“Your blood? I don’t understand.”
I ignored Perses and ranted on, unwisely. “If the gods have seen fit to deny me a child, then I defer to their wisdom. Perhaps they wish me to be happy. At least someone does; it’s clear our father doesn’t care about my happiness. Nor do you, nor Ae?tes! If I remain barren, perhaps Lycus will set me aside. He’ll send me back here, to Father. I would rather live in this house, even as a servant, than with that ungrateful boor who pretends to be my husband!”
“Circe.” Perses laid his hand on my shoulder. “Be easy. I had no idea you were unhappy. How was I to know?”
I turned my face away. Tears blurred my vision. My brothers had no way of knowing, no way of seeing my misery, yet I could not help laying blame at their feet. Loneliness had made my heart bitter, my judgment unsound.
“Does Lycus beat you?” Perses asked quietly.
“No. But I’m sure he would, if I gave him cause. I’m the perfect wife, quiet and obedient, all but invisible. I never deny him anything, even when I want to. Even when my whole spirit screams at me to push him away, push him off me…”
I shuddered and turned my back on my brother. Perses did not speak for a long while. The night songs of frogs and insects filled the silence.
After a moment, he said, “I suppose Lycus has a goal of conceiving a son. Perhaps once you become a mother, he will give you peace.”
“He may give me peace then, but don’t imagine my life will be happier for it. I am still doomed to live with a husband who hates me.”
“Why should he hate you?” Perses sounded genuinely startled by my words.
I turned back, looking into my brother’s eyes. My jaw had set itself so hard that it trembled and ached. “He hates me because I am not Pasipha?. Because I am not as beautiful as she.”
Perses was so surprised that he laughed. “You are every bit as beautiful as Pasipha?.”
“Well, my husband has never preferred my looks to hers. I believe Lycus read some insult in the matter, when our father gave me as his bride. Yet what could he do—spit on the offer of a Colchian chief, when Lycus must rely on Father’s kindness merely to survive? Lycus still sees himself as a prince of Sarmatia, with all the respect due a man of that station. But he is no prince. He is nothing but an exile, grubbing in another man’s soil.”
“Still,” Perses said hesitantly, “when you share a child, you and Lycus may come to see one another in a better light.”
My fists clenched. The marjoram was crushed in my grip; its warm, spicy scent rose up around me. “I will never see that revolting man in a better light. For it’s a certainty that he will never look on me with any favor. Do you know what he says about me—what he tells his friends? He tells them I’m a witch!”
Perses frowned. “A ridiculous accusation.”
“Ridiculous,” I agreed acidly, “yet he says it all the same. He tells other men I’m a daughter of Hekate. Tell me, Brother: do you truly think such a man will ever look on me with favor? He has already decided I’m born of a witch’s blood. If the gods are ever cruel enough to give me a son, no doubt Lycus will keep the child and cast me out. If he doesn’t kill me first.”
“Have you any way to prove Lycus has called you a witch? If Father knew—”
“What?” I laughed bitterly. “What would Father do? Take back his bastard, whore-born daughter? Who else would accept me as a wife, other than Lycus, the hopeless exile? Yet I would rather return home, if I could. I don’t care for the disgrace it would bring; it would not feel like any shame to me. But Father…he is far too proud; he would never suffer it.”
Perses sighed. He knew I was right. He said weakly, “I hate to think of my own dear sister living in such sadness.”
“I hate to think of it, too,” I said drily, wiping away the last of my tears. Weeping would do me no good. I knew that, but all too often I couldn’t help myself. I forced a smile. “We should both cheer up. Perhaps Lycus will die. Then I can return to my father’s house as a widow. Heliodoros would find no shame in that.”
I had expected Perses to laugh—perhaps rather grimly. Instead, his broad, handsome face fell into a frown. “You shouldn’t jest about your husband’s death, Circe. A good wife would never say such a thing.”
My mouth fell open. For several ragged heartbeats I stared at my brother, struck mute by the unfairness of his words. Then I regained control of my tongue. “If I could not laugh now and then, I would die from sadness! Who do you care for more, Perses—your sister, or that stranger from Sarmatia?”
“You mistake me,” Perses reached out again, as if to soothe away my anger, as one soothes a horse or a hound with a few half-hearted pats.
I stepped back, out of his reach. “Don’t touch me. A good wife allows no man to touch her, except her husband.”
“Circe, please—”
“I don’t care what you say.” I all but spat the words. “You don’t know what my life is like. You don’t know what is in my heart. Nor do you know what’s in my husband’s heart—what he thinks of me, what he says to other men when he thinks I cannot hear. I will not be slandered by Lycus or you—nor by anyone else! I do still have my pride; the gods know, Heliodoros has left me with little else!”
Perses tried to speak again, but I did not allow it. “I swear by Artemis and Hera: I wish Lycus were dead. I will pray every night for them to take his life, so that I may be free of the shadows he casts over me. Scowl at me all you like, Perses; I don’t care.”
I whirled on my heel and stalked through the darkness toward the road.
“Circe!” Perses shouted after me. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my loving husband’s house.”
“By yourself? You can’t! There are wolves in the forest tonight.”
“I am not afraid. Tell Lycus I’ll wait for him at home.”
The night was gentle and serene. No creature troubled me as I walked the handful of miles to my small, unhappy home in its stony clearing. By then, I had forayed so often into pasture and wood, seeking my herbs and roots, that the distance was nothing to me. If the wolves still lingered in the forest, they did not howl at me. I should have been frightened nevertheless—but a deep peace had come upon me as soon as I’d turned away from my brother. Somehow I knew I would not be harmed. I prayed to Artemis as I walked, not begging her to hold back the wild beasts of the night, but thanking her for safe passage. I felt absolute assurance that her creatures would leave me be; it was the kind of bone-deep certainty that can only come from the gods.