by Laura Gill
An uncomfortable odor of rank sweat and blood competed with burning incense. The sour smell was strongest in the queen’s bedchamber, where Eurydike’s women were busily tending her, brushing out her fair hair, rubbing her shoulders and hands with scented oil, and switching a plain coverlet for a handsome scarlet one decorated all over with spirals worked in gold-colored wool in preparation to receive the ladies of the court. Had Father already visited? He had been present when I greeted Mother an hour after Eurymedon’s birth, though Cyrene had warned me that fathers avoided childbirth till the mother was decently situated, the room fumigated with herbs, and all signs of the labor whisked away. In a corner, I spied a heap of blood-stained linens, and on a side table a collection of talismanic mother-child idols called kourotrophoi.
Busy with her preparations, my stepmother ignored my entrance until Cyrene urged me toward a harried-looking maidservant rocking a bawling, swaddled infant on her shoulder. “What is she doing here?” Eurydike demanded of my nurse. She even pointed with a stubby finger, a typical gesture of hers that the ladies all agreed was bad manners. “This is a place for women, not young children.” Her haughtiness struck me as laughable.
Cyrene stiffened. “The princess is here to see her new brother.”
Grunting, Eurydike jerked her chin toward the maidservant in charge of the infant. “Well, there he is.”
Her rudeness irked me, even as the tired young woman came over and bent to let me see my screaming half-brother. Red and wrinkly, with a snub nose, he was the ugliest baby I had ever seen, and newborn Eurymedon had not been handsome, either. I forced myself to smile and greet him, then Cyrene hustled me out.
In the corridor, she said, not very convincingly, “Pay her no mind. Women can be strange in childbirth.”
*~*~*~*
Ten days later, on the baby’s name-day, another ordeal awaited. Though Father ignored me otherwise, and Eurydike disliked me, as a princess I was nevertheless expected to appear for the young prince’s naming.
Cyrene again took my best pink and blue raiment from the tiring chest, and dressed me after subjecting me to a thorough scrubbing and rubbing down with oil. “Hmm, the bodice is tight. How fast you’re growing! This winter we’ll have to make you new clothes. I’ll show you how the slave women dye the fabric and cut patterns.”
At that moment, I cared nothing about brand-new clothes. Having to negotiate the many guests crowding the Larissa and endure the sweltering summer heat during the athletic contests, which I was permitted to watch for a few hours, I felt sulky, disagreeable, wanting surcease. A morning spent in the relative cool of the inner courtyard, or just alone in my chamber, appealed to me far more than another ceremony or feast in the megaron.
Cyrene shook her head upon hearing my complaints. “You had better get used to it, young lady,” she clucked. “When you’re old enough, your father will arrange a good marriage for you. So you must be obedient and sweet-natured in front of his guests, so that when the time comes you have many worthy suitors.”
I had nothing to do downstairs but sit still on the ivory footstool the steward Wexamenos had allocated me and watch the proceedings, which consisted of the reception of distinguished guests, the exchange of oaths, and the pouring of countless libations. Where was the bard Archelaus with his entertaining stories? Where were the Knossian acrobats who tumbled for Father’s amusement during festivals, and the dark-skinned Egyptian with his trained monkeys? Instead, the ambassador of Tiryns gave me a sidelong, disapproving look, no doubt implying that I as a daughter was nothing. And across from him, the son of King Magnes of Seriphos kept measuring me as if he somehow owned me. “Why does he do that?” I asked Cyrene.
“He hopes to make a marriage with you.” She glared fiercely in his direction, but of course he outranked her, and kept staring. His possessiveness made my skin crawl, even when Cyrene assured me, “Forget him. Seriphos is nothing, a small tributary. Your father won’t waste you on a low-ranking bottom feeder like Prince Polydektes.”
Bored, with the air in the dim megaron growing ever fuggier as the day lengthened, I struggled to stifle a yawn. Polydektes exchanged words with his father, who also glanced in my direction. Only a handsome youth who might have been the prince’s cousin or younger brother had the decency to be courteous, and not stare.
Shortly, High Priestess Kitane entered the megaron carrying my ugly half-brother swaddled in a purple blanket. She shuffled around the hearth once, then, with difficulty, knelt down on creaking joints to present the infant to Father. “Acrisius, merciful king of Argos, this boy-child is your issue by your wife Eurydike.” Kitane’s voice rasped due to her old age, but she managed to make herself heard. “Inspect the limbs of his body. Examine his lungs, his breath, his color. You will find him healthy and whole, a worthy prince and heir.”
As she extended the swaddled bundle to Father, the entire court waited, hushed, on his response. Father could refuse—it was his right, if the child was sickly or deformed, or an unwanted girl—but no one expected that today. Rather, he leaned forward on his throne, gingerly took the infant in his arms, and unwound the swaddling to make a cursory inspection. He had done that, too, after Eurymedon’s birth. I could not fathom why my father would want to show his courtiers and guests a naked, squalling baby. On that occasion, Cyrene had explained in whispers that Father’s subjects needed to see that the prince was male and healthy, and not a changeling.
Father stood and displayed his naked, squalling son to his guests. “This male child is my son and heir.” Polite applause. “His name shall be Abas, after my dear father who was your king in the old days.” More applause, followed by shouts of “Abas!” and “Acrisius!” and even “Argos!” Father handed the screaming infant off to my stepmother, who with a look of supreme irritation foisted him off on the maidservant I had seen in her apartment.
I had to remain for the gift-giving, too, when I wanted to escape the sweltering megaron. All those presents, and none for me. Cyrene noticed my envy. “Be gracious. You were given many pretty dolls, spindles and bronze needles. A dozen kings wanted to betroth their sons to you, to please your father, though you were still a tiny thing in the cradle.”
Had Magnes with his horrid son been one? I did my best to avoid looking at the prince, but his presence seemed to saturate the very air I breathed, smothering me. I imagined him to be very cruel. “I don’t remember.”
“I do.” Cyrene smiled, showing her crooked teeth. “Everybody rejoiced. It was a very happy occasion.”
*~*~*~*
Autumn came with the gathering of Dionysus’s gift of the grape, and ended with the hog slaughtering, and then winter came with its bitter winds. Abas my half-brother, who never lost the wrinkled ugliness of birth, took a chill and suddenly died, and from my chamber I heard again the noises of lamentation that had frightened me the night Mother had died. Worse, I heard Father’s voice raised in anger, shouting obscenities at my stepmother. “You fat, ignorant, peasant bitch! What sort of mother are you that you haven’t the common sense to seal the shutters properly?”
Eurydike’s unintelligible blubbering was abruptly broken by a yelp of pain that told me Father had struck her. Snug in my bed but unable to sleep for the commotion, I flinched. Would Father kill my stepmother as he had already killed the poor maidservant and wet nurse charged with the baby’s care? Foolishly, I had peeked through a crack in the door at the very moment two slaves passed bearing the women’s corpses; blood streaked in forked rivulets down the maidservant’s dangling arm, marking the path her body took.
Cyrene had jerked me away from the door just as the men with the bodies vanished from sight. She hustled me into the rear of the chamber, and tucked me into bed, even though it was not yet sunset. Throughout the furor that ensued, with Father hurling furniture and smashing crockery, and the queen’s surviving women squealing and screaming until he hollered at them to get out, Cyrene held me tightly, assuring me in murmurs that I was not the object of his anger. Neverthe
less, upon hearing his lumbering treads in the corridor and his frothing curses, I broke away from her and wriggled my way underneath the bed.
“What’s this, child?” she exclaimed. “You’re too old for this shrinking and cowering, and I’ve already told you he’s not angry with you. Now stop this madness and come out. You’ll get a chill huddling under there.”
After a very long time, during which the women’s quarters grew still again but for the sound of Eurydike’s muffled weeping, I let Cyrene coax me out from under the bed.
CHAPTER THREE
On the morning of my sixth name-day, I woke to find Cyrene gone, and an unfamiliar woman standing with a tray beside my bed.
“Wake up, Princess,” she said coldly. “You have lessons today.”
Yawning, I blinked drowsily up at her. A faint gray light pierced the shutters, but the room yet lingered in shadow, it was so early. Lessons? The warmth of my fleeces beckoned. Whoever the woman was, she could wait.
“Do not make me lay hands on you, young lady.” I heard the woman set the tray down, then her footsteps, and suddenly the fleeces vanished, torn from my bed. “When I give you a command, you will obey.”
Awake now, and shivering, I sat upright. “Who are you?” Her refined speech matched her haughtiness. I felt I ought to know her, but in the predawn hour, in the shadows thrown by her lamp, and just roused from sleep, my mind refused to work.
“I am your father’s sister, your Aunt Wordeia,” she replied. “You do not remember me?” She retrieved a bundle from the foot of the bed, depositing it unceremoniously onto my lap. “Put this on. Acrisius sent for me, to see you properly educated.” I fumbled with the garment, a long-sleeved woolen dress. “As for your nurse, she has been dismissed.” As she spoke, Wordeia moved about the chamber holding aloft her oil lamp to poke into corners and inspect my belongings. “You are six years old now, Danaë. You should have a proper lady’s maid, not a lowborn country nurse.”
A lump rose in my throat. Cyrene had said nothing last night about leaving before putting me to bed. How could she abandon me so?
“Eat your breakfast, and hurry,” Wordeia urged. “The household is not going to wait on your pleasure.”
Dawn came, strengthening the grayish light until I could see my aunt more clearly. Older than Father by ten years, Wordeia had not changed much since her last visit to court almost two years ago. Standing ramrod-straight, she towered above me, her thinning, salty gray hair pulled back into a severe bun that seemed to stretch the skin of her face drum-tight. Hers was an air of austerity, predatory watchfulness, always unsmiling. I had heard through the court ladies that she was a widow, after years of an unhappy marriage. Maybe. Wordeia seemed to take great pride in her bitterness.
After a hurried breakfast, I followed her on her rounds through the palace and the lower citadel. What work would she have me do? “Observe,” she said, then set a grueling pace. Up and down the manifold stairs we went, just like the servants going to and fro with baskets and bundles of things just purchased at the agora in Argos town below. “We must go to the kitchen to make sure that the cooks properly prepare your father’s breakfast. The queen typically attends to this task, but as the king’s sister I am in charge now, and Hera knows, the change could not have come soon enough.”
If Wordeia disliked Eurydike, so did everyone else, nowadays. Even her own Spartan servants attempted to put some distance between themselves and her, from what little I had seen. She stayed cloistered in her apartment. I often heard muffled crying at all hours. Father shunned her company. Courtiers whispered among themselves that he would soon undo the marriage and send her back to her father.
Wordeia, however, did not take me straightaway to the kitchen, but to a dimly lighted storeroom. Huge, man-sized jars called pithoi hugged the walls. Baskets hung overhead. The lower regions of the Larissa were uniformly cramped and dark, and smelled yeasty. “You must check the stores every day, so when the cook complains that she is running out of coriander or fennel or celery seed, you will know straightaway whether she is lying.” A wooden diptych sat on a shelf. My aunt retrieved it, and in the light coming through a high clerestory window squinted at the marks scrawled in the wax. “She has taken cumin and fennel, and a measure of barley yesterday.” She showed me a latticed circle alongside the scrawled signs. “This is the seal of the steward Phintis. Tomorrow, we will bring our lamps and check the quantities in each jar to see if they match the tallies.”
Other queries brimming on the tip of my tongue crowded out the question of why she had not brought a lamp today. “Will I see Cyrene again?” My nose itched in the dustiness of the storeroom, tormenting me with the possibility of a sneeze.
“Your nurse has returned to her family in the town. There is no need for you to see her again.” Wordeia led me from the storeroom and closed the door, securing the latch. “It is better this way.” She started moving down the corridor, heading toward an open door at the end. “Princesses must learn to relinquish certain things they hold dear—beloved nurses, childhood toys, even family and friends when the time comes—and do it graciously.” The door led to another short corridor through which savory smells, the flickering of firelight, and a cacophony of voices engaged in meaningful labor reached me; we were approaching the kitchen.
Wordeia continued the lecture. “You must get to know the cooks and laundresses and stewards. Managing a household is not as simple as waving your hand and giving orders. It takes work. You must know how each servant does his job so he cannot deceive you with halfhearted efforts.” She stopped, delaying our entry into the kitchen. “You must learn when to scold the servants and when to give them praise, and when to use tact with the stewards and when to give them a good tongue-lashing, so when the time comes you are ready.”
“You mean, when I marry?” A wonderful, floury smell came from the ovens just around the corner; someone was baking fresh bread. And I smelled meat with spices. My belly rumbled. Earlier, Wordeia had not allowed me enough time to finish everything on the breakfast tray. Today, after all, was my name-day. There should be sweets.
Wordeia uttered a short, self-contained laugh. “Not when you marry. When your mother-in-law finally goes to the shades.” To my mingled irritation and embarrassment, my belly grumbled ever more persistently. Also, I failed to see what was so amusing about one’s mother-in-law dying.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why, young lady? Because your mother-in-law will be everything.” This time, Wordeia did not laugh. “You know nothing yet about the realities of marriage. Do you honestly think you, a fourteen-or-fifteen-year-old bride, will be allowed to take over the running of the household the day after the wedding? Absolutely not. Your mother-in-law will rule the household and everyone and everything in it until the moment she dies. That is all you need to know right now. I will prepare you for the rest when the time comes.”
My head buzzed with confusion as we entered the kitchen. Though close and loud, it was a particularly pleasant place to be on a winter’s day. Wordeia did not permit me to have any sesame cake, despite my fainthearted pleas that it was my name-day, but she did encourage me to eat some hearty lamb stew with onions, celery, and carrots. “You need meat and milk and nourishing herbs to grow strong, not sweet things.” While I ate, I eavesdropped on her arranging various dishes for that night’s supper with the head cook, a rotund young woman with forearms like mutton legs.
“The king has a pain in his tooth and will want his meat soft and minced finely.” Father had a toothache? “You know what to prepare.” Wordeia spoke firmly. “As for the queen, I do not care what requests or complaints she has. She will eat what is placed before her, and that is that. If she makes a scene, that is entirely her fault and not yours.”
Once she finished her rounds, we headed upstairs by the central staircase that formed the palace’s spine. Rising three levels, the staircase surrounded a light-well that circulated air and illumination to each floor. Sometimes I pretended that the
supporting pillars, painted bright colors with pillowy black bases, were the tree trunks of a vast forest. “You may think we forgot your name-day, but your father and I have arranged many new things for you.”
Wordeia did not return me to the nursery, but led me down the corridor toward the queen’s apartment. My heart sank. Were we going to visit my stepmother? Eurydike took no interest in my upbringing. But then, to my relief, my aunt headed for the first door on the left and ushered me into the small apartment.
Frescoes of rock lilies and birds covered the walls of the outer chamber, furnished with a chair, footstool, and small table. A basket of wool sat on the floor beside a standing brazier. Wordeia sternly encouraged me to enter the bedchamber, decorated like the outer room with frescoes of flowers and birds, and simply furnished with a bed covered in scarlet and blue, an empty dressing table, and a small chest. “Who lives here?” I asked.
“You do. You are far too old for the nursery,” she answered. “You must have lodgings worthy of your status as a king’s daughter, and with that a proper servant and schooling appropriate to your station. You will have a tutor and lessons, and—ah, yes.” Wordeia went to and drew aside the blue curtain separating the bedchamber from the outer room.
The girl she ushered into my presence was older and taller than me, plain-faced, dressed in dull brown wool over a white shift. But what made me gawp was her pronounced harelip; I could see her uppermost teeth through the cleft. And the skin above her lip was fuzzed with a moustache of dark hair.