I didn’t, not really. And now I carried his child.
After Iphigenia’s departure, I settled myself in one of the chairs and looked at the ocean through the wide window, lost in thought. Shadows wheeled across the interior of the seaside house, marking the transition into late afternoon. Still, I did not move. One of the cats brushed against me in greeting, and I scratched his ears absentmindedly but did not look away from the water.
I wondered what Iphigenia would say if she knew that I had never seen my husband’s face.
Doubt blossomed as the shadows stretched into dusk. I did not really believe I would immolate like Semele before Zeus if I saw my husband’s face. We had spent so much time together without any harm befalling me.
And my children were next in line for the throne of Mycenae, as my cousin had so ungracefully reminded me. A thought seized me the way an owl catches a mouse, thrusting its talons through my heart: If the child was male, he would grow up tobecome the next king of the city-state of Mycenae. He would take the seat my own father held and lead the nation in times of peace and war.
That settled it. I had to know who my child’s father was, for the good of my people.
As the sun dipped down towards the horizon, painting the landscape blood-red, I went to an alcove near the bedroom and began my preparations.
19
Psyche
When Cupid joined me in bed that night, I played the part of the delighted, loving wife. I gave an abbreviated version of Iphigenia’s visit, then rested my head on his shoulder and asked a nonsense question to set him at ease. ‘Do the cats have names?’
‘Of course,’ Cupid replied, laughing uncertainly. ‘But it would be impossible for you to pronounce them. Your mouth couldn’t make all the necessary sounds. Even I can only understand them when I’m in cat shape myself.’
‘Well, I have some ideas,’ I began, settling my head into the hollowing of his shoulder and skimming my fingertips over his chest. ‘The fat tabby with the grey eyes is Glaukos. I think that suits him, don’t you agree? The tortoiseshell female who eats everyone else’s food is Scylla. You know she’d devour a whole ship full of sailors if she had the chance …’
I continued in that vein for a while, light and playful, while Cupid’s hands stroked my hair. When at last his movements slowed and his breathing evened out to the steady rhythm that signalled sleep, I rose quietly and made my way through the darkened house.
The objects were in a row where I had left them in the alcove. My fingers danced over the concavity of a bowl filledwith oil and pierced by the twist of a cloth fibre, then the hard edges of a flint and bronze. My hands were shaking so badly that it took several tries to make a spark. Once I did, the flare was quickly taken up by the wick in its bowl, and the light of the makeshift lamp nearly blinded me before my eyes had the chance to adjust. I took the little bowl in my hands, careful not to spill the burning oil. Shadows careened as I walked back to the bedroom, rendering the familiar halls alien. I had never seen the house by candlelight before.
My heart beat in my ears like a butterfly’s wings. This was a betrayal, and I knew it. It was the one thing Cupid had asked of me, the one thing I promised. I might be dooming myself by daring the curse, consigning myself to a fiery death, though I no longer really believed that story. I needed to know who my husband was, and that need drove out all else.
I opened the door.
I did not burst into flame when I saw my husband lying there, sprawled out on the bed. His hair was curled gold that shone in the lamplight, and one arm was thrown carelessly across the pillow in the languor of sleep. His bare chest rose and fell with the peaceful breath of dreamers. Cupid was no monster or barbarian. He was beautiful in a way unknown to mortals.
I leaned forward to get a closer look at him, unconscious of my movements. I jostled the bowl of burning oil, and some of it slopped over the side on to his chest.
With a cry of pain, Cupid opened his eyes.
They were green, the colour of the leaves during the summer days I had spent with Atalanta in the forest. Green as meadows, so rare in rocky Greece. Green wells I could fall into, losing myself. They widened in horror at the sight of the lamp, and I knew with sick certainty what I had done. I felt no panic, only a dull shame. Like Anteia, I’d betrayed the man who loved me.
Except he wasn’t a man. No mortal man could have endured the curse that gripped him now. His spine snapped like a sail in strong wind. He cried out, but the sound was strangled and wordless. I reached out to him, desperate to help and horrified at my betrayal, but his fingers slipped through mine. Time and space bent to let him through. He was pulled from our bed like a thread through the eye of a needle, and I found myself staring at the empty space where he had just been.
My pulse beat in my ears. A curse, he had spoken of a curse, and now I understood what was coming.
Rumbling started deep in the earth. I screamed as dust fell from a fissure in the ceiling where the stone cracked in two. Severed from its divine master, the house began to come apart.
Another crack split the floor like a bolt of errant lightning, and the door swung open wildly. The single lamp cast wild, fractured shadows over the scene. I snatched a sheet from the bed before racing from the house; I was wearing nothing more than sleeping clothes.
The lamp was still in my hand as I fled to the terrace and down the long stairs. Hot oil seared my skin, but I did not let it slow me down. Cats darted around my feet, and the raucous cries of peacocks split the air as they floated to safety on wide wings.
As last, I reached the safety of the rocky beach below. By the wan light of the sickle moon, I watched my home fall into the sea, crashing into the water as though it was made of nothing more substantial than sand.
20
Psyche
The first night alone was the hardest. I had grown used to sleeping in a soft bed with my husband’s warm presence beside me. Now I was utterly alone, tossing as I attempted to find a comfortable position on the night-chilled rocks. Even when I had slept on the rough ground in the wilderness in my youth, Atalanta had been there with me. Now I didn’t even have a knife or the tools to make a fire, only the clothes on my back and the bedsheet I’d been quick-witted enough to snatch. I’d lost the lamp somewhere along the way.
The sea lapped at the shore as the moon made its way through the sky, and feelings churned within me as deep as the ocean. It was impossible to describe what I felt. Shock was a large part of it, but grief and rage made appearances as well. I suppose it would be most accurate to say that I feltrobbed.
