Danae

by Laura Gill

  I had but a fraction of a second to sense that I was not alone before he had me in his arms and turned me about to face him. No more radiance and handsome youth. He was a storm made flesh, his face blurred dark, his touch heavy and cold. When he grasped my chin to compel my gaze, his fingers bruised my skin like a vise; my eyes would have watered had I not already been crying. My whole body trembled, not only on account of his fury but also because I was naked and shivering, anticipating what was coming, not wanting to be there.

  His voice, when he spoke, was the rumble of a distant thunderclap. “Do not run from me again, Danaë.”

  Myrtale! The only thought I could articulate, yet even so I felt him in my mind, swatting aside my protest as if it were nothing but air.

  His immense shadow gathered around me, swallowing any potential escape. His kiss, when it violated my mouth, shocked me with its cold wetness. I struggled for a moment, then, powerless to stop what was happening, sent myself far, far away.

  *~*~*~*

  Panicked, I woke to a dark lean-to and the nasal drone of Ktimene’s snoring. Phileia lay on the opposite side of me, her back snug against my outer thigh. I caught my breath, concentrated on calming down. It had been a dream, then, only a dream. I had not left my fleeces, had not been seized against my will. Nonetheless, I lay awake a long time listening to the sounds of the night, to the Mistress of the Winds soughing, and to the Mistress of the Owls hooting in the shadows of the trees while trying to shake the certainty that I had somehow been violated.

  I must have dozed off, because when I next opened my eyes it was just before dawn, and the priestesses were awake, stirring and stretching and preparing to face the day. Grateful that it was at last morning, I joined them, but the slight movement of sitting up made my head spin, and called to my immediate attention the aches and pains that came with sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Perhaps the aftershocks would subside enough to let everyone return indoors tonight.

  Outside in the light, I noticed bruises on my hands and wrists that had not been there before. Everyone else had them, from the earthquake. I must have struck something fleeing the house in the darkness, or else last night’s dream... No. An involuntary shudder forced that thought from my mind. Nothing but a vision sent by Hypnos, a conjuring given substance by the coldness of the ground and hardness of the earth; the Mistress would not have allowed a god to enter the temenos to harm her consecrated servant.

  Determined to overcome my grim mood and make myself useful, I started the day baking bread among a half-dozen other women. Phileia sent me to the xoanon of Potnia Theron with a basket of loaves for the morning’s first offering. “You will lead the prayers,” she said.

  Her announcement caught me unprepared. Only once before had I ever led the Women of the Mountain in worship, and that was six months ago, on the day the priestesses had shaved my head and consecrated me to the Mistress’s service. “Me?”

  “Yes,” Phileia said firmly. “Why not you?”

  Impressions from last night’s vision intruded before I shut them away. Should I tell the high priestess about the dream? After all, everyone knew that the gods communicated with mortals through dreams and signs. Yet if the dream was somehow more than a dream, if the thundering god had done something to me, what would come of my telling? What would Phileia make of the sanctuary being penetrated, of the Mistress not shielding me? Would she suspect as I did, that the goddess was either powerless, or that I had displeased her in some way?

  If I said nothing, on the other hand, and went through with the ceremony, might I not anger the Mistress further? “Phileia, I—”

  “I know you’re anxious, Myrtale.” Phileia twined her arm through mine. “Of course, I won’t abandon you to do this alone.”

  I could have told her then, had she only let me speak! But she, too, wanted to spill troubled thoughts. “Things are not as they once were, Myrtale,” she began. “The earthquake, the Mistress of the House being damaged...” Worshippers passed us on their way to Potnia’s shrine. “Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of old age that makes me brood, but the dangers are real. The sanctuary could have been destroyed the other day, and then what would we have done?”

  “But it wasn’t destroyed,” I said.

  Phileia heard only my lack of conviction. “You don’t know how it used to be. We’ve become vulnerable. Elsewhere, families have stopped sending their girls, and villages stopped sending tribute. Women have come down from their mountains, taken husbands and borne children. They’ve slowly accepted the newer ways. Might it happen here?”

  “I don’t know.” The gods have broken through the temenos, I thought, though articulating the possibility at that particular moment seemed impossible. “Surely there have been earthquakes before. And initiates continue to come, and new Women have entered the Mistress’s service. Why would anything change?”

  Phileia patted my arm. “Men are more bloodthirsty than women. They prefer to burn and destroy where women create life and nurture it. They bend the knee to Zeus and Poseidon, Apollo and Dionysus, and forget their primal Mother. May I never live to see the day that this sanctuary is thrown down or abandoned.”

  Her words left me chilled. Whatever confidence I had dissipated in the goddess’s presence. The sanctuary abandoned, the xoanon thrown down, desecrated—possibilities too terrible to imagine. What would happen to me and all the other Women of the Mountain if that came to pass? So I froze while celebrating rites the priestesses made seem so effortless. I forgot supplications, stumbled through the ritual gestures, and wondered which immortal had driven knowledge of this mystery from my head.

  Half a hundred eyes burned at my back, and I imagined Phileia and Ktimene glowering. Mistress, grant me wisdom! The libation cup trembled in my upraised hands, as if the milk and honey mixed within turned to molten lead.

  But then, to my mixed relief and dismay, the high priestess rescued me from one imminent humiliation, while subjecting me to another. “See how dreadful a Mistress Potnia Theron is! Myrtale trembles before her awesome power, as should you all.” A hand clamping vise-like on my shoulder commanded me to remain kneeling, so I heard rather than witnessed the congregation going down on its collective knees behind me. My face burned. I held back tears as the high priestess took the cup and proffered the libation on my behalf.

  Phileia waited till we were alone in the storage caves to reprimand me. “What’s gotten into you, Myrtale? You were like a clay vessel with thin walls. Good for nothing except looking at, and that’s unacceptable. You know all the phrases and gestures by heart. What better advantage could you have wanted?”

  My mouth worked uselessly; my mind had gone blank, the half-dozen explanations I might have offered fleeing my tongue.

  “No excuses,” she said sharply. “A competent priestess masks her troubles and draws on her strengths. Were you even listening to what I said before, about being vulnerable? Only we priestesses can appease the Mistress. Only we can avert her anger and safeguard the future of the sanctuary.” Phileia grasped my shoulders to shake me. “You have to be stronger than this.”

  My eyes smarted from trying to hold back tears, yet when I blinked I could not help their rolling down my cheeks. Phileia released me to retrieve her basket of grain. “Go and have your cry, but when you’re finished I expect you to carry on as if nothing has happened. You’ll be leading the evening prayers, too.”

  Because our carpenters determined that all the dwellings were structurally sound, we could sleep indoors again. The Women spent the day cleaning and sweeping their houses, and putting away fallen objects.

  Just before sunset, Phileia interrupted my work. She gestured that I should sit apart and prepare for the rites. “Clear your mind of all distractions,” she said. “Fill yourself up with the goddess’s strength. Paint your cheeks and lips if it helps you. But when you leave, I don’t want to see any evidence of the timid girl I saw this morning.”

  Her advice helped. I went out holding my head high, and addre
ssed the Mistress with confidence and a clear, ringing voice. When I returned to the house, it was in a better mood than I had enjoyed in several days. I suffered no dreams that night, and no significant aftershocks rattled the house. Even the Mistress of the Hearth, repaired and restored to her usual place by the hearth, appeared to be enjoying a better mood.

  And then, the spell of contentment ended. Morning brought a terrible stomachache that sent me stumbling toward and retching into the chamber pot. What had I eaten last night to make me so sick? Ktimene had cooked the lentils properly, with not too much seasoning, and the bread was freshly made. Surely the goddess was not displeased with last evening’s prayers, for I had done everything according to instruction.

  With a creaking of joints, Phileia bent down beside me. “What’s the matter?”

  “My stomach.” Unable to speak further, I vomited again, spewing the remnants of last night’s supper, and then enduring a spell of dry heaves that made my ribs ache. My mouth tasted foul. “I don’t know.”

  I did not know then what came over me, but I burst into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing. Phileia gathered me into her embrace. “What’s this, now?” she asked softly. “You did well leading the rites last night. We’ve had no more aftershocks. The Mistress is appeased.”

  But the dread washing over me had nothing to do with the goddess. “I had a dream after the lightning strike.” Then everything spilled forth in a rush. “I-I was with the kid. She was alive again, and the oak tree was there, too, and whole, but all gold and silver, and he was gold and handsome, and...” Hiccupping, I had to stop for breath. Meanwhile, Ktimene had joined us; I felt her hand bracing my shoulder. “He called me Danaë. He wanted to kiss me, but I was afraid and ran away, and then—”

  “Get Thalamika!” Phileia snapped, most likely to Ktimene. “There’s been an intruder in the temenos, a rapist.”

  “No!” I shrieked. Why did they not understand what I was telling them? “It was the dream! He wasn’t a mortal man but a god! I was afraid because he was too beautiful, because butterflies flew out of his mouth, because he was male and wasn’t supposed to be there. But then I ran away—he made the earthquake.”

  “You’re ranting, child!” Phileia had me by the shoulders and was shaking me to stop my hyperventilating. “Slow down. Tell us the story from the beginning.”

  Ktimene held me in her arms while Phileia chafed my hands. Surrounded by wise women, I collected myself as best I could and recounted the two dreams.

  Afterward, the priestesses were silent a while, until Phileia asked, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  My tears had dried up. I lay burnt-out and miserable in Ktimene’s arms. “I tried yesterday.”

  “You should have tried harder.” Phileia’s grimace cut through to my belly, where the nausea subsided but the dull ache had not. “Next time this happens—if it happens—you must alert us at once.”

  Ktimene countered, “There mustn’t be a next time.”

  Phileia delegated tasks as quickly as she offered me a reassuring nod. “Ktimene, she needs a purifying bath. Draw water from the spring. And we should send for Rhona to bring sage and pomegranate.” She stood. “Myrtale, you need the Mistress of the House. Sostrate hasn’t mended her yet, but if you hold her close, she may yet be able to offer protection. I will also make extra amulets to be certain.”

  Between the three women, I spent the morning soaking in a hot bath before being anointed with sanctified olive oil and loaded down with amulets of clay, wood, and leather on which the high priestess inscribed my name and the many names of the Mistress. Rhona returned to the house with sage and pomegranate.

  Phileia tucked me back into bed, and laid the little Mistress of the Hearth into the fleeces alongside me. While the wise women withdrew to the hearth to spin wool, I listened to the crackling fire and the women’s gossip.

  “Why did he call her by her dead name?” Rhona asked, murmuring.

  Ktimene had a ready answer. “Disrespect for the Mistress, that’s why,” she rumbled.

  Yet Phileia kept her counsel a while longer; my eyelids were already drooping by the time she answered, “I do not like that he said she was meant for him.” Nothing more on the subject, or at least nothing I was awake to hear.

  The drowsy darkness of half-slumber took me to a twilight place where the air smelled of newly-scythed hay and night-blooming flowers. The air against my bare skin felt warm, yet the apprehension creeping into my heart did not.

  He did not manifest this time, yet his presence suffused the summer night, deepening my growing dread. I stood there squirming like a guilty child, awaiting some dire pronouncement or perhaps even the strike of his lightning bolt. Would it hurt terribly, or would I perish in an instant, incinerated before the sensation of pain had a chance to bloom?

  When he at last spoke, his disembodied voice filled the starry void of the night, and his tone conveyed more disappointment than wrath. “Your preferences in this matter mean nothing, Danaë. Your thread of Fate has been woven, and neither you nor those meddling priestesses, nor even the Mistress can change destiny.”

  I woke to the gray light of morning clutching my belly, vomit already rising in my gorge, and it was all I could do to make it to the chamber pot in time. My sickness was evidence of a child. Before releasing me, the god had revealed to me a shadowy form taking root in my womb. I immediately informed the priestesses about the dream.

  Phileia narrowed her eyes, but Ktimene set her teeth and snorted, “How dare this god force a consecrated virgin to bear his child! This is the Mistress’s holy precinct, not his domain. Let’s send for Rhona.”

  Ktimene’s defiance heightened my apprehension rather than relieved it, not the least because a lightning bolt could incinerate her right where she stood. Those meddling priestesses. “Please,” I groaned, bending double over the chamber pot once more.

  “Yes, go and bring her, but tell no one else what’s happened.” Phileia’s touch was as cool as the compress she laid across the back of my neck. Had I only the breath to stop her! Blasphemy. Zeus’s thunderbolt would blast them all—and yet, Ktimene was absolutely right. How dare he! Your thread of Fate has already been woven. The Mistress would never have taken me into her service if the Fates had already decided that I was to bear a child. Would she?

  None of that had kept the god from battering his way into the sanctuary, from forcing me to... Goddess, if that was the thing that had the initiates blushing and conspiring and giggling, if that was lovemaking, then they were idiots!

  When Rhona arrived, she examined me and found my maidenhead still intact; she balked at subjecting me to the usual remedy. “Who’s to say she’s not suffering from some malady that brings on dreams of madness and ague and nausea?”

  I preferred that explanation, and was grateful that I would not have to endure a cleansing of my womb, which was a painful, messy procedure. However, I could not make myself believe that my visions were just fever-dreams. What had I done to offend Hypnos or Apollo, that they would afflict me so?

  Rhona prescribed neither sage or pennyroyal, but rather than bring relief I felt a renewed helplessness. Part of it was the god’s pronouncement that he had read my thread of Fate and knew there would be a child, but it was also the priestesses and their insistence that the Mistress was greater than the thunder and lightning and earthquake, greater even than the Fates themselves.

  And who was caught between them? Who would suffer another dreadful dream-encounter, the god’s immortal wrath falling upon her head? Already I felt as taut as a stretched cord, and did not know whether I had the strength not to snap.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Where I languished with nausea and fever, suffered through Rhona’s female-cleansing rites, and observed the growing distention of my womb as possibly the symptom of a mysterious malady, on the twenty-fourth day something started moving inside me.

  There was a child.

  Where Rhona’s potions and juniper-coated willow wa
nds brought pain, bleeding, and tears, this unmistakable sign of pregnancy terrified me. How could anything have survived the Gleaner’s measures? What in the name of Olympus was I carrying? What had Rhona’s attempts to abort the fetus wrought? Would an unforgiving Mistress take her revenge through me and the child by cursing it with missing or misshapen limbs, or some other defect?

  All I knew was that this pregnancy was accelerated and unnatural; both Phileia and Rhona had informed me that normal babies did not quicken until twenty weeks. Twenty weeks, and here it had only been twenty-four days. What was so special about this child that it had to be born so quickly?

  What would happen to me as a result of all this? Would I again be stripped of my name and banished from the sanctuary, as my dead, childhood self had been evicted from Argos? I did not want this child, mostly because I feared what it would be, yet also because the priestesses and the Mistress did not authorize it. It was impossible to be both mother and consecrated virgin. I could not appease one deity without offending the other, it seemed.

  Phileia forbade me from carrying out my duties in the cave or from even appearing before the xoanon lest my condition further offend the goddess; the restrictions both pained and enraged me. “Where was she when this happened? She should have helped me!” This frustration, compounded by the lack of sleep, normal activity, and the physical and emotional discomforts of pregnancy, drove me to distraction. I lashed out where before I never would have.

  All Phileia could offer was a pathetic explanation of, “I don’t know, child. Try to rest. This resentment isn’t good for your health.” There were no more whispered conspiracies between the wise women, no more talk of herbs or who was to blame, only the advice they might have given any expectant mother.