After all, Agamemnon would be commemorated as a hero for his achievements.
When the sun set the western sky aflame, I stood. I dashed the tears from my eyes and made my way down the cliffs as the shadows began to grow long.
I knocked on the door of a temple of the goddess Hera located on the outskirts of a small town. The priestess who answered was a woman past middle years, heavyset with neatly braided hair.
‘I am a traveller seeking sanctuary,’ I said. ‘I am strong of body and can perform work for you in exchange for food and a dry place to sleep.’
‘I … see,’ the priestess replied. She looked alarmed at my appearance, though she was too well-mannered to say anythingabout it. I couldn’t blame her. I was wearing the same tattered dress I had donned that morning for Iphigenia’s wedding, now stained with dirt and spattered with blood along the sleeves.
As it turned out, the temple had recently lost its chamberlain and welcomed my assistance. The priestess, whose name was Kharis, offered me bread and cheese along with a garment more practical for work. She introduced me to the other priestesses, who nodded politely before rushing off to their duties. I chopped wood and carried water for the priestesses as they performed their offerings and hymns in the sanctuary.
In the evening, I joined the priestesses in their dormitory. There was room in the temple for travellers, but these were mostly men, so by unspoken agreement the priestesses decided that it would be best for me to stay with them instead. I watched the priestesses unwind from a day of work, braiding one another’s hair and chatting with their friends. I thought of Iphigenia, and was hit by a wave of grief so strong I had to turn my face to the wall.
I became aware that a bubble of silence surrounded me. The chatter of the priestesses had fallen away, and they were all looking at me. I felt the prickle of their eyes upon me, but the sensation was not unpleasant. They were merely curious about this newcomer in their midst.
Finally, a young woman with a narrow nose asked, ‘Where do you come from, stranger? How did you arrive here?’
I drew in a long breath. I could not tell them about the death of Iphigenia; I could not bear to speak about it. But the rest, I could share.
‘I was raised as a princess in my father’s house,’ I began. ‘Until I was swept away by the west wind to a house full of magic …’
I told them my strange story and felt as though I was setting down a heavy burden at the end of a long day. I told them ofthe beautiful house that overlooked the sea until it fell into ruin in a single night, and the surprising gentleness of my mysterious, divine husband. When I told them his true name, there were gasps of awe.
Somewhere along the way, they ceased to hear my voice telling the story and imagined their own. They saw themselves in it, their own longings for love mortal or divine. A seed was planted that day, the core of a story that would be retold over and over again until eventually it became lodged in a novel by a Latin philosopher. But I did not know this then.
When I lapsed into silence, the priestesses sat still and looked at me. They were wearing the same expression that I myself had worn as a child at the feet of the old blind poet.
‘What happened next?’ Kharis asked, nearly breathless with anticipation.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, laughing hollowly. ‘I am trying to find that out myself.’
The priestesses were satisfied with this answer, though a bit crestfallen to hear the tale end.
Together we prepared for sleep. That night, for the first time since my earliest childhood, I was soothed to sleep by the sound of women’s voices.
Perhaps sharing my story with the priestesses of Hera opened my heart in some way, because that night I dreamed of Eros.
In my dream, I was back in the seaside house, which had been miraculously restored to wholeness. I could feel the fur of Scylla as she rubbed against my ankles and hear the peacocks call to one another on the terrace outside. The taste of the air was the same, mingled salt and roses, distant waves flinging up a mist that clung delicately to my cheeks.
Someone was sitting at the great oak table, back towards me.I knew who it was even before he turned to me with those beautiful green eyes, so familiar though I had only seen them once before. Eros.
A thousand words crowded together on my tongue.You lied to me, you left me alone, you never really loved me.
But there was no anger in him. Instead, he bore the look of a man at sea who has just seen the coast of his homeland come into view.
‘Psyche,’ he whispered.
My rage pulled up short, like a mounted warrior before the high walls of a city. I had expected excuses or more lies, perhaps a mirror of my own rage. I had not expected him to miss me.
His gaze was a medley of hope and longing, and he took a tentative step towards me. ‘Finally, I have found you,’ he began. ‘I come with a message of warning. Aphrodite holds me prisoner, and she will come for you as well. Psyche, you must—’
I started to run to him, but the dream shivered around me and crumbled. I woke in the priestesses’ dormitory, surrounded by the sounds of the temple starting its day.
31
Psyche
I stepped outside, watching the sunrise while wrapped in the folds of my thick blanket. I thought about my dream of Eros, and my excuses for missing him fell away like shed snakeskin.
