“And you do?”
“I am from Sparta. We know about old soldiers there. The trembling hands, the startling from sleep. The man who spills his wine every time the trumpets blow. My husband’s hands were steady as a blacksmith’s, and when the trumpets sounded, he was first to the harbor scanning the horizon. The war did not break him; it made him more himself. At Troy he found at last a scope to equal his abilities. Always a new scheme, a new plot, a new disaster to avert.”
“He tried to get out of the war.”
“Ah, that old story. The madness, the plow. That too was a plot. He had sworn an oath to the gods—he knew there was no getting out. He expected to be caught. Then the Greeks would laugh at his failure and think that all his tricks would be so easily seen through.”
I was frowning. “He gave no sign of that when he told me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. My husband lied with every breath, and that includes to you, and to himself. He never did anything for a single purpose.”
“He said the same of you once.”
I meant it to wound her, but she only nodded. “We thought ourselves great minds of the world. When we were first married, we made a thousand plans together, of how we would turn everything we touched to our advantage. Then the war came. He said Agamemnon was the worst commander he had ever seen, but he thought he could use him to make a name for himself. And so he did. His contrivances defeated Troy and reshaped half the world. I contrived too. Which goats to breed with which, how to increase the harvest, where the fishermen could best cast their nets. Such were our pressing concerns on Ithaca. You should have seen his face when he came home. He killed the suitors, but then what was left? Fish and goats. A graying wife who was no goddess and a son he could not understand.”
Her voice filled the air, sharp as crushed cypress.
“There were no war councils, no armies to conquer or command. What men there had once been were dead, since half were his crew and the other half my suitors. And every day there seemed to come some fresh report of distant glory. Menelaus had built a brand-new golden palace. Diomedes had conquered a kingdom in Italy. Even Aeneas, that Trojan refugee, had founded a city. My husband sent to Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, offering himself as counselor. Orestes sent back that he had all the counselors he needed, and anyway he would never want to disturb the rest of such a hero.
“He sent to more sons after that, Nestor’s and Idomeneus’ and others’, but they all said the same. They did not want him. And do you know what I told myself? That he only needed time. That any moment he would remember the pleasures of modest home and hearth. The pleasures of my presence. We would plot together again.” Her mouth twisted in self-mockery. “But he did not want that life. He would go down to the beach and pace. I watched him from my window and remembered a story he’d told me once about a great serpent that the men of the north believe in, which yearns to devour all the world.”
I remembered that story too. In the end, the serpent ate itself.
“And as he paced, he would talk to the air, which gathered all around him, glowing brightest silver on his skin.”
Silver. “Athena.”
“Who else?” She smiled, bitter and cold. “Every time he would calm she came again. Whispering in his ear, darting down from the clouds to fill him up with dreams of all the adventures he was missing.”
Athena, that restless goddess whose schemes spun on and on. She had fought to bring her hero home, to see him lifted among his people, for her honor and his. To hear him tell the tales of his victories, of the deaths they had dealt to the Trojans together. But I remembered the greed in her eyes when she spoke of him: an owl with a kill in its claws. Her favorite could never be allowed to grow dull and domestic. He must live in action’s eye, bright and polished, always striving and seeking, always delighting her with some new twist of cleverness, some brilliance he summoned out of the air.
Outside, trees struggled in the dark sky. In that eerie light, the bones of Penelope’s face showed fine as one of Daedalus’ statues. I had wondered why she was not more jealous of me. I understood now. I was not the goddess who had taken her husband.
“Gods pretend to be parents,” I said, “but they are children, clapping their hands and shouting for more.”
“And now that her Odysseus is dead,” she said, “where will she find more?”
The final tiles were set in their place, and at last the picture showed whole. Gods never give up a treasure. She would come for the next best thing after Odysseus. She would come for his blood.
“Telemachus.”
“Yes.”
The tightness in my throat took me by surprise. “Does he know?”
“I do not think so. It is hard to say.”
She still held the wool, matted and stinking in her hands. I was angry, I could feel it searing my belly. She had put my son in danger. It was likely that Athena plotted vengeance against Telegonus already; this would add fuel to fire. Yet if I were honest, my rage was not so hot as it had been. Of all the gods she might have led to my door, this was the one I could bear best. How much more could Athena hate us?
“You truly think you can keep him hidden from her?”
“I know I cannot.”
“Then what is it you seek?”
She had drawn her cloak around herself, like a bird wrapped in its wings. “When I was young, I overheard our palace surgeon talking. He said that the medicines he sold were only for show. Most hurts heal by themselves, he said, if you give them enough time. It was the sort of secret I loved to discover, for it made me feel cynical and wise. I took it for a philosophy. I have always been good at waiting, you see. I outlasted the war and the suitors. I outlasted Odysseus’ travels. I told myself that if I were patient enough, I could outlast his restlessness and Athena too. Surely, I thought, there must be some other mortal in the world for her to love. But it seems there was not. And while I sat, Telemachus bore his father’s rage year after year. He suffered while I turned my eyes away.”
I remembered what Odysseus had said about her once. That she never went astray, never made an error. I had been jealous then. Now I thought: what a burden. What an ugly weight upon your back.
“But this world does have true medicines. You are proof of that. You walked into the depths for your son. You defied the gods. I think of all the years of my life I wasted on that little man’s boast. I have paid for it, that is only justice, but I have made Telemachus pay as well. He is a good son, he has always been. I seek a little time before I lose him, before we are thrust into the tide again. Will you grant it, Circe of Aiaia?”
She did not use those gray eyes on me. If she had, I would have refused her. She waited only. It was true that it looked well on her. She seemed to fit into the air like a jewel in its crown.
“It is winter,” I said. “No ships sail now. Aiaia will bear you a little longer.”
Chapter Twenty-three
OUR SONS HAD RETURNED from their work windswept but dry. The thunder and rain had stayed out at sea. While the others ate their meal, I went up to the highest peak and felt the spell above me. From bay to bay it reached, from yellow sands to ragged stones. I felt it in my blood as well, that iron weight I had borne so long. Athena tested it surely. She prowled the edges, looking for a crack. But it would hold.
When I returned, Penelope was at the loom again. She looked over her shoulder. “It seems we have a break in the weather. The seas should be calm enough now. Telegonus, would you learn to swim?”