My face remains unadorned; cosmetics are viewed as deception in Aethiopia and are unfashionable. And there is no kohl or ochre that can improve my appearance. It makes me nervous, to always be on show; I have heard much of how the goddess of beauty is jealous with her gifts. She is unsatisfied by gratitude – she fears it as evidence that her own overgenerosity might create a mortal capable of outshining her – and resentful of thanklessness, as all gods are.
I slip my feet into my sandals, the buckles freshly polished, and lean over the limestone basin. My reflection is muddied by that which I have cleaned off my skin. I blink slowly at her, the rippling grey-green creature, blurred and inconsistent. I am called and I envy her.
4
Aethiopia
A litany of pretty gifts and pretty words. My hand chafed and itching from beards that cup kissing mouths. My head light but my neck heavy, the rolling nausea from so much scent and not aided by my hungry, protesting stomach. Yes, I had been right to assume. They have come from far and wide for me, announce themselves in booming voices, in tremulous aged trebles, in the cracked oscillations of adolescence. I sigh but contain it, keep my back straight in the small throne that has been placed next to my parents. I long to loll and drift away, the rhythmic drum-beats at pace with my breath, but it would not do to doze. My mother has long since imparted upon me the significance of spectacle and even if my father’s mind is made up, his intent to turn down the seemingly endless line of suitors must not be revealed until long after they have departed.
‘It must be precisely done,’ my mother had said, not for the first time, as she intricately braided my hair. ‘Too early and they will feel their journeys wasted. Even our good fortune and your father’s reputation may not withstand such a slight. We must be seen to consider them all.’ She set my hair with a silver headpiece that matched the rest of my jewellery. Shehad run her eyes over me, probing, attentive, missing nothing, no detail too small. Then she nodded, approval tugging at the corner of her mouth. ‘Divine.’ She pronounced the word sombrely, not effusive with maternal warmth, but as a fact. I am descended from divinity. Tonight, I look it.
The line of suitors continues. More words, more gifts. I focus on my face. A slight smile, my forehead smooth, my shoulders relaxed but not hunched. I am surprised that there are any noble men left to present themselves, surely the nearby nations cannot be so saturated in kings and princes. But I recognize a few, who have taken my parents’ apparent indecision as a challenge and so return, each more determined to emerge victorious. My eyes snag on Phineus. He is fourth from the front and I fight my smirk. His eyes lock with mine and flicker to the ceiling once, imperceptibly.
This again.
If I am bored, I can only imagine how he feels, forced through this charade of a parade once more, presenting his official suit as though the conclusion is not foregone. He glances at the man in front of him, then back at me. He brushes a casual finger across his nose. I clear my throat of the laughter bubbling there. He glances over his shoulder, at the man behind him, then again back at me. Casual fingers tug at his ear. I look away. If his sly, silent remarks continue, I shall giggle on stage and offend the boy, much younger than me, belly still sweetly rounded, who is currently prostrate at my feet. The line moves on and when the man in front of Phineus is before me it takes only a single breath for me to heed Phineus’ warning and inhale through my mouth instead. The overwhelming perfume does little to cover his stale bodyodour and it almost knocks me flat. He speaks. Bows. Kisses my hand. Passes on. I breathe normally once more.
‘Niece.’ Phineus bows before me, meeting my eyes. He addresses my father and mother. ‘Brother, Sister. I come before you not as kin, but as one who will love, honour, cherish and defend your daughter and this kingdom, with each breath until my last.’ My parents nod distractedly. My father is picking dates off a nearby platter, sucking the juice off his fingers, eyes returning occasionally to his brother’s face. He is too bitter to give him the same performance of those that now mill at the sides, but too afraid to properly snub him lest word reach Achiroe of how he treated her favourite. My mother is scanning the court, eyes snagging on the most glittering golds, the juiciest jewels, ripe for picking. Phineus winks at me and moves off. The man behind him, easily three decades my father’s senior, shouts his declaration in my general direction and I holler back. I can see Phineus’ shoulders shaking where he leans against a pillar, speaking to a pair of princes from Anatolia, laughing into his cup.
No, it would not be too bad, being married to Phineus. I watch him drain his wine and call for another. At sixteen and twenty-six we are still child and man in my eyes, a chasm apart. But most would not see us as such and one day, one day in not so long, as my mother reminds me, I will bleed and become a woman. Will it come overnight, my woman-ness, rushing like the blood between my legs? Will I long for Phineus the way I hear other girls long for their lovers? The nobles’ daughters whisper of him; I hear them when we are thrust together for dinners and dances. Their feverish voices rise to a peak as they praise his strength, his sharp jaw, hiskind eyes. They giggle hungrily of the things his big, quick hands might accomplish.
Will I hunger? Will I crave? I remember the firefly glow of my early pleasure, hand between my legs glittering into bright, splitting ecstasy, swift and new, several summers before.Thatis separate, I am sure.Thatis long, sticky nights and the heady smell of jasmine on the skin of the girl that brushed past me when she was bringing oils to the palace from the market. She had bowed before me, eyes on mine, before slipping into the waters of my Nile and swimming back to her village. That is certainly separate.
I wonder if this woman-ness will hurt. I think about two years before, when I’d grown so swiftly between the spring and autumn that I reached almost my mother’s height by the emergence. My limbs had twisted and jutted and my muscles had ached.Growing pains, my mother had said but I had relished it. When I am not in the river, when I am with my mother, I spend a lot of time thinking about how my body looks instead of what it does. Even when I am dancing or practising the harp, I hear my mother’s voice loud in my ears. My head must be angled prettily, my fingers must extend, just so, to emphasize my elegance. Beauty has become my bones, moulded my muscles. But I would feel the searing stretch of my feet in the sand, the click of my fingers after music practice, and it would ground me.
The drums begin a slow rolling rise, and I, relieved, am shaken free of my poise. My father stands, opens his arms as if wishing to embrace the room. ‘Welcome all. Aethiopia thanks you for your suit. There will be no decisions made here today. We shall seek counsel and send missives. For now, enjoy our music, our dancing, our hospitality. There is nowhere in theworld so favoured by the gods. There is nowhere in the world that you will find meat so tender, fruit so sweet or wine so rich.’
Phineus is before me once more – we are well rehearsed in this. If he does not claim the first dance, I will be passed from man to man, and will be lucky if I fill my belly before midnight. Phineus makes sure I am fed before I must give myself to grabbing hands and puckering mouths. Soon my father will be too drunk to notice who squeezes my thighs or places proprietary fingers on my bottom lip. It is rare that such a ceremony passes without Phineus striking at least one swaggering prince for pressing too close. They all bristle then, noting the divide,you are not one of us. But none would touch the grandson of Nilus so close to his banks, and so the merriment continues.
We scoop food off platters that float past us, borne by servants whose faces are still despite their harried tension. I meet each of their gazes in apology and am rewarded with brief smiles and the occasional wink. Phineus and I eat quickly, alternating between continuing our quiet, scathing judgement and our old game.
‘When we are married, and we are hosting, we shall have much better music played.’
I mutter it mutinously and Phineus gives me a slow, knowing grin. ‘When we are married, and we are hosting, it shall be our friends and those who enjoy dancing with us, not the aged and the infantile princes of elsewhere.’
Our friends.Again, I reach futilely. I have never known such a thing. But Phineus lifts his cup to me in silent praise and hope, and I believe then that it is possible. That we might mould our home in our image.
‘I have left you something on your bed.’ He swallows his last bite of cheese.
‘Mama would be furious that you made it into my apartments undetected.’
‘I went through the hearth room; it is for family, is it not?’ Phineus raises his eyebrows at me but I cannot answer. The drums have shifted their rhythm once more and a giddiness descends. I love this dance. It is both percussive and light, the frantic drums beneath the straining strings of the lyre. My mother hates it, which is how I know that Phineus has bribed the musicians to play it. For me.
We clear a space and begin, our feet swift, our bodies close, almost scandalously so, until we are flung apart by its wild beat. My feet stamp and my hands clap a ferocious rhythm. The beads of my overlay click in time like acrotalum. The sun gasps its final breath for the day and its exhalation lights the shine of my skin, the silver of my jewellery, and I see it then, in the corner of my eye – the crepuscular promise of my godhood. My mother can see it too and so does not begrudge me this. The faces, like bronze plates around me, reflect it back. Their eyes are keen, honed as weapons, whetting themselves on the curves my body makes. But Phineus is laughing beside me and so I am not afraid.Step, clap, step step, clap clap.
The drums surge and so do I. The piece is based on the flooding of the Nile and I am full and spilling, the banks of my skin bursting with song; Ispin, spin, spin, but I am not dizzy. Phineus lifts me, and the music and I reach our zenith together. I realize we are the only ones still dancing, the rest of the court stopped to watch us. He lowers me and the music retreats, water flowing back over the banks. Phineus bowsbefore me, his final position held with a slight ripple, the current settling after the storm. I sink then straighten; I am the flowers, thirst quenched, standing in full bloom.
His eyes find mine, kind and crinkling. My breath catches where I meet them. There is applause, our court, our guests, but I cannot look away. This has not happened before. There are murmurs at this, some disgruntled, a slight frisson of indignation. The question of the foregone conclusion hangs in the air, but it is not so very heavy; if the young princess favours her kin it matters little. Kings and advisors do not listen to the capricious hearts of girls. As if to reassure, my mother stands, arms wide as my father’s had been, embracing not the court but me, from afar.
‘My daughter, Andromeda.Andromeda.’ She says my name as my epithet,ruler of men. ‘She will make a fine queen for one of you, will she not?’
The crowd murmurs in agreement. Their suppositions snatch at my face and body.Will she birth well? Will she be fruitful? Will she be dutiful and steadfast and obedient?
My mother continues. ‘Is she not beautiful? Is she not the most beautiful girl in the world?’ Her voice is raised, loudly, almost unnecessarily so. The room is quiet, her words bouncing off the marble floors, the polished sandstone walls, between the columns and pillars, a volley of vowels and consonants like a game ofseker-hemat.
‘Not girl – for my daughter is not just a girl. She is a princess and her father is god-born. See the truth of it light her flesh. She is more radiant than all others.’ I fight the awkward slump, the embarrassed tangle of my limbs, but still my mother continues, even louder, her chest heaving in short, sharp breaths. ‘She is more beautiful than all girls, allwomen, all nymphs, even! Why – Poseidon’s Nereids cannot compare!’
It is a silly thing to say. Overblown and overconfident. I avoid all gazes, even Phineus’, fearing both the pity and pride I might find there. My skin prickles strangely. The breeze through the front doors stills, the hot open mouth of Eurus snapped shut. I am suddenly parched, my throat dry and baking. A ripple of an ineffablesomethingpasses over the court. I think three things in such quick succession that they collide absurdly in my mind.Something is wrong. My grandmother is here. I ate too quickly.
