The single room was smoky and dark, with a small peat fire burning in the corner, billowing acrid smoke into the room with every gust of wind from outside. My eyes required no adjustment, as I had already been walking with only the dim light of my tiny oil lamp to guide me. I immediately picked out Nicolaus from among the half dozen young squad leaders reclining on the floor in front of the fire, chatting quietly over a small scrap of a map they were examining. Nicolaus stood up solemnly, slightly favoring his uninjured foot, the flickering light of the fire on his smooth, olive skin making him seem even more the adolescent boy than he actually was. I wanted nothing more than to be away from their company, and with an irritated grunt I told him that Xenophon had sent me.

Nicolaus glanced warily at my eyes, as if trying to guess my mood before speaking to me. I stared back at him unblinking, giving him no satisfaction on that score, and he slowly squatted back down close to the fire, squinting through the light at his comrades as he hastily finished off the conversation he had been having with them. His words died off, and he tossed the scrap of papyrus onto the coals, where the edges caught fire, turning black and curling, creating a small bluish tongue of flame that grew and intensified the flickering shadows in the room, emphasizing the deep silence that had enveloped the boys. Nicolaus again thoughtfully stared at me.

"Come," he said, nodding in my direction and slipping out the low door, which caused even him to stoop as he passed into the freezing rain. I seethed at this unforeseen delay, for I had not anticipated that Nicolaus' message would require me to wait for him, or to perform a task before I would be able to depart. He led me around the large granary, from which I could hear muffled snores and low voices, to the small collection of coops and outbuildings. Taking me to the smallest and farthest one, apparently a chicken coop for its tiny entrance that stood no higher than the middle of my thighs, he pointed to the door and said simply, "In there."

I stared at him uncomprehendingly as his gaze flitted back and forth between the entrance and my face; then he gave me a wry smile, turned and splashed through the mud back to his hut.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Was this some kind of a prank? I smoldered at Nicolaus' growing impertinence and lack of respect, and at my own foolish indiscretion in having confided my fears to him the other day. I was no doubt the butt of every joke among the Rhodian camp. Finally, however, my curiosity got the better of me, and dropping to my hands and knees in the mud and pushing my lamp along the ground ahead of me, I crawled carefully through the hole in the tiny stone structure. The Fates, in their exaggerated zeal to bring me to this spot, roughly shouldered past me, becoming over-cooperative emissaries and leaving me completely unprepared for what I was to find inside.

Because of its domed shape, there was room to stand in the tiny structure, though scarcely sufficient horizontal space to lie down, and the room was completely empty save for a narrow stone shelf built into the far wall about two feet off the packed earth floor. It was dry inside, though the cobwebs brushing my skin from every side at first gave the sensation of mist or tiny streams of water trickling down on me from the porous stone above. I stood up before even taking the time to look around, and after carefully clearing away the cobwebs from the ceiling in the middle of the room, the only spot high enough for me to stand erect, I extended my arm with the dim light, to shine it on the dark shadows occupying the low stone shelf.

In a flash of understanding I realized why Nicolaus had brought me here, for it was as if the gods themselves had descended in all their radiance and glory and possessed this crumbling, miserable hut. My knees buckled and I knelt down, the lamp dropping from my hand into the dirt, extinguishing itself and leaving the small, close room in darkness. I stretched my hands out in front of me, hardly daring to credit my own senses, and clutched Asteria's yielding body tight against my chest.

"How…?" I blurted, trying to speak, but she stifled my words, pressing my face tightly to her warm breasts, cloaked in the rough fabric she was wearing. Her grimy Rhodian tunic enhanced the pleasure of the anticipation, like Xenophon's peach, and it was only after many moments that I was finally able to lessen my grip. I nuzzled her smooth throat as she clasped her hands behind my neck, murmuring wordlessly, and the rain outside continued to fall silently on the rough stones as the feathery cobwebs lazily brushed our skin.

AFTERWARDS, AS THERE was no room to lie down on the stone bench, I remained simply as I was, leaning back against the rough masonry as she straddled my thighs, gathering my cloak around us both, to keep out the night chill. Aphrodite and Hephaestus, Hephaestus and Aphrodite. There is no more doomed and mismatched a pair of lovers in history, the exquisite goddess of Beauty and the irascible god of Fire. My indulgent reader must forgive the heavy-handed reference to the old myths. The allusion is excusable, however, for who could overlook the true divinity of Asteria's body beneath her coarse tunic? Or the fact that I myself was as filthy and smoke-begrimed as the blacksmith, not to mention lamed like him by my earlier fall? Every chorus in Athens would lift its song to Aphrodite were that goddess half as beautiful as Asteria, and that is as it should be, though the jealous deity suffers rivals impatiently. Even mere mortals, however, must occasionally glimpse heaven's threshold, and in this stone hut I drew near it, for though unfortunate Hephaestus lost his beloved to War, I would not so lose my Asteria.

Complete darkness enveloped us like a shroud, the only sound being the soft trickle of water from a tiny rivulet flowing from the base of the far wall and meandering lazily out through the low door. Asteria's breathing was slow and even against my neck. At length she spoke.

"He saved me because you told him to. He knew that was what you wanted."

For a moment I didn't speak as I digested her words. She sat motionless on my legs, even her fingers now having stopped their caresses as she waited for my reaction before she continued. I remained frozen, collecting my racing thoughts.

"I told him to?" I asked cautiously, keeping my voice even. "Who was it that saved you?" I thanked the gods for the all-enveloping darkness that hid my face from her view. Asteria stiffened for an instant and then slowly straightened her back, and despite the darkness I could feel her peering at me, trying to discern my expression, the reasoning behind what I now realized was to her an astonishing question.

"You don't know?" she exclaimed. "By the gods, he didn't tell you? Where did you think I'd been these past days?" She burst into tears, clutching me tightly as my hands rested stiffly on her back. I remained frozen, my thoughts churning as I struggled to imagine who it was that had been keeping her for three days, at my alleged orders. I strained to remain still, to keep from standing and dropping her to the ground, torn between comforting her and storming out with my dignity intact. I am ashamed now, truly ashamed to say that the one thing that kept me from leaving forever-and this thought I remember as clearly as if it had happened yesterday-was the recollection that the door to the coop was scarcely higher than my knees and that finding my way through it in the pitch dark and mud while maintaining any level of decorum would not be an easy thing to accomplish. I waited for what I am sure were many fewer minutes than it actually seemed, until she was able to regain her breath and resume talking. I didn't utter a sound. All I could think was that it seemed as though over the past few days I had been waiting interminably for other people to say the right words, and they never came. Finally she spoke.