As the trail wound around an old mountain goat pass, Penelope looked over her shoulder at Danae, who was bringing up the rear of their small train. As if feeling her gaze, Danae raised her head, gave Penelope a sweet, crinkly-eyed smile of encouragement, and winked. The queen returned the smile.
Odysseus used to wink at her like that. Funny how she’d almost forgotten. Memories flooded in. She was only fourteen the summer all the suitors had come clamoring for the hand of her beautiful cousin Helen, including one brash young man who would change her life.
She hadn’t even noticed the short-legged, barrel-chested princeling with the surprisingly deep voice. But that had changed quickly enough, thanks to one of Odysseus’s standard tricks.
She’d grown bored of the loud games and contests in the front hall and had wandered away to one of the back kitchens.
The warm, bricked space smelled of rosemary and garlic, but before she could ask the old woman kneading bread on the wooden table for a treat, a knock made her jump.
“Just a beggar,” the old woman said, painfully pushing back her stool to stand.
“Stay,” Penelope instructed. “I’ll get it.”
The woman gave her a toothless grin in thanks and pointed with her head toward a heel of bread at the end of the table. “That will do for the like,” she’d said.
When she opened the door to extend the bread, there stood a bent old man in rags, head covered in shame.
“A great many thanks,” the old man mumbled in a tremor-filled voice.
Something about the poor old thing made her pause in the doorway. “Your accent is not familiar to me, grandfather. Have you come from afar?”
“From Crete,” the man wheezed. “I am Castor, son of Hylax, O great lady. The Gods sent tragedies of war and betrayal on my house and I have wandered as a stranger in foreign lands ever since.”
“I like a good story, old man,” Penelope had said, sitting on the stoop. “Tell me yours.”
The man nodded, his face still shadowed by the cowl. In his strange accent, he began a confusing tale of lost ships, creatures half-man, half-fish, and cattle that traveled down beams of the sun like beasts disembarking a trader’s ships. His stories were silly and amusing. “Tell me another,” she said when he paused. “Perhaps I shall invite you to the feasting tonight to do battle with the king’s bard.”
He mumbled something that sounded like, “I shall be there anyway.” But since that made no sense, Penelope leaned forward and asked him to repeat himself.
In a flash, the man threw off his cloak and before she could respond, pressed his mouth to hers. Penelope had recoiled and pushed him away, outraged.
“How dare you?” she’d said, ready to scream for help, but stopped at the sight before her. For there was no old beggar there, but a young man transformed. One of Helen’s suitors. At the time, she still did not know the young king’s name.
“Oh, my Lady, to see your face,” he laughed, slapping his knee. “A king’s ransom I would pay to see that again…”
Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, Penelope’s hand twitched for a baking stone to slam across his face. Yet she couldn’t move. She had been transfixed by the sight of him. How had he fooled her?
He had so clearly been an old man just moments before. But now, with his head thrown back in laughter, with his brilliant white teeth, twinkling eyes, and flushed, clear face, he was mesmerizing. He was not handsome in the ways of the beautiful Diomedes, the golden one she’d admired, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. And that laugh—it was so infectious, so big and booming and goodhearted—she found it irresistible and laughed too, despite herself.
“Who are you?” she’d finally asked.
“My name is Odysseus, King of Ithaca,” he said with a grand bow.
“One of the suitors for my cousin’s hand.”
He shook his head, sun lighting his dark curls. “Oh no. I have set my sights on the daughter of Icarius, for she is the beauty I want.”
She’d been charmed of course. Then again, how could she not? She’d been fourteen.
In those days of courtship, even his riddles had been charming. Penelope closed her eyes for a moment at the memory of how, under the shade of an almond tree, he had whispered, “What is this? Eros is at its core, while a ring is its symbol. Though it can be seen as sacred, it is often sealed by contact.”
Penelope had guessed but wouldn’t say.
“Marriage,” he’d whispered. “You are the only woman I’d walk mountains and cross oceans for. Will you marry me?”
It had been a formality, of course. She had no say in the matter, but she’d appreciated him acting as if she had. Penelope remembered looking at her shaking fingers as she tore a broad almond leaf into tiny, fragrant pieces. She’d answered him with a riddle of her own: “What is mine but only you can have?”
His brilliant smile was etched forever in her memory as he guessed the answer.
“My heart,” she’d murmured before kissing him chastely on the cheek and racing back to her nurse.
In subsequent stolen conversations, young Odysseus had also waxed poetic about the beauty and richness of his land. His mountains “scraped the sky”, his seas teemed with the “fattest fish and tastiest octopi” in all the realms, the fleece from his sheep were “dusted with gold”, and on and on.
She’d learned very quickly that her husband’s talents for storytelling far exceed the realities of living in poor, rocky Ithaca. But somehow, it hadn’t mattered. They had been young and in love. And it had been such a wonder to see him delight in not just her body but in her wit and intelligence as well. A smile came to her face as she remembered their laughter. And the way they tried to out-trick each other.
After he told her a tale about a sea monster with a dog’s head who tried to swallow him whole as he sailed home, she told him a tale of her own. To trick him, she left feathers for him to find in their bed every morning. When he asked about them, she’d said she had dreamed of flying. One night, after paying one of his men, she learned where he had sailed and described the location at length.
“You passed the gray rock with the sunning seal on the left,” she’d said dreamily, their bodies wrapped loosely around each other. “And then a great eagle screamed past the sun when you changed the sail.”
He’d sat up, naked and wide-eyed. “What? How did you know?”
“I took a nap and flew over your boat,” she said sleepily. “You didn’t know that I could sprout wings and fly? It often happens while I dream.”
Hours later she awoke to find him sitting up and staring at her. “What are you doing?” she’d asked.
“Waiting for you to turn,” he’d said. “I’m not going to sleep until I see you do it.”
She’d told him the truth then and showed him where she’d been hiding the feathers. His face had broken open with laughter. Moons later, when she was sure she was with child, she’d asked him to put his hands out. Carefully, she filled his palms with the down of baby feathers. He stared at the fluff trying to puzzle out its meaning, until all at once he understood and his eyes filled with wonder and then tears of joy.
And then so soon after Telemachus’s birth, he had left her for Troy.
* * *
TELEMACHUS
* * *