His mouth twitched. “If my need is to serve, what does it matter? If I fail you, dismiss me. But in the meantime I shall stay, and expiate my sins. How may I do so?”
I considered. Poseidon had cast him on my shore. It must be for a reason. And my son had swum to save him. “You have a bond with my elder son. What can you teach him, and the younger?”
“I shall instruct them both in all I know,” he said at once. “Them, and all the young men of the island. More, I shall use all my skill to make Ogygia prosperous. And I will devote myself to the worship of the goddess Calypso.”
“As you wish.” I turned to leave.
A sound behind me halted my exit. He had thrown himself from his bed, staggering towards me. There was nothing to fear, he was far too weak to assault my person. But there was a sudden desperation, akin to that surge of life that had caused him to save a drowning boy, that propelled him to my side. He grasped my wrist. “Make me swear it. Compel me.”
“Why?”
“Because it matters. I must be true. I must.”
It was the first time our skins touched, and it was like fire through me. In that moment I sensed he, too, might be royal. Divine, even. Today I wear a bracelet of his hair on that wrist. The dark strands sometimes glare copper in the light, but do not burn.
That day I obeyed him as if he were the ruler and I the subject. I told him to kneel, and kiss my hand, and swear to serve me and mine until the day I released him. As he spoke the words, his anguished earnestness smote my heart, and I added, “One more condition. Let me see you smile.”
From that day forward, he met me with smiles, and wit, and laughter.
Damn him.
As the sun dipped into the sea we lay together in the Grove that bears my name. Or, more properly, I its name. He dozed, and I lay with my hair covering his arm and shoulder, blanketing him in night. There were more strands of silver than when he had arrived. Sometimes I wondered if he caused them. If so, I had at least returned the compliment.
A swirling darkness caught my eye—a hawk, high overhead. I watched it, growing heavy lidded, and was on the verge of drifting off myself when I noticed something rustling the grass close by our feet.
I was not alarmed—there were no snakes on my island, nor any other venomous creatures. Peering, I first smiled to see what it was. An ancient tortoise, struggling up through the grass and over rocks to draw close to our toes.
Then I remembered to whom tortoises belonged, and hawks too, and I bolted upright, heart racing. I must have made a sound, for at once my Odd Zeus was awake and on one knee, ready for a danger.
When he saw what had frightened me, he chuckled. “A welcome trespasser, your highness. Nothing to fear.” Bending forward, he looked in its long, wizened face. “Odd. I’ve always considered tortoises to be such practical creatures—they carry their homes with them, so wherever they roam, they spend each night in their own bed. But now I am disillusioned. To climb so high from his habitat, from where he belongs? It goes to show even a tortoise can run mad!”
“Perhaps he is just determined,” I offered dully.
Odysseus laughed. “True! He deserves a song.” And he started composing one, to a tune that was clearly a marching song, though I did not recognize it. His was never a voice for singing, but on occasion he would launch into a ditty of his own invention, more to amuse than move. As now:
Don’t dwell, hard shell, on things behind you!
All’s well, death’s knell shall never bind you!
For where you fall,
You find your hall
Turned tombstone’s wall,
A clever pall
All twined about you!
“If only we all carried an impervious skin,” he added. “It would save for funerals.” As sometimes happened, his quick tongue had outpaced his brain. When he caught it up, his lids became veiled. “Though even the most impervious skin can blacken in the fire. And the cheapest funerals are at sea.”
With a convulsive twitch of his fingers, he turned away. I was not meant to see.
“Come, my love,” I said, stretching out a hand to him. “Our time here is done.”
He turned back to me, his composure complete. “Is it? I could linger all night between my two Calypsos. But I suppose we must dine. Come, shall we go?” He parted the vines, and so we began the descent.
I could feel the eyes of the tortoise on our backs far longer than was possible. But then the gods’ messenger ever was relentless.
Returned from our lovemaking in the Grove, my hair bound once more, we dined under the open sky. Nausithous and Nausinous both joined us. My elder son was then just turned seventeen, and a man. My younger turned fifteen soon, and would accept the chiton of an adult. Only in their looks did I see the men whose seed I once accepted in the rites of Calypso. In their carriage, their confidence, their easy way with their station, I saw only their true father. I could not have wished for a better.
Though a goddess and a queen, I recognized the value of fatherhood. A kind word from a father can make or break a young man. As a girl I looked for my father in many faces, though of course I knew that when I was conceived my mortal father had been possessed by a god, to use as his vessel. Just as my sons’ sires had been possessed, then returned to their lives when their task was complete.
No god had ever used my Odd Zeus as a vessel. He was too full of himself, he said, doing as he always did, deflecting every query with a jest. I wondered if he has sons of his own. He had never seemed interested in getting any upon me, so perhaps that part of his legacy was secure.
He was as good as his word, raising my sons as well as any mother could wish. He instructed them in the arts of war, and well. They learned to ride in chariots, and took turns between driving and throwing spears, hurtling at such speeds that I feared for their safety. Odysseus always laughed at my concern. “They are at the age when they are indestructible.”
Once I remarked that all men believed themselves indestructible. And then a cloud had threatened his brow. “No man is impervious from all harm. Not even those promised by the gods to remain so.” Then he had shaken himself like a hound and laughed. “But only a heel would frighten these fine lads with thoughts of mortality today! Let them ride. Better here, for sport, than on some field of Ares.”
Yes, he taught them war. But he focused on defense, and taught restraint more than revenge. Meantime he was equally diligent in teaching the boys of the island how to be prosperous in peace. He discussed engineering, and plowing, and irrigation. He took them into the hills to mind goats with the common herders, and the tales they brought back made them collapse with laughter.