“It is, and thank you,” Persephone said, then sighed. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“I can imagine. But is the difficulty in managing the crops or managing Demeter?”
Persephone’s eyes went wide and she guffawed, clapping a hand to her mouth. She glanced sheepishly at Athena, whose nose scrunched when she smiled broadly. Persephone shook her head and spoke. “I… Mother and I get along well enough, and it’s been better these past few months, but I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye on… several things.”
“Ah…” Athena said. She grew solemn and looked at the ground. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask since I saw you last, Persephone. Can you forgive my inquisition when I was here five months ago? I had heard things. We’d all heard things.”
“I know.”
“And it was wise of you not to divulge anything. I apologize for my motives in desiring your confidence. I prodded you for too much information.”
“You’re forgiven. Aidoneus doesn’t care what anyone on Olympus says about him. And seeing how hungry everyone was for the smallest morsel of news once I returned, I can understand why. Speaking of, I still haven’t heard from Artemis,” she said. The road bent around a centuries-old olive tree, its boughs filled with spear-shaped leaves and heavy with purple and green fruits.
“Give her time. She’s… uncomfortable around married women.” Athena reached up and plucked an olive. “I’m indebted to you for bringing these trees to fruit so quickly.”
Persephone shrugged. “They’re very important. I’m happy you asked after them when we last spoke. You care very much for the people of Athens, and this is their greatest crop.”
“Yes,” Athena smiled. “But more importantly, it helps me keep my claim over Attica. Without it, Poseidon would have tried to steal its worshippers from me.”
Persephone quirked an eyebrow. “Truly?”
“He is… not to be trusted,” she said, furrowing her brow.
“To be honest, I’m surprised. Aidoneus always has good things to say about him.”
Athena snorted. “Perhaps so, but your husband is a man. It’s different when you’re a woman, especially a free woman dealing with him.”
“Hmm,” Persephone acknowledged, remembering her mother’s bitter feud with Zeus, the lengths she had gone to in order to be taken seriously, and all that their struggle had damaged. Such suffering it caused, she thought, this conflict between male and female…
“I would likewise have cautioned you to stay away from Ares, but I doubt he’ll give you any trouble after how you dealt with Sisyphus,” Athena laughed. “He was quick to boast that he disarmed that wicked man but oh, the riot we had with him on Olympus when we found out from Eris! Well, partly from Eris. Hermes let slip what Hypnos told him…”
Persephone half-listened to her go on about it, laughing at Ares’s expense. She trained her features into what was becoming a practiced smile. Persephone would have to tread lightly on Olympus and be careful with whom she spoke. Her mother was right. Gossip was their currency.
As for their other tender, she was sure that fear of her husband would keep her safe from any sexual advances. Hades’s frightful reputation would keep her from harm. But if she revealed the depth of his affection for her, it might endanger her. Her shoulders sank. She would even have to be careful about how much she shared with Athena. They stopped on the road once they were clear of any mortals. Athena raised her right hand, ready to open a path to the home of the gods.
“Allow me.” Persephone smiled and summoned an asphodel bloom from the ground, which burst into a swirl of flame, creating a gateway through the ether. She drew their destination closer, the gardens of Olympus coming into sharp relief.
“Well then…” Athena gave her a wide-eyed grin, impressed. “After you, Queen of the Underworld,” she said with a playful bow.
“No, I insist, Patroness of Athens,” Persephone smiled. They giggled and Athena walked forward, holding Persephone’s hand.
They were met with blinding light and lush gardens when the gateway closed behind them. The trees and shrubs were carefully manicured and more symmetrical than anything that Persephone could have imagined, as though each tree had been clipped to expose their eternal fruits perfectly. She saw apples— a rarity in Attica— figs, dates and pomegranates, each fruit exactly like the other, growing above perfectly flat grass lawns where every blade seemed to be cut to the same length. An olive tree grew with only enough twists in its limbs to allow someone to easily scale it and pluck its dark purple fruits, which were all the same shape and shade. Persephone had only known these trees to grow untamed, at the whim of rain and sun. She discovered that she didn’t really need her shawl. The temperature was… ideal.
“Glorious, isn’t it?” Athena said, breaking her contemplation. She picked up the skirts of her peplos and walked up the perfectly hewn marble steps.
Persephone followed, and they entered a vast atrium, fronted on all sides with colonnades and murals of plants and animals. Water bubbled up from a spring in the center into the rectangular basin of a fountain. Its soothing trickle was accompanied by a lyre and flute played by two women in diaphanous linen chitons, golden beaded nets gilding their coiffured blonde hair. The delicately plucked strings and the clear tones of the flute filled the air with a soft, almost slumberous music.
Athena traversed the atrium with the Goddess of Spring in tow, and the musicians stopped mid-verse, genuflecting before the goddesses. “Persephone, these are Erato and Euterpe, the muses of poetry.”
“My lady,” they said in unison and bowed.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“May we continue?” one said.
“…Of course,” Persephone answered, surprised that they had asked her permission.
They curtsied again and started their melody anew. Persephone wondered if everyone would be so formal here. They walked on, passing into a great symposium hall. She balked. This was the throne room of Olympus… the same one she had seen in the vision Kronos had given her in Tartarus. There was a grand dais with twelve steps, upon which sat the throne of Zeus, and Hera’s seat three steps below his. A banquet table spread out on one end of the hall, strewn with amphorae of all sizes, each filled with wine, nectar or olive oil. Ambrosia was piled beside round loaves of bread, a great wheel of goat cheese, grapes, and figs. Great cuts of cooked, seasoned meat sat on the table: lamb, goat, and the fruits of the sea— the smells of which were overwhelming. Persephone felt nauseous. Though she would never begrudge the mortals their meat, neither she nor her mother ever touched it. None of the immortals needed to eat; they feasted for pleasure. Feasts arrived by way of libations and sacrifices, so food seldom, if ever, appeared in the Underworld. Aidon never partook unless it was a special occasion, like the first ripe pomegranate from their grove.
Mingling alongside the table and throughout the room were a host of immortals so finely clad that it made her feel plain. On her first day in the Underworld, she had thought the jewels Aidoneus had given her to be extravagant. But the gods and goddess, as well as their retinues and attendants, looked… over done. A few glanced at her, some out of curiosity, some in recognition. Over strains of music from every corner of the room she could hear faint whispers of ‘Persephone’, ‘Hades’ and ‘Demeter’.
Persephone suddenly felt herself missing the Underworld more acutely than ever. Though her husband was the Rich One, his domain the origin of every jewel and pin and fine gold chain adorning these Olympian gods, Aidoneus never made a show of it. She thought of the diamond and sapphire ceiling of the grotto pool under the palace. To him, jewels were not evidence of power or prestige. Instead, he carefully chose what he thought most suited something, or best complemented someone. Persephone touched her necklace and smiled.
“I have to warn you, Persephone, not everyone here is worthy of your time,” Athena said as they walked through the atrium arm in arm. “You should stay away from Apollo. He’ll only flatte
r you, and he doesn’t take rejection well. Hermes is a notorious gossip, as I’m sure you already know. And don’t trifle with either Hera or Aphrodite.”
“Ah.”
“No one has seen Hephaestus the last few days. He’s been working on some commission he refuses to talk about, but he once tried to—”
“So I should only stay with you, then?” she asked, tilting her head.
Athena looked at her and thinned her lips sheepishly. Persephone gave her a half-smile and the Goddess of Wisdom laughed. “Oh, listen to me go on! I must sound like your mother. Forgive me, Persephone. Speak with whomever you’d like. You hardly need my protection anyway.”
“Athena! A word with you!” Ares barked at her, a cup of wine in his hand. His face immediately paled and fell when he glimpsed Persephone.
“Thank you,” she said and gave her cousin a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I ought to see what that great fool wants from me this time. Another silly wager, I’d guess,” Athena said, hugging her. “Be careful, all right?”
Persephone nodded and they parted ways. Scanning the room, she didn’t see Hermes anywhere. It wasn’t like him to be late, and he had said he would gladly help her navigate the sea of new faces.
After a moment of standing alone, a beautiful young man approached her. His figure was lithe, his skin oiled and perfumed, and his chest smooth, as though every errant hair had been plucked. His only garment was a short chlamys, one side thrown back over his shoulder and the other scarcely concealing his nether regions. An inadvertent downward glance confirmed Persephone’s suspicions and she blushed. Indeed every hair on his body had been plucked. “Can I interest the lady in a cup of nectar?”
She’d never felt the effects of nectar— ambrosia wine— having only eaten the food of immortality in its unadulterated form. It was best to keep her wits about her here. “No, thank you. What is your name, if I may ask?”
“Ganymede, milady. The cupbearer of Zeus,” he said with a slight nod. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, I’ve never seen you here before. Might I ask the resplendent lady’s name?”
“Persephone!” A voice boomed from a nearby divan. Zeus. She barely noticed Ganymede back away from her fearfully at the utterance of her name.
“Your grace,” she said softly and bowed low to the King of the Gods.
“Oh, we’ll have none of that formal nonsense here… we’re family!” He clapped a broad arm over her shoulder and smiled, showing his teeth. His beard was not streaked through with nearly as much white as the last time she had seen him, but he was still a far cry from the ancient yet youthful refinement of her husband. Zeus was wrapped in a gold-embroidered royal purple himation and his breath reeked of wine. The blonde nymph he’d left behind on the divan set down both their cups, folded her arms and pouted.
“Indeed we are, your grace.”
“Whom can I introduce you to?”
She was shocked by his informality. Wasn’t this the very same man who had called up rank and title and tried to cow her into submission to his rule not six months ago? “Well, I’ve already met quite a few. Hermes, ahh… Ares, Athena, and Artemis, of course…” She trailed off.
“Since you’re bound for the sunless world in less than three days, I should introduce you to Apollo. Come,” he said, shepherding her with a hand at her back, moving her across the room.
She heard hushed voices as she passed by groups of immortals. “Demeter’s daughter…” “No wonder she hid her away! If only I had gotten to her before…” “Poor thing’s beauty will shrivel away down there…” “Did she really? I heard he forced her to eat…”
Persephone passed an exotic, golden skinned woman of impossible beauty fanning herself. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl and a diadem balanced on her head with golden strands weaving an intricate pattern across her dark hair. Deep in conversation with her attendants, she laughed lightly and spoke with a hint of an accent. “They can’t be that interesting! It’s probably him on top with the lamps out and their chitons on every time!”
One of her girls leaned in. “No, my lady! Hermes swore up and down that he saw—” The woman shook her fan at the girl who promptly fell silent, and watched as Persephone walked past. The Queen of the Underworld glared at the woman. She stared straight back, serene, her gaze piercing all the way through Persephone, seeming to draw her in. Persephone flinched and averted her eyes, her cheeks burning.
“Who was that?”
“Aphrodite,” Zeus answered, his voice flat. “Someone can introduce you to her later.”
Persephone fumed. The Goddess of Love herself had been brazenly gossiping about her husband and their love life, of all things. Why in the name of the Fates did any of these fools find her intimacy with Aidon so interesting in the first place? She shook her head. The next three days couldn’t pass fast enough.
Zeus and Persephone finally stopped in front of a sunlit divan with a golden-haired man and several women draped across it. He was in the middle of a song, telling a story about love unrequited with a flawless tenor voice and a silver lyre. Two of the women, who Persephone recognized from the courtyard as Erato and Euterpe gazed longingly up at him. Apollo glanced at Persephone and winked, his melody uninterrupted. She raised an eyebrow. Was anyone in Zeus’s court not completely shameless? He ended his final verse with a slowly plucked chord. When he finished, Zeus, the women and Persephone clapped for him. Apollo stood and bowed low, his eyes traveling up her body as he rose.
“Persephone Karpophoros Chthonios, daughter of Demeter, may I present Apollon Lykeios Delphinios, son of Leto.”
She curtsied to him and he bowed exaggeratedly low once again, then gave her a wide smile filled with perfect teeth. “Apollo, please. And I believe we’ve met before.”
“We have?”
“We were only children, then. I think I gave you flowers— larkspur of all things— and recited an ode to you.” He chuckled. “Your mother was furious!”
“Forgive me. You’re now the god of…?”
“Prophecy, music, light, the healing arts…”
“That’s… quite the list of accomplishments.”
“This from a fair goddess who is both life and death at once.”
“I’ll leave you two be. I have a feeling you’ll get on famously!” Zeus said. He paced back to his divan, then bellowed a laugh and buried his face in his companion’s cleavage as she smiled and squealed.
Persephone’s mouth twisted contemptuously. Where was Hera, his queen? A hand on her shoulder interrupted her thoughts.
“There goes Father Zeus again…”
“You disapprove of him?”
“Naturally,” he said and shrugged. “But, if he begets on that silly nymph, that could be one more ally on our side. Not of noble blood, but we shouldn’t split hairs…”
“Our side?” Persephone swallowed and looked at him with alarm. Was he openly talking about rebellion? Another war among the gods? “What do you mean?”
He cracked another disarmingly beautiful and calculated smile. “Oh, don’t be so serious, Sephia!” His face fell slightly when her features twisted. “Should I not call you that?”
“Persephone, please.”
“Persephone then. And what a contradictory name for one so very radiant. Don’t be so grave, darling. I’m not suggesting anything like open war. Everyone here is subtler than that, as you’ll come to learn. Here— give us a smile.”
She imagined for a moment what Aidoneus would do with this silly boy if he knew that he was attempting to use his charms on her. Picturing Apollo begging for mercy finally turned up the corners of her mouth.
“There’s a good girl,” he continued. “What I mean is that Zeus’s… fruit plucked from less legitimate branches of the Olympian tree should stick together. You’re already friends with Athena and my sister, Artemis, and Hermes, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes.” She looked around for Hermes. “Speaking of, have you seen—”
“Good!” He
interrupted. “We shall be friends too.”
“Friends?” So it was friendship he wanted… Maybe, Persephone thought, she was taking his behavior the wrong way. The Olympians seemed to be from a world set far apart from her and her mother, not to mention her husband. His forwardness could have been learned from Zeus and the others. What else had she heard about Apollo besides Athena’s brief warning? Artemis rarely spoke about her brother. She knew of his pursuit of Daphne. The nymphs she’d known had had a checkered acquaintance with him. Except for one… “We may yet have another friend in common.”
“Do we, now…” he beamed. “And whose acquaintance might we share, radiant one?”
“Do you know Kyrene?”
He looked at her blankly. “Who?”
“She was a friend of mine long ago. She mentioned you once. That you and she were… lovers.”
“You blush so charmingly, but sadly, I cannot recall her. Are you sure she and I…”
Persephone swallowed. “Ah… yes. She said that you found her in Libya—”
“Oh, now I remember! The lion tamer girl! Yes, she was…” he ran his hand back through his curls. “She was something. Kyrene had a son, I believe?”
“Aristaios.”
“That’s right… the beekeeper, cheese maker… busy little god, isn’t he?”
“I've never met him,” she admitted. “Sadly, I haven’t spoken with Kyrene since she conceived him.”
He laughed. “Then that’s another thing we have in common.”
Persephone’s face fell. “Never mind. I thought you might know where she was.”
“Heavens no,” he said dismissively. When she frowned he tilted his head toward her. “I didn't mean it that way, Persephone. She’s probably wrestling lions in Libya right now. And I find my present company far more… engaging.”
“I see.”
“But speaking of him, Aristaios prepares the most wondrous delicacies. Have you ever tasted cheese and honey together?”
“I cannot say I have,” she said. Most families in Eleusis owned a goat, perhaps two, and maybe had some extra milk during kidding, but rarely turned that into cheese. Apollo flicked his wrist toward a serving girl, then motioned Ganymede to their side. The girl held up a golden tray piled with dates stuffed with soft goat cheese and drizzled with honey. Apollo grabbed a full cup from Ganymede.
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