Circe Read online

Page 19


  It surprised me to a huff of laughter. What man spoke so? None that I had ever met. Yet at the same time there was something in him that felt nearly familiar.

  “Where is your wife now? On your ship?”

  “At home, thank the gods. I would not make her sail with such a ragged bunch. She runs the house better than any regent.”

  My attention was sharp on him now. Common sailors did not talk of regents, nor look so at home next to silver inlay. He was leaning on the carved arm of the chair as if it were his bed.

  “You call your crew ragged?” I said. “They seem no different from other men to me.”

  “You are kind to say so, but half the time I’m afraid they behave like beasts.” He sighed. “It’s my fault. As their captain, I should keep them in better line. But we have been at war, and you know how that can tarnish even the best men. And these, though I love them well, will never be called best.”

  He spoke confidingly, as if I understood. But all I knew of war came from my father’s stories of the Titans. I sipped my wine.

  “War has always seemed to me a foolish choice for men. Whatever they win from it, they will have only a handful of years to enjoy before they die. More likely they will perish trying.”

  “Well, there is the matter of glory. But I wish you could’ve spoken to our general. You might have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “What was the fight over?”

  “Let me see if I can remember the list.” He ticked his fingers. “Vengeance. Lust. Hubris. Greed. Power. What have I forgotten? Ah yes, vanity, and pique.”

  “Sounds like a usual day among the gods,” I said.

  He laughed and held up his hand. “It is your divine privilege to say so, my lady. I will only give thanks that many of those gods fought on our side.”

  Divine privilege. He knew I was a goddess then. But he showed no awe. I might be his neighbor, whose fence he leaned over to discuss the fig harvest.

  “Gods fought among mortals? Who?”

  “Hera, Poseidon, Aphrodite. Athena, of course.”

  I frowned. I had heard nothing of this. But then, I had no way to hear anymore. Hermes was long gone, my nymphs did not care for worldly news, and the men who sat at my tables thought only of their appetites. My days had narrowed to the ambit of my eyes and my fingers’ ends.

  “Fear not,” he said, “I will not tax your ear with the whole long tale, but that is why my men are so scraggled. We were ten years fighting on Troy’s shores, and now they are desperate to get back to home and hearth.”

  “Ten years? Troy must be a fortress.”

  “Oh, she was stout enough, but it was our weakness that drew the war out, not her strength.”

  This too surprised me. Not that it was true, but that he would admit it. It was disarming, that wry deprecation.

  “It is a long time to be away from home.”

  “And now it is longer still. We sailed from Troy two years ago. Our journey back has been somewhat more difficult than I would have wished.”

  “So there is no need to worry about the loom,” I said. “By now your wife will have given up on you and invented a better one herself.”

  His expression remained pleasant, but I saw something shift in it. “Most likely you are right. She will have doubled our lands too, I would not be surprised.”

  “And where are these lands of yours?”

  “Near Argos. Cows and barley, you know.”

  “My father keeps cows himself,” I said. “He favors a pure-white hide.”

  “They are hard to breed true. He must husband them well.”

  “Oh, he does,” I said. “He cares for nothing else.”

  I was watching him. His hands were wide and calloused. He gestured with his cup now here, now there, sloshing his wine a little, but never spilling it. And never once touching it to his lips.

  “I am sorry,” I said, “that my vintage is not to your liking.”

  He looked down as if surprised to see the cup still in his hand. “My apologies. I’ve been so much enjoying the hospitality, I forgot.” He rapped his knuckles on his temple. “My men say I would forget my head if it weren’t on my neck. Where did you say they’ve gone again?”

  I wanted to laugh. I felt giddy, but I kept my voice as even as his. “They’re in the back garden. There’s an excellent bit of shade to rest in.”

  “I confess I’m in awe,” he said, “they’re never so quiet for me. You must have had quite an effect on them.”

  I heard a humming, like before a spell is cast. His gaze was a honed blade. All this had been prologue. As if we were in a play, we stood.

  “You have not drunk,” I said. “That is clever. But I am still a witch, and you are in my house.”

  “I hope we may settle this with reason.” He had put the goblet down. He did not draw his sword, but his hand rested on the hilt.

  “Weapons do not frighten me, nor the sight of my own blood.”

  “You are braver than most gods then. I once saw Aphrodite leave her son to die on the field over a scratch.”

  “Witches are not so delicate,” I said.

  His sword hilt was hacked from ten years of battles, his scarred body braced and ready. His legs were short but stiff with muscles. My skin prickled. He was handsome, I realized.

  “Tell me,” I said, “what is in that bag you keep so close at your waist?”

  “An herb I found.”

  “Black roots,” I said. “White flowers.”

  “Just so.”

  “Mortals cannot pick moly.”

  “No,” he said simply. “They cannot.”

  “Who was it? No, never mind, I know.” I thought of all the times Hermes had watched me harvest, pressed me about my spells. “If you had the moly, why did you not drink? He must have told you that no spell I cast could touch you.”

  “He did tell me,” he said. “But I have a quirk of prudence in me that’s hard to break. The Trickster Lord, for all I am grateful to him, is not known for his reliability. Helping you turn me into a swine would be just his sort of jest.”

  “Are you always so suspicious?”

  “What can I say?” He held out his palms. “The world is an ugly place. We must live in it.”

  “I think you are Odysseus,” I said. “Born from that same Trickster’s blood.”

  He did not start at the uncanny knowledge. He was a man used to gods. “And you are the goddess Circe, daughter of the sun.”

  My name in his mouth. It sparked a feeling in me, sharp and eager. He was like ocean tides indeed, I thought. You could look up, and the shore would be gone.

  “Most men do not know me for what I am.”

  “Most men, in my experience, are fools,” he said. “I confess you nearly made me give the game away. Your father, the cowherd?”

  He was smiling, inviting me to laugh, as if we were two mischievous children.

  “Are you a king? A lord?”

  “A prince.”

  “Then, Prince Odysseus, we are at an impasse. For you have the moly, and I have your men. I cannot harm you, but if you strike at me, they will never be themselves again.”

  “I feared as much,” he said. “And, of course, your father Helios is zealous in his vengeances. I imagine I would not like to see his anger.”

  Helios would never defend me, but I would not tell Odysseus that. “You should understand your men would have robbed me blind.”

  “I am sorry for that. They are fools, and young, and I have been too lenient with them.”

  It was not the first time he had made that apology. I let my eyes rest on him, take him in. He reminded me a little of Daedalus, his evenness and wit. But beneath his ease I could feel a roil that Daedalus never had. I wanted to see it revealed.

  “Perhaps we might find a different way.”

  His hand was still on his hilt, but he spoke as if we were only deciding dinner. “What do you propose?”

  “Do you know,” I said, “Hermes told me a prophec
y about you once.”

  “Oh? And what was it?”

  “That you were fated to come to my halls.”

  “And?”

  “That was all.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m afraid that is the dullest prophecy I’ve ever heard.”

  I laughed. I felt poised as a hawk on a crag. My talons still held the rock, but my mind was in the air.

  “I propose a truce,” I said. “A test of sorts.”

  “What sort of test?” He leaned forward a little. It was a gesture I would come to know. Even he could not hide everything. Any challenge, he would run to meet it. His skin smelled of labor and the sea. He knew ten years of stories. I felt keen and hungry as a bear in spring.

  “I have heard,” I said, “that many find their trust in love.”

  It surprised him, and oh, I liked the flash of that, before he covered it over.

  “My lady, only a fool would say no to such an honor. But in truth, I think also only a fool would say yes. I am a mortal. The moment I set down the moly to join you in your bed, you may cast your spell.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you were to swear an oath you will not hurt me, upon the river of the dead.”

  An oath by the River Styx would hold even Zeus himself. “You are careful,” I said.

  “It seems we share that.”

  No, I thought. I was not careful. I was reckless, headlong. He was another knife, I could feel it. A different sort, but a knife still. I did not care. I thought: give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for.

  “I will swear that oath,” I said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  LATER, YEARS LATER, I would hear a song made of our meeting. The boy who sang it was unskilled, missing notes more often than he hit, yet the sweet music of the verses shone through his mangling. I was not surprised by the portrait of myself: the proud witch undone before the hero’s sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

  We lay together in my wide, gold bed. I had wanted to see him loosened with pleasure, passionate, laid bare. He was never laid bare, but the rest I saw. We did find some trust between us.

  “I am not really from Argos,” he said. The firelight flickered over us, casting long shadows across the sheets. “My island is Ithaca. It’s too stony for cows. We run to goats and olive groves.”

  “And the war? A fiction also?”

  “The war was real.”

  There was no rest in him. He looked as though he could have parried a spear-thrust out of the shadows. Yet the weariness had begun to show through, like rocks when the tide recedes. By the law of guests I should not question him before he had fed and refreshed himself, but we were past such observances.

  “You said your journey was difficult.”

  “I sailed from Troy with twelve ships.” His face in the yellow light was like an old shield, battered and lined. “We are all that is left.”

  In spite of myself I was shocked. Eleven ships was more than five hundred men lost. “How did such disaster strike you?”

  He recited the story as if he were giving a recipe for meat. The storms that had blown them half across the world. The lands filled with cannibals and vengeful savages, with sybarites who drugged their wills. They had been ambushed by the cyclops Polyphemus, a savage one-eyed giant who was a son of Poseidon. He had eaten half a dozen men and sucked their bones. Odysseus had had to blind him to escape, and now Poseidon hunted them across the waves in vengeance.

  No wonder he limped, no wonder he was gray. This is a man who has faced monsters.

  “And now Athena, who was ever my guide, has turned her back.”

  I was not surprised to hear her name. The clever daughter of Zeus honored wiles and invention above all. He was just the sort of man she would cherish.

  “What offended her?”

  I was not sure he would answer, but he drew in a long breath. “War breeds many sins, and I was not last in committing them. When I asked her pardon, she always gave it. Then the sack of the city came. Temples were razed, blood spilled on altars.”

  It was the greatest sacrilege, gore upon the holy objects of the gods.

  “I was a part of such things with the rest, but when others stayed to offer her prayers, I did not stay with them. I was…impatient.”

  “Ten years you had fought,” I said. “It is understandable.”

  “You are kind, but I think we both know it is not. As soon as I was on board, the seas around me lifted wrathful heads. The sky darkened to iron. I tried to turn the fleet around, but it was too late. Her storm spun us far off from Troy.” He rubbed his knuckles as if they ached. “Now when I speak to her, she does not answer.”

  Disaster upon disaster. Yet he had walked into a witch’s house, even weary as he was, and raw with grief. He had sat at my hearth showing no hint of anything but charm and smiles. What resolve that must have taken, what vigilant will. But no man is infinite. Exhaustion stained his face. His voice was hoarse. A knife I had named him, but I saw that he was sliced down to the bone. I felt an answering ache in my chest. When I had taken him to my bed, it had been a kind of dare, but the feeling that flickered in me now was much older. There he was, his flesh open before me. This is something torn that I can mend.

  I held the thought in my hand. When that first crew had come, I had been a desperate thing, ready to fawn on anyone who smiled at me. Now I was a fell witch, proving my power with sty after sty. It reminded me suddenly of those old tests Hermes used to set me. Would I be skimmed milk or a harpy? A foolish gull or a villainous monster?

  Those could not still be the only choices.

  I reached for his hands and drew him up. “Odysseus, son of Laertes, you have been hard-pressed. You are dry as leaves in winter. But there is harbor here.”

  The relief in his eyes ran warm over my skin. I led him to my hall and commanded my nymphs to see to his comforts: to fill a silver bath for him and wash his sweated limbs, bring him fresh clothes. After, he stood shining and clean before the tables we had heaped with food. But he did not move to take his seat. “Forgive me,” he said, his eyes on mine. “I cannot eat.”

  I knew what he wanted. He did not storm or beg, only waited for my decision.

  The air felt limned in gold around me. “Come,” I said. I strode down the hall and out to the sty. Its gate swung wide at my touch. The pigs squealed, but when they saw him behind me their terror eased. I brushed each snout with oil and spoke a charm. Their bristles fell away and they rose to their feet as men. They ran to him, weeping and pressing their hands to his. He wept as well, not loudly but in great streams, until his beard was wet and dark. They looked like a father and his wayward sons. How old had they been when he’d left for Troy? Scarcely more than boys, most of them. I stood a little distant, like a shepherd watching a flock. “Be welcome,” I said, when their tears had slowed. “Draw your ship up on the beach and bring your fellows. All of you are welcome.”

  They ate well that night, laughing, toasting. They looked younger, new-made in their relief. Odysseus’ weariness too was gone. I watched him from my loom, interested to see another facet: the commander with his men. He was as good at that as all the rest, amused at their antics, gently reproving, reassuringly untroubled. They circled him like bees their hive.

  When the platters were empty and the men drooped on their benches, I gave them blankets and told them to find beds wherever they were comfortable. A few stretched out in empty rooms, but most went outside to sleep beneath the summer stars.

  Only Odysseus remained. I led him to the silver chair at the hearth and poured wine. His face was pleasant, and he leaned forward again, as if eager for whatever I might offer.

  “The loom you admired,” I said. “It was made by the craftsman Daedalus. You know the name?”

  I was gratified to see genuine surprise and pleasure. “No wonder it is such a marvel. May I?”

  I inclined my head, an
d he went to it at once. With a hand he ran its beams, base to top. His touch was reverent, like a priest at an altar. “How did you come to have it?”

  “A gift.”

  There was speculation in his eyes, bright curiosity, but he did not press further. Instead, he said, “When I was a boy and everyone played at wrestling monsters like Heracles, I dreamed of being Daedalus instead. It seemed the greater genius to look at raw wood and iron, and imagine marvels. I was disappointed to find out I did not have the talent for it. I was always cutting my fingers open.”

  I thought of the white scars on Daedalus’ hands. But I held back.

  His hand rested on the side-beam as if upon the head of a beloved dog. “May I watch you weave with it?”

  I was not used to having anyone so close while I worked. The yarn seemed to thicken and tangle in my fingers. His eyes followed every motion. He asked me questions about what each piece did, and how it differed from other looms. I answered him as best I could, though at last I had to confess that I had no comparison. “This is the only loom I have ever used.”

  “Imagine such a happiness. Like drinking wine your whole life, instead of water. Like having Achilles to run your errands.”

  I did not know the name.

  His voice rolled like a bard’s: Achilles, prince of Phthia, swiftest of all the Greeks, best of the Achaian warriors at Troy. Beautiful, brilliant, born from the dread nereid Thetis, graceful and deadly as the sea itself. The Trojans had fallen before him like grass before the scythe, and the mighty Prince Hector himself perished at his ash-spear’s end.

  “You did not like him,” I said.

  Some inward amusement touched his face. “I appreciated him, in his way. But he made a terrible soldier, however many men he could bleed. He had a number of inconvenient ideas about loyalty and honor. Every day was a new struggle to yoke him to our purpose, keep him straight in his furrow. Then the best part of him died, and he was even more difficult after that. But as I said, his mother was a goddess, and prophecies hung on him like ocean-weed. He wrestled with matters larger than I will ever understand.”

  It was not a lie, but it was not truth either. He had named Athena as his patron. He had walked with those who could crack the world like eggs.