I saw now that what truly mattered was those who loved you. I had lost my parents, my teacher, and my dearest friend, though in a few months I would gain a son or daughter. I had lost my husband as well, the father of my child. But perhaps there was still hope.
He never wants to see you again, Aphrodite claimed, and foolishly I took her at her word. But perhaps matters were more complicated than that.
It had only been a dream, but what if the dream-Eros had spoken truth? Was he searching for me after all? Wherever Eros was, I decided, I would find him again. Even if it was only to grab him by the shoulders and reprimand him for his betrayal.
The next day when my work around the temple precinct was finished, I knelt by the statue of Hera, goddess of marriage. She was five times my height and wore a stern expression, gazing down at me as though I was a mere insect. I bent my head and whispered my fervent prayer.
‘Bring him back to me. Bring my Eros back to me.’
I repeated these words from the noon hour, when the sweat beaded on my skin and the air was as thick as soup, until the cool relief of evening. Kharis, understanding what I sought to do, gave me some incense and shooed the younger priestesses away from my vigil. My knees ached from the cold marble floor but still I remained, until the priestesses called to summon me to the sleeping quarters. Only then, when the sun had set over the western horizon and the light had drained from the temple, did I stand and shake sensation back into my limbs.
As I lay on my cot in the dormitory, the snores of the priestesses around me, I wondered how mortals could make the gods listen. Flattery was not enough, nor were gifts. Virtuous behaviour rarely caught divine notice.
Perhaps, I thought,the key is to make such a nuisance of yourself that even a god cannot ignore you.
I knelt on the marble tiles before the goddess the next day, and the next, all while repeating my prayer. I watched as other pilgrims came to ask for a suitable husband for a daughter, or to offer thanks for the birth of a healthy baby. But I asked for only one thing: the chance to find Eros again.
After several days of this, I dreamed a strange dream. I was in an intricately manicured garden, bursting with a dazzle of roses, lilies, and other spectacular blooms I could not name. A garden like this could only belong to a great lady, but when I turned to the figure seated next to me, I knew at once that this woman was not human at all.
She was not young, but the fullness of her beauty made youth seem garish. She wore the veil of a proper wife, and her hands were folded neatly on her lap. She did not look anything like the statue that reigned over the sanctuary, although her face bore the same look of stern disapproval, evoking the faintmemory of Clytemnestra. I was in the presence of Hera, queen of the gods.
‘What is it that you ask?’ Hera inquired dispassionately, like a bureaucrat faced with yet another tedious task.
She had answered! Relief washed over my body like rain after a drought. ‘I need your help finding my husband,’ I said in a rush.
‘A case of marital separation,’ Hera said, nodding. ‘Quite standard, but I must know more if I am to help you. Was he lured away by someone else, or did he leave of his own accord?’
‘Neither. A curse pulled us apart.’
The expression of polite neutrality on Hera’s face disappeared. Her lips thinned and her nose turned up. ‘You must be Eros’s wife,’ she sneered, as though I was some crawling thing that had emerged from beneath a rock. ‘Aphrodite spoke of a mortal woman who was living with her son. I fear I can do nothing for you. I will not offend the goddess of love on your account.’
‘But you’re the patroness of marriage,’ I protested, my hope fading. ‘Youhaveto help me.’
‘I do nothaveto do anything. I am a goddess,’ Hera snapped. ‘And why should I help you? Your husband has made a mess of my own marriage with his arrows. He has been nothing but a thorn in my husband’s side and my own. Besides, according to Aphrodite, you can hardly be said to be married, since the proper rites were not observed. Since I am the goddess of marriage, not mistresses, I am further unable to assist you.’
I stared at Hera and wondered if she had ever known even a fraction of the happiness I had enjoyed with Eros. Hera and Zeus were yoked like two unhappy oxen, plodding down the road to eternity. I realized I possessed something even the queen of heaven lacked – a husband whose company I enjoyed.
‘Whatever crimes Eros committed are in the past,’ I pointedout. ‘And I am here now, humbly asking your assistance.’ I spread my arms wide, palms up, embodying humility as best I could.
‘I am not the one who can fix this,’ Hera said coldly. ‘If you have any courage at all, you will face the one responsible for the curse. You have been running long enough.’
With a shock, I woke in the priestesses’ dormitory, blinking into the dawn. But I had glimpsed something in the far reaches of her garden before waking: green eyes behind green leaves, a familiar presence that made my heart snap to attention.
32
Psyche
I slipped from the blankets and gathered my meagre possessions. I left before the priestesses awoke, though it grieved me not to have the chance to bid these kind women farewell as I departed from the temple of Hera.
I had been buffeted about between one desire and the other like a fallen leaf in a strong current, between my hero’s dreams and my memories of Eros. But only a hero could survive the challenges that lay before me, even if they were of a different sort than I once imagined. Even if no poets would ever sing my tale.
You will be a great lover, not a great hero, Prometheus told me once.
He was wrong. I would be both.
My heart thundered with the audacity of what I was about to do. I would put myself under the power of my worst enemy, in the vain hope she might keep an offhand promise. I had no idea what she might demand of me, if she would accept my wager or kill me where I stood.
I found a cliff overlooking the sea. The wind whipped the edges of the simple chiton I still wore, provided by the priestesses.
