The kitchen fell deathly silent then, everyone frozen in place, eyes fixed behind my head.
“Melantho.”
That voice. I recognized it instantly.
Turning, I found Penelope standing behind me, a bowl of herbs cradled in her hands. In the past year, I had stolen a thousand glances at her, but this was the first time our eyes had met since the morning after we had arrived.
My focus dipped to her swollen stomach, and I could not conceal my surprise at how much bigger she was than when I had last seen her strolling in the courtyard. She looked ready to burst.
A tense anticipation sparked in the air as the slaves awaited their future queen’s response. I knew Penelope was not one for punishment, but I also knew she would have to dosomething. She could not have me bad-mouthing her husband and getting away with it; such a thing would only reflect badly on her.
“Come to my chambers,” she finally said. “I wish to speak with you. Alone.”
She did not wait for me to follow as she turned and walked out.
***
“Close the door, please.”
Wordlessly, I obeyed Penelope’s command, shutting the door behind us, then leaning back against it. I had never been inside her private chambers before, and I tried to look disinterested as I glanced around the space.
Like Odysseus’s quarters, Penelope’s were situated at the very top of the hill the palace stood upon. ButunlikeOdysseus’s, hers were tucked away, out of sight, at the far end of a meandering hallway.
Penelope’s central room was enviably large, opening out onto a sweeping balcony that overlooked the glittering sea beyond. The wallswere painted with dancing women, swirling around one another in garish splashes of paint. Everywhere I looked, the surfaces were covered in cushions and blankets, as if Odysseus feared Penelope might shatter at any given moment. Aside from that, the room felt markedly bare. Empty.
There were two doors set on opposite sides of the space. The one nearest to me opened on to a room with a neat row of beds, the handmaids’ chamber. The other door was shut, but I assumed it led to Penelope’s bedchamber. The one she would sleep in on nights she did not spend with Odysseus.
I wondered how often she used it, then immediately shoved the thought away.
Penelope had remained silent during the long walk here, keeping a steady gait despite those punishingly steep steps. Now she was pacing back and forth over a rug, her strides somehow still elegant even with her giant stomach. I noticed the woven pattern beneath her feet had worn away, faded from where she had no doubt paced there many times before. What thoughts had chased those steps?
The silence grew taut between us. We had not been alone together since the day we had left Sparta. A familiar guilt reared up inside me, but I suffocated it instantly.
“So is this the part where you scold me?” I asked from where I lounged against her door, arms lazily folded. The picture of insolence.
“I am not going to scold you. But you should know you cannot speak of Odysseus like that beneath his own roof.”
I had clearly touched a nerve, and it sharpened something inside me to know Penelope was so defensive ofhim.
“It is utterly foolish. Are you trying to get yourself punished?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s just been so long since I felt the whip cutting open my flesh, I wished for the opportunity again.”
Penelope stopped and stared at me. “Do not say such things.”
I looked away, and she continued pacing, hands massaging her lowerback. Sweat dappled her temples, though the room felt pleasantly cool.
“He is not a coward,” she continued, a little breathlessly now. “It is not cowardly to want to stay by your family and kingdom instead of risking your life for another king’s wife.”
“If I remember correctly, it’s Odysseus’s fault everyone is having to risk their life for Helen,” I pointed out. “Odysseus swore an oath. An oathheinsisted on. He’s only got himself to blame.”
Penelope paused, wincing. She tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling as if the answers lay above us.
“Odysseus also swore an oath to Ithaca when he was named Laertes’s heir. Why should Tyndareus’s oath be valued above that? Surely being a king, afather, is more noble than being dragged to foreign lands to slay innocent men?”
“What of all the other kings and fathers forced to fight? Why should Odysseus be discounted and not they?”
“Because theywantto. They want the glory and the riches and the fame. Odysseus does not care for those things.”
