I no sooner spoke my mind for all to hear than the air cracked with the sound of Ione slapping my face. I was stunned. She’d never raised her hand to me until that moment. I hadn’t known that the same hand that stroked my hair or tenderly touched my brow when I was sick could hurt so much. Before I could cry out, she swept me off my feet and whisked me away from the ceremonies. Poor Clytemnestra was left behind.
Our nurse had been a farmer’s wife, but the other servants whispered that ever since she’d been brought to the royal palace, she acted as if she’d been born there. Maybe so, but she didn’t act at all regal or haughty as she raced down the tower steps, carrying me over one shoulder like a bundle of old clothes. She didn’t slow down until we reached the deserted central courtyard of the palace, where flowers bloomed around a white stone well. Here she set me on my feet and shook me roughly by the shoulders.
“Are you crazy? To say such things where the goddess can hear you!” she hissed in my face. “You’ll bring a curse down on all of us.”
My cheek hurt, but that didn’t bother me as much as the feeling of having the ground yanked out from under me. I was totally bewildered. Ione hadn’t acted like this when my dancing interrupted the welcoming rites for Aphrodite. Why had a few words turned everything upside down? One moment she’d been praising me, smiling at me. Now her smile was gone, vanished behind a mask of anger and fear.
Ione’s afraid because of something I said? I gazed at her, astonished. She looked even more terrified than when Zeus made the sky blaze and roar with wild thunderstorms. I’d never imagined that I had that kind of power over grown-ups. They were always the ones who could do whatever they wanted, make all the choices, all the decisions about their lives and mine. Up until that moment, if someone had asked me the difference between gods and grown-ups, I’d have said, What difference?
Suddenly, it wasn’t so. Something I said made a grown-up afraid? I can do that? What a wonderful, terrible, dangerous thing for a little girl to learn!
“No one is more beautiful than a goddess!” Ione told me urgently. Her face was stiff with fear. “No one, man or woman, is the equal of the gods. If they hear anyone even hinting that an ordinary person outshines the immortals, dreadful things happen! Do you want your mother to die because you said something stupid?”
I stared Ione in the face and stood up tall, the way I’d just seen my mother do when she called on Aphrodite. “Aphrodite wouldn’t do anything so mean,” I said, very sure of myself. “Mama and Papa just gave the goddess lots and lots of beautiful presents and a nice, new place to stay here with us. That means they’re her hosts, and you taught me that guests and hosts mustn’t hurt each other, not ever. Do you think the goddess would do something so wrong, Ione?”
“Oh, child, what’s going to become of you if you keep saying such things? The gods don’t have to worry about what’s right and wrong for mortals!” she exclaimed.
“Can’t they do anything wrong?” I asked.
“I—I don’t know—I don’t think so.” My nurse squirmed as if her own words were giving her a bellyache.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because—because they can do anything they like. They’re the gods.” She acted as if that explained everything.
“Then why should we give them presents if it won’t make them nicer to us?” I wanted to know. “They’re only going to do whatever they want anyway.”
I waited patiently for my nurse’s answer, but the poor woman just stood there with her mouth hanging open. At last I said, “I think you’re wrong about the gods, Ione. They’re much nicer than you say, especially Aphrodite. She has to be nice. She’s the goddess of love! She’d never hurt Mama, no matter what I say, because Mama’s the queen and she gives the best presents, and if anything happens to her, no more presents for Aphrodite, right? And the goddess doesn’t want that. Now do you understand?”
Satisfied, I gave my still-bewildered nurse a big kiss on the cheek and marched straight back up the stairs to the shrine. I heard her come scrambling after me, but I didn’t feel the need to turn around to be sure she was there. Even if I was still too young to have explored every part of our big, rambling palace, I knew that I wouldn’t get lost, because now Aphrodite was with me. I was convinced that I’d pleased her with my kiss, and my dance, and the way I’d defended her to Ione. I imagined that I could feel her hands on my shoulders, helping me up the stairs. Just believing that she was near, watching over me, lifted up my heart and filled it with happiness.
The sun beat brightly on the tiles when I came back out onto the rooftop, and the wind carried the scent of mountain pine. The musicians were playing something light and joyous, and everyone smiled when I stood in the presence of the goddess and once more began to dance.
1
A SACRIFICE TO ARTEMIS
I grew up with the gods all around me. When the dawn came, it was because the goddess Eos brought it. The sun was Apollo’s chariot, and the crescent moon was the hunting bow of his sister, Artemis. Every river had its god, and so did each of the winds that blew from north, south, east, and west.
Ione was the first person to teach me about Zeus, king of all the gods; his queen, Hera, who blessed marriages; his brother Poseidon, who was master of the great ocean; and his other brother, Hades, who lived deep under the earth and ruled the dead. But most of her stories were about Demeter, the goddess who gave us bountiful harvests. That was understandable. Ione was a farmer’s wife.
Even though we were supposed to revere all of the gods equally, most people honored some gods more than others. Why would a fisherman bother making a sacrifice to Hephaestus the armorer, god of the forge, when he could be praying to Poseidon for smooth seas and full nets? Why would a metalworker waste time worshipping Poseidon when he could be asking for Hephaestus’s blessing?
Everyone did it, including me. Ever since the dedication of the rooftop shrine, Aphrodite was my favorite. When I was five, I made a little clay image of her and set it on a table in the room I shared with my sister. When Clytemnestra saw it, she sniffed. “What’s that supposed to be?”