A Sea of Sorrow

by Libbie Hawker

  Being young, Nausithous tried to play the hero. He dove from the Grove into the churning sea. How he managed not to die on the rocks is a mystery that still shudders me. But at ten he was already a strong swimmer, and made it as far as the stone archway before his strength gave way. There he collapsed, clutching the rock, gasping and choking as water buffeted him from both above and below.

  I know not what instinct awoke in the castaway, but discovering a drowning boy beside him on the arch, he burst with desperate energy, dragging my foolhardy son across the remaining stretch of water to the caves beneath my Grove. Away from the water, he worked to vomit up the sea he had swallowed, then forced Nausithous to do the same. Only when the boy coughed and breathed did he give himself over to nature, letting life and death cast knuckles for him.

  I intervened on the side of life. Panicked servants had brought me word of Nausithous’s mad dive, and I had raced under the raging skies first to the shore, then to the caves, fully expecting to find my son swallowed by Poseidon. Instead my kind cousin had spewed him back, alongside the most magnificent man ever sculpted by nature.

  They were carried back to the palace, but while my son awakened almost at once, the dark-haired castaway did not. Fever claimed him, and in his fever he found his voice.

  “Dead! All dead! Oath-breaker! Oath-breaker!” More than the fever, the weak limbs, the bone-ebbing fatigue, I think it was that title that haunted him. Oath-breaker. A man forsworn. “Penelope, forgive me! Odysseus oath-breaker! Damned Odysseus!”

  Odysseus. When I first heard that name from his chapped and broken lips, with his alien accent, I thought he was blaspheming. “Odd Zeus”. Save for the sword scars, I might have suspected him of being a fallen priest.

  However, it was not Zeus he was cursing. It was himself. And he went on cursing for weeks, reciting names I did not know, referencing deeds I knew not of. Some of my servants tried to piece the puzzle together, but could make no sense of it.

  I was at my loom, singing, when I was informed he had at last awakened, clear-eyed and calm. Leaving my shuttle, I went to him to thank him for his service to my son.

  Weak though he was, his self-possession was eerily complete. When I entered he made no effort to rise from his bed, as it was clearly beyond him. But he lowered his head in deference. “Was that you singing, lady?”

  “It was.”

  “You have a lovely voice.” His accent was strange, a fault of our own. There are seldom visitors to our isle.

  “You are kind to say so.”

  “I thought I was being called to the next life. But it seems I am not yet done with this one.”

  Despite his compliment, his words were improper. Insultingly, they were not even meant for me. “We take it you were wrecked, and did not mean to swim here.”

  “Wrecked, and carried. Poseidon and I have—a strained relationship. I had given myself up to the waves.”

  “An offense to nature. No man should give up his last breath willingly.”

  “It is not the last breath that scours the throat, lady, but the one that follows, unbidden.”

  I looked down upon him, my distaste plain. “You are ungrateful.”

  “It is only the best of my faults.” Again he shook his head, this time in reproof. “But it seems I am in your debt.”

  “We should say the reverse. You saved the life of our son.”

  A sinister eyebrow arched. “As I understand—your majesty? —he saved mine. Had he not braved the sea for me, I should have drowned myself.”

  The way he said it, “drowned myself” had a double meaning. “Was that your intent?”

  He gazed at me then, anger plain in his eyes. Not at me, exactly. At being understood. He never enjoyed anyone penetrating his mind. Only through his delirious ravings had he offered up his true self. It is shameful to think how often I have wished him fevered and senseless again.

  I held his gaze, and at last he was compelled to speak. “Queen Calypso. I am told you are a goddess.”

  “We are divine,” I agreed. “Descended from the Titans. Our mother was Calypso, and her mother Calypso before her.”

  “And what is Calypso? The goddess of true speaking and naked shame?”

  It was like a slap. Fortunately, royal divinity does not embarrass. “We are the goddess of this island, and all its people.”

  “Calypso,” he said slowly. “It means ‘to conceal’, does it not? ‘To deceive’?”

  “Also ‘to shelter’. Ogygia has occasionally been that for lost sailors. So far out of the way, we are hidden from most voyagers. Especially the most insolent,” I added, turning to go.

  It was my intent to leave, but he forestalled me. “And the duty of the succored to offer repayment.”

  From the door, I turned to face him. “If you are compelled, you may promise us to never again take up arms against yourself.” Again the flash of anger. “You object?”

  “A vow not to do something? I could also swear not to sprout wings. It is an oath easily kept, by doing nothing.”

  “It is my impression that you make oaths too freely.” At the time I did not notice the change from royal to personal. Already he was disarming me. “Perhaps simple oaths are best. So swear to grow in health, and live a prosperous life.”

  His eyes closed. I could sense the fury radiating from him. It was not directed at me. “It is not enough.”

  “Why not? What do you find objectionable in such a vow?”

  He spoke with vehemence. “Its selfishness. A healthy and prosperous life serves me, not you.” Then his fiery brow unfurled. “Unless…”

  After some moments of silence, I prompted him. “Unless?”

  “Unless I spend that health and prosperity here, to offer you the same.” His eyes were turned inward. For all that he was offering to serve me, I might not have even been present. “I choose to believe I was cast on your shores for a reason. Clearly I owe you a debt. I shall stay here in your service until such time as you release me.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes went not so much cold as dead. “I have done things. It is difficult, even, to think of them. And I have failed so many. I need a task to perform.”

  “So we are to serve your needs,” I answered drily.

  His mouth twitched. “If my need is to serve, what does it matter? If I fail you, dismiss me. But in the meantime I shall stay, and expiate my sins. How may I do so?”

  I considered. Poseidon had cast him on my shore. It must be for a reason. And my son had swum to save him. “You have a bond with my elder son. What can you teach him, and the younger?”

  “I shall instruct them both in all I know,” he said at once. “Them, and all the young men of the island. More, I shall use all my skill to make Ogygia prosperous. And I will devote myself to the worship of the goddess Calypso.”

  “As you wish.” I turned to leave.

  A sound behind me halted my exit. He had thrown himself from his bed, staggering towards me. There was nothing to fear, he was far too weak to assault my person. But there was a sudden desperation, akin to that surge of life that had caused him to save a drowning boy, that propelled him to my side. He grasped my wrist. “Make me swear it. Compel me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it matters. I must be true. I must.”

  It was the first time our skins touched, and it was like fire through me. In that moment I sensed he, too, might be royal. Divine, even. Today I wear a bracelet of his hair on that wrist. The dark strands sometimes glare copper in the light, but do not burn.

  That day I obeyed him as if he were the ruler and I the subject. I told him to kneel, and kiss my hand, and swear to serve me and mine until the day I released him. As he spoke the words, his anguished earnestness smote my heart, and I added, “One more condition. Let me see you smile.”

  From that day forward, he met me with smiles, and wit, and laughter.

  Damn him.

  As the sun dipped into the sea we lay together in the Grove that
bears my name. Or, more properly, I its name. He dozed, and I lay with my hair covering his arm and shoulder, blanketing him in night. There were more strands of silver than when he had arrived. Sometimes I wondered if he caused them. If so, I had at least returned the compliment.

  A swirling darkness caught my eye—a hawk, high overhead. I watched it, growing heavy lidded, and was on the verge of drifting off myself when I noticed something rustling the grass close by our feet.

  I was not alarmed—there were no snakes on my island, nor any other venomous creatures. Peering, I first smiled to see what it was. An ancient tortoise, struggling up through the grass and over rocks to draw close to our toes.

  Then I remembered to whom tortoises belonged, and hawks too, and I bolted upright, heart racing. I must have made a sound, for at once my Odd Zeus was awake and on one knee, ready for a danger.

  When he saw what had frightened me, he chuckled. “A welcome trespasser, your highness. Nothing to fear.” Bending forward, he looked in its long, wizened face. “Odd. I’ve always considered tortoises to be such practical creatures—they carry their homes with them, so wherever they roam, they spend each night in their own bed. But now I am disillusioned. To climb so high from his habitat, from where he belongs? It goes to show even a tortoise can run mad!”

  “Perhaps he is just determined,” I offered dully.

  Odysseus laughed. “True! He deserves a song.” And he started composing one, to a tune that was clearly a marching song, though I did not recognize it. His was never a voice for singing, but on occasion he would launch into a ditty of his own invention, more to amuse than move. As now:

  Don’t dwell, hard shell, on things behind you!

  All’s well, death’s knell shall never bind you!

  For where you fall,

  You find your hall

  Turned tombstone’s wall,

  A clever pall

  All twined about you!

  “If only we all carried an impervious skin,” he added. “It would save for funerals.” As sometimes happened, his quick tongue had outpaced his brain. When he caught it up, his lids became veiled. “Though even the most impervious skin can blacken in the fire. And the cheapest funerals are at sea.”

  With a convulsive twitch of his fingers, he turned away. I was not meant to see.

  “Come, my love,” I said, stretching out a hand to him. “Our time here is done.”

  He turned back to me, his composure complete. “Is it? I could linger all night between my two Calypsos. But I suppose we must dine. Come, shall we go?” He parted the vines, and so we began the descent.

  I could feel the eyes of the tortoise on our backs far longer than was possible. But then the gods’ messenger ever was relentless.

  Returned from our lovemaking in the Grove, my hair bound once more, we dined under the open sky. Nausithous and Nausinous both joined us. My elder son was then just turned seventeen, and a man. My younger turned fifteen soon, and would accept the chiton of an adult. Only in their looks did I see the men whose seed I once accepted in the rites of Calypso. In their carriage, their confidence, their easy way with their station, I saw only their true father. I could not have wished for a better.

  Though a goddess and a queen, I recognized the value of fatherhood. A kind word from a father can make or break a young man. As a girl I looked for my father in many faces, though of course I knew that when I was conceived my mortal father had been possessed by a god, to use as his vessel. Just as my sons’ sires had been possessed, then returned to their lives when their task was complete.

  No god had ever used my Odd Zeus as a vessel. He was too full of himself, he said, doing as he always did, deflecting every query with a jest. I wondered if he has sons of his own. He had never seemed interested in getting any upon me, so perhaps that part of his legacy was secure.

  He was as good as his word, raising my sons as well as any mother could wish. He instructed them in the arts of war, and well. They learned to ride in chariots, and took turns between driving and throwing spears, hurtling at such speeds that I feared for their safety. Odysseus always laughed at my concern. “They are at the age when they are indestructible.”

  Once I remarked that all men believed themselves indestructible. And then a cloud had threatened his brow. “No man is impervious from all harm. Not even those promised by the gods to remain so.” Then he had shaken himself like a hound and laughed. “But only a heel would frighten these fine lads with thoughts of mortality today! Let them ride. Better here, for sport, than on some field of Ares.”

  Yes, he taught them war. But he focused on defense, and taught restraint more than revenge. Meantime he was equally diligent in teaching the boys of the island how to be prosperous in peace. He discussed engineering, and plowing, and irrigation. He took them into the hills to mind goats with the common herders, and the tales they brought back made them collapse with laughter.

  He was not stingy with his gifts, but shared his easy, biting wit and knowledge with all who came to him. Thanks to him, a whole generation would grow to be better men than their fathers.

  To the adult men on Ogygia, he was just as admired. At first there was envy, but soon he won them over with sheer good cheer and dogged persistence. It helped that he sought no honors and put on no airs, despite claiming the queen’s bed for longer than any before him. How he suppressed his natural kingliness, I do not know—certainly all saw it.

  So did the women of my island. Here was a consort for their queen who was worthy of the name. Yet they were never jealous of my possession of him. Perhaps because I did not quicken, they were content to have him by my side.

  Not that he was often by my side. Each day seemed to have been planned weeks in advance, filled from dawn to dusk with tasks and errands and trials and ventures. Only at night would he come to me, dutiful and full of smiles.

  If I live to be a thousand, I shall never forget the night I first seduced him. Certainly he had shown no overt interest in bedding the queen. Though clearly desperate to prove himself capable of keeping his oath, he brought me no suggestive gifts, nor sent me longing looks, nor lingered on my doorstep. For the first time in my life, I was made the supplicant.

  One evening, after he had been among us a few months, I found some absurd pretext to retain him after dining in our open-air hall. “I am astonished one so accomplished has not yet plucked up an instrument to amuse us.”

  “I promised to be serviceable, not offensive,” he said with his smile dancing in the torchlight.

  “You do not sing?”

  “Not songs to entertain deities. Or to please ladies’ ears. You are the one gifted with a voice to move stones. My songs are rough, and blunt.”

  “Unlike yourself.”

  “Very like myself,” he countered. “Just not the self that lives on Ogygia. Do you notice that often we are defined, not by our natures but by our audience?” He bowed to me. “Expectations are a standard to which we may rise, or fall.”

  “It may be so. But I choose to believe we are defined by deeds. Our actions.”

  If he laughed, it carried a trace of sourness. “Please, no! I would rather be defined by the curses of my enemies than by the deeds of my hand. At least then I might protest bias. Truth is by far the harsher measure of a man.”

  Though intrigued, we were getting further from my purpose. “They say there is truth in music. You claim you have no voice for fine songs. But your fingers seem nimble. Can you not play?”

  I saw him open his mouth to protest, then close it again as he recalled himself to his vow. At once he plucked up a lyre and, fiddling a moment to set it to tune, began to strum.

  “You play so faintly,” I said after a time. “Come closer.”

  Obedient, he drew near, curling onto the earth by my feet. Still he played, picking notes almost at random, yet somehow weaving them into a tapestry that perfectly suited my distraction.

  But that was not my aim. “Play me a love song.”

  He began aga
in to strum, but I reached down and stilled his hand. “Not on that instrument.”

  I do not know if his heart was hammering. If so, it was drowned by the thunder in my ears. I felt like a child, unskilled and uncertain, terrified of rejection, more terrified of success.

  I remember him setting aside his lyre and instead beginning to stroke my wrist with the edge of his palm. I remember closing my eyes. I do not remember moving to a bed, only being there, craving his skilled musicality. For it was instantly clear he was no brute upon this instrument, nor no novice. Under his hand, my body was indeed an instrument, one longing to be played, and he was a virtuoso. He could make me shudder and vibrate with the gentlest of touches.

  Through the years he mastered my body’s collection of impulses and pleasures, tuning me to every key. I found myself accepting overtures I would have deemed filthy or unwomanly before. In his able hands, it was all pleasure.

  But there was no harmony to his music. A true lover accepts receiving as well as giving, and he was ungracious in receipt. Whenever I turned to please him, he would redirect my aims, and if he meant to finish he was perfunctory, making short work once I had achieved all I could stand.

  Worse, he was silent. There were no moans, such as other men make. Nor any grunts of effort, any labored breaths. Occasionally, he would crack his neck or stretch his shoulders, as an athlete before a race. He was performing his art—one of the many he had mastered. I was just the vessel for his magnificence. Which left me empty.

  Yet from that first night, I could not imagine life without him.

  Better I had never seen him.

  Unmindful of our compact, my sons often plied him with questions. His answers were as amusing as they were telling.

  Once, while Odysseus was teaching them how to trick a whip to make it crack, Nausithous had demanded, “How do you know all this?”