“Come,” Demeter said. “We’ll go back to the Telesterion and rest. I’ll make you a warm cup of kykeon… you’ll feel better, I promise.”
Persephone sighed.
***
“Tomorrow is not here yet. You’re here. You’re safe with me,” he whispered, sinking into her. “I love you, my lady.”
His lips tasted of her, and her body still convulsed with the pleasure he’d given her. Demeter raised her hips and wrapped her legs around Triptolemus’s back. His arms gripped her shoulders and she clung to him, but didn’t meet his gaze. She tried to clear her mind, push away everything that she’d talked about with Persephone. She squeezed her eyes tightly and whimpered with pleasure into the hollow of his neck. She loathed herself for thinking about the god who had captured and captivated her daughter at a time like this. Every time she tried to banish her worries, they came back tenfold.
Hades had lied to Kore, and once her daughter knew the truth she would be broken, would hate him, but would still be forced to shuffle between worlds instead of leaving that deceitful monster forever. Would he drag her heart and hopes across the ages as she tried in vain to get with child by him? Would he blame her so he wouldn’t be forced to answer her about his own infertility? Demeter shuddered, futilely trying to stop herself from weeping. Here she was in the warm arms of her own lover, yet tears streamed down her face.
“Demeter?” Triptolemus breathed raggedly. She turned her face away from him, ashamed. “No, no no, my light,” he soothed, and traced the line of one of her tears with his rough thumb.
“I can’t stop thinking about… I’m sorry…” Her voice came out far weaker than she intended.
He kissed her again, chastely. “Do you want to stop?”
“No…”
“I won’t be offended.” He tentatively pulled away from her. “You’ve been through too much today.”
“My prince, please…” She dug her heels into his lower back, pushing him deeper. He let out a long gasp.
“Are you sure?”
“I need this. I want you,” she said. I want you to sleep soundly beside me, she thought. “Please…” I don’t want to speak about this.
He gripped her hip and pushed forward. “I love you, Demeter.”
She moaned, tensing around him, concentrating on the sensation of him moving within her. When her thoughts drifted to the future, she would clench around him again, drowning her worries in waves of pleasure. Her head rested on his shoulder and his breath quickened. He swelled and grew harder, his thrusts more erratic. Demeter squeezed and rippled around him, and Triptolemus’s body stiffened and bucked. His skin was smooth under her touch and she laid kisses on his shoulder and collarbone when he collapsed upon her, a last shuddering moan lost in her hair.
With a contented sigh, Triptolemus pulled free from Demeter, lying beside her. He pulled her back against him and drew her into his embrace, an arm supporting her head, the other cupping her breast. Demeter lay still, listening to his breathing, the heat of his body behind her and the cool trail of his seed on her thigh.
“I’ll be here for you,” he said. “And she’ll return sooner than you think.”
“I know.”
“We have all winter together, my love. In a week, we’ll finish building the second granary, and all will be well for the mortals.” He kissed her neck. “And I’ll be here with you until spring comes again. I promise… I won’t leave you. Teaching our methods to the people in Scythia and Illyria can wait…”
Triptolemus drifted off. Demeter lay in his arms, her eyes wide open.
***
Persephone lay in bed, thankful that the noises had stopped, and anxious to be alone with her thoughts. She would see Aidon tomorrow, and all her questions would be answered. Hermes would take her there— Hermes, who had let her twist in the wind during her visit at Olympus. She’d have words for the Messenger when he arrived to escort her tomorrow morning.
Demeter would likely not conceive by Triptolemus. Unlike the licentious gods, it was rare for a goddess to do so with a lesser being. Hypnos had kept poor shepherd boy-turned-immortal Endymion in eternal slumber so that he might sire children by his lover Selene, the great Titaness of the moon. Triptolemus might be immortal, but no divine blood ran through his veins and no half-sisters or brothers would be forthcoming for Persephone. Her forehead crinkled. Was that why Demeter kept insisting that Persephone’s union with Aidoneus would produce no offspring? Was she jealous?
Hades and Persephone were equals, divinity flowing through them since birth. And the deathless ones seemed to effortlessly produce children. Poseidon and Zeus had countless demigod and immortal offspring. She had been between the tides when Hades had first taken her, and should have conceived then, if her mother’s words were truthful.
Of course he will tell you the truth… if you know which questions to ask.
Kronos’s words splintered through her. Persephone hadn’t even considered children until after Tartarus.
I can give you what he cannot.
She froze, curling her arms around herself. Hades had nearly lunged at Kronos when he’d said it. She’d thought nothing of it at the time. Persephone contemplated the vision she’d received there, when Kronos had tempted them: Aidoneus enthroned at Olympus with her by his side, heavy with child.
Persephone, don’t listen to him!
Aidoneus had broken her trance and in the vision Kronos sat by her side. A wave of nausea passed over her. The Tyrant hadn’t been showing her heavy with her husband’s child, but with his own child. The desire to have a child with Aidon had been planted like a splinter in her mind, and the Tyrant must have thought that she already knew that her husband could not…
Tears streaked her face. Persephone thought about her father’s peculiar new oath to them, that their son would inherit Olympus. If he knew the truth, why would he say such a thing? And wasn’t his son Ares his heir? He was at least legitimate. Why not Athena? She was easily Zeus’s favorite. She remembered the look that had crossed Aidoneus’s face when Zeus had spoken, the hurt that had twisted his features. The same expression of anger and hurt crept across her face as she lay in bed.
Zeus hadn’t made the oath to make amends. He’d said it to bring his vassal, her husband, back into line after Aidon had caused so much trouble. Persephone sobbed quietly. There would be no children. Not above ground, not below.
Ten years… a thousand… of nothing, the God of Prophecy had spat at her.
Every mention of children she’d ever made flashed through her mind. Aidon in the pool after their last practice, wincing when she’d said that she wasn’t innocent to how babies were made… Hecate’s vague dismissal of a possible pregnancy in the Underworld… the stopping of her cycle and its violent return when she came above. His utter silence when they last lay together… Aidon’s admission that he had eaten the food of the Underworld as penance for nearly unleashing the Titans.
As atonement for what I’d nearly done, I ate the asphodel roots in the fields to eternally bind myself here and took the name Chthonios.
She stopped breathing. Did the fruits of the Underworld render one unable to bear children? Did he know and willingly do so to punish himself? Acid welled up in her throat and tasted sickeningly like pomegranate. In binding herself to her realm and the man she loved, had she unwittingly destroyed any chance of having children for all the long aeons of her life to come?
It made no sense. The nymphs of the Underworld bore children. Askalaphos and Menoetes were both children of the Stygian nymphs. Minthe herself was born from a nymph of the Underworld.
He is Hades and Hades is him, and there is no life among the dead.
He ruled the Dead. He was Lord of the Dead, she thought to herself. Persephone burst into tears, unable to control her confusion and sadness any longer. Her chest hurt, her nose ran, she huddled into a ball and cried. What a little fool she had been, to think it could be otherwise. How silly her denial must have sounded to her moth
er. She would have to face Aidoneus tomorrow. What could she possibly say to him? Should she say anything at all when she herself was uncertain of what sort of future any child of hers might have? She rolled over, taking the sheets with her and pulled a pillow to her face to bury her sobs.
***
Demeter listened in the dark. Triptolemus breathed slowly and heavily against her neck, but she could hear her daughter. A tear rolled down her face and she scowled.
How dare Hades do this to her Kore? If he had been honest with her, would she have bound herself to his kingdom? Or would Kore have walked away from him and returned to the light, never looking back? Aidoneus had robbed a mother of her child, and had robbed her child of being a mother. He would steal all Kore’s happiness, his selfishness leaching her dry as the centuries passed. And once she had become as empty as the chaff blowing on the cool breezes outside, he would grow tired of her and take another.
Demeter got out of bed, hastily pinning a chiton across her shoulders and wrapping a himation around her to keep out the chilly air. She padded across the floor, then slowly closed the door so as not to wake Triptolemus. Demeter lifted the hood of her himation over the mess of her loose hair and picked up an oil lamp in the hallway, lighting it as she walked.
She paused outside her daughter’s doorway. The sound of Kore’s barely muffled choking and sobbing filled the hallway. Demeter’s eyes brimmed with tears. There was nothing to be done. Kore would not listen to her, just as she had not listened this afternoon, just as long ago Demeter had not listened to Hecate’s warnings about Zeus’s nature. Her daughter would go below tomorrow, likely confront her husband and his heartbreaking lies, and have to stay below with him, either watching her imagined happiness crash down around her or timidly believing his falsehoods.
Demeter and Kore would be condemned to this, coming and going, waiting, dreading, for eternity. And every time she returned, Demeter would see just a little more of her daughter left behind, consumed by the dead and their inexorable master.
She knew what had happened to Sisyphus, and how it had been Persephone’s doing. Her daughter was strong, but Aidoneus would weaken her over time. Without him, she could rule the Underworld by herself as its Queen if there was any truth to what Hecate or Nyx believed. But stubborn Kore would persist, fed by lies and false hope until all the light within her burned out and her joy turned to ashes in her mouth.
It couldn’t be allowed to happen. Surely a clean break in their attachment was more merciful than that miserable fate. But her daughter seemed to love her new husband and would never rule the Underworld without him. Not unless something devastating and irreversible were to—
Her eyes widened. Her feet carried her from the hallway, down the steps to the center of the Telesterion and out the great double doors. She glanced around the narrow walkway and the row of small cottages south of the great temple. Turning on her heels, Demeter quickly paced the cold streets, her feet bare, her face and hair cloaked. When she came to a simple dwelling next to a trickling brook, she stopped, taking a deep breath.
Demeter pushed open the door, and stood over the sleeping girl within.
“Minthe.”
“Hmm?” The naiad rubbed her bleary eyes. “My lady! You’re still awake at this hour?”
“I have something to ask of you.” Demeter set the lamp on Minthe’s table and leaned on the side of her bed. “Your beloved mother died of a broken heart. I helped her in her hour of need, and when she passed, I bound her spirit forever to the poplar trees in Thesprotia so she wouldn’t have to return below— a living monument to the injustice done to her. If you ever wanted retribution for what she suffered, and for what you suffered by losing her…”
Minthe sat up, her eyes wide, her skin prickling. Demeter slowly shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears.
“If you ever loved me or my daughter, if you ever cared at all for Kore, you will do this for me…”
22.
Celeus and Triptolemus, Diocles and Eumolpus, stood waiting, a long oak box before them. When the first light of dawn touched the Telesterion, each stepped forward and placed a object in the box: a full blade of wheat, an eggshell, a crocus bulb, and finally a clay phallus. To the initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries, this signaled the beginning of winter, and the promise that spring and fertility would return again.
Persephone got a final look at the crowd before Eumolpus draped a long saffron veil over her face and down to her waist, then placed a crown of asphodel and crocus on her head. She was glad that the gathered masses could no longer see her. Her drawn and tired expression had been mistaken by the townsfolk for reticence— they suspected she did not want to return to the Underworld and her lord husband. Persephone feared that her puffy red-rimmed eyes had tainted everything she’d accomplished since returning to the world above. Even loyal Eumolpus looked at her ruefully. She needed to speak with Aidoneus to confirm with the man who had sworn on the Styx to always tell her the truth whether or not they would be able to have children… and whether or not he’d known all along that the answer to that question was ‘no’.
Most of the Eleusinian priesthood dressed in funerary indigo, but Eumolpus’s followers discreetly wore nuptial saffron chitons underneath their dark robes. The irony didn’t escape Persephone. She held a heavy bouquet of poppies, crocus, asphodel, echinacea, and narcissus so broad that she could barely see her feet. Celeus and Metaneira guided her from the Telesterion to the Plutonion. They looked ghostly through the thick veil, like the shades they would one day become. A koudounia rang behind her, carried by a little girl cloaked in indigo. A funeral. A wedding.
Diocles spoke between the shakings of the bells. “I sing of lovely-haired Demeter, great goddess, of her and of her slender-ankled Kore whom Zeus, all-seeing and loud-thundering, gave to the Receiver of Many to wed…”
Persephone half-listened to the hymn that Diocles had busied himself writing over the last few weeks. Though she feared she would trip over her own feet, she was thankful for the covering. All eyes were focused on her at a time she would much rather spend alone, reflecting on her impending journey. The procession arrived at the door of the Plutonion, now standing fully enclosed by marble blocks. Offerings were piled against the outside walls nearly three paces deep. There was barely enough room for her to walk to the entrance. The procession and music stopped.
Eumolpus stepped forward and raised his hood over his head, the assembled acolytes doing the same. He waited, listening to the wind and seabirds before he spoke. “No man, once the earth has covered him and he has descended into darkness, the home of Persephone, has the pleasure of listening to the lure of the piper or of raising wine to his lips. So too we have forgone wine as our sacrifice and have filled the home of Plouton, the Rich One, the Receiver of Many, with the fresh bounty and fruits of our labors to mark the return of his cherished bride.” He cleared his throat and unrolled a scroll. “The Archon of Athens sends two score amphorae of oil to thank Karpophoros, the bringer of fruit, for the bounteous crops of olive. To Plouton and Kore, the beekeepers of Kekropis give honeyed kykeon. The great house of Ceryces, long the servants of the Mother and the Maiden, offer pomegranates, the fruit that bound the Maiden forever to the world below and to her husband’s side. The house of Antiochis offers figs, the first of all fruits to appear. The house of Pandionis offer dates and pomegranates…”
Persephone stifled a yawn as Eumolpus listed every offering from every illustrious family and tribe in Attica.
“I wish you would reconsider,” Demeter said quietly as the list of offerings droned on.
“Taking Minthe with me?”
“Daughter, you are a queen. All queens have servants.”
“We don’t have or need servants.”
“What about Merope?”
“She was a friend and my guest.”
“…Who attended to you. As all the nymphs living along the rivers of the Underworld should.”
“They are their own creatures
. I would feel silly ordering them about.”
“Nonsense,” she said under her breath. “You are in every way equal to Hera, and should act the part. Even her humblest servants are goddesses in their own right. Would it be so terrible to to take a mere nymph under your wing?”
“It wouldn’t be terrible, but—”
“It would be like sending Minthe home.”
“I don’t know if Minthe would call it that. She was conceived above. She was born above.”
“Her entire family is below. And she often told me she would like to see her aunts and cousins one day.”
“What has prevented her from doing so?”
Demeter looked at her feet, her voice low. “It was my fault. I forbade her.”
Persephone nodded. Demeter was trying. She was trying so very hard, and Persephone was surprised that her mother hadn’t broken down crying. Three months ago, Persephone had dreaded this day, fearing that Demeter would scream hysterically and try to drag her bodily away from the door of the Plutonion.
How things had changed.
She turned her gaze to Minthe, who seemed to be the only congregant who wasn’t fidgeting or yawning while waiting for Eumolpus to stop talking. On the contrary, he held the pretty naiad’s rapt attention.
“For six months, then,” Persephone muttered.
“You’ll try having a servant?”
“I suppose it could work. Then she could be back among the mortals for half the year.”
“I doubt it she’d miss them.”
“I would beg to differ,” she said, nodding her head at Eumolpus.
“The priesthood in Dion has let it be known that the Loud-Thunderer, father of the Maiden, has promised the island of Sikelia to her as a wedding gift…” he said to the crowd.
The corner of Demeter’s mouth turned up. “We shall see.”
Persephone smiled. She wouldn’t reduce Minthe to waiting on her. The girl would wander freely. Though not too freely, she worried, imagining what could happen to Minthe if she ventured too close to the Lethe. But surely her family would welcome and care for her.
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