Alcestis (8 page)

I chanced a look at Phylomache. She was still smiling. Though she had not borne a son, she’d been lucky enough to bear a girl her husband loved, and this feast would secure her place in the household. She wouldn’t be displaced by a pretty boy or a village woman. These men would always honor her, would never touch her unless a war turned Achaeans against Achaeans.

Pelias waved an arm, silencing the group again. He glared at a few men who did not stop talking quickly enough. “All of you will stay with us in Iolcus for three days. There will be eating, drinking, contests of sport. I tell you, I will enjoy having such men as my companions. From your skill and your conversation, I will know you, and I will choose the man who will win my daughter in marriage.”

I could see chins moving: approving nods, acceptance. Three days, I thought. That will be enough for him, so it must be enough for me. Phylomache turned to me, face bright with firelight and joy, and wrapped my hand in her own. Her palms were warm and smooth. She whispered something, but I could not hear it over the noise of the men muttering together. I knew what Phylomache meant to say. The queen’s face was transparent as waxed linen. Isn’t this exciting, Alcestis? Phylomache’s look said. All these men, here to claim you. Aren’t you glad to see them?

I nodded, smiled.

“Now,” Pelias said, “let us eat this fine meal.” He took the dagger from his belt and poked at the pile of meat stacked before him on the table. I watched carefully to see if he would give the best portion to a particular man; the guests were watching too, and Pelias knew it. He eyed the chunks of meat for a long moment, then stabbed the biggest, best chunk and sawed right through it, cutting it in half. A sound went up from the men, almost a sigh, like Pisidice used to utter when she watched the shepherds. There would be no hero’s portion. The meat was passed out among them in equal pieces, running with red juice. I took my piece from the servants with a nod and tried to look only at the meat and bone, tearing bits free with my fingers.

The guests had turned their attention away from Pelias and talked as they ate, gesturing with their pieces of beef. The tattooed man beside me was telling his other seatmate about a new sort of Egyptian bow. I ripped a chunk of meat from the bone with my teeth. Even if I could have run from the table, could have somehow escaped my father, these men would have swarmed to my scent. They’d track me across the sea, I thought. They’d follow me into the sky if a god swooped down and took me.

I heard the noise outside the gates while the men were still eating and talking. It sounded like a rattling at first, as if someone were shaking the table, but none of the guests appeared to notice it. I lifted my head, trying to look over the tall men on the opposite side of the table, but succeeded only in collecting a number of lascivious looks. I turned to Phylomache, opening my mouth to say something, when a horse’s whinny cut through the noise of the crowd.

The men looked around at each other, then stood in one clumsy wave, their legs entangled between bench and table. Cups of wine toppled and sent dark streams across the wood. Partially eaten pieces of meat fell to the ground, where the dogs set upon them at once, snarling and whining in the gloom under the table. I looked from the dogs to the men and back again, then turned to see my father marching toward the gate with his dagger in hand.

A chariot came through the gate—a chariot I knew, driven by a golden-haired man. Admetus stood beside the charioteer, wearing a fierce expression and more jewelry than Phylomache owned. He swung down from the chariot as it came to a halt and walked toward Pelias in short, angry strides. Pelias had slipped his dagger back into its sheath. He held his arms out as if to welcome Admetus into them.

“King of Pherae!” he cried. “Welcome. I regret that we have already begun our feast.”

Admetus stopped a horse-length away from Pelias. “I see that,” he said, and nodded to the men at the table. Some of them returned his greeting. “How strange.”

“Strange, no. We began at the expected time, to let the sacrifice burn before the sun set. It was a good slaughter,” Pelias said, stroking his beard. “I am sorry that you missed it.”

“You did not give me adequate warning,” Admetus said through gritted teeth. “You did not give me time. Your messenger arrived only this noon.”

“Did he?” Pelias said. His Olympian voice was almost light. “He must have gotten lost on the way. Or ill. Or perhaps he stopped in the village near your palace to sample your women.”

Admetus’s fingers had been creeping toward the hilt of his dagger, but now they halted, his hand falling loose by his side. He looked right at Pelias, smiling. “You will not speak so of my people in front of these men, Uncle.”

“No, you are right, Nephew,” Pelias said. “I should not. This is a gathering of equals. And you have arrived late.”

Behind Admetus, the chariot driver leapt down from the vehicle. The men’s eyes turned to him, but immediately they shifted their gazes away, squinting as if his yellow hair were too bright to look on. Admetus waited for their attention as if he had known that his man would cause such a stir. When he spoke, his words were quiet enough that the guests at the table had to lean forward to hear him. “I am here now, Lord Pelias.”

“That’s true enough,” Pelias said. “But it makes no difference to me whether you are or no. This is a contest, Nephew, and you have already lost. You have forfeited your stake with your disrespectfully late arrival. How can I give my daughter to a man who shows no care for the will of the gods?”

“I took the quickest route here. I drove my fastest horses.”

“Indeed you did.” Pelias grinned like a wolf. “But how can I entrust this girl to a man who comes so quickly?”

The guests roared with laughter. Admetus colored but held his ground. Pelias didn’t give him time to speak again. It was like any scuffle between men—knee in the stomach, sharp teeth, and bared bellies—and my father used his voice like a bludgeon.

“Enough, enough,” he said, holding up a hand. “Admetus, I tire of this. I have refused your suit once before. I had thought that you understood me, but it seems that you require a more forceful rebuke.” He paused and looked at the gates, at the dark road Admetus had traveled. “Or perhaps it is a challenge you require, to show me your true nature so that I may understand why I should even consider giving my daughter to you. It is a challenge you shall have then. I will give you my daughter—”

I closed my eyes and waited for him to finish.

“I will give you my daughter if you come to claim her riding a chariot pulled by a lion and a boar.”

My eyes opened. Around me, men’s voices bubbled and hissed. I watched Admetus’s face shift, his brow smoothing and the corners of his mouth sagging, humiliation draining away to be replaced by despair. His dagger hand twitched by his side. But then another hand slipped around it, and his chariot driver stepped up beside him, bending his head slightly to murmur in Admetus’s ear. A slow smile grew on Admetus’s face, nothing like the quick, broad grins I had seen when he visited before. This smile had cruelty in it, and joy, and it made something in the pit of my stomach turn over like a stone rolled by the tide.

The golden-haired man turned back to the chariot, stepping onto it to loose the reins from their knot on the frame. Admetus looked up at Pelias and said calmly, “Do I have your word on that, Uncle, as a king of the Achaeans?”

“Do you have my—of course you have my word. Do you think I would make such a statement if I did not intend to honor it?”

“You will honor it,” Admetus said. “But for now I will leave you to your feasting. Honorable men, Lord Pelias, Lady Phylomache. Lady Alcestis.” He nodded to each of us then spun on his heel and walked back to the chariot, taking the blond man’s hand to be pulled up. With a flicker of the whip on their backs, the horses startled and bolted into a tightly controlled circle, whirling the chariot in a spray of dust. When it settled, Admetus had vanished.

Pelias stared after the departed chariot, silent, beginning to realize what he had done. It was not wise to ask spectacular things of young men in this age, only a generation or two removed from the gods who had fathered us. All strangers were shown hospitality because any stranger could be a favorite of the gods—any stranger, and any king. Pelias had set my fate in motion—and his own.

The men had gone quiet. The dogs still tussled for bits of meat. Phylomache sat next to me with her pink mouth open. Pale, they were all pale with sudden worry, and I was the only one at the table with any color left in my cheeks. I licked my lips. The bitter paint was sweet on my tongue, and when I took a deep, triumphant breath I caught the smell of fate that hung around the courtyard, stronger than the reek of smoke.

4

ADMETUS RETURNED LESS than two months later, at dusk, when everything seemed to happen. This time I didn’t see him arrive, didn’t see the cloud of dust or the chariot careening up the road, but I heard the sentries at the gate shout, calling for men to help them close the heavy wooden door, then the thunder of feet on dirt as slaves ran from the palace and stables to obey—and I knew he had come back for me.

I did not pray to Artemis or Athena. I bolted down the stairs, one hand skimming the wall to steady me, and flew through the great hall and out to the porch, catching myself on one of the columns when I skidded. Pelias stood at the bottom of the steps, yelling at the men to open the gate. “Let him in,” he roared. “Let the boy in! Do not block this gate as if I am afraid of him. Let him come!”

The slaves hauled the gate door open, and there were the boar and the lion, there was Admetus’s chariot, rocking and shuddering as the beasts pulled at their harnesses. Their muscles slipped and bunched beneath their hides, teeth snapping, paws and hooves digging ridges in the road. The boar tried to dance sideways and gore the lion with one tusk, but the lion avoided him, ruff shaking as he snarled, and the chariot driver called out to them in a language I did not recognize. His arms were taut with the effort of holding the creatures. The beasts subsided, panting. Admetus looked at Pelias, teeth bright in his dark face as he smiled.

“I had your word, Uncle.”

Pelias took several steps toward the chariot but stopped when the lion growled. “You did,” he said heavily. “I do not know what god assisted you, but I will honor my promise.”

“Good,” Admetus said. He did not step down from the chariot. “Then you agree to give me your daughter Alcestis in marriage.”

“I do.”

“Wonderful.” His voice was sharp, but he looked at me where I stood on the steps and I thought his smile softened. “Lady Alcestis, if you will.” He held out one hand to beckon me closer. I took a step toward him, imagining what it would be like to put my hand in his, to stand on the juddering chariot, pressed close to his body.

Pelias seized my arm, his grip bruise firm. “You cannot take her now. You must give us time to prepare. A proper wedding, a proper celebration. A month at least, Admetus.”

Admetus shook his head, though he had to tighten his grip on the rail of the chariot when the motion made it rock. “I will have her, Uncle. I won’t wait a month to see what other tricks you can conjure. I have won your contest.”

“Several days then. A week. We will bring her to your palace in Pherae to marry you before seven days have passed.”

Admetus considered. “On the seventh day. I will expect you. And I will expect her dowry.” He nodded to the chariot driver, who called out to the beasts again in a low, clear voice, and they turned and jolted away. As they reached the bend at the bottom of the hill the chariot sped up, whipping around the curve fast as a lightning bolt thrown from Zeus’s hand. The men at the gates stood and gaped. To have harnessed such animals without injuring himself, to have a servant who had driven the animals from Pherae to Iolcus, to speak so calmly when the beasts were snarling only an arm’s length away—they thought he must be a god. They shot uneasy glances at my father, a mixture of awe and resentment, for if Admetus were a god and chose to punish Iolcus for Pelias’s bad behavior, the entire house would fall.

“Back to your work, fools,” my father said, as if disgusted. “He’s not a god, though he’s had the help of one. His father is as mortal as any of you, and his mother too.”

The slaves hurried away from the gate. I turned to go back to the house, hoping Pelias would forget my presence, but he marched up the steps behind me, and my skin went tight with fear.

“You, inside,” Pelias barked, grabbing my arm again and shoving me into the entry hall ahead of him. I tried to struggle free but he spun on me and pinned me against the brick wall, hands pressing hard on my shoulders. His eyes shone white rimmed like a statue’s.

“Father,” I gasped, hating the weak sound of my voice, hating him for forcing it out of me. I saw him tense when I spoke, and I knew then that he would hurt me; I just didn’t know how.

“What did you do? What did you do to him when he came here before?”

“I did nothing!”

One of his hands left my shoulder and crashed into my cheek, knocking my head back against the wall. “You will not talk back! Always talking back, just like your mother.”

The side of my face throbbed hot and bright, and the back of my head stung. I swallowed against the thick, sniffling feeling that followed being hit, the sparkles in my eyes like coming tears. Not so bad, I was thinking, if that’s all I get. “I did nothing,” I whispered. “I tried to be good.”

“Did you help him?” Each word was punctuated with a shake, his fingers pincers in my flesh. I gritted my teeth so that I would not bite my tongue, but it was clear that he wanted an answer. My voice came out in a spiraling cry.

“No, how could I have?”

“Calling a god to aid him with the beasts,” he hissed. “Giving yourself to a god to get the husband you want. You women can’t help it. None of you can.”

Something clicked in my head like two wooden beads meeting on a string. I braced my hands on the wall behind me and pushed against his grip. “I did not help him,” I said clearly. “I don’t know how he did it. A god must have helped him, but I know nothing of it. Take your hands off me. I’m not your mother. I don’t consort with gods.”

Pelias drew a hand back to hit me again.

“Will you deliver me to my husband with a broken face?” I said, low and fierce. “He’ll like that, Father.”

He released me and took a step back, startled. Then the surprise broke into a laugh, bitter as ashes. “You have grown, girl,” he said, spitting the last word. “Go up to your quarters and don’t come down until the day you go to be wed.” He stalked off through the great hall, shouting at the servants to get out of his way.

I sagged against the wall. One of the servants stopped, concerned, but I waved her away. She continued on, but looked back at me twice before she left the hall, her eyes round with worry.

I climbed the stairs to the women’s quarters slowly and walked through the empty main room into my bedchamber. Phylomache was bent over a basin in the corner, her back bowed as she threw up. The sickness had started again the week before and we had both known what it meant. There was no thrill in her eyes this time, no flushed joy. She was too tired for joy.

Phylomache stood, wiping her mouth and dipping her hands in the bowl of water by the bed. She flicked hair out of her face and saw me standing in the doorway. Then she saw the bruise.

“Alcestis,” she whispered, crossing the room in a moment to examine my face. “Child, are you all right?” Phylomache touched the edge of the swollen place with hesitant fingers, pulling her hand away when I winced. “What’s happened? Did Pelias do this?”

I nodded. “Because of Admetus.”

“Admetus? Why did he hit you because of Admetus?”

“He came back. He won the contest—he won me. He did what Pelias asked.”

“He didn’t,” Phylomache breathed.

“He harnessed the lion and the boar and drove them here. To fetch me. But Father told him we needed time to prepare, and Admetus said he’d give him a week. And then Father hit me because he thought I’d helped Admetus somehow. He said I must have given myself to a god to get the husband I wanted. I don’t care whom I marry! He’s the only one who cares, and he hit me because of it, because he was too stupid to think before he talked.”

The world seemed too loud, too dizzying. I was growing hysterical. I shut my mouth abruptly and waited for Phylomache to chide me, to tell me I shouldn’t speak of my father that way, but she just pulled me closer and wrapped an arm around me, squeezing my shoulders hard. I took a long breath and calmed myself, pulled out of Phylomache’s embrace and wiped roughly at my eyes. “I think the chariot driver did it,” I said. “I think he’s—” But something stopped me there, the word freezing in my throat.

“It doesn’t matter how he did it,” Phylomache said, as if she hadn’t heard. “Point is that he did. How long did you say he gave Pelias?”

“A week.”

Phylomache laughed a little, the sound rusty in her throat. “Impatient. Well. You’ll need all your clothes washed and mended, and we’ll have to pack them for the road.”

“I can’t help with much. I’m sorry. I have to stay here. He told me to keep out of his sight.”

“It’s all right, Alcestis. If you watch the girls, I can do it. You mustn’t worry.” She reached out, rubbed her clammy palms up and down my arms. “We’ll have you out of here in a week. He’ll forget about it, you know he will.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I made him furious.”

Phylomache smiled, lips curving in a line I had never seen. “He’ll forget,” she said. “No man wants to remember being bested by his daughter.” But the smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she pulled away suddenly, dropping heavily onto the bed.

“You all right?” I sat beside her, put a tentative hand on her knee.

“Yes. I just feel sick. It’ll go away in a month or so, praise Demeter.”

“You should rest.”

“No, I can’t,” Phylomache said, but weakly as I stood and pulled a blanket over her. She settled beneath it with a pale smile and patted the edge of the bed. “Sit, sit again.”

I sat, curling my hands in my lap.

“You know—about men and women, don’t you? About the wedding night?”

Anguished, I said, “Phylomache—”

“Don’t make that face at me. Do you or don’t you?”

“The servants talk of it all the time,” I said. “And I’ve seen the animals bred. I don’t need lessons, please.” Pisidice had tried to tell me of wedding nights too, and I had not let her. I remembered her dreamy tales of men when we were children, and Hippothoe’s grimaces in response.

“Lessons,” Phylomache said, laughing again. “I’m not the one to ask. Pray to Aphrodite for that if you must. She’s the only woman I know who enjoys it.”

“Some of the serving women do, I think.”

“Oh, well, serving women. Alcestis! You’re marrying a king. You’ll be taking advice from the slaves next.” Phylomache shifted up onto one elbow, propping her cheek on her hand. “Don’t look so sour. It isn’t that awful. Just let him do what he wants as long as it doesn’t hurt too much. If you’re lucky you’ll conceive right away, and then you won’t have to worry about it for most of a year.”

I flopped down and pushed my hot face into the musty mattress. “I’m not listening to you,” I said, my voice muffled, but I was listening, and I was shivering, and I was thinking of Admetus: just let him do what he wants. I’d always thought of marriage as a distant necessity, a blurry destiny, awaiting me as I grew, but I’d dreamed in ideal domestic terms: a few boy children to keep me safe, girls to love me, obedient servants, health, and quiet. I’d fantasized only of being out of my father’s house and mistress of my own.

Phylomache petted my back as if I were one of her own daughters. “Hush, now,” she said. “Come, we’ll sort through your clothing. Call up one of the serving girls.”

Within an hour she had me half buried beneath a pile of clothing and was chattering contentedly about how we would fit everything on the packhorses. I let her talk—once I was married, I would probably never hear her voice again—but I kept imagining my sisters’ voices murmuring beside me. Hippothoe tried to comfort me with calm words from her rough throat, saying,
Admetus will treat you kindly, Alcestis. You’ve seen that he
cares for you. He’ll honor you. It will be a good life
. But she kept repeating herself, as if she could think of nothing else to say, and my imaginary Pisidice just crossed her arms and said:
Now
it’s your turn
.

FOR THE NEXT week everything made me think of my wedding: the weight of a child on my hip, the sway of my skirt around my ankles, the stroke of my hair over the bared skin of my back as I dressed. How would my husband’s hands feel on my flesh? I knew only the touch of sisters and servants and stepmothers. Would he touch like a woman did, gently and confidently, or like a man—like my father, with force just contained? What kind of touch did I want?

By the sixth night I had tired myself out thoroughly enough with anxiety to sleep well. Phylomache had to shake me awake in midmorning, hissing at me to get up, get up, did I want to be late to my own wedding? Yawning, I obeyed, and found myself surrounded with servants bearing food and clothing and jewelry.

“Phylomache,” I said in sleepy protest.

“What?”

“Can I piss first at least?” I shot a look toward the chamber pot. The servants, laughing, went back into the main room. Phylomache crossed her arms over her chest and watched me as I used the pot. She was trying hard to look disapproving.

“It couldn’t wait,” I said when I was done, and giggled nervously, then put my hand over my mouth. “Oh. I can’t laugh during the ceremony.”

“You will not laugh during the ceremony,” Phylomache said, half helpful, half threatening.

“I will not laugh during the ceremony,” I echoed, and took a deep breath. “All right. What must I do first?”