She ran out of the gate and down the road, but Poseidon was well ahead of her and she soon slowed, realizing that she did not dare confront him yet. She had no proof of his evil intentions. He would laugh at her and lie. She would have to catch him in the act.
Persephone had not kept up the rapid pace at which she had started for the town for long. At first she had almost skipped along, savoring her conversation with Neso. She was virtually certain that the message she had left would bring Demeter after her in a fury, and she had not needed to tell a single lie! She giggled and actually did skip a step or two. It was, indeed, very important for Demeter to meet Hades and she did hope her mother would share her joy in her husband once she saw him without a bloody sword in hand and came to realize how handsome and tender and loving he was.
Too soon, she realized Demeter would not have a chance to think of Hades as tender and loving if he had to overpower her and silence her so that she could be forced to drink the sleeping potion. Her pace slowed to her ordinary swinging walk as she considered the ramifications of the situation. If they were able to leave at once, Demeter would wake on the ship in all the comfort that could be provided. But if the tides were wrong and they could not sail until the next day, her mother would wake bound and gagged in that cramped and airless compartment under the litter. Persephone shuddered as she walked. Demeter would be so terrified and furious that no amount of soothing or reasoning would propitiate her.
That must be avoided if at all possible, Persephone thought, and almost at once realized that they would not need to put her mother into the compartment until they were ready to leave. She would be able to watch for Demeter’s awakening and explain what was happening. If her mother had not already seen Hades, he could keep out of the way or only appear to do something kind, like bringing food and drink.
Then Persephone began to wonder whether they would need to hide Demeter in the compartment at all. The dark and discomfort would add beyond measure to her fury over being abducted. Suitably bandaged—for a broken jaw and a cracked head, which would prevent her from speaking and explain any violent gestures or cries—her mother could travel in the upper section of the litter. She was large enough to be accepted as male if her features were hidden—a sick or hurt man accompanied by either his partner and an old woman to care for him or by two servants, an old man and an old woman.
A plain face and a gray cloak would not be enough to disguise her as an old woman, Persephone knew. She began to consider what she must do and then she remembered that Pontoporeia had left nearly all her clothing in the little house. She was much taller than the old woman, but she should be able to devise something; she could walk with bent knees, which would change her stride to a waddle. Persephone began to walk more quickly. In her eagerness to try out her idea, she forgot she had intended to stop at Eulimine’s house, and hurried past the potter’s place.
The door was on the latch, which did not trouble Persephone. She and Hades had decided it was better to leave it unlocked than to take a chance on hiding the key and having the one who had not hidden it arrive first and be unable to find it. As a precaution, they had strung a line across and hung the bedclothes in front of the litter. She entered eagerly, hoping Hades was there so she could propose her new idea, but the light from the doorway showed the house was empty and the window closed.
This time she remembered to stop with her hand on the doorframe. The spell was still strong, but she poured more power into it anyway. The last thing she wanted was for the scryer to get even the dimmest view of her mother being overpowered and bound. She went and opened the window and then closed the door, but she did not lock it. Considering the message she had left for her mother and the likelihood that Demeter had already returned to the palace—since her mother’s order to wait for her implied she would soon be back—Persephone thought the scryer might already be watching her. She did not want Hades to have to wait outside for her to open the door. The less time the scryer had to examine the man who entered after her, the less he would be able to describe her “lover” to Demeter.
From the door she went toward the curtain that hid Pontoporeia’s clothing, removing and dropping her cloak on the bed. She took out one garment and then another, shaking her head when she realized that Pontoporeia had been too much shorter. A moment later she smiled with relief. When the clothing had been made, before poor Pontoporeia had lost so much weight, the old woman had been somewhat broader than she. Although the length of the garments made her initial idea of walking with bent knees impossible, she could still manage. She could wear one gown over the other, the skirt of one looped up in the belt to hide the fact that the top of the underdress was fastened around her hips.
The next step was to try out her idea. Persephone found two gowns of essentially the same color—no great feat when all the garments were black, brown, and gray—and lifted her outer tunic off over her head. As she pulled one arm clear, she heard the latch click.
“Oh, love,” she cried, pulling her other arm out of the tunic and dropping it on the bed. “I have had the most wonderful idea.”
Chapter 22
Cresting the rise on the road from the dock to Pontoporeia’s house, Hades saw a man lift the latch and enter as if he knew the door would be unlocked. Anger and fury struck him such a blow that he had to lean on his staff until the pain subsided and he could catch his breath. With breath came reason. No matter how lustful or how much in love, no sane woman would arrange to meet her lover in the house to which she expected her husband would return at any moment. Still, for the man to enter with such assurance implied a very unhealthy familiarity. Hades bit his lip. It was too possible that a lover had come without an invitation to wait for Persephone at a time arranged before he himself arrived.
He started forward so choked with rage that he could not shout—and stopped again. A woman was coming hurriedly along the street, a woman head and shoulders taller than any native, blonde—not a golden glory like Persephone but the paler shimmer of a winter sun—and lovely. He had not seen her in a very long time, but surely that was Demeter. Hades stood frowning, suddenly realizing that the man’s cloak had reached hardly to his knees and that he had to bend his head—just as Hades had to bend his own head—to enter the cottage door. Poseidon! That had been Poseidon!
* * * *
Poseidon leaned back against the door behind him and replied to Persephone’s exclamation that she had a wonderful idea, “Not as good as mine.”
Shocked mute, Persephone whirled to face him, staring. Poseidon laughed and came away from the door, looking around scornfully. “I would have thought you could furnish your love nest a little more comfortably,” he sneered. “But I suppose a straw mattress and bedclothes hanging to air suit your lover’s primitive taste.”
Still openmouthed, but now with relief as much as with shock, Persephone sidled away from the bed so she was on the far side of the table. Her mind was racing. Poseidon did not yet know that Hades had come for her or that she was planning to escape. Like her mother, he thought she had a lover. A flash of black hatred momentarily blanked all else from her mind—except that her mother had betrayed her to Poseidon. That was horrible. More horrible than anything else Demeter had done. Persephone gasped for breath. Poseidon reached the other side of the table.
“Come now, you slut, you must know you cannot act the stupid innocent with me any more.” He cocked his head. “Well, you are a beauty. How in the world do you hide it?”
“It is my Gift,” Persephone whispered. “When I am happy, I am beautiful. If you take me, I will become ugly as sin.”
He roared with laughter as he leaned across the table and reached for her. “That will not trouble me. I can always close my eyes. What I stick my rod in is the same.”
His hand closed on her wrist. Persephone had not even tried to avoid him. She was slow with indecision. To give him what he wanted was the sensible thing. If Hades returned before Poseidon was through with her, he would find her struggling
and crying and would kill Poseidon; if he did not, Poseidon would go away satisfied and they could escape with even less danger of discovery—and Hades need never know. Good sense notwithstanding, when Poseidon began to pull her around the table toward him, Persephone could not act indifferent or compliant. She felt a sick revulsion, and began to fight him, snarling, “No! No!”
The door slammed open. Poseidon turned his head without alarm, merely so the lover would see with whom he had to contend. He was totally unprepared to hear a female shriek like the squall of a wildcat and have a wild woman, hissing and spitting with rage, launch herself at him with hands crooked into claws and teeth bared.
Demeter got in one good slash, her nails catching the corner of Poseidon’s eye and scoring his cheek before he released Persephone to turn and grab for the fury attacking him. He caught her arm, but had misjudged her strength, and she managed to raise his restraining hand to her mouth and bite him. Roaring with anger, Poseidon let go of her arm, but only to strike her in the face with his full strength. Fortunately, it was his left hand with which he launched the blow and it was awkwardly delivered across his body or he might have killed her. As it was, Demeter flew bonelessly backward and lay still when she hit the floor.
Poseidon started to turn back to seize Persephone again, but he had misjudged her too, and it was too late. Unable to find another weapon, and filled with the insane strength of desperation, Persephone had caught up from the table the large, heavy, unfired vessel she had bought from Eulimine, raised it above her head, and brought it crashing down on his.
When Hades had seen Demeter put her hand on the door latch with the same unhesitating certainty that Poseidon had shown, he was shaken by new doubts. Was this some trap for him that Persephone had devised? As the thought came, he knew it was ridiculous. She could have no idea when he would return. He might have been in the house already. Could she have arranged a meeting with her mother and Poseidon in the hope of reasoning them into allowing her to leave?
As that second ridiculous idea came, a furious shriek echoed out of the open door. Clearly, reason was not being employed. Hades wasted no more time thinking but ran at full speed toward the house, wrenching his sword out of its concealment in his staff. Inside, he skidded to a halt at the sight of the body—and earthenware—strewn floor, almost colliding with Persephone.
“If I had known you were going to reason with them so forcibly,” he gasped, “I would not have run so fast.”
“Reason with them?” Persephone repeated, eyes wild with shock. But what he had said and even her own echo of his words had no meaning to her and she threw herself into his arms with a sob.
He barely got his sword out of the way before she spitted herself, but he held her close with that arm and patted her with the other hand. “Never mind, love,” he soothed, choking back laughter. “I will explain that stupidity later. Are you all right?”
“I am frightened out of my wits,” she gasped, trembling with reaction but already so much restored by Hades’s presence that she was able to feel indignant that Hades had found something to tickle his sensitive funnybone in the violence that had taken place.
Her husband sobered and clutched her tighter. “Did he hurt you? Why are you in your underdress?”
“I was—I was going to put on Pontoporeia’s clothes to see if I could be an old woman…” Her voice wavered and then trailed away as the horror of hearing Poseidon’s voice instead of Hades’s momentarily overcame her. She buried her face tighter against Hades’s shoulder.
He could not make head or tail of that remark, nor did he care. Persephone’s assurance that honor would not require his brother’s death restored all his joy. He felt sillier and happier at this moment than at any time since Persephone had first accepted him. No lovers, no plot—that was all his own sick imagining. Proof of his wife’s loyalty was the unconscious bodies on the floor. He kissed Persephone’s hair and then her cheek; he was about to try to lift her face so he could kiss her lips when Demeter moaned.
“Sit down, love, and rest,” he urged, pushing Persephone gently toward the bed. “Your mother is waking, I think, and she should be restrained before she can make more trouble.”
She braced herself against him and then pulled away. “I am better now. Let me bind her. If she wakes and finds you doing that, she will never forgive you. You had better secure Poseidon in some way. Let my mother think it was you that felled him.”
“I would not wish to steal your honors,” Hades said, grinning and bowing.
He could not remain serious. At this moment the world was bright and beautiful to him, full of laughter. Somewhere underneath his joy lay the cold knowledge of how dangerous a prisoner they had taken, but he would not yet uncover that trouble.
Her memory of fear turned insignificant by Hades’s strong assurance and amusement, Persephone cast a clear eye on her mother. She saw at once how to deal with Demeter so that her mother might never know the indignities to which she and Hades would need to submit her. If her mother did not fully regain her wits until they were aboard the ship, she would never realize she had been carried aboard bound and gagged. Persephone then intended to remind Demeter that she had attacked Poseidon, making it necessary for them all to escape. Her mother would accept that, and would probably accept Hades as their savior, albeit grudgingly. Then there would be no need to restrain her for the whole voyage. She grinned back at her husband.
“We can—” she began, but her mother moaned again and stirred. She made a quick gesture toward Poseidon, and ran to the back of the room where she took the pot of sleeping draught from the shelf. One spoonful went into a cup, and a little of the wine, which they had not finished. She swirled the two together, then rushed to her mother and tenderly lifted her head.
“Drink this, mother,” she urged, blocking Demeter’s view of the room with her body. “You will soon feel better.”
Demeter’s hand lifted waveringly toward her head, not to push away the cup Persephone had brought to her lips but to feel her bruised face.
“Drink, mama. It will ease the pain,” Persephone insisted.
Half conscious, more to moan again than in response to the words, Demeter’s lips parted. Persephone tipped the cup. Demeter swallowed, coughed weakly, losing some of the liquid, but then swallowed more strongly. Her eyes cleared.
“Kore,” she whispered, “did he—”
“No, mama,” Persephone replied soothingly. “You held him off long enough. I was saved.”
She bent and kissed Demeter, ashamed of how willingly she had embraced the ugly notion that her mother had told Poseidon she had a lover. Demeter’s eyes had closed again, but she was not yet asleep. Persephone did not hide behind her shield, but let her mother sip at her power.
A glance over her shoulder showed her that Hades had found the strips of cloth she had stored in the litter and was busy binding Poseidon, arms behind his back and knees bent so his ankles could be looped to the wrist ties. The room was too small for Hades to hide. And, Persephone realized, there was no need to fear the scryer. If he were watching, who could he tell that a man he did not know had come out of the bespelled house? When Hades had tested the ties, Persephone put a finger to her lips, gestured to her mother, pointed at the door, and cocked her head questioningly. Hades looked puzzled for a moment but then nodded and went outside.
“Come, mother,” Persephone murmured. “Try to get up. I will help you. You can rest on the bed for a while.”
Demeter opened her eyes and looked vaguely at her daughter. “My head hurts,” she said querulously.
“I am so sorry,” Persephone murmured. “Poseidon hit you, but there is time to rest. Come, get up. You can lie in the bed until the pain goes away.”
“Bed? Where?”
Her voice was already slurred, Persephone noted with delight. “Just a few steps,” she assured her, putting an arm around her and tugging. To her relief, Demeter got up with only a little help and accepted her guidance to the bed. She lay
down, not even noticing the worn, flattened pad, and closed her eyes. Persephone waited. In a very short time her mother’s little whimpers stopped and she began to snore lightly. Persephone ran to the door and pulled it open.
“Hades,” she called softly.
He came around the house from the sea side and hurried through the door. When he took in Demeter’s totally relaxed form on the bed, he asked, “Do you have any more of that sleeping potion?”
“Yes.” Persephone pointed to the pot she had left sitting on the table.
“I think we had better get some of it into Poseidon. I have him bound and gagged, but he is strong, and that cloth is old. I do not think he can break free, but I do not want to need to watch him every moment.”
“A large spoonful for my mother. A spoon and a half or two spoonsful for him?”
Persephone did not wait for Hades to reply but got the pot and the spoon and knelt down beside Poseidon while Hades elevated his head. She pulled down the gag, pushed the spoon between his lips, past his teeth, and tilted it slowly. After considering for a moment, she poured another spoonful into him.
“It will not kill him,” she said, seeing Hades’s black eyes fixed on her face. “The sow did not die from three spoonsful, although she slept more than a day.”
Hades stood up and looked down at his brother, his face bleak. “Was he trying to rape you, Persephone?”
“I think he had threat in mind more than force,” she said slowly, not wanting anything she said to push Hades into an action he might later regret so bitterly that he would begin to blame her. “From what he said when he came in the door, he believed I already had a lover, in which case he would not be soiling his brother’s loyal wife. Perhaps he intended to punish me for betraying you.”
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