by Laura Gill
Eurymedon, who snuggled on Diktys’s left, noticed nothing except Selenos. “I hope it’s a good story.”
“Hush, young man.” I heard Diktys’s admonishment rumble through his chest. On the sand, watching sparks fly up from the fire to join the constellations in the deep blue night, and hearing the ocean ebbing and crashing nearby, we were comfortable together. I could almost imagine myself agreeing to become his wife.
But when it came time for the storytelling, my stomach twisted in knots. Had Diktys not been securely by my side, I did not think I could have undertaken the ordeal. What would the Women of the Mountain have said, had they known I needed a man’s support? Already I had come to see that Hera was right to some extent about the Women; maybe in this instance their opinion of men carried no weight. And I was not helpless, should disaster strike. Despite Diktys’s assurances of protection, I had made plans of my own.
The Danaë inhabiting Selenos’s story was distorted, a girl who never existed. Golden haired and blue-eyed, sealed away in an underground chamber of bronze to prevent her from bearing a child. What nonsense! Acrisius would never have wasted bronze, so valuable in making weapons and armor, on his daughter. But I knew something about Selenos; the old elder, more accustomed to telling fish stories, doddered and pretended lameness to get Luktia to leave him alone, but away from her he was sharp as bronze. The way his gaze occasionally rested on me during his song, the way the firelight softened the weathered lines of his face, he seemed to be telling me something. That he knew my secret? That he exaggerated certain details to direct the others’ attention elsewhere? Diktys had not mentioned the underground chamber.
Zeus never entered the tale. Why would he? It was blasphemy to suggest that the Lord of the Heavens would have defiled a princess and sired a bastard unless that child became a hero worthy of his lineage. Instead, there was a lascivious gentleman of the court who bribed his way into the chamber to lie with the princess. My gorge rose at the description of the seduction. How dare Selenos or anyone else suggest that I had been willing! Any sympathy or gratitude I had previously felt for the old fisherman evaporated.
“Easy,” Diktys hissed in my ear. Under the blanket, he caught my wrist in a firm grasp. “You should hear how they’re telling it in town. Much worse. Selenos knows better than to repeat those tales here.”
I shivered despite the warmth of the heavy wool blanket and the solidness of his presence. “He knows?” Then why had Diktys not told me so before? Why let me stew in terror and second guess what Selenos might say?
Diktys’s tone softened. “Of course he does. Despite what Luktia thinks, he’s no fool. He came straight to me as soon as he returned from town.” He paused, looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Only Klymene, who also kept her ear open to what everyone else was doing and saying. “We’ve changed the story a bit.”
“Not for the better,” I muttered. Imagine, the two men discussing how I might have spread my thighs for some nameless, slavering seducer! Diktys was a typical man, after all, enjoying thoughts of my naked body!
He seemed to read my mind, or else the stiffening of my body in his grasp, because he said, “The sailors say the princess gave herself to her own uncle, King Proitus, to fulfill the prophecy and murder Acrisius.”
Each word stabbed me in the gut. I held back waves of nausea. What sick imaginations men had, devising crimes against nature where none existed. “That’s not true,” I croaked. “I’ve never even met Proitus.”
Diktys released my wrist only to wrap an arm around me and draw me into the hollow under his shoulder. “I know, Dorea, but there’s nothing I can do to stop scurrilous tales like that from spreading. Only here.”
As we exchanged whispers, the audience interrupted Selenos’s tale to argue about the chest. Alabaster set with gold and precious gems—that was what Diktys and Selenos had contrived for the neighbors, because it was what the sailors and merchants were already saying, except that few of their comrades believed them.
“Stone would sink right to the bottom!” several fishermen protested in unison.
“Why would the king of Argos waste gold and jewels on a slut daughter?” cried one old woman. Iolanthe and Luktia, I noticed, hushed her right away. Did the women know, too? I could not bear the possibility.
Selenos jumped into that argument. “Do I know what kings think? I only know what Werwesios told me, and he swears it on his grandfather’s tomb—except I think his grandfather’s bones lie in some gigantic fish’s gut.” He waved his sinewy brown arms for silence when everyone laughed. “Hear this, neighbors! This is what kings think. The gems were an offering to Poseidon, to swallow the chest in the deep, and never mind about the girl and her newborn. You know what the sailors are saying?” I did not particularly want to know, no. “The gulf of Argolis is thick with fortune hunters diving for the chest, and fishermen casting their nets hoping to become rich. Proitus has to impose fines on the louts for not doing their work, except the officials and ruffians who have to enforce the penalties all want in on the treasure hunting, too!”
“Poseidon won’t like that,” the older fishermen warned, to murmured agreement from everybody else.
In the commotion, Diktys said to me, “Nobody thinks the princess or her baby survived. And everybody thinks it happened yesterday, and not years ago. What’s a weather-beaten, painted chest next to alabaster and gems?”
“Not everybody,” I amended.
Diktys pressed his lips to my temple, in a brotherly, reassuring kiss. “Maybe not, but where it matters most.”
“Mother, did you hear?” Merciful goddess. I should have left Eurymedon at home. He remembered everything, and was liable to say anything, without comprehending why the knowledge was dangerous.
“Yes,” I said firmly, bracing myself for a colossal battle of wills. “Now be silent and listen to your elders. Open mouths catch flies.”
Obedience for Eurymedon was never simple. “But Makros’s mouth is always open, and he never catches flies.” Huamia’s youngest son was his favorite playmate.
Diktys reinforced the order, “Then you will catch a scolding.”
Later, we had to take him aside to do some explaining. “That was a perilous story Selenos told tonight, and we don’t want to repeat it. Whatever you remember or think you remember, you’re to say nothing,” I told him.
“But why?”
Because I said so never worked with him as it did with other children. “Were you listening when Selenos told why the princess and her baby had to die?” Eurymedon just stared at me, his expression indicating how badly he had missed the point, while declaring that he knew better, that the princess and her child were alive. “You say you remember things from when you were a baby. Then you know there are wicked people out there, like the princess’s father, who wants her and the baby dead, who will come after them if he thinks survived. That’s why we never say anything.”
“Uncle Diktys will protect us.”
Diktys arched his brows. “Young man, do I look like a warrior in gleaming bronze? I’m a fisherman. And what is one warrior against tens or hundreds? Even the heroes knew better than to challenge those odds. Listen. Remember the story of Ormenion, and how he hid from his enemies by pretending to be a shepherd’s boy? That’s what you must do. Be a fisherman’s boy, and nothing but a fisherman’s boy. Can you do that?”
Another three-year-old would have embraced the game wholeheartedly. Not Eurymedon. “Does that mean I’ll be a hero one day?”
“No,” I lied. “It means you’ll be safe because those who want to kill you will never find you.”
“But if I’m going to be like Ormenion I have to be a hero and grow up to kill my enemies,” Eurymedon insisted.
Diktys grabbed him by the arm. “I said you were to pretend to be like Ormenion. It’s a game, nothing else. You pretend to be a fisherman’s boy. You’re not a hero, not a sacker of cities. You do as you’re told.”
After that, I could not relax m
y vigilance. Eurymedon became his own worst threat; though he obeyed his uncle for the moment, he quickly tired of things. How long before he became bored with pretending to be a young hero in hiding and proclaimed that he was really a prince, his mother the lost princess of Argos?
From that day on, little girls in the village pretended to be poor Princess Danaë, or made their rag dolls act out the story, with baskets and bits of driftwood substituting for alabaster, silver, or golden chests. They invented heroes or lovers as rescuers, to make the tale happier than it really was, and proclaimed that the gods struck down wicked King Acrisius. They made it so that Danaë and her son, and the handsome prince who had no name all lived happily ever after. How nice that would have been, had games mirrored real life.
Eurymedon turned his nose up at their games because girls were naturally stupid, to judge by their refusal to go along with his play—that he was a mighty sacker of cities and they his grateful captives. I harrumphed and told him to leave the girls alone.
And then, one early autumn afternoon, a black pentekonter, its blue and white sail styled with the painted octopus of Proitus’s royal house, suddenly appeared in the harbor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
That did it. No more time to think, to worry what would happen when the threat came; it had arrived.
Ducking into the house, I seized the bundle and went to fetch my son. We made for the dunes, uninhabited that afternoon, and for the next village where I hoped a kindly fisherman might be willing to ferry us across the water to the nearby isle of Sifnos. From there, we would find passage to another island, maybe Kythera or Melos, where no one could connect us to a floating chest, and more important, where no one could trace us. Of course, I would have to change my name, and Eurymedon’s, which meant—
Eurymedon grew restive when he saw that we were not stopping by any of the familiar haunts. “Where are we going, Mother?”
“On a journey.”
“Is Uncle Diktys coming with us?”
I gripped his hand tighter, lest he decide to break free. “He can’t come.” Our flight would have been so much easier had he still been a baby.
The Fates obviously hated me that afternoon, for the moment he heard Diktys was not invited, Eurymedon balked. “Then I don’t want to go.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Apparently, though, he thought he did, because he resorted to his favorite tactic, going limp so that I had to drag him. So I stopped, set down the bundle, and bent to command his attention. “You see that black ship in the bay?” Our position on the crest of a high dune afforded us a clear view across the harbor. “That’s from Tiryns, from King Proitus who’s been spreading that horrible story about the princess and the baby and the chest. I don’t know who told, but somehow Proitus knows we’re alive, and where to find us, and now he’s sent men in that ship to capture us.”
Eurymedon just stared back at me. “I didn’t tell, Mother,” he solemnly averred. “Uncle Diktys made me swear an oath to Zeus. He says an oath sworn by the Lord of Heaven is very serious. If I tell, Zeus’s eagle will come eat my liver.”
“That’s right, so you understand why we must go.” I reached for his hand again, and this time Eurymedon did not resist. Because he was smaller, and less able to match my longer strides, it took us seemingly forever to cross the dunes and find the road to the next village. What mattered now was determination and haste. I could feel sorry later. Diktys would surely understand why we had left so suddenly, as would Klymene and everyone else who had kept their silence.
Up ahead, a solitary woman in rags balanced a basket of sea daffodils on her hip. To my astonishment and alarm she approached us with an unmistakable air of familiarity. “Daughter of Danaus, Gift of the Sea, where are you going with your child?”
Daughter of Danaus. She knew, she somehow knew I had once been Danaë. I froze. A ready answer failed me.
As she neared, I saw that she was not elderly as I had first assumed. She stood straight and tall, ageless, even gravely beautiful, with piercing gray eyes. And she was not wearing rags. What from afar appeared to be a ragged shawl was actually a capelet of owl feathers, and her dark cloak was of a soft shimmering stuff. My breath caught in my throat. None of the many manmade images of Lady Athena matched her reality.
“Black ships breed black thoughts,” she said eloquently. “You forget what time of year it is. The time of harvesting and tallying. Even now, Megistokritos goes to meet the officials from Tiryns.”
“How do you know all this, Lady?” I croaked, when what I really meant to ask was why had the goddess chosen to intervene.
Her smile hinted at greater knowledge, but when she spoke she said only, “Go home, Dorea. Klymene is wondering where you are. Diktys will soon come searching for you. And you, young Eurymedon.” She bent at the waist to address him. “Someday you will leave Seriphos, and we may encounter each other again, but that day is not today.”
Nodding, she turned and walked away humming a jaunty tune. I dared not pursue her for fear of giving offense.
Eurymedon tugged my hand. “I’ve seen her before. She’s the Mistress of Owls.”
When I looked in her direction to gauge whether she had overheard, I discovered to my bewilderment that she had vanished; not even her footprints in the sand remained. I stood dumbly, staring into space.
We returned in time to find the king’s lavish vehicle parked before the house, and the Thracian charioteer lounging in the shade of the trees. I hesitated. Had I imagined meeting the goddess? Tarbos flashed me a salacious wink. Maybe Eurymedon and I should return to the dunes to wait until the danger passed.
Then Klymene emerged from the house carrying an empty jug. “Oh, there you are.”
Why did she sound as if nothing was wrong, when Polydektes had plainly come to harass me? “What is the king doing here?”
“He’s here to see Diktys. There’s been some sad news. The queen mother is dead.” Klymene shook her head. “Polydektes thought we might want to know.” Then she edged closer and dropped her voice to the merest whisper. “Go to the weaving house or the sanctuary. I’ll come fetch you as soon as he leaves.”
Yet scarcely had I decided to take my son and wait out the king’s visit at a neighbor’s house than a man’s unwelcome voice called out from within. “Is that the lovely Dorea I hear, come home from her labors? Come in!”
Why I did not turn on my heel and flee again, I did not quite know. Maybe Polydektes would mistake my flight for fear; he seemed to think the pursuit a worthwhile game, like Apollo chasing the river nymph Daphne.
Upon entering, I found Polydektes sitting at the hearth sharing wine with Diktys. He wore black mourning, livened by a liberal application of scented unguent and the glitter of gold, amber, and onyx ornaments. He greeted me by rising and taking both my hands to press to his lips. “Show me some sympathy, dear lady. I have suffered a terrible misfortune.” And like a nobleman with a lady, he conducted me to a footstool and bade me sit. “It’s my dearest mother, you see. Queen Persephone has claimed her shade for the underworld.”
“I...I’m sorry for your loss.” A withering look toward Eurymedon, whose disgust was plain to see, warned him to be on his best behavior.
Polydektes reclaimed his seat. “It was mushrooms, I fear.”
“Mushrooms?”
“Alas, yes.” He shook his head sadly, but his eyes did not reflect his pout. “One never knows with mushrooms.”
Diktys’s mouth was drawn tight. His cup of wine sat untouched upon the hearth curb. Polydektes, meanwhile, himself poured me a cup from the elaborately painted amphora he had brought with him. “Careful. This is an excellent vintage from Naxos, better than you are accustomed to. Dionysus’s own vineyard.”
I smiled politely and pretended to sip from the cup. Mention of mushrooms as well as Diktys’s glower prompted me to conclude that the queen mother’s death was far from accidental. Klymene interrupted long enough to entice Eurymedon outside; she did not return, and I did not
blame her. Polydektes’s station as king, I thought, was all that stood between him and a heated argument with his brother.
Only Polydektes drank, and only he talked. “What a time for her to fall ill and die! She was so preoccupied with her mission to Argos. What she wanted from Acrisius, I have no idea, and her scribe, unfortunate man, he’s quite lost his tongue as well as most of his fingers.” Diktys’s mouth twitched. I desperately wanted away from the brothers. Argos. Had the queen mother known my secret? Who had betrayed me? Was it Megistokritos? If only someone had had the foresight to douse the chest’s damning decorations with pitch before taking it to the weaving house!
Polydektes drank deeply, refilling his cup without, I noticed, cutting his wine from the water jug Klymene had left at the hearth. The monologue continued, “There’ll be no more of her scheming. Argives! What could she have been thinking? Who needs Argive meddlers in the court when Tiryns has just sent officials to take the tallies?”
The sound of Diktys slapping his knees as he rose jolted Polydektes from his reverie. “Going somewhere?”
“No,” Diktys answered coldly, “but you should stop drinking and go before Tarbos has to carry you.”
To my surprise, Polydektes complied, though he complained to me, “Alas, Dorea, I’m being evicted.”
He swayed as he rose. Diktys exerted no effort to steady him, but went to the door where he shouted for Tarbos. The Thracian dutifully came indoors and tended to his master, who on the way out made a detour to pat my cheek. “Reconsider, lovely lady. You truly do belong in the palace.”
We did not go outside to watch them leave. Even before the chariot’s harness bells receded from earshot, Diktys snatched up the costly amphora, which Polydektes had forgotten, and hurled it against the wall.
*~*~*~*
Strangely, Polydektes did not betray my secret. Only the quality of the gift he brought changed. Occasionally he visited the village bearing small but costly things: a ring of amber set in silver, a necklace of delicate gold rings, a shawl of diaphanous Egyptian linen. I dared not refuse the gifts, but never wore them, and never encouraged his largesse.
