Danae

by Laura Gill

  Diktys was silent, contemplative; he needed several moments before he could speak. “I fear I misjudged you, when I should have known better. But I was in pain, you see, and so far away from everything, I didn’t know what to believe.” Lost, he frowned; the worry lines grooved on his forehead and alongside his jowls showed the strain. But then, unexpectedly, his mouth quirked into a familiar, lopsided grin, and his eyes twinkled. “You were going to kill him with kindness? Shades of our mother, he would have suffered!”

  His laughter went a long way toward dispelling the tension; it proved infectious, too, because I chuckled with him.

  “I needed that,” he said after a moment. “The laughter, the conversation. My fool brother.” A ponderous sigh escaped him. “Had he only left well enough alone, he’d still be alive and king, and I would still be living a quiet life by the sea.” He spread his hands, thick with calluses and splotched with broken blood vessels. “I never wanted this—this rebellion, or the burden of kingship. Power makes good men hard and cruel.”

  A tense silence followed, in which he brooded and I commiserated. At last, he looked up at me. “Dorea, what will you do now that you are free?”

  His question caught me unprepared. “I’ve not given it much thought,” I admitted. “Probably accompany my son and wife wherever they go, though I am not looking forward to returning to Argos and seeing my father again.”

  “Then don’t go. There’s no reason for you to leave, and every reason to stay.” Diktys reached across the table for my hand. “A king needs a queen, someone to act as mistress of the house and high priestess, and be a mother to the children. I cannot do this alone. A king has no friends, whereas I as a fisherman had many. I lie awake at night now dreading the coming years, slowly fading from the crushing burdens and the loneliness.”

  He stared at his empty hand, no doubt wondering why I hesitated to fill it with my own. “I know you’ve no wish to marry. And besides, we’ve lived as brother and sister for so many years that we might as well have shared the same womb, but I have to confess, there’s always been a part of me that’s loved you from the beginning. I want you—only you—at my side as my wife.”

  Taking his hand was such an easy thing to do, and yet so hard. “In the sanctuary, Zeus himself appeared in the body of the old priest and told me I had work to accomplish. I took that to mean that I should thwart Polydektes and help those I could. I never thought becoming queen was a thing I should enjoy.”

  “Then you understand what it is to be worthy of a kingdom.” Diktys offered a hopeful smile. “Think, if you will be my wife, we could do great things together as king and queen of Seriphos. Those whom my brother oppressed, we can compensate. We can rebuild Pelargos, better than before, and bring back its people. We can raise my nieces and nephews the way they should be raised, to be pious and industrious.” Then he halted. “Of course, you needn’t answer right away. I asked you to remain inconspicuous and above scrutiny for this reason, so no one would ask questions later if you agreed. Eurymedon says the gods are in accord, but if you have doubts about any oaths you might have taken to Zeus, you have no obligation to say yes. We are still brother and sister.”

  His rambling brought a smile to my face, as well as a flush of warmth. “Not if I say yes.” I had begun to feel somewhat coquettish. “You’re not going to lavish me with gifts and tell me I’m the most beautiful princess in the world?”

  Diktys started, his eyes widened, but then he laughed. “Would draping you in gold and jewels help my cause?”

  “It might.” I began fluttering my eyelashes, then abandoned the whole ridiculous pretense with a chuckle. “It might also help you to know that I am not tied to the god. It seems I never was.” Sober contemplation replaced humor. “I wish I had known earlier. We could have lived in peace. Eurymedon never would have had to undertake this awful quest. He wouldn’t now be threatening to confront his grandfather.”

  The gentle pressure of Diktys squeezing my fingers brought me back to myself. “Was it fate, or something else?”

  “It’s time to let Eurymedon go, along with any regrets,” Diktys urged. “For my part, I have none. I knew from the moment I first laid eyes on you that I wanted you, that we were meant to be together. Whether as brother and sister or husband and wife, none of that matters. Only what you want, now that you’re free.”

  His hand holding mine and his reassuring arms around me were what I wanted; the rest we could negotiate later. A future that was mine to choose, where I did not have to sacrifice my own desires or constantly peer over my shoulder for fear of what might threaten. A future spent with a helpmeet, a soul mate.

  Squeezing Diktys’s hand in turn, I brought his fingers to my lips and kissed the hardened knuckles. This was what I wanted.

  EPILOGUE

  The citadel of Mycenae sprawls like a troubled lioness across the lap of Mount Charvati. The terraced heights and whitewashed courts are Perseus Eurymedon’s work, the stronghold he erected to distance himself from Megapenthes in Argos, but the stones convey only a sense of claustrophobia and foreboding.

  I do not sleep well here. I am accustomed to the sights and smells of the sea, and Mycenae is landlocked. Moreover, Morpheus holds me in contempt these days. I admit, crones like myself do not necessarily sleep well, but since I have left Seriphos, the god amuses himself by sending portents and nightmares to distress me. Last night, he plagued me with the vision of a ceramic tub overflowing with blood. Is it sacrifices that he wants? This morning I ordered two lambs slaughtered in his name. Perhaps then I will not feel as if a crazed killer lurks around every corner waiting to leap out and plunge a dagger into my breast.

  Situated just outside the walls, Perseus Eurymedon’s grave offers a quiet and solitary place for repose. Mycenae occupies a steep, windswept height whose view of the Argolid landscape rivals that of Argos. I imagine my son must have stood here often, watching the construction of his stronghold, contemplating his strained relationship with his cousin Megapenthes, or simply surveying his realm. Andromeda and Alektryon assure me that he wished to be buried here, in the place that he built. They interred his remains at the bottom of a deep shaft which they filled with priceless treasures. Perseus Eurymedon, they tell me, wore a gold death mask to the hereafter. Perhaps that is why I cannot quite remember his face now, or, more likely, my haziness of recollection is due to the fact that I never saw him again after he left Seriphos for Argos all those decades ago.

  I always meant to visit, when there was a lull in my work as queen of Seriphos. Yet there were stepchildren to raise, sanctuaries to endow, charitable work to do, and then my husband became frail, forgetful, and blind, and needed a patient and tender nurse. I could have departed for Argolis after the funeral—Perseus Eurymedon and Andromeda invited me—but I did not want to impose on them. Then King Agesias, my stepson, asked me to remain in Chora to oversee his household and help him choose a suitable wife; and even when that was accomplished I was hardly about to give over my responsibilities as mistress of the house to a fourteen-year-old girl. There would always be time, I kept assuring myself, without realizing that time was a merciless foe. Perseus Eurymedon in my mind never stopped being seventeen years old, even when his grown sons started visiting Seriphos, even when the Mycenaean ambassador in service to Alektryon came to inform me that Perseus Eurymedon had died suddenly while out hunting. He had been fifty-one years old, father of nine children and countless grandchildren. My eyes opened when the realities of time came crashing down on me. Why had I been so blind?

  I run my fingers over the smooth gravel covering the grave. A defunct cemetery just below the citadel mount holds the remains of Mycenae’s old ruling family. I feel like a relic myself, my raven-black shawl standing in sharp contrast with the white gravel and the paleness of Alkmene’s skin. Perseus Eurymedon should be buried closer to the sea, in Tiryns or Pelargos, but that is the mother in me reminiscing.

  I wish that he had not left Seriphos, or that he might have remembered h
is mother once in a while and visited me; adulthood, a hero’s reputation, and distance made him a stranger. Of course, he could do neither. Diktys had barely managed to appease the kinsmen of Polydektes’ slain followers. Perseus Eurymedon knew that my receiving him would have undone his stepfather’s careful work. Even his sons tread cautiously and traveled incognito when they journeyed to Seriphos.

  Although she is all courtesy and deference, enduring these lengthy sojourns by her grandfather’s grave with nary a complaint, Alkmene cannot quite hide her youthful impatience. Something has changed in her since she discovered my adventures; she had not known that her great-grandmother’s life was as interesting as her grandfather’s. My story has awakened in her a yearning for excitement such as young noblewomen rarely enjoy, and for a true life-mate like Diktys rather than a pimply-faced youth like Amphitryon. Alkmene wants to know more about my life on Seriphos, the Women of the Mountain, and whether her grandfather really murdered Acrisius with Medusa’s head, as some in Argolis whisper.

  Could one call an ill-timed change of wind a Gorgon’s head? Perseus Eurymedon confessed in a message many years later that he had surrendered his grisly trophy to Athena the night after he slew Polydektes. Acrisius had not known that when, hearing that my son was on his way to Argos, he fled. Perseus Eurymedon did not pursue him, only sent costly gifts and offers of reconciliation that my father refused.

  The funeral games of a vassal king brought them together. Perseus Eurymedon participated, of course, to prove his reputation as a strong young athlete. I had watched him box and wrestle and sprint during his childhood, but hurling the discus was a sport for noblemen. Perhaps he threw badly, or a malevolent wind caught the discus and misdirected it, sending it speeding into the skull of the old man watching from the sidelines.

  Prophecies never bring anything but trouble. In worrying about and trying to run from his fate, Acrisius raced straight toward it. Without that fateful oracle, he might have led a happier life. I would probably never have been sent away, never made to feel unwanted or afraid of my own flesh and blood. However, I would never have known the Women of the Mountain, never traveled to Seriphos, or known Diktys.

  Alkmene grasps the irony when I explain the situation to her. She perceives the workings of the gods in Zeus siring her grandfather and thwarting Acrisius’s measures to keep me childless. What she does not understand, however, is the regret for the pointlessness of it all. Alkmene comprehends according to her measure. I have to keep in mind when dealing with her is that she is only fourteen—old enough to be a wife and mother, but not to have gained much introspection. She has not had to survive as I have.

  Nonetheless, I do not know what to believe when Alkmene displays particular interest in my encounter with Zeus.

  I chasten her gently but firmly. “You are an impertinent child.” My gaze spans the breadth of Mycenae’s domains from the dusty olive groves to the heights of the Arcadian Mountains. The Larissa of Argos occupies its solitary hill off in the distance. Would I have entertained a similar curiosity about lying with Zeus, had the Fates granted me a normal childhood? “I told you how the ladies of Ganema asked me the same questions.” All women must wonder, even those who should know better than to probe. “What makes you think I am going to make an exception for you?”

  Alkmene pulls an unbecoming frown. “But you told me about the golden oak tree and the handsome Zeus in your dream, and about the Persephone Cave and the rites of the Mistress of the Mountain.”

  “Zeus is also dark and terrible. You do not want to contend with the immortal gods except to appease them.” I should have insisted that she bring her spindle and wool basket; idle hands encourage troublesome fantasies. “Do you want to be happy, Alkmene? Find a way to accept your life with Amphitryon.”

  Perhaps her unrest is my doing. Alkmene is obedient enough for a princess of Mycenae. Chaperoned as she is, she will not spoil her reputation by dallying with some court rake, and when the moment comes she will not refuse to marry Amphitryon. Yet I cannot help wondering now if I have somehow opened up a Pandora’s box by telling her about my adventures. Will she be able to find contentment living an ordinary woman’s existence as a wife and mother knowing that other paths are possible?

  I do what I can to undo the damage. “You have to understand: I was young, inexperienced, and afraid, my head stuffed with the Women of the Mountain’s half-truths about the world and the men in it. Men and women need each other to make the world work. Phileia might have understood, but Ktimene never did. I realize that Amphitryon is not the kind of man young girls dream about, but love comes unexpectedly, with time and patience and careful nurturing. Have an open and willing heart. Appreciate what you have. I was so afraid and so uncertain to accept Diktys for so long that I almost missed the opportunity to be happy with him.”

  Alkmene draws her knees to her chest and rests her head upon them with a sigh, the posture of someone who longs for things beyond her reach. Yet I have not brought her here or shared my wisdom without anticipating this scene. “I have a special gift that will help ease the transition from maiden to wife and mother.” From deep inside my shawl I withdraw a small but weighty object cushioned in fleece to protect it from further breakage. “You might as well have this now, before the wedding night. And remember, whatever other goddess-idols you might receive from your grandmother or your mother or anyone else, none of them will be as powerful as this.”

  To my dismay, Alkmene requires prompting to recognize the squat, faceless Mistress of the House. “I thought she would be more...” She frowns, makes an unintelligible gesture, then shrugs. “More like Queen Hera in the cult house.”

  I have seen that idol, impressive from without, empty within; she has not occupied the sanctuary long enough to accumulate true and lasting power through generations of women’s prayers and sacrifices. “That is what you think, when I made it clear that the Mistress comes from the bones of the earth?” As I recall, I had not loved the Mistress from the first, either. Alkmene might yet discover the Mistress’s wisdom in time. “She has protected and guided untold generations of women. She carries within her all the high priestesses who venerated her on the Mountain. What is some painted idol made yesterday compared with that?”

  Alkmene wrapped the Mistress again in fleece and set the bundle on her lap. “Did the priestesses give you the Mistress to give me?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Not exactly. Upon arriving in Tiryns, I had sent an agent with suitable offerings and careful instructions to Mount Parnon. The villagers in the mountain valleys answered his questions about the Women of the Mountain, even led him to the stream marking the temenos, but where he had expected female sentries to challenge him he found only untenanted ruins, broken shards of pottery, and in the wreckage of one house, the Mistress half-covered in dirt, which he brought to me with what sparse information he had gleaned. “One night the earth trembled and the Mountain swallowed the high priestesses.”

  What became of the Hunters and Gleaners, the herdswomen and initiates? Only the elderly remembered that those women had existed, or that their communities had even sent their unmarried daughters to spend a season with the Mistress. Zeus reigned as supreme in Arcadia as elsewhere, and Artemis, who was but one aspect of the Great Goddess, was venerated as the virgin mistress of the wilderness and the hunt.

  I cleaned the Mistress of the House, fed and anointed her, and told her what I intended for her. Someone else to cherish her, someone young. Let her have patience with Alkmene’s ignorance! At least I will continue to be there to make sure the goddess receives her due, and that Alkmene learns how to reverence her properly; I have agreed to continue as my great-granddaughter’s companion and chaperone after the wedding.

  The wind has shifted, becoming colder; Lady Artemis seeks to drive us indoors. I snuggle deeper into my shawl. Time to return to the palace and seek out the warmth of a brazier, because it would not do for Alkmene to catch a chill just before her wedding day. My
handmaid helps me to my feet. Alkmene stands unaided. “Time to brave the lionesses again,” I say.

  She winces. Inside the citadel all is chaos, from the usual day-to-day bustle to the frenzy of the wedding preparations. Andromeda and Anaxo, her daughter-in-law, disagree about almost everything. Andromeda will not surrender her privileges as queen mother and the mistress of the household to a self-absorbed heifer whose only real loyalty lies with her powerful father, King Pelops of Pisatis, Elis, and Olympia. I have tried to befriend Anaxo, but she disdains me despite the fact that I am an honored guest, and chides her daughter for listening to my ramblings.

  My handmaiden carries the empty jug we used for the libations. I allow Alkmene to bring the Mistress of the House, observing how my great-granddaughter handles the idol. Carefully enough, but without much reverence. “Guard the Mistress with your life,” I admonish. “Nurture her, and she will see you through every hardship.” The climb to the citadel gate burns my calves, and there are still ramps and stairs to come. I take a fortifying breath. “Did you know I had her with me when I gave birth to your grandfather? I wish I had her for the rest.”

  The sentries ground their spears and respectfully incline their heads as we pass. An eagle flies overhead. Alkmene notices. Forgetting the Mistress tucked under one arm, she motions with the other. “Look, Mother Danaë!” she cries. “Zeus!”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE