‘Your declaration interrupted our wedding,’ drawls Poseidon. ‘It is my right to lay claim to the best. And I thought I had.’ I see his enormous hand descend, its span the length of the Nereid’s entire arm as his fingers brush against her pale skin. His silver is darker than hers, the heavy grey of a storm. I once more take in the white beading of her dress. Something curls my stomach. The whisper of an augury, perhaps the flick of faraway grey eyes in my direction.
‘Let me see her.’
Nobody moves. Phineus grows still above me, so still, he is the stone that breaks the surf.
‘Come on.’ An order snapped like the gnashing of gleaming teeth.
‘Why?’ My grandmother speaks. ‘Why do you wish to see her?’
‘The Lord Poseidon charges the Queen of Aethiopia with hubris. The Queen of Aethiopia replies that it is not hubris if it is true. Therefore, the Lord Poseidon must see if it is true.’ A new voice. Husky and low. I flinch from it but note a sharp stinging, a kind of shredding internal pressure, insisting on release.
‘Andromeda.’ I turn to face my mother. Her eyes meet mine. ‘Present yourself.’ She does not look afraid; she is certain of this. I drink her face a moment more, thirsty for her courage. Then I touch Phineus’ shoulder. He moves aside immediately but his brow is creased and when I stand, he shadows me, a silent, comforting guard. What he would do should the sea god act, I hope I do not learn.
We step around Achiroe and I finally look into Poseidon’s face.
It is hard to say if he is made of storms or if the raging pelagic tempests are made of him. I note the broad, shining shields that are his limbs, the inky deluge of his hair. His eyes are smaller than I imagined, too small for his face, clear, focused beams that wall out the chaos they have caused. The eye of the storm. The very much-ness of him, the bounty and surplus, overwhelm me. I do not breathe. I do not look too long; I cannot. I feel once again as though I am whipped by rain and winds. I look instead at the flanking nymphs. Amphitrite is even paler up close. Her gaze is piercing lapis lazuli and beneath her skin shines the refracted glint of salt crystals. Beneath that, a scratching and a scraping, the nails of the river pulling sediment from rock and casting it into the sea.
The other Nereid is closer to me. I take her in more fully now. To be so made up of sharp lines and narrow angles, too many to be considered anything other than rugged, lacks apology; my dress and jewellery are suddenly foolish. Dark strips, almost as thick as leather but strangely textured, cross and cover to protect her body but show enough of her skin that I run my eyes over it, glowing gold, almost green in the flicker of the candles. I realize that it is snakeskin she wears, broad black slices of scale that can only have comefrom something giant, something monstrous. Her eyes are shards of coal-black, pupils indistinguishable from the irises, the fathomless burning black of heat, banked and cooled. I am swallowed by their void. I know who she is.
The sea god speaks again. ‘Sheislovely. I cannot deny it.’ He appraises me, weighs me, counts me out in pieces and weighs each of them too. ‘Has she bled yet?’
The question catches me off guard and my face heats. But my mother replies, ‘Not yet. Her godhood delays her, and women bleed late in my family.’
‘Hmmm.’ A sentence suspended and then, ‘I might want her instead.’ He pronounces it so simply, a man at a table deciding on beef or lamb, and I hear the words the way my tongue tastes bread after it has been burned by hot stew: distant and raw.
‘My lord?’ My mother and Amphitrite speak in unison, but identical words have never sounded so different. The sea god does not look at either of them. The glare of his gaze is still focused on me, but I turn to face my mother instead. Her breathing is shallow now, her hands clasped as if in prayer.
‘I have a proposition.’ He swells with his idea and I am reminded forcibly of my father, giddy with his own import, casting policy into the kingdom like dice on a board, watching how his chances might be affected, largely indifferent when his turn has passed. But Poseidon’s turn has never passed. ‘I must have the best. It would not do to have a wife whose beauty is so easily bested by another. The sea is known to give rise to all beautiful things. Why, some even believe that Aphrodite herself walked forth from its foam. It would reflect poorly. King Cepheus of Aethiopia, Queen Cassiopeia. I would wait until your daughter is a woman,until she has bled and can give me sons. Then, if she is more beautiful than my most beautiful Nereid,’ here he gestures at Amphitrite, who has turned whiter still, ‘I would have her as a wife.’
There are murmurs. My father has straightened and is stuttering at my mother. Her expression remains carefully masked but I see the blazing glory in her eyes.I mean for you to have more, my little queen. I mean for you to have the world.
I feel Phineus shift behind me, the locking of his muscles, the quickening of his breath. I want to lean back into him, the solid flesh and earth of him, but I cannot move, cannot bear to look in his face.
‘You honour us, my lord!’ My father’s face shines with his imaginings. He licks his lips as if he can already taste the abundance.His daughter would be made an immortal. His daughter would be Queen of the Sea.
‘And if she is not?’ It is my grandmother. She steps towards me once more, pulls me against her. ‘If she is not more beautiful than Amphitrite? She can marry who she – who her family – choose?’
The sea god’s expression hardens. ‘Of course. But if she is not the most beautiful woman in the world, Cassiopeia has not spoken true and must answer for her hubris.’
‘Answer how?’
‘With her life. With immortal indignity.’
‘No!’ It is the first time I have spoken and the cry is rent from me, taken without my permission. ‘Mama, no! You must not agree!’
She does not look at me. She stands straight, a princess of oranges locked in a battle of wills with an immortal force.
I rush to her, clasp her ankles. ‘Mama, please! Beg pardon for your hasty words and let us be done with this! It is not worth it!’
She looks down at me then. ‘Stand up, Andromeda. You are making a spectacle of yourself.’ She faces Poseidon once more. ‘How can we trust you? How can we trust that you will not harm her?’
‘I shall swear an oath on my blood. I would not risk Horkos’ wrath.’ The god that curses oath breakers is known for inflicting punishment that correlates with power. Horkos would relish this humiliation, the sea god would suffer.
‘Who will decide that the girl is the most beautiful? One man’s prize is another’s poison. Surely this is too flimsy a thing to set such a store by.’ My grandmother strives to keep her voice level, reasonable, but her hands shake as she folds me into her reeds.
‘Ceto will do it.’
I lock eyes with the Nereid once more, the one who is not Amphitrite, gaze into the fathomless dark, and my fear is realized. He had called her Ceto, but I know that this – that she – is the Cetus, the shape shifter, Poseidon’s most trusted. I think of iridescent scales and a smooth, muscled body splintering ships. My heart beats so loudly I am sure that even the mortals in the room must hear it.
