“You do not mean it?” Demeter’s eyes were wide.
“Yes. I am afraid Hades means exactly what he says. He always tells the truth and always keeps his promises.”
Demeter burst into crows of laughter. “I hope you will come back to me, my Kore, but if you do not, you have given me the perfect revenge. I could almost love Hades for what he will do. With good fortune Zeus will be entombed with his city and with all those who laughed at my pain when I searched and searched for you. What joy!”
Chapter 16
Even emotionless, Persephone had protested her mother’s indiscriminate ferocity, pointing out that many innocents would be destroyed with the great mages, and that some of them must surely have sympathized with her. Demeter had laughed at her reasonings and her pleas. After her mother was gone and she dropped her shield, Persephone was stricken with horror at what she had done. First she blamed herself for thinking she could make a plan while her shield dulled her, but after she had wept herself dry she realized that sooner or later, shielded or not, she would have told her mother of Hades’s threat. Until she had heard the words from Demeter’s own mouth and heard her laugh, Persephone could not have imagined her mother could be so cold and cruel.
Later, as her guilt abated further, she began to hope that Demeter was only doing to her what she had tried to do herself—use a threat to induce compliance. Believing that her daughter cared enough about the people of Olympus to leave Plutos so that Olympus would have rich crops again, Demeter was using the threat of allowing the city to be destroyed to make her daughter agree to live with her. Well, Persephone would not agree, but Demeter was likely to drag out her resistance as long as she could. Persephone sighed.
She determined to wear her shield only in her mother’s presence so that her mind would be clear and she would not be driven to senseless rages and panics. For several more days she spent most of her time in her chamber, trying to think of a way to induce Poseidon to help her if her mother continued to be stubborn. She asked many questions of Nerus and Neso about their master and both answered freely. Unfortunately, everything they told her was worse than no help.
Although they did not say so in words, Nerus and Neso implied that Poseidon envied and distrusted Zeus, and it was highly unlikely that he would be more concerned about the destruction of Olympus than Persephone’s mother. She learned that the people of Aegina obeyed him absolutely, because his sea creatures could—and would on his order—sink their ships. Worse yet, he could raise such waves that the town would be washed away, the whole island, except for the high mountains, be drowned, which was nothing to the sea king, who could breathe water.
Thus, it was impossible that she would be able to bribe any of the people of Aegina, even with the marvelous jewels she had brought with her, to take her to the mainland. However, she also guessed from Neso’s occasional frown and the word “ungrateful” that the townsfolk did not all love Poseidon, in particular the women whose men had lost their lives in storms.
“After all,” Neso said, “Lord Poseidon has more important things to do than watch each and every one of their cockleshell boats. He cannot calm every single storm that rises. Sometimes he is far away, but they mutter among themselves that a god can be everywhere at once and refuse to understand.”
Persephone was little interested in Neso’s defense of her master, but she listened politely and made the appropriate responses. All that was significant to her at the moment was that she could not hope for help from Poseidon. She would have to work harder on convincing her mother.
Unable to believe Demeter was truly as unfeeling as she claimed, Persephone continued to plead with her and reason with her when she paid her morning duty call. She no longer avoided her mother’s company. When Demeter insisted it would divert “Kore” and ease her loneliness to join Poseidon’s court, she did not refuse. She did not enjoy herself because in her mother’s presence she remained shielded, but after a few dinners and receptions she began to notice people that might be interesting. Through Neso and Nerus she met young men and young women with whom she could play games and talk and walk in the garden. This made her days pass a little more quickly and kept her spirits from utter despair, but brought her no hope of freedom.
The moon waxed and waned, waxed full again. In all that time nothing had changed, and Persephone began to feel desperate. She still started each day with a visit to her mother and wept each time, bemoaning the loss of her husband’s love and insisting that the friends she had made and the kindness with which she was treated were nothing to her need for Hades and her own home. Finally, out of desperation, she used a weapon she had hoped to avoid. She reminded Demeter of how she herself had bewailed Iasion’s death for many years and begged her not to force such sorrow on the child she said she loved.
Usually Demeter wiped away her tears and assured her that she was bespelled, and if “Kore” would give her mind to breaking the spell she would soon be free of it and loathe Hades. But when Persephone mentioned Iasion, Demeter’s eyes did not fill with tears as they had always done in the past. Instead, she laughed very strangely and said, “Thanks to Hades’s stealing you from me, I have recovered. I no longer desire Iasion. You will soon forget Hades’s face too.”
The oddity of her mother’s laughter stuck in Persephone’s mind. Later when she was unshielded again, Persephone reconsidered what her mother had said and wondered whether it was true that she would ever forget Hades’s deep black eyes and mobile lips or the endearing way his tight curls peeked around his ears. And that led her to consider an even more unsettling idea. If she had been allowed to know the young men in Olympus and been free to choose among them, would she have so easily accepted Hades after he abducted her? Would she have chosen Hades if her choice had been free?
She did not need to wonder long. That very afternoon one of the young men whom Persephone had found particularly charming and amusing seized her in his arms as they walked in the garden and tried to kiss her. Without a single doubt or the smallest hesitation, she struck him as hard as she could, brought her heel down on his foot with all her not inconsiderable weight, and screamed for Neso, whom she had allowed to get out of sight.
Neso arrived, but her help was totally unnecessary. Shocked into releasing his hold both by surprise at Persephone’s violence and by the pain in his face and his foot, her admirer had then been felled by a sharp push. Persephone was instantly sorry for having used the young man so roughly, but she was accustomed to Hades’s enormous strength and had expected a far harder struggle to win her freedom. Her push would barely have rocked her husband. Fortunately, before Persephone could offend the young man further by apologizing for being too strong for him, he had rushed away, furious and humiliated.
She spent the next two days in her room, thinking hard and practicing a new technique in front of her inadequate mirror. It was not easy to be sure of the result because of the natural distortion in the metal, but Persephone hoped her features were blurred into drabness. However, on the third day, after another fruitless visit to her mother, when she was wondering whether her new appearance would protect her, she realized what a fool she was. It was far, far too late to make herself look plain so men would not be attracted to her. Her young friends at the palace knew her, and to change her looks would be a dangerous admission of her Gift.
Then what was she to do? Sit in this room until Hades killed himself by draining his power dry to pull down Olympus? She had at least hoped to send him word that it was not Zeus who was holding her. But no one on Aegina would help poor Persephone.
Use of her name made her breath catch. It was true, no one would help Persephone, but an ordinary woman—a Gyne—with gold or jewels could buy many things in the town. Thinking of the townsfolk, Persephone remembered what Neso had said about some of the women. Ungrateful, Neso had called them. Did that mean some might hate Poseidon as much…more? …than they feared him? Perhaps there was a way she could send a message to the cave near Eleusis. She began to
look through her chests and boxes of jewelry. Her preparations took two days more.
On the sixth day, after a very lachrymose visit with Demeter, which her mother ended by telling her to go cry herself out in her own room, Persephone walked boldly to the palace gate. Aside from her blurred face and a thick veil to cover her golden hair, she was wearing a warm gray cloak—in fact, it was the one she had worn in the caves when Hades had abducted her—and a plain blue wool gown, which Arachne had taken infinite pains to dye the exact delicate color of the twilight sky. She had patiently picked out all the decoration of precious stones and gold wire, covering the removals with simple, coarse embroidery.
Her unspoken reason for leaving was a broad basket that contained several inner garments she had deliberately soiled and hidden from Neso, who usually arranged the washing. In the plain purse attached to her belt, lay the bits of gold wire, several twisted together to make a handful of small lures. If she were not allowed through the gate, she would simply say she did not realize she needed to ask permission of Poseidon to bring her own washing into the town to ease her boredom. The plain dress, she would say, was because she was no fool and did not wish to tempt anyone to rob her.
Nonetheless, when the guard at the gate made no attempt to stop her, Persephone had great difficulty restraining herself from running down the road as fast as she could. She plodded grimly along, expecting every moment to hear a voice calling her back. Even after she was well away from the palace, she was not convinced that she was truly free. She planned to be very circumspect in what she did and said in the town. In any case, she knew it would take time to make herself a familiar figure and gain the confidence of the townsfolk.
That first day she did little more than wander about, stopping at this shop and that to examine the wares, until she saw a place where a merchant handed over small bars of silver for a larger number of even smaller pieces of copper. When he stepped out, Persephone walked in and asked if she could obtain copper for gold wire. The metalchanger looked from the few twisted pieces of wire in her hand to her gown, plainly guessing the one had come from the other, and nodded his head. Although her previous experience with using metal for barter had been limited to the times she had accompanied her mother to artisans’ shops in Olympus, she thought the metalchanger had been fair, not that she really cared. She had gold enough in her jewelry, even without the gems, to buy the whole town. Cautiously, she used her copper only to buy a hot goat’s-meat pie, which reminded her so much of hudorhaix pie that tears came to her eyes; a piece of braided bread; and a creamy cup of goat’s milk.
She returned to the palace in time for the afternoon meal in case her mother should inquire for her, but she did not leave her room. The next day, although she deliberately quarreled with Demeter, she did not leave the palace. She spent some time in the garden, noticing that the young men mostly avoided her and the girls were rather more friendly, but they had all become very unimportant. All her hopes were now fixed on the town.
The moon had waned and begun to wax again and Persephone had spent many days in the town. No one interfered with her, but she was growing more and more certain she was being watched by scrying. For days she struggled with doubt, but finally she went to one of the few licensed magicians and bought a no-see-no-hear spell. It was good only for a few moons, a cheap, weak thing, which she was sure a good scryer could pierce—until she poured her own power in to strengthen it.
She did not use it for several days, but she was growing more and more eager to find a messenger, fearing her expeditions might be stopped. She had by then visited most of the artisans, made a number of small purchases, and discovered which shopkeepers were friendly. To those, she would admit she was a stranger come to Aegina with her father and ask innocent questions about how it was to live here, hoping to hear a note of bitterness or a tale of ill-treatment.
One of the friendliest was a potter from whom she bought a little glazed frog unguent pot that enchanted her. Her unfeigned enthusiasm had warned the potter, who invited her, when she learned Persephone was a stranger who did not live in the town, to stop and rest in her shop whenever she wished. One day, her mind on a ship that would carry her token and her message, Persephone asked the potter about a good place to buy fish fresh from the sea.
Eulimine laughed and told her that all fish was fresh in Aegina, because any that was not sold for immediate eating was salted or pickled. Persephone sighed and said her father was old and very demanding. No matter that the fish was delicious, he had scolded her several times for not buying right from the ship, but she was afraid to go down to the dock to buy a fish herself—which was at least partly true. Persephone was certain that if she went near a ship, she would never be allowed out of the palace again.
As she “confessed,” Eulimine looked thoughtful, then asked, “Would you like to use a woman who not only knows fish and will bring you the best but will give you the name of the ship, the captain, even the fisherman who caught the creature if you desire? Then you could tell your father all the details as if you had been to the docks yourself.”
Trapped in her own tale, Persephone could only laugh uneasily and ask why any woman would bother to fetch one fish from the dock.
“Ah, that is a sad tale,” Eulimine said. “Poor Pontoporeia will be glad of any task that will win her a bite to eat or a sliver of copper. She lost her father and brother when their boat capsized—not even in a storm, and all the others were saved—and her husband and sons on a different ship were swept overboard by a wave the very same day. Now all think she is accursed…ah! I should not have asked you to employ her. That was wrong.”
“No, no,” Persephone got out, realizing that her expression must have exposed the anxiety she felt and Eulimine had assumed the wrong cause for it. She had invoked the blanking spell, remembering that the magician had said it would be enough to blur a watcher’s vision and hearing. “No, I am a stranger here. I would not be blamed. All I know is that she is a poor woman who was willing to do an errand for me.”
“You have a kind heart,” Eulimine said. “I am so sorry for her. No one will give her work. Even I dare do no more than leave some food for her—in case she did somehow offend…” Her eyes flicked in the direction of the palace. “But perhaps no more than ill fortune dogs poor Pontoporeia.”
“Oh, I am sure her losses were only a sad accident,” Persephone said eagerly. “I cannot believe so mighty a lord would trouble himself with one poor woman. Tell me where she lives. Perhaps I can think of other errands for her.”
“It is not far away,” Eulimine said, rising from the table at which she had been working and walking to the door. “Go around to the back of my house. Beyond the garden you will see the road to the docks. Turn right onto that. It is—” She paused, clearly counting in her memory. “It is the fifth house on the left side of the lane, the last house on the hill that goes down to the docks. Likely she will be in the garden trying to find a few roots still in the ground. If she is not at home, I will pass a message for her and if you can come tomorrow, she will get your fish then.”
“Thank you,” Persephone breathed. “My father is not well at all. I was trying to screw up my courage to go among those rough men so he would not get excited. It will be a wonderful relief for me, if Pontoporeia is willing. Thank you.”
Persephone all but ran into the garden. There, however, she checked her steps, cut the spell, and walked the rest of the way sedately in case an eye watched her in a crystal or scrying bowl. She hoped that if she were watched, the blurring would be considered a simple weakness in the vision, and she concentrated on keeping her expression calm and indifferent. This woman sounded like the answer to all her prayers. Pontoporeia was not only desperate and sure she was already accursed so that she had little to lose from Poseidon’s anger, but she would be glad to leave Aegina and never return, no longer having friends or family to whom to return.
Persephone’s heart leapt in her throat as she thought it might only be a few weeks
before Hades came for her. How wonderful it would be when her lover and husband took her in his arms. And when she forced her mother to come with them, how Poseidon would grind his teeth… Persephone stopped—stopped walking, stopped breathing, as she considered the result of Poseidon’s anger.
More likely than grinding his teeth, Poseidon would order Hades killed. Hades could not bring an army; they would have to come by ship, and no fleet of ships could come secretly to Aegina because Poseidon’s sea creatures would bring him warning. Even if Hades came secretly for her, to where could they flee? There were mountains on Aegina; there might be caves, but those caves did not connect to Plutos. The ocean came between. Worse yet, they would be no better off than if she had refused to go with Hermes. If she could not bring her mother back to Olympus, the city would still starve.
In fact, Persephone realized, she dared not even tell Hades where she was or he would surely come, no matter what the danger. She would have to escape herself…somehow. Meanwhile, it was enough to know that Hades would not kill himself and destroy Olympus for nothing. She began to walk down the road again, counting the houses on the left. When she saw a bent back bobbing up and down in the garden of the fifth house on the left, she had to pause to recover from the dizziness of mingled frustrated disappointment and relief and tell herself harshly not to hope too much lest those hopes be dashed and leave her more desperate than before.
This time her long patience was rewarded. When she called to Pontoporeia and said she would pay her to do an errand, the old woman straightened slowly and said, “You do not wish to employ me. My ill-luck might spread to you.”
“Oh, no,” Persephone replied. “I do not think so, but I would like to hear of your trouble—if you are willing to tell me. May I come into your house? I am cold out here.”
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