“Then you’re endearingly na?ve,” Eurymachus said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No. I just don’t want the Furies on my back. All of us are still guest-friends, I remind you—enjoying the hospitality of the great house. If you would risk the wrath of Zeus Xenios, the protector of hospitality, for a little island,” he shrugged expansively, “then be my guest.”
With that he turned and left. He was surprised and pleased to note that most of the suitors followed him down the rocky encampment. With every small victory, every moment of leadership, Amphinomus believed, he was forging himself into a man worthy of Penelope.
After long days of mending fences or helping farmers remove stones from fertile soil, Amphinomus had little patience with the nightly debauchery in Penelope’s great hall, though he regularly showed up in case the queen made an appearance. On that night, she had not, so he left. As he made his way back to his house, he wondered how long things could continue in this manner. Was it all a sham? Would Penelope ever choose? He was beginning to doubt it. He took a circuitous route home, walking in the moonlight, hoping that Artemis would provide him some solace…
“Prince Amphinomus!”
A harsh female whisper made him nearly jump out of his skin and he whirled, squinting into the darkness. “Who’s there?” he whispered back, unsure why he was whispering.
“Danae. I have a message for you.” The queen’s handmaiden materialized out of the dark. She looked him up and down, blatant in her appraisal. “One from the queen.”
“The queen!” Amphinomus’s heart thudded in his chest anew. “What message?”
Her eyes, so much like Penelope’s, were unreadable. “I don’t know. I was told to watch you and bring you for a meeting. Follow me.”
She turned away without further comment and he followed her through the darkness his mind whirling with a single unanswered question: why had she summoned him? He could not dare to hope that she favored him, but that mad part of every man urged him to believe it was true…
The lovely serving girl was taking him on a route well away from the main gates and around to the back of the great house. They continued to walk away for some time until he became convinced that it had all been a ruse and perhaps she was leading him into a trap. “Not much further now,” she promised, glancing at him over her shoulder.
She took him down a rise, the grass long and untended, the ground scrubby and thick with bushes. Amphinomus could hear the crash of not too distant waves and taste the tang of salt air on this tongue. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“Here,” Danae gestured vaguely at a thick copse. She manoeuvred herself into it. “Try not to disturb it too much,” she said before disappearing out of sight, lost in the foliage and darkness.
Beyond the copse was a short clearing that led to a door; it was tiny, coming only to his chest, but was re-enforced with bronze plating. Danae inserted a key and released the plate. It was a cunning design and Amphinomus wondered if Odysseus himself had come up with it.
Amphinomus squeezed himself through the tiny opening, following Danae into the dimness. Danae reached up and took a flint off a ledge and, after several attempts, fired a torch. “Push the door to,” she said. Blinking in the sudden light, Amphinomus obeyed, after which she gave him the torch to hold and locked the door. “Come on then,” she said and made her way into the tunnels beyond.
It was dank at first, drops of water making the torch hiss. The tunnels twisted and turned. Areas had been deliberately stoned off, making the confines tight and claustrophobic. Amphinomus’s warrior training told him that this was to make the passages more defensible. “This is marvelous,” he said, his voice bouncing around the blackness beyond the orange eye of the torch.
“Odysseus thought of everything,” Danae said, glancing back at him. “Hard to find a way in here, harder to get through if you’re full of bad intent.
They walked in silence for a time and he noted that the tunnels were now dry and sloping upwards. After a natural turn, another small door emerged. Danae unlocked it and pushed it open—again, there was no sound. She extinguished the torch in a bucket of sand next to the door and Amphinomus felt off balance as his eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom. But for all that, he could see a light coming from the other side.
Danae crouched and went through and he followed. As he did so, he was struck at once by a beautiful perfume coming from the room beyond; soft and rich like flowers on a summer’s day.
His heart began to pound in his chest and imagined this was how a man on the dawn of battle felt.
The room was huge and grand, low lit and decorated beautifully. There was a large loom to one side and by it a shroud, its edges frayed and incomplete. There were couches too, and at the far end was Penelope. She sat by a low table, her feet—bare—daintily drawn up under her. Her hair was loose save for a single circlet of gold that served only to enhance the deep red of her chiton.
She was beautiful. No, magnificent; Amphinomus had seen her many times, but never this close—it was akin to being in the presence of a goddess. It was hubris to think it, he knew, but he could not control his thoughts. The curve of her neck, the dark eyes, her full lips. Her mouth turned up at one side and he realized that his own had fallen open in wonderment.
“Come,” she said, her voice soft. “Sit.” She gestured to the couch at her side. “Danae, pour for us. Then you may go.”
Amphinomus swallowed and sat—carefully because he suddenly felt clumsy and unsure of himself. In his mind’s eye he could see Eros at Aphrodite’s shoulder shooting dart after dart into him. Both were laughing. “Thank you, lady,” he said in as deep a voice as he could manage, fearing that his words would come out as a squeak. Danae poured wine, first for her queen and then for him; she too wore a half-grin and Amphinomus was certain she winked before sauntering out of the room.
“You have not been going out of your way to impress me in the nightly revels,” Penelope said, looking at him from under a hooded gaze.
Amphinomus was crushed by the criticism; he was glad of the heavy shadows in the room because he felt his face turning red. “I…well…” he hesitated, “you don’t strike me as a lady who is impressed by boasting,” he managed. “You’ve had years of men telling you of their prowess.” He shrugged. “I’m weary of it myself, I can imagine you are too.”
“You have no idea,” she chuckled, her laugh soft and almost sensuous. “I find that it’s more about what a man does rather than what he says he can do.”