As we drew closer to the city, the stench became even more foul, and the pits more deplorable. The last pit held metal platforms, each with a large stake jutting up through it. The platforms were surrounded by dry sticks and wood. Some were being prepared, while others were burning. Standing on each burning platform was a suffering immortal. The flames licked their skin, and the metal seared their feet as they screamed in agony. Two guardsmen carried a body from one of the platforms.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“No, but he wishes he was,” Thomas replied flatly. “He’ll be healed in the Pool of Blood and burned again.”
“What did he do?”
Thomas let out a hard snort. “Probably nothing. The fire is reserved for those who displease the Queen. He may have dropped a piece of bread or served her breakfast cold.”
“They’re all men.” I’d never heard a man scream like that. “She is never displeased with her maids?”
The road turned and descended toward the city. “When the maids displease her, she just sets the guards loose on them. Most of the maids would prefer the fire.”
No wonder there were tears in Titus’s eyes when he told me they might enslave me. He had seen all this cruelty and depravation. He understood fully the cost if I failed at this task.
I was sweating profusely now. It was probably ninety degrees at the bottom of the kingdom. The air was filled with smoke so foul breathing was painful. As the fumes rose, they took on a red glow. The whole city looked bathed in blood, which was ironic since everyone here had clear blood except me.
Enormous sentinels in black robes and gruesome masks guarded the gates to the city. When Titus called them demons, it was an apt description. The streets were crowded, and here it seemed that at least a portion of the people of Hades lived free of torture.
“Are these people innocent?” I asked.
“If the King and Queen feel they have fully paid for their crimes, they may be granted a work assignment in the city. The guardsmen and the court have to be fed. Someone has to work. A few are children of Hades. Both of their parents are workers, and they were born here.”
I walked closer to him in the crowd. As we passed an intersection of narrow streets, a dirty, nearly starving child caught hold of my cloak. Startled, I stepped into Thomas and touched his arm, which was cold despite the heat.
When he saw the child clinging to my cloak, Thomas lifted his foot and kicked it square in the face. It fell away hissing and transformed into a narrow-faced man about our age. “That’s a child of Hades. Only they can transform like that. If you see a snake, make sure you step on its head.”
He steered me through the streets until I lost all sense of direction. No sooner had I reached this point of confusion than Thomas turned me into a narrow alley where the buildings on either side rose and joined above us. The light from the street was blotted out. He took me by the arm and he pulled me through the darkness.
I instinctively resisted, but it was a futile struggle. Even if Thomas had laid a trap for me, leaving him was far more dangerous. The passageway grew narrower. Only a small window of red light illuminated the exit far ahead.
Just before he reached the opening, he stopped. “We’ve arrived.” He cordially offered me his arm, and though I was leery, I took it. We stepped through the smoke onto a cobblestone road. Before us rose an enormous castle at least double the size of Eros’s palace. It was medieval in design with tall spires atop several round turrets. Stone gargoyles and roaring lions adorned the upper decks. A wide moat surrounded the palace, which we crossed on a stone bridge. The moat flowed with molten lava. The lava gave off such severe heat that my skin stung just crossing the bridge.
The open gates allowed us entry into an enormous foyer with stairways that led to the upper levels and a grand entrance into what was probably the great hall, but Thomas steered me to a side staircase and took me to an empty upper hallway.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer, so I stopped, still holding his arm, and stopped him, too.
“I’m supposed to see Persephone,” I persisted.
“You will.” He led me to a tall wooden door much like the upper room to which Theron had taken me to see Aphrodite. Perhaps Persephone wanted to see me privately.
I entered the room and found that it was indeed an enormous bedchamber, but it was empty. Thomas followed me into the room and locked the door behind us.
I faced him. “I’m here to see Persephone. I demand you take me to her.”
“I will take you to Persephone, but not looking like that.” He unclasped the cloak and pulled it from my shoulders. “You’re filthy, and you stink.”
We’d just walked miles through pits that reeked of burning flesh, and he thought I stank? “It took me a week to get here. I camped four nights in the snow. I didn’t exactly have luxury accommodations.”
“I’ll draw you a bath.” He moved across the room to another door and motioned me to follow. “If there’s one thing we have plenty of here in the Underworld, it’s hot water.”
The bathroom was bigger than my bedroom back home. At the center of the room a circular tub was sunken into the stone floor. Thomas merely opened a valve over the tub and steaming water rushed out. He went to a cupboard and returned with two bottles and a bar of soap. He set one bottle on the edge of the tub. “For your hair.” The other bottle he uncorked and poured into the water as the tub filled. It was Underworld bubble bath, and fortunately, it smelled like pomegranates, not burning flesh.
“I’ll gather some fresh clothing.” He left the door open a crack on his way out.
I was dirty, and a hot bath sounded wonderful. I felt guilty as I slipped into the steaming water. Back in the mortal world, Titus was shivering in the tent trying to keep from freezing.
No sooner had I dropped under the bubbles when Thomas returned.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “A little privacy here.”
He ignored me and filled a bucket with hot water and soap. He dropped my clothes into the bucket. On the back of the bathroom door he hung a gown. It was like the gowns of Eros’s kingdom, but it was red. The bodice was embroidered with gold leaves, and from the neckline hung a delicate chain of gold leaves. A golden belt hung at the waist. Unlike the gowns in Eros’s kingdom, the red one had a slit that reached high up the skirt on the right side.
“I’m not wearing that,” I told Thomas.
“You will if you want to meet the Queen,” he replied as he left the room again.
Irritated, I scrubbed a week’s worth of sweat and grime from my body. I ducked my head under the water to wet my hair, and when I came up, Thomas was standing at the foot of the tub. Startled, I sucked bubbles up my nose and started sputtering.
He held several sandals in his hands. “I need to size your feet.”
I lifted one foot above the bubbles, and he held a sandal up to it. The sandal was way too small, so he set it aside and held up another. With the third he seemed satisfied and slipped it onto my wet foot. He frowned and ran his finger over the forest of hair that had grown since the last time I had a razor. “This will give you away.” He looked up. “Show me your underarm.”
Careful to keep myself covered, I raised my arm.
“That will definitely give you away.”
“I don’t suppose you have a razor?”
“I’ll find one.” He pulled the sandal off my foot and disappeared. While he was gone I washed my hair and wrung it out.
The razor he found was an old-fashioned straight blade. Thomas sharpened it on a leather strap before holding out his hand. “Give me your foot.”
“No way.”
He offered me the razor handle first. “I’m surprised at you. It looked as if you had a man servant.”
“Did you recognize him?” I wanted him to leave, but he wouldn’t. Most likely he had orders not to leave me alone.
Thomas lowered his eyes. “Yes, it was Titus.” Behind him scarlet curtains hung floor-to-ce
iling on either side of a narrow stained glass window. Firelight flickered from the other side of the colored panes.
I studied the razor briefly then propped my left foot up on the side of the tub and pressed the razor against my skin. It seemed simple enough, just drag the blade up my leg. When I did this, it didn’t scratch the hair away. It peeled away a section of skin an inch wide and six inches long. Blood gushed to cover the wound.
“Stop!” Thomas shrieked. “You stubborn girl. You’re going to get me cast into the fire!” He grabbed a towel and blotted the blood. Then he rummaged through a cupboard and found a jar of balm. “Give me that razor,” he demanded.
I relinquished it willingly, as Thomas smoothed balm over the cut. It itched, but the bleeding stopped and within minutes, the skin healed. After rinsing blood and skin off the blade, he gripped my foot. When I shied away, he held on tighter and muttered, “Don’t move,” through gritted teeth.
Not many things were more terrible than having a demon shave my legs with a straight razor. When he reached my knee, he slid the blade right over it and up about four inches. Seeing I’d gone completely rigid, he relaxed his grip on my foot. “I’m not going to hurt you. You can trust me.”
My body didn’t relax. “Says the demon from Hades,” I muttered.
He shook the razor under the water and made another pass up my leg. “You’ve been well warned.”
“Not well enough, obviously.” I made sure plenty of bubbles covered me before I let him near my arms. He didn’t so much as nick me as he scraped the hair from my underarms. It was mortifying as much as terrifying. Demon or not, Thomas was still a guy, and I had really hairy armpits. Being raised by a man somehow had not prepared me for male servants. Between Aeas, Titus, and now Thomas, I’d be lucky to escape with any dignity at all.
When he was done, I sank far into the water, but Thomas lingered. Finally, I came up and said, “I’m ready to get out.”
He held a towel like he expected me to step into it. Not a chance.
I snatched it from his hands. “I can dry myself. Wait in the other room.” As soon as he left, I hopped out and dressed in a hurry, afraid that he’d come back.
My satchel lay on the counter where my clothes had been. I carefully took out the box from Aphrodite then looked for a place to hide the satchel. If they wanted to keep me here, all they had to do was steal my exit plan, and I would be stuck.
I snooped around the bathroom until I found a loose cupboard. I managed to stow the satchel in the space between the cupboard and the stone wall.
“Much better,” Thomas said, when I returned to the bedroom. “The dress is stunning on you.” After inspecting me he said, “You should braid your hair. All the women here wear braids.” Then he touched the chain around my neck and the ring that hung upon it. “Take that off.”
“No,” I said firmly. “It belongs to Eros. I will wear it when I meet Persephone. As for my hair, I don’t know how to braid.” I held up the box from Aphrodite. “I want to see the Queen now.”
“I could send for a maid,” he offered, still looking at my hair.
I wasn’t going to let anyone else touch me.
Frustrated, Thomas went to the dresser and came back with a brush and comb. He took the box from my hand and motioned me to sit beside it on the bed. “I’ll braid your hair,” he said.
I laughed without meaning to. “You? Come on.”
“I’ve been with Persephone for five ages. I sleep at her feet. Sometimes she doesn’t care for maids, so she’s taught me all sorts of tedious things.” He drew the comb across my scalp and parted the hair, then brushed the divided sides before braiding my hair into a crown that circled my head. I could see him in the dresser mirror as he deftly worked his way from side to side. “Why don’t you know how to braid?”
“I never really had a mother.” I didn’t feel like explaining Jill to him.
“My mortal parents died before I was grown. I survived on the charity of our neighbors. I worked the fields alongside their children, and they fed me.” He looked at me in the mirror. “That’s all I remember of my mortal life before Aphrodite found me.” The braiding done, he pushed the ends into the crown with the point of the comb.
I fingered the finished work and tipped my head to see it in the mirror. “It’s beautiful.”
“Now you’re fit to meet Persephone.”
The Queen’s throne was located in the opposite wing of the palace. The throne room was rectangular with high, vaulted ceilings and red tapestries draped between the buttresses. Stone floors and walls kept the castle cool despite the heat outside. As we stood at the doors waiting to be admitted, Thomas put out his hand shoulder high. “Don’t hold onto me. Just rest your hand on mine,” he instructed. Persephone’s court followed strict protocol, and if I wanted to gain her favor, I had to follow their customs flawlessly.
In my other hand I carried the box I received from Theron at the beginning of the task. It had come all the way from my modest hometown in Montana to the most awe-inspiring mountains in the mortal world, and into the depths of the earth to be handed over to Persephone, the Queen of Hades. A sentry announced me, and Thomas led me slowly down the long, red carpet that ended at her feet.
Persephone had dark, flowing hair that reached past her elbows. She wore a headdress of feathers and woven gold, which shifted like dancing flames as she moved. Her dress was red like mine, but far more intricately embroidered. Up each arm she wore bracelets of gold, and around her neck she wore her husband’s pendant. While Aphrodite’s pride kept her aloof, Persephone was beguilingly friendly. As I approached, she greeted me with a smile.
“The mortal Psyche, my Queen,” Thomas said, “delivered without harm, as instructed.” As I curtsied—a movement I practiced four dozen times upstairs before Thomas was satisfied I could do it right—he took his place beside the Queen’s throne. He knelt and rested his forehead upon her knee.
Persephone ran her hand over his hair, petting him like a dog, while she considered me. “The mortal beauty I’ve heard so much about.”
“I was instructed to bring this to you, Queen Persephone.” It was appropriate for me to approach her standing, but to curtsy again as I offered her the box.
She took it from my hands and set it on the arm of the throne. “Well done, my dear. You have completed the third task, and by so doing, you have won the right to see Eros again. To celebrate, I hold a feast in your honor.”
A feast.
I remembered well Titus’s warning about food. Worse, I was hungry. Very hungry. It had been hours since I ate those half-frozen MREs, but I refused to lose my composure or to anger Persephone. “You are very kind,” I said. “Thank you.”
This pleased her. “Come, Thomas. Escort our guest into the banquet hall.” She rose, her bracelets jingling as she moved, and came toward me. “I hope you’re hungry,” she said, then led the way out of the throne room.
Thomas appeared beside me and offered his arm.
“I can’t go into a crowd,” I murmured. The skin on my arms and back was exposed. Anyone who brushed against me would feel my warmth.
“You must not displease the Queen,” he answered.
Despite Persephone’s claim, the task was incomplete. She hadn’t opened the box. Persephone had to unlock the metal clasp on the box and reveal Aphrodite’s reward before I could return with it to the mortal world. I was forced to keep playing the cordial guest until she allowed me to leave the palace with the open box. I had fulfilled my end of the task, and now I was at her mercy.
We crossed the enormous corridors of the castle to a room as big as my high school’s gymnasium. Around the perimeter were throngs of guests, dressed in fine robes and awaiting their Queen. In one corner were musicians, their instruments idle as they stood with folded hands, also waiting. On the far side of the room were several maids and man servants, all dressed in black and waiting for their duties to begin. Long, empty tables stood along one side of the room. Along the other sid
e on a raised platform were two ornate chairs for the reigning couple and half a dozen smaller chairs for their guests. Long, empty tables stood in front of these seats also.
Persephone waited for the sentries to announce her. The already hushed room fell absolutely silent as we walked to the chairs on the platform.
“You will sit here beside me, Psyche,” she said softly. “Thomas, you may sit on her other side.” Persephone raised her arms. “Let the celebration begin!”
The room burst into motion. The musicians began to play. The waiting guests filled the dance floor and began to move in unison. A set of doors was thrown open, and each maid and man servant fetched a tray of food for the long tables.
Because we sat with the queen, we were served first. A cracked peppercorn roast adorned with sprigs of rosemary was brought to our table. The succulent aroma of roasted beef and hints of garlic made me salivate. One of the man servants sliced off generous portions and slid them onto plates the size of serving platters. Next, he spooned wild rice. By the time he finished, my platter contained meat and rice, steamed beans, a thick slice of bread, a slice of cake, a small bowl of pudding, three strawberries, a slice of orange and a sprig of parsley. It was simply beautiful, and I could not taste one morsel, or I’d be condemned to a life of slavery in Persephone’s court.
I sat on my hands to keep them from betraying me. My belly rumbled, and I tried to breathe through my mouth, so I couldn’t smell the food.
Persephone ate, so did Thomas. The guests filled their plates and moved to round dining tables beyond the dance floor. A couple paused halfway to their seats. The man fed his companion a strawberry from his plate. She accepted it enthusiastically, and made a great show of licking his finger as she took it.
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