THE DREAMER'S LOOM

by Michelle L. Levigne

* * * *

  Penelope waited in her bed, two lamps lit, the door standing ajar. She heard Odysseus come back to the house and heard Eurynome greet him at the door.

  Odysseus never came up the stairs, though she listened for the sound of his feet until the night rang with the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Penelope waited, counting the footsteps of the slaves as they closed up the house for the night. She heard the night insects singing without pause. Tears touched her eyes as she gave up and lay down.

  The hoot of an owl outside her window brought her sitting upright. Heart pounding, Penelope waited for Athena to rebuke her.

  Nothing. The owl didn't cry again.

  Legs trembling, she got out of bed and reached for her dress. Penelope wiped the tears away with the hem, then pulled the garment over her head. She fussed with perfume and brushing her hair and debated whether to wear jewelry. Likely Odysseus already slept, but she had to go to him.

  She carried one small lamp with her, going in her bare feet down the stairs. They felt cold in the damp of the night, smooth from constant sweeping. Every time she thought she heard a sound, Penelope paused and listened. She wanted no witnesses. Her heart had calmed to normal by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs and slipped through the open doorway.

  A new fear touched her. What if Odysseus had locked the door of his room?

  Penelope shook her head at this foolishness. There was no reason for Odysseus to worry in his own home. A moment later, her hand on the latch, she remembered her dreams and Athena's words about plunging a knife into her husband's heart. Penelope swallowed a sob and pushed the door open.

  By the dim light of the lamp, she saw him lying on his side, the sheet pushed down to his waist, eyes closed, head pillowed on one bent arm. She waited, but he didn't stir.

  She had an idea. Instead of speaking and waking Odysseus, she would slip into bed next to him and wait until he woke.

  She put the lamp down on the table and turned her back on the bed as she slipped out of her dress. The room felt cold and Penelope wrapped her arms around herself as she turned. She stopped short, breathless.

  Odysseus lay as she had first seen him, his eyes open, face unreadable in the shadows. For a long moment, they regarded each other in silence. Then, he lifted the sheet aside. Penelope slipped in next to him before she lost what little courage remained.

  "I didn't mean to wake you," she whispered, her voice cracking with tears as he put his arms around her.

  "I wasn't asleep." He caught her tears on his fingertips and after a moment, wiped them in her hair. "Penelope, I have wronged you. I could see the sorrow in your eyes, knew you wanted to speak with me, and I left. I wanted to hurt you."

  "As I hurt you."

  "But you didn't mean to."

  "We have wronged each other." Penelope smiled through the tears burning her eyes. "Words wouldn't hurt so much, I think, if we did not love."

  "Yes, you are my beloved." His voice rasped. "I swear on the scar the boar gave me, I have always and will always speak the truth to you here, in our bed."

  "Please, tell me you forgive me for doubting you?"

  "I would forgive you a thousand times over. What you did, coming through that door..." A ragged laugh escaped him. He pushed himself up on one elbow, so he leaned over her. "To have you near me now, after such a long wait--it is an agony not to touch you."

  "A moment," she whispered against his lips when he leaned down to kiss her. She smiled through more tears as he moved away, wearing a puzzled frown. "You are greatly favored by Athena, my dear husband."

  "So it is said. I have dreams sometimes, but--" He shook his head. "What other thoughts have filled your head since we argued?"

  "Athena...scolded me, for how I had treated you. She told me to either kill you or heal the damage I had done, but not to leave you wounded. She said we few whom you trust have power to do more damage than your worst enemy."

  "She said..." Odysseus stared, forehead wrinkling as he visibly struggled to understand.

  "She appeared to me in my garden and scolded me, told me how much I had hurt you, and then vanished. I would rather die than hurt you."

  "And yet?" he prompted, voice softening, when she hesitated.

  "It was your hurt that cut through my doubts. That was the proof that you had been truthful and trusting with me, despite what I heard, what I had seen and knew about you." Penelope reached up, slipping her arms around him. "Tell me again you forgive me?"

  "Again, I forgive you a thousand times." His eyes were still wide and dazed. "Athena intervened...for us...for our happiness."

  "We must offer her a rich sacrifice in the morning," she whispered.

  "In the morning." Odysseus' smile widened and he pushed aside the sheet to caress her. "Penelope, it has been agony without you..."

  * * * *

  Later, with her head resting on his shoulder, Penelope whispered, "And what did happen in Mycenae?"

  Odysseus laughed. A ragged, tired sound, it grew in strength. He tightened his arms around her, then rolled her onto her back. He held himself up on his elbows on either side of her shoulders and looked down on her.

  "Sweet, sweet Penelope. That is what I waited to hear when I returned home. When you didn't come running, asking that question, that was the sure sign something was amiss." He kissed her long and lingering, bringing desire humming through her belly again. She laughed against his lips.

  "Did good come of it?" she asked, when they had both caught their breaths again. "You were gone a long time."

  "Too long," he agreed with a soft grunt. "The only good is that we will be prepared when the land of Troy, Ilion in particular, finally works mischief against us."

  "They won't cease troubling the merchants?"

  "Only the merchants who can afford to hire ships to escort them, bristling with spears and bows, through the Dardanelles."

  "Will there be fighting, then?"

  "Agamemnon might enjoy that, and likely some other chieftains and princes. As for me--and Menelaos--there are better things to occupy my time." He chuckled, a loud rumble in her ear. "Priam claims he is willing to talk peace with the Achaians. I don't trust him."

  "There is a price for his peace?" Penelope waited. Odysseus held so still, she knew her guess had been painfully correct. "Is there danger in telling me what the Trojans wanted?"

  "Not danger." He sighed. His embrace threatened her breath. "Priam wants brides for some of his many sons. Four very specific brides, reputed to be the most beautiful maidens of the Achaians. With them as visible reminders of the alliance, he would agree to a peace treaty with us."

  "And who are these girls, to be sacrificed for the greater good?" A cold thread began to work through her chest, wrapping around her lungs. Penelope tried to make her voice light, her words mere humor, but she failed.

  "Cousins. Two daughters of Tyndareos. Two daughters of Ikarios. Helen, Klytemaistra, Iphthine and Penelope."

  "What did Agamemnon say?"

  "He laughed."

  Odysseus turned on his side. His hand slowly stroked up her side, hip to shoulder and back down. Penelope had seen him stroke his bow that way, when deep in thought. His feather-light touch brought no rising desire, but a feeling of mixed comfort and worry. She knew he needed to touch her for his own comfort.

  "Agamemnon was quick to point out to the envoy," he continued after a moment, "none of the four were maidens and three had borne children or carried children now." He frowned. In the lamplight, his eyes vanished into dark shadows. "The response was that all the children were girls. With proper husbands, the women would all have sons. And she who had no children yet would quicken the first time she lay with her new husband."

  "I'm not tired of my first husband," she snapped, trying to make him laugh. Odysseus appeared not to even hear. "What did Klytemaistra say to this? Did Agamemnon let her know what was said?"

  "Klytemaistra heard. She insisted on listening to everything, to safeguard her son's future. She
was flattered at the offer. Helen thought it was a joke."

  "Helen? I thought she was deathly ill."

  "She is, but she insists on being with her sister, for her help and advice." He shook his head, another heavy sigh showing what he thought of that. "No one thought to ask Iphthine what she thinks of the offer. What do you say?"

  "I think it is dangerous and foolish. Even if they persuaded you to send me away, I wouldn't leave you."

  "I will not be persuaded. Penelope, you are my treasure, more precious than my own life. I swear that to you." He kissed her again, reverence in his touch.

  "What would you do if Agamemnon tried to take me from you?" Penelope reveled in the warmth of his body, the soft echo of his pulse just under the skin, vibrating against her slowly caressing fingers.

  "He wouldn't be foolish enough to reveal his intentions. I would be dead, outnumbered or betrayed, before anyone realized he knew you existed. What would you do if he killed me to have you?" he returned.

  "Raise your sons to honor--"

  "Sons?" Odysseus laughed. "You claimed you were barren, and now you give me sons. How things change when a goddess speaks."

  "I dreamed that I gave you two sons. I would raise your sons to honor you."

  "Agamemnon would kill them, to prevent their vengeance." His tone was light, but there was pain and a choking sense of reality in his words.

  "Then when he came to force me into his bed, I would kill him, and with justice in my hands, come to join you."

  "I swear, Athena persuaded Aphrodite to cast magic on you, to make you love me. My sweet, beautiful Penelope," he whispered, beginning to kiss her again.

  "Did she ever speak to you, like she did to me?"

  "Once," he admitted, pausing, his face hidden in the curve of her neck, voice muffled by her hair. "On my way home after I met Iphitos, with the bow...she came to me in a waking dream and told me to treasure that bow, never let it leave my possession. It would give me vengeance someday. Protection against those who would kill me and steal what was most precious to me." He sat up so he looked down on her and cupped her face with his hand. "Should I kill every man who smiles at you, Penelope? Is that the only way I can protect you?"

  "I cannot be stolen from you," she whispered.

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  Fall came in gentle and mild after the hot, dry summer. The harvests were better than expected and some made so bold as to ask Penelope when her child was due. Their questions didn't hurt. She wanted a child now for love, not duty.

  Odysseus drove hard bargains with the merchants who came to Ithaka, leading the way by example for his people. They were well-prepared when winter storms lashed the coast and cut them off from the other islands and the mainland.

  The last ship before winter brought gifts and messages from Menelaos and Helen. They had a daughter, whom they named Hermione. Penelope grew quiet when she heard, frightened in a remote way by this proof that she had dreamed truth once again. Just a little over two moons ago, she had dreamed Helen held a tiny girl-baby, with wisps of hair as golden as her mother's. She hardly reacted when she heard of the birth of Agamemnon's long-awaited son, Orestes.

  When the talk turned to Ilion, she slipped from the hall and hurried to the shrine to Athena, which Odysseus had built in the garden. Penelope knelt before the altar, listening to the whispering moan of the wind, ignoring the chill of the damp air that congealed on her arms.

  "Wise Athena, Goddess," she whispered, lifting her gaze to the owl carving that sat on the roof beam. Dolios had made it as a gift for the dedication. "Help me understand. I have dreams that speak the truth and others that are only the fruit of my wishes. Show me which ones come through the gate of ivory, and which through the gate of horn. I fear for my beloved. I dream of darkness surrounding him, keeping him from me."

  She stayed kneeling until the darkness closed in and Odysseus came looking for her. When she told him about the dream of Hermione, he was silent a long while. He gazed at the owl as well, eyes narrowed and dark with trouble.

  "We cannot know the future. It is enough that Athena guides me. She speaks for me, I hope, before the gods I offend. I am sometimes not tactful or popular, my love."

  "You are the epitome of tact," Penelope retorted, slipping her arms around him. "The trouble comes when you depart and people learn the truth in what you told them."

  "Witch!" Mischief sparkled in his eyes. "Do you see this in your dreams, as well?"

  "I need no dreams to tell me about my husband. My heart tells me." She lifted herself on her toes to kiss him. A soft sigh escaped her when he held her close, lifting her so her feet dangled. "This gift of dreaming frightens me."

  "I can see."

  "Not the dreams themselves, but that I cannot tell which are true and which false, until after the dream has come true. Helen warned me to tell no one, that it would cause trouble from the priests. That they would tear me from my home and force me to serve the temples. I thought she teased, but Helen sometimes speaks like an oracle herself."

  "If Agamemnon can't take you from me, no priest will, either. I swear it." He forced a smile. "Do you have dreams of us growing old together?"

  "Many."

  "Then your gift gives us hope." Odysseus glanced at the sky as a stronger breeze reached them past the walls of the shrine. "Come inside. Another storm is coming. We must have a feast tonight, to honor Orestes and Hermione."

  "I would rather the feast was for our own child," she said without thinking.

  "There is time, Penelope." He held her hand as they walked through the courtyard.

  She mumbled agreement, but a shiver took her that had nothing to do with the cool breeze. She had dreamed of them growing old and gray and stooped together. She had dreamed of sons, laughing together as they walked the hills of Ithaka. She had dreamed of long years without him, a single son growing up without a father, watching the harbor in vain for a familiar sail to return. Which of her dreams were true, and which mere shadows of fears and hopes?

  * * * *

  Winter passed as gently as the fall had come upon them and the seas were open for sailing sooner that spring. An invitation came from Sparta. Helen longed to see her cousin, to show off her daughter, and Menelaos wanted to consult with Odysseus about the trouble in Ilion without Agamemnon leading the discussion. Nothing was said about the argument with Tyndareos and Penelope took that as a good sign. Even better, plentiful rains had come at the proper time that spring. She no longer earned dark looks when she left the house. Women returned to the worship of the Goddess and smiled at her. She carried no child yet, but she hoped.

  Once the spring planting ended and the household settled into its routine, they set sail for Pylos and Sparta. Penelope didn't enjoy this voyage like the one that brought her to Ithaka. Odysseus was distracted, working the rudder against the high seas. Eurynome was ill, so Melantho went as Penelope's attendant, and the girl was sullen. Penelope blamed her low spirits on Melantho and her dreams.

  She dreamed of dark clouds over Sparta, children crying unattended and betrayal filling hearts. When they reached Sparta she was relieved, yet curiously disappointed, to see the people happy and busy, the crops thick and green, the herds and flocks heavy with new calves and lambs.

  Alkippe stood with Lystia and Menelaos to greet them when they reached the palace. Tyndareos had retired to a small holding in the hills, making Menelaos king in his place. And, Alkippe explained as she led Penelope and Melantho to Helen's rooms, the new mother was captive to her daughter's every whim.

  "What she means," Helen said, as Penelope entered the women's chamber, "is that the whole palace dances attendance on the child. Especially her father."

  She smiled, as golden and lovely as ever, but didn't leave her seat by the cradle. It sat next to the window seat Helen preferred, hung with curtains against the sunlight. Penelope went to her, leaving Melantho to greet her friends.

  "We have a new goddess in this house, then?" Penelope murm
ured, taking the bench next to her cousin. Laughing, they embraced, then her attention went to the cradle.

  Hermione was her mother in miniature. The child slept, but Penelope knew her eyes would be the same changeable blue. Golden curls like clouds graced the tiny head. Her skin was gold and ivory and roses. One tiny hand peeked from under the blanket, all delicate perfection.

  "What do you think?" Helen said, when her cousin had gazed long enough.

  "Again, I envy you. Helen, I think I will always envy you." She laughed, remembering to keep the sound soft.

  "You have time for children. Or does Odysseus complain that you have none yet?"

  "He laughs and says we have plenty of time. Yet my dreams contradict words, so what should I believe?"

  "Dreams?" Helen's smile faded. She looked away, out the window. "Yes, I have dreams as well." She shook herself slightly. "He's a good husband to you, isn't he?"

  "He is my beloved, and I am his." Penelope shrugged, unable to find any other words to explain.

  "Then what is to worry about?"

  "Every time I hear the men speak of Ilion, the troubles with the Dardanelles and the merchants and the tribute they exact...I shudder."

  "As do I." Helen twisted her face into a mask of disgust, then a moment later laughed. "Leave such considerations to the men. That is their realm. Ours is to manage our households, be beautiful for our husbands and raise our children to be strong and happy and wise. And to give our men the sons they crave," Helen added, her smile fading, her voice softening. Penelope thought she detected a slight crack in her voice, like a threatened sob.

  "Is that what Menelaos says?"

  "Perhaps. I know our home is brighter when he doesn't tell me what the men discuss and I don't ask."

  Penelope refrained from responding. She was glad Odysseus had placed the stairway to her rooms off the feasting hall. If she left her doors open, she could hear everything. He usually asked her what she thought of what she heard. She couldn't imagine what it would be like, not sharing their thoughts and day's work with each other.