jumped me, and I was about to be kidnapped, or maybe killed, and she just appeared from the bushes and wham, I was safe. It was a pretty good introduction to our time together, when I think about it. Saving my life was something she got really good at later on. Practice makes perfect, you see. "

Cyrene nodded.

" That was when I decided I was going to follow her. But how did I actually feel about her then ? Hard to say. At first, you see, it was just that... she was there to take me away from my old life. I'd grown up believing that all there was in my future was the usual stuff, marriage, kids, a farm on the outskirts. And I didn't want that. Not then. I wanted something more interesting. "

Cyrene smiled quietly. " And yet the usual stuff was basically what you ended up with later. "

" I know. " Gabrielle replied. " Ironic, isn't it ? That's what the playwrights would call it."

She chuckled, and continued: " Anyway, back then the thing I wanted more than anything else was to see the world. I loved all the wonderful stories that people told and I enjoyed being a storyteller myself. I used to imagine myself out there as one of the heroes, battling Cyclops and warlords and saving people. And when Xena walked into my life it was as if my fantasies had jumped clean out of my head and turned themselves into a human being right there in front of me. I mean, it was like, wow, who is this woman ? All I knew was that she was my ticket out of Poteidaia. So I followed her."

" She said you had a bit of a job persuading her to take you on, at first. "

Gabrielle giggled.

" I did. I had to stick to her like Nessus' shirt. She really didn't want me with her at first - so I couldn't give her any choice in the matter, you see, I just ignored her every time she told me to go away and kept on following ! "

Cyrene sighed. " You must have seen her good side. "

Gabrielle paused.

" Perhaps I did. I really didn't think about it like that at the time. I just saw her as a great hero who was going to take me away from Poteidaia. I didn't even think of her as a person at first. She was like a hurricane. A force of nature. People do react to her like that. They see the image at first, not the person."

Cyrene sighed again. " Even as an adolescent she did have a strange effect on a lot of people. " she replied. " She had lots of followers, but very few she saw as friends. And the followers would keep on following her, into whatever madcap scheme she had in mind. "

" Yeah. " Gabrielle said reflectively. " We even had a name for it. We called it the 'I'll do anything for the Warrior Princess haze'. "

Cyrene laughed.

" Who thought that up ? "

" I did, I think, but Xena understood. She's more observant about others than you'd imagine. "

" So when did you start to see her as a person ? "

" That didn't take long. I discovered things. She couldn't cook. She got cranky at times. She even started turning to me for advice. In a funny sort of way, she needed me too. "

" Yes... you were more of an influence on her than you understood. I could see that. "

Gabrielle's voice became very quiet.

" It took me a long time, though, to understand that I had fallen in love with her. "

Cyrene looked away, a little uncomfortable. She said nothing.

Gabrielle ploughed on. She was trying to clarify things for herself as much as for the woman next to her.

" It all happened in phases. When was the first sign ? I think it must have been after she collapsed. Someone - we think it was Callisto - shot a poisoned dart at her, and she went into a coma, and I really thought she was dead. "

Gabrielle paused, lost for a second in her thoughts.

" It affected me far more than I thought it would. When I walked into the room and saw her lying there pale and stiff - everyone thought she was gone - I just - "

She dropped her head onto her knees again.

" It was as if I had lost the most important thing in the world. She was more important to me than anything, anything at all, even my own life. I mean that quite literally. I would have died to bring her back, if there was any way of doing it."

" That night - she did wake up, of course - that night I didn't sleep: I just lay there by the campfire listening to her breathe. Afraid it would stop again."

She paused.

" And the funny thing was, I kept trying to tell myself that yes, she was a friend, my best friend, even my only friend, but I knew... I knew that if she died, a huge part of me would go too. I hadn't realised until that moment just how much she meant. And I couldn't understand why. "

" So it came as a surprise to you ? "

" Heavens, yes ! I mean - well, even then - I didn't think of myself as that sort of a girl - it didn't occur to me that I was actually in love with her. "

She grinned.

" I must have been as dense as two Boeotioans."

Cyrene chuckled.

" And then... " Gabrielle went on softly, " I don't know if you'll want to hear about this, Cyrene, but there was a day - not long afterwards - when we'd stopped for a wash in a creek. We were both pretty grubby and getting unpleasant to be with, and we didn't always have nice hot tubs to bathe in. A cold creek was the next best thing. Anyway, Xena came out of the creek wet and naked and started doing stretching exercises, and I just looked at her, and I thought.... "

Her voice trailed off for a moment.

" I thought - and I'll try to put it the way it hit me at the time - I looked at her and I thought 'Gosh, if I was a man I'd really go for this chick. I know what they see in her.' And then I realised I just couldn't keep my eyes off her, and it hit me like a ton of mud bricks. I didn't have to be a man. I did go for her. "

Cyrene cleared her throat. " Um. I see. So - what did you do about it at the time ? "

Gabrielle chuckled.

" Mumbled something about getting some firewood and ran away and hid."

She shook her head. " I couldn't cope with it. I was so embarrassed ! I mean, she was my best friend, and suddenly - nice girls just don't think like that about their friends ! I couldn't even look at her for days. Even she picked up there was something wrong in the way I was acting, but she was worried that I was avoiding her because she'd annoyed me. And all I could do was blush when she asked me why. "

She was talking rapidly now.

" And I couldn't touch her after that. I didn't dare touch her. I'd pull back. Before that - before I realised - we'd hug and hold hands and things like that, you know how it is with friends, but now... Oh, Aphrodite! If she tried to touch me I'd turn scarlet and jump like I'd been bitten by a tarantula. "

" Poor thing. " Cyrene mumbled.

" Gods, it wasn't that I didn't want it, it was what I wanted more than anything, but I knew that once I'd started I couldn't stop, I'd go overboard and she'd find out and she'd hate me ! "

" She wouldn't have hated you, you know. "

" Yes, I know that now. But at the time - "

Gabrielle heaved a deep sigh.

" Anyway, when I told her I was going to marry Perdicas, I sensed that she felt a bit... well, sorry to be losing me, but I imagined she was a bit relieved too, because I'd been so distant and edgy. In the end she gave up asking why. I thought she'd just decided that she must have upset me somehow, and I was sulking too much to tell her."

Cyrene picked up a stick and stirred the embers of the fire.

" And did you never sense anything in her behaviour ? Even now, looking back on it, with a chance to think about it?"

Gabrielle heaved a deep sigh.

" No. Nothing. Oh, it must have been there, I know, but it just didn't register. " Her voice took on a sad note. " I was such a self absorbed little thing, wasn't I ? So obsessed with my own hang-ups. It never even occurred to me to ask what she might be feeling... "

Cyrene looked at her.

" You were very young then, Gabrielle. "

She snorted. " Yeah. Try 'immature', Cyrene. No, really, I was. I was a kid with a big mouth and no tact. Do you know, people actually used to ask Xena how she put up with me. I sometimes wonder about that myself. "

Cyrene stood up and pressed her hands into her kidneys, massaging the muscles. She spoke quietly.

" At least the two of you are going to get a second chance. "

Gabrielle bit her lip. " Yes. " she said. " And I won't blow it this time, Cyrene, I promise you that."

" And he'll know where to wait. " Cyrene had said. " I'm headed back home, and you have to pass through here to get to Thrace. Amphipolis is the logical place to look for us. If I were in his shoes I'd be standing at the end of the bridge over the Strymon. He couldn't miss us."

" I don't think he'll try it, though. " Gabrielle had replied.

" Why not ? "

" The risk of losing face. I might just defy him. What would he do then ? Knock me unconscious and tie me to his saddle ? "

Cyrene frowned.

" Don't make a joke of it, Gabrielle, I've seen husbands do worse. "

She grinned, and looked at her staff.

" He knows I've got this. He's always been a little afraid of it. In the long run, that's why he won't be there. Because he knows that if it comes to a showdown, I can call his bluff."

Gabrielle was right: they crossed the Strymon without any encounters, and reached the inn unmolested. Despite her encouraging words, she found a great knot of tension slowly leaving her shoulders as they entered and Cyrene greeted the girl who had been left in charge in her absence.

She sat down slowly and scanned the few customers. All were strangers to her. Several of them greeted Cyrene warmly, but Gabrielle rated only a few curious glances.

The older woman walked over to her carrying a large jug of mead.

" Here, drink this, it's what we both need after a long walk. "

Gabrielle smiled.

" Any news ? " she asked.

" Oh, lots of local gossip - but if you were asking about Perdicas, no. He hasn't been seen around here. "

She raised her mug in a toast.

" I think we've made it so far. "

Gabrielle swallowed.

" So far. But I guess getting away from home and avoiding Perdicas was the easy bit. "

" Yes. " Cyrene replied. " You still have a lot ahead of you."

Gabrielle yawned.

" I don't want to think about it right now. There's plenty of time tomorrow. Hey, innkeeper, reckon you could put me up for the night ? "

Cyrene grinned.

" I think I could arrange that. The back room's free. It's a nice room, well lit, lots of space. Overlooks the yard rather than the street, so it's quiet. Easy access to the cess pit if you need to go during the night."

" Sounds ideal. I'll take it. "

But there was a woman waiting for her in Thrace, and even a pleasant room at the inn and good company did not count for much when Gabrielle's thoughts turned to her.

She forced herself to regard Amphipolis as nothing more than a one-night stopover, another camp site that had to be abandoned in the morning, no matter how pleasant it had been. The only luxury she allowed herself was a leisurely cooked breakfast, listening to Cyrene tell anecdotes of Xena's childhood.

Cyrene was in a strange mood, more talkative than usual, but also oddly tense, as if she too were trying to delay Gabrielle's departure.

But all too soon the moment came when she could dawdle no longer, when she could force no more herb sausage down her throat, and the sun was high enough in the sky to force her on her way before breakfast turned into afternoon tea.

The two women walked together to the eastern gate of Amphipolis. Here Cyrene paused, knowing that she could go no further, that Gabrielle's real journey was only beginning now.

She smiled at the younger woman.

" Good luck, and may the Gods protect you, Gabrielle. "

Gabrielle felt a moment of awkwardness. Her normal impulse would have been to embrace her: but she hesitated, uncertain how the matron would interpret the gesture, in the light of all they had discussed.

Oh, come on, she knows I'm not trying to...

She put her arms around Cyrene and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

" Thanks for everything." she said. " I'm really glad that we got to know one another. "

" So am I. " Cyrene returned the embrace with genuine affection.

Gabrielle pulled away. Time to go at last.

" Oh well, I'm off. See you again when I - I mean, when we get back. "

" Gabrielle. " Cyrene reached out and grasped her hand firmly.

" Don't worry, I'm ready for this trip - "

" I just felt I had to say something before you left. It's hard to put it into words, so bear with me. "

Gabrielle gave her an encouraging smile.

" I can't... I can't stand in your shoes. You've told me how you feel about Xena, and I respect you for that, but I just can't go there with you. I've never been that way. I never will be. I'm sorry to have to say that. You've been honest with me, and I have to be honest with you too. "

Gabrielle nodded, feeling the warmth of Cyrene's fingers on hers.

Cyrene continued:

" I suppose what I really wanted to say is that it doesn't matter. I think you can help my daughter and I think you can be good for her. "

Her grip tightened on Gabrielle's hand.

" Find her, Gabrielle. Be there for her. Give her - whatever you can, whatever you have to, to bring her back to herself. And if the pair of you need any help later on, I'll be here. Don't forget that. I won't turn away from you. Others might, but I will never again turn my back on my daughter, or on... the one she loves. "

She reached out with her other hand and grasped Gabrielle's wrist.

Gabrielle smiled.

" Thank you. " she said quietly.

On the first day she crossed the Nestus at Nicopolis, where she bought the last of her supplies. There would be few markets after here.

That night she camped in the foothills of the Rhodopian Mountains.

Her enthusiasm diminished sharply over the next few days. The track was rough and steep as it climbed towards the pass, and she often paused for breath after dragging herself uphill. The weather deteriorated, and she found herself walking through dismal forest under overcast skies. Rain fell at intervals: occasional showers, not heavy enough to justify stopping, but enough to render the grass damp and the leaves on the path slippery.

She felt her isolation keenly. She missed Cyrene: she had grown very fond of the dignified matron. Being totally alone was something she had never enjoyed, or had much chance of getting used to. Even Perdicas, uncommunicative as he was, had been a sort of company, and now she had nobody.

She began to look for secluded spots to camp, where her fire would be concealed from observers. Here, in this desolation, her life was in the hands of whatever brigands might choose to molest her. She had heard tales of travellers vanishing in these parts. If the worst were to come to the worst, she would never even be buried properly: her body would rot undiscovered.

At last she reached the summit of another ridge, and from its crest she saw not further hills, but the vast panorama of the bowl of Thrace, the huge circle of elevated steppe surrounded by a ring of mountains. There was nothing in that vista to suggest that humans had ever polluted this land. An unbroken swathe of forest stretched to the horizon, green hills and valleys, rivers and isolated mountain peaks, as it had been on the day that Zeus finished his work.

She smiled and followed the trail down the side of the hill.

Gabrielle sighed as she looked around her. This would be the perfect place to stop: food and water to hand, the shelter of a stand of trees if the rain returned.

She stripped quickly and walked naked into the stream. It was so cold that she squealed in delight as she splashed it over her body, sluicing the dust and dried sweat from her skin. She held her nose and dunked her head under the surface, running the fingers of her free hand through her hair. She stood up, shivering and almost numb, and considered trying to catch a fish the Xena way.

No, she never could teach me how to do that properly. It's a knack you have - or don't have - and I just don't have it.

She turned round to wade towards the spot where she had dropped her clothes.

There was a man standing on the bank beside her rucksack.

She gasped, automatically covering her groin with one arm and her breasts with the other.

The man, strangely, was not even looking directly at her. He was staring into the forest with a pensive expression.

" Excuse me ? " she said loudly. " I'd like to get dressed here. Would you mind turning round ? "

He did turn at the sound of her voice, but only to look directly at her. He made no comment.

She bit her lip. " I don't think it's very polite to stare at naked strangers while they're washing. " she stated.

If I can just keep him distracted long enough to get to my staff -

" It's not a good idea to join the Army. " he said suddenly.

Gabrielle frowned. " I'm sorry ? " she asked.

He repeated his statement. " No, it's not a good idea to join the Army. "

" I haven't." she replied in bewilderment.

" Good. " he said. " It destroyed me. "

He walked away from her belongings and sat down at the base of a tree. He picked up a piece of fallen bark and began to shred it slowly between his fingers, his lips moving silently as he did so.

Gabrielle risked a quick trot out of the water and began to pull her clothes on.

Damn it ! I was going to wash these and let them dry by the fire, but this idiot's put a stop to that.

She slowed her hasty dressing. The stranger seemed to be paying her no attention at all. As she straightened out her skirt he looked up again.

" Do you live around here ? " he asked innocently.

" No ! " she snorted. " I'm just passing through. "

" I live here. " he offered.

" Oh. Good. Just great. "

He continued to mouth silently to himself as he shredded the bark.

" I mean, I thought I had this place to myself, but somebody lives here. " She thought about it. " I don't suppose you mind my camping beside your home ? "

He frowned, but did not look up.

She tried again. " Is it all right if I camp here ? " she asked, slowly and clearly.

He laughed suddenly. " You can camp anywhere. " he said. "I don't give people orders. Giving orders is wrong. "

" I'll take that as a yes. " she replied, more sarcastically than she had intended.

He ignored her as she wrapped her wet hair in a towel and finished lacing up her boots.

" What's your name ? " she asked eventually, more to break the silence than because she wanted to know.

" My name is Heraklion. "

" And I'm Gabrielle of Poteidaia. "

" Thank you, Gabrielle. "

" That's... think nothing of it, Heraklion. "

He stopped shredding the bark and stared at her with a curious intensity.

" I fought in a battle when I was with the Army. " he said. " It was awful. I hated it. I almost killed somebody."

She felt herself beginning to lose some of her annoyance. Heraklion might have crept up on her while she was washing, but he was obviously a few caryatids short of a Parthenon, and it was hard not to feel a little sorry for him.

She picked up the staff - her mother had told her always to be cautious with strange men - and sat down beside him.

" Was the battle so bad ? " she asked sympathetically, balancing the staff across her knees. "Tell me."

He looked away. " I don't want to talk about it. " he replied.

All right, don't bleeding tell me, then.

" OK. " she replied. " Mm. Well, perhaps you can tell me about where you live. "

" I live right here. " he replied.

" No, I meant, where's your house ? I didn't notice it."

" I just - I just live here. "

She appraised him critically. He was obviously a Thracian, from his tattoos and flowing beard, and his boots and cloak had a military cut. He might well have served in the Thracian Army. He didn't look like he had spent much time sleeping rough, though, which didn't gel with that part of his story.

" No house ? " she asked.

" Not - any house here. "

" Have you been here long ? "

" Yesterday. "

" You only got here yesterday ? " she demanded.

" Yesterday, that's right. I ran away from the Army and came here. "

She looked around suddenly. The last thing she needed was to risk military punishment for aiding a deserter.

" The Army was awful." he went on. " Killing and burning, burning and killing. I had to come here instead. "

" I see. " she replied.

" And now I live here. " He smiled suddenly, with the innocence of a child.

" Yes, you do. And it's a lovely spot. "

So "I live here" is more a statement of intent than an historical datum.

How would he eat ? How would he find shelter in winter, defend himself from bandits ? Would the Army come looking for him eventually ? The questions followed one another in Gabrielle's mind, but there was no trace of them in his face. He had found his solitude. How he would maintain it had not yet occurred to him.

" Are you hungry ? " she asked.

He shrugged. " The quartermaster isn't around. "

She sighed, and stood up slowly.

" I'll get some firewood and make a fire, OK ? Then we might have something to eat. "

He blinked and looked away, but made no response.

It did not take her long to assemble a stack of dried wood, and sufficient kindling to get the fire started. She bent over and spent the next few minutes striking sparks with her flint, and blowing on them gently to encourage combustion.

Heraklion stood up and began pacing back and forward, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Gabrielle watched him cautiously as she fed twigs into the little red glow.

" What's the matter, Heraklion ? Come over here and help me organise something to eat. "

He shook his head.

" No. No. It's burning. " he whispered.

" Yes, it's a fire, they tend to do that. " She frowned. "Don't you like things that burn ? "

" A village burnt once. "

" Oh. " She found herself remembering Cirra. But that had happened a long time ago, and Cirra wasn't in Thrace.

" You saw it happen, did you ? "

" I was there, yes. I was in the Army. Did I tell you that?" He was visibly nervous now, and stammering.

" Where was this village ? "

" That way. " He nodded in a northerly direction. " Up the stream, follow the stream, you'll find it. "

" There are still people there ? "

" Yes. " he looked for a moment at the fire, then began to pace again.

She sighed. " Heraklion, is the fire upsetting you ? Would you like me to put it out ? " It was a nuisance, after going to the trouble of lighting it, but the sight was obviously bringing back unpleasant memories.

To her surprise, he laughed suddenly.

" That's it ! That's it ! " he exclaimed. " Oh, you can light it - but you can't put it out ! You can't, you know !"

" We'll see about that. " she muttered.

She stood up and kicked the little blaze apart. The few twigs that had taken went out on contact with the damp grass, and in seconds there was nothing but smoke and a little charred kindling to show for her efforts.

" It's out now, Heraklion. " she called.

He continued to pace.

" Oh well, bread and dried meat for dinner. And I've got an apple, you can have half of that. "

I wouldn't have minded some soup... Oh, come on, Gabrielle, he can't help what he's been through. Poor thing.

He sat down eventually, and accepted the food. His table manners left something to be desired: she had to look away while he ate. At least he didn't dawdle, and had finished long before she did.

It was quite dark now, and she was beginning to wonder where she could sleep, and if Heraklion could be trusted to behave himself overnight.

She looked around and spotted a dense clump of bushes.

" I'm tired, Heraklion, and I'll go to bed soon. "

" All right. " he replied cheerfully.

" I'm going to sleep over there in those bushes. Where do you usually sleep ? "

" Here. " he announced.

" Here ? All right, then, you sleep here. I'll see you in the morning. Good night. "

She picked up her rucksack and staff and started to walk away.

Heraklion did not even turn to watch her. He sat with his back to the bushes and stared into the darkness.

He was still sitting in much the same position next morning. Had he slept at all ? Gabrielle could not be sure, and did not want to ask.

She offered him some dried figs and the remnants of her bread, which he ate with the same decorum he had displayed the night before.

" Heraklion. " she announced. " I'm going to follow the stream and look for the village you told me about. Do you want to come ? "

He shook his head emphatically.

" No. It burnt. I was there. "

" But you said there are still some people, didn't you?"

" Yes, people, but I live here. I don't live in the village. "

" You're - quite happy to stay here, then. By yourself ?"

He wouldn't be safe living in the forest like this. Surely it was her obligation to take him to civilisation ?

He turned his face to her and gave her a beautiful, innocent smile.

" Goodbye, Gabrielle. I like you. "

It was then she that remembered he was a deserter, and the punishment he would face when he was caught. If he was lucky, they might just let him off with a flogging that would merely permanently disfigure him.

" Yes - I like you too, Heraklion." She sighed. " Look after yourself."

He turned away and looked downward.

She followed his gaze and saw that he had made a little model of a house out of some of the charred twigs from last night's fire. It stood in the middle of a circle of ash that he had collected and smeared into the ground. Modelling his nightmares, perhaps.

He did not look at her as she left. Her last sight of him was of his hunched back as he focussed on his model.

It was late the following afternoon before she saw wisps of smoke to her north. The path became clearer and wider, and here and there she noticed the stumps of felled trees. She was evidently on the outskirts of a settlement.

As she approached the village the damage became more and more obvious. She passed unharvested fields where the remains of crops stood in clumps, half eaten by wild animals. When she looked closely she could often find a few blackened remnants of wood where one might expect a farm house to be, but after looking once or twice she lost her enthusiasm for further exploration.

There had been some rebuilding at the centre of the village. A couple of new structures stood amongst the ruins of the old ones. They were still outnumbered by the many sites where nothing had been done to repair the devastation, and only piles of charred timbers remained. One cleared area near the centre of town contained rows of sorry little humps which could be nothing but hastily dug graves.

Gabrielle paused near the centre of the town, unhappy to stay here, but unpleasantly aware that dusk was falling and that she would not be going much further tonight.

She found herself being perused by a shabbily dressed male who stood facing her.

" Who are you, lady ? " the man asked bluntly.

" My name is Gabrielle. I'm a traveller. I left Poteidaia a couple of weeks ago, and I'm headed north. "

" Alone ? " he asked.

" I'm afraid so, well, for the moment, anyway. I'm going to meet somebody later on. " She bit her lip. She didn't like admitting her solitary state to strangers of dubious motives, but it was transparently obvious that there were no nice strong bodyguards travelling with her.

" I suppose you'll be looking for supplies. " he growled.

Gabrielle found herself annoyed by his manner.

" I have a little money, enough to buy a few supplies." She deliberately stressed the word. Not that this fellow looked the sort to provide charity to wayfarers.

" We don't have much to share with travellers. " the man said bluntly. " There isn't enough to keep our children alive as it is. "

She looked around her. There was plenty of unharvested grain in the fields, she thought, but perhaps not a great deal else. She decided to change the subject.

" It must have been a terrible fire to cause this much damage. "

The man snorted.

" More than one fire. " he snapped. " All caused by the Thracian army and the damned captain they sent to molest us. "

She looked at him. Heraklion's story had been true after all. " Oh, the Thracian army were here ? " she asked. " I didn't know they'd come this far south. I didn't think these parts were involved in the rebellion... "

He gave her an odd look. It occurred to her that the villagers might not like being described as "rebels" if they had been implicated in the insurrection.

" They were here. " he replied sourly. "Oh, we didn't rebel. We were loyal. We were back then, at any rate. Now - well, I don't know how many of us feel too loyal after what our own soldiers did. "

" What did they do ? "

" They turned up here one afternoon and accused us of harbouring rebels. We weren't, of course, not that anyone here knows of. Anyway, their captain - " he snarled the last word - "their captain, a foul little piece of work if ever there was one, rides up the middle of the village square and demands that we produce them or suffer the consequences. "

Gabrielle looked at him, feeling sick.

" We told them we weren't harbouring anyone. They said fine, have it your way - and the next moment we were being attacked. "

" Oh, no. " whispered Gabrielle.

" Oh, yes. " he replied. " Children and old men cut down, buildings put to the torch. There's hardly a family here that didn't lose at least one. Some families - well, every one of my neighbours is under that grave there. Not a soul left to carry on the name. "

" That's - horrible. " she whispered.

" And all the time, " he went on, " their captain rode up and down, smiling, yelling orders to the men. Making them hurry up. Gods, there are moments when one would almost give one's soul for a crossbow. "

Gabrielle looked at him with compassion.

" You can't excuse something like that. " she said.

" - And then of course, they all just rode off. Left us to pick up the pieces. I don't know if they were really looking for rebels or just out for an afternoon's fun. "

" Where did they go after here ? " she asked eagerly.

He looked at her quizzically.

" You almost sound as if you want to catch up with them."

" Well, I do. My friend is with them.... "

The man's jaw dropped open.

" You have a friend in that army ? "

" I do. That's why I've come all this way. "

He turned to spit into the dirt.

" Then you'll find precious few friends here. " he announced.

Well, that was clever, Gabrielle, try being more discreet next time.

" Well - if I succeed, I'd like to get my friend out of the army and back to - well, back home with me, if I can do it."

The man snorted. " He ran away from you to join the Army, eh ? "

Gabrielle nodded eagerly. " Something like that. So... well, think of me as trying to reduce the Thracian army by one. "

" I can think of better ways of doing that. " he grumbled. But the menace in his tone had receded, and Gabrielle's breath started to slow again.

He motioned her to follow him, and they entered one half-built structure, where half a dozen men sat around a table playing dice.

She surveyed them warily. None of them looked particularly happy. One man had lost a leg and sat with his crutch beside him, another had an arm in a sling, and one older man wore a patch over one eye. Another individual, one of the youngest, bore no signs of physical injury, but stared at her with an expression of unreasoning hostility.

" Got a visitor. " her guide announced.

" Lost, are you ? " the younger man replied. " Couldn't see you coming here by choice. "

A couple of the others chuckled at the witticism.

" No, I'm looking for someone. A friend. "

The men looked at one another with ribald grins.

" You don't need to go looking, dear, lots of friends here for you. "

Gabrielle gripped her staff tightly.

" No, I've come a long way looking for this friend. She's got herself involved with the Thracian Army. " She bit her lip. " I don't like that any more than you do. I hate this sort of thing. I want to talk some sense into her and get her out. "

The one-eyed man turned his head sharply.

" Her ? " he demanded. " Your friend is a woman ? What's her name?"

" Her name is Xena. " she replied.

There was a brief stunned silence.

Then the angry looking man banged his fist on the table.

" Xena ! " he snapped. " You've come looking for Xena ? "

" Well, yes.... "

" And you can stand there and tell that to our faces after what she did here ! "

A slow horror began to dawn on Gabrielle.

" Don't tell me... oh, no... it was her, wasn't it..." she whispered.

She looked quickly about the room, checking for exits, but the front door was blocked by the man who had led her here.

If the worst comes to the worst I can clobber him and run for it -

The angry looking man stood up and faced her.

" And you called yourself her friend. " he stated.

Gabrielle's mind raced. Was it safe for her to reveal her relationship with Xena ? They obviously hated her - not without reason - and for her to announce that she was a friend of their persecutor seemed likely to provoke a less than desirable response.

And anyway, how can I claim her as a friend when I haven't even spoken to her for years ?

" Well, no, she's not really a friend in that sense, it was just - the simplest way of describing a complicated situation. Yes, I am looking for Xena. But I've been sent to try to influence her. " she began.

" Influence her ? Best way to do that is with a knife in the back. " the man replied.

Gabrielle grimaced.

" I - well, I knew her once, when she wasn't like this. You've heard that for a while she tried fighting for justice..."

" Somebody said that the other day. " the man snarled. "What I say is, from the look on that bitch's face when she saw my uncle killed - no, she was never into justice. Even if she pretended once that she was. "

" I travelled with her then, when she was fighting evil, and I didn't think she was pretending. "

" You travelled with her. So you really are friends, aren't you ? " the man asked with forced casualness.

Suddenly the air was tense with menace.

Damn you, idiot girl ! They always said that one day your big mouth would get you into trouble.

" I helped her because what she was doing - then - was right. What she's doing now is wrong. " Gabrielle replied carefully. " That's why I was asked to try to influence her. Get her to stop this - senseless stupidity that's she's got herself tied up in. "

To her own surprise she found herself close to tears.

" And she'd listen to you ? " he demanded.

" The ones who sent me here think she would. Me - well, I just hope so. "

The man approached her with eyes devoid of emotion. He slowly pulled out a dagger and began toying with it, making no move to attack Gabrielle but blocking her escape with his body.

" So, " he mused, " a friend of the Warrior Bitch. Guess you enjoy sacking the odd village here and there yourself, then?"

Gabrielle sniffed back the tears.

" I hate what she's been doing ! " she snapped. " If I had to I'd - I'd stand in front of the next village and tell her that if she wants to kill anyone she'd have to ride over my body first - "

The man turned his cold gaze on her.

" Liar. " he said simply. " You're here to help her. "

He brought the dagger up until it was horizontal and pointed at her heart.

" Don't worry, you won't have too long to wait for your friend before she joins you in Tartarus - "

Suddenly a hand descended on his wrist.

" Menion. " A quiet voice. The old man with one eye. "Give this girl a chance. "

" But ! She's a friend of the Warrior Bitch. "

" Perhaps. And perhaps we should hope that she is. "

" Hope ? " sputtered Menion.

" She may be right when she says that she could influence her. "

Menion scowled.

" Who knows ? " The old man went on. " We don't lose much by letting her try. And we all have a lot to gain if she succeeds. "

" You don't believe her, do you ? " Menion's voice was heavy with contempt.

The old man shrugged.

" As I said, we don't need to believe. We just need to know that letting her try has more to offer than killing her now does. "

" And what if she's lying, we let her go, and she joins Xena and helps her ? "

The old man smiled.

" Then we have added one frail girl to an army of five hundred men. That won't make the sky fall in. "

Gabrielle opened her mouth to protest at the description. A frail girl ! Give them a taste of her staff and she'd show them what a frail girl she was... but common sense re-asserted itself. She didn't want to strengthen Menion's argument.

" Thank you. " she said demurely. " Please believe me, that I've only ever helped her to do the right thing. Sometimes - sometimes all she needed was to be told what the right thing was. "

Several eyebrows were raised.

" Like - Xena dear, I don't think burning down this village and murdering the inhabitants is the right thing, let's help them get the harvest in instead ? And she'd say - yes, surely, why couldn't I see that ?" Menion snorted in derision and started to walk away.

Gabrielle blushed.

" Okay, she's obviously... lapsed. And believe me, I really hate that part of her. "

She only just heard Menion's sardonic reply as he left the building:

" Well then, we've got something in common... "

They allowed her to sleep in a stable. It was one of the few buildings that had survived Xena's attack, and, as someone pointed out sourly, was of little use now anyway, since Xena had killed or stolen all their livestock.

She did wonder if she might expect visitors in the middle of the night, and considered slipping out after dusk to sleep in the surrounding bushes, but that would probably have been taken as some sort of admission of guilt. In the end she found an unobtrusive corner behind a feeding rack and concealed herself there, propping the door closed with a piece of loose railing. If someone did try to take their anger out on her she would at least have warning and a chance to prepare herself.

She slept poorly, and woke several times, staring around the stable in alarm, but there was never anything amiss to have startled her.

Towards morning she found herself in a dream.

Xena's voice rolled out.

" It's hard to be alone." she said, in an infinitely sad tone.

" You're not alone. " Gabrielle replied.

Then the figure turned, and it was not Xena, not Xena ! Cyrene was standing there instead, and it was Cyrene's face that looked into hers.

" .... hard to be alone. " Xena's voice commented again.

A large ceramic jar had appeared at the foot of the sarcophagus, and it was resting on a bed of straw, several bundles of straw, in fact, all of different colours, some light, some dark, strewn together on the floor.

What was Cyrene doing here in Lyceus' tomb, what was this jar, where did the straw come from ?

" You're.... not alone. " Gabrielle repeated to Cyrene. She tried to walk into the tomb, to look at the jar on its bed of straw, but it was no use, it was like trying to wade through water, and the harder she tried the more resistance she found.

It was morning, and soon she would have to be on her way again, into the depths of Thrace, to find her beloved.

For two days she walked over ridges and across valleys, meeting nobody and seeing no signs of habitation. On the first night she was kept awake by distant animal noises, roaring and growling, which made her remember the legendary Thracian lions, and shortly after midnight she climbed a tree and attempted, unsuccessfully, to sleep wedged between the trunk and a branch.

On the third day she saw wisps of smoke rising in the distance, and soon she found herself on the outskirts of another village.

The outlying farms were unharmed, and the few people that saw her waved amicably. She began to relax. At least this village had not been visited by the Destroyer of Nations.

The inn here was nothing more than a private home with a couple of trestles lined up on a verandah. Gabrielle strolled through the front door and entered an ordinary domestic kitchen, with a hearth, a set of storage shelves, and a clutter of pots and pans. An elderly woman was cooking something, and her husband was peeling vegetables.

The man looked up and smiled at her. He had a sprightly, bird-like manner, and Gabrielle immediately liked the way his eyes twinkled,

The woman ignored her and continued cooking. The man wiped his hands on his apron - an operation which, as Gabrielle's eyes adjusted to the comparative darkness inside, she realised would transfer more detritus to the hands than it would remove from them.

" Good afternoon, miss. " he greeted her in a high-pitched voice. " You're a stranger in these parts. "

He held out his hand for her to shake. She took his finger tips demurely.

" I am. " she agreed. " I'm from Chalcidice. I'm here on a trip to visit a friend in Thrace. "

He raised his eyebrows.

" You've come a long way. "

She sighed.

" Yes, it's been a long journey. "

" Well. " he smiled, " perhaps I can offer you something? A drink ? Or a meal ? You can have a drink now, and you can have a meal as soon as we've cooked it. "

" I will have a glass of something, thank you, and I might stay to take you up on the offer of a meal. "

He nodded. " Normally we only feed a few of the single lads when they come in off the fields - as you can imagine, we don't get many outsiders in a place like this - but my wife can throw a bit extra in the pot, can't you, my dear ? "

She mumbled something that might have been agreement.

Gabrielle accepted a beaker of mead and sat at one of the tables on the verandah. She was a little appalled at the grime that covered its surface. Mead, she decided, must be a popular drink around these parts, judging by the way that the spills on the table attracted flies.

Then she looked at her own clothes. She hadn't washed since she found that stream at the foot of the Rhodopian mountains, and that had been - well, a while ago. This inn didn't look like it would have a hot tub, but a bucket of warm water and a private corner of the yard wouldn't over-stretch its resources.

The innkeeper emerged and sat beside her. Obligatory hospitality, she thought; and she had spent too much time alone lately to think of it as an intrusion. She welcomed the human contact.

" Had a rough journey ? " he asked. " These are dangerous parts these days. "

She told him an edited version of her experience in the last village, omitting her links to Xena.

He nodded. " Yeah, the bastards've done that to a few villages. Left us alone, thank the Gods, and it looks like we'll be safe for a while now that they've gone."

She raised her eyebrows. " The Army has moved away ? " she asked.

" You haven't heard ? The whole Thracian Army got pulled north. Caught up in the emergency there. "

" What emergency is that ? " Gabrielle asked.

" The Horde are on the move again. They've occupied a province to the north-east of here, and they're threatening Epharia. "

" Where's Epharia ? "

" A little town up that way. I heard that's become the big flash point. If the Horde take Epharia they cut off a couple of vital passes, and, well, that's obviously not good. So the army will try to stop them before they do that. "

Gabrielle had learned her lesson. She looked away and said casually:

" They told me in the last village that one of the local army units is led by a woman. Xena. "

" Xena ? Bitch has gone with them. At least, so they say."

The innkeeper scowled. Xena's reputation had spread even here.

" Good riddance. " he went on. " We don't have to put up with her as long as she's somewhere else. Hope she makes the Horde a good dinner. I've heard they eat people. Thinking of her makes me hope it's true. "

" She's certainly made herself unpopular. "

He shrugged. " What sort of woman would want to lead an army ? She'd have to be some sort of blood-drinking lamia even to try it. She's an unnatural monster, and in these parts we've had to learn that the hard way."

He looked at Gabrielle quizzically.

" You've never wanted to fight with an army, I suppose. "

She shook her head sadly.

" That's never even entered my head. " she assured him.

" Mm. So where are you headed ? " he asked.

Where did he say this Epharia place was again ?

She remembered. " I'm headed north-east after here. "

He frowned. " Right into the troubles, then. "

" I'm afraid so. "

" Well, be careful. A single girl on the road can get into a lot of trouble, more so when there's a pack of young soldiers running about. "

She grimaced. " I can look after myself. "

" I hope so. " he replied, in all sincerity.

The inn did not offer rooms as such, but the owner did have a comfortable armchair which, as he pointed out, could be drawn up near the kitchen fire and would be nice and cosy to sleep in.

Gabrielle smiled as she accepted. She almost told him that sleeping in a chair in the kitchen was something that reminded her of home, but he didn't need to know about her marital problems. And in fact the chair was both warm and comfortable, and the sun was high in the sky when the noise of the wife chopping vegetables finally woke her.

She scanned the valley slowly. It had been says since she had seen any sign of a human being.

Her attention was suddenly attracted by a number of horses trotting along the road. As they passed from the cover of the trees she noticed that the leader was riding a light coloured horse, and had long black hair streaming in the wind.

Her heart jumped as she recognised the figure. It was Xena ! The brown smudge of the leathers covering her torso, the long smooth naked legs, the hair - even the sternly upright stance that the figure kept in the saddle: it could be nobody else.

She called out, but the distance was too great, and she knew that down in the valley her voice would be drowned by the clatter of hooves.

She jumped up and down and waved her arms, trying to attract the figure's attention, but even as she did the troop of horse disappeared behind another clump of trees, and then were hidden by a rise in the land.

Within a few seconds the valley was as empty and silent as it had been all morning.

Gabrielle sat down abruptly, a confusing mix of emotions stirring in her. At last, she had seen her again ! And she was still alive, and - as far as a distant glimpse could reveal - looked her usual self.

For that she was grateful. But there were other feelings boiling away. Expectancy. And fear. She had pinned a lot of hopes on this reunion.

Once before, I left everything behind to follow you. I left my home, my family, my loved ones. Everything. Then I chickened out when my feelings got too strong, and I was afraid of losing the best friend I ever had.

Well, I've done it again. I've left my husband and my new home. Poteidaia will gossip for a month on my walking out like that. And it's still because of you.

By all the Gods, I hope this is worth it.

What if Cyrene was wrong, and Xena's feelings hadn't been - the way she thought they were ? All Gabrielle could achieve was to make an utter fool of herself in front of the greatest female warrior Greece had ever produced.

And what if things had changed in the time that they had been apart ? If the Warrior Princess had felt for Gabrielle once, but had simply forgotten her, or found someone else ? Or if she simply couldn't forgive her for her abandonment ?

No, there was no sense in tormenting herself with all of these possibilities. She was going to meet her again, and what happened after that was in the lap of the Gods. If it didn't work out - at least she had tried.

But there was another possibility that scared her almost more than the others. The possibility that Cyrene was right, and that Xena still felt for her.

If that were true, nothing could ever be the same again.

If this were the base, Xena would return here when her mission was over. Gabrielle could wait for her, and surprise her when she re-appeared.

It might even be tonight, she told herself. Tonight, after all these years.

It would be an interesting reunion.

Would Xena have changed ? She would be older, of course, and that might make a bit of a difference. But not a lot. At heart there was something essentially changeless and timeless about the Warrior Princess, something immune to alteration, however much her outer behaviour might seem different. She carried her own reality inside her, and it was strong enough to defy the pressures of the world.

Gabrielle had always thought that the only difference between the Destroyer of Nations and Xena the Defender of the Weak was the mask that she chose to present to the world. She had always remained herself underneath.

There was, however, one real concern which she had been avoiding thinking about. But now that she was here, it loomed stronger than before.

It might only be Xena's outer mask that altered, but she was certainly wearing her new one pretty consistently. From what Gabrielle had heard, she had surrendered almost totally to her destructive side, and that might make her a little unapproachable, at least at first. And she knew from her own experience that the destructive side of Xena could be dangerous to deal with.

I did it once. I broke through her shell. I know what she's like underneath... I don't care if she has gone back to her old ways, I can reach her. I know it. And I'll do it - if she doesn't kill me first...

There had been occasions in the past when she had been terrified of the Warrior Princess and her potential for violence. It would be ironic if Gabrielle's mission ended with a slit throat.

Well, if it happens, it happens. I don't think she would want to hurt me - but then perhaps I never did understand her as well as I'd like to think...

Gabrielle stood beside the road on the edge of the encampment and watched. Nobody approached her, nobody spoke to her.

Well, it's better than having them throw me out.

She finally approached one man, a senior looking officer who was strutting from one building to another.

" Excuse me sir... "

" Eh ? What do you want ? "

" Um - I saw a cavalry troop go out up the valley today-"

" Yes ? "

" I was wondering if you could tell me when they're expected back ? "

He frowned.

" Why do you want to know ? It's a military mission, m'dear. Secret."

" I've come a long way to see a friend of mine who's with them. "

He looked at her dubiously.

" Please - it means a lot to me. "

He grimaced.

" All right. It's a brief reconnaissance, they'll only be gone a few hours. That's all I can tell you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things to do. And if anyone asks you, I didn't say anything about the patrol. "

A few hours ? She felt a curious tightness in her chest, an excitement which allowed her to ignore the officer's abruptness.

She wanted to ask where she should wait, but the man was already walking away. Well, she could work a little thing like that out for herself! Xena had ridden into the valley, and there was only one track headed that way, which was also the northern entrance to the camp. If she hung around here, she would eventually spot her coming back. She sat down on a tussock of grass and began to wait.

Several groups of soldiers passed into camp, most of them looking young, disgruntled, and harassed. Gabrielle scanned each group intently. There was no hint of Xena.

Many of them returned her gaze, and she found this uncomfortable. Their eyes held a curious mixture of lust and contempt, and she suspected that they simply took this lone young girl hanging around an army base as a professional camp-follower. While she immediately resented the assumption, she was honest enough to understand their mistake. There were a few other women around, and all of them dressed and acted in a way that made their chosen career path fairly obvious. There really weren't many other reasons to be here.

She gritted her teeth and prepared herself for the inevitable proposition, but the inevitable seemed not to live up to its name. Nobody so much as spoke to her. Perhaps there were fixed hours and rosters for that sort of thing. She had been too properly brought up to know, and really didn't want to find out.

A few lone horsemen passed by, but no sizeable groups.

The longer she sat, the more unsure of her mission she became. She succeeded briefly in convincing herself that she was on a wild goose chase, and almost fled, before her resolve re-asserted itself.

Where are you, Xena ? I'm here. I'm waiting. Please turn up soon and put me out of my misery. I have to know how you feel... and I don't want to spend the night here by myself.

At last she heard a distant thunder of hooves. A group of horse ! Gabrielle stood up and waited by the side of the road, almost hopping from foot to foot in anticipation. She could feel her heart hammering as they rounded the corner and hove into view. She scanned the riders, searching for the woman whose image had been filling her mind all day long.

But to her disappointment, this group was smaller than the party she had seen leaving. Only half a dozen horsemen rode into camp, and they charged past her at full gallop without acknowledging her presence. All were males, all were veterans, from their armour and age. Xena was not amongst them.

She scarcely had time to register their faces before they disappeared.

She sat down again, feeling disconsolate and very much alone in a world that had no real place for her.

She reluctantly faced the fact that something had happened to change Xena's plans, and that she would be unlikely to arrive tonight. This was a military base, of course, so she might still come riding in after dark, but it would be foolish to count on it. Or to assume that Xena would even see her by the side of the road if she did.

That left her with a problem: where to spend the night.

She ran over her options. All things considered, somewhere not actually in a military base seemed preferable. Perhaps she could find a hiding spot amongst some trees, far enough away not to be challenged by the sentries.

She stood up and rubbed her stiff leg muscles.

There was sone last thing she should do before she bedded down. She should check to see if Xena hadn't come in on another road. True, she had gone out north, but it was just possible that she had swung back and around and entered the camp from a different direction.

She might, in fact, have been relaxing in her quarters all the time that Gabrielle was inhaling dust and making a spectacle of herself in front of the soldiery.

The bard took a firm grip of her staff and tentatively started down the central roadway of the base.

She did attract a few curious looks, but nobody questioned her or her right to be there. Everyone seemed to be intent on their own agendas, too preoccupied to notice a lone female.

Poor security, she thought. But then again, I'm pretty obviously a Greek. Blonde, fair skin, green eyes. If I were kitted out like a Hordsewoman they might get a bit more upset.

Eventually she plucked up her courage and approached one of the older soldiers, a distinguished looking middle aged man clutching a small torn papyrus and intently noting off items. He raised his eyebrows as she made eye contact.

" Excuse me, sir, but I'm looking for some information on a friend of mine - "

He interrupted her abruptly.

" A friend ? Which unit is he with ?"

She bit back her annoyance at his manner.

" Riding with the cataphracts. " He didn't need to know it was a woman she was after.

" With the cavalry ? " He pointed briefly. " Bloke over there with the gold on his breastplate. He's a sergeant of cavalry. Ask him."

He turned back to his list, pointedly ignoring her.

She turned on her heel without thanking him and approached the man he had indicated.

He too glanced at her only briefly when she hailed him.

" Excuse me, sir ! I was hoping you could help me. "

" What can I do for you ? " he asked briskly.

" I'm a friend of a woman called Xena, and I was hoping you could tell me something about her, I hear you're with the cavalry. "

" Xena ? The warrior woman ? "

" That's her. "

He looked at her with a peculiar expression.

" She was on the scouting party that went up to Epharia today. " he commented.

Gabrielle smiled.

" That's north of here, right ? I saw them from a distance. Going up the valley. I haven't seen her come back, though. Any idea when they're due?"

He coughed.

" They got back an hour ago. "

Gabrielle frowned.

" That's funny. I didn't see them. Did they come back another way ? "

He did not answer, but looked around and spotted another soldier.

" Etephon ! " he yelled.

The other soldier looked at him.

" Come here a moment, will you ? "

Etephon trudged over.

The sergeant looked at Gabrielle.

" Etephon was on Xena's party. He can tell you more than I can. Hey, Etephon, will you talk to this girl ? She's - come here to look for Xena. A friend of hers. "

As Etephon limped towards them she noticed that he was grimy and dishevelled. He stared at Gabrielle without expression.

" Friend of hers, were you ? I'm sorry to hear that. " he announced bluntly.

Gabrielle looked at him in disbelief. The sergeant quietly disappeared.

" Sorry to hear... I came here to look for her. Where is she ? "

" Up the valley still, I should think. Unless the Horde bastards've moved her. "

" What do you mean ! " Gabrielle demanded. Her voice was developing a slightly hysterical edge. " Is she hurt ? I'll have to go and help her - "

" Lady, I don't think there's much point in you hoping to find her alive, hurt or unhurt. " He shook his head mournfully.

" You saw her get hurt ? " she asked.

" Hurt... No, worse - "

" What do you mean, worse ? Where is she ? "

He tried to look away, but she grabbed his arm and swivelled him round. He met her eyes, a little surprised at her strength.

" What happened ? " she demanded again. " Tell me - exactly - tell me everything ! "

" All right, I'll tell you what happened. You know that Xena led a reconnaissance mission up the valley this morning?"

Gabrielle nodded.

" I was with them. We were about a dozen men all told, Athenian cataphracts, and her, of course. She'd been with us for a couple of weeks, and we all respected her. We'd fallen in together after the battle at the pass and she just... kind of took over, ended up in charge. I'm still not sure how she did it. "

" I know what you mean. " Gabrielle replied tightly.

" Well, today, we had our orders to take the road for Epharia and see what was happening round there. Epharia's in Horde hands now, and the General was concerned that they might be advancing on us from there. "

Gabrielle scowled. She suspected that the man was beating around the bush. " So what exactly happened to Xena ? " she demanded.

" I'm telling you what happened! We were all going up the valley, following the stream bed, and still a long way from Epharia. It was about lunch time when we ran into an ambush. "

Gabrielle remembered the figures she had seen from the crest of the ridge. That had been only a little before lunch.

" An ambush. " she repeated, with a sick feeling.

" Yeah, Horde ambush. Lots of the bastards. Perhaps a hundred. All popped up out of nowhere all of a sudden. A dozen of us couldn't hold them, and before we knew it they were behind us as well as in front of us. I'm still not sure how they hid so well.

" There wasn't any time to form a defensive formation. They had everything, archers, crossbows - half of us never even got time to get to grips with them. "

" It looked like there were more ahead than behind, and so - well, we didn't exactly decide to retreat, we just found ourselves pushed backwards. But they had a mob waiting there for us too. With pikes. We couldn't get the horses through the pike line. It looked like we were going to have to dismount and fight - which would get us all killed - or stay on the horses and get killed by the archers. Wasn't much of a choice. That was when your friend did what she did. "

" What did she do ? "

" She just yelled to us to stay in formation on the horses and she'd make a hole in the pikemen. As soon as there was a passage, she said, just ride through and carry a message to the base that the Horde was here in the valley. "

" And then... "

" She dismounted and charged them on foot. I've never seen anything like it. She sent them flying right and left. The Horde just went for her. I think she knew they would do that. They dropped the pikes, pulled their swords, and surrounded her. Of course, as soon as the pikemen abandoned their formation, we could ride through, and we did. "

Gabrielle looked at him in astonishment.

" You mean you just rode out and left her there ? " she demanded.

The soldier looked abashed. " Well - no, not exactly. We halted about a hundred yards down the road, and half the guys were for going on, to get the message back to camp, while the others thought we should try and charge them from the rear, to see if we could save your friend. Well, we did try, in the end. We regrouped, and turned back. We were going to rescue her. "

" But - you didn't ! " Gabrielle exclaimed.

" No. We met a solid body of them on the road, coming our way. If it's any consolation to you, a couple more of the guys went down trying to get through, but it was no use. If she was still there in the middle of them - she was gone. "

Gabrielle could think of nothing to say. She just shook her head slowly, and looked away.

The trooper continued:

" In the end we pulled out and retreated. I think - I think what she did was truly noble. I just hope someone can honour her memory for it. "

Gabrielle whirled to face him with a look of utter savagery on her face.

" How dare you talk about her as if she were dead ! Did you see her fall ? "

" No - "

" No ! Because you weren't there ! You were more concerned with getting out of it alive ! You left her ! "

" Come on, good men died trying to get back to save her-"

" Yes ! The good men died ! And the others are still here!"

The soldier's eyes flashed for a moment, and he leant forward as if he were about to hit her. She stood glaring at him, her fingers tensing around her staff, daring him to act.

Finally he spoke, far more gently than she deserved.

" She was your friend. " he said simply. " I sympathise with you in your loss. I should know what it's like to lose a friend - it's happened to me more than once."

His tone grew a little sharper.

" Including today, I might point out. "

With that he turned on his heel and left her.

The sun had just touched the horizon, and she kept shivering, even though part of her knew that it wasn't really that cold, not yet.

The grey shadows were thickening amongst the bushes. Distant noises echoed from the camp: shouts, anger, occasional laughter.

Laughter. How could anyone laugh after a battle ?

Xena. Xena. How dared they leave her for dead ? How dared they assume that she couldn't take care of herself ? She knew Xena's fighting skills, she had seen her in action. Xena could handle a few Hordesmen.

But she hadn't come back: it was getting dark now, and she still hadn't come back.

She must be out there. Hiding or hurt, somewhere near the scene of the battle.

A sentry took up position on the road a little way down. He eyed her in silence, but ignored her thereafter. Presumably she wasn't a threat.

The sun was gone now, but the western sky still glowed in pink and purple.

Gabrielle reached her decision.

If Xena was hurt, then it was Gabrielle's obligation to help. How could she abandon her ? Not now. Not after all the times Xena had saved her. How many knives had been held at her throat ? She'd lost count. Somehow Xena had always saved the day.

It was her duty to find her friend now, find her and help her. She didn't need any commands from Aphrodite to know that.

Gabrielle stood and surveyed the road. She began to walk north, towards Epharia, towards the scene of the ambush.

The sentry eyed her moodily as she disappeared, but made no move to halt her.

As the glow in the west faded, the edge of a full moon began to peep over the horizon. Good: she shouldn't have any trouble finding the way. Her mind began to clear now that she had a purpose, and the rhythm of her tread helped to restore her sense of normality.

She was going to find her friend. She was going to see Xena.

She strode down the path in the moonlight, eyes and ears alert, staff at the ready. She had no idea how she would fare against the Horde if she stepped into an ambush, although part of her had a sneaking suspicion that the best she could hope for was to go down fighting.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the air. The trees around her stood motionless, and the only sound was the faint rustling of her clothes as she walked.

She reached a point in the road, near the river, from where she could see the distant rise of the hill to her left. That was where she had stood watching Xena as she rode at the head of her group of cavalry.

Gabrielle paused here, looking up, trying to imagine how she would have appeared if Xena had turned her head. A diminutive little figure, lost on the horizon, easy to miss. And Xena was always focussed. She didn't often gaze at the scenery when there was business at hand.

And if she had seen me ? Would she have stopped ? Would she have tried to reach me somehow ? It might have saved her life if she had.

But I don't think so. She always knew what her duties were. Even if she had noticed me, she would have pressed on, for the greater good.

She continued walking.

Something was moving in the bushes ! She whirled round, staff raised, muscles tensing, ready for the attack.

There it was again, off to her left. A dark shape in the shadow of a tree. It moved to one side, and she heard the rustle of grass against feet.

What was it ? It was really too big to be human -

She heard a soft whinnying. A horse ! Cavalry ? One of the Greeks who had ridden with Xena to their deaths, or a Hordesman on horseback ?

She leapt to the shelter of a nearby tree, hoping for some kind of protection against a charge.

The horse ambled slowly towards her. As it moved out of the shadow of the tree into the moonlight she saw that it seemed riderless.

I've heard of the Parthian trick - the rider hangs down by the side - when the victim is lulled into approaching the Parthian leaps up and skewers them -

She sidled out from the protection of the tree trunk and ran to the side of the horse, staff raised for a blow.

But the horse was truly alone.

Then she noticed the horn on the front of the saddle, the colouring on its flanks, and she let out a little cry.

Argo !

The horse moved further towards her and thrust its nose into her armpit. It nuzzled her roughly, tilting her off balance for a moment.

" Argo, you remember me ! " she whispered.

She ran her fingers across the horses's neck in a caress.

" Good girl ! " She pressed her face into the warm horse flesh, closing her eyes in a moment of happiness.

The smell was right. Memories flooded back. Argo by the campfire, Argo ambling along beside them as they walked, Xena grooming her in the evenings...

She blinked and sniffed, trying not to cry.

" Argo, Argo, where is she ? Is she all right ? Oh, I so want to see her, I need to see her, help me, Argo, please..."

She glanced at the gear on Argo's back. The saddle was still there. Even the pack was tied in place. Nothing had been disturbed.

She placed one foot on a stirrup and lofted herself into the saddle. Argo shied back a little and tottered unsteadily. She grasped the reins tightly in one hand and gripped the saddle horn with the other.

" Argo ! " she whispered. " Take me to her. You know where she is. I need her. I mean, she needs me. Let's go !"

Argo began to canter down the track, north, towards the battle site. But there was something wrong with her gait: she was rocking heavily as if limping, and the side to side lurching made it hard for Gabrielle to keep her seat.

She tried leaning forward, but kept rolling across the horses' neck.

Then she leant back, placing a hand behind her on Argo's flank. The horse whinnied, and she was surprised to find the hair wet and sticky. She pulled on the reins to stop the horse, and turned her head.

There was an arrow sticking out of Argo's flank, just behind the point of the hip.

Gabrielle gulped.

" Whoa, girl ! What happened ? "

But of course she knew what had happened.

She slid to the ground and examined the injury. The arrow was deeply embedded. It would be impossible to remove it here, in the dark, without tools.

The best she could hope for was to get Argo back to the base camp and let the vets do it there. In the meantime, it was obviously causing the poor beast too much pain to ride her, so she would have to be led.

" Don't worry, girl, we'll get that seen to - later. Right now we have to find Xena. Sorry, but you'll have to wait. I will do it, don't worry. "

She set off down the track, leading Argo by her reins.

She paused some twenty minutes later when she spotted something lying on the path ahead of her. There was a faint glint of moonlight reflected off metal. As she carefully drew nearer Argo jerked her head a few times in alarm, and pulled at the reins.

" Hush, girl. " she whispered. " It's only a helmet. "

She looked at it more closely: a Greek cavalry helmet, stained and dirty. A full face affair, with cheek plates and a nose guard.

Several thoughts followed one another through her head. Firstly: if Etephon's story was accurate, this was probably the spot where the troop of cavalry had turned to make their last stand after leaving Xena. That meant several things. It meant that the main ambush, the ambush where Xena had last been seen, had taken place only a little way up the road.

It also meant that there had been a battle on this very spot and that people had died here, only hours before. She knew why Argo had shied: the scent of blood still lingered here in the glade. Sweet and yet metallic. Blood and fear. And death, the butcher's shop smell of fresh meat.

Gabrielle shuddered.

Another thought followed. At least a helmet was protection. Little as she liked the idea, it might be an idea to wear it, provided that it didn't interfere with her sight or hearing.

She reached down to pick it up, but at first it seemed to be attached to the ground - it was astoundingly heavy - she had handled helmets before, none of them had weighed this much-

She dropped it with a strangled shriek.

It was not empty ! It still contained -

She backed away, hand pressed to her mouth.

Argo was skittish and still pulling back on the reins, voicing her fear quietly.

" Believe me, I don't like it either. " Gabrielle finally gasped.

" But I think you've had enough for one day. Argo, girl, I can't ride you and you're not even being quiet. This is just getting too dangerous. I'll tether you here and come back for you later. Promise. " She looked into the horse's huge trusting eyes.

" At least, I hope I will. " she conceded.

She turned and looked at the helmet again. No, best not to think about touching it.

The road north was darker, and the shadows of trees obscured her view of the track.

According to Etephon, they were only a hundred yards or so from the scene of Xena's last stand. But where were the Horde ? Had they retreated ? It was possible that they had fallen back on Epharia and were regrouping there. But it was also possible that they were still here in the bushes, watching her and waiting for the moment to attack.

Her first priority was to find Xena, but she would achieve nothing by dying before she could do that. She decided to leave the path and creep through the bushes.

It was not long before she found herself on the crest of a low knoll that looked down onto the river and the road. The flat area widened beneath her, and she saw the sprawled remains of human beings scattered across the ground.

This, then, was the scene of the battle.

For a long time she squatted, looking for movements, listening for noise, but there was nothing.

Eventually she rose and made her descent to the battle field.

Gabrielle saw at once that they had eaten very little of her, and for that she was grateful.

She knelt on the sticky ground beside the corpse and touched her cheek. She was cold, and the texture of her flesh was like unbaked bread, soft and doughy.

She ran her hand slowly down her chin, onto her throat, feeling the horrible wound that had ripped her from ear to ear, pausing for a second on the arrow head that jutted through the leather over her heart.

So they had killed her from behind, in the end. She had still been standing when she had taken the arrow.

She stroked Xena's hair, teasing it back into some sort of order around her head. She rested a hand on her knee and gently traced the line of the muscles in her thigh, hardening already in death.

It was a long time before she could bring herself to return to Argo.

At least Xena got her own pyre. She still had a reputation, and a couple of dozen men gathered to farewell her. Most, apparently, had followed her in her warlord days.

Even if circumstances had been different she didn't think she would have wanted to chat with them.

They had wrapped the body in a white cloth. It had stained in places, where her wounds were still seeping fluid.

Gabrielle stood, stony faced and immobile, as they brought the torch and lit the faggots at the base. The smoke stung her eyes, but she stared on, blinking, as the flames built up.

It was only at the end that she turned away. She couldn't bear to see the last part, couldn't bear to watch the flesh she had loved and thought about so often being consumed.

She stood with her eyes closed, inhaling the smoke, listening to the crackling. There were no tears to shed. She felt nothing, only the physical warmth as the heat radiated onto her skin.

The sergeant in charge of the funeral team made no objections to Gabrielle removing the ashes. Perhaps he considered their disposal one less duty for him to carry out. He even told her where to find a suitable urn.

But she had to take a shovel herself and scrape Xena's remains from the baked earth into the jar.

The south road, she had been told, would take her all the way to the valley of the Hebrus, which she could follow to Dyme on the Egnatian Way, and from there she would have no trouble reaching Amphipolis. It would be a long journey, but she had no choice: Argo could not negotiate the track across the Rhodopian Mountains.

A soldier approached her as she left the veterinary area. He waved to her, attracting her attention.

She looked at him without expression.

" Sorry to disturb you, lady, but I hear you're Xena's friend. They tell me you've agreed to see to her burial. "

" That's right. " she replied. Why didn't he just go away?

" I know this isn't a good time for you, but I thought I might be able to help. You're going somewhere, taking her ashes home... "

" She wanted to be buried in Amphipolis. "

He unslung a small leather packet from his back and handed it to her.

" Me and a friend - well, we used to know Xena, and we heard you were doing the right thing by her, which is what we'd like to do, only this isn't a real good time right now, what with there being a war, so we thought you could use this on your journey. Just some travelling rations and a little bit of money. Not much, but it should get you back to Chalcidice."

Gabrielle took the packet, but could not open it. She stood awkwardly, wondering what one ought to say at a moment like this.

It would be nice to be able to cry, but I can't.

She experienced an impulse to give it back to him, but that seemed ungracious as well as impractical. She had already run out of both food and money, and she really wasn't up to earning dinars by story-telling on the way back. The donation would be undeniably useful.

" Thank you. " she whispered. She clutched at Argo's reins and looked at the road ahead of her. The man, however, seemed to want to chat.

" Quite a woman, Xena. I followed her once in the old days, and she was magnificent. Eyes like a lioness. Walked like a goddess on earth. But somewhere along the line something went wrong. Never did work out what it was. "

Gabrielle could not meet his eyes. She stared at the ground.

" You know, she'd really changed of late. I bumped into her in camp, and she wasn't the woman I remembered. Horrible to say it, but it was almost like she was looking for death. She acted like she had lost something important, couldn't live without it, and was just waiting for an opportunity to throw her life away. But she had to do it with honour. She wouldn't fall on her own sword, so she had to let the Horde do it for her."

Gabrielle looked away, physically nauseated.

" I can't believe she would do that. " she replied.

He sighed.

" You've heard what happened to her, at the ambush, how she sacrificed herself to save the cavalry. " he offered.

Gabrielle flushed. She didn't know whether to walk away or to hit this man right now, drive him into the earth with her staff.

" She - I don't care what people say. She was a true hero." she retorted.

The man pursed his lips and looked abashed.

" Oh, I would never argue with that. Lady, I'm sorry if what I said upset you. I'm still proud to have known her. You must have some good memories of her yourself, from the time that you spent with her."

Gabrielle glared at him. " It was the best time of my life. Being at her side. " she declared.

" I can imagine it. "

She shook her head slowly. " Can you ? "

He gave her a look of puzzled appraisal. " Perhaps not. But it would have been an honour to be counted her friend, back then. I don't suppose you have any idea what happened later to change her so much?"

She looked at the ground.

" It must have happened after we parted company. There's nothing else I can tell you."

As she slung the pack strap across her chest it pressed uncomfortably on one breast. She winced and tried to slide it up, down, anywhere comfortable: in the end she had to drop the pack again and shorten the strap, so that it rode high on her chest. As soon as she was round the corner of the road and out of sight of the camp she rubbed at both breasts, wincing.

Why were they so sore ? Perhaps it was just that time of the month, and worse than usual, but they felt bloated and tender. Or perhaps there was another reason. Too much sleeping face down on stony ground when her body had become used to a bed again. Whatever the cause, there were far more important things to worry about right now.

She shouldered her burden and continued to trudge down the track.

The stars had scarcely turned. Only an hour gone. Another seven or eight of her long vigil before dawn broke.

She rested her chin on her knees and thought.

Why hadn't she cried yet ? Would she ever cry again ?

Gabrielle, the greatest woman in all Greece is dead. She loved you and you loved her, but neither of you ever breathed a word of it. And that's why you're sitting under a tree, alone. And that's why she's...

She turned to the dark shape beside the campfire. There was her pack, and inside it -

She stood slowly, and moved towards the pack. She undid the thongs and opened it.

It would have been so nice for it to have been just a dream, but no, there was the jar, cold and hard and very real. She inserted both hands into the pack and pressed them against its sides.

She squatted, then pulled it out and placed it carefully on the ground between her knees. Its physical presence was cold and harsh where her skin pressed into the rough earthenware. For a long time she simply sat, buttocks cold on the grass, feeling the pot gradually warming from contact with her flesh.

This was Xena, she had to remind herself. This was all that was left of the woman who had been the centre of her life, the woman she had rejected for fear of rejection.

On a sudden impulse she pulled the top off the jar and buried her face in its mouth, breathing deeply. The smell was strong, and was really no different from the smell of the cooking fire at home when she cleaned the ashes out in the morning: smoky and acrid, irritating and tickling her nose.

But there was something comforting in the idea that this was Xena that she was inhaling. The woman she would never meet again.

The tears did come then, at that thought, trickling slowly down the side of her nose and dribbling unheeded into the jar. She didn't care. She had loved her: she could weep onto her ashes. It was the closest they would ever be now, this side of Tartarus.

She removed her face and stuck two fingers into the jar, still weeping, and slowly removed some of the damp ash. She stared at it in the faint orange light of the fire. Black and grey. Gritty and powdery. Nothing unusual, nothing to say what it had once been.

The fingers suddenly found their way into her mouth and she was sucking them, licking them, sucking the ashes off, tasting Xena.

Her eyes closed and she focussed on the powdery acrid flavour filling her mouth. Visualising her, dreaming of her.

The taste was, like the smell, simply that of ashes: not very different from her recollection of trying to eat a chop that had fallen onto the wood during cooking. The image of the meat repulsed her for a second, but she could not spit out onto the ground something that had once been more than ash. She rolled the grit round her mouth and then swallowed it.

I have a little bit of you inside me now, Xena. You will always be part of me. I can never be alone.

She examined her fingers and carefully licked off a black particle stuck to one, and swallowed that as well. More Xena.

With her eyes closed she tried to feel Xena's spirit entering her, tried to imagine her courage spreading through her limbs.

She woke next morning to find herself curled in a foetal position, wrapped around the jar. For a moment she wondered where she was and what this strange object between her knees meant. When the memories came back, her first thought was to check the lid: it would be ghastly if the contents had spilled out while she was asleep, but she was spared that horror, at least.

Facing the day, facing the world as it was now, was horror enough.

What would Cyrene's reaction be ?

She had promised to help Xena. She had taken the hand of Xena's own mother and sworn to seek her out, to offer her support, companionship, and even love - if love were what the Warrior Princess wanted.

And now it had come to this.

Gabrielle had fantasised once, when she left Amphipolis, of returning with Xena at her side. They would both be riding horses - where hers would come from had not been exactly clear, but little details like that weren't important. The important thing was that they would be together, they would be a team again, just like the old days, Xena and Gabrielle, but now - different. Not friends, but lovers. Inseparable.

They would have ridden into town side by side, and the people of Amphipolis would cheer and acknowledge them as heroes.

Instead she was returning for a funeral. Carrying the main participant in her rucksack.

She passed several farms. The farmers scarcely looked up from their work to notice the grimy, travel-stained young woman leading her lame horse into town.

Even the villagers in the outlying buildings ignored her.

Her pulse started to race as she drew nearer to the inn. It was only when she reached it that someone finally acknowledged her existence.

Cyrene stood on the steps of the inn. Her shoulders were hunched and the eyes that turned towards Gabrielle were red from weeping and empty, empty.

" Cyrene. " she said weakly.

The older woman remained stony-faced.

Thank the Gods, at least she knew already. Gabrielle had dreaded the possibility of being the one to break the news to her. She could guess the effect it would have on the proud matron.

But this was no way to think in the face of what had happened.

For a long moment she stood looking at the older woman, taking in her loss. She didn't know what to say. There was nothing she could say. There weren't any words.

Her vision began to mist over as the tears rolled into her eyes.

In the end, she surrendered to her feelings and ran to Cyrene, threw her arms around her, and howled. To her infinite relief, the older woman slowly raised her arms, embraced her, and led her inside.

Cyrene took the urn and placed it in Lyceus' tomb, at the foot of the sarcophagus. She then rested a little wicker basket on the ground and prepared for the ritual.

From she basket she removed a ewer of red wine, a jar of honey, and a loaf of bread. She placed these funerary offerings onto a broad earthenware patera before the urn.

Then she took out a young cockerel, its feet bound together. It flapped its wings experimentally. Cyrene reached into the basket for the last object, a small sharp bronze knife.

Gabrielle turned her head and looked away.

Death. Too much death. We celebrate a death by another killing. Does it make sense ? No. But it's always been done this way.

There was a brief squawk. Then Cyrene waved the little corpse over the urn, sprinkling the blood onto the earthenware, finally depositing the lifeless bundle of feathers beside the other offerings.

Her last gesture was to use the knife to remove a large lock of her dark hair, dropping it at the foot of the urn. She passed the instrument to Gabrielle, who did the same, adding her straw-blond contribution. Toris finished the ritual.

It was the customary grief-offering to the dead, the sacrifice of the lock of hair, as prescribed by custom from time immemorial.

As the party left, Gabrielle stood at the doorway of the tomb, and fixed the image in her mind: Lyceus' sarcophagus, and at its foot the jar, and the little bundles of hair of assorted colours.

Then it was time to return to the world outside, the sunshine and the smell of the trees, a world without Xena.

A wave of nausea hit her. She found herself suddenly reaching for the chamberpot under the bed and thrusting her face into it. She gagged and heaved, retching into the pot until there was nothing left in her stomach, then retching again in an attack of the dry heaves.

She had felt queasy every morning for the past week, but this was the worst attack so far.

Perhaps there was something wrong with her. Perhaps she was sick. It didn't matter. It didn't even matter if she died. She remembered where she was. She was in Cyrene's inn at Amphipolis, and this was the morning after the funeral. Xena was gone, and there was no longer anything to look forward to.

Eventually the nausea diminished to the point where she could trust herself to walk. She picked up the chamberpot and walked out to the yard to sluice it at the well.

Her legs were wobbly and weak, and she felt as if she had a hangover. But she couldn't recall drinking the night before. All she could remember was walking home from the burial ceremony and hiding in her room for the rest of the day. She hadn't even eaten, let alone drunk alcohol.

Cyrene approached her, carrying a straw broom. She stared at Gabrielle with a worried expression.

" Gabrielle, you don't look well. Has something happened?"

" Oh - nothing really. I just threw up, that's all. Must have a bit of an infection. Maybe something I ate. "

" You didn't eat a thing yesterday. I sent Toris in the evening to ask if you wanted to join us for some dinner, but you were asleep. "

Gabrielle shrugged indifferently. " Maybe it's just nerves. If I'm still sick when I get back home, I'll see someone there. "

She finished rinsing out the chamberpot.

" Come on inside. " Cyrene murmured. " It's still chilly out here, and you've only got your night shirt on. "

Gabrielle felt a little better sitting in front of the oven. she huddled herself down with her legs flexed and her arms wrapped round her knees, grateful for the warmth.

Cyrene continued sweeping the kitchen.

" Have you thought about what you will do now, Gabrielle?" she asked quietly.

She paused before answering.

" There's only one thing I can do. I have to go back to Poteidaia. That's where my husband and family are. "

Cyrene nodded.

" Family is important. " she agreed. Then she added: " I hope Perdicas is in a mood to forgive you. "

Gabrielle sighed. " I know him. He'll throw a tantrum, but he'll take me back. After all, he needs someone to cook and clean and run the house, and he doesn't make enough money to keep a servant. I can always count on having a roof over my head as long as I'm willing to do the work. "

Cyrene frowned.

" You don't sound as if you really want to go back. "

" Cyrene, you know what I really wanted. I would want it still - but I can't have that any longer... " She closed her eyes and shook her head. " No, I have to be realistic. At least I have family, and a husband. And yes, it's not much of a marriage, but I've met women in worse situations. He's away a lot of the time, and even when he's there he just kind of ignores me. It's not as if he was beating me up every night or anything like that. "

" And that's enough for you ? "

" It's all I've got. "

Cyrene looked at her steadily.

" You could always go somewhere else. "

" I'd miss my sister. I'd even miss my parents, although they get on my nerves at times too. And Cyrene, I grew up there. It's a boring dump, but it's what I know. It's - home."

Cyrene pursed her lips. " Home ? Yet you walked out on it twice. "

Gabrielle did not reply.

Cyrene looked at the huddled silent figure by the hearth. She sighed, and resumed sweeping the floor.

I did walk out, yes, twice. For her. Only for her. But everything's changed now, everything, and I have to go on by myself.

Her legs were killing her, and she was aching with fatigue, when she reached the first of the outlying farms.

She decided to drop in on Lila first. Lila and her husband lived in this area now, on the main road a little out of town. Lila had married well, and she and her husband ran a cattle farm which was quietly prospering.

It made sense to stop here, she told herself. She could rest for a while before confronting Perdicas. Gabrielle wasn't looking forward to the reunion. He had been so angry even before she left: her reception now, after her disappearance, did not bear thinking about.

Lila was uncharacteristically nervous.

" Gabrielle ! Gabrielle ! What are you doing here ? "

She sighed. " It's a long story, Lila. Basically, I'm back. "

" Back ! You mean you're going back to Perdicas ? "

" I think so. If he'll have me. "

Lila turned away, frowning. She seemed to be considering something. Finally she said:

" Does he know you're here ? "

" Not yet. He won't be expecting me. To be honest, I'm not exactly looking forward to it. "

" Have you heard any news from Poteidaia since you left?"

" No, none. I've been in Thrace. "

" I see. So you wouldn't know... "

" Know what ? "

Lila took a deep breath.

" Perdicas - he's disowned you. He divorced you in your absence. He's married someone else. "

Gabrielle felt a moment of absolute fury.

" He - what ? " she demanded.

" Gabrielle, he just doesn't want to be your husband any longer. "

Gabrielle clutched at Lila's arm for support.

" Who is she ? " she demanded. " Who is this trollop he's taken up with ?"

" Eurydice, the baker's daughter. "

" Eurydice ! That little two faced hussy ! How could he fall for a bag of spite and gossip like her.... "

Lila put her arm around Gabrielle.

" Oh Bree, I'm so sorry, but when you left, he was so angry, and he believed you weren't coming back - "

" Don't try to defend him, Lila, he divorced me ! After all I've done for him ! That tart Eurydice ! If I get my hands on her I'll - I'll - "

Lila began to steer her towards the cottage.

" Come inside and sit down, Gabrielle. You need a rest. " She looked at Argo. " That horse yours, is it ? "

" Well - yes, I suppose so. Now. "

Lila registered the ambiguity, but decided this was not the time to pursue it.

" He'll be all right out here ? He doesn't wander ? "

" It's she, and don't worry, she'll hang around. "

Lila sat her sister down at the kitchen table and proceeded to fuss over her. She poured her a cup of wine, offered her some little sweet cakes, and effused constant sympathy.

Gabrielle was scarcely listening. Her main focus was her own feelings: and once again she managed to surprise herself.

She realised, now her initial outburst had subsided, that her real response to Perdicas' remarriage was relief. She didn't have to go back to him any longer. She had never really wanted to go back to him. She was only doing it because he was her husband and she had nowhere else to go.

Eurydice - that was different: what she had done was a personal affront. Unforgivable. The only real question was whether it was worth stooping to her level to have it out with her. It probably wasn't, but it was tempting...

Other thoughts followed on. What did the rest of the family think of the situation ?

" Lila ? " she asked eventually.

Lila, aware of Gabrielle's inattention, had been chattering inconsequentially about village matters. She stopped abruptly.

" What is it, Bree ? "

" What do Mum and Dad feel about - that bastard ? Perdicas ? "

" They - well, to be honest, um, they kind of supported him. "

" Supported him ? "

" Yes. When they heard that you had walked out on your husband to chase Xena again, they took it pretty bad. You know they never liked her."

" I know. Even though they never knew her. "

" Yeah, well, they thought she was a bad influence on you. Made you do silly things, risk your life. Give up your home and your family. "

Gabrielle's mouth twisted in contempt. " I suppose that would hit them where it hurt. In their pride. That I could prefer being with her to being with them."

" Don't be so hard, Bree, they really care about you, you know. They were worried that she'd get you hurt. You know the sort of life she leads, I mean, it's a wonder you lived through it as it is, though I shouldn't be tempting the Fates by saying that. And there were other things about Xena that worried them. Dad even thought... well, never mind. "

Gabrielle's ears pricked up.

Don't tell me Dad saw it too !

" No, I'm interested, Lila. What did Dad think ? "

Lila shrugged awkwardly. " That Xena was - well - after you. In a Sapphic sort of way. You know he's got a warped mind."

Was I the only one in the world who couldn't tell ?

" Don't worry, we knew you were just friends. "

Gabrielle grimaced and wondered if she should tell Lila the truth. But really, what was the truth ? Nothing had ever passed between them. There was nothing for her to conceal, except her regret for what might have been.

Lila went on more seriously:

" You were very close, though. It must have been awful for you when you heard she had died. "

It was a long time before she could answer:

" Yes. It was. "

Lila put her arms around her and hugged her in silence. Gabrielle took her hand and tried to fight back the tears.

" Oh, Bree, Bree. " Lila whispered.

Gabrielle sniffed. She felt herself giving way.

" Lila, I - I spent two years with her... then I left Perdicas to help her again - I would have done anything for Xena, anything - but when I got there... "

Lila made little soothing noises.

" There was nothing I could do. She was dead. I'd have spent the rest of my life with her, but she was dead. And now, I just - I just don't know what to do. "

Lila continued to stroke her.

" God, Bree, everything's such a mess ! First you chase Xena and find her gone, then you come back to Perdicas and he's dumped you... where will you live, even ? "

Gabrielle pulled her head away to look at her.

" Can I stay here for a while to sort things out ?"

Lila looked awkward.

" Um, I'm not sure how good an idea that is, Bree. Mum and Dad are still angry. They've said... well, nasty things, and now that you're single again and they have legal control over you... they'd make it hard. You know that as a single woman the law will say that you're part of their household. Remember what happened to Alkeste, Hippomene's kid, when her husband died... "

Gabrielle nodded.

" So you think Mum and Dad won't forgive me at all. " she commented.

" Not in a hurry. And then there's Perdicas and Eurydice. Eurydice will see you as a threat and won't rest until she's made your life a misery. Perdicas will just do whatever she tells him to. You know what he's like. "

" I do. " she sighed.

" And I can't even hide you here because my husband is Perdicas' uncle's first cousin, and he'd feel obliged to let Perdicas know - blood ties. "

Gabrielle nodded.

" He's away tonight - he's gone off to a farm - another one of Perdicas' relatives, actually, to sell them a heifer. So he won't be back till late tomorrow. But when he does come back - "

Gabrielle looked at her in astonishment. Was Lila saying that she couldn't, or wouldn't, help her own sister ?

" What happens when he comes back, Lila ? What are you saying ? "

Lila bit her lip in indecision.

" I'm saying that there are too many people in Poteidaia that are annoyed at you, Bree, and that you'd be better off living somewhere else. I hate having to say it, but you can't stay here. "

You're not going to help me, are you. For a moment Gabrielle felt like standing up and walking out.

Then common sense re-asserted itself. At least she could stay the night. And Lila was right. There was nothing for her here except misery and friction, and she would be better off going somewhere else.

But where ?

" Anyway, Bree, you can share my bed tonight, just like when we were little. You remember that ? "

Gabrielle nodded, a slight smile on her face.

" And we can talk about where you'll go in the morning. But first - gosh, it's almost dark. Why don't you have a wash in the yard before dinner? I've got some water heated up, you can use that."

" Thanks, Lila. " Gabrielle had been acutely aware that she hadn't washed for days. Her skin was crusted with dust, dried sweat, and loose horse hairs.

A hot tub would have been nice, of course, but even Lila didn't have one of those.

She left the cottage by the back door and undressed on a small paved area near the well. Her grubby clothes fell in a malodorous heap at her feet.

Lila emerged carrying a bucket of warm water and a ladle.

" Here you go, Bree. "

Her skin tingled as she ladled the water over her limbs.

" Thanks, that's fantastic. Hey, we'll have to keep some of this water to wash my clothes. When I took them off they tried to crawl away all on their own. "

Lila laughed. " There's another bucket's worth in the kitchen. You can use all of this to wash. I'll get you a scraper too. "

Gabrielle stood feeling the warmth of the evening sun on her flesh. As Lila brought another bucket of water, she began to remove the worst of the dirt from her body, running the brass scraper over her limbs.

Her breasts were still tender, and she found that she had to rub them gently with her fingers: the scraper was too hard.

Lila placed the second bucket before her and stood, staring at her body quizzically.

Gabrielle found herself a little embarrassed.

" Bree ? " she asked.

" Mm ? "

" Why didn't you tell me ! "

Gabrielle frowned at her.

" Tell you what ? "

" That you're going to have a baby. "

Gabrielle's jaw dropped.

" Lila ! What makes you say that ? I'm not - I'm not pregnant ! "

She pursed her lips.

" Bree, look at your breasts, the veins, that little pot in your stomach ! Come on, tell me: when was your last you-know ? "

" Well - I know it sounds silly - I was late even before I left Poteidaia, but you know what it's like when you're on the road. It often didn't come at all when I was with Xena. We travelled too hard, and we didn't eat enough. "

Lila smiled mischeviously.

" But you were late before you left, so being on the road isn't it. "

Gabrielle flushed. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. The nausea, the sore breasts, this feeling that she was wading through water whenever she tried to walk any distance - it was her own body and she hadn't even guessed - how dense can you get ?

" And you and Perdicas were still - you know ? Doing it?" Then she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. " Gosh, it's not someone else, is it ? "

" NO ! " Gabrielle replied. " Lila - it's Perdicas' child - if I am pregnant, that is. There's never been anyone else. "

She thought of a hundred things to say. An affair with another man wasn't that much of a temptation. She had never really enjoyed it, even with her husband. In fact in the end it was just another household duty: you cooked dinner, you washed the floors, then there was just one last bit of drudgery before surrendering to sleep -

But how could she explain it all ? She just sighed.

" Oh, Tartarus, Lila, this really complicates things. "

" Gosh yes. What will Perdicas do ? " Lila replied. " He could take the child away from you, you know, if it's his. "

" Could he do that even after divorcing me ? " Gabrielle asked indignantly. She wasn't sure how these things worked, but she had a terrible suspicion that Lila was right.

" I think he could, if you were married when... when bubby got started. "

Gabrielle looked at her with a strange expression.

" Maybe I should just let him have it. "

Lila gasped. " Bree ! You can't say that ! It's yours, whatever the law thinks ! "

" And a mother should care for her baby, have the baby's interests at heart ? "

" Of course. "

" So what kind of mother do I make ? No husband, no home, no family... Perdicas could give it more than I could. "

" Oh, Bree... "

" No, Lila, I'm serious. I'm homeless. I'm a wanderer. I'll probably sleep under a tree tomorrow. I don't know when I'll eat next. And it doesn't matter if I was married when the kid was started, everyone will think I'm a loose woman who got into trouble. You can imagine how I'll be treated. And they won't just take it out on me, they'll take it out on Junior. What sort of a way is that to bring a kid up ? "

Lila sighed. " Bree.. "

" I really do think I should just give this kid to Perdicas, if he'll have it. "

Lila frowned. " And have it grow up calling Eurydice 'mother' ? "

Gabrielle gritted her teeth. " I'd have to think about that. "

" That's more like it. Now come on, dry yourself and come in beside the fire and I'll organise something to eat. "

As Gabrielle sat huddled before the hearth, her thoughts became more and more confused. A baby. A baby ! That changed everything.

She couldn't think of herself or her own needs any longer. She had someone else to think of. And she hated that thought. It was a gross imposition, a trick of Nature that had dumped this responsibility on her now, when she needed it least, and with no thought for her own wishes.

Damn her body and its insubordination !

Lila kissed her and then stood for a long moment hugging her. When she finally broke away, Gabrielle noticed tears on her cheek.

" Oh Bree - this is so awful - I really hope you can find somewhere - let me know as soon as you do. " She hastily wiped at her eyes.

" I will. I promise. "

Gabrielle looked at the road. That way lay Poteidaia. The other way, back through Chalcidice.

" Perhaps I should just toss a coin.... "

" Sorry, Bree ? "

" I was wondering where I should head off to. Into town, or out of it. I mean, when you're journeying without a destination, does it matter which direction you start with ? "

" Oh Bree... that's awful.... perhaps you shouldn't go into Poteidaia, though, someone will recognise you. "

" No. I was thinking that myself. Back east makes more sense. "

There was now only one place in Greece where she might feel welcome. She thought again of the tall dark-haired woman who had started her on her quest for Xena.

" I think I'll go back to Amphipolis. Cyrene might help me. "

If she doesn't, there's nobody else in Greece who will.

Lila looked puzzled for a second.

" Cyrene ? Oh, that's Xena's mother, you told me, I'd forgotten. Well yes, I guess she owes you something after all you've done for Xena, doesn't she ? "

" I wouldn't want to put it that way, Lila. I don't think she owes me anything, and I haven't got any right to make a claim on her. But I have a feeling she might help anyway. "

" Oh, that's good. " Lila smiled bravely.

" Yes, " Gabrielle went on, " she's - well, she's the helpful kind. And she's in a position where she can do pretty much as she pleases, which is handy. "

Lila kissed her again. " Good luck. " she whispered. "Look after yourself. "

She managed to look genuinely regretful as Gabrielle left Poteidaia for the last time.

She lay flat on her back, too fatigued to look for firewood, too drained even to eat. Eventually she rummaged in the rucksack and found a loaf of bread, which she swallowed in mouthfuls without any accompaniment. She knew there were olives and dried meat in there somewhere, thanks to Lila, but she couldn't be bothered looking for them.

Eventually she unrolled her blanket and pillowed her head on the rucksack, but it was a long time before she could go to sleep.

It wasn't going to work. Nothing was going to work. Cyrene had no reason to help her, Cyrene had her own life to lead and wouldn't want a failed reminder of her dead daughter hanging around the inn in any case.

Where would that leave Gabrielle ? A homeless vagrant.

And Lila ! Giving in to Perdicas and his new wife like that. Even her own parents ! How could they abandon her ? How could they do something like that ? How could they prefer their unspeakable son in law to their own daughter ? It was - there just weren't words for it. Parents shouldn't behave like that. Gabrielle would never behave like that when she was a parent.

If I live long enough to become a parent, that is. The way things are going I can't be sure of that.

Eventually she did sleep, but her sleep was broken by nightmares. She finally woke before dawn and lay huddled in the warmth of the blanket watching another day begin.

She sat now on the edge of the chasm and looked down.

Recent rains had turned the normally turbulent stream into something even worse, a ferocious current that churned its way through the gorge with a noise that would have made conversation difficult.

She looked at the boiling water and found a curious yearning building inside her. It would be very easy, and very nice, to just fall into that water, and disappear.

Fifty feet or so of drop. Jagged rocks at the bottom. The stream rushing over the boulders, white and frothy, a last back-up: even if one were only knocked unconscious by the fall, there still remained the possibility of drowning.

If it were to happen, this was the place.

She listened to the rushing of the water. It was so soothing, almost hypnotic. Some of the tension began to leave her shoulders. She stared down at the foam, trying to imagine what it would be like to surrender herself to the darkness. That thought occupied her for quite some time.

Well then, silly girl, are you going to do it, or are you going to sit here all day and block the traffic ?

She looked around her. There had to be no witnesses. What she was going to do would have to be done in utter privacy, almost in secrecy. She had always despised the histrionics of those who threaten self-immolation in front of others.

Witnesses there were none. The landscape was deserted. The road stretched beyond the river, a yellow dirt track that ran up to a ridge, and it was empty. Behind her, the path disappeared amongst trees as it made its way down to the shore. There was not a human being in sight.

She turned to Argo and removed the lead from her neck. She slapped her firmly on the side of the neck, as she had often seen Xena do in the old days.

" Off you go. " she said tightly. " Go on, off and enjoy yourself. Find some grass and... do your own thing. "

Argo whinnied softly and backed away from the chasm.

" Go on, I meant it ! "

The horse stared into her eyes for a long moment. Then it broke into a deep, sorrowful sound.

" Goodbye, Argo. " whispered Gabrielle. She swallowed and tried not to think about her last link to Xena disappearing.

But the horse stood there, looking at her, unwilling to leave.

Come on, you always used to just wander off whenever SHE asked you to do it...

She picked up a good sized stick and whacked Argo on the flank.

" Off you go ! Now ! "

Argo reared at the blow, then trotted into the trees and disappeared. She listened to the sound of her hooves until they vanished into the distance.

Well, that's it. Xena's gone, thanks to me. Now her horse is gone too. Hope she finds a decent owner soon. Someone who'll deserve her.

She turned her eyes towards the coast. The waters of the Toronaic Gulf sparkled as the waves lapped onto the beach, the Sithonian Peninsula stretched out to the horizon. Not even a fishing village broke its outline. All the human beings in the world might vanish in an instant, and nothing here would change.

Well, you've got your privacy.

She stared down at the waters again.

Then it came to her that she was not going to do it. Not here, not now, not on this spring afternoon with the bees buzzing amongst the grass.

It was the baby, of course, that made it impossible. Perhaps, pushed hard enough, she could destroy herself: perhaps not. In all probability she would never know. But the little spark of life in her abdomen deserved a chance, and Gabrielle would never deny it its due.

She seized the rope that served as the only handhold and crossed the chasm. The track on the other side was uphill, and she was puffing before she reached the crest, but she knew that she would follow the path to Sermyle, and wherever it led beyond. She turned back for one last glance at the stream, and then lost it to view as she entered the trees.

The buildings looked squalid and huddled. Garbage lay in malodorous heaps by the sides of the road. The smell of the city struck her more forcibly than it had on her last visit. Perhaps that had something to do with the heightened sense of smell that she had heard the old women talk about when she was a girl: another symptom of pregnancy.

Cyrene's inn looked in need of a coat of paint too.

Something stopped her from entering the building. She hesitated for a long time, standing in the street and staring at the door of the inn, unable to bring herself to walk through and become a supplicant. Passers-by glanced at her in curiosity.

" Gabrielle ! "

She turned to face the sound. Cyrene stood at the street corner, holding a wicker basket piled high with loaves of bread. The older woman smiled at her as she approached.

" Oh, Gabrielle, were you waiting for me ? I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were coming, and I've been shopping. " She indicated the loaves. "Ran out of bread. "

Gabrielle tried to smile.

" No, I just got here - I'm all right. "

" Gabrielle, I must say you don't look too good. And I thought you were going to stay in Poteidaia. Has something happened ? "

Suddenly she found herself in tears.

" Oh, Cyrene, everything's gone wrong. " she sobbed.

Cyrene took her arm and led her to the bench seat beside the front door. " Gabrielle, tell me about it. "

" My family don't want me. My sister won't help me. Lila, my own sister ! She told me to go away. "

" Oh, you poor thing. "

" It's all just such a mess. My husband ! Perdicas, the - do you know what he's done ? "

" What's he done ? "

" He's divorced me and married someone else ! " she wailed. " I've lost my family, I've lost my husband - Cyrene, I've lost everything ! "

Cyrene bit her lip. " This is all my fault, isn't it. "

Gabrielle looked up at her in astonishment. " Eh ? " she asked, unable to think of anything more specific to say.

" None of this would have happened if I hadn't asked to you to help Xena. " she said, bitterly. " Gabrielle, I had no right to do that, and it's ruined your life. "

" Oh. " Gabrielle replied. " I hadn't even thought of that. " She did think about it for a moment, then she shrugged her shoulders. " No, I don't blame you. You didn't make me do it, I wanted to go. Anyway, if you're looking for someone to blame, Aphrodite set us both up, and it's really all her fault. You were her victim too. "

" But I should have known something like this would happen. " Cyrene went on.

Gabrielle swallowed. " There's another problem too, even worse."

Cyrene raised her eyebrows.

" I'm pregnant. " She managed to chuckle. " Now, that's hardly your fault, is it ? "

Cyrene smiled mischeviously.

" Pregnant, eh ? I thought so. It was pretty obvious when you stayed here on your way back. "

Gabrielle gaped. " You knew ? Why didn't you say something ? "

" I thought you knew yourself and you just didn't want to tell me!"

She shook her head. " I had no idea. I should have known, but I didn't. " Then she closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her forehead, and groaned. " Where have I heard that line before ? "

Cyrene patted her on the shoulder.

" You can't blame yourself for not understanding a thing like that, not if it hadn't happened to you before. You had nothing to compare it to."

" I suppose so - but Cyrene, I'm just so dense ! Pregnant, and I had no idea ! "

Cyrene shook her head. " No, you are a remarkably intelligent young woman. Now, tell me: what will you do now ?"

" I can't go back to Perdicas, not after what he did, and I don't really think I want to go back to Poteidaia anyway, even if I could. It just isn't my home any longer. I've finally burnt all my bridges there. "

The older woman smiled at her gently.

" So what are you saying, Gabrielle ? "

She took a deep breath before she answered. She had tried to rehearse this beforehand, but now that she was here, she found all her prepared phrases melting away.

" Cyrene, I think I'd like to live here in Amphipolis. With you. Now I know I have no right whatsoever, absolutely none, to just lob on your doorstep and expect you to put me up, so... "

Cyrene raised her eyebrows but made no response.

" Hades, I sound such an opportunist ! After what you just said. None of this is your fault, I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty before. Don't feel that you have to help me, Cyrene, look at it as a business proposition. "

" Business ? " she asked.

" I can cook, I can help out in the inn, and I can do the bard thing in the evenings and entertain the customers. Have you thought of that ? That might be really good for the trade, you now, if you offered entertainment here. I usually get a good response from an audience. That's how Xena and I kept going financially, in the old days. Most of it was my performance money. "

Perhaps it was the mention of Xena's name, but Cyrene looked away briefly, her eyes pained.

" I'll be laid out for a while, of course. When the baby comes. "

It was so easy to say that; the words just slipped off her tongue naturally. When the baby comes. As if she had been saying it all her life.

" Ah, yes. " Cyrene replied. " The baby. I suppose you will need a bit of help there. "

Gabrielle smiled tentatively.

" You'd help me ? "

Cyrene sighed. " I don't know that I proved to be such a good mother the last time I tried raising a girl... "

Gabrielle grabbed at her arm and pulled her round. Cyrene looked a little shocked at her sudden intensity.

" Cyrene ! " she said. " Xena was the greatest woman I ever met. She was... everything ! She had a sense of honour, she had courage, she understood justice. Please don't say that you failed in bringing her up. "

Then she remembered that the Xena of her recollections had existed for only a couple of years. She had never known her as the Destroyer of Nations, had never sat with Cyrene as she lamented the news of the latest atrocity.

" All right, " Gabrielle conceded, " she couldn't always live up to her own ideals. None of us can. But the woman I remember stood head and shoulders above the rest of the human race, and that's how I will always think of her. "

Cyrene placed the palm of her hand on Gabrielle's, where the younger woman was still clutching her wrist.

" The Xena that you remember is the one you created. " she replied quietly. " Yes, she could be like that, but she was only ever like that for you. Not for anybody else. "

Gabrielle released her grasp and let her hand drop.

" Then... all I can say is that this baby will need both of us. I'll need you, of course. I'm new at this business. I want to see my child grow up properly, and between us - we'll mould her into a real woman. "

She managed a grin.

" Will you be in it, Cyrene ? I'd love to stay here. "

Cyrene nodded gravely.

" Of course, Gabrielle. I'll help you. As long as I am alive, I will be here. And it's not just for Xena's sake, either, it's for yours. One of the loveliest and most courageous women I have ever known. "

Gabrielle looked abashed. Cyrene grinned at her.

" Come on, let's have a drink of something. How about a glass of wine to seal our new arrangement ? "

Gabrielle followed her into the kitchen. They filled a pair of glasses from the hogshead in the corner and toasted one another.

" - And that just leaves us with one tiny question. Where will you sleep ? "

Cyrene furrowed her brows. For a moment her expression was one of real thought.

" It's not that much of an issue " Gabrielle offered. "You know I can sleep under a tree if I have to. "

" Well, there are a couple of rooms available. There's a nice one on the ground floor, the one you slept in before, and that has plenty of space and light. Or there's a sort of dormer in the roof space, which is dark and cramped.... but I wonder if you might prefer it. "

Gabrielle smiled politely. " I... I'm grateful for anything, Cyrene, I'll take the dormer. "

Inwardly she was disappointed at being relegated to the sort of quarters that would traditionally be offered to a servant, but she knew that Cyrene had no obligation to give her anything: she should be grateful she wasn't going to have the baby in a ditch.

Then she looked at Cyrene's odd expression. Was there something more to the offer ?

" You didn't ask why I thought you might prefer the dormer, Gabrielle. "

" Oh - I don't mind where I sleep, really. "

" That room - it used to be - " she seemed to be having difficulty with her words.

Gabrielle suddenly understood. " You mean it was hers ? " she asked.

Cyrene sighed and nodded.

" Yes, it was Xena's. I haven't used it since she left. I stored some of her things there for a while, but that's all. "

She sniffed awkwardly.

" Cyrene, I don't know what to say. Are you sure it's right for me to do that ? I mean - take her place ? "

" I thought - you might feel closer to her if you were there... and I don't think she'd mind you moving into her room. "

Gabrielle smiled. Cyrene looked up and caught the beauty of her expression, the innocent and almost childish quality that she radiated. She understood then some of what her daughter must have felt for her.

" Cyrene, I think I'd like that. I'd be honoured. To have her room. Thank you. "

Gabrielle grabbed hold of the timber to steady herself as she climbed.

Wonder if this is how Xena's leg muscles got started, coming up and down this ladder every day ?

The room itself was small, little more than a cubby under the roof. There was a narrow bed along one side, and a small dormer window above it. A wooden chest was squeezed into the opposite corner.

So this is where she grew up. This is - her space. Space? Couldn't swing a cat in here !

Gabrielle inserted herself between the bed and the chest. She took a deep breath and inhaled the air. There was a dusty, deserted smell, and the general mixed scent of the inn, but nothing specifically Xena. It had, after all, been more than a few years since she left.

She sat on the bed and watched the dust rise in a cloud around her. Damn. The bed coverings were going to need washing, the floor would have to swept, the window was covered in cobwebs-

Suddenly she giggled. It felt like home already.

She rose to her knees and opened the shutter of her window. A pale moonlight drifted into the room. From her vantage point she could see a little of the street, and the buildings huddled against one another in the alley.

It managed to look almost pleasant by moonlight. The filth, the pools of sewage in the gutters, the decrepit state of the buildings, had all vanished in the silvery haze.

She rubbed her abdomen without thinking, feeling the tightness above her pubic hair.

This is the world you'll come into, little girl. You'll grow up here. Amphipolis. It's not the best, but then the world isn't the best either. We'll just make do.

She lay down again, and was surprised to discover that she was crying. The tears rolled down her cheeks. She sniffed, and tasted the salt in her mouth.

What am I doing with myself ? How in Hades did I end up like this, pregnant, alone, in a foreign town ?

She tried to tell herself that it was no use wallowing in her miseries. Thinking of the child might help: but the only images that she could summon up were of Xena.

Again and again she surrendered herself to memories of the woman she had loved.

It was so obvious, now, in retrospect, that their feelings had been mutual. Little words and gestures that had seemed accidental, the look in her eyes whenever their gaze had met... and she had ignored it so consistently....

It was a long time before the tears stopped.

Eventually she lay, exhausted, one hand resting on her abdomen.

She began to understand, then, why she was here.

The child would inherit the tradition. Here, in Xena's home, under the guidance of Xena's mother, she would grow to womanhood.

And in growing up, she would walk the paths that Xena had walked, know the influences that Xena had known.

And she would grow strong and honourable and courageous. Gabrielle closed her damp eyelashes and vowed to all the Gods that she, and Cyrene, would make this their life's work.

Perhaps one day another Warrior Princess would walk the world, fighting injustice and turmoil.

The world cannot exist without a Xena.

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