by Laura Gill
Night fell before the men returned. Diktys wasted no time in giving me the news. “Ariston saw a young man come into the sanctuary early this morning, but nobody saw him leave. He just...disappeared.” Ariston was the high priest of Zeus in Ganema. “I have contacts there who’ll search the road ahead and the seaports, and keep an ear out for news, but they can’t promise anything.”
With the women bustling around us, working to get food into the foot-weary men, I drew Diktys aside to probe further. “I’ve been thinking about the king’s threat. How will he know whether or not Eurymedon’s run away? How long does he have?”
“Polydektes won’t know anything till a year and a day have passed.” Diktys accepted a skewer of grilled octopus and onions.
I asked the elders for permission to sleep that night in the sanctuary, where, I hoped, the eternal presence of the gods and a generous enough offering might induce them to send me some sign that Eurymedon was safe. I had half a mind to ask for the horse reserved for Polydektes’ wedding gift to Hippodamia, but in the end decided a lamb would serve just as well for the blood offering. Luktia and Philagra helped me make up a cot while Diktys prepared the knife and fire for the sacrifice. Questions brimmed on the women’s lips that I left unanswered except to say that Eurymedon had fled in hopes of making his fortune.
Both tsk-tsked my wayward son’s lack of consideration. “Slipping out in the night with nary a goodbye for his mother,” Philagra muttered.
I wielded the sacrificial knife that dispatched the drugged animal, and collected in a basin the steaming blood with which to anoint the idols. Acting as priestess never came easy, despite my training. “Eagle-eyed Zeus, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, here is the hero’s portion of the burnt offering. Look to your son Eurymedon. Look to his mother, who suffers for want of knowing his fate.”
I sprinkled droplets of blood onto the sanctuary’s threshold. Fat dripped and sizzled in the sacred fire.
My bare feet drummed the packed earth around the altar. “Hera, Queen of Heaven, Lady of the Hundred-Eyed Peacocks, here is blood and succulent fat to nourish you. Take mercy on a mother afraid for her child.” Another splash of blood onto the threshold. “Athena, Mistress of the Owls, Aegis-Bearing Goddess, here is blood and bone to tempt you. Attend the feast. Be moved by this mother’s plea for mercy.”
I washed my hands and the ritual equipment, and put them away before bidding Diktys and the women good-night and shutting the sanctuary doors; he posted sentries outside. Dousing the lamps, I bedded down under the fleeces. A single brazier burned by the altar, illuminating the idols and votaries, lending an eerie shadow-play in which they seemed to move. I smelled the blood offering congealing. Suddenly I felt insignificant, even insolent for asking the immortals to attend me, a lone woman, when they almost certainly had much greater concerns.
Only vague dreams visited that night, fragments of distorted memories of the day. So Diktys summoned Leukothea. The priestess came straightaway from town to stay with me the following night, during which she offered a salient piece of advice. “Remember, the gods can be capricious even with those they love. Perhaps they will answer your prayers with a dream or send a sign to thank you for the burnt offering. Perhaps Athena will manifest here again. But perhaps they will do nothing.” She then took my hands in her wrinkled, age-spotted ones. “Ask them for strength instead.”
*~*~*~*
Eleven months passed without word. Where Eurymedon had filled my heart, there was now an aching void. Diktys often left his work early to sit with me by the hearth or in the weaving house, where, when the king’s work was being done, Keremaia tolerated his presence. When the weather was fair, he persuaded me to walk with him along the shore to dabble my bare toes in the surf. Sometimes we waded further out; I had learned to swim along with Eurymedon years ago, and had come to like the sensation of floating in the warm ocean as long as we remained in shallow water.
Sometimes, when I waded out, I submerged myself in the shallow depths and cried where only Poseidon and the Nereids, the daughters of Ocean, could see. I had wept among my friends when the loss was fresh, but with each passing day I felt pressured to leave my grief behind. Yet this bereavement was not the same as when Klymene had died. There was no tomb to weep over, to receive prayers or grave offerings, only my son’s scent in the coverings he had left behind, or the memory of his heavy tread outside, or the warmth of his skin after he had labored a few hours in the sun.
“He may yet be alive.” When Diktys said that, I fixed a smile on my lips and pretended to believe him.
Of late, the king’s agents appeared on the heights, their menacing presence reinforcing Polydektes’ threat to sell us all into slavery if Eurymedon did not meet the deadline. Another sharp reminder of Eurymedon’s unknown fate. If he died, I would not know when or how or where, or whether any kindly stranger was present to cover him with earth and say the prayers so that he would not wander forever as a tormented shade.
Diktys faced more temporal concerns, and in this matter he realized that he had no choice but to finally confide in the elders. Not surprisingly, they summoned both of us to the sanctuary, where they rendered their most important decisions, and wasted no time venting their anger. “Eurymedon’s run away and abandoned us. Left us to pay the penalty,” Pikreus grumbled.
I was quick to defend my son. “No, he spoke of fulfilling the quest.”
“So what if he has?” Erikles, Huamia’s husband and the late Hilarion’s son-in-law, had been consecrated as an elder just seven months ago. “No one’s ever slain a Gorgon that we know about. He’s dead.” I winced. “Even if he’s not dead, if he doesn’t come home before the term is up, our lives are forfeit.”
Diktys raised his hands for peace. “I tried to negotiate better terms for the village, but the king insisted on collateral.”
Erikles shook a finger at him. “And you neglected to tell us?”
Old Selenos, seated on a footstool in the place of honor nearest the altar, cleared his throat for attention. “What difference would it have made whether he told us ten months ago or now? We’re in the same mess either way.”
“Thanks to that foolish boy,” Pikreus said.
At that, I stood, less from an impulse to defend Eurymedon, and more from a need to resolve the situation. “The king won’t sell any of you into slavery. If I have to, I will go to him in Chora and offer myself. It’s not you he wants to hurt, but me.”
Diktys’s sudden and violent reaction came as no surprise. “No! I forbid it.”
I remained standing. “Who are you to tell me no? You’re neither husband nor father, nor any other kinsman.”
Striding over, he loomed above me. “I am your sworn brother!”
We argued all the way home, a pair of magpies squawking in the night. At the door, before I could turn the latch, he seized my shoulders to spin me about. “I forbid this, Danaë.” His use of my old name startled me. “If you go to my brother, I will have no choice but to challenge him for the sake of your reputation.”
“I’m too old for anyone to care about my honor, or for me to care what Polydektes thinks.” I unlatched the door. “Let him think we’re living together as man and wife. But I must do something to protect the neighbors if Eurymedon doesn’t meet the deadline.” The argument had become cyclical, and wearisome. “We’ve said all this before.”
Diktys fed the hearth embers. “Then promise you won’t do anything without consulting me first. There may be a way to avoid this.”
I could agree to that, at least. “I didn’t mean I would submit to Polydektes first thing tomorrow morning. Only as a last resort. And who knows? He might very well reject me, now that he’s wooing Hippodamia.”
Diktys answered with a grunt. “I put nothing past my brother. Just don’t lose yourself to some misguided notion of self-sacrifice.”
I lay awake for most of the night, staring up into the blackness between the rafters. Hypnos and Morpheus had become strangers in the last year. Dikt
ys’s promise to challenge Polydektes on my behalf disturbed rather than inspired me. If he was going to oppose his brother—and I had long believed that he should—he ought to do it for his own reasons, for his people’s sake, not for mine.
What brave thoughts! I dared not hope to be so confident or defiant when the time came to prostrate myself before Polydektes. He was playing me still, despite his public claims about Hippodamia. Concede defeat at a woman’s hands? He would never let me go. And I would eventually submit, if circumstances demanded, as a final, desperate resort. Eurymedon was no longer a child who needed his mother; he was no longer around to be threatened or disappointed. The village needed this sacrifice to continue; it was time to repay the guest-friendship I had enjoyed.
Of this, I said nothing to Diktys when the elders summoned us back to the sanctuary. Just as well that I did not, because while Diktys and I had argued, Selenos found a solution.
“The king’s cruelty is well known,” he said. “If this was a scheme to be rid of Eurymedon, then neither Diktys nor Dorea could have prevented it.” The other elders remained impassive; they wanted to hear the proposed remedy before passing judgment. “Diktys, take Dorea away from Pelargos. Take her to some remote sanctuary where Polydektes can’t touch her. Ganema and Sykamia both have sanctuaries to Zeus.”
Once the other elders agreed, Selenos led us all in a libation of his own personal sour vintage to Zeus, for as the elderly man explained to me, “Lady Athena protected you once, but it’s been ten years. Polydektes may have forgotten how to fear and respect her, but surely even he would think twice about offending Zeus.”
“And what will you do?” I asked. “I’m not the only one threatened.”
Selenos betrayed no emotion. “Whatever we can do. It might not be so bad if you’ve gone elsewhere.”
I privately doubted that Polydektes would soften toward the villagers even if I fled. Might he not assume that the neighbors had secret knowledge of my whereabouts? Might he not make an example of them, anyway? “You should also flee,” I told him.
Selenos offered a tight smile. “If we all escape, who will go out in the boats? Who will tend my vines? Don’t worry, Dorea—and don’t cry. We’re not entirely defenseless. Diktys has very powerful friends.”
I left the meeting feeling horrible, more tormented by guilt than I had ever been since hearing Polydektes’ grim terms.
We made our plans in secret, Diktys and I, so that no one should be able to give us away if Polydektes tried to torture the information from them. Diktys would not risk giving anything away by appearing to leave the village himself, but used intermediaries, men and women I did not recognize, to correspond with his supporters; they came by night from the hills or along the beach. We met behind the sanctuary, in thick groves of olives, or behind boulders in little coves where the village boys liked to swim. Whispers were exchanged, names never given, and though Diktys trusted in the vague assurances he received, to me the intrigue was foreign, the directions obscure, and the outcome uncertain.
“Are you sure about this?” I kept asking him.
“I know these people,” he kept answering, without telling me who they were. Thus far, the neighbors seemed not to suspect anything, and he had not even informed the elders that he was contacting outsiders to make arrangements. Yet I did not trust that Polydektes, who had spies everywhere, did not somehow know what was afoot.
Once, Diktys went alone to meet someone, and was gone so long that I feared for his safety. I waited until the waiting became unbearable, then, hoping I was not making a foolish mistake, armed myself with a knife and cudgel and crept outside. A gibbous moon provided just enough illumination for me to maneuver around the houses. Determination to find out what was going on conflicted with my instinctive fear of running into trouble in the dark. Was it a mistake, venturing outside?
Nonsense. Staying or going made no difference if danger threatened. I paused, hearing a night-noise. The tread of footsteps on the sandy, uneven ground? Goats browsing in their nearby pen? Perspiration dampened my smock, filmed my underarms and the back of my neck. I shivered despite my shawl. Uncertainty magnified the sound, whatever it was, and the perpetual ebb and crash of the ocean, Poseidon’s gift to aspiring conspirators, hindered me now.
What did I expect to find, when Diktys had not even informed me who he was meeting or exactly where? Reconsidering, I returned to the house.
To find Diktys standing by the hearth waiting for me. “Where have you been?”
My heart leapt. “I-I thought I heard something.” What an idiot I was, and what an imbecile he would think me if I told him the truth. Yet to judge from the skeptical look he gave me, who stood there with cudgel and knife in hand, proclaiming her guilt, he already half-guessed.
“I didn’t mean to be gone so long,” he said quietly. “There is news you might find interesting.” He waited for me to set down my weapons and take my seat by the hearth. “You remember the tithe of horses my brother was collecting to woo the princess of Pisatis with?” Gossip did not interest me. “Polydektes’ emissaries have been going back and forth between Pisatis and Chora trying to negotiate a betrothal without the hassle of that pointless chariot race.”
“I know that.”
Diktys harrumphed as he sat down. “No, you don’t, Dorea. All you know is that my brother’s officials collected the horses and took them to be cared for and broken in on royal lands, and that a few emissaries sailed away toward the mainland. My agents have been watching the port, listening for news. Polydektes sent his latest delegation a month ago. Why would he do that, when the last emissary surely informed him that the princess is already married? What need for negotiations, then, when Oenomaus is dead, killed racing against some Lydian prince who apparently sabotaged the linchpin of the old man’s chariot? Prince Pelops rules Pisatis now.”
My mind worked slowly. “Polydektes is continuing the fiction? Is it because his pride has been wounded?”
“Or his courtship of the princess was never a real thing. He has other plans for those horses.” Diktys shook his head. “I can’t imagine what, though. You need room for horses and chariots to be effective. Argos is excellent chariot country. Whatever flat terrain Seriphos has, is already held by my brother’s loyal companions.”
I was no strategist as far as horses, chariots, and fighting men was concerned. “And about the arrangements?”
Diktys nodded. “The high priest of Zeus is prepared to receive us when we arrive. He’s a man to trust.”
“When?”
“When I tell you.”
Infernal man. Only common sense kept me from pummeling him; I reasoned that if Diktys kept secrets, then he must have a good reason. “We have only six days left.”
Diktys remained infuriatingly calm. “It will be before then.”
“I should be preparing, doing something.” Letting others arrange things for me was to surrender control.
“No, you shouldn’t,” he said. “Anything you do out of the ordinary will attract attention.” Reaching over, he clasped my hands in his. “Patience, Dorea. It won’t be much longer.” Then he leaned in and whispered. “We’re fleeing to a sanctuary, not plotting to overthrow my brother. And who says I entirely trust my contacts?”
Sleeplessness plagued me. I relied on herbal remedies to try to rest, and to keep the demons of disease and madness away. Dozing restored enough of my energy to let me function during the day, but Diktys, fearing my attracting unwanted attention, kept me idle and housebound. What did I care if Polydektes knew that I prayed daily in the sanctuary for Eurymedon’s safe and timely return, or if he knew how many sleepless nights I suffered? What did it matter to him that I had started sweating at night, or that my moon courses were no longer regular? That Luktia had noticed the beginnings of graying hairs on my head? Let him be repulsed by the notion of my getting older and becoming a crone. Perhaps then he would stop his scheming.
Late the next afternoon, as Diktys returned home for supper,
he bent close and whispered, “Tonight.”
Nothing else. No details on where to go or what to pack, only a curt shake of the head when I, preparing for a cold night outdoors, started rolling up a fleece. “Only the clothing you need,” Diktys murmured. He himself packed almost nothing beyond his cloak and a waterskin. I wondered why he left behind his spear.
“Because a woman and a spear in a boat looks suspicious.” He maintained the practice of whispering.
“Boat?” I mouthed.
We set out with the neighbors as if to join the activity of the midnight run. I passed familiar faces with what I hoped was a blank countenance on mine. Could they sense the tension roiling in my stomach? Would they notice me climbing into a boat with Diktys? Poseidon was not as welcoming of women in his domain, so the village women rarely ventured out in the fishing boats with the men; not even the fishwives went.
I tried not to dwell on this as we left the lantern lights behind and melted into the shadows fringing the shore. Diktys had left a smaller boat hidden on the beach below the dunes where the Posidaeia shrine stood silhouetted against the midnight sky. The smell of sea daffodils competed with the tang of ocean brine and the pitch with which the fishermen had caulked the boat. I expected to have to help Diktys push the boat into the surf; he helped me clamber into the boat instead, and hauled the vessel into the black sea himself before climbing aboard to take the oars.
Poseidon’s realm was dreadful and mysterious in the darkness. The boat rocked with every gentle swell, and though I was confident enough in my swimming skills to know I would not drown should we capsize, I could not help my instinctive need to cling to the sides. The lanterns on the beach appeared as small as candles now; those hanging from the other fishermen’s boats cast reflections on the water, like myriad fireflies.