Shimmering Splendor

by Roberta Gellis

  She sat staring, turning the gown over and over in her hands, the memory of her mother’s and sisters’ terror and grief tearing at her peace. She remembered: it was this time of year, this very month, when they had left her on the altar. With a shock, she realized that it was almost the same phase of the moon; in fact, the very next week would bring her family to Mount Pelion—since she had no grave or place in the family mortuary—for the formal “release of her spirit.”

  Psyche burst into tears, all her own joy ashes in her mouth, at the memory of the ashes in their hair, the rent garments and scratched breasts. She knew their grief must be excoriated because they did not know what had become of her, and further embittered by remembrance of slights and unkindnesses that could never be amended. Once she had started to weep, the well of her loneliness opened and she could not stop crying. Eros found her with her face swollen, her breath still catching with sobs.

  “Beloved, beloved, what is wrong?” he cried, catching her into his arms, half afraid that she would shriek as the darkness swallowed her or push him away.

  Instead, she clung to him confidingly, resting her head on his shoulder. “I am sorry you found me this way,” she sighed. “I tried and tried to stop, but—oh, Teras, did you realize that it is nearly a year since I was left at the altar on Mount Pelion? Next week my family will make the prayers for setting my spirit free…”

  “But my dearling, that cannot hurt you. The Mother will not draw your soul to Her just because your family is not aware that you are safe and sound.”

  She began to sob again. “That is what I cannot bear. If they thought me dead, I would miss them, but I would not feel my heart wrung. Teras, all my joy is embittered by the knowledge that my family may think of me, not dead and at peace, but screaming and writhing in an eternity of pain and horror. My punishment was to be married to a monster. How could they know that my monster is a better and kinder man than any I have ever known?”

  He kissed her forehead and then her lips. “I never thought! That is a more severe punishment than was intended. You will think me cruel, but I am afraid I had forgotten all about your family.”

  “It is not your fault,” Psyche said, holding him tight.

  “But it is,” he said softly. “I have known that you were sad for so long, and I never guessed at this reason. Do you miss them so much? Have I done you such an ill, Psyche? I could think of no other way to protect you. The insult to Aphrodite had to be punished, and even if she had pardoned your part, which she would have been willing to do if I asked, I assure you, I could see only a tragic end to your situation. You were too much a focus of trouble in Iolkas.”

  “You!” She pushed away from him, not with a jerk of anger, but as one held in a close embrace moves back to see a too-near face. Before she completed the movement she checked it and rested her head on his shoulder again, knowing she would see no more outside his darkness than within it. “What had you to do with my fate? I thought you were as much Eros’s victim as I.”

  She felt his breath draw in sharply, but after a moment he said, “No. Eros and I are equal partners in your fate. I planned it; he accomplished it.”

  “But Aphrodite ordered it.” Psyche uttered a sobbing sigh and then tried to smile. She had never been able to understand whether or not Teras could see inside the blackness, but she knew that he could sense her expressions and gestures and would know she was smiling. “There, I am better now. I know there is nothing you can do. I will try—” Her voice shook and she drew another trembling breath to try to steady it. “I will try not to think about it anymore.”

  “That is ridiculous,” Teras said. “Trying not to think of something only brings it more often and more sharply to mind. My indifference to all except you, my love, is at fault. A year of doubt and fear for your family is enough. I will have to think of a way to let them know that you are safe and happy.”

  “Aphrodite will not permit it,” Psyche said, clutching him tighter. “She will punish you. No. I could not bear that. I swear I will not cry anymore or worry about my family ever again.”

  He burst out laughing and kissed her. “You do not listen to a word I say about poor Aphrodite. She will not punish me because she will not care. She is not in the least vengeful once she is satisfied, and she has most likely forgotten all about you and your father or she would have bade me return you.”

  “Return me?” Psyche barely got the words out. Horror had all but suspended her breath. It had never before occurred to her that Teras’s love for her would give Aphrodite a deadly weapon to use against him.

  “Well, she returns children who are unhappy in her service. If she knew you were grieving for your family and they for you, she would send you back to them.” Teras stopped abruptly, as if he had just understood his own words, but then he went on. “I have told you over and over that she is the kindest of women.”

  “Teras, do not tell her that I am unhappy. Do not mention me at all, I beg you. I do not wish to leave you. I do not wish to live with my family.” Her voice faltered as her empty days, bereft of companionship, rose to mind, but then she thought of her nights and she went on more strongly and surely, “I only want them to know I am not suffering.”

  He did not reply at once, and Psyche pressed herself closer against him, fearing her broken voice had conveyed the dissatisfaction she knew he could not cure. He was so good to her. Fervently she repeated that she wished only to remain with him.

  “I am glad of that, beloved,” he said softly. “Because I do not think I can live without you. Do not fret about your family. I promise I will find a way to prove you are well and happy and even to carry you a message from them.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning, Eros carried in Aphrodite’s breakfast tray. Her eyes opened slightly wider in surprise as she lifted herself to a more upright position and tucked pillows behind her.

  “I cannot remember the last time you brought me my breakfast,” she said.

  “That is because you cannot remember the last time I had a problem,” he replied, laughing as he set the tray in front of her.

  “My dear Eros, I can remember easily enough when your life consisted wholly of only one problem—whether it was worth the effort to go on breathing. But that question has not troubled you for a year, not since you found this new lover… Ah, is the beast unfaithful? To you?”

  He laughed again. “No, not that. She has been attacked by pangs of conscience. Because she is happy, she feels guilty because her parents and siblings do not know what has become of her and might be grieving.”

  “Oh, you naughty boy! Do you mean you did not woo her and make arrangements with her parents to carry her off? You will ruin my reputation if you demand grown women as sacrifices in my name.”

  “Nothing of the sort!” Eros exclaimed indignantly.

  “You know I would never use your worship in such a fashion. Of course, Psyche was ‘sacrificed,’ but that was her punishment for rejecting you and part of the reparation her father made for striking your priestess and forbidding worshippers access to your temple in Iolkas.”

  For a moment Aphrodite looked perfectly blank as she nibbled at the food on her tray. Then she nodded, “Oh, yes, I remember.” And then she began to laugh and her eyebrows rose as high as they would go. “Was that not the girl who was said to be so beautiful that she thought herself superior to me? Oh, Eros! I never thought I would see the day when you would fall victim to a pretty face. And for a whole year!”

  “Psyche is more than a pretty face,” he said, feeling uneasy as he spoke.

  There was an odd bitterness under Aphrodite’s laughing words, and he recalled how Psyche had begged him not to mention her to Aphrodite. But that was nonsense. Doubtless Psyche feared Aphrodite would be jealous, but Aphrodite never cared whom he took for a lover—so long as he did not evince any desire for her. And then he felt relieved. Aphrodite, like any of the great mages, resented any challenge to her power. Indeed, that was what had got Psyche i
nto trouble in the first place. He came and knelt beside the bed.

  “Psyche never thought herself superior to you, Aphrodite. She just felt that beauty had brought her nothing but grief, and she could not bring herself to worship the goddess of that attribute.”

  “Beauty brought her you. Are you nothing but grief?” Aphrodite asked sharply.

  Eros sighed. “She does not know me as Eros. The punishment you named for her was that she love a monster. I… You remember I went to Anerios’s palace to discover what would most quickly bring him and his ‘haughty’ daughter to heel. I found Psyche far from haughty. She felt about her beauty much as I feel about mine. I could not punish her for that—and I could not remit her punishment lest the lesson of the evil consequences of defying your power be weakened—so I ordered that she be brought to the altar on Mount Pelion to be the bride of a monster. I bought a spell of darkness from Hecate and carried her off to the lodge. That darkness is all she has ever seen.”

  “So she is not jealous and does not plague you. I see.” She smiled at him and beckoned him to sit on the bed, holding the tray with one hand so he should not tip it. When he was settled, she popped a small tidbit of spiced cheese into his mouth and shook her head at him. “Eros, I know you think you have been very clever, and in a way you have, but how long can this last? No woman can resist a mystery forever. Has she not asked you to show her your true form?”

  “Yes,” he admitted, grinning. “And I have been clever about that too. All I said, most mournfully—and truthfully, as well—was that looking at a black cloud was far better than looking upon me. I have no doubt that her imagination has conjured up horrors I could never have devised.”

  “But that must fail as soon as she touches you.”

  Then he laughed aloud. “Aha, I have been even cleverer than you thought. I told all the truth. I said a spell had been cast upon me that made me repulsive, but that inside the darkness she could feel what I truly was. She pitied me, of course, which softened her heart toward the poor, suffering monster, and being a most courageous girl, she soon entered the black cloud that surrounds me. Naturally her hands found only the features of a normal man.”

  He had been speaking merrily, but then he grew serious, frowning a little. It was plain to Aphrodite he had not said all he wished to say. She continued to eat and sip her warm wine and watch his face; suddenly she called herself a fool. Because he had been sleeping very late in the morning but was alert and responsive when she had a task for him, she had assumed he had returned to “normal”. For more years than she cared to remember, Eros had been sleeping away his empty days when no external impetus propelled him into action. During most of that time, he had come alert when called upon, ready to be interested and amused by any task she had found for him.

  Little by little that interest had died, until Eros seemed like an animated corpse. She had assumed his new lover had wakened him from that state and been half annoyed and half grateful—but she had been deceiving herself. The Eros frowning into space as he sought words to describe something of great importance to him was not the Eros she had known since Zeus had deposed Kronos. There had never been anything important to Eros himself in all those years. This Eros was not only alive but caring. His expression had a kind of softness, and there was a new thoughtfulness and depth in his eyes when they lifted to meet hers.

  “You know I have lain with many women,” he said at last. “And with men and nymphs and dryads too. Never in my life have I had from any the pleasure Psyche gives me—and not because her body is different or because she knows any devices to heighten passion. She knows only what I taught her, and what her own clever mind can devise based on those lessons.” He sighed with a kind of exasperation. “I cannot explain. All I can say is that—that there is more to our lovemaking than the pleasure of the body.”

  Aphrodite swirled the dregs in her cup and gazed down into the moving liquid as she said, “It is no business of mine, but you must know I think you are a fool and treading dangerous waters. Love should lie down with laughter, and rise up with joy to seek a new partner. It is obsession that binds two together so close that they can take no pleasure in others.”

  “You do not think what Hades and Persephone have is good? They are one flesh, one blood, one bone.”

  She shuddered. “It is not worth the agony they can inflict upon each other—not even by intention, but by accident, and worse, by mistaken goodwill.”

  Eros shook his head. “Perhaps you are right,” he said, “but I cannot believe it.” He took her hand caressingly. “You will not abandon me just because I am happy?”

  “It is you who have abandoned me,” she said, but her voice was light and she smiled.

  “Indeed I have not,” Eros protested. “Have I not come running to you with my first problem?”

  Aphrodite laughed. “So you have. I had forgotten you carried in my breakfast tray in payment for a favor.”

  “Not in payment,” Eros said, smiling. “I could not pay you for the favors you have done me if I could give you all the precious stones and precious metal that Hades could command. Bringing in your tray had a double purpose—to cozen you into wanting to help me…and to warn you I was going to disturb you with my troubles.”

  “You are trying to cozen me now so just tell me this trouble. You may have told me already, but I was not attending.”

  “I am troubled because Psyche is unhappy. She imagines her parents and siblings miserable because they fear she is tormented by a cruel monster. To speak the truth, I am certain they were all glad to be rid of her and probably have not given her fate any thought at all, but to tell her that would hurt her—and she probably would not believe me because she, sweet, loyal, and just soul that she is, is suffering from imagining them suffering.”

  “You are an idiot to get involved with natives,” Aphrodite exclaimed, laughing heartily. “They create mountains of tragedy over pebbles of woe. What can it matter if Psyche did suffer her whole life? That is so short, it is like you stubbing your toe.”

  A sharp pang of fear made Eros catch his breath. The past year, full of interest and joy, had indeed flown by, seeming shorter than many single days before Psyche had come into his life. He suppressed the fear. However short, each day had been full of excitement and pleasure. He would not look ahead, but enjoy what he had to the fullest. Taking Aphrodite’s hand, he laughed.

  “But I do not like to stub my toes,” he said plaintively. “Even if the pang is brief, I do not wish to endure it. And I do not wish that Psyche be sad because her sadness spoils my pleasure.”

  “Ah, your pleasure. Well, that is a good reason to make her happy.” She shrugged. “Send her home—”

  “No!” Eros cried, jumping to his feet, nearly overturning the tray. “Do not bid me return her as you return an unwanted child. I cannot! I need her. I—I do not believe I can go on living without her.”

  Aphrodite had snatched at the tray to prevent the dregs of her wine and the remains of a sweet curd in a bowl from spilling over the bed. She felt like saying: Oh, do not be ridiculous; you sound like the silly clunches you shoot full of arrows of love. But the panic in his voice recalled to her the change in his expression; she knew what bound him was deeper than a spell. It was something that made her very uncomfortable the few times she had sensed it, as she had in Persephone and Hades, because it was beyond her control. Opposition, she knew, could have no effect but to heighten that bonding; it could be undone only by those who had made the bond. By the time she put the tray aside and looked up, her expression was bland and she laughed lightly and shook her finger at him.

  “Do let me finish what I was about to say. Have you not just told me you want her to be free of imagining her family is in torment? They will never believe you if you simply tell them, and she will never believe that they are at peace unless she sees it with her own eyes. Even if you bring her a message, she will fear that you forced it from them. The best solution to that problem is to get a spell from H
ermes to take her to Pelion and to return her to the lodge. Let her go and tell her people that she is content. If she cares for you as you do for her, she will return.”

  Eros seemed completely unaware of the warning in that last sentence. His face cleared and he leaned forward to hug Aphrodite hard. “You are always my best and wisest mentor. Of course, that is best.”

  Aphrodite smiled at him. She was almost certain that the girl would not return. What girl who had been the object of such adulation as Psyche had would give that up to live all alone with only a lover she believed was a dreadful monster hidden in a black cloud? And when she did not return, Eros would see that she was mean-spirited and deceitful, not worthy of the love he had given her, and would be cured.

  * * *

  Aphrodite would have been well content had she been present at the scene between Eros and Psyche when he told her she might go home. Instead of seeming doubtful or refusing outright to go so that he would have to convince her of the wisdom of Aphrodite’s suggestion, joy lit Psyche’s face.

  “I cannot believe it!” she cried, “Oh, Teras, is it true? Will Aphrodite permit you to send me home?”

  “I told you she was very kind,” he said, staring at her radiant face with a sinking heart. Until he saw how her joy illuminated her beauty, it had not occurred to him that her happiness in his company might have been simulated. “How long will you wish to remain in Iolkas?” he asked.

  “A few days should be enough,” she said. “I hope you will not want me to come back immediately after I arrive and prove I am alive and well.”