“Let us now all join in saying welcome!”
A cheer rose, and the audience threw dried fruits and nuts overus, as was customary when welcoming new slaves into a household.
Once the floor was littered with offerings, we were shepherded to one side of the courtyard beside the other palace slaves. There was a tangible tension in the air as we joined them. I did not blame them for their hostile glances. You would think we would have felt a sense of camaraderie, but there was always wariness when new slaves joined a household. After all, we were only as valued as the work we offered, so if another slave encroached on that, it could threaten our place.
And a slave without use was always the first to be sold.
“Now, to welcome my bride, my wife, Ithaca’s future queen,” Odysseus announced.
The crowd dutifully parted as a figure glided forward. My jaw clenched at the sight of her, draped in a floaty yellow gown. Her short hair had been pinned back and adorned with a gold diadem, her skin flawless and glowing.
Her beauty infuriated me.
Odysseus took Penelope’s hand, praising her lavishly. I drowned out his saccharine speech. I had no stomach for it.
Penelope bowed to a man who I assumed was King Laertes, for he looked nearly identical to Odysseus, save for a few extra wrinkles and threads of gray hair. Once the king permitted her to rise, Penelope began scanning the crowd, staring at the strangers who were now her people.
Her eyes caught mine, and she did not look away, not immediately. I wondered what she made of me standing before her, bruised and battered, hair matted, clothes dirty and still stinking of our journey. Her face gave nothing away, save for a slight crease between her brows—the beginnings of a frown.
Was she repulsed by my appearance? Did I offend her royal loveliness?
I did not care. In fact, I hoped I did. I hoped I disgusted her just as her pompousness disgusted me.
I let my glare singe from my sockets, and I could practically feelPenelope stiffening beneath it. Something delicate, almost vulnerable, flickered across her face before she looked away.
I raised my chin a little higher.Good.
“To my wife!” Odysseus finished, pouring his wine onto the floor in libation to the gods.
The courtyard erupted, cheers filling the darkened sky as more dried fruit and nuts were tossed over Penelope, catching in her hair and gown.
“They throw the same rubbish on the bride as well?” I muttered.
“Of course. It is tradition for all new possessions,” an Ithacan slave whispered back.
“Penelope is not Odysseus’s possession. She’s his bride.”
The slave chuckled as if I had said something funny. “That’s the same thing, isn’t it? All wives belong to their husbands.”
I frowned. To think of Penelope as apossession, to think of her like me…
I watched her again, the idea settling uncomfortably inside me.
“I’m Hippodamia, by the way.” The slave looked a little younger than I was, a golden ray of a girl, with bronzed skin and rich honey-brown eyes. Most notable of all was her long blond hair shimmering around her shoulders. “What’s your name?”
Something about the slave unsettled me: how widely she smiled, how genuinely warm her eyes seemed.
“Melantho.”
“Nice to meet you, Melantho. Welcome to Ithaca.” She beamed, and I felt myself withdrawing, like shadows chased away by the morning sun. “You come from Sparta, don’t you? Is it true the women there are allowed to exercise like the men?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“How fascinating! Mistress Anticlea told me that Spartan women are fearsome creatures. She was Odysseus’s mother, the late queen. I served as her handmaid. She passed recently, Hades protect her soul. Since then, I’ve been put on kitchen duty. Ihatekitchen duty. It makes my hands stink of vegetables.” She wiggled her fingers at me as if toprove her point. “But now the princess is here, I’ll be serving as her handmaid. Isn’t that exciting?”
“You’ll be Penelope’s handmaid?”
She nodded. “You know her, don’t you? From Sparta? What’s she like? She looks lovely.”
