The Forfeit

by Ella Quince

The farmyard well was deeper than she expected, taxing muscles already starting to stiffen and ache. Hauling the sloshing bucket up onto the ledge, Xena dipped her hands into cool water and began to methodically wipe off the grime of her latest fight. There was less blood than usual, but she had raised a sweat finding ways to disarm the farmers and tradesmen without actually hurting them. A lost limb was often a lost livelihood for a villager, and a lifetime of poverty for an entire family was a harsh sentence for petty cruelty.

As she washed, Xena could hear a child's laughter coming from the small hut nearby, and she smiled at the thought that Gabrielle's gentle teasing had already calmed the frightened boy.

"Warrior, I'm in your debt."

She whirled around, dismayed that anyone could walk up behind her undetected. This stranger could have easily killed her with a blow to her undefended back. To her relief, however, the man's bland features and genial expression betrayed no intent beyond a friendly greeting, and his unadorned tunic was too spare to cloak any weapons.

"You saved the boy's life," he said, as if prompted by her wariness to explain himself further.

Xena shrugged uncomfortably. She preferred to have Gabrielle deal with these expressions of gratitude. "He didn't deserve to die at the hands of that drunken mob. Ugliness isn't a crime."

"Ugly? Did you also see a small monster when you fought to protect him? After you brought him home, your young friend said he was beautiful." The man smiled at Xena's silence. She ruthlessly schooled her expression, yet he seemed to read her thoughts as easily as an open scroll. "So, you thought Gabrielle was being kind, humoring a distraught mother. No, Warrior, the bard has better eyes than you. The boy is my son, the son of a god, and he is beautiful."

The man's image shimmered, revealing another visage altogether — perfection beyond the reach of mortal flesh. This was no god known to her, and she had met quite few.

"Apollo?"

He acknowledged her greeting with a nod. "I don't often show myself to mortals... but then you're not like most mortals. And you've met my kind before."

"Too often," said Xena dryly.

If he was insulted by her insolence, he hid it well. Or perhaps he was all too aware of the truth of her statement. "So, Xena, what payment would you ask of me, of a god, for your deed?"

Shaking her head, resting a hand on the bucket, she said, "No payment beyond the use of your well water. If you know who I am, then you know I have a debt of my own to pay, and many regrets for the life I've led."

"Ah," said the god with a thoughtful frown. "Don't be so quick to deny me. I can relieve you of one of those regrets. Choose one day, one moment, and I will let you change it."

She nearly laughed. One day? Out of so many? Xena sifted through bitter memories . . . and found one that left the most scars in its wake.

"You have chosen," said Apollo. His eyes were dark, impenetrable.

"No," said Xena, "No, I only—"

But at his words the water in the bucket had begun to roil, and Xena's gaze was drawn, inexorably, to its movement. Mesmerized by the currents, she felt herself tumble down, breaking through the surface of the water, falling deeper and deeper...

...until she regained conscious thought in a stone dungeon in Britannia. A slain knight lay at her feet, his face purple and contorted, and a softly babbling infant played with the necklace that had been used to strangle him.

Hope... vulnerable, defenseless....

Xena eased her sword from its sheath and took a step forward. Yet, despite her stealth, Gabrielle sensed the danger to her child and struggled awake.

"Xena, what are you doing?"

If she didn't act quickly, the bard would interfere. Even now Xena could see Gabrielle's drowsy confusion giving way to alarm.

"Xena?"

One quick, killing blow and....

No, Warrior, the bard has better eyes than you.

With a strangled sob, Xena cast aside her sword. The echo of Apollo's voice called her back to reason and the different choice she had to make. Falling to her knees beside Gabrielle, she said, "This is going to be harder than we thought. Hope has killed Goewin."

"Oh, gods!" Gabrielle blanched at the news of the tragedy, but she snatched up her daughter without hesitation, cradling Hope in her arms. "She doesn't know her own strength yet, Xena. We'll have to watch her, keep her from accidentally hurting anyone ever again. We can teach her."

Swallowing hard, turning a deaf ear to the gibbering voice of panic and rage that urged her to slay her enemy, Xena said, "Yes... we will," thus pledging herself to protecting the spawn of Dahok.

And in that instant a new future unfurled before her, days and months spinning through their cycles so fast she grew dizzy with the learning of them. First there was the desperate escape from the banshees, then the long, torturous journey to Greece to seek refuge among the Amazons. She and the bard made their home there, watching Hope flower into adulthood in a span of just a few years. This was the reward for Gabrielle's compassion and faith: Hope — a child of rape and fear and evil — gentled and tutored in the ways of her mother, a godling brought safely to her maturity.

And Solon, still living....

Xena opened her eyes to find herself staring into Apollo's inscrutable face.

"Is this the past that you would change, Warrior?"

"Yes," rasped Xena hoarsely. "I thought I was doing the right thing that day, but I tried to kill an innocent child, to kill 'Hope.' If I had succeeded... "

"If you had succeeded in that deed, not even the gods of Mount Olympus could have saved your kind from destruction," said Apollo. "Her spilt blood would have opened a gateway for Dahok to enter your world."

So, what she had most feared was true. Shuddering at the weight of new guilt that settled on her shoulders, she said, "Then let me undo the damage I've caused by persecuting Hope."

"Very well, as you want it to be, so shall it happen. And no one will ever be the wiser for what you did." He lifted one hand in a leisurely arc, drawing a graceful design in the air.

As she watched him, Xena weighed his words, and a frown drew her brows together into a dark slash of apprehension. "Wait!"

Apollo suspended his motion.

"I've never met a god yet who brought me good fortune; I've never accepted a favor that I didn't regret. And there's something you said... "

With the faintest of smiles, Apollo waited.

"No one will ever be the wiser...." Xena looked up at the god. "What about me? Will I remember what's happened, will I remember that I once tried to kill Hope?"

He shook his head. "I can allow you to change the action of that one day, but if you keep all the memories of the time since then, you would change far more than our bargain allows."

"To Tartarus with you!" spat out Xena. "I can't accept this 'gift' of yours!"

Unruffled by her curses, Apollo raised an inquiring brow.

"Dahok knows me too well. If I forget all that's happened to me, to Gabrielle... to Solon... then he'll simply find another way to trigger my rage. I've learned mercy the hard way these last few years; it was my lack of compassion that created the Hope that killed my son. If I give up that lesson, I'll lose what little edge I've got in fighting Dahok. And it's too damn close a battle now."

"So," said the god calmly, "what day would you change instead?"

Despair darkened the blue of her eyes to slate gray. "I can't spare any. I need them all — every last hateful one."

"And a few more, yet," he said gently, "but not so many as before." Like the sun's fiery glow as it neared the horizon, Apollo's blazing radiance blinded her, yet it also warmed her heart with a surge of joy. Then, as his image dimmed and faded, his voice, like bells in the wind, rang clear in her mind. "Go back to your friend, Warrior, and look on my son again."

She did, and he was indeed a beautiful child.