Shimmering Splendor

by Roberta Gellis

  Eros shook his head as if to clear it. “Without wishing to offend you, Aphrodite, Poseidon is far more powerful than you and more than strong enough to fight his own battles. Why does he need your help? And how did Hephaestus get involved?”

  “Oh, Hephaestus got involved because Tethys begged him to approach me. You know Hephaestus will do anything for Tethys, and I don’t blame him for that. Hera can be a cold-hearted bitch, even to her own child, and Tethys mothered him. And Hephaestus knows Poseidon will not come here. Poseidon doesn’t trust Zeus—or he’s afraid that Zeus will suspect him of trying to foment discontent. What Hephaestus said was that Poseidon doesn’t want to punish all of Crete with an earthquake or a tidal wave. As to why Poseidon needs my help—” She smiled sensuously. “He may be able to move mountains and whip up wild storms, but he cannot raise lust. Poseidon wants Minos to suffer and to suffer in a way specifically related to that bull. He wants Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, to conceive a passion for the bull and mate with it.”

  “With a bull?” Eros gasped. “But a bull has no interest in a human woman. And even if you could get that kind of a spell to work on an animal, which I’m not too sure of, the woman would be killed. Don’t do it, Aphrodite—and don’t ask me to do it! Why should Minos’s poor wife die in such a horrible way for her husband’s misbehavior?”

  Aphrodite hesitated, staring at Eros. She could not remember the last time he had cared enough about anything to remonstrate with her. The man or woman who had caught his eye had worked a miracle. Although she was glad for Eros, she was resentful over the years of effort she had expended. He was her friend.

  Who but she had any right to bring him to life again? Almost instantly she suppressed the flicker of jealousy. It didn’t matter; as in all the other cases, the affair would soon be over.

  “No, no,” she said, laughing. “It wouldn’t be the bull that coupled with her, not really. It would be Poseidon.”

  “Oh.” Eros laughed too. “What a fool I am. I should have understood that without being told. Well, why not do it? Hephaestus seldom asks for anything, and I might need a favor or two from him. Minos will be punished. Pasiphae and Poseidon will probably enjoy themselves—” A huge yawn interrupted him. He rose from his seat, yawning again and shaking his head. “I’m perishing for sleep. Forgive me.”

  Aphrodite watched him go toward the door in astonishment. Never, not once since she had brought him to her home, had Eros so casually dismissed a problem she felt worth presenting to him. Whatever worried her worried him doubly. Her lips thinned. He had not even realized that she was worried. She didn’t like that at all. A love strong enough to draw Eros’s attention away from her? No, she didn’t like that at all.

  Then Eros stopped at the door and turned, frowning. “Be sure to tell Zeus before you actually provide the spells or send me to Crete. He won’t object. He has no interest in Crete and he doesn’t want to annoy Poseidon if he doesn’t have to. But he’ll appreciate the fact that you informed him of the contact with his brother.”

  Aphrodite nodded and smiled, her normal good humor restored. “Goodnight,” she said, appeased. He had told her when he came that he was tired, but he had been thinking about what she told him all the time, and his last thought had been for her.

  Chapter 8

  Psyche did not expect to sleep. In fact, she would not have slept for pure spite—so she could tell the monster that even the thought of being in his company was enough to keep her awake all night—but her body played her false. With the real assurance that no more would be expected of her than to talk to him, the tension that she now realized had kept her quivering, even when she thought she was at peace, left her, and she did sleep, quietly and deeply, and without dreaming, so far as she could remember.

  Without fear to spice every moment, her morning was very dull. Among the women at home, she had had her duties and they were truly a necessary part of the smooth functioning of her father’s household. Here, she was not essential. The household had been established, possibly long established, with no place for her; she was no more than a toy for a monster’s amusement. Not that she was denied occupation. When she entered the kitchen after breaking her fast, the old women made way for her. Had she wished to cook, to choose spices, she was certain they would have allowed it, even cooperated, but her interference was totally unnecessary. No guests would come. No one would eat the meal beside herself. Why bother?

  An exploration of the chambers on the upper floor she had not examined the previous day because of her fascination with the books in the book room had disclosed a woman’s workroom to the right of her bedchamber. A loom stood ready; beside a comfortable chair were two baskets of clean wool with spindles lying atop them; on a table lay folded cloth and beside that, hanks of vibrantly dyed thread and a small polished wooden box, which Psyche knew contained needles and pins. She had no doubt there would be facilities for dyeing cloth or yarn below. She could spin, weave, embroider—but to what purpose? The gown she was wearing and the others she had seen in the chest were finer than any she could make, and it would be years before she would need more clothing.

  Passing the book room, which was another kind of frustration because she had no one with whom to discuss what she read, she found a large and luxurious bedchamber at the other end of the upper gallery, clearly a man’s room. Weapons hung on the walls, most notably several magnificent bows, and by the wall, below the bows, was a table with feathers for fletching, a glue pot, fine line for binding. Beyond the table, under the window, was a wide bed covered with heaped furs. Psyche backed out before she saw more, knowing whose room it was and feeling a pang of guilt that its occupant should be banished by her unwillingness to have him in the house.

  She stood for several long minutes before the door of the book room, but at last she turned away. There was the anodyne for her boredom, but she was reluctant to take the draught. She knew that going back to the book she had been reading, or to any other that would interest her enough to make the hours pass, would only raise a fever of need for someone with whom to talk. And the creature in the cloud had been very conversable. No, she told herself firmly, turning her back on the room. I will go out and walk myself tired.

  In the garden, however, her eyes were drawn immediately to the bench where she and the black cloud had talked. Like magnet to lodestone, she was drawn to it. The bench was whole, no part of it had been absorbed into the darkness. Standing there, she remembered what they had said to each other, remembered his sharp rejoinders, how clearly he had seen through her posturing. Seen through her posturing… The words repeated in her mind. The monster had not been at all bemused by her beauty. He had called her a monster!

  Without being aware of it, Psyche turned and plumped down on the bench. Would not one think that something so horribly ugly that it had to hide in a cloud of darkness would be more enchanted by her beauty than a normal man? Well, perhaps not, not if the being was aware that he was not a monster inside. He would know then that the external appearance meant little, that an ugly man could be a good one and a beautiful one evil. He had said that, that he wished to be a good husband to her.

  Psyche jumped up and a small sound of revulsion pushed its way up her throat. No! She would not mate with something so horrible that it dared not be seen. What if she got with child? What would that poor child be? Tears came to her eyes. Had the creature been born a monster? What did its mother do, kill herself? Who had raised it? Surely someone had been kind to it, or how could it know enough to be kind to her?

  She hurried away from the bench around the back of the house where she had never been so the area could wake no memories. Here she found the true garden, rows of vegetables and beds of herbs, and flowers—a wild profusion of late-summer flowers. At first she smiled, but as she began to wander through the beds, her brows knitted. She had never seen such flowers, such vegetables. The lushness, the richness of every plant was unnatural. Raising her skirt so she would not spoil it, Psyche knelt to examine the
earth more closely. It looked ordinary except for being blacker and richer and there was something about it, a smell? No, not exactly a smell, more a feeling of fecundity… Yes, but that was not natural either. And then she understood. Some power, some blessing, had been given to this garden, not a spell but an outflowing of fertility.

  She rose from her knees at once and brushed the loam from them as if it might contaminate her. As she backed out of the garden, however, she took herself to task. Was she not being as prejudiced a fool as those who held all magic suspect? There was nothing evil in the power that lent richness here. The plants were in no way forced or deformed; they were only larger and denser than those in the garden of Iolkas. And that raised a new question in her mind. Why should the garden of a monster be so blessed?

  Then Psyche reminded herself that it was not his garden; it belonged, like the house, to Aphrodite. Instinctively she brushed at her knees again and then laughed nervously. The power that fructified this garden did not come from Aphrodite. Aphrodite was only goddess of beauty and of a barren kind of love. The goddesses who enriched the earth were Demeter and her greater daughter, Persephone. The well within Psyche seemed to ache for a moment like an empty stomach asking to be filled. To have that kind of power? She sighed. It was not a spell; it was a Gift that created that richness, and Psyche knew she had no Gift—except perhaps one for trouble.

  Her lips twisted wryly and she turned away from the garden with its seductive aura of power. She had very little. She had been grateful for that. Those with a true Gift were not tolerated; mostly they were sent to the caves of the Underworld, sacrificed—sometimes to Persephone to ensure the richness of the earth or to Hades when there was plague or some other inexplicable evil abroad in the land. Sometimes a more direct ending took them. The Gifted were greatly hated and feared because a Gift could be used instantly right from the mind of the Gifted one. Such power was too dangerous.

  Learned magic was different; spells had to be spoken, gestures made in the presence of those who were to be bespelled. A witch or sorcerer could be overpowered or even killed long before a spell was completed and was thus vulnerable to physical attack and punishment. The vulnerability made most workers of magic, even those who were very strong, useful without permitting them to become too powerful.

  Psyche found herself wondering again who had blessed the garden to make it so lush. It did not seem reasonable that Demeter or Persephone would need or wish to do Aphrodite a favor. The monster? Could he have done it himself? She tore her eyes away from what she knew as knee-high plants, but which reached her waist here. There was no way she could reason out the truth, so it was silly to tease herself about it. She turned about to return to the house, nearly stamping her feet with ill temper.

  Suddenly Psyche stopped and smiled. True, she had no way to reason out the truth, but she could ask the monster directly. Yes, indeed. He had promised not to hurt her no matter what she did. Why then should she not broach even forbidden topics? Possibly she would make him so uncomfortable that he would not want her company.

  With that not-so-laudable purpose in mind, Psyche went happily back to the book room. With a leisurely break for a light midday meal, which she occupied with framing questions she sincerely hoped would embarrass the monster, she gorged herself on the most fascinating information from The History of the Olympians. They were the most shocking people!

  Psyche was not particularly troubled by the fact that when the Olympians had finally crossed the mountain range between their homeland and Hellas—what an epic that was!—they had captured and enslaved some ancestors of her people and those of many other tribes. After all, stronger nations among her people did that all the time to weaker ones. What horrified Psyche was that the Olympians seemed to hold nothing sacred.

  She had got up to the part where Kronos, whose Gift was the withdrawal of heat, had tried to freeze his eldest son, Hades, so that he could kill him, when she was interrupted by a servant silently summoning her to dinner. She went down and ate, wondering how all sense of family had been lost to the Olympians. What held them together at all if a father could not count on the support of his sons and daughters, even of his nieces, nephews, and cousins? What woman would dare marry if she did not count on her father and brothers to punish a husband who was unreasonably cruel?

  She paused a moment in her chewing, recalling that her own father had not been perfect on that score, but then she resumed eating. Her case was exceptional. Ordinary modest behavior and common sense, even extraordinary precautions, could not ensure that her husband would trust her. But for the Olympians, unnatural attitudes of parents to children—and vice versa—seemed to be the natural order. How dare the monster call her unprincipled in the light of what his people considered ordinary.

  By the time Psyche had consumed her sweet, she was as eager to see the black cloud as she had been fearful the preceding day. She almost leapt from her eating couch as soon as she felt it was dark enough and seized a thick, warm himation. She did not want to feel chilled and need to allow the monster to depart until she had got the answers she wanted. Only when she approached the bench and realized that a third of it had disappeared did she hesitate.

  “Good evening to you,” the beautiful voice called softly. “You are earlier than I expected.”

  “Well, I have some things I wish to say to you,” Psyche responded, her doubts much assuaged by the pleasure she sensed in the creature’s voice.

  “I hope you have found nothing amiss in the house? The servants have been instructed to bring you anything you desire—”

  “No, no.” She came forward and sat at the other end of the bench surprised at her lack of reluctance. “I am very comfortable—too comfortable, to tell the truth. I’m bored to death. However, now that you mention the servants, do they have names? Since they are mute and I am not very good at guessing charades, they have no way of telling me.”

  “Yes, of course they do. The men are Kryos and Titos and the women are Hedy and Melba. I cannot think how to tell you which is which, but if you call a name, that servant will answer.”

  “I think I might have reasoned that out in time.”

  A chuckle came out of the cloud. “I am afflicted with ill-tempered and unreasonable females. You snap at me for trying to be helpful and Aphrodite was very put out with me because I could not be in two places at the same time.”

  “Do you spend much time with Aphrodite?”

  “Yes. I told you I was her servant.”

  “I suppose it is she who gave you your taste for beautiful women.”

  There was a slight pause. Then the lovely voice said slowly, “I have no particular taste for beautiful women. In fact, I find most of them as dull as ditch water. They are too fond of their own faces and have no interest in any conversation beyond their appearance.”

  “And Aphrodite?”

  “Aphrodite is what she is and has long ago recognized how unimportant and irrelevant is her appearance or that of anyone else. She is a happy person, kind, a little lazy, sometimes mischievous, but indulgent not only to herself but to everyone who does not deliberately offend her.”

  Again, as at other times, Psyche felt the creature was smiling. Moreover, there was such warmth and affection in his voice that she knew she should not press her irritable questioning further. Nonetheless, she could not help asking, “You love her?”

  “Very much. I have told you already how good she is to me.”

  “But not good enough to grant you her favors.” The words were out before Psyche thought and she caught her breath as a movement rippled over the blackness at the end of the bench.

  “I love Aphrodite as a friend, a comrade, a person who saved my life. I do not desire—have never desired—Aphrodite as a man desires a woman…as I desire you.”

  The voice was calm, no threat in it, and the final phrase was spoken with a kind of husky depth that wakened a response in Psyche. A quick glance at the place where the other end of the bench disappeared into
nothing curbed that response, but it occurred to her that a being who lived with Aphrodite and was constantly in her company might be inured to beauty.

  “But Aphrodite must be more beautiful than I,” she remarked, and then asked curiously, “Why do you want me?”

  “Not for your beauty.” The warm chuckle almost drew a smile from Psyche. “I want you because you value your beauty even less than Aphrodite values hers. I want you because you are not crouching in the house, whimpering with fear. I want you because you have the courage to knit your brows at a sorcerous blackness and cross-question it.”

  The answer was so flattering that Psyche barely choked back a sincere “Thank you.” What a clever beast it was to praise her for just those qualities that she herself thought of worth. To defend herself from falling into the trap of friendship the creature was constructing, she said sharply, “If you like questions, I have a great many more, some I fear you will not like.”

  “Why should I not like your questions? My purpose is to talk to you until your fear of me passes. There is only one question I will not answer if you ask. I will not describe my appearance.”

  He was clever! Admitting his purpose prohibited her from complaining that he was trying to deceive her. She ignored that remark and pretended a shudder. “Ugh! Why should I want to know that you are a slimy blob with tentacles or covered with warts and hair or—”

  A burst of hearty laughter interrupted her. “You will never guess what makes me monstrous,” he said, still chuckling, “so do not work your fertile imagination overtime.”