‘You are strong, madam, you endured it once, you can do so again.’
‘You have naiad blood, you need not fear!’
She sat in her apartments and tried to hearten. Summer had fully blossomed and her women had planted all manner of bright and fragrant things in her gardens. Her son was his father’s image, all golden curls and sturdy limbs, but had a depth to his skin, acquired from his mother, that his nurses cooed over. At half a year, he was already toddling around on stocky little legs, having bypassed crawling entirely as the transportation of lower beings. He would snatch at things, pull things over on to himself and take what wasn’t his. His father crowed and laughed when such chaos ensued. ‘He knows his right, our little king!’
But the queen would gently remove the braids of her women from his chubby fingers and sayNofirmly, looking seriously into eyes that resembled hers.Nowas the Prince Perses’ first word. He uttered it loudly and deliberately when she pointed to her stomach and said, ‘New brother!’
The nurses laughed and cheered as he repeated it. He kissed, loud and smacking, where his mother pointed. He quietened with the queen. He was a tiny menace with everyone else, ran circles around Danaë, who could not bear to scold him but, seated at his mother’s feet, he would stick his fist in his mouth and still, letting her brush through his thick, dark gold curls.
‘The child will come in the spring,’ the queen whispered in her son’s ear. ‘It will not be so cold, not like when you wereborn. I will be able to walk through the forest a little and there will be more sun. It will not be so bad.’
‘No!’
She kissed him.
She had heard from her women that second births are quick, easier, but she was never one for conformity and found that everything was reversed. Her confinement was far improved. She would walk into the forest with her women and stand in the shallow pools and sink into the easing that conjured up the image of her grandmother. She imagined that she was there, weaving blue lilies into her hair and soothing her back. At times she felt on the precipice of peace and, there among the women, truth was on the tip of her tongue. She cultivated their closeness and saw their bonds sprouting before her, the small budding things between them, love in different blooms. Daffodils forludus, tulips forphilia, roses foreros. They were fully among themselves and, when they joined her in her shallow pools, the queen, for the first time in a very long time, was content. She shared pieces of herself, fragments. How date cakes were best when sweetened with honey. How natron’s foam is best for washing. Of girls selling oils at markets, smelling of jasmine. She kept the violets for herself, though.
One night, the queen dreamed that she followed Artemis through the forest. She tried to keep up with her, but she was too quick-footed and the queen was heavy with her child. The goddess turned, just before outpacing her. ‘It is close. It will be better now.’
The queen woke and knew it was time. She did not wake her women. She took nothing but the keepsake pouch, she did not even crouch to put on her sandals. She walked barefootthrough her apartments, around the side of the compound and out into the forest. She wondered if she should be wary of following the call of a goddess – but this time was not like the last time. The moon was plump at its zenith and she followed its light easily. She knew where she was going with sure steps. Once in the shadows of the forest, she stripped naked and walked to her pool. She slid into the water and it was heavenly. The tepid slide soothed her infinitely more than the poultices her women had made – bless their intentions but their mortal hands could never match the primordial cradle.
It cupped her and she leaned back in it, sinking into the between of states. She had not relished this the first time because she had not been in her body, but this time was different. This time her separation parted her from everything outside herself, and not everything within. She hung suspended, expectant and satisfied, revelling in the blending of the toil and the result. The pain began slowly, but it built. It forged on, onwards and upwards, until it was immense. At some point she shifted, hands, knees and feet in the water, following some instinct. She did not know how long she stayed that way. The forest was her cocoon, her egg, she would stay in its verdant shell for as long as she could. She would allow its fresh watered green to flood her and then she would emerge with the life she had created.
She breathed and lowed, she was an animal like all the rest, how many such beings had this forest seen?
Our home is here. And has been since Gaia walked these lands.
They stepped from the trees at the sounds of her bellows. She was not afraid, they had not hurt her before. They came towards her, Autochthe leading them, and blinked at her withtheir one-eyed reassurance. They placed hands on her back, drawing soothing circles.
The moon tiptoed across the sky, Selene taking care not to disturb them as they knelt there, the queen and the Cyclopes. But the throaty resonance of her moans grew deeper and deeper, and she strained against them. They were strong, the strongest, and held her fast. When her daughter’s crown broke free at last, the queen tipped her head back and feasted on the moonlight as if she was one of them. She drank in the burning stars, slurping light as if in their shared anguish she could bring them relief from their heat.
They guided her hands between her legs and she reacted immediately, pulling the baby from her and collapsing gently against the side of the pool, the soft, wet body pressed to her breasts. The Cyclopes eased the queen into a more comfortable position. They helped wash the baby with the liquid silver of the pool and gathered large leaves and moss to wrap her in. The queen settled her baby at her breast, breathing slowing once more, taking long, slow gulps of night, lapping at water from Autochthe’s cupped hands. Selene and the moon, having seen that they had helped all that they could, reluctantly departed and the spring dawn opened like the wings of a nesting bird, unfurling around their little bower.
‘You have done well, my queen,’ said the Cyclopes. ‘She will be delicate as a flower and strong as a tree.’
‘She will,’ agreed the queen.
‘What shall you name her?’ asked Autochthe.
‘I shall have to wait for my husband.’
‘Why? The toil was yours.’
The queen considered. It would be easier to return withher nameless, to be agreeable. She opened her mouth to say so but then the little face, scrunched at her breast, split wide and began to scream. So ferocious was that scream. It was not a scream of want or need, just an expression of vitality and sensation andrageat being alive. The queen grinned back at her. The baby screamed on. The queen grinned wider, showing all her teeth. She looked up into the beautiful faces of the monsters before her.
‘Gorgophone,’ she whispered, ‘I will call her Gorgophone.’
Autochthe tilted her head. ‘Gorgophone?’ She said it as it would be said by those who revered the king, who knew his legend, the short, punchingO, likeomicron, turning the name violent:Gorgon-Slayer.
The queen shrugged. She settled her baby against her breast once more. ‘To some. And to others,Gorgophone.’ Her mouth wrapped around the sound, theOlikeomega, the ringing bell of the end.
Gorgon-Voiced.
22
Mycenae
The Queen of Tiryns began to tell stories. They were chips and pieces that she was scared to share at first, but she wanted her children to know of things, even if they were too young to understand. The way that camomile could ease inflammation and tasted delicious in tea with honey; how to brush at their feet and hands with pumice to remove stubborn grime. She taught them the light language of the birds, louder when they landed in rivers, and how to read ripples and currents to learn truths about the land. She would take them walking in the forest with her women, even as their numbers and her belly swelled again and again. They would return, her children clutching pebbles and herbs, pealing with laughter, rushing to show their father what they had found. Perseus was away more often in those days, loosening his restless limbs in founding his new city.
