When Telemachos whimpered in his sleep, Penelope woke instantly. She lay still, afraid of waking Odysseus, and listened. She worked to release her breath slowly when she knew her son would not awaken.
The shutters in one window stood open, letting moonlight through. She watched Odysseus sleeping, one arm under her head, the other draped around her waist, his legs twined with hers. Tears filled her eyes. She would have moved away but she didn't want to wake him. She sniffed and rubbed her cheeks before a single drop could fall on him.
"I wondered when you would cry," he said, opening his eyes.
"Don't do that!" she blurted, a gasping laugh escaping her. Then the sobs started. She clung to him, shaking as weeping racked her body. Odysseus held her tighter than before, gently rubbing her back but saying nothing, doing nothing else. There was nothing either of them could do.
The storm passed as quickly as it came. When her body relaxed, he gently rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. His face was in shadows as he kissed away her tears. Penelope felt she had no strength in her body, could do nothing but lay still and wait and listen.
"You worried me," he said. When he sat up, moonlight touched his face. "So strong a spirit, I feared for you when you couldn't take the hurt any longer."
"I didn't want to send you away with tears in your memory," she whispered.
"You have a stronger, braver spirit than all the warriors of Achaia." Odysseus brushed damp strands of hair out of her face. His touch turned into a caress.
"I am not strong. I am not brave. I am a selfish woman who wants you beside me every night, to hear your voice every day. I would do anything to keep you here." A bitter laugh escaped her. "I should have listened to my dreams and strangled Helen when we were children."
"If not for Helen, I would not have found you."
"For Helen, I might lose you! Odysseus, love me again. So I always feel your touch, no matter how far you go." She slipped her arms around him and drew him down to her.
A single spark of joy lit the darkness in her heart. She hadn't tasted Eurynome's potion for two moons now and Odysseus hadn't noticed. If the Goddess heard her prayers, she would conceive. If her dreams were true, Odysseus would be home, safe, for the birth of their second son.
* * * *
Penelope carried Telemachos, sleepy and quiet, down to the harbor the next morning and held him tightly during the farewells. The ships were bright with new paint, the sails boldly flapping in the freshening breeze. All the warriors wore their armor to present a bold, beautiful image in their farewells. One by one, men took last kisses and embraces from children, wives, mothers and sweethearts, and the ships moved away from the docks. Odysseus' ship sailed last. He stood on the plank, giving last minute instructions and requests to Mentor and Laertes. His gaze continually strayed to her.
Mentor was to lead Ithaka while Odysseus was away. Laertes could walk, but he couldn't draw a bow or cast a spear in defense of Ithaka. Mentor, though lamed, was the stronger man and the only other one Odysseus trusted. The two men would work together and Odysseus had instructed them to consult Penelope in all things. Since Telemachos' birth, abundance had flowed over Ithaka. The people saw Penelope as an extension of the Goddess and would obey her if no one else.
Penelope stood in a circle of silence, alone on the sands. None of the household had accompanied her to the bay and no women stopped to talk with her. Again, she felt like a stranger in her husband's home. She wondered if the women avoided her because Odysseus took their men away, or because they remembered she was Helen's cousin. Did they blame her because the power of the Goddess was not strong enough to keep their men from war?
None of that mattered whenever Odysseus' eyes met hers.
Odysseus finally sent away Mentor and his father and stepped off the plank to cross the sands to her. Wordless, he took Telemachos from her arms, holding the boy close. Their son wriggled, letting out a mumbled complaint. Odysseus lifted him high above his head, shaking him until the boy laughed, kicking his bare feet. He set Telemachos down on the sand and opened his arms to Penelope. Their embrace and kiss were long and bittersweet. She didn't care who saw or what comments they made.
Penelope engraved the memory deep into her heart. The hard bronze plates of his armor under her hands. The rustling plume in his helmet. The scratching of his beard against her face.
Then he released her and strode stiff-legged for the ship. Odysseus didn't look back and she was strangely glad of that. Penelope gathered up Telemachos and waited and watched as the ship sailed out of the lesser harbor. She walked along the shore, keeping the sail in her sight. Telemachos grew heavy in her arms as she stumbled across heating sand and rocks. She put him down, holding onto his hand, and followed the path of the ship with her gaze, across the water until it vanished from her sight.
* * * *
Before the first merchant brought news of the ships and warriors, Penelope knew she did carry another child. She went alone to the Goddess in the dark, quiet watches of the night with offerings of thanks and made more petitions for the safety of all the men of Ithaka.
Summer turned into fall before anyone noticed the changes in her body. Penelope smiled and laughed when Eurykleia and Eurynome scolded her in delight for keeping the child a secret. She let Laertes hold a feast in her honor and saved the best portions to take to the Goddess' cave. That night, the women of Ithaka celebrated, dancing under the harvest moon.
Slowly, Penelope learned fear. When she carried Telemachos, she had blossomed overnight, her belly noticeable almost before the news had spread across the island. Now, she watched daily for signs of the child's growth and found little. This child was a talisman to protect Odysseus. Penelope refused to lose this child. She ate more than she needed, to try to force the baby to grow. She consulted the women elders and studied herbals.
The day she had to use a larger belt around her waist, Penelope cried tears of joy.
Chapter 20
* * *
Merchants brought news of the war, sometimes carrying home men injured too badly to continue fighting. Men hamstrung by slashing swords, crippled by spears. Men who lost hands, arms, legs--blinded and twisted and mad with pain.
The news was as disturbing, as mixed as the reception the returning warriors received. Some, no matter their injuries, were welcomed home with glad tears and feasting. Others were called fools who received their just reward. The only constant was praise of Odysseus as a cautious, valiant leader. Many told how their king risked his own life to rescue an injured warrior.
A merchant brought the first true gossip of the war, near the beginning of the fall storms. Laertes brought the man to the house to tell Penelope in private. He sat beside her as the merchant drank his wine and related his tale.
"It's said they were calmed five days, the oars sticking in their places, the men sick in their bowels, before anyone inquired of the gods." The man, dark of hair and eye, thin, with a pointed face, shook his head in disapproval. "It took nearly a day of casting lots, reading omens and making sacrifices to determine the cause and which god was angry. Artemis had been offended. By Agamemnon." His grin implied the news surprised no one. "The oracle said Artemis would only let the fleet proceed when Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, was given over to her."
"Given over?" Penelope's mind raced. The wording of oracles was always vague and might have changed as the story passed from one person to another. "Given how?"
"There was almost a battle over that--my lady," he added quickly, giving her a nod. "Korestios, Agamemnon's man, wanted Iphigenia. She was promised him as reward when Ilion fell. He and Agamemnon and a few others said she was to be sacrificed. Can't understand that, if he was to marry the girl."
"If he couldn't have her, he wanted to be sure no one had her," she explained quickly. "But go on. You said a few others agreed. Who disagreed?"
"Menelaos, Palomides, Aias, Achilleus--and your Lord Odysseus. They said Iphigenia was to be a priestess to Artemis. They alm
ost came to blows when Agamemnon sent a messenger in secret to Mycenae, to bring the girl."
"Surely Klytemaistra didn't willingly send her!" She looked at her father-in-law. Laertes shook his head. The sadness in his eyes didn't bode well for the tale.
"The lady queen thought Iphigenia was to be a bride. She and her daughter came dressed for a wedding. I was there when their ship reached the fleet." He paused, shadows in his eyes. Penelope pitied him. Despite his clear delight in gossip, what he had seen still disturbed him.
"Soldiers boarded the ship," he continued after a moment. "They separated mother from daughter at sword's point. The girl showed her royal blood, though. When she understood why she was there, she shook free of her guards and walked to the altar. Would have climbed onto it if she hadn't been shaking so badly. Her mother screamed loud enough to deafen every man there. She called down curses on all the warriors of Achaia."
"What did the men do, who opposed Agamemnon's plans?" Penelope's hand strayed over her belly, to protect the child. She refused to believe her dreams had been in vain. The life inside her was there to protect Odysseus.
"They kept protesting. But you see, the wait had grown so long, more men came over to Agamemnon's view. Some gave up and went to their ships to wait. Like they didn't care what was done, as long as they got on their way again."
"And Odysseus?"
"I never saw a man who could argue so fast and so long." A chuckle escaped him. He remembered his neglected cup and drained it in one slurping gulp. "He and Menelaos were still arguing until they put the girl on the altar and raised the knife."
"And when she was dead?" Penelope whispered.
"That's the hard part of the tale." He stood abruptly and stepped a few paces away, then turned back. "It all happened so fast, the wind and thunder. I feared for my ship, it was so bad. Agamemnon picked up the knife. Lightning struck. All the ground shook like a horse shakes flies off his back. Next thing we knew, the wind came back, heavy and cold with rain. We looked, and the altar was in a thousand pieces and the girl was gone. The knife with her. Did Artemis take her after she was sacrificed, or before?"
"We cannot know, can we?" Penelope murmured. She found she could no longer sit still. "Father?"
"I'll tend to our guest," Laertes said. He squeezed her shoulder and nodded for her to go.
Penelope hurried from hall, trembling. Whether in rage or pity or fear, she didn't know. She was glad, relieved Odysseus had stood against the plan to kill Iphigenia. Stronger, though, was the image of Klytemaistra's fury.
* * * *
The news of the war, once the fleet finally reached Ilion, had little variety. Ilion's supply of warriors and arms appeared as limitless as their stores of food and water were reputed to be. The war slowed for winter, along with the dribbles of news that reached Ithaka.
Penelope wove new blankets for the child growing inside her. She halted her work at the first sign of weariness and listened to all the advice and cautions Eurykleia and Eurynome gave her. When the weather was harsh, she stayed home instead of going to the Goddess to make offerings. Penelope knew the Goddess understood why she could take no chances. The child finally began to move inside her the day an ice storm retreated from the island.
Penelope calculated when her child would be born. If she was right, the seas would be open nearly a moon before she came to labor. She knew Odysseus could reach Ithaka by then. Though the people around her discussed how many years the war would take, Penelope smiled and prepared new clothes for her husband to wear at his welcoming feast.
Spring approached. Penelope often took her son with her to walk to the cliff's edge and stand there for hours, watching the horizon for a familiar sail.
The first merchants to reach Ithaka's shores that year brought bits of war gossip, events that happened before winter had closed the ports. None of it was encouraging. Everyone agreed the Achaians would be years in siege of Ilion.
Her child would be born any day and Penelope tasted fear. Had her dreams lied? Would her child die before birth? Odysseus wasn't home, safe, where her dreams had placed him. She didn't know what to believe.
The smallness of her belly worried her. Then she began to hear gossip and rumors. The stories had grown faster than the size of her belly. Now they came to light. Her fear turned to anger--a welcome change.
Nerilia brought the first solid evidence of what the people believed. The woman had gone to the docks to fetch fish for a moon feast. She argued with another woman at the docks and the argument became a pushing, scratching fight accented with screeches worthy of a harpy. Mentor brought her to Penelope when it was over.
"Nerilia, if you have a charge to make against the woman who attacked you--" Penelope began, to be cut off by the woman's sharp laugh.
"I attacked her. Proudly. Everyone knows she was a fool to say such things." Nerilia bit her lip as if to hold back more words and looked away.
"What did she say?"
"Fools' gossip. Lies."
"If they are lies, you protect her by keeping the words from being known," Penelope reasoned.
"Protecting that--" She laughed. "Very well, Mistress. I'm likely a fool myself, reacting as I did, but she enjoyed her words too much." She looked around, as if noticing for the first time the workroom was empty of all others. "The word is that you are so small because the child is not our king's. You claim you conceived before the warriors left, to cover the truth that you have taken a lover and it is his child you carry. You will not birth in the tenth moon, but after the twelfth."
"Who is my lover, when all the best men of Ithaka are gone to war?" Penelope seethed, but refused to show her feelings. She could see her calmness impressed Nerilia.
"No one will say. But they do say no one is surprised. Rumors say Klytemaistra has already taken a lover, and Helen is the cause of the war. You are their cousin."
"Indeed, I am their cousin. But my child is my husband's and no other man has or ever shall touch me. When my child is born before the end of this moon, you will be the herald of the news to Ithaka." Penelope dismissed her maid with a nod. She would have laughed at the new swagger in Nerilia's walk, but her heart was too sore and sick at what she had heard.
Penelope didn't worry long over the gossip. Her water broke three days later. Her pains came quickly as she climbed the stairs to her room. Penelope felt cold with fear for the child and cried out more in terror than pain as her bones moved to let the baby pass. She didn't believe her ears when the first thin cry penetrated the air.
"He lives?" she cried, nearly sitting up while Autonoe tended the afterbirth.
"She lives," Eurykleia said. "You have a daughter," she added, chuckling at Penelope's astonishment. The next moment, her delight faded into concern as Penelope burst into tears. "Child, what is wrong?"
"I dreamed--he would see our son--I thought the baby would die--Blessed Goddess, a daughter!" she ended on a gasp. Penelope held out her arms. "Give her to me!"
* * * *
She named the girl Ktimene, for Odysseus' sister, to please Antikleia. Telemachos sat for hours on his mother's bed, watching his baby sister sleep, asking when she could play with him. Penelope felt torn between laughter and tears and tried to explain that a baby had to grow and learn to walk before she could play with her big, strong brother.
Ktimene rarely cried. Penelope held the tiny, quiet bundle in her arms whenever her duties didn't call her away, and wondered at the gift given to her. Besides killing rumors with her timely arrival, Ktimene brought another gift to her mother. She was clearly Odysseus' daughter, with soft red-brown curls and gray eyes.
That spring, crops sprang up where the farmers hadn't planted. Twins were born to the herds and flocks. The rains came when the farmers wished and the sun never scorched the ground. When Penelope took Ktimene to the cave to present her to the Goddess, five times more women came for the ceremony. Mentor and Laertes ruled Ithaka that year only in name; the people looked to Penelope as their ruler, and named their
daughters for hers.
* * * *
More news came from the battle, traveling with the ships that reached Ithaka to trade. Boys who had grown up over the winter set off to join their fathers and brothers on the plains of Troy. Along with the news came the injured. Penelope believed the tales brought by warriors over the gossip from the docks.
Spring brought forays against towns close to Ilion, to cut off any help the people might give. Penelope dreamed of battles, of Odysseus fighting, sometimes wounded. The tales the injured men brought did little to confirm her dreams or turn them into vain imaginings.
She comforted herself with imagining the surprise on her husband's face when he learned of their daughter's birth. Penelope knew he would rage that she had deceived him. Then he would laugh, proud of her.
Late in the summer, a merchant brought messages from Odysseus and a leather chest of presents, plunder he had sent away before it was stolen or lost. For Penelope, fine thread in colors she couldn't dye on Ithaka, a distaff of ivory tipped with gold, pearl necklaces and gold earrings. For Telemachos, soldiers carved of wood and ivory, all from his father's skilled hands. For Ktimene, jewelry and ivory combs and a silver mirror. Penelope laughed, knowing that when Odysseus returned he would be his daughter's adoring slave. She put the gifts away for Ktimene's bridal days.
* * * *
Odysseus' prediction that the war with Ilion would not last less than three years was wrong. Telemachos and Ktimene grew quickly, though the years dragged by in Penelope's reckoning. When they were old enough to sit and listen and understand, she brought them in to listen to each merchant and warrior who had a tale to tell about the war and their father.
THE DREAMER'S LOOM Page 27
