I laid the pinions down on the table. ‘I have fulfilled my word and slain the griffins that plagued your flock. I thank you for your hospitality and will depart shortly,’ I said.
A man might go a lifetime without ever holding a griffin’s feather in his hands, but the chieftain was unimpressed. He looked at me with eyes as flat and cold as the surface of a winter lake. ‘You did not bring the pelts,’ he said. ‘Griffin pelts are valuable, and they were our property.’
I flushed with irritation. ‘You asked me to slay the griffins, and that is what I did. You mentioned nothing about pelts.’
The chieftain lifted one of the long feathers and inspected it with an air of disdain. ‘Then you have robbed us of our property, though you were welcomed as an honoured guest. Andhow do we know you didn’t pull this pinion from a corpse that had already died?’ he added. ‘Or maybe you tricked someone else into killing them.’
I was truly angry now. I had tolerated this man long enough. ‘Who could I trick into killing the griffins, when none of you were up to the task?’
A cold silence descended, one filled with malice. The eye of every man in the room was upon me. While I had been speaking with the chieftain, more men had entered the house. How many of them were there now – ten, a dozen? I was outnumbered.
The chieftain made a gesture, and the men surged forward with one will. I knew what they would do to me, and that they would do it in cold blood. I was an aberration in the order of the world, a woman who did not know her place, and I needed to be corrected.
A wild laugh filled the room and echoed from the high ceilings, paralysing the men. They had been prepared for tears, even screams, but not laughter. It took me a moment to realize that the laughter had come from me.
‘You don’t know who I am,’ I snarled, barely recognizing my own voice. I had no time to grab a weapon, but my tone held the men like insects in amber. ‘You don’t knowwhatI am. I am the granddaughter of a hero and the daughter of a king. I am the wife of one god, and I carry another in my womb. I came here to test your grasp of xenia, and you have failed – all of you have failed. And now the judgment of the Thunderer shall be upon you.’
My voice rose as I spoke. By the time I was done, it shook the walls. I had the presence of mind to marvel at myself. Where had I learned to speak like this? When had I become bold enough to talk like a god?
Probably during the many nights I spent sleeping beside one, I thought wryly. Eros would have been delighted with me.
The men stared at me like sheep, frozen in a tableau of shock. I summoned an eerie calm as I added, ‘Do not afflict yourselves further by impeding my journey.’
I turned and walked out of the hall. I had no food, though at least I now wore new clothing and carried a knife. I waited for an arrow between my shoulder blades, but it never came. I kept my spine straight until I disappeared into the timberline.
Only when I was out of sight of the village did I pause. My steps slowed, and I squatted down on the earth and leaned my forearms onto my knees. Digging my nails into my scalp, I gasped for ragged breath as all the fear I had held at bay flooded its banks like a river in spring.
23
Psyche
The morning after my escape from the village, I lay in the nest I had made for myself on the forest floor, nothing more than a few boughs cut from a low tree. I woke to sunlight and stretched indulgently. Then I caught sight of a small bird perched on a nearby branch. Illuminated by the morning sun, at first it appeared to be made from gold.
For a moment, my heart soared. My husband was here, he’d found me, the nightmare of our separation had come to an end—
Then the little bird took flight, winging its way through the trees, and I realized that it was not Eros but only an ordinary bee-eater.
The realization knocked the breath from my lungs and brought all my grief to the fore. Before, my pain had been a persistent yearning, paling beside the agony of the physical starvation that chewed at my entrails. I had not let myself truly mourn until this moment, so focused had I been on simple survival. Now my loss was laid bare in the quiet morning air.
I had lost my companion in the darkness, my lover, my child’s father, the god I had not known was mine until it was too late. Or had he ever been mine at all? Aphrodite said Eros wouldnever have paid me any mind without the curse. I had no doubts about my charms, but in the end, I was only a mortal girl. What had I been to him – a pipe for the opium addict, lotus for the lotus-eater? Had he loved me for myself, or only for what I gave him?
And didIlove him, despite all his lies?
When I was young, Atalanta had shown me bear tracks in the woods. A series of clawed prints, larger than my hand, leading away into the brush. The creature who had made them was long gone and could only be defined by the impressions it had left. Love was like that, noticeable only by its absence.
Tears burned my eyes, and I did not bother to brush them away. The pain was so sharp that my hands brushed over my body of their own accord to check for wounds, but of course there were none.
I mourned the loss of Eros, and I mourned the cats and peacocks lost during the destruction of the seaside house, innocent victims of a betrayal in which they played no part. I cursed myself for not trying to take one of those creatures under my arm, for not trying to hold on to something of that peculiar, beautiful life.
There was no reason I should still want Eros. Certainly he did not want me anymore, if Aphrodite was to be believed, and the fact he had not come looking for me after the destruction of the seaside house seemed to prove this. The wisest and most practical thing would be to move on and forget him; there was no other way to ensure my survival and that of the child I carried in my womb. And yet I could not forget the memory of Eros’s voice in my ear or his body moving against mine. I could not set aside the wild hope that he might be looking for me.
I thought of Aphrodite’s offer, pledging myself in servitude for a glimpse at Eros again. My stomach churned.
I could not bring myself to keep moving, and I lay back down. Once, Circe’s tincture had turned me into a butterfly, but now I was more like a chrysalis-bound caterpillar, entombed in living death.
When I woke again it was evening. The sun had sunk near to the horizon, and a nearly full moon floated through the sky. I stirred and found a little stream where I drank my fill, then a berry bush laden with the fruits of late summer. I ate a few, then sat back on my heels as the ache in my stomach eased.
All around me, the creatures of night were awakening. A fox prowled through the undergrowth and an owl took wing overhead, while mice and voles skittered through the grass. The evening wind sighed through the trees. There was a whole world around me, one that took no notice of my grief.
