I sniffled, mired in misery, and did not reply. Pasipha? had much to anticipate in marriage. She was the daughter of Heliodoros’s true and beloved wife. Hers would be a brilliant match—a powerful, much-admired prince, perhaps even a king. I, on the other hand, was little more than an orphan—the bastard daughter born of a dead whore. By that time, I had ceased to believe my brothers’ tales about my mother’s divinity. They had only been trying to protect a little girl’s tender feelings. I was a sensible, thoughtful young woman; the stark reality of my origins was plain for me to see. What kind of husband could a whore’s daughter expect?
At length I said, “I shall ask Father not to marry me at all, but to give me to you, as your handmaid. Then I can go wherever you go, and you won’t have to get seasick coming to visit me.”
Pasipha? had laughed. “You will never be my servant; you’re my sister. Anyway, you would never dare to ask Father for anything.”
That much had been true. Heliodoros was a stern, hard man. In the weeks and months that followed, I tried desperately to work up my courage. I cannot count how many times I approached Heliodoros timidly, like a mouse creeping up to a cat, as he’d stood watching his men drilling with their spears in the yard, or as he’d stalked along the temple paths toward the shrines, leading his household up the hill to make our obeisance to the gods. But my courage had never held, if indeed I’d had a scrap of courage to begin with. Once I thought to ask my brothers to intercede on my behalf. But they were grown men by that time, working our father’s land, overseeing their share of the servants, and turning their attentions to women of their own. It would have been a great shame to Ae?tes or Perses if I were to ask either man to grovel before Heliodoros on my behalf.
To this day, I wonder what my life might have been if I had ever found my courage, and begged my father to give me to Pasipha?. For within a year of that fateful night when I had wept on my sister’s shoulder, Heliodoros had chosen our husbands. Pasipha? and I found ourselves kneeling at the altar on the hill, high above our father’s house, offering the freshly cut locks of our hair to Artemis. All at once, we were pledged brides. Our proaulia—the last days we would spend in our childhood home—had begun.
Throughout the ten days of our shared proaulia, Pasipha? bubbled over with joy. Heliodoros had found a husband worthy of his true daughter’s beauty and noble spirit; she was justifiably thrilled. Minos was handsome and strong, the new-made king of a glittering kingdom. Crete, the huge island he had claimed by might, was a rich and beautiful place. We knew its reputation, even in Colchis, far to the north. Heliodoros was a man of great influence, but he was neither king nor prince. How he convinced Minos to take a simple chieftain’s daughter for his queen, I will never know. Perhaps Minos saw Pasipha? on one of his visits to my father’s house, and was struck by her unearthly beauty—her rich red hair and pure, goddess face.
My husband made better sense. Lycus was an exile, a prince of Sarmatia who had been banished from his homeland by a usurper. He had found welcome in Colchis, once he had pledged his sword to Heliodoros. My father had given Lycus a small estate, a few miles south of his own holding. The land was still mostly forest; it would be many years before Lycus and his servants could make the land fertile and cause the farm to flourish. Until his land produced, my husband would be entirely beholden to my father. Young as I was, still I saw my situation—my future—with bleak clarity. Daughter of Heliodoros’s favorite whore, I was no fit bride for a king. But I was a daughter of the chieftain, none the less. Lycus, the fallen prince, would read a compliment in the offer—in me, as a gift and obligation.
If my new husband had found any flattery in Heliodoros’s gesture, it quickly lost its luster. Within days of our marriage—on the very same day, in fact, that Pasipha? and King Minos sailed for Crete—Lycus turned dark and bitter. After spending the morning at the river bank, where I had sobbed through my farewell to Pasipha?, we had returned to Lycus’s new house on his half-cleared farm. I was alone in my small chamber, with a curtain pulled across its single, small window to block the light—the dull throb of a headache had confined me to my bed. Outside, I could hear the distant blows of axes as my husband’s men worked among the trees, but nearer to the house, Lycus and a few of his friends stacked the slim logs into pyramids. Either my husband did not know that I lay just behind that curtained window, or he didn’t care.
“Your wife Circe is a pretty little thing,” one man said.
Lycus gave a half-hearted grunt.
The men laughed in disbelief. Another said, “Surely, you have no complaints.”
“She’s not as beautiful as the old chief’s other daughter,” Lycus said. “The red-haired one.”
“Go on, then—swim after Minos’s ship if you want to fight him for the red-haired daughter,” said the first man. The others laughed.
“Minos got the prettier one because he’s a king,” Lycus sounded petulant, like a pouting child. “If that creature Mnason hadn’t overthrown my father, I would still be a prince of Sarmatia.”
“Now now,” said one of the men in a soothing way, “you are still a prince of Sarmatia.”
“Living off the charity of a Colchian chief?” My husband snorted.
“But even so, Circe is a beauty. What of it, if she’s not quite as beautiful as her sister? And she seems a nice, biddable woman, with good sense.”
“Good sense is hard to find in a woman,” another man agreed.
Lycus muttered, so quietly I could scarcely hear him, “Good sense, but bad blood.”
A log clattered onto the pile, but then the men fell silent. I could picture them, paused and turning to Lycus, curious and hesitant. At length, someone said, “What do you mean?”
“I’ve heard rumors about that Circe, ever since I arrived in Colchis. She has sorceress blood…witch’s blood.”
My heart stilled in my chest. A terrible, icy chill crept along my veins.
One of the men chuckled uncomfortably.
“It’s true,” Lycus said. “I’ve heard her mother was a goddess.”
“Pretty as she is, I can believe it.”
“Not Aphrodite or Hera,” Lycus pressed on. “Hekate.”
The men fell silent again. I pressed a hand to my mouth, stifling a gasp. The stories my brothers had told me when I was a little girl crashed back into my head like an ocean wave, turbulent and cold. Was it true, after all? Had Ae?tes and Perses known this secret—my secret—all along?
No, I told myself firmly. It could not be true. It defied belief. It was gossip; a silly tale, told to comfort a sad, lonely little girl. Surely my new husband was wise enough to see that such a tale couldn’t possibly be true.
“Well,” said one of the men with forced cheer, “better the goddess of witches than no goddess at all.”
“I admit, she seemed no different from any mortal girl, when I took her on our wedding night,” Lycus said.