The tempest which brought him had threatened to shake the island’s very bones. At the palace the western wall had fallen in, and in the fields the oxen were white-eyed in panic. In all the confusion, it was chance that he was even found. I had sent my son Nausithous to pray at the Grove, telling him to seek signs from the gods, and also meaning to remove him from danger. He was there when a strike of Zeus’s fury illumined the sea and a figure on the water. The waves had brought the castaway to the Azure Window, and there he clung in darkness and storm, his body caught on the doorway to Ogygia. A portent in itself.
Being young, Nausithous tried to play the hero. He dove from the Grove into the churning sea. How he managed not to die on the rocks is a mystery that still shudders me. But at ten he was already a strong swimmer, and made it as far as the stone archway before his strength gave way. There he collapsed, clutching the rock, gasping and choking as water buffeted him from both above and below.
I know not what instinct awoke in the castaway, but discovering a drowning boy beside him on the arch, he burst with desperate energy, dragging my foolhardy son across the remaining stretch of water to the caves beneath my Grove. Away from the water, he worked to vomit up the sea he had swallowed, then forced Nausithous to do the same. Only when the boy coughed and breathed did he give himself over to nature, letting life and death cast knuckles for him.
I intervened on the side of life. Panicked servants had brought me word of Nausithous’s mad dive, and I had raced under the raging skies first to the shore, then to the caves, fully expecting to find my son swallowed by Poseidon. Instead my kind cousin had spewed him back, alongside the most magnificent man ever sculpted by nature.
They were carried back to the palace, but while my son awakened almost at once, the dark-haired castaway did not. Fever claimed him, and in his fever he found his voice.
“Dead! All dead! Oath-breaker! Oath-breaker!” More than the fever, the weak limbs, the bone-ebbing fatigue, I think it was that title that haunted him. Oath-breaker. A man forsworn. “Penelope, forgive me! Odysseus oath-breaker! Damned Odysseus!”
Odysseus. When I first heard that name from his chapped and broken lips, with his alien accent, I thought he was blaspheming. “Odd Zeus”. Save for the sword scars, I might have suspected him of being a fallen priest.
However, it was not Zeus he was cursing. It was himself. And he went on cursing for weeks, reciting names I did not know, referencing deeds I knew not of. Some of my servants tried to piece the puzzle together, but could make no sense of it.
I was at my loom, singing, when I was informed he had at last awakened, clear-eyed and calm. Leaving my shuttle, I went to him to thank him for his service to my son.
Weak though he was, his self-possession was eerily complete. When I entered he made no effort to rise from his bed, as it was clearly beyond him. But he lowered his head in deference. “Was that you singing, lady?”
“It was.”
“You have a lovely voice.” His accent was strange, a fault of our own. There are seldom visitors to our isle.
“You are kind to say so.”
“I thought I was being called to the next life. But it seems I am not yet done with this one.”
Despite his compliment, his words were improper. Insultingly, they were not even meant for me. “We take it you were wrecked, and did not mean to swim here.”
“Wrecked, and carried. Poseidon and I have—a strained relationship. I had given myself up to the waves.”
“An offense to nature. No man should give up his last breath willingly.”
“It is not the last breath that scours the throat, lady, but the one that follows, unbidden.”
I looked down upon him, my distaste plain. “You are ungrateful.”
“It is only the best of my faults.” Again he shook his head, this time in reproof. “But it seems I am in your debt.”
“We should say the reverse. You saved the life of our son.”
A sinister eyebrow arched. “As I understand—your majesty? —he saved mine. Had he not braved the sea for me, I should have drowned myself.”
The way he said it, “drowned myself” had a double meaning. “Was that your intent?”
He gazed at me then, anger plain in his eyes. Not at me, exactly. At being understood. He never enjoyed anyone penetrating his mind. Only through his delirious ravings had he offered up his true self. It is shameful to think how often I have wished him fevered and senseless again.
I held his gaze, and at last he was compelled to speak. “Queen Calypso. I am told you are a goddess.”
“We are divine,” I agreed. “Descended from the Titans. Our mother was Calypso, and her mother Calypso before her.”
“And what is Calypso? The goddess of true speaking and naked shame?”
It was like a slap. Fortunately, royal divinity does not embarrass. “We are the goddess of this island, and all its people.”
“Calypso,” he said slowly. “It means ‘to conceal’, does it not? ‘To deceive’?”
“Also ‘to shelter’. Ogygia has occasionally been that for lost sailors. So far out of the way, we are hidden from most voyagers. Especially the most insolent,” I added, turning to go.
It was my intent to leave, but he forestalled me. “And the duty of the succored to offer repayment.”
From the door, I turned to face him. “If you are compelled, you may promise us to never again take up arms against yourself.” Again the flash of anger. “You object?”
“A vow not to do something? I could also swear not to sprout wings. It is an oath easily kept, by doing nothing.”
“It is my impression that you make oaths too freely.” At the time I did not notice the change from royal to personal. Already he was disarming me. “Perhaps simple oaths are best. So swear to grow in health, and live a prosperous life.”
His eyes closed. I could sense the fury radiating from him. It was not directed at me. “It is not enough.”
“Why not? What do you find objectionable in such a vow?”
He spoke with vehemence. “Its selfishness. A healthy and prosperous life serves me, not you.” Then his fiery brow unfurled. “Unless…”
After some moments of silence, I prompted him. “Unless?”
“Unless I spend that health and prosperity here, to offer you the same.” His eyes were turned inward. For all that he was offering to serve me, I might not have even been present. “I choose to believe I was cast on your shores for a reason. Clearly I owe you a debt. I shall stay here in your service until such time as you release me.”
“Why?”
His eyes went not so much cold as dead. “I have done things. It is difficult, even, to think of them. And I have failed so many. I need a task to perform.”
“So we are to serve your needs,” I answered drily.