Shimmering Splendor

by Roberta Gellis

  It suddenly occurred to Psyche that even a monster should not be amused by his deformities. For the first time she felt a flicker of doubt. Was he really so horrible to look upon? Nonsense, she told herself. Why else should anyone hide himself in such a chilling fashion? She shrugged.

  “My imagination is not so fertile as the garden of this house. If you are so willing to answer questions, tell me why your earth grows grape clusters the size of barrows.”

  “I have no idea,” the monster replied—Psyche could hear his grin. “I have nothing to do with the garden. I doubt I have been in it twice in ten years.”

  “I knew you would say that,” Psyche remarked, with a little sneer. “It is the easy way out, isn’t it? To pretend you are ignorant when you don’t wish to betray a secret to a common native—too common to know the truth but not too common to be the whore of a monster.”

  “That’s not fair, Psyche. You were brought here to be my bride, my wife in all honor. I will swear to you that you will be my only woman—I will take no concubine or other—”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a long line of applicants waiting to be concubines to a black cloud hiding a repulsive monster,” Psyche interrupted with a derisive snort. “It makes your fidelity a little less valuable as evidence of my worthiness.”

  “If you are trying to exasperate me, you are wasting your time,” the monster remarked, and Psyche could hear him grinning again. “If you really want to know why the garden is particularly fertile, I will promise to find out. If you will accept a guess, I believe Demeter or Persephone gave it more of a nudge than usual.”

  “Are you implying that Demeter and Persephone need Aphrodite’s spells and purchase them in this way?”

  Although there was a disbelieving note in Psyche’s voice, it did not have the full thrust of cynical contempt she had intended. The monster’s first remark had removed half the purpose of her question. Plainly the creature was very good-natured, and it was virtually impossible to annoy it. All she would achieve by asking was having her curiosity satisfied.

  “No.”

  Psyche ground her teeth. Far from making the whatever it was so uncomfortable it would avoid her, she seemed to be amusing it. That single syllable, slightly drawn out, was a clear challenge to pursue the subject. Psyche almost jumped to her feet and stamped away—but she was too curious.

  “Very well,” she said with a sniff. “I will ask the question you so clearly want asked. Why, then, did Demeter or Persephone expend so much power in your garden?”

  “Now, that I can answer,” he said. Ignoring her comment on his maneuver, he went on to explain Aphrodite’s part in reconciling Demeter to her daughter’s marriage to Hades. “Actually, it was probably Persephone who blessed the garden,” he finished. “She is the more powerful of the two and the more grateful because she is so very happy with Hades. Demeter still likes to think of herself as ill-used, although she is much happier too in the worshipful admiration of her native priestesses at Eleusis than she was with a restless, angry daughter who wanted to live her own life, so she sometimes shrugs off the help Aphrodite gave her.”

  Psyche had been enthralled by the monster’s tale, listening in delighted fascination as he described Persephone’s courage in enslaving the King of the Dead. Surely, she thought, black-browed, dour Hades was more fearsome than a poor, deformed creature who had shown himself to be both kind and good tempered. But she could not allow the monster to think she had not recognized its purpose. It was Aphrodite’s servant and apparently was dedicated not only to inducing her to yield to it but to acknowledge Aphrodite’s “goodness”.

  “I thought we agreed yesterday that you would not preach at me,” Psyche snapped—but only after the monster had finished speaking.

  She saw the blackness move higher against the silvered leaves of the shrubs behind the bench, as if it had drawn itself up in indignation. But to her immense surprise she felt no fear, only a slight shock as she realized so much time had passed that the moon had risen. And did she feel, too, a flicker of regret that they must soon part?

  “I was not preaching!” the shadow said haughtily. “I was speaking the exact truth about what happened—and, I hope, proving that no secrets are being kept from you because you are a native woman.”

  “Are they not?” Psyche asked, but less aggressively than with true interest.

  “Well, I would not tell you a private secret about Aphrodite or her friends any more than you would tell me a secret private to one of your sisters. What is public knowledge in Olympus, I am perfectly happy for you to know.”

  “Then we are in Olympus?”

  “No. We are north of the city in a hunting lodge on the flanks of the mountains that surround the valley.”

  “I am not good enough to be in Olympus?”

  The monster hesitated, then said softly, “It is nothing to do with you.”

  Psyche’s hand went out in mute apology, but she caught it back before it touched the black nothing. When they sat in the dark like this, it was so easy to forget with what she was talking. She hadn’t meant to hurt the creature, hadn’t meant to force it to acknowledge that it was not welcome in what seemed to be its home city. She wanted to make it leave her alone…didn’t she?

  “So you do not mind that I know what is public knowledge in Olympus? Even that the gods are not gods at all?” Psyche said hastily, hardly knowing whether she wanted more to divert the monster from his thoughts or herself from her own.

  Again she saw the darkness move against the silvered brush and she drew breath and bit the inside of her lip. Had she gone too far?

  “Now, how did you deduce that from what we have said to each other?”

  Still no anger. A kind of interested and amused admiration in the musical voice—and an implicit acknowledgment that what she had said was true. Psyche let her breath trickle out slowly, not wanting the creature to know that she had been alarmed and regretting her daring. He wanted her because of her courage, didn’t he?

  “I am not as clever as that,” she admitted. “I have been reading a book called The History of the Olympians. “

  “Reading?”

  “Is that supposed to be forbidden to the common natives?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. I was only surprised that you had learned to read because your people keep their women in subjection.”

  That remark stung, the more because the creature seemed simply to be stating a fact without any intention to offend. “And Olympian women are free?” she snapped back.

  “Ah…yes.” A chuckle. “Not out of the generosity of the men, but because I don’t think any of them has yet thought of a way to control an Olympian woman. I hope I am not a coward, but I freely admit I quail at the thought of making any challenge to Athena or Artemis. The one tends to cast Gift-aimed spears when crossed, the other is at least as expert as I with a bow. When Zeus made the mistake of offending Demeter, all Olympus nearly starved. And mage-king though he is, Zeus has been known to back off from an open confrontation with Hera. She cannot blight the crops and is less likely to skewer you with a spear or use you for a target, but Hera has her ways of making her displeasure known.”

  “And so do native women,” Psyche said, “though their ways are also more subtle than spears or arrows.”

  “Is that so?” There was real interest in the question. “I meant no shame, only that men are stronger than women and have the use of weapons, which seem to be withheld from native females.”

  “Among us there are laws and customs for the protection of the weak that cannot be violated without calling down the opprobrium of the whole community. But mostly it is sufficient for a woman to refuse to join her husband after dinner or to sit sullen and silent to show she has been injured. If stronger measures are needed or she wishes to keep the quarrel private, she can refuse to come to her husband’s bed, and meals can be cold, ill prepared, and ill served—or not served at all.”

  The monster laughed softly. “But
none of those could explain why you were permitted to learn to read. I hope you will tell me what subtlety you used?”

  The creature’s warm laughter tempted Psyche to laugh also, but the truth was that when she had learned it had taken no subtlety. No one had cared what she did, the ugly youngest daughter of three, unlikely to be of much value for a political marriage when she had two handsome and talented older sisters.

  Reminded of a long misery that had altered with her appearance only for the worse, Psyche turned her face away and did not answer, only saying bitterly, “But I am not an Olympian woman and have no subtleties to use against you. I suppose if you had known I could read, you would have removed Aphrodite’s books.”

  “The books are mine.” The voice was gentler, almost as if the monster understood that the anger in her had nothing to do with Aphrodite. “No, perhaps they are Aphrodite’s, since she obtained them for me, but Aphrodite has little interest in books. And, no, I would not have removed them. I’m glad you can read.”

  “Even though I have discovered the most discreditable things about the ‘gods’ who are no gods?”

  “So, we have come around to your original point. But Psyche, how do you know that the Olympians are not gods?”

  “Because the book I read describes the homeland of the Olympians and their struggles across the mountains.”

  “Indeed, I remember.”

  “You remember?” Psyche gasped, temporarily diverted. “But that was centuries ago.”

  “Yes.” There was a long silence, Psyche turned her head again to stare into the blackness. Then the creature said, “I am very old, Psyche, and in all my life I have known little happiness because of how I looked. Kronos—you read of him?” She nodded and the voice went on softly, “Kronos used me. I was young. I did not understand—or, perhaps, care—what I was doing. Many suffered because of my carelessness and indifference—that was monstrous. Later, I tried to resist, but it was too late. When Zeus overthrew Kronos, I was accounted as an enemy by all and I was punished. Only Aphrodite understood and…spoke for me.”

  The darkness surged upward so suddenly that Psyche flinched, but it swept by her blotting out all light for a moment. Then it was gone, gliding across the grass toward the deepest shadow under the trees. For a moment Psyche simply stared after it, then, as horrified understanding came to her, as she realized that he had not been born deformed but had been changed as a punishment, she jumped up and cried, “Wait,” but the black cloud was gone.

  Chapter 9

  The lamps flared alight when Eros appeared in his bedchamber, but no little messenger waited for him, and when he crossed the courtyard to Aphrodite’s suite of rooms, he found them dark and empty. He returned to his own chamber, shivering slightly with an inner cold he had not felt for many years. In speaking with Psyche he had recalled, as if it were happening anew, the horror of those first years of Zeus’s rule.

  He had needed to see Aphrodite to assure himself she did not again need to clench her teeth and swallow and swallow to control the hatred and revulsion his presence woke in everyone. She who had cast the spell had been least affected, but even she could not long endure him. That was when she had had the hunting lodge built for him so he could hide himself.

  In those years, before he learned to control the spell that Aphrodite had been forced to lay on him, he had been utterly outcast, completely apart, cut off from other living beings both physically and mentally. Even those who pitied him because they knew he had not been Kronos’s tool at the end, that he would gladly have welcomed a cleaner ruler, could not bear his presence. He stood shaking, reliving his rage at what had befallen him and his later horror when he came truly to understand what he had done. His heart pounded with the violent emotions, only beginning to slow when he recalled how he had found peace by embracing his pain, enduring life only because he felt he deserved his suffering.

  “Have I not suffered enough?” he whispered. “Mother, You gave to me so richly when I slept at Your shrine. And You gave me Psyche! I thought it was a sign that I was forgiven—”

  The whisper cut off abruptly on an indrawn breath, which whooshed out a heartbeat later in an embarrassed chuckle. What a self-pitying fool I am, Eros thought, crossing the room to sit on the bed and pull off a shoe. I should have been more careful about what I asked for. I forgot I might actually get it. I thought I wanted to live again—and I am living again. Now I remember. Life hurts!

  The clear statement of the fact in his mind made him laugh aloud. Barefooted, he stood again, unclasped his belt, drew off his tunic, and threw it in the direction of a chair. A slithering sound hinted that it had fallen to the floor, but Eros did not move to pick it up as he would have done only two weeks before when all he had left to cling to was the perfect order of his life. The precise placement of every object, like the exact response of smile or frown, so he could retrieve the article or the pretense of emotion and appear alive, was no longer necessary. Uplifted by joy, tormented by rage, and wrung out with despair, Eros no longer felt any need to ‘appear alive’.

  In fact, what the slithering sound of his tunic falling had brought to the forefront of his mind was not a need for order but his nakedness. And the nakedness brought into sharp focus the need to get Psyche into his bed—quickly. He had almost forgotten himself and drawn her into his arms when she asked him if she were not good enough for Olympus. There was not one of them, no, not even Aphrodite, beautiful and good as she was, who came near Psyche. If Psyche was not so good, not so generous, as Aphrodite, she had what Aphrodite did not—a conscience and a measure of judgment in which self was recognized but did not outweigh everything else.

  To Eros, that was irresistible. He had nearly died twice from the lack of that balance—once physically, and again out of pure indifference. Such a wave of desire had passed over him in response to her question that his self-control had nearly drowned in it. He had almost forgotten that he had said he would not force her and that she would have all the time she needed to come to him willingly.

  Her own gesture, the snatching back of her hand, away from the well of blackness that he appeared to be, had reminded him. He intended to keep those promises—Eros dropped back onto the bed and drew the covers over him—but that did not preclude the use of “accidents” and “temptations” to hurry along that willingness.

  What sort of temptation can a blot of blackness offer? Eros chuckled aloud, recalling the cynical lift of Psyche’s brows as she remarked that long lines did not form for a chance to be a black cloud’s concubine. The memory only renewed and reinforced the urgency of his desire. However, it was clear that temptations were out of the question. Accident, then.

  What sort of accident? She had to touch him, to learn that there was a real being, not a devouring emptiness, inside the dark. Touch him—he thought again of her hand reaching toward him. If their hands met… Warmth pulsed in his loins at the thought of even so innocent a touch. He lay luxuriating in the sensation, thinking that he had never touched her, except for carrying her from the altar to his house, and she had been unconscious then. A limp, unresponding body held no lure for him.

  Eros sighed and turned to his side. It might take weeks for her to find the confidence to reach out to him. His eyes, moving idly over the familiar room, fell on the pile of game boards and pieces that the servants had picked up from the floor and laid on a table. For a moment he stared unseeingly at the jumbled toys, mildly irritated by the disorder because it had broken his train of thought. Why had the stupid servants not put them away? But the question hardly rose before the answer came; they did not know what belonged where. He had his own particular place for everything.

  He began to speak the words that would quench the lights and hide the mess he did not wish either to clear away or see but stopped abruptly, lifting himself on his elbow so he would have a better view of the beautiful boards inlaid with colored, scented wood and the exquisite pieces carved of gold and silver and ivory and semiprecious stone. His lips
curved upward.

  Had not Psyche said she was bored? What more suitable gift to while away dull hours than games? And what easier path was there to an accidental touching of the hands than the movement of pieces on a board? Eros hopped out of bed to examine what he had and to choose those games in which such a collision was most likely to occur.

  * * *

  Actually, Eros could have fallen asleep without making any plans to win Psyche. Psyche’s conscience was presenting better arguments for accepting him than either temptation or accident could. Her first reaction to the monster’s swift departure had been to call him back and comfort him. Having been deprived of the ability to make restitution either because he was already gone or pretended not to hear her, she had sunk back onto the bench, biting her lips to keep back tears of remorse. The monster was not at fault for her family’s early indifference and later resentment toward her. She had no right to claw at him because she was angry. How could she have been so cruel as to remind him of so dreadful a punishment?

  Then she shook her head, thinking back on what she had said. She had made a sharp remark about his depriving her of the books, but he had not minded that. He had seemed to understand that her waspishness was not really directed at him. And she hadn’t meant to be cruel when she spoke of the Olympian trek from their homeland. How could she have known he could have been any way involved with the exile of Kronos? Well, that was one topic she would avoid in the future.

  The thought reminded her that she had set out to make him so uncomfortable that he would leave her alone. She pulled the thick himation closer, aware of a chill. But the air was not cold and she knew what had chilled her was the prospect of being alone with nothing to do and no one to talk to…forever. Surely that punishment was too severe for a cruelty she had not intended.

  She rose slowly and went back to the house. At the door she hesitated, tempted to leave it open so that if he returned he might see it as a symbol that he was welcome. Then she remembered he had said he would not enter the house until she invited him to share her bed. No. Not that. She was not ready for that. How could she lie with some terrible creature that might not even be human in form? She turned to look out at the bench, but no shadow had swallowed any part of it and she shut the door, took the candle left ready for her, and went up the stairs.