by Laura Gill
Pikreus’s friends and kinsmen dragged him struggling and crying from the house so that the midwives could wash and prepare the corpse for the traditional laying-out, and Leukothea purify the corruption left in death’s wake. Feeling useless, and at that moment wanting more than anything to hold Eurymedon close and thank Eleuthia for his safe delivery, I left the women to their tasks and exited the house.
I hurried home through the fading daylight, noticing how like a smear of blood Helios’s chariot appeared as it descended toward the horizon.
Hearth-light spilled through the open doorway. Diktys was home from his business in town. Slowing, I composed myself before stepping across the threshold. He would want to know about the tragedy.
“Dorea.” As he turned from the hearth toward me, as he regarded me with an inexplicable, penetrating stare and shook his head, I scented a whiff of cheap fragrance. He must have been with the pornai.
For the first time, I sensed a subtle menace about him. “What do you want?” I backed away, prepared to flee.
“A straight answer.” Lightning-fast, he lunged forward and seized my arm to prevent my escape. “You’re not Dorea, not Outis, not a peasant girl at all. I know your name, your true name. We’ve met before.”
“My name?” Had he been drinking? No wine tainted his breath. “Diktys, what are you talking about?”
Diktys grasped me hard by the shoulders. “In your father’s house. You don’t remember?” He leaned forward to whisper, intimate as a lover, into my ear. “Your stepmother had just borne a son. We came to the amphidromia, my father, Polydektes, and I. Polydektes saw you among the ladies. I remember how he leered at you.”
A memory of that time flashed through me, sickening and cold, and with it the instinct to deny everything. “No! You’re mistaken.”
“Don’t lie!” He shook me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “I’ve heard the story. I heard it today. The princess and her baby shut in the chest, cast out to sea.” He pulled me close against him. “I know who you are.” His breath was hot on my face. “You’re not Dorea, you’re not Nobody. You’re Acrisius’s daughter. Danaë.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
My reaction was immediate and visceral. “Don’t call me that!” I drove a fist into his stomach. Gasping in shock, doubling over, Diktys reflexively released his hold.
Diktys steadied himself against the doorjamb. He winced and shook his head. “Gods, I’ve never been hit before by a princess.”
“Stop saying that!”
“You’d better get used to it. Tirynthian merchants arrived in port today. They’re telling the tale in the wine houses and docks. Where do you think I heard it?” Diktys rubbed his stomach where I had punched him and sighed. I ought to apologize. “You should have told me right from the beginning. Once you and Eurymedon were under my protection, the laws of guest-right would have prevented me from betraying you—not that I ever would have.”
Expecting him to lash back, I kept my fists clenched. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth, either!” Diktys’s face burned red, and his expression threatened violence. “After everything I did for you!”
My gaze darted around the room, seeking either a weapon or escape. “You were a stranger,” I croaked. “And a man.”
Diktys thrust a thumb into his chest. “Am I a stranger now?”
Suddenly, the room was spinning. How could the tale have followed me to Seriphos? A thousand possibilities presented themselves, swarming in like locusts—my father’s men who had witnessed the deed, who told others, Proitus embellishing the story his spies told, fostering it, spreading it, a disease of terrible truths and rumors.
Somehow, I found myself in the other room, on my cot, with little memory of how I had gotten there. No lamps burned; the room was dark and close, and lying on my back reminded me so strongly of being trapped in the chest that I might as well have returned to that point. My sobs became convulsive, hyperventilating.
“Dorea!”
Diktys’s hands grasped my shoulders; he was shaking me. Instinctively, I wrenched away from him, then shoved hard when I could not break his hold. “Get off me!”
He released me and, keeping his hands where I could see them, got up from the mattress at once. “You honestly think I’m going to rape you? Stupid woman, I’ve done nothing but protect you and Eurymedon.”
Remorse slowly replaced the urge for survival. Hysteria solved nothing. I had to stop crying and think. “I should leave. Get my things together and fetch Eurymedon. Change our names.” I heard my voice quavering. My hands shook as I reached under the bed for the wooden box containing my scant possessions. But where was Eurymedon? Who was looking after him? “We can go to some other island, where they know nothing about the chest.”
“Are you mad? Run away, alone?” Diktys spread his hands. Incredulity replaced his earlier expression of hostility. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Are you going to stop me?” I found myself curling my right hand into a fist once more, even though the part of my brain that still functioned rationally urged me to stop and remember that Diktys protected me. He was, after all, my brother and champion. But when he accused me, that had not been brotherly. “You’ll have to tie me down or kill me.”
His nostrils flared. “I’m not going to do either, but you’re a madwoman if you think you can do better than what you have now.” He stepped back, filling the doorway, blocking my only route of escape. “Any other man who takes you in will expect...” Rather than say it, he indicated his meaning by raking my body with his gaze.
The implication brought memories of Ktimene’s warning to mind. It stung to the quick, even stronger now because a man said it. “If you know, then Polydektes will know. Everyone will know. No place will be safe.” I tried to steady myself, but just below the surface the panic remained, tangible, threatening. “Acrisius will send ships after me. They both will, the kings of Argos and Tiryns. And then, then they’ll—”
Diktys raised a hand to indicate I should calm down. “No, they won’t. First, they would have to know where you are, and so far there’s no sign that anybody knows the truth but me. Dorea, please. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It was wrong. You’re obviously afraid, and I don’t blame you, but please believe me when I say that no one’s going to lay a hand on you.”
He made it sound so easy, but I found his assurances virtually impossible to believe. My voice quavered. “You wouldn’t, maybe, but you yourself just said it won’t be long before the market women heard.” Panic threatened again. I concentrated on breathing. Hyperventilating would not help my circumstances.
“Calm yourself. Come, have some water.” I shook my head. Diktys continued, “It isn’t as if I shouted the news on the way back. You think me that ill-intentioned?” By degrees, he lowered his voice. “What are you afraid of, Dorea? The fishwives betraying you? My mother returning to harass you? Polydektes coming to...?”
I flinched, and he noticed. “That’s it, isn’t it? Polydektes,” he pressed. “You’re afraid he’ll come thundering down here with his entire garrison, seize you, and deliver to your kinsmen on the mainland.” Diktys’s face changed. He started to move forward, as if to put his arms around me, when he seemed to think better of it. “He doesn’t know, Dorea, and he won’t. You forget how sailors tell stories. They don’t waste words on skinny, brown-haired girls in wooden boxes. For them, the daughter of Acrisius is a fair-haired, blue-eyed princess in rich garments, cast to sea in a chest of alabaster or gold studded with gems. There’s nothing of you or Eurymedon in that story.”
I wanted to believe that it was that simple, and that Polydektes was that gullible, but dared not anticipate that much. “You knew.”
“The basic elements: the woman and the baby, and the chest,” he replied, then crooked his finger. “Come to the hearth and take some wine. You’re deathly pale. You can even grab a knife for your own protection if you want.”
Diktys withdre
w to give me space enough to move around as I wished. He shut the front door, though that early summer’s night was balmy, and, joining me at the hearth, draped my shawl across my shoulders. He cut the wine with water and offered me a cup. I drank as deeply as I dared; to get drunk meant making myself vulnerable.
“You forget, Dorea. I know you better than most. I am your brother, after all, right?” His wink offered reassurance that I could at last accept. “I was there when you were rescued, remember?” I nodded. “But there are things I still don’t know about you. I think it’s time you told me everything, if you’re able. Your father, your upbringing, how you got into this situation. You said you were raised among priestesses? Tell me about that.”
So I told him about the Women of the Mountain. He listened, enthralled, and also laughed. “So that’s where you learned to throw a punch! No, don’t scowl. I’ve heard of such enclaves of women in Arcadia, and in the remote mountains of Crete, where they keep the old ways. Why, I’ve even heard of warrior horsewomen on the shores of the Euxine Sea who worship Artemis and mate freely, though they expose their male children because they only want girls. But I didn’t think the mountain priestesses of Arcadia went so far as to have their own sentries and hunters and herdswomen.
“They’re wrong that all men are murderers and rapists. Sometimes we do terrible things. We murder, we steal, we violate, yes, but women are capable of the same evil. I’ve seen my share of women scheme, poison, and commit murder, for ambition or love, or even the falling-out of love. One time, in Ephesus, I saw a wife stab her husband’s lover in the marketplace, right there before witnesses, because the girl was younger and more beautiful.” He took a drink. “Would you believe my own mother shoved one of my father’s concubines down a flight of stairs and killed her because she feared the woman would bear a son to supplant Polydektes?”
I grunted agreement. Even though I had spilled my secrets, one remained. I had not mentioned Zeus. “If you know about Acrisius and Argos, I suppose you should know the truth about Eurymedon’s father.” I held out my cup for more wine. Diktys refilled it without a word. “He’s not a blasphemer who broke into the sanctuary. He’s the Lord of Heaven himself, who forced his way into the goddess’s domain through thunder and lightning.”
Diktys did not speak the name, either, but I could tell he understood which immortal I meant. “You’re certain?”
“How could I or anyone else mistake the splitting of an oak by lightning for anything else?” I neglected to mention that the Women of the Mountain had done just that. “Eurymedon was nine weeks in my womb—yes, nine weeks, not months. Does a normal child do that?” Diktys’s skeptical expression irritated me. I drew myself up straighter. “You don’t have to believe me, you know. I know what the truth is.”
“What? I never said I didn’t believe you.” His frown remained, though, thoroughly negating his assertion. “I simply... Well, I simply don’t know what to say. I’ve never had a woman tell me a god impregnated her before. How did he...?” Now he became flustered, opening and closing his mouth. “I shouldn’t ask, but you’ve given everyone the impression that you were violated. Is that true?” Diktys’s agitation increased.
Did it bother him more that I might have lied to keep him at a distance, or that the Lord of the Heavens was capable of rape? “He came to me while I slept,” I began. “He was young and beautiful, all golden like the sun, but his beauty was terrible, and I was a consecrated virgin, and I became afraid. I ran from him the first time, so to punish me he made the Mountain tremble.” I watched Diktys’s face to gauge his reaction. “I know it’s Poseidon whose Great Bull brings the earthquake, but I also know the thunder made my son. He came to me again, all darkness and terror, and he just took what he wanted.” Describing the event set my nerves on edge.
“The priestesses tried to find Eurymedon a home with a childless goatherd and his wife,” I continued, “but every time they took him away he was miraculously returned to me. That’s why he remembers flying with eagles and black wolves. That’s why we were put in the chest together, because nothing could separate us.”
“If you say it happened, yes.” Diktys made placating gestures, indications that I need not speak further.
Footsteps outside alerted us that someone was coming. We both tensed, Diktys reaching for his dagger, but when the latch turned, the door opened, and Klymene appeared, we heaved a mutual sigh of relief.
“Waiting up for me?” She looked careworn and exhausted. Diktys took her aside, anyway, and before long she, too, had heard the tale. “A princess of Argos?” She came and sat beside me. “Diktys is absolutely right, Dorea. You can’t possibly think about running away. You’d only be calling attention to yourself.”
That, I understood, and even agreed with, although it meant swallowing my fear and relegating myself to a life forever spent looking over my shoulder. “Others will discover the truth,” I argued. “Polydektes has spies.”
“He doesn’t know about the chest,” Diktys said.
“Someone will tell him.” I heard the hysterical edge to my voice, and tried to tamp down on my paranoia. “It doesn’t matter how they’re describing the princess or the chest. All that matters is woman, baby, chest.” Polydektes had lackeys who told him when I was sick. One of his officials had seen and remarked on the chest. Of course he would figure it out.
“You’ve been here two years, while everybody else thinks it happened yesterday. How many times must I remind you that you’re safe?” Diktys’s exasperation showed. “You need to stop worrying so much about things that haven’t happened and be the woman who punched me not an hour ago.” He opened his arms to enfold me in a comforting embrace. “Do you really think the neighbors would betray you? You belong to us all.”
At that moment, I did not feel particularly strong, certainly not like the frantic woman who had punched him a while ago. Why had I done that? Diktys was my sworn brother. His arms around me felt safe and close, yet... “I wish I had your faith.”
“Dorea, are you always in such a state of fear?” he asked, softly breathing the question into my disheveled hair.
I burrowed deeper into his embrace. “You have no idea. I’m always looking over my shoulder, always waiting for the worst.”
“You can’t live like that, without it eating you up inside,” he said. “Now I should go bring Eurymedon. Having him home will make you feel better.”
He went to fetch Eurymedon, as I in my distress and Klymene in her exhaustion had forgotten. Eurymedon was already asleep, his head leaning on his uncle’s shoulder, a picture of carefree innocence. Would that he could stay like that forever! Pushing back troubling thoughts of his future, I tucked him into bed.
Afterward, Klymene sat down beside me and we spoke quietly together. “You poor thing! Your mother must have been the princess of Knossos, Lady Aganippe. I never saw her—she would have been only a child when Magnes captured Amphiera and me—but I saw her father once, and his father, and Knossos itself, the great temple on the hill as it was before it burned, when Theseus stole Ariadne. How diminished the world is, that such things can happen now! If you must leave, go to Crete. Your mother’s brother is the king now.”
Knossos was but a dream. I would find no safe haven among its burnt, broken ruins, under the protection of an uncle who was a stranger. The status of the royal house, I had heard, had been so much lessened after the fall of the great temple that these days its kings no longer ruled the entire island or called themselves Minos. If they could not defend the ladies of the port of Amnissos from a mercenary like Magnes, how could my mother’s kinsmen—if they even agreed to receive me and my son—possibly expect to shield me from the might of Argos?
I shook my head. It was far better to remain in obscurity among those I knew than risk exposing myself and Eurymedon to greater dangers elsewhere.
“Poor thing!” Klymene said again. She reached up to draw my head onto her shoulder. “It’s women’s lot nowadays to find themselves cast adr
ift, it seems. Stay here, then, and don’t worry about stories.”
*~*~*~*
Halia’s funeral took place the next afternoon. Only the immediate family and Leukothea ventured inside the rock-cut tomb with the corpse and grave offerings. Eurymedon behaved himself, holding my hand; he did not need much persuasion to accept that my bloodshot eyes and agitated state were from mourning.
Returning to the weaving house proved the day’s hardest ordeal. Since I was not allowed to store finished cloth, I had become accustomed to pretending the chest did not exist. Now its presence became a tangible thing. I caught my gaze straying to it often, and had to wrench my attention back to the loom or spindle or carding comb in order to avoid drawing the headwoman’s ire. Keremaia suspected nothing; she was hardly the type to feign ignorance. And her lack of friends in the village meant that she had never heard the story about my arrival in the chest. She had not even been able to explain its provenance to Megistokritos.
No one would come, no one would ask awkward questions, no one would ever mistake a lowborn weaver with a princess of Argos.
And yet, I made preparations. My scant possessions and my son’s I gathered into a basket easily carried, with a store of dried fruit and meat, and a skin of water. With enough warning, Eurymedon and I could escape into the interior of the island, maybe travel along the coast and find a fishing village where a fisherman could be persuaded to take us across the water to Sifnos.
Days turned to weeks. Midsummer brought scorching hot days and balmy nights. Eventually, the story came to Pelargos, as all tales and news of the wider world inevitably did, and those who heard it conveyed it around. I sat among the neighbors around a blazing bonfire on the beach and listened with trepidation as Selenos, who had heard the story that very afternoon from a captain in Livadi, practiced his half-baked bardic skills on us all.
Diktys wound an arm around my shoulder and drew me close to remind me of his presence. “Courage,” he whispered. “You’re under my protection. Klymene reached across under the blanket to squeeze my hand.