Danae

by Laura Gill

  By day, I prayed over my handiwork until my vision strained and my whispered prayers became nonsensical noise. By night, even by the holy altar, I slept badly. Morpheus delivered fragmented dreams populated with serpents and stone people and severed heads that spoke in spouts of blood. A demon anointed my eyelids with poison. A priest in strange garments chained me naked to a rock to await a sea monster, and in that dream I became the girl I had seen many nights before, doomed to be overwhelmed, devoured, compelled to pay for the impieties of others. I woke dispirited, wiping away tears, and sought comfort in hard labor: sweeping the floors throughout the sanctuary, grinding corn and making bread, spinning wool.

  I finished the weaving on a day of heavy downpour. After smoothing the cloth and securing the edges, I carried the heavy length of it into the megaron in order to avail myself of the light and warmth while attaching the fringe. Ariston and Samos both admired the colors and skill of the weaving, and agreed to exceed the daily ration of fuel to keep the hearth fire burning hot and bright. “This garment will certainly please almighty Zeus,” Ariston said. “He has worn that finery well above five years now.” He nodded toward the xoanon’s scarlet robes.

  Affixing the fringe did not take long, yet when the time came to carry out the dedication I asked Ariston to drape the garment in my stead. “I do not trust myself not to make a mistake.” I held up my trembling hands.

  “You do not eat enough,” he pointed out.

  That was not what I wished to hear. “The xoanon belongs to the priests of the sanctuary. You should know best how to touch the god. My woman’s hands might offend.” I waited for an answer, my bundled, work-weary hands folded in my lap. Let him not argue that as the beloved of Zeus my touch afforded the greatest honor. I had never laid hands upon the god, neither in waking nor in the realm of dreams.

  We did not proceed directly to the altar, but took care and time to prepare ourselves. I washed myself with the little water rationed to me for that purpose, and donned my best, draping the indigo shawl around my shoulders for extra warmth. Ariston in his chamber dressed in the robes of the high priest: a fringed garment of scarlet and blue wrapped over his everyday white robe, and on his head sat a polos headdress hung with goat hair tassels dyed bright colors. Samos wore a lesser version of the same, his headdress shabby and losing its shape.

  Ariston gave me wine in a specially painted kylix to drink before the ceremony. “To warm your blood, Lady.”

  The elixir of the grape raced through my veins, spreading a flush of heat under my skin and enveloping my head in a surge of dizziness. I blinked hard several times in an attempt to regain my equilibrium. “How much water did you use?” Bitter dregs soured the back of my throat. “You did cut it, didn’t you?”

  “Very little.” Ariston took my arm to steady me. “We, too, have drunk. We come before the immortals as celebrants.” He led me over to the hearth, where bits of fresh flatbread, crumbles of cheese, dollops of honey, and desiccated olives sat in a painted dish.

  Samos and I took our usual places on the footstools at the hearth. Ariston, remaining on his feet, raised the platter and kylix. “Great Zeus, Lord of Heaven, Lord of Thunder, Lord of Sworn Oaths, we priests, your devoted servants of Ganema, come tonight to feast in your honor. Here we have the gift of wine.” He drank before passing the kylix down to Samos, who then passed it to me. “We are your pious adorants. We remember that you are our divine father, who brings and withholds the life-giving rain, who protects strangers and oversees the taking of sacred oaths. Let us bring you the best this sanctuary has to offer.”

  Samos rose at this cue, and together the priests slowly unfolded the striped, fringed cloth for the xoanon’s admiration. “Here is a new garment, almighty one, made by the pious hands of the beloved Danaë,” Ariston chanted. “Here she comes, great Zeus, to sing a paean of praise while your consecrated servants anoint and dress you.”

  The priests had earlier taught me the words; the hymn was as ancient as water-worn stone, and required neither rhythm nor a good voice. I had but to clap my hands and put all my effort behind my singing.

  Dressing the xoanon consisted of several ritual steps. Earlier, the priests had moved footstools alongside the life-sized idol to facilitate the removal of its present finery and ornamentation. Spreading the newly created garment on the altar, where the xoanon’s painted eyes could observe it and know that the indignity of its nakedness was but temporary, the priests climbed onto the stools and, chanting the same paean as I, carefully unfastened the pins holding the immortal’s scarlet raiment in place and unwound it. Rough-hewn wood formed the xoanon’s body; the carpenters who had carved the idol’s head and attached the clay feet had left the torso, which was to be hidden under draperies, unworked except for a wooden phallus which gave the xoanon its male potency. Never suspecting that male xoana were thus equipped, and embarrassed to see the god in this state of undress, I averted my eyes.

  Just as well that I exercised prudence, for the act of anointing the xoanon with fragrant unguent extended to this appendage. Ariston performed this duty himself, duly praising the vigor of the god’s immortal loins. “Here is the staff of life, the vigor of the lion, the strength of the bull, the holy seed that nourishes that goddess’s earth.”

  Thank the goddess the high priest did not think to ask me to perform this task; Hera surely would have objected. I glanced at the zigzag lightning of the supporting columns, at the wall frescoes, which could have used freshening, and concentrated on letting the wine go to my head. When my gaze returned to the altar, the xoanon stood wrapped in my handiwork, and Ariston was fastening about its neck a ponderous necklace of amber and reddish gold. I had to agree that the idol looked regal in its striped, fringed robes, and that the ornament complimented the many bands of color.

  “That is the finest piece of jewelry ever donated to the sanctuary,” Ariston told me afterward, removing his headdress. “Many years ago, the old queen of Seriphos and her three daughters took refuge here when Magnes killed her husband. I was but a boy of seven, newly dedicated to the sanctuary. I remember them, though, the queen and the princesses. Beautiful women, all of them, even the widowed queen who was dying. A man did not become king in those days unless he married the queen, you see, so Magnes should have wed the eldest daughter. Perhaps he would have married all of them and legitimized his kingship, but that is not what happened.”

  “And they would have stabbed him to death on their wedding night,” Samos finished. “You never waited on them, Ariston, but I had the dubious honor of washing their chamber pots and bringing them lamps when they complained of the bad light. When the queen died, they squabbled with each other over who should marry the conqueror and stick a knife through his heart. Magnes might have been crude and ruthless, but he was no fool. Ridding himself of every stalk and leaf of the old line meant quashing all resistance. I have no doubt that he had them quietly murdered and concealed their bodies to avoid recrimination.”

  Ariston’s brows puckered into a frown. “Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that they complained often.”

  I wondered why the high priest chose to tell that story now. “Polydektes would execute me as surely as Magnes executed those women.” My head hurt from the wine; it had not lightened my mood, but exacerbated my despair. “I am not afraid of dying, only I do not think my death would stop the unrest outside.”

  “Wine makes you morose, Lady,” Ariston observed. “You are nothing like the princesses. You never complain about anything. You ask nothing for yourself. If Zeus should deign to protect any of us mortals in this bleak hour, it should be you.”

  Another word of praise and I would burst into tears. Then Samos suddenly sputtered with laughter—an old man’s thin, raspy laugh—and said, “The night is stormy and bleak enough without us sharing our woes.”

  *~*~*~*

  With no wool left to spin, no loom task to occupy my thoughts, and finally feeling the effects of rationing, I spent the days listless, lyin
g on the cot Ariston and Samos dragged into the megaron. I could have sewed brand-new tunics from the linen and wool in storage for the priests or embroidered panels to decorate their robes with, but now it was all I could manage to groom myself, grind corn into flour, and sweep the floors.

  Winter meant inertia, hibernation, dreams of underground dens and slumbering serpents. Like the Mistress, I kept reassuring myself, I would rise with the spring. Yet how would that happen without a miracle? I tried to think of happier things, what I wanted most—to take in sunshine and fresh air, to do laundry, to wash my hair—but invariably my thoughts betrayed me, cycled around to the friends I would never see again. So I tried to empty my mind entirely.

  “What you need is mutton broth to strengthen your blood,” Ariston said. He often did this now, prescribed remedies for my lethargy, and herbs from the stores, and red wine, although I argued that he should reserve that for the god’s libations.

  “I never liked mutton broth,” I mumbled. “It reminds me of when I was little, sick with plague, when my mother and little brother died.” Speaking itself had become a chore, but I endeavored to communicate. I could not always dwell in my head. “That was what started all this: my banishment from Argos, Eurymedon, my coming to Seriphos, my being here in the sanctuary with you and Samos. So no mutton broth.”

  “You would like the way Theano makes it.” Ariston grew thoughtful, regretting what he said. His mouth drooped, and he said no more. I reached across and took his hand. The strain told on the priests, also.

  Ariston nodded woodenly. Because neither he nor Samos had shaven in weeks, and washing had become a luxury of bygone days, the elegant priest I had first encountered in the middle of autumn had devolved into a scraggly hermit. He was not the sort who used his connection with the god to threaten immortal vengeance, or to blame Zeus for his troubles or mine. All he could do was admit his mortal ignorance. “The Fates weave their threads, and we can only grope in the dark. I wish I had paid more attention to Theano.”

  He stared down at his hands with their broken, bitten fingernails. “Our fathers arranged the marriage. I was not ready for a wife. I had ambitions, you see, and she... She was such a flighty thing, gossipy.”

  “She still is, Ariston, not was. Just like Eurymedon.” Saying the words kept the embers alive. “I know it’s hard to have faith. I dream of Eurymedon. I see him in caves, on the rocks by the sea, flying through the air, walking with a girl, and I think Morpheus torments me with buried longings, but then it seems to me that’s how the gods choose to comfort us when we have lost loved ones.” Empty platitudes, false wisdom. Who was I to try to explain what the gods did? A priestess? Phileia and Ktimene and Leukothea and my great-aunt Kitane, who was probably dead after all these years, would have howled laughing at that notion. A disgraced novice, a mother without a son, a supplicant who brought trouble wherever she went.

  I should have just stuck with asserting that times would soon be better. I should have simply reassured Ariston that our loved ones were all right, and that I regularly prayed for their safety, and left it at that.

  *~*~*~*

  Samos rushed into the megaron at the same time we heard the fighting start just outside the sanctuary.

  “They would not dare!” he shouted, but Ariston and I, standing at the hearth exchanging glances, knew that was just words.

  Clashing bronze and the shouts of men drew terrifyingly near. Something hard, most likely someone’s body, thumped the doors. Then a fist pounded against the hard oak, and a man’s voice, sickeningly familiar, called out, “Before all the gods, Danaë, I am your king and rightful husband, and I demand you come out!”

  Polydektes. My breath caught in my throat. At last he had come! At last I had some chance of negotiating a peace. Yet I dared not move or even breathe for fear he would sense my presence in the vestibule.

  I am your rightful king and husband. So Polydektes did not intend to murder me. Knowing that alleviated one uncertainty while awakening others. I leaned against the wall and teethed my knuckles in hurried contemplation. Where had Diktys gotten to that he could not prevent this? Why should I even bother? I could not rely on him to extricate me from this situation any more than I could anyone else, because whatever option I grasped at invariably came full circle and ended with me surrendering to Polydektes.

  “Only you can stop this, Danaë. No one else.” My heart jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar masculine voice behind me. Samos, holding a lamp, stood at the end of the corridor, yet I realized to my utter astonishment that the priest draped in the xoanon’s fringed garment exuded an aura of extraordinary authority.

  “My Lord Zeus.” I let the name fall from my lips.

  He neither confirmed nor denied it, but that voice, deep and mellifluous, triggered long-buried memories of a silvery-golden oak tree. “You accomplish nothing by hiding here.”

  Once my initial amazement passed, my long-simmering resentment against the god allowed me to clear away some of the cobwebs. “Am I to submit, then? Where were you when Polydektes betrayed Eurymedon?”

  “Always questioning, always challenging me.” His displeasure rolled toward me like a thunderclap, the kind of reprimand to make a mortal lose her bladder. I hung on, nonetheless, pressing my palms flat against the wall behind me in order to brace myself. Zeus’s taut smile offered no reassurance. “Do you expect the gods to answer your every prayer simply because we have answered some? You are no weakling, Danaë. You have choices. Why should I intervene unless you are completely defeated, helpless, unable to do more—which you clearly are not. Trapped here in the sanctuary, you think?” He laughed harshly. “Only by your own will. You could open the doors and walk free right now. You even possess the means to accomplish something all of Seriphos’s fighting men combined cannot, but you are blind.”

  Perhaps it was all true, but just then a single thought dominated, momentarily overriding my apprehension. “Is my son alive?”

  “That is not for you to ask, mortal woman!”

  I gritted my teeth. Warm liquid ran down my leg. I squeezed my eyes shut from the shame of voiding my bladder before an immortal god. “Is he alive?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  My hands quaked so violently that I could barely manage to comb my hair or fasten the colorful beads around my neck. Time was running short. I did what I could in the near-darkness of my room to arrange my hair and scrub away embarrassing traces of urine, but in the end, with the banging on the door becoming increasingly loud, I admitted that I looked and smelled rank, and that nothing short of a long, hot soak or a goddess’s intervention would make me presentable.

  Rushing back to the megaron, I found Ariston and Samos standing before the central hearth watching the doors. Breathing deeply, I strode quickly over to Ariston and kissed his cheek, then repeated the gesture with Samos, who seemed not to have realized that the god had spoken through him; the xoanon wore the striped garment again.

  “Bless me,” I said.

  Ariston frowned. “Lady, what...?”

  Offering neither explanation nor the opportunity to stop me, I hastened into the vestibule. The pounding of fists continued. I noticed congealing blood that had seeped in from the slaughter on the aithousa.

  “What are you doing?” Ariston and Samos had since rushed to my side. “You cannot let them desecrate the sanctuary.”

  There was no time for lengthy explanations. “I must reason with Polydektes. Zeus has reminded me that I have a choice. I choose to act.” The insanity of what I was saying was reflected in the priests’ expressions.

  Ariston strode over to the door and banged his fist against the sturdy oak. “Stop this at once!” he shouted to the men outside. “Stand back. We yield. The princess will come out.”

  A hush swiftly descended on the scene. I pictured the men outside exchanging glances and scratching their heads. The next voice I heard belonged not to Polydektes, but to Deiphontes. “King Polydektes will not tolerate any trickery. The princess come
s out, or we will come inside to get her and execute you.”

  “Let me remind you that I am a high priest of Zeus, and that you have defiled sacred ground.” Ariston clearly relished the chance to harangue our tormentors. “What trickery do you think two unarmed men and a defenseless woman are capable of? We will open the doors. I will come out first, to make sure it is safe for the princess to follow without being molested. Now remove yourselves from the aithousa.”

  Together, he and Samos lifted the bronze latch and release the doors. Ariston nodded to me. “I will greet them first, Lady.” He gathered his bedraggled robes around him and then stepped through the gap with as much priestly dignity as he could muster.

  I watched his back, half-expecting blood to bloom against the white wool. The king’s men had withdrawn. “Men of Seriphos,” he called. “The Princess Danaë of her own free will, at the urging of almighty Zeus himself, has agreed to submit herself to King Polydektes.”

  “Then let her come, Priest!” Polydektes’ voice echoed across the distance, reaching me in the vestibule. “Now that the rebel threat has been eliminated, she has our guarantee of safe conduct and gentle treatment.”

  I took Samos’s hand and we stepped onto the aithousa. It was eerily silent, the air bracingly cold, mildewed with the promise of showers to come. We navigated around a half-dozen fallen bodies and through puddles of gore. Polydektes had spoken of eliminating the rebel threat. Diktys must have dispatched men to prevent Polydektes from battering down the doors. More bodies lay sprawled along the path to the boundary stones; the fighting had only ended on the aithousa. The king had come in force. I could scarcely see the townspeople through the ranks of the king’s men with their ox-hide shields and gleaming spears.