This was only the beginning.
46
The news spread like wildfire.
Pheme, the fleet-footed Goddess of Rumor, set Ithaca and all its surrounding islands alight.
Queen Penelope is welcoming suitors!
Queen Penelope is looking for a husband!
Before the waxing of the moon, the palace was filled with near fifty hopeful noblemen, all clamoring for the opportunity to claim Penelope’s hand and with it Ithaca’s throne. They drank and feasted and glutted themselves on Penelope’s hospitality. Among the chaos, Eurymachus and Antinous reigned, stirring up the men’s hearts and stoking their pride, declaring hollow sentiments such as “May the best man win!” and “Penelope will only choose thegreatestamong us.”
These were men too young to join the Trojan War, forced to grow up in its mighty shadow, hearing endless tales of the heroes they had come so close to fighting alongside, the legends they hadalmostlived. It was evident how heavily it weighed on them. I imagined they lay awake at night, taunted by visions of who they could have been had they been born a few summers earlier.
Men were obsessed with their legacies, finding ways to carve their names in history, and the suitors seemed to believe Penelope was their best opportunity. If they secured the throne and wife of the famed Odysseus, then at least their names would forever be sung in the samebreath as his.
“My husband is not dead,” Penelope would tell them time and time again, but nobody ever listened.
And nobody would leave.
***
“What if we force them out?” Thratta asked one evening as we sat around the hearth.
Even tucked away in Penelope’s quarters, we could hear the raucous revelry of the suitors far below. Penelope had advised us not to wander the palace alone after dark anymore. It made the shadows feel heavier, to know these quarters were no longer a place to simply relax but now also to hide.
“With which men?” Penelope said, staring into the flames. Her face was tight, and I felt my hands twitch in my lap, longing to soothe those worried lines. “The army was lost with Odysseus, and nearly every last eligible Ithacan man is in that hall awaiting my hand in marriage.”
Hippodamia shook her head, dismayed. “How could they betray Odysseus like that? He is their king!”
“Of course they would betray him for power,” I interjected. “They’re all bitter and ego-bruised because the women of Ithaca refused to retreat into their shadow. They’re desperate for control.”
“I could take those pampered pricks,” Actoris snarled, twirling her dagger.
“No, you can’t.”
She scowled at me. “At least let me pick off one or two.”
“If we harm a single hair on their heads, we break the hospitality laws ofxenia,” I reminded her. “That is the only thing keeping the suitors civilized. If that bind is severed, they will be within their rights to attack. To seize the throne by force.”
“And even if you were somehow possessed by Ares and able to slaughter all of them,” Penelope continued, “many of those men areborn of powerful families, families with strong allies who would retaliate in an instant.”
“So what do we do?” Hippodamia asked quietly.
Penelope said nothing, and I watched her mind turn, skimming through all the possibilities that lay ahead, mentally weaving the threads of fate.
“My queen, if I may speak?” Eurynome ventured from where she sat beside me. She was draped in pelts, as she suffered from chills these days, and I noted how small she looked beneath them. “Would it be so terrible to take a new husband?”
“Yes,” I snapped with more intensity than I intended. “She’s already married.”
My words hung hollow in the room. Everyone knew the truth of Penelope’s abandonment now. She could no longer hide behind the promise of Odysseus’s return; it was as flimsy as using a strip of fabric as a shield in battle.
“Say I chose Eurymachus to wed,” Penelope mused, and I swallowed my nausea at the mere thought. “Marrying him would strengthen relationships with Same, but what of the suitors who hail from Zacynthus or Dulichium? Do you think they would accept such a rejection? Certainly not. They would fight, as all men do when their egos are bruised. Their blood would be spilled in these halls, some would die, and then a war would begin among our neighboring islands, islands we rely heavily on for trade. Not to mention we do not have the army or the provisions to withstand a war.” Penelope folded her hands neatly in her lap, letting out a small sigh. “But let us say, for argument’s sake, that by some miracle of the gods, the suitors accepted my choice of husband without retaliation. What do you suppose my new husband would do with Telemachus? He is the rightful heir to the throne. Do you think a new king would let him remain in Ithaca? Let him remain alive?”
For a time, nobody spoke. We just listened to the suitors’ drunken laughter reverberating through the walls.
“If you cannot marry any of them, then what are we to do?”Autonoë whispered.
