Danae

by Laura Gill

  “Step aside, Priestess.” A winded Polydektes, as arrogant as ever. “The woman inside belongs to me.”

  “She belongs to the Lord of Heaven, who forbids you from crossing this threshold.” Panting, I turned my head to observe her. Was it a trick of exhaustion or the light? For she seemed taller than previously, filling the doorway, and what I had initially dismissed as a white shawl was actually a fringed garment called an aegis, that high priestesses wore during rites venerating the Mistress of Battles. I recognized her voice, too, as that of the woman Eurymedon and I had encountered months ago on the dunes.

  “Lady,” I breathed against the plaster.

  Some of the king’s men must have recognized her, too, or at least realized that she was no commonplace priestess to be intimidated and brushed aside. I heard them murmuring, and, beyond her silhouette, glimpsed them shifting on their feet, hesitating, finally withdrawing. Polydektes retreated last, having the last word. “Why did you run from me, Danaë? I meant only to honor you.” His anguish sounded genuine, but I was not deceived. “I wish to marry you and make you my queen. Please, come outside! Speak with me.”

  I gathered enough breath to shout, “I don’t want to marry you!”

  “Are you secretly married to Diktys, is that it?” I saw him on the steps, trying to circumvent the goddess for a glimpse inside. Hardheaded man, why must he automatically assume that I belonged to his brother? Was it not enough that I had invoked the protection of the almighty Lord Zeus, and that the Mistress of Owls herself had ordered him to desist?

  “Go away!” I cried. “Do you want me to die? Now Acrisius will come with ships and armed warriors to murder me and my son, because you betrayed me!” I sat up and pressed my back to the altar. “Go away, Polydektes! You demean yourself, pining after a poor weaver in a fishing village!”

  “Princess!” he pleaded.

  Athena put an end to the humiliating spectacle. “The daughter of Acrisius has spoken, son of Magnes. Leave this precinct.”

  She did not come to me afterward, as she had on the dunes. When I recovered enough to look again, Polydektes had vanished, and Iolanthe stood where the goddess had just been, shaking her head in bewilderment. “What’s happened?”

  I remained rooted to the altar, because now others came, neighbors clamoring at the door, asking whether I was all right, and whether they were permitted to enter. “Diktys!” I wanted answers, and wanted them now.

  My request caused a shuffling and shifting in the crowd, multiple voices asking where Diktys was, and meanwhile Iolanthe was begging for information.

  “You didn’t see it?” the neighbors asked.

  “Lady Athena was here.” I heard Luktia, breathless with reverence. “You’re blessed, Iolanthe. Athena borrowed your body. She was tall and magnificent, and the shawl you’re wearing—oh, she made an aegis of it.”

  Iolanthe sounded incredulous. “All that?”

  Other women chimed in. “You missed it!”

  “What did it feel like, having the goddess inside you?”

  Selenos’s lined face appeared at the doorjamb. “Dorea, lady—er, Princess, may we enter the sanctuary?”

  “Where’s Diktys?”

  “Someone’s gone to fetch him.”

  Then I heard Klymene calling out, “Coming through!” The crowd shifted, undulated, and reformed like water from which the old woman emerged. And there was Diktys, frantic, holding a club in one hand and Eurymedon’s wrist in the other. Across the sanctuary threshold they spilled, then Eurymedon was dashing into my arms crying, “Mother! There were soldiers!”

  Diktys, seeing where he was, and observing that I had claimed sanctuary at the altar, was more circumspect. “They surrounded the house and herded us inside, so we couldn’t get to you,” he explained. “Has Polydektes harmed you?”

  “Yes,” I replied through my son’s curls. “Everybody knows my secret now. Lady Athena stopped the king and his men at the door, but I don’t think she can stop my father from sending his soldiers to murder us.”

  “We won’t let them harm you, Lady!” This, from Myrtilis, who was not in a position to promise anything. Murmurs and shouts of agreement attended her remark. “Praise to blessed Athena! Praise to almighty Zeus!”

  I noticed then the offering table on the floor where I had tipped it over in my hastiness; the morning’s portion of milk and honey and grain had spilled all over the stucco. “Oh, no!” I righted the kernos with shaking hands, and tried to replace the grain, all sticky and wet, and the honey, but the milk soaked into the floor. I sobbed throughout. Wasted, all wasted, when Lady Athena had manifested herself for my sake!

  Diktys knelt beside me. “Dorea, stop this!” He grasped my hands, then shook me when I kept reaching for the spillage. “There’s no need. We will replace what’s ruined. People of Pelargos, bring offerings for Zeus and Lady Athena! Wine and honey, figs and milk! Find a goat for sacrifice. We must celebrate the miracle.”

  Only after the neighbors returned bearing vessels and libations to restore the food and drink offerings could anyone persuade me to leave the sanctuary. Someone brought water for me to wash with. Neighbors bent to mop up the mess and rearrange the ritual equipment. Eurymedon hugged my skirts. Likewise, Diktys refused to leave my side, and when the time came he led me from the sanctuary. “See? Polydektes is gone, and taken his unwanted gifts with him. Here, Iolanthe, walk on her other side. Lady Athena watches over us yet.”

  Iolanthe, I noticed, was still glowing; she hummed a sprightly tune as she twined her arm through mine. Two dozen women surrounded us, an honor guard worthy of the Women of the Mountain. Eurymedon stayed close, whereas on any other night he would have insisted on helping the men carry the torches.

  While the elders of the damos withdrew to bring the sacrificial animal, the young fishermen built a bonfire. The women insisted on placing me and Eurymedon on a pile of blankets in their midst, in the position of honor.

  “It was no secret,” Luktia said. “We’ve known for quite some time.”

  “And we haven’t forgotten how you arrived as a guest-friend, either,” Philagra added. “Pelargos’s very own gift from the sea.” Iolanthe nodded wordlessly; the experience of having been used as a divine vessel had left her dazed and speechless.

  “That was years ago,” I pointed out. “I wouldn’t want anyone here to risk themselves defying Polydektes on my behalf.”

  “You’re one of us.” Klymene found a seat in the sand next to me; someone had gone to fetch blankets and cooking utensils. “The obligation isn’t any less than it was then. Here, Eurymedon, stop fidgeting and let your mother have some peace.”

  Eurymedon instead stood and stared at us both. “Is Polydektes coming back?” Any other time, I might have found his stance—legs wide apart, his fists balled on his hips—amusing, but my nerves were entirely shot.

  “Never mind about him.” I held out an arm to embrace him, pull him close, a bird shielding her nestling under her wing, only he refused to comply. “Eurymedon,” I said sharply, “you will not make trouble.”

  He screwed up his mouth, but I saw how his lower jaw trembled, presaging tears. Little frightened him, so I knew he must have found being hemmed in, rendered helpless by the king’s men, a galling experience. I rocked him against my shoulder, murmuring into his curls, “You’re a brave young man. Always, my courageous son.”

  “But I couldn’t help you,” he blubbered. Snot dampened my garment where the sleeve met my collarbone. Later, he would feel ashamed over his tears. “The mean king was going to take you away!”

  “No, he wasn’t. Lady Athena made sure of that.” Half a dozen women had crowded around to stroke his hair, his back, to comfort him. They would spoil him. “You remember her, don’t you?” Eurymedon nodded pensively. “She wouldn’t want to see you crying, so dry your eyes now so you can reverence her during the sacrifice.”

  I did not expect any special honors, but when the time came, the elders asked me to dedicate the sacrifice,
to sprinkle the sacred barley meal on the goat’s head. I hesitated, but, remembering the goddess’s mercy, I scattered the meal and in a quavering voice uttered the customary prayer for all the immortals on Olympus.

  Selenos struck with the mallet. As the goat’s legs started to buckle, Diktys slashed its throat. Iolanthe caught the blood in a bowl to splash onto the fire; it sizzled before turning to smoke and cinders. The men butchered the carcass to wrap the choice thigh meats in fat to burn for the gods’ portion; a succulent odor of roasting meat and fat followed the blood offering to heaven as everyone skewered the remainders to cook in the bonfire. Someone brought three amphorae of wine. Women brought bread, onions, and cheese. We spoke together of marriages and babies to come, while the men exchanged fish-stories.

  Diktys stayed close a while, before vanishing into the darkness with a handful of men. Klymene informed me that he had posted sentries, himself taking the first watch.

  Everyone respected my wish for anonymity and protection, yet with the deepening hour and Dionysus’s gift of wine, the women started expressing their natural curiosity. Many confessed that they had never seen a princess outside the late queen mother’s rare appearances. Even the little girls who had playacted being Danaë stared.

  “And you think I look like a princess?” I exclaimed. “You’ve no idea what they look like, the highborn ladies of Argos. They’re like goddesses, those women. Fair skin from never taking in the sun. Perfumed skin, and so soft, because they never do menial labor. The king’s own mother wouldn’t have passed for a lady’s maid in Argos, so what do you think those ladies would have made of me with these weathered hands, this skin?” For emphasis, I displayed my work-roughened hands, their skin browned by exposure to Helios’s rays.

  Eurymedon gazed up at me. “That’s not true, Mother. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  I stroked his cheek. “That’s because you’ve never seen the inside of a palace or those who live there.” Yet I knew what he was thinking, and what the rest of them thought. For how could I know enough to describe the beauties of the Larissa if I had never experienced them myself. To this, I said, “Dorea’s never lived in a palace, never seen fine ladies, or worn gems or costly purple. The princess of Argos, yes, but that was years and years ago, and now she’s dead. Drowned. Do you understand?” I addressed my remarks first and foremost to my son, then to everyone else.

  “There are no princesses in Pelargos. No chests of alabaster, no banished royal daughters with golden hair or blue eyes. Polydektes has stitched this tale together from bards’ stories.” My audience hung on my every word; I could hear the crackle of the bonfire during my infrequent pauses. “Maybe he thinks it’s true. Maybe the king of Tiryns encouraged him. It’s not our concern. Let us give thanks to the gods for their mercy, and pray that no one else comes to disturb the peace.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Despite the best efforts of my neighbors, word spread, and inevitably curiosity seekers appeared. Pilgrims came from nearby towns bearing gifts for the sanctuary on account of Athena’s manifestation. Among the pious were the adventurers and busybodies, inquiring about the princess of Argos and the alabaster chest, to which the neighbors pretended ignorance. Before Diktys’s sentries, who became a permanent force, could force them to leave, they scurried to and fro trying to guess where the chest was hidden, and which of the village’s young women looked like the golden-haired, blue-eyed princess of the story.

  Some of the men clearly had amorous attentions, to judge by how slickly they approached the women. The coarse fishwives had a laugh conspiring against them, dropping hints that their brawny physiques and weathered looks might hide a princess; we younger women were more apprehensive and circumspect. Several times, Huamia’s daughter Agapia, now a wife and a new mother, found herself the target of lusty adventurers who insisted she must be a princess sitting atop a store of alabaster, gold, and precious stones.

  The storytellers and gossip mills of Pelargos, the sea captains and sailors, and the loquacious merchants—none of them knew how to account for the passage of time. Five years had passed since the event, and without exception they were all searching for a newborn. Athena only knew how shortsighted they might be in another ten years!

  I, too, attracted a share of would-be philanderers and worshippers, but, taking a cue from the fishwives, eluded those strangers by pretending dumbness, which worked except for one man who considered my muteness and apparent idiocy a complement to his aggressive advances; apparently women who could not speak to complain made perfect wives. I could easily have disabused him of his notions by laying a fist into his stomach, but dreaded the attention that might bring, so instead I encouraged the fishwives to roughhouse him.

  Other strangers, however, were not to be toyed with or so easily discouraged. Intimidating men driving chariots who observed from the heights, rarely coming down to disturb the peace of the village. Noblemen who, I had no doubt, knew exactly which of us women was the genuine princess of Argos, because I felt their eyes on me more surely than I ever did with the more intrusive strangers. Diktys identified them. Some were followers from Polydektes’ court, who wanted to look on the woman who obsessed their king to the exclusion of all others. The rest were representatives of the disaffected faction Diktys had mentioned long ago. They kept their distance, instead sending discreet messages promising support if he would marry me and overthrow his brother.

  Diktys burned all the messages, and sent no answer; he dared not chance being caught communicating with those noblemen. “Obviously they think my marrying you will conjure Acrisius’s support. What fools! The only ships and soldiers they’d receive would come from Proitus of Tiryns, to quash them.”

  Those noblemen were not my concern, as long as they stayed at a distance and did not involve Diktys or me and Eurymedon in their schemes. I had greater worries. Polydektes dared not return for months, but twice that autumn and winter he sent his steward, a portly man named Tetreus, to express his deepest respects and to continue wooing me with gifts and words on his behalf. Thank the gods his appearances, which, apart from his flowery private speeches, somehow never attracted the notice of any interlopers.

  Only one visitor ever saw through the charade, and that was an elderly gentleman who came by midnight and claimed to be a representative of Proitus. He showed me a wooden diptych whose wax closures bore my uncle’s seal before—to my greatest annoyance, because of his assumption that I was illiterate—handing it to Diktys to read. “To our dearest and fondest niece, Danaë, princess of Argos, greetings,” it began. In cloying tones, Proitus paid his respects. “That you dwell in a rough fishermen’s village among commoners distresses us to end.” I pictured a man resembling my father playacting and wringing his hands like a woman. “This is no befitting manner for a princess of Argos or her child, descendants of great Danaus, to live.”

  Diktys quirked his eyebrow at me. “We’re not exactly savages,” he commented, for the representative’s benefit. I, still miffed by the man’s insult, whether it was intended or not, did not reply. Proitus was about to offer me refuge, whatever that meant. I did not trust my uncle of Tiryns, and not merely because I had been indoctrinated against him since birth.

  Taking the diptych from Diktys, I read aloud the rest, much to the ambassador’s ill-suppressed discomfiture. Come home to your loving kinsmen of Tiryns. Yet when had Tiryns ever been my home? Why should Proitus care what became of Acrisius’s daughter and grandson, except to make sure they did not interfere with his ambitions?

  Metianor, the ambassador, produced rich presents on his master’s behalf: clothing, jewelry, and painted vessels that I could not possibly have any use for, and gifts suitable for a royal baby, at which I smothered an unladylike snort. Eurymedon, awakened by the visitor’s arrival, and already inured to rise around midnight for the fishermen’s run, anyway, peered through the curtain to investigate the commotion. Anyone with eyes could have seen he was no infant. Either Metianor was too d
ense to notice, or too courteous to comment.

  I brought the spectacle to a halt. Metianor might have been a guest, but his mission was not welcome, and was keeping the household from its usual routine. “Enough of this. Tell Proitus that I don’t need his gifts or the offer.”

  His bushy eyebrows leapt up, and his white whiskers quivered. “Surely, Princess, this lowly fishermen’s village is no fit place for you or the little prince to live!” He wrinkled his nose at what he imagined was the stench of rotten fish. “You and he would dwell in unparalleled luxury, surrounded by guards.” He considered for a moment, then, “My master has heard rumors that King Polydektes has subjected you to all manner of harassment, that he importunes you for your hand in marriage, when by custom he ought to approach your elder kinsmen for this honor. And then, of course, there is the not-insignificant matter of your living with this man—”

  Diktys harrumphed at the dismissive gesture Metianor offered along with the insinuation that we dwelt together in debauchery. “Sir, you forget that I am a prince of Seriphos, son of Magnes, not some lawless savage. This woman lives here in strict chastity under my protection. She is chaperoned by my elderly aunt, the Lady Klymene, and the other matrons of the village. I have never touched her.”

  Metianor obviously thought little of Seriphian royalty, because without acknowledging Diktys’s comment he again turned to me. “Princess, you and your son belong in the court of the king, where his daughters might attend you, and with their clever hands undo the damage this primitive living has wrought upon you.”

  What falsehood was this? “Proitus’s daughters?” I asked. “I heard they went mad and disappeared into the wilderness years ago.”

  “Yes, my lady, but they have since been cured of their afflictions and returned to their father’s house,” Metianor explained. “You had not heard? The kingdom of Tiryns has since been partitioned between the king’s son and sons-in-law as thank offerings to Queen Hera, who blesses the endeavors of the rulers of Tiryns.”