by Laura Gill
Insensitive remarks about the innocents displaced and butchered during the rising lowered my opinion of these women, whose husbands had participated in the slaughter. Fish-loving Diktys, reeking of nets and sea urchins, aimed above his station and had paid the price. Were they so malicious, these noblewomen of Chora, or had they never been told that their queen-to-be had lived seventeen years in Pelargos as Prince Diktys’s sister?
I steered the conversation away from the rising to more inconsequential topics: current fashion, needlework, and child-rearing. From their oblique remarks, the ladies apparently knew that I was the mother of a grown son who had been exiled or slain, but the uneasiness in which they danced around the subject suggested that they had also heard that I was a maiden and favorite of Zeus.
By morning’s end, I had gleaned more khólos and kótos for the weaving stretched across the great loom. Blood and malice: I had come to loathe the work of my hands, yet the thing must be finished, retribution served to Polydektes on behalf of those who no longer had voices to call out to the Erinyes. More than an arm’s length of material was already complete, a little less than half of what was needed to drape a cloak for a man of Polydektes’ height. Then there was hemming to finish, and the decorations of pearl and gold appliques to attach. Three weeks remained to Plowistos, five until the rites of the spring equinox, and with my increased presence at court I no longer enjoyed the leisure of staying long hours at the loom.
Polydektes waxed effusive with approval. “The wives of my companions speak well of you.” Draping a proprietary arm around my waist, he planted a kiss on my cheek that I passively accepted. “Why, one would almost believe you were eager to become queen.”
“I did as you bade me.” I turned away, toward the pitcher of wine a servant had brought ahead of him; some evenings, he liked to drink and tempt me with various confections. Perhaps he hoped the gift of Dionysus would loosen my inhibitions. “I have much else to do before spring. What do your women do with themselves all day?”
His manservant, a discreet fixture in the background, poured and tasted the wine. Polydektes splashed the hearth with the first drops before offering me some. “As I have told you, my concubines are not your concern.”
“Do they at least earn their keep?” His shocked reaction alerted me to what I had said. “What do they do with themselves when not on their backs? Do they help with the children? Spin or weave wool?” Polydektes continued to stare as though I had suggested putting legs on fish. “If the princess of Argos has no trouble making herself industrious, then your sluts should do the same. Which brings me to your children.”
“My children?”
“Yes, your sons and daughters by these loose women.” I accepted a cup from the manservant without drinking. “Now, it is not for a wife to contest where or how her husband seeks his pleasures. In fact, it will come as no surprise if I encourage you to continue with these women, as long as they busy themselves with pious industry when not serving you, and never disturb me.
“As I was saying, about your children. Since I am to be their stepmother, I must make myself acquainted with them. When would be the best time to do this? It should not be left until just before the wedding. My father did this with Lady Eurydike of Sparta—you were there at the wedding, you remember her?—and thus I never had much opportunity to get to know her before she took over my mother’s apartments.”
That I bombarded him with observations and plans where other prospective brides besieged their grooms with kisses and caresses was entirely deliberate, and though he saw right through my attempts to distract him from seduction, the headache of his dilemma—whether to let me assume the rights and responsibilities of a wife, or reduce me to his wedded captive, which would not sit well with my Argive kinsmen—provided a delicious spectacle.
“Should I even trust you with my children?” Polydektes rubbed his temples between his right forefinger and thumb.
“You wound me, my lord!” I took great relish in pantomiming dismayed shock. “I am a mother myself.”
Polydektes toyed with the goblet, then set it aside and slunk over. Once again wrapping his arm around my waist, he slid his forefinger under my chin to compel my gaze. “Would that be the same son whose death you hold me responsible for? The bards’ stories are full of spiteful stepmothers wreaking havoc.”
Far from trying to break contact, I met his stare directly. “Then what did you mean before about your daughters needing proper instruction, and a mother to find them suitable husbands?” Whether Polydektes wanted a kindly stepmother for his children mattered little, because I did not care about his bastards, but to throw up my hands and surrender, to shrug my indifference, meant yielding some of the authority due the mistress of the household.
“It has occurred to me since then that you did not dwell long enough in your father’s palace to master the proper deportment,” Polydektes answered slyly. “You seem to have forgotten some of your manners.”
Longer than your mother ever did, I wanted to say, but held my tongue while favoring him with a poisonous smile. “Will you repeat that to the Argive ambassador when he comes? Of course, my father cares nothing about the matter, but Proitus is sure to send someone.” I maintained my smile even when Polydektes released me. “My uncle of Tiryns will want to make sure that your children with these women pose no obstacle to any heirs I might give you.”
“And here I thought you were too old to bear.” He paused before taking a drink. “All your complaints of impending crone-hood.”
Whatever concessions I gained from him would come by inches, and by the sweat of my brow. “Such miracles have happened. One never knows. But what will you tell Proitus’s ambassador when he inquiries about your children? Will you tell him that you don’t trust your bride with them?” I sat down, pulled a cushion to me, and toyed with the scarlet tassel. “It’s your sons that matter, and when have I ever asked to have a hand rearing them?”
Just as he opened his mouth to answer, I kept going, “And about that. What will you tell the ambassador when he asks about Adeimon and Demaratos, and their ambitions? You think they will be content following the lead of a half-brother young enough to be their son?” I wanted those two gone, eliminated, and only in part because they had conspired with their father and others to harm Eurymedon.
The tightening of Polydektes’ jaw, coupled with the reflexive clenching and unclenching of his fists, warned that this time I might have ventured too far, too soon. “If you are suggesting that I banish or rid myself—”
Flinging aside the cushion, I stood. Flinching in anticipation of an attack would not serve my purpose. “I had no such thought, but what would the ambassador of Tiryns say? Although...” I moved beyond his reach, toward the inlaid table and my untouched cup. “What do you intend to do about your grown sons? I have always wondered what you meant to do about naming an heir. Diktys always assumed you would let your sons fight it out among themselves, and let the peace of the island be damned.” I pretended to drink. “I am sure you have a plan in mind, but I should warn you now, if the gods somehow bless our middle age with children, then I will not sit idly by and allow your baseborn offspring to threaten them.”
Polydektes tossed his wine down in a fit and departed, glowering. I had scored a small victory, I supposed, empty though the triumph seemed. Lady Eleuthia might well curse me with a son doomed to death at the hands of his elder half-brothers, or the goddess might close my womb, and leave me to end up despised and banished as Eurydike had been.
When the lamp went out, and Zoe settled onto her pallet beside my bed, terrors old and new hastened in. I closed my eyes and, forcing back the urge to replay the argument, to obsess over my bridegroom’s anger, sent silent prayers to my immortal guardians.
As an indication of his displeasure, Polydektes avoided my company for the next several evenings, but to my surprise did not otherwise curtail my privileges. The only thing he did that caused me comment was to send porters upstairs to retrieve
my mother’s chest. Not to deprive me of my property, they hastily explained, but to place it downstairs in the megaron for the admiration of members of the court and the wedding guests.
He also sent the steward of the house, a gawky and balding man who brought a satchel of wood diptyches and profuse apologies. “Pardon, Lady, but I could not discover whether you, uh, could read or write.” He shuffled into the sitting room in a whiff of wet clay and cuttlefish ink, the telltale odor of the scribal class. “It will be no trouble, of course, but...”
“No trouble at all,” I assured him. What torment did the king subject his chief steward to, that he came expecting to be chastened? At my command, the serving girl Zoe brought us refreshments and arranged a comfortable footstool for the man. “And you need not worry, Scribe...?” In his apprehension, he had forgotten to give me his name. He corrected the lapse at once; his name was Eunomos. “I can read and write very well.”
I sat down across from him with my spinning, and put him at his ease before asking him to summarize the palace inventories. Eunomos laid out his documents, with exhaustive explanations of the storehouses and their contents. I smiled throughout, tallying the written figures in my head to ascertain his mathematics; he was scrupulous with his figures, which did not surprise me given the man’s timid manner. Polydektes was probably the type of ruler who made brutal examples of palace officials who tried swindling him.
When it was time for him to close his diptyches and depart, I patted the steward’s hand as one did with a favorite elder and said, “Bring your documents to me once a week for me to review. I will want a ready supply of wax-coated tablets and styluses, and my own seal.”
Polydektes objected to those requests. “What do you need to review every chit and tally for? I allowed you to consult with Eunomos to supply your own household, not to order mine. No, you may not have your own seal. Too many signs and figures crammed in your head will spoil your looks, and you are already old.”
His assertion, delivered with such vehemence, prompted me to snort with laughter; where had he gotten such a ridiculous notion? “I assume none of your daughters can read, write, or tally figures?” I challenged.
“Of course not! Why should I want them to be educated?” He rubbed his chin between his forefinger and thumb. “Educated women are nothing but trouble. Look at my mother. Able to read and write, and always had her nose where it did not belong.”
“You know that the Argives and Cretans educate their royal daughters, yes? Your mother was Cretan, as was mine, and I am a daughter of Argos.” I broached the subject cautiously, lest he take the remark as an insult to his upbringing. “Taking an Argive bride means having a queen who can read and write.”
He ruminated over refreshments and the warmth of the brazier. Late winter meant frigid nights in Chora. At length, he said, “I prefer you when you weave and spin yarn as a woman should, and keep your opinions to yourself.”
“You can always return me to the sanctuary of Zeus.” I knotted a length of indigo thread. Glowering silence from him. “No? Since you take set such great store in my opinions, perhaps I should confess now, while you still have time to cancel the wedding, that I much prefer you as you were when you used to talk to me through the sanctuary door in Pelargos. No complaints, no recriminations.” Tilting my hoop toward the lamplight, I pushed the needle through the fabric. “I often think you were at your most honest then.”
“You mean those years when you made me fool of me?” His mouth drew a cruel line. “For seventeen years I let you thwart and refuse me, until you, a mere woman, turned me, the king of Seriphos, into the laughingstock of the islands.” I quietly plied the needle while waiting for the storm to pass. “And no, I will not return you to your sanctuary in Ganema, or cancel the wedding. For one, that would give you too much pleasure, and for another, without this marriage the troubles will continue.”
I ignored that barb. “What troubles? I thought you had restored order.” Was the rebellion not crushed?
Polydektes refused to answer, but sat brooding with his fist curled on his knee. I thrust away all thoughts of what our evenings would be like once we were married, and concentrated on filling the indigo spiral.
“Polydektes,” I said, sighing, “I urged you years ago to find a wife elsewhere, a princess who could bring you a dowry.” My gaze never left the swirls of blue and green stretched across my embroidery hoop. “If you are determined to be miserable with me, well, that is your choice.”
*~*~*~*
Morpheus visited that night with a strange dream of flying. From the priestesses of the Mountain, and from the wives of Pelargos since, I had learned about the significance of certain dreams. Flying dreams signaled waking desires of escape or, perhaps, elevation, to sit among the immortals of Olympus and peer down upon lesser creatures. Ascending and then crashing to earth, or failing to climb at all, meant uncertainty, though one could also interpret dreams of that type as a divine warning against the dangers of hubris.
What, then, to make of this dream, wherein I crossed vast swathes of ocean with eagle wings attached to my ankles? What strange bird flew in this manner? None that I knew. And why did the immortals not strike me down for daring to take to the heavens and skip across the seas as they had Daedalus’s son, who had donned the artificial wings of feathers and wax his father had made and then, disobeying the strict commands given, flew too close to Helios’s burning chariot and plummeted back to earth?
CHAPTER THIRTY
The day before the wedding dawned sunny and bright, perfect but for the nagging sense of foreboding that accompanied me everywhere, an oppressiveness that signaled more than the fact that tomorrow I must wed and bed with a man whom I despised. Something else, I perceived, something far more dreadful, was about to occur, and my inability to identify and counter the threat merely added to my anxiety.
No one else shared my premonitions; naturally, anyone who noticed my pallor and restlessness dismissed them as a bride’s usual jitters. Maids twined garlands to hang in the megaron and courts. The cooks flooded the citadel with the savory aromas of baking bread, frying onions, and roasting meats. Wedding guests bearing food, drink, and gifts for the celebration began arriving; the steward of the house took care of the bedding and board arrangements on the king’s behalf. I did not own a queen’s seal, and Polydektes forbade me from seeing any ledgers not directly related to the expenditures of the queen’s household.
Polydektes greeted the guests alone. I was not allowed downstairs until tomorrow, and was forbidden to speak with his courtiers or the emissaries of Tiryns or the islands until the union was consummated and my maiden blood stained the sheets. However, Polydektes regularly sent messages to inform me about the distinguished visitors who had already arrived and the greetings they bore, a courtesy which, I grudgingly admitted, he could have neglected. In particular, he wanted me to know that the Tirynthian ambassador had publicly inspected the chest and loudly declared it to have been the property of my late mother.
The thought of my mother’s chest, which during her lifetime had been so intimate a possession, displayed for public inspection and my bridegroom’s own political gain, inspired a twinge of nausea. “I still do not understand why Proitus would give credence to the story.” We sat idly in the sitting room with the many windows. The loom stood empty, the cloak finished, folded, and ready to be gifted; Timandra had taken away my embroidery, basket of fleece, and spindle so that I should not tax myself on the eve of my wedding.
“Because it is true.”
Polydektes could be so short-sighted sometimes. “I mean, it does not suit his purpose to acknowledge me as his legitimate niece.”
“Of course it does,” Polydektes insisted, grinning. “He delights in the ominous rumblings from Argos. By the way, my emissary just returned from Argos. Your father refused to receive him. The bride-gifts have all come back.”
Why Polydektes insisted on needling a bitter old man when I had urged him to leave matters be, especia
lly when his allegiance to Proitus rendered it unnecessary, I could not comprehend. “What did you expect would happen?”
He dismissed the question with an irritable wave. “What uncivilized brute does not ask a woman’s father for her hand? At least I can say I made the effort, and Proitus can point to his brother’s unreasonableness as further proof that Acrisius is a degenerate. I daresay my liege lord probably enjoyed a good laugh at his brother’s expense.”
My hands wanted something to do to offset the tension. “Proitus will not be laughing should we have a son. He and Megapenthes want Argos for themselves.” Sensing my future husband had more to expound upon, I shook my head. “This talk of Argos and Tiryns tires me. We should be content to think about what’s best for Seriphos,” I said. “I have a gift for you, for tomorrow. A little something for the wedding.”
“Not a knife between the ribs, I hope,” he grumbled. “Shall I wear a bronze corselet?”
Agitated as I already was, I had half a mind to stab him right there. “Must you, Polydektes? You know I have spent the last several weeks at the loom. Remember, I have been weaving you a garment to wear for the wedding? You promised you would not peek? Well, it is finished, but if you would rather not accept the cloak I am sure there is a sanctuary somewhere where the xoanon will be grateful for the garment.”
Polydektes at least had the decency to look abashed. “I-I did not realize you meant that in earnest, Danaë.”
“Perhaps you should send your manservant first to see whether I have dipped the garment in poison. After all, it would not do for you to burn to death on your wedding day.” Why that barb out of so many stung so hard, I could not fathom.
Having started to rise, Polydektes seated himself again, this time much closer. His movements brought an audible creaking of joints. “Have I deserved that?” he asked quietly, but from his phrasing he clearly meant it as a rhetorical question. “If it pleases you, I will wear your wedding gift tomorrow. But smile!” he urged. “The ladies of the court are coming later to prepare you. Have you chosen your bridal garments?”
