Persephone sought that taste once more, curled up against him on the couch. Their bodies raced each other, ecstasy building, giving and taking in a symmetry of raw need. She pulled back and sucked at the crown, her hand tightening around his shaft with each stroke. Driving him toward his peak, she felt him breathing hard through his nose, fire licking into her beyond the heat of his mouth. His tongue danced through her folds, briefly descending to spear inside her before spiraling upward when his fingers replaced his tongue. He teased the spongy ridges within her, and closed his lips again, sucking at the little bundle of nerves, the pressure making her writhe uncontrollably. Her moans vibrated along his length, sharpening his pleasure and echoing hers. They hovered together at the precipice.
Lips locked against her flesh, Aidon’s arms tensed, cradling her waist and hips, anchoring him against her to keep from thrashing about. His eyes squeezed shut and a punctuated groan burst from his throat, rippling through her core, pushing Persephone to her own ecstatic peak. As she threw her head back and cried out, the last waves of his release landed hot across her neck and cheek. She moaned and swiped a finger over its warm path, drawing his essence back to her mouth.
She felt sticky, blissfully drowsy, replete. Persephone opened her eyes to his lustful admiration as she hungrily licked his seed from her fingers and lips. They relaxed, breathing shallowly, heads pillowed against each other’s inner thighs. Aidoneus reached out and took his wife’s hand, utterly spent, smiling at her with dark, heavily lidded eyes. “Persephone…”
She looked up and turned white in horror. Persephone scrambled back to cover herself and almost kicked Aidoneus in the head before she screamed. Alarmed, his eyes followed her wide-eyed stare and saw the rim of a golden hat dart in a blur of motion around the corner of the stairwell.
“Apologies, my lord! I had no idea—” the voice rang from the top of the stairs.
“Hermes!” Cursing, Hades reached down and grabbed his himation, throwing it around the shoulders of his cowering wife. He held her close and spoke low into her ear. “My love, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know what to say. Go now; I’ll meet you in our room,” he said softly before he snarled in anger. “I will deal with this.”
Persephone turned her head up to him, her cheeks still hot. He looked at her gently and contritely once more, then kissed her on top of her head.
“Sweet one—”
“I’m alright,” she muttered just above a whisper. Drawing from the Phlegethon, she created a gateway of fire and stepped through, traveling back to their room. Persephone looked back at him as it shut behind her.
His jaw clenched. Aidoneus grabbed his tunic, still wet from when Persephone had playfully splashed him, and wrapped it around his waist. With a sweep of his hand, it dried instantly. Hades sat upright and narrowed his eyes, seething anew when Hermes landed at the bottom of the stairs. The Messenger fell to one knee just outside the doorway.
“Enter,” he rumbled.
“My lord, I humbly apologize,” he said, taking his golden petasos off his head and holding it in front of him. “You’re usually alone when I—”
“Well, in case you hadn’t heard, Hermes Psychopompos, I’m married now!” He stood, towering over Hermes.
“Lord Hades, if you forgive my saying so, the entire cosmos knows you’re married.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.
“N-nothing,” he said, tousling his short brown hair. “My lord, surely you’ve noticed the number of souls crossing the River is—”
“Yes, I know! Why hasn’t Zeus stopped Demeter’s foolishness?” Aidoneus grumbled and swiped his belt off the floor. He unwound the tunic from his waist, shaking the black fabric out to put it back on properly. Hermes startled, blinking, then averted his eyes.
“Uncle, please…”
“Do not call me that, boy! I was Lord of the Underworld ten thousand years before you were deposited in Maia’s womb! And spare me your shamefacedness. I know what you do in your private life…”
“A warning would have been—”
“Like the warning you gave my queen when you disgraced her just now?!” Hades exclaimed, wide-eyed. He snorted sarcastically and reached for his cast-off fibulae, then pinned up one shoulder of his tunic. “I can only hope that my lack of warning will be branded clearly in your memory. Maybe next time you’ll remember that before you think to enter a room where I am alone with my wife.”
“Aidoneus, I’m sorry, truly. I had no idea that I’d find both of you… here… in the middle of… It doesn’t take me but a minute to go through the entire palace, and I usually just fly about until I find you. It’s what I did the last time I was here. And the time before that…”
Aidon sighed as he pinned up the other shoulder and tied his belt low on his waist, pulling at the fabric until it draped to his satisfaction. His legs were still bare from just below the knee and he remembered that Persephone had taken his himation with her. His thoughts turned to how he would apologize to his wife. “Just don’t barge in on us again, Hermes,” he said calmly. “Things are different now.”
He nodded, chastened, biting back a smile at how true Hades’s words were. The Messenger had come to know Aidoneus better than most Olympians dared— or could, for that matter. When the Lord of the Underworld announced his impending union with Demeter’s daughter, Hermes had assumed that the stern and prudish god would merely do the deed once to make his marriage official and that would be the end of it. Hermes had never seen a lick of emotion from Aidoneus in all the aeons he’d known him, and would likewise never have guessed that he would feel so passionately for his bride. He certainly didn’t expect to see… he squeezed his eyes shut and shook the image from his head.
“So why hasn’t Zeus reigned in Demeter?”
“The… um, the earth isn’t his domain,” Hermes said weakly. “It doesn’t belong to any of the gods. So we—”
“I don’t need a lecture on how the cosmos is arranged, thank you. What is being done to fix this?”
“He’s sent almost all the others to see her, to beg her to stop. She even turned Iris away.”
“Where is she?”
“Eleusis, my lord. They’ve built a temple to her.”
Hades almost laughed. “Demeter freezes and starves the mortals, and they build her a temple. I make sure the dead don’t return to haunt the living, and they fear to speak my name.” He ran his hand back through his wet hair, thinking about what horrors would befall the earth if he shirked his duties. “Why hasn’t Zeus himself gone to her?”
“He’s… I…” He swallowed and hushed his voice. “Aidoneus, between you and me, I think that his pride won’t let him. He can’t honor her wishes, obviously, and so he’d have to beg her to—”
“Damn his pride!” Aidoneus shouted, pacing the floor. “Go tell Zeus that I say he should go to her himself! Let him remind Demeter that their daughter isn’t some vapid virginal flower nymph. She is the Queen of the Underworld. My queen! And if Deme’s so intent on forever clinging to one of Zeus’s offspring, he can go ahead and beget another one on her while he’s at it!”
Hermes chuckled, his hand over his mouth, trying hard to keep quiet.
Aidoneus cocked his head to the side. “Mortals are dying in droves because of her. What do you find so amusing?”
“Nothing… It’s just hard to imagine. I mean, with Demeter.”
Aidon thinned his lips. He’d known them. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine. “Besides delivering bad news, what else brings you here? Did you finally accomplish the task I gave you?”
“Oh, yes… that’s right…” Hermes said, reaching into his bag. “With all that just happened, and my apologies again—”
“You’re forgiven.”
“—I’d almost forgotten why I came down here.” He handed it to Aidon. “Brontes and Steropes asked me to congratulate you on your marriage, by the way.”
***
After Hermes left, Aidoneus walked up the
twisting stairs and passageways to his antechamber. He paused for a moment outside the ebony doors, took a deep breath, and traced a finger over the gold inlay of a poplar leaf. “Persephone?”
“These are your rooms, Aidoneus,” she said through the door. “You don’t have to ask to come in.”
“Our rooms, my love. And under the circumstances—”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes, sweet one. Hermes is likely already back on Olympus by now.”
She groaned.
“Persephone?”
“Come in,” she mumbled.
Aidon slowly opened the door and shut it silently behind him, one hand held behind his back. She sat with her knees curled up to her chest on the divan, still wrapped in his himation, her toes sticking out from under one edge and her wet hair matted to her back underneath it. He shook his head. “I cannot apologize to you enough—”
“Aidon, it’s alright. I’m just… embarrassed.”
“I promise you that it will never happen again,” he said. “I believe I put the fear of Tartarus into Hermes, and besides a rare visit from Hephaestus, he’s the only one who comes down here.”
She dropped her face into the folds of his himation again. “Hermes knowing is enough, isn’t it?”
“Knowing what?”
“What… what we were doing together.”
“Are you ashamed of what we enjoy together?” He remembered the fear and shame on her face after the first time he’d carried her to bed. Aidon grew quiet and cast his eyes to the floor. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“No! No, absolutely not! How could I be?” She rested her chin on her knees. “I just… word is going to spread all over Olympus and—”
He chortled and shook his head, “We could have been making love hanging upside down from the rafters, wife, and I doubt a single one of those licentious louts would care one way or another if they heard of it.”
“Perhaps not, but word will still get back to my mother,” she said.
“If it makes you feel any better, Demeter has ensconced herself at Eleusis and she’s not admitting anyone. I don’t think she’ll learn of it.”
She shook her head. “Why is she still doing this?”
“I don’t know, sweet one. But there isn’t anything you or I can do about the misfortunes in the world above. Zeus will speak with her directly; find a way to sort her out, and put an end this nonsense. I tasked the Messenger with telling him as much.”
“And in the meantime, more will die.”
“Everything dies, Persephone. They will come here, their suffering will be ended, and they will be reborn to the world above once this famine ends.”
She found cold comfort in this. Persephone looked out to the terrace in the direction of the Styx and the throngs that were now a daily presence on its far shore.
“Before we were so rudely interrupted, I had planned to tell you something.” He sat down across from her and placed a silver helm next to him.
She looked at the black horsehair crest, its long tail falling away next to it. Shifting her feet to the floor, she leaned closer. The last time she had seen something like this was when he had pulled her into his chariot. His was cast in gold. Persephone inhaled sharply and looked back up at him.
He gave her a soft smile. “You’re ready.”
“Ready…” Her eyes widened. “You mean—”
“I wish he had just stayed in the main hall and waited for me, but it’s not in Hermes’s nature to wait for anything. Two weeks ago, I had him visit the Cyclopes; they owe me a few favors. I asked them to make a replica of my helm for you; Hermes just delivered it.”
“But—” Her mouth fell open. “Aidoneus, you cannot do this! The three gifts they originally gave were only for—”
“Those who rule the cosmos?” Hades said, stopping her. “I told you that you were my equal, no?”
She reached forward, the himation still wrapped over her shoulders, and ran her fingers through the soft brush of the plume.
“And you will need this for Tartarus.”
She looked up at him and sat back. “When are we going?”
“Tomorrow, if you wish it.” He picked up the helm and held it out to her. “Go ahead. Put it on.”
Persephone touched the cold sides and lifted its weight into her hands. She stared at the faceplate, its eye slits almond shaped. The nose bridge dipped down into a diamond point and the cheeks’ flat planes angled forward to let the head move easily from side to side. “I’m surprised you never used your helm to visit me.”
“Helm or not, Demeter would have sensed my presence. The original six of us are bound that way,” he said, then smiled. “Also, it would have made it very difficult for me to kiss you.”
“So how does this work?”
“Just think about being invisible to me— or being invisible to all. Anything more complex would be useless in the heat of battle.”
Persephone turned the helm over in her hands and raised it above her head. She lowered it, her scalp and face tingling and electric as they came in contact with its magic. She looked down, expecting to see nothing at all, but saw her hands and the himation wrapped around her. “Aidon, I don’t think it works for me. I can still see myself.”
“That sounds about right.” His gaze fell beyond where she stood, but he still inclined his ear in her direction.
“So you can’t see me?”
“Right now? No. But I can hear you.” More so, I can feel you, my love, he thought.
“So… do I look like a robe hovering in the air?”
Aidon laughed. “No, sweet one. Anything on your person is also invisible. What— did you think I fought the war naked?”
He heard her titter at that. “Now there’s a thought.”
Aidoneus smiled in the direction of her voice, then opened his eyes wide as his himation suddenly appeared and flew away in front of him before settling in a heap on the floor. He listened carefully and heard her breathing lightly against the silver faceplate as she came closer. The touch of a warm thigh settled on one side of him, and a soft hand gripped his shoulder. She sank gently into his lap, her stomach pressed against his tunic, her warmth surrounding him. His breath caught as she lifted the helm off her head, her breasts appearing and filling his vision. Aidoneus looked up at her.
“You’re right,” she said, setting it aside. “It would be hard to kiss you wearing that.”
Aidoneus met Persephone’s lips, her fingers raking through his damp hair. As his arms wrapped around her waist, he silently wondered what in the name of the Fates he’d ever done to deserve her.
21.
“As the basket comes, greet it you women, and say ‘Demeter, greatly hail. Lady of much bounty, of many measures of corn.’” Triptolemus held the large breadbasket aloft before the assembly.
“Demeter, greatly hail!” The women cried out and fell to their knees. “Lady of much bounty! Of many measures of corn!”
They pulled their indigo veils over their hair to mourn the lost Maiden, then rose in lines to receive their daily bread. The room was warm, almost stifling from the hundreds of milling bodies and the crackling iron braziers lining the walls. The air hung thick with rare frankincense and common pennyroyal. The dark-robed Mother sat where her altar once stood in the Telesterion, a great oak throne on a nine-stepped dais constructed by the first Eleusinians returning from Athens. Demeter looked serenely out over the assembled women and back to Triptolemus, who descended the steps in front of her. The women formed a line and bowed in front of the Queen of the Earth. Each lay a sheaf of wheat, millet, or barley at her feet, murmuring quietly ‘Bless you, holy mother’ with their eyes cast down. Triptolemus gave each of the congregation a piece of flatbread from the basket before they returned to their rows.
Demeter wore indigo, the borders of her chiton and himation framed in a gold meandros of wheat. A dark linen veil covered her hair, draped from her golden diadem, and her long robes pooled at her feet, covering the
first few steps of the dais. The baby Demophon slept peacefully, cradled in Demeter’s arms. Metaneira, now the Lady of the Harvest’s high priestess, stood on her left holding a great golden cup filled with kykeon. Celeus stood on her right, the hierophant archon basileus of Eleusis— king no more, though he still wore his circlet crown. He swung a heavy bronze censer between the worshippers and Demeter, the perfumed smoke rising like a screen.
Before the women broke the bread, Demeter stood before them, young and old, rich and poor, slave and freeborn, from Attica and Peloponnesus, Thrace and Illyria. “You maidens and mothers,” she called out to them, “You have traveled far and stand all of you together. Equal. Loved and cherished. My children of the earth.”
“The children of the earth give thanks for your mercy,” they responded. Demeter sat back down and handed Demophon to Celeus, who exited through the halls to put his son back in his crib. Not long after his mother had interrupted the rites that would grant him immortality, the babe grew sickly again and Demeter had worried that he would be lost, her oath to Celeus and Metaneira broken. But rumors swirled throughout Hellas that the Lady of the Harvest and her bountiful crops had returned. The people came back to Eleusis and as they did, the infant’s health began to improve. He even started to smile, his eyes twinkling pale blue gray, his cheeks and limbs soft and fat, flushed with vitality. The infant’s every happy gurgle made her heart ache.
Her memories of little Kore were stirred every time she heard Demophon cooing and saw him staring up at her with his wide, trusting eyes, the shade of his irises so close to that of her daughter’s. Though she wanted to, Demeter could not make the babe immortal as she had done for Triptolemus. The last of her ambrosia was gone. The means to create more were there, supplied by the prayers and offerings of the Eleusinians. But Demeter knew that the final process to create ambrosia, distilling it through the water of the Styx, was ultimately cut off from her. Perhaps permanently. She didn’t dare go to the shores of the Underworld and risk facing her daughter’s captor or any of his servants.
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