Kleto was making herself abundantly clear.
Isme believed, as she observed the other woman, that Kleto had seen her fate and decided to fight regardless of consequences; now that the choice was cast, there was no threat, no strike or beating, not even killing, that would make her change her mind. If need be she would go down to Hades with blood under her fingernails.
That seemed foolish. Isme had no illusions about what was going to happen: the sort of thing that was always implied as a potential threat in stories, but that never actually happened in stories because some hero came parading like Perseus on his way home from the Gorgon and stumbling on Andromeda chained on the mountain. Nobody ever told stories about those women who had no heroes.
But that was not entirely true, Isme reconsidered. There were plenty of ugly stories—she just never asked her father to retell them since they were not her favorites.
As the sun set, there was nothing in the walls but firelight and men arriving every moment. Isme had trouble understanding their talking, because she still could not comprehend multiple voices speaking at once. But catching a word or sentence here and there brought her the main threads of conversation.
This was a debate. Some of the men favored the idea of preserving them for sale. But others argued that there were three women, at least one could be made of service, and besides most slavers accepted used goods. These seemed to be winning.
“What about that one?” said one of the men, gesturing with crooked fingers at Pelagia, who had her head cradled between her knees, and somehow she must have realized she was being spoken of because she huddled even smaller.
Isme grit her teeth—she wanted to yell that Pelagia clearly wanted most to be left alone, and only savages should disrespect that. But she was among savages regardless.
“Can you sing,” Kleto whispered, more of a statement than a question, so low that Isme had to realize she was being spoken to.
“I can,” she said, slowly, feeling her father’s promise rise up like fingers inside her, plucking at her ribs: Do you swear not to reveal your songs to any man who has not risked his life for you?—and her own voice in an echo: I promise, I promise...
What could her songs do now? Isme had done little to nothing like this with songs before. She lit fires. She called in turtles. Sometimes she turned seawater fresh to drink. Little things—things that could be marvels, yes, but nothing like—
Nothing like her birth father.
What had Orpheus done with his voice? Called up shades of the dead. Swayed Hades—of all the gods, the Kindly One who was the least kind. He had moved stones to tears. Drowned out the sirens and saved the Argo. Healed dying men, grew a tree overnight, caused whole towns to dance behind him, and emptied rivers...
Yet, the back of her mind said, sounding like the voice in the woods: Yes, Orpheus did all this... And then was torn into pieces.
And from far off came her own voice: I promise, I promise...
Before her, the men were still debating, but there was something different about their talk now, the one who had gestured to Pelagia was speaking more often, directing the conversation, responding to others. They were reaching a decision.
I can’t sing, Isme thought. Her father’s warnings were like wings of birds beating: If men find out what you can do, they will make you do terrible things. She could not let them find out—but more than that, Isme realized. She had no idea how to do what Orpheus had done. What songs did her birth father sing to sway men?
Grandmother Kalliope, she prayed. Great goddess, tell me how...
“I’ll get their attention with song and dance,” said Kleto, breaking into Isme’s tangled thoughts. Isme reared her head to find the other woman was staring at the men, still, as though Isme was beneath her notice. “You play along. Then when I have them—you’ll know when I mean—you get Pelagia out of here.”
When she said this, Isme felt her limbs stiffen in rejection, her mouth ready to form the words, But what about you?
“No arguing,” said Kleto. “I’ll sing them a story, and you will play along, until I move, and then you’ll know when to run.”
“What story?” asked Isme, for she could not think what tale would get such attention. Her mind paged through everything she knew—Apollon and Daphne, Zeus and Europa, Perseus and Andromeda, Zeus and Io, Persephone and Hades...
“Philomel and Procne,” said Kleto, voice flat.
Isme started, blurted out: “That is a horrible story!”
For the first since they been thrown in the corner, Kleto turned her gaze onto Isme. There was a dampening of fire in her eyes, and Isme’s breath caught, horrified that perhaps Kleto’s spirit was dimming. But she understood on some level that Kleto was not upset at the men—rather that Isme had failed some test.
And Kleto said, “No, it is not. Not for those like us.”
Then she snapped back to attention, her face set like an eagle.
Kleto rose from her crouch, hands still tied behind her back, and every head in the room craned to observe her golden hair glittering in the light of the hearth like fire. Around her flies swarmed a gruesome halo, and her movement stirred her garments, casting perfumes and sweat over Isme like the sweet cloying scent of death.
“Men of the forest,” she declared, “I have stood court in symposiums across Greece—singing, dancing, playing lyre. From my teachers I learned the secret arts that please all men. Great women taught me—Agamemnon, Achilles, the like heard them perform. Do you not desire to see what kings have seen?”
All at once the necks of all the men seemed to be like wood, rather than flesh, fixing them in place like the trunks of trees. Not a head stirred from Kleto’s shape. Isme could not blame them—she herself was spellbound, mind racing:
Had Kleto really learned from women who had performed for the mighty heroes?
And in the back of her mind, her father’s voice whispered: If the gods punished everyone who claimed a great bloodline, then there would be no great houses left...
It doesn’t matter, she realized, watching the men stare at Kleto. Whether it’s true or not, these men believe it, or rather want to believe, so it has become true.
But one of the men in the group was less caught by her than the rest, yelling, “You’re just trying to save your own neck, woman! Don’t think we are not masters here!”
Kleto responded to the jibe with words smooth as water in a bowl. “Why would my performance stop anything you plan? You men doubtless catch women all the time—you can have a dozen women by next moon. But when have you all had a fine hetaera like myself? I know tricks that will haunt your waking hours.”
Isme frowned at the word, hetaera, uncertain what it meant; certainly, the word had never appeared in her father’s stories. But she smoothed out her face, trying not to draw attention to herself. Kleto had to convince the men to untie them.
The men in the room did know what the word meant, however, because there was a return to discussion, a low roar of murmuring all at once. Isme caught words like: valuable, worth too much, lies, playing a trick. They would debate and reach some conclusion that was out of Isme’s control—if only she could use her songs!
If only she knew how to sway the hearts of men like the father she had never known.
But Kleto did know how.
“I can show you a story that will rouse the blood of a dying man to love,” Kleto strode forward, each step a word announced outright, and the men fell quiet. “It can make an old man feel young again—surely strong men like yourselves will enjoy to the fullest!”
I doubt that, thought Isme, remembering the chosen tale. Her skin felt cold, even under the glow of the hearth and the press of so many bodies in the walls. Yet as she surveyed the assembled men, she reconsidered: No, perhaps they would enjoy this tale, a den of robbers, murderers, kidnappers... This was their sort of story.
“Come now,” said a man in the back. “Let’s hear them play. How else could we know what price they will fetch at m
arket? We can have fun after.”
This seemed to settle the matter. There was a chorus of chortling, and then the men fell to silence and moved all together, a surge in anticipation. One of them leapt and cut Kleto’s bonds, turning to Isme next and then to Pelagia, who remained huddled. A lyre was fetched from somewhere Isme did not see. Still others moved tables out, dragging loudly across the dirty floor.
Kleto passed Pelagia, slapped her on the back of the head. “Up.”
Isme thought that Pelagia would remain in her bundle, but when Kleto did this, she jumped like a cat onto the table and snatched the lyre, settling into position with hands over the strings. Like she had been sitting there all along. The only clue she was worried was her eyes, which she kept lowered. If Isme had not seen her before, though, perhaps she would have only thought Pelagia modest.
Startled by this, Isme stepped back, and glanced at the men who had assembled on the other side of the tables, which had formed a stage. Standing there behind the tables themselves, Isme knew then that she had been drafted into the performance.
There was no choice in the matter.
EIGHT.
~
The men watched hungrily as Kleto undid her hair from its bonds, sweeping it over her shoulders like a shower of gold. She smoothed with her fingers, a rough combing, but that was the best she could do—and yet she did not look like she had trekked through the woods, more like she had prepared for hours. Perhaps the illusion was simply in how she carried herself: upright, like a lady in her own home.
Passing to the other end of the tables, Kleto leaned in to Isme’s shoulder.
“I’m Procne,” she hissed, low as a serpent in Isme’s ear. “You’re Philomel. If you don’t know the songs,” a pointed tone that implied she believed Isme did not sing, even as Kleto acknowledged she knew the story, “Then just say what comes to mind. Be overdramatic if you have to—these men will eat it up. Remember to scream at the tongue part—then you won’t have to worry about singing after that.”
Isme’s mouth opened, managed, “Songs? There’s a song of this?”
Never in all her life had she thought that a song could be made of such an evil tale. Who would write the words, memorize them, perform them? And even as Isme wondered this, she saw Kleto roll her eyes and realized the answers were obvious.
Kleto clucked, hissed, “Listen to what I say, and you will live through tonight.”
“Live?” whispered Isme back, “Why would they kill us? We’re valuable to sell—”
“These idiots?” Kleto responded with a sneer. “They’re the kind to thieve cattle and eat them. We won’t last the morning if they set on us—and if we lived through, they’d sell us to a butcher and we’ll be chained pornai in a closet at some backwater, dead before summer’s end because we’re not worth the money to feed.”
Horror stole over Isme’s face, that such a fate could be comprehended, but this seemed to satisfy Kleto, whose own features turned grim. “Don’t sing if you don’t know the lines,” she said, shoving Isme, reiterating: “Remember to scream.”
Isme stumbled up to the table side, stood at the edge awkwardly facing across the surface all the men in assembly, cautious at being under such attention. But she did not need to bother. They were not concerned with her. Even Pelagia was ignored.
Kleto swept atop the tables as if they were the floor, stood for a moment between the men and the hearth in complete silence, her long shadow stretching out before her like the claws of some beast. The men watched, waiting. Isme stared at Kleto’s back.
Notes came to the air. Isme recalled her dream during the island storm, the turtle shell empty and the turtle watching her strum its insides. In Pelagia’s hands, this false turtle shell sang long tones, her fingers plucking without any pick, just the fingernails.
A song—and Isme saw Kleto working her jaw, to prepare for performance. Isme prayed: Oh Grandmother Kalliope, give her my voice, give her your voice... The voice of Orpheus, which sways the minds of men like rivers...
Kleto began a low chant that carried anger like waves beating against shore:
King Tereus, son of Aries! Victorious in war!
Allied to Athens by the daughter of Pandion,
Lovely Procne, loyal, kind, see the bride veiled.
She began to move, slowly, lifting and sweeping her hair up over her face, in that moment becoming Procne, and then she was curling her limbs through air, dancing, sinuous—
But none of the great gods attend the wedding feast—
No blessing from Hera, none of the Graces sing,
Hymenaeus’s torch refuses to light for the bridegroom.
Above the wedding bed appears a screech owl
And the hearth fire blazes out the faces of furies—
Kleto stomped her feet, pounding the table like a drum, the noise reverberating in the room. Each thud like a collective heartbeat of the audience. Then she fell still and silent. The men before the tables were riveted, straining to hear her next words.
I call on Tisiphone, who was present for the rites:
Tell the tale of blood to this assembly!
Isme jerked, barely managed to hold herself in place, for as Kleto pronounced the last lines Pelagia’s tune had come to sharp notes, sounds like the cracking of wood or bone. The fire at Isme’s back no longer warmed her. She felt something cold had entered the room—something invisible was breathing in the same space—
Tisiphone, she turned the name over in her mind: one of the Erinyes. Calling upon a Fury instead of a Muse—what madness was this? And then she was pleading, Oh Grandmother Kalliope, please forgive this wickedness and keep me safe—
The faces of the men grew taut with eagerness. The promise of a gory story, the shape of Kleto outlined by firelight, something else—who knew what held them now. But that they were held was no doubt: even Isme could see their eyes, white coals fixed on Kleto like a snared hare watching Isme approach with her knife.
Kleto gave Isme a glance of warning, a jerk of the head, and Isme realized the roles of the story had been set, as previously decided, and scrambled up onto the table with far less grace than Kleto had managed. She felt some relief that at least her part would be to play a waif, as bumbling and naïve as she imagined she looked.
Turning, Kleto strode to the other side of Pelagia, using player and lyre as a divide between Isme and herself. Pelagia was now strumming light and carefree. Kleto swept back the hair over her face, and Isme was surprised to see her look delighted, as though to stand before a horde of robbers was a wonderful sight.
She sang, in sweet and coaxing lines, the voice of Procne:
O Tereus, my husband, my beloved—
Three years it’s been since our happy day
And our son knows both our names.
She turned and made as though to pet the head of an invisible child, but performed with such raw honesty that the act was not strange or parodic, and Isme would have believed her to be a doting mother, impossibly fond of the boy, except—she knew this story—
Swallowing, Isme pulled herself to task. Apparently they were going to act out their roles. She had to pretend that she did not know what was going to happen.
Kleto raised her hand out to the assembled men and beseeched:
If I have been a loyal wife, give me this boon!
I have a sister, only one, my joy before I met you:
Let her visit me, for we shall have celebration.
As she sang, Kleto gestured to Isme, who tried not to fret as the stares of the men turned to her, but she did not need to hold still long, because they returned just as quickly to Kleto—indeed, Isme also was fixed on her. All the last days, Kleto had only glared or snapped at her, but now she was acting the part, beckoning, looking longing at Isme as though she was the person Kleto loved most.
Isme would have believed her, but Kleto did not linger long. Changing from the beseeching wife, Kleto assumed a poise of command, declared:
And so Tereus go
es to Athens, there
To fetch Philomel, his sister-in-law,
Bring her to his wife, faithful Procne.
But when he sees her—
Isme forced herself to hold still and stand tall as Kleto marched toward her, but this stoic pose became harder when Kleto lifted her hands and pulled that pale-fire hair over her features, like she no longer had a face. Storming forward, Kleto reached out a hand, as though to grab Isme’s insides and tear them from her belly.
Whirling to the men, who have all stood up straighter and keener, Kleto chants:
His heart burns within him,
His hands reach and cannot grasp!
Forgotten is Procne’s gentle charms—
Whirling again, Kleto raises her hands with violence, lunging, Isme instinctively backed up—and sees between the bars of Kleto’s golden hair the satisfaction her reaction has produced in the other woman. Isme feels anger rise in her own throat.
Kleto turns back to her narration:
He tells the father his purpose:
Oh, for sweet Procne’s sake,
Let him return with Philomel,
Just a visit, just a month,
And then back in her father’s arms
Safe she’ll be again.
There is a look—solid in the flickering firelight—on the men’s shared faces. Incredulity. And then they make their first sound: a riotous laughter, coming from multiple throats at once as though they are the same creature. They do not know the story, Isme thinks, but they know the implications of what will happen well enough—they have all been Tereuses in their time—
Indeed, they seem to be egging Kleto’s hair-swept form on, as though delighted on how easily Tereus has lied, knowing that he was successful, or otherwise this would not be a story at all. A show they would enjoy to the fullest—this was everything Kleto had promised them. A show where they were the main figure—the heroes.
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