Chapter 1
A child's goodbye
1347 A.D.
I was only 10 when the black death came. By the time we realized my mother was sick it was far too late to ask for a blessing from Zeus. The gods must have been cross with her to let the sickness fester. Boils that turned white and then black festered on her skin. Her eyes became puffy and red. Her voice was hoarse and i could smell the death around her. Blood pooled from her eyes and nose and soon all she could be was an omen to the other slaves.
From the other side of the servant's house, I listened as she slowly wilted away into the afterlife. The walls were thin and made of thatch and mud, nothing too fancy. The nobles would sooner die than to bless us like that. I wanted so much to hold her but the others held me back and baracaded her room. I felt so alone. It had always been us against everything. She wasn't always a slave but when I was born she had told me her husband died and the family sold us for her husband's estates. Women could not hold titles or land. The army took us and put my mother to work in the service of the legeions generals. Who often traded their slaves. And now here we are at our goodbyes.
"Erasmiida." She croaked my name with a sharp coarse whisper. I wept from behind the door with the others as she pleaded.
"Erasmiida, my beautiful girl. Whereare you my sweet lilie?" She spoke more clearly struggling to get each word out. I willed myself to silence my weeping.
"Dear sweet lily, she spoke hard and i knew she would soon cease to go on.
"Do you know what your name means?" I clenched my dress in my fists, I could feel the heat of fear and anguish rusing up from within me and I listened inently for her to speak through the walls that separated us. Though it wasn't much I'm sure it helped in staying clean from the gods' wrath.
"No mama." My voice quivered and my heart ached. The taste of salty tears flooded into my mouth as I listened without distraction for my mother's last words.
"Erasmiida means beloved hope. My child- my beautiful hope!" I closed my eyes, shaking my head violently back and forth. The other slaves clamored to stop me from making a scene but I was distraught with grief. In only a short moment the guards discovered my mother dead from the plague and no sooner cast me out to the meadows outside our walls.
The sky glinted blue and white in the hot summer days and in the night i hid by a large oak that was blessed with a patch of tall sweet grass. I was ill equipped to survive in the wilds alone. Food was hard to find and water was even harder. It only took 12 days until my body finally gave in. as I lay on the tall sweet grass My heart pounded suddenly and my mouth dried. I was no more a slave but dead weight. Thus I was freer than I had ever been. I wandered aimlessly in the meadows praying for the gods of Olympus to make my death swift. Hoping that some kind stranger would pass by and throw me a piece of stale bread, gruel, or anything edible at this point.That Hades would show a glimmer of mercy for my innocence before I go. My eyes blurred from the hunger and dehydration and before the darkness came I thought I was near the brink of death. I hadn't a single coin to ferry me across the waters of the river of death but 100 years on the beaches of the dead sounded far more pleasant than being an orphan slave. I had my fill of this harsh world; my heart was heavy and my body weak. I had only the strength to pray. I wished for my mother to greet me on the beach of the dead, hoping that she would be grateful for the company. That some gracious man would grant us payment to fair across the waters and meet the king of hell with a smile. For a moment I thought I saw a shimmer in the air. The kind of shimer you would see from the gods or the nymphs. The grass around me smelled sweeter than before and flowers of all kinds bloomed around me. My eyes fought to stay open; so I could glimpse the other side before my last breath. But then the darkness shrouded me in its embrace and I could see the nothingness I would face.
