Goddess of Yesterday (6 page)

Chrysaor and Iris were so remote. It was Nicander whom I loved, and his wife and daughter for whom I grieved.

The ships of Sparta drew near. The black sails were taken down, the anchor stones dropped into the water.

I stood as straight as I could, clasping the long slim handle of the oar as if it were a spear and I its warrior. I would not show fear. I would not call out. I would stand my ground.

Slowly the men waded toward me. They looked ordinary, so I remained silent. I would not speak except to a captain. Unblinking, I stared beyond them, waiting. Each sailor paused, nervous at my demeanor.

Well, that was not surprising, since I had recently been
Medusa. I suspected that was a trick which would not work twice.

The men encircled me and I thought of death.

From one of the ships, a dory was lowered into the water. A red-haired man, assisted from above and from below, that he might not get wet or stumble, stepped in. Two rowers brought him through the shallows.

He was brawny but not tall, a barrel of a man who gleamed with oil. His beard was very curly. Fashion required a neat projectile, extending a man's chin straight out in front of him, but this man's beard raged over his cheeks and jaw like a bad temper. He was not handsome. His hair was red as a poppy, having no gold in it like my own.

It could only be the king of Sparta himself. Lord of the Main Land. A man to whom a king such as Nicander was merely a commander. And I—what was I to such a king?

Menelaus stepped out onto dry land.

I clung to the oar. I had not been strong enough to dig a deep hole. Every day I had mounded the sand back to keep the body covered. There was no mistaking the shape of what I stood beside.

The king approached me slowly, boots sinking in the soft sand. “Lady,” he said courteously, “stranger-friend. Tell me what has passed here.”

I am acquainted with many languages, since our slave women come from so many places. Not all languages treat the word “stranger” and the word “friend” as one, but in our tongue, the words tangle. You must wait out a conversation to see into which category you and the other will fall. Not all strangers are friends, but such must be your hope.

That the king of Sparta would accord me such courtesy weakened me. I felt tears rising and my throat thickening. I
tried to speak, but the horror of what had passed would not land on my tongue. The king laid a hand of comfort on my shoulder to encourage me.

“They stabbed him in the back,” I said finally, and my voice broke. “The pirates who destroyed our town. I buried him here. My father the king. Nicander. All the rest are dead.”

The king of the Main Land put his arms around me and kissed my ruined hair. “Poor princess. I am so sorry. How proud your father the king would be that you found the strength to bury him properly. That you marked his grave with a fine oar. That you stand by his resting place as a priestess by her altar.”

I had referred to Nicander as my father only to honor him. It was a figure of speech used by many, for a king is father to his people. It did not follow that I was his daughter. Yet so Menelaus assumed.

My fingers grew tight and stiff on the shaft of the oar.

I did not correct the king of the Main Land.

Nicander had cared more about gold than about gods. And it seemed that I cared more about staying alive than being true.

Menelaus had women with him, booty from his own expedition. Two of these were brought ashore to bathe and dress me while the warriors of Menelaus began the terrible task of cleaning up bodies. We do not burn our dead as a rule, but burning was the only choice now. Great pyres were built on the sand, on the path, by the gates, and in the courtyard. The dead were dragged to each heap.

“Truly,” said Menelaus sadly, “they went through your town with a net.”

It is a fishing term: When fishermen fling their nets into
the sea, they hope to enclose an entire school of fish, drag it back and eat every one.

“Yes,” I said, thinking of Callisto and of the six-year-old shepherd.

The women drew water from the well and the men brought a cauldron to heat it, and from the ships came towels and fresh clothing. It was an extraordinary relief to be clean. But an even greater relief was to be cuddled in the soft arms of plump women. They spoke no language that I knew, but they were mothers, and for a moment, they were my mother. Their towns too must have been slashed and burned; their daughters lay dead and their sons murdered; their futures now terrifying and unknown.

I buried my face in the bosom of a woman newly made slave, while she worked with a comb to get the tangles out. When I was clean and my hair drying in the sun, each redgold curl springing up, the king came back. “You
are
a princess,” he said approvingly. “Hair like the sunset. Eyes like the sea. Though I do not recall that Nicander had either red hair or blue eyes.”

No. And no one else would recall that either, since the real daughter of Nicander had had hair as black as night, and eyes dark as deep wells. “My father the king's hair was black as the pines after the sun goes down,” I said, hoping poetry might distract the king. “Thank you for this lovely gown, sir.”

He had not noticed what I was wearing and looked blankly at the gown. It was for a girl much older than I, pale pink, embroidered with roses and bordered in white. It was loot. I thought about loot. Why be loot if such could be avoided? Why be a slave?

If Chrysaor and Iris never admitted that I existed—well, then, I would not admit they existed.

To deny one's father and mother is probably a very bad thing and it is no doubt worse to pretend another set of parents altogether. Kind as they had been, Nicander and Petra had never called me daughter. Friends though we were, Callisto had never called me sister. But I required a lineage and theirs was excellent.

I said to the king of the Main Land, “Fire chased the pirates out of my palace before they reached our treasury. I think all our treasure still lies within.” For Nicander had been a successful sacker of cities since paying off Apollo. “I trust that you will keep my treasure safe for me, O king, so that when I am grown and you give me in marriage to a noble, I will have an island and much gold to bestow upon my husband.”

The king's men stood tensely awaiting his answer. Of course they hoped he would laugh at a little girl. They wanted that gold divided among themselves.

I fixed my eyes upon the king's.

“You have guarded your treasure well, little princess,” said Menelaus. “I give you my word. I will keep it in trust for you.”

“Thank you, my king,” I said, as if I had expected nothing less. “Will you leave a man here to take care of me?”

Menelaus was astonished. “My dear princess, you cannot possibly stay here. It will take a year to rebuild your palace and you have no flocks and no people. You will come home with me. I have a daughter with whom you will be friends. She is younger than you. She's nine, while you look about twelve. I recall that none of Nicander's sons lived. I should
remember the name of his precious daughter, but I do not. Please give me your name.”

I dislike silent prayer. The mind of a human is too small for a god to listen to. To be heard from the sky, a human must call out. But I had no choice.

O goddess! Hear me even in silence. Is it evil to claim the name and lineage and island of Callisto?

I heard my goddess clearly.

I am with you.

So I had been wrong. The gods could hear a silent prayer.

“My name,” I said to the king of the Main Land, “is Callisto. It means ‘the fairest.’”

Menelaus smiled at me. “And the right name for you, my princess. You are fair indeed.”

And so, for the second time in my life, a king carried me across the water and brought me to his house to be companion to his daughter. Again I sat on a decked ship to listen to the stories of a king.

Menelaus loaded my treasure into his vessels to be taken to his own palace, where it would be stored apart, Menelaus assured me, and saved for my dowry.

“But I am surprised you have room in the hollow ships for yet more treasure,” I said to him. “You must have great booty from your latest expedition.” I thought that I would chat with him for a while and then mention the sails of the twisted fish; I would tell him of my plans for revenge and seek his help. He was a great king who had traveled much of the world. He might know who those pirates had been.

“I collected a little tribute,” said Menelaus, “but I did
not sail to sack cities. You see, Callisto, my kingdom, my beloved Sparta, has been ravaged for two winters with a horrible illness. People get a raging fever, and just as they seem to get well, the stomach bursts and they die. We have lost hundreds to this, even strong men and young wives. I went to Delphi to ask the Lord Apollo how to stop this plague that he had sent. His oracle told me to cross the sea to Troy, which has a very important altar, and make offerings to the Palladium.”

The very same god had taken all those baby sons from Nicander. Now I learned that he would kill hundreds of strong men and young wives. How could men worship this god? On the other hand—how could they not?

O my king!
I thought, but the king in my heart was Nicander.

“You weep,” said Menelaus gently.

“For my father,” I said, and it was only half a lie. I opened my mouth to tell Menelaus about the twisted fish when it occurred to me that the pirates might be his allies, having just paid tribute themselves. Menelaus might care more about them than about me.

Besides, the real Callisto would never have considered taking revenge. The living Petra probably was not considering it now. She was a lady. Even in the suffering of slavery, she would not think of using a weapon, shoving sharp bronze between ribs and into a heart. Although I considered myself as hard as the soles of my feet had once been, I too must be soft.

So I said, “What is the Palladium?”

“The most ancient form of the goddess Athena. I shivered to be near it. She came as a huge stone from the sky, pocked and pitted and very strange.”

A stone goddess out of the sky? “I wish I could have seen that!” I told him.

“It was long ago. But some were there to see her come. They brought her to the pinnacle of Troy and built a temple around her. The sacred place is open to the heavens, so the goddess need not lose sight of home. I knelt and drew on that power, to save Sparta from plague.”

“And did the goddess answer? Is the plague over and gone?”

He took a long slow breath. “I do not yet know. Kinados, my captain, changed course when he saw the blackened height of Siphnos town. Many of my ships continued on to the Main Land. When we arrive at Gythion, therefore, my people will be expecting me, streaming down from Amyklai and Sparta to welcome me home, and they will tell me, and then I will know.”

I listened carefully.

He called everything “mine.”
My
people.
My
captain. I too, now a princess, must refer to
my
people,
my
palace. Anaxandra never existed, I said to myself. I am Callisto. Princess. Daughter of Nicander and Petra. Heiress to the Isle of Siphnos.

“I am not quite sure of your many place names, O king,” I told him, omitting that I had grown up in a place without any name at all. “Sparta. Amyklai. Gythion. Will you tell me about your Main Land?”

“The Main Land is very great and divided into many kingdoms. The largest kingdom belongs to my brother, Agamemnon. My part of the Main Land is Sparta, which is both kingdom and city. But I do not live in the city. I live in my palace, Amyklai, several miles south of Sparta town. First we will land at my port, Gythion.”

Menelaus and his people had very different Greek from the speech of the pirates. The king made long puffs of air around each consonant, giving each word its own breeze. Every
khhhh
and
phhhh
and
quhhh
made his speech slower than mine. In comparison, my words tumbled harshly like pebbles. I expanded my syllables with “h”s. “What gift could be fine enough for the Palladium goddess?” I wanted to know.

“I gave my best statues of marble and ivory, cloaked in purple wool embroidered by my wife, Helen, who is a brilliant needlewoman. I gave alabaster urns, gold cups, silver vases. Anything, in short, that could not be turned into a weapon.”

“Would they have fought you?” I said excitedly.

“Troy would fight anybody. Troy can make weapons without end. They cannot be beaten in war. They possess so much tin they don't even work it, but just leave it lying around in warehouses.”

Everything I heard about Troy was so hard to believe. Copper is an easy sail away, being mined out of the island of Cyprus. But bronze requires tin, very hard to come by. No one even knows where tin is mined, because it has to pass through so many merchants on so many ships. “Is it true that Trojan horses are twice the size of ours?”

“It is true. You'll see when you reach my palace at Amyklai, for I bought six Trojan stallions and fourteen mares. It is no easy thing to get a stallion into a boat and less easy to keep him there. Those ships I pray have already reached the Main Land. Their captains were eager to unload such difficult cargo. I shall tell you an amazing thing, Callisto.” Menelaus began laughing. His captain Kinados sat beside us for a moment and shared the laughter.

I did not laugh. He had called me Callisto. It is a shivery thing to seize the name of another. It is a shivery thing to cease being oneself. If this king and this captain found out, what would they do to me?

“In Troy,” said Menelaus, “they sit upon the backs of their horses as we do on mules and donkeys.”

I did not tell the king I already knew about this. “How do they hold on?”

“Tightly,” said Menelaus, and the three of us laughed together.

“Did you try, my king?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They offered me a gentle one and said I would have no trouble, but I could not see the point.”

Kings were not stable boys, to handle animals. In parade, Menelaus would ride in a carved and painted cart, sitting on cushions his queen had embroidered, while his driver managed the horse. In battle, Menelaus in his armor would stand up in the chariot while the driver held the reins. I could not imagine Menelaus with his feet sticking out on either side of a rearing stallion, but I imagined myself. My stallion would gallop as I clung to his mane. Together we would leap over stone walls and my stallion would paw the air with his front hooves.