Danae

by Laura Gill

  I had not heard the particulars. “Then what would your master want with the daughter and grandchild of Acrisius?”

  “Princess,” Metianor began, spreading his hands. “As a lady living here in ignorance, you cannot possibly understand the burdens that plague your royal and loving uncle. He wishes only to venerate the gods. He has heard the tales from witnesses in Argos, and now from the servants of King Polydektes, that you enjoy the protection of Zeus and Lady Athena. But how can you serve here, in such a dingy place?” Metianor gestured to the surroundings of the house, by which he meant the entire village. “Your presence would bring manifold blessings to Tiryns.”

  Eliminating me and my son would, I suspected, guarantee more. With the late hour, Diktys’s inability to join the other fishermen with a guest present, and the ambassador’s increasing lack of forthrightness, my patience was wearing thin. “Lord Metianor, I have no intention of leaving Seriphos. Please convey that message to your master, and inform him that I cannot in conscience keep these rich presents.” How ridiculous I sounded, playing the conciliatory princess in a villager’s two-room house!

  The ambassador’s whiskers twitched. “Princess, there is no question that you cannot refuse my master’s presents.”

  “Then surely your master who is so devoted to the gods will not mind my dedicating them to the sanctuary.”

  Metianor stayed the rest of the night as was proper, catching a few hours’ sleep in Diktys’s bed, which Klymene and I piled with aired-out fleeces and the blanket we kept for visitors; his charioteer came inside to doze by the hearth. In the morning, Metianor spent some time observing Eurymedon, who had been informed that our visitor was a nobleman of Tiryns.

  Eurymedon resisted the ambassador’s febrile attempts to glean information about him by confronting him directly. “I’m big for my age, and smarter than the other children.”

  Metianor appeared taken aback. No doubt he had expected my son to behave his age. I found the man’s discomfiture amusing, and saw no need to interfere as long as Eurymedon remembered that the ambassador of Tiryns was a guest. “Are you now, young man?”

  “Are you here to try to take my mother and me away? She doesn’t want to go.” My hopes were instantly dashed; my son had no concept of courtesy around his perceived enemies, and it was only the youthful, piping quality of Eurymedon’s voice kept his question from sounding like the direct challenge it was.

  “I see that,” Metianor said gravely.

  To my further embarrassment, Eurymedon continued, “Argos isn’t a very nice place. I know because I remember. I was there with my mother when I was a baby.”

  “Eurymedon, what should you be doing?” I scolded. Instilling the proper fear into this stranger, his expression said, to which I shook my head and held out the basket of fresh-baked bread. Still defiant, Eurymedon retrieved the basket to offer our guest, who reluctantly accepted a round of flatbread while appealing to me in bewilderment. “You’ll have to excuse my son,” I told him. “He can be rather headstrong.”

  Metianor was not mollified, however. To Eurymedon, he said soberly, “A properly behaved boy respects his elders.”

  If he thought that pronouncement would chasten the boy, then he had never known a child like Eurymedon. My son stood unabashed, wearing the flat, cold serpent stare that I disliked. “Are you my elder?” he challenged.

  “Yes, he is, young man, and you know better than to behave like a wretch,” I said sharply. “Remember, when you offend a guest, you offend Zeus of the Strangers himself. For all you know, this gentleman may be a god in disguise.”

  Nonchalant, Eurymedon shrugged. “He’s not.”

  “Go outside.” I aimed a rigid finger toward the door. “You will go without breakfast for your rudeness.”

  Eurymedon calmly went out in search of Diktys. Would that I had his unflappable cool. The incident left me shaken, not least because it showed me as an inadequate mother. “Forgive me, Lord Metianor,” I said. “He knows common courtesy. Believe me when I say that he isn’t always like this. Usually, it’s only when he thinks I’m being threatened.”

  Metianor nodded. “A...remarkable child,” he replied diplomatically. Outside, Diktys loudly reprimanded Eurymedon for his insolence; at least my son did not lie when caught misbehaving. “Time spent with Prince Megapenthes’ tutors would cure him of his unfortunate demeanor and instill the appropriate measure of piety.”

  Failing such corporal methods, I mentally added, a fortunate accident would forever cure his temperament. “Thank you, but I will not impose his bad manners or my unworthy self on the court of Tiryns.”

  Klymene, who had gone out earlier to fetch goat cheese and fish stew from the communal pot, appeared bearing profuse apologies. “And Eurymedon is often such a well-behaved child, too.” She deposited the vessel of steaming stew beside the bread. “Here, let us have the libation. Diktys will come later.”

  When he did, Metianor expressed his desire to see the chest. “I am told Queen Aganippe had exquisite taste in decoration.” Seeing my grimace, he offered an apology. “Your father venerates her memory with sacred rites at the end of each summer. To hear that he set her dower chest to so a wicked purpose came as quite the surprise.”

  I did not accompany the men to the weaving house, but stayed behind to reprimand my son, banished to a corner of the dooryard to sulk. “What’s gotten into you, offending a guest?” I demanded.

  Eurymedon remained unapologetic. “He’s not a god, Mother. I can see gods, and that man isn’t one.”

  “What has that got to do with anything?” I exclaimed. “All guests are protected by Zeus of the Strangers. Do you think he would approve of your behavior?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Mother. That nobleman won’t take us away now, because he knows the king of Tiryns won’t want us if I’m bad.”

  As compelling as his reasoning sounded, I refused to believe that Eurymedon had acted out to deceive the ambassador of Tiryns; that took cunning and planning far beyond a child of his age. “As punishment you will dedicate your breakfast to Zeus of the Strangers,” I told him.

  “But Diktys already punished me!” he protested.

  “And now I am punishing you. Now, come along.” Carrying the offering myself to ensure he did not filch a bite, I led Eurymedon by the hand to the sanctuary where the women of the damos had attended to the morning devotions not an hour ago. “Place your breakfast in the kernos and say the prayers.”

  As an unworthy mother, I left a string of amethyst beads, one of the gifts Proitus had sent. Eurymedon frowned at the offering. “They’d look better on you, Mother, than gathering dust in the storeroom.”

  “You impious child!” His declaration horrified me far more than his rudeness to Metianor had, considering that he spoke where the gods could hear.

  “Why am I impious, Mother? Even the gods say so. Father Zeus thinks you ought to have something pretty to wear.”

  Jerking him roughly outside, I demanded an explanation. “What demon put such sacrilegious thoughts into your head?” Eurymedon did not see the gods, did not hear them; it was the work of an overwrought imagination. An invisible Zeus was not standing in the doorway commenting on my lack of adornment. Eurymedon was simply telling stories, trying to excuse his inexcusable bad manners. Angry, shocked at his outright blasphemy, I shook him. “You most certainly do not speak to the gods!”

  His brow wrinkled. “Mother, can’t you talk to them?” A question so simply phrased, yet so incomprehensible. His astonishment seemed real, and perhaps he really was just beginning to realize that others did not share the talent he claimed, but he could be so maddeningly inscrutable that even I, his mother, could not be sure.

  “I speak to the gods the way we all do, through prayers and offerings, and sometimes dreams,” I answered shakily.

  “But you can’t see them?” The crease between his brows deepened. “I can see them, Mother. Hermes is laughing at us from under the juniper tree, and Zeus was inside t
he sanctuary looking at the necklace.” Eurymedon watched the tree intently, as if someone stood there, whereas I perceived nothing except the juniper’s trunk and green growth. Then, tugging on my hand, my son glanced up at me. “I thought you could see them.”

  My son was not lying, I felt so in my bones. Eurymedon could see and communicate with the immortals. Why should he not, being half-divine himself? My knees buckled. I scrabbled for a suitable patch of ground to sit before I collapsed. “Eurymedon, you...” The breath was going out of me. Gods forbid, was I inadvertently sitting on Athena’s gold-sandaled foot, or making a spectacle of myself right in front of Queen Hera?

  “What is it, Mother?” Eurymedon crouched beside me to hold my hand. He must be telling the truth. “Should I go fetch Klymene?”

  “No, no.” Clutching his hand gave me strength. I gulped down a deep breath. “Eurymedon, nobody else can see or hear the gods, except through dreams, signs, and other portents, because they’re invisible to mortals.” My voice quavered. That would not do. Instructing my son required a mother’s firmness.

  Eurymedon had already noticed. “But Mother, I-I thought you could talk to them. When you pray...”

  “When we pray, we only hope they hear us,” I explained, “but we’re never really sure unless the prayer is answered. Sometimes the gods don’t listen, because we’re not worthy of their notice, or we’ve committed some sin that we don’t know about. Your grandfather Acrisius...” Pausing let me collect my thoughts. “The gods have never granted him a healthy son. I know he’s prayed and made many rich offerings, but all that’s come of it is the curse, and nobody knows why.” Eurymedon’s brows knitted together while he teethed his lower lip in deep thought. I pinched him to get his attention. “You must promise me never to tell anyone else what you see and hear. Promise! People wouldn’t understand. They would call you a blasphemer and a liar.”

  “But you believe me, don’t you, Mother?”

  Hugging his head to my breast, I nodded. “You must promise me in Zeus’s name to do as you’re told and behave like any other boy. Swear it now!” I kissed his curls, but then a thought occurred to me, utterly ridiculous but urgently important. “And, please, if your father’s standing right here, don’t tell me. Mortals aren’t meant to know those things.”

  “I promise!” He wriggled to escape, but I held him fast, in part because he had not yet sworn his oath, and also because he frightened me and filled me with such love and longing that the overbearing sweetness of it ached, and lastly, because I was afraid, terrified that the uniqueness of his birth and the oracle’s prophecy would one day drive a wedge between us that I could not bridge. “Mother, you’re squeezing me!”

  Mumbling an apology, I released him but kept hold of his hand as I stood. “Into the sanctuary, young man. You’ve an oath to swear.”

  Eurymedon did not balk, though on the way in he asked, “Mother, can I tell you that Hermes thought it was funny?”

  “No!” Next, he would claim that the god of messengers, thieves, and boyish mischief had encouraged his bad behavior. I hustled him straightaway to the altar, and ordered him to kneel on the plastered floor where I joined him. “You’re to swear to never again disrespect your elders, and to honor Zeus’s laws of guest-right and protection.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Yet he struggled to comply, again biting his lip with intense concentration, until I realized that he did not know how to swear a formal oath; Diktys had never gone so far as to make him repeat the most terrible parts of a man’s vow. I had to prompt him with the substance and terrible consequences if he violated his oath—eyes falling out, teeth turning rotten, and limbs becoming diseased. I made him grasp his testicles while he said the words. I watched him blanch, and heard his child’s voice tremble, the whole time loathing the necessity.

  Afterward, as we headed home, he asked in a tremulous voice, “Would Zeus really make my teeth rotten and my eyes fall out?”

  Ask your father. Even as that sniping thought entered my head, I dismissed it. He had just encountered the prospect of the awful punishments awaiting those who displeased the gods, and found himself confounded. Perhaps he was not so special, so immune to mortal failings, after all. “Yes,” I answered.

  “But I’m just a boy.”

  “That doesn’t matter to the gods. Young, old, sick, no one who sins against them, not even those who have enjoyed the gods’ grace, is spared their displeasure,” I replied. “Do you remember the story Iolanthe told this winter, of the wicked queen of Byblos who was blessed with great beauty and many children, who then boasted how her youngest daughter was more beautiful than even Aphrodite herself?” Eurymedon had been bored with that tale, I recalled, because there were no heroes slaying monsters. “Aphrodite demanded the girl be sacrificed, never mind that the poor maiden herself was innocent. One never presumes with the gods. Just because they show us a kindness doesn’t mean they’ll always be so generous.”

  I sent him to finish the task Diktys had assigned him, but first I made him apologize to the ambassador. Metianor accepted the gesture with a courteous smile that nevertheless did not reflect in his eyes. Of more immediate concern to him was my status as a registered wool worker. “A shame,” he exclaimed, “that you, a princess of Argos, better born than any on this rocky isle, make your living as a woman of the tallies.”

  “I see no shame in doing women’s work to provide for myself and my son. I happen to be a proficient weaver.”

  Metianor bobbed his head in agreement. “Yes, Princess, but a lady of your stature should be applying her skills to weaving garments to be given as gifts to the king’s honored guests, or costly purpled wool to be made into robes for the goddess in the sanctuary of Queen Hera.”

  To this, I smiled sweetly. “But who says my weaving doesn’t eventually find its way into the king’s house or the goddess’s sanctuary?”

  Taking my leave of the Tirynthian ambassador, who for the last time urged me to reconsider, I reported to the weaving house, where Keremaia informed me that Diktys and a nobleman had come to inspect the chest; no comment or criticism, only the bare statement. Since returning to the village seven weeks ago to supervise the delivery of the raw wool fleece and the labor, the headwoman had trod on eggshells around me.

  First before all other things, even before ordering the wool baskets taken inside, Keremaia had approached me and, wringing her hands with an uncharacteristic anxiety, stated, “Lady, I had no idea the chest was yours.”

  Had she been anyone else, I would have insisted she continue calling me “Dorea”—a thing I eventually did lest the plague of curiosity seekers catch wind of it—but at that moment her humbled demeanor offered me a perverse pleasure. “Then how did the king come to learn about the chest?” I challenged. “Because he went straight to it.”

  Flustered, she sought an explanation. I knew full well that she could not have betrayed me, but I wanted her to suffer for a time the same humiliation she had inflicted on me and the other weavers.

  “Megistokritos?” she offered. Genuine fear shone in her eyes. “All I know is it wasn’t me, Princess.”

  I expected that answer, and was prepared to toy with her, but her reaction alarmed me so much I reconsidered. Did she expect me to oust her from her position through a quick word to Polydektes? She seemed to have no family, no other means of sustenance other than the rations the palace allotted her. And despite the fact that she was a misanthrope, she did her job well. Was I so mean-spirited that I wanted to render her destitute?

  Besides, for some time I had suspected that Megistokritos was the culprit, because he had noticed the chest and had official access to the palace. “Keremaia, this worrying isn’t like you,” I said. “You’re not to blame.”

  She blinked, bewildered. “Didn’t you just say I was, Princess?”

  “No, I simply asked. But I’m quite sure now that it wasn’t you.” To emphasize the point, I laid a hand on her arm. “And, please, don’t call me Princess. I’m still Dorea. Noth
ing’s changed.”

  *~*~*~*

  When Polydektes returned, still intent on winning my hand, he humbled himself by leaving his chariot with his Thracian charioteer on the heights and walked down alone. He did not hasten when he glimpsed me leaving the weaving house, but gave me enough time to seek asylum in the sanctuary; he remained amiable even when I closed and barred the door.

  The very first time I did this, without knowing his intentions, I ran as fast as I could, till I grew a stitch in my side, and flung myself before the altar. In dread, I waited for him to hammer on the door. I heard the scrape of his sandals before the threshold, then a shuffle, and finally a firm but harmless knock. “Danaë, I mean you no harm,” he called from without. “I am not going to break down the door or do anything to offend the gods. Please, just listen.”

  After a few moments, I collected myself. Common sense overrode apprehension. If Polydektes intended to violate the sanctuary, neither the door nor my clasping the altar would stop him. Other considerations, too, weighed upon me. So I left the altar with its idols and its kernos, and cautiously approached the door.

  “Stop shouting, Polydektes,” I said through the door-seam. “You’ll attract every gawker and adventurer on Seriphos.”

  “It does not matter, Danaë,” he breathed huskily. “I think only of you.”

  “I told you to stop calling me that. Dorea, Polydektes. My name is Dorea.” What an imbecile. Would that I had a mallet to hand, to knock him on the head with! Moreover, his heavy breathing did not instill in me the passion he obviously thought it might. Why women even found a man’s panting for air arousing, I had no idea.

  “Dorea is a commoner’s name.”

  “Suit yourself,” I retorted, “but I will not answer to the other.”

  Heavy silence. Maybe he would go away so I could get back to washing and combing fleece. Keremaia no longer begrudged me the need to escape the king’s unwanted visits, but I was determined to fulfill my obligations like any other weaver, and not claim any special privileges.