Danae

by Laura Gill

  Along with the gifts, his demeanor changed. No more the oily, teasing, threatening seducer, he presented himself as a serious suitor. He drove the chariot by himself because he knew how Tarbos intimidated me, and always requested that Klymene chaperone our meetings. We never went inside, but walked on the beach in full view of the village on account of protecting my reputation, or so he claimed. Everything he did, he ostensibly did to put me at my ease, yet I could never relax around him.

  I knew the matter perpetually weighed on his mind, for the fishermen and market women often returned from Livadi bearing rumors. Polydektes was pursued at night by the Erinyes, those Furies who avenged the unjustly murdered. He went in secret to their sanctuary to be purified. He ordered splendid sacrifices at his mother’s tomb. In those early months after her death, his visits were marked with pensiveness; he seemed to want to unburden himself to me, but he always held back, he always shook his head and said, “I will not speak to you of unhappy things. You are too young and beautiful for that darkness.”

  Once winter passed and spring came again, his mood lightened. Again, he teased and cajoled, although in a more dignified fashion than before, and he continued to insist on Klymene’s presence. “Of course I should bring gifts,” he answered when I insisted yet again that he should not. “Are you not beautiful, worthy of being wooed?”

  What did “beautiful” even mean to him? “Do you spend this much effort on wooing other women?” I asked coolly. “When do you see petitioners and perform the sacrifices and your other kingly duties?”

  He merely laughed. “There is time for everything. I can be generous and kind, and an excellent lover.”

  I looked away, toward a choppy ocean the color of slate. “You shouldn’t speak so. I don’t think about lovers.”

  Polydektes quickly apologized, where in earlier times he would have teased me. “Of course not. You are chaste. But you are how old now? Eighteen? Nineteen? Do you not think you should have a man?”

  “No.” The breeze coming in off the sea was cold, briny. I longed to be indoors again, weaving alongside the other women, not having to shield myself from a man who did not understand the concept of “no.” “Why should I? I have a son and a comfortable life. I am content.”

  “You could be even more so in the palace.” Polydektes stepped in front of me, thoroughly obstructing my view of the sea. “Just say the word, Dorea, and I will send all my concubines away. I will make you mistress of the house, and mistress of my nights and days.”

  All my concubines, not my other concubines. He clearly wanted something more from me than mere dalliance, though he did not come right out and say it. “My lord, I’m but a weaver in a village of fishermen.”

  I repeated myself many times that season, and with increasing urgency, because he took me away from my work in the weaving house to woo me. Keremaia clearly resented the interruption as well as my hardheaded unwillingness to consent to the king’s desires. She had been ordered to be civil toward me, without being told why. Civility, however, did not come easily to her. “Who do you think you are, anyway? Obey him and leave so I can get a new girl in here who won’t make trouble.”

  My girlfriends and their mothers and kinswomen, and all the other women of the village were alternately jealous and curious. Diktys, for his part, glowered and postured, and on several occasions challenged his brother. “Can’t you see she isn’t interested in you? There are plenty of other women who would leap at the chance to have you fuck them. Leave this one alone.”

  Polydektes snickered. “Jealous? Dorea is far too good to be a fisherman’s woman.”

  Diktys planted his hands on his hips. “If she’s too good for me,” he shouted, “then she’s ten times too good for you!”

  Their yelling, in addition to the draw of the king’s presence, had attracted a crowd. I was utterly mortified by their snorting and bellowing, like a pair of stags clashing during the rut. On occasions such as those, I fled to the sanctuary, and did not emerge again until Diktys came around to assure me that Polydektes departed.

  He found me praying at the altar with its many triangular-faced idols. I had no inclination to hurry my devotions despite his obvious impatience. At least he had the decency to hold his tongue, bend a respectful knee to the gods, and wait for me to finish.

  I had the first word. “You’re both ridiculous, do you know that?” Rising, I smoothed my skirt. “This quarreling is beneath you.”

  He grasped my hand, not tightly, just enough to let me feel the warmth and solidity of his flesh. “Then marry me,” he said, “and let this madness end.”

  I stared at him. Why not? Then common sense intruded to banish that whimsy. “What would happen to you if I did that?”

  A grin broadened Diktys’s mouth. “You’d make me the happiest man on Seriphos, that’s what would happen.”

  “No, you fool.” I glanced over at the altar with its clutter of deities and votaries. “Don’t you see, you’d be putting yourself in harm’s way? Your brother might have you killed, and then what would Eurymedon and I do?”

  Releasing me, he knotted his hand into a fist. “I know what I want, and I don’t really care what Polydektes thinks. I learned a long time ago that I can’t live always looking over my shoulder and fearing what he might do.” He frowned, stared at the ground as if trying to collect his thoughts, then, without warning, he crossed the scant space separating us and took me in his embrace. His mouth covered mine. Not hard, but firm and warm and moist.

  My first instinct was to push him away, for I had not asked to be kissed, but my second instinct, which compelled me to twine my arms around his neck and return the kiss, overrode that. He was passionate, promising safety and fulfilled desire, but somewhere in the frantic beating of my heart and remembrance that we were in a sanctuary, in the presence of both Zeus and Queen Hera, I could not completely yield.

  I broke away. “No, no, we can’t do this. Lord Zeus, he...” A weakness at the knees set my whole body to trembling. I burned yet shivered simultaneously. A simple kiss could do that? “Iimmortal Zeus would never allow this.”

  Diktys suddenly seemed to remember where he was. Disentangling himself from our embrace, he faced the altar and raised his fist to his forehead in the ancient gesture of worship. “Forgive me, Father Zeus,” he announced. “I seek only to honor this woman, to love her, never to harm or frighten her.” The idols upon the altar remained silent and inscrutable, while I blushed furiously. Why must he make a scene? Then to me, Diktys confessed: “I’ve never before wanted a woman who belonged to a god. Forgive my insolence.”

  “Insolence?”

  “What else should I call it?” he asked softly, sadly.

  “Oh, Diktys.” I flung myself into his arms again, but this time as a sister seeking to console a brother.

  *~*~*~*

  Polydektes did not relent but invited me along with Diktys and Klymene to attend the midsummer festival honoring Lady Posidaeia. With the invitation, he sent lady’s garments, a flounced skirt and a bodice-hugging jacket of brocaded blue and yellow linen, and a woman to dress my hair. I sent both back straightaway with a message that I did not belong among nobles and priests. So he sent instead tributes of rose and daisy garlands to take to the Posidaeia shrine as if I were a priestess. I surrendered the garlands to the wives of the village elders.

  “He will never learn,” I told Diktys after returning from the women’s pilgrimage to the dunes. “Even telling him about Lord Zeus wouldn’t help, because then I’d have to admit the truth, and the immortals only know what he might do with the knowledge.”

  While I hated the rivalry between the brothers, I resented even more the effect Polydektes’s unwelcome visits had on my son. With each unwanted gift and futile attempt to woo me, Eurymedon’s loathing grew. I did not blame him, for while a man like Diktys actively engaged my son, Polydektes made a point of ignoring him. As a mother I called the king to answer for it. “How can you pursue me while snubbing my son?”


  A shadow darkened Polydektes’ smile. Far from denying that anything was amiss, he actually admitted it. “There’s something unnatural about that boy. No four-year-old should be that precocious. When I was four, I was playing with wooden warriors and pig bladders, and picking my nose. Eurymedon stares at me like a man bent on murder.” He cleared his throat anxiously for several heartbeats before continuing, “It is not that I do not like children, Dorea. Why, I myself have both sons and daughters, but none are like him.”

  Eurymedon himself expressed his feelings by giving me his unsolicited advice. “Don’t see him, Mother.” His tone was less pleading than commanding.

  “Aren’t you one to order me about!” I exclaimed. “Do you think I have a choice in the matter? Polydektes is the king of this island. He goes where and does what he pleases. We have to be very careful refusing him.”

  My son stopped twisting goat yarn between his fingers to give me his undivided attention. “We could run away again.” Even going on five years old, Eurymedon spun yarn for the fishing nets with the efficiency of a grown man.

  “And ignore the Mistress of the Owls?” I browsed through his supply of unbleached goat hair to ascertain that the fibers had been properly combed and washed; he was unusually tall and strong for his youth, but even so the hair was heavy and cumbersome when wet. “We would be followed, and then Polydektes might not be so forgiving.”

  “I wish he would die.”

  “That’s not a thing for a boy your age to say,” I admonished. Who filled his mind with such thoughts? Was he repeating a sentiment Diktys had voiced? “He’s done nothing to you but wound your pride.”

  The moment Eurymedon met my eyes, I felt for the very first time the uneasiness and unnatural malice Polydektes had described. Eurymedon’s gaze was a serpent’s cold calculation, a window into a consciousness bent on murder.

  Then, when I blinked, the moment passed. Eurymedon had become himself again—or rather, as much a normal little boy as he ever would be—placidly twisting yarn. “I wish he would go away, Mother. He’s not nice.”

  *~*~*~*

  Autumn came. Polydektes heaped his chariot with sea daffodils and purple and brilliant pink cyclamen, and late-blooming roses from his late mother’s garden, and in his fragrant vehicle drove down from Chora to tempt me with his most lavish gift yet: a mantle of the finest, softest wool, dyed deep vermillion and worked with spirals in blue and yellow and threads of gleaming gold. A present fit for a princess.

  As always, his appearance brought gawkers. Upon seeing all the garlands and the magnificent mantle, the women gasped and gaped, and I instantly resented the king for making so public a gesture, compelling an equally public submission. For what would it say about my hardheadedness and lofty pretensions to refuse this time?

  Yet I tried, for sight of the mantle and the overpowering fragrance of the garlands unnerved me almost as much as the armed men accompanying the king. These were not casual trinkets Polydektes had commanded a steward select from the treasury, but evidence of serious. “Take them away, my lord,” I stammered. “They’re too rich, much too good for a simple village weaver like me.” More distressing, I found myself a heart’s beat away from bursting into tears, when I dared not show any weakness. “I can’t accept them.”

  Polydektes advanced with the mantle slung neatly over his arm, the garland hanging from his wrist, and for my ears alone replied, “Dorea, you and I both know these gifts are not above your station.”

  Threatening tears turned to ice with the anticipatory chill that shivered through me, a cold that not even the mantle could have banished.

  Ever so courteously, he extended a gauntleted hand. “Come with me.”

  The crowd followed at a respectful distance as he led me to the empty weaving house. My heart dared not beat for fear of what he was searching for, and what he intended to do when he discovered it. Vainly, I tried loosening my hand from his. “My lord, there’s nothing—”

  “Ah, here it is, a queen’s dower chest.” Polydektes released me only to call attention to the chest with a flourish. “I was told there was a particularly fine chest of Cretan workmanship here in this lowly weaving house. And here it is. Shame about the weathering.” His hand ghosted across the painted procession of priestesses.

  “The chest is mine, Polydektes, as anyone in the village will tell you.” Klymene alone followed us into the hut. “I donated it to the hut years ago.”

  He silenced her with a gesture that threatened a more permanent solution if she interrupted again. All the while, his gaze remained on me. “Your mother was a princess of Knossos, Danaë. Daughter of Minos Lakhuros. Lady Aganippe. She would have had a magnificent dower chest, worthy of the best workshops on Crete.” Polydektes bent to inspect the carpentry. “Yes, excellent joinery. The painted decorations must have been quite splendid when they were new.”

  I swallowed hard. “Everyone knows the chest in the story was of alabaster with gold and gems. Sailors searched for it for years.”

  “And I have listened to my share of bards’ tales and fishermen’s stories to recognize poetic exaggeration.” Polydektes straightened. “Alabaster and gold? What king would waste such precious materials on a disgraced daughter? Besides, a chest of alabaster and gold would have sunk straight to the bottom of the ocean, and your father’s intention was to leave your fate and the child’s up to the gods. Strange, though, how Diktys discovered a dead woman and her baby in a wooden chest exactly around the time Acrisius abandoned his daughter and grandson. I am told they returned to life right before his eyes. Very strange, indeed.”

  Diktys had betrayed me? No, he would not have done that. There had been dozens of other witnesses that day, dozens who could have let drop an innocent comment where Polydektes’ spies had overheard. I stared blankly at the chest, through it, its contours blurring. Why had we not burned the accursed thing?

  Klymene interjected, “Polydektes, please. You’re grasping at half-truths and sea captains’ tales. Dorea and her son came in a boat, and were—”

  “Dear aunt, be quiet,” he said between his teeth, low and menacing. Then he confronted me. “There’s no use denying it, Princess. I have been very thorough, making inquiries through Tiryns and Argos.”

  All my efforts had come to naught. Polydektes knew the truth. Now he would surely hustle me against my will into his chariot and imprison me in the royal citadel until he could sell me to the king of Tiryns—or try to bargain with Proitus for my hand in marriage. Either way, an unenviable fate, but my thoughts at that moment were all for Eurymedon. What would become of him, now that the secret was revealed?

  Polydektes took me by the hand again; his grip almost crushed my wrist. “When Diktys left the palace to become a fisherman, I told him he must pay me as tribute half of whatever he caught in his nets. He is welcome to keep the boy, but you, Princess, are mine.”

  He led me outside, into an ocean of questioning faces, none of which belonged to Diktys. I remained frozen, a briny breeze pummeling my face and plastering my clothing against my body. Then a warm weight of scarlet and blue and glittering gold threads settled upon my shoulders, enveloping me in imperial richness. I smelled the fragrance of roses and wildflowers; Polydektes had crowned me with the garland.

  “People of Pelargos, this woman before you is Danaë, the princess of Argos, the daughter of Acrisius,” he announced. The crowd stood mute; no one seemed surprised except for the king’s soldiers. “There is no mistake. We know how she and her child arrived in a wooden chest. She is a royal woman, daughter of the House of Danaus, and she has lived chastely. Now we take this princess under our protection, to claim her for Seriphos, and to make her our wife and queen.”

  What was he saying? Taking me under his protection? Claiming me for Seriphos, for himself? Words of possession that no Woman of the Mountain would have tolerated. And I just stood there as hapless as a sleeper who desperately needed to wake up and do something before events spiraled beyond my control.

&nb
sp; “No!” I screamed, wrenching myself free, throwing off the queenly mantle and bridal flowers. “I belong to Zeus!”

  I plunged into the crowd, ramming my way forward, shoving and pushing, intent on my target: sanctuary. Neighbors alternately reached for me or stumbled to clear a space, and everywhere I heard shouting. Some called Dorea, others Princess. Men’s voices boomed over the commotion, ordering me detained. I dared not pause even the split second it would have taken to gauge who was pursuing, just plowed through trusting in the strength of my limbs and the mercy of the immortal gods to get me to sanctuary.

  Multiple footfalls pounded the ground just behind me. I heard labored breathing. Was that Polydektes I heard, or the strain of my own lungs? My calves burned, a stitch formed in my side; the sanctuary stood on higher ground, and the path I had unthinkingly chosen was steep—far too steep for chariots at least. Men shouted for me to stop. I imagined a hand brushing my hip, but kept going. Even now, the sanctuary was within sight. The door stood open. Did I have enough strength to close the distance?

  A woman draped in gleaming white stood upon the threshold. She half-pulled, half-pushed me inside, and then I was stumbling breathlessly toward the altar, sending the offering table clattering to the floor as I collapsed against the cool plaster. “Sanctuary!” I screamed.

  “Stop where you are!” The woman’s stentorian voice assaulted my ears like thunder; a frantic half-second passed before I realized she was speaking to someone else. “This is the domain of the most holy immortals. This woman Danaë beseeches their protection, and they grant her request. You will go no further.” She did not sound like the priestess Leukothea, or any of the village elders’ wives, but, too exhausted to investigate, I did not particularly care as long as the king and his men respected the law of sanctuary.