Circe Read online

  “The truth is, I think he would have preferred me as a traitor. At least then I would have been a son he could understand.”

  I had been watching him, as he talked, for his father’s mannerisms, those tricks that were as indivisible from Odysseus as tides from the ocean. The pauses and smiles, the dry voice and deprecating gestures, all wielded against the listener, to convince, to tease, and most of all, to mitigate. I had seen none. Telemachus took his blows straight on.

  “I went to my mother after that, but he had set guards to keep me out, and when I shouted past them she said I must be patient and not provoke him. The only person who would speak to me was my old nurse, Eurycleia, who had been his nurse as well. We sat by the fire, chewing our fish to paste. He was not always like this, she kept telling me. As if that changed anything. This man of rage was all the father I had. She died not long after, but my father did not stay to watch her pyre burn. He was tired of living among ashes, he said. He set out on a skiff and came back a month later with gold belts and cups and a new breastplate, and splashes of dried blood on his clothes. It was the happiest I had ever seen him. But it did not last. By the next morning he was railing about the smoky hall and the clumsiness of the servants.”

  I had seen him in such moods. Every petty defect of the world enraged him, all the waste and stupidity and slowness of men, and all the irritants of nature too, biting flies and warping wood and the briars that ripped his cloak. When he had lived with me, I’d smoothed all those things away, wrapping him in my magic and divinity. Perhaps it was why he had been so happy. An idyll, I had called our time. Illusion might have been a better word.

  “After that, he went on some raid every month. Reports came back, scarcely believable. He had taken a new wife, the queen of some inland kingdom. He ruled there happily among the cows and barley. He wore a golden circlet and feasted till dawn and ate boars whole and roared with laughter. He had fathered another son.”

  His eyes were Odysseus’. The shape and color, even the intensity. But the expression: Odysseus’ gaze was always reaching out, cajoling. Telemachus’ held fast to itself.

  “Was any of it true?”

  He lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “Who can say? Perhaps he started the rumors himself to wound us. I sent a message to my mother that the goats needed extra tending and went to live in an empty hut on the hillside. My father could plot and rage, but I did not have to see it. My mother could eat one piece of cheese all day and let her eyes turn gray on her loom, but I did not have to see that either.”

  In the fire, the logs had burnt down. Their remains glowed white, scaled with ash.

  “Into such miseries, your son came. Bright as a sunrise, sweet as ripe fruit. He carried that silly-looking spear, and gifts for us all, silver bowls and cloaks and gold. His face was handsome and his hopes crackled loud as a fire. I wanted to shake him. I thought: when my father returns, this boy will learn that life is not a bard’s song. And so he did.”

  The moon had lifted away from the window, and the room was draped in shadows. Telemachus’ hands rested on his knees.

  “You were trying to help him,” I said. “That is why you went down to the beach.”

  His eyes were on the fire’s ashes. “He did not need me, as it turned out.”

  I had used to imagine Telemachus so often. As a quiet boy keeping watch for Odysseus, as a burning youth bearing vengeance across land and sea. But now he was a man, and his voice was dull and drained. He was like those messengers who run great distances with news for kings. They gasp out their words, then fall to the ground and do not rise.

  Without thinking, I reached across and laid my hand on his arm. “You are not your blood. Do not let him take you with him.”

  He looked down at my fingers a moment, then up into my face. “You pity me. Do not. My father lied about many things, but he was right when he called me a coward. I let him be what he was for year after year, raging and beating the servants, shouting at my mother, and turning our house to ash. He told me to help him kill the suitors and I did it. Then he told me to kill all the men who had aided them, and I did that too. Then he commanded me to gather up all the slave girls who had ever lain with one of them and make them clean the blood-soaked floor, and when they were finished, I was to kill them as well.”

  The words jolted me. “The girls would have had no choice. Odysseus would have known it.”

  “Odysseus told me to carve them into joints like animals.” His eyes held mine. “Do you disbelieve it?”

  It was not one story that I thought of, but a dozen. He had always loved his vengeances. He had always hated those he thought betrayed him.

  “Did you do as he said?”

  “No,” he said. “I hanged them instead. I found twelve lengths of rope and tied twelve knots.” Each word was like a blade he thrust into himself. “I had never seen it done, but I remembered how in all the stories of my childhood the women were always hanging themselves. I had some thought that it must be more proper. I should have used the sword instead. I have never known such ugly, drawn-out deaths. I will see their feet twisting the rest of my days. Goodnight, Lady Circe.”

  He picked his knife up from my table and was gone.

  The storm had passed, and the night sky was clear again. I walked, wanting to feel the new-washed breeze on my skin, the earth crumbling softly beneath my feet, to shake off that ugly image of twitching bodies. Overhead, my aunt sailed, but I did not trouble with her anymore. She liked to watch lovers, and I had not been one of those for a long time. Perhaps I had never been.

  I could imagine Odysseus’ face as he killed those suitors, man by man by man. I had seen him chop wood. He did it in one swift motion, clean through. They would have died at his feet, their blood staining him to the knees. He would note it coolly, distantly, like the click of a counter: done.

  The heat would have come after. When he had stood over the motionless slaughter-yard, and felt his rage still brimming and unspent. So he would have fed more into it, like logs, to keep a fire going. The men who had aided the suitors, the slaves who had lain with them, the fathers who dared to speak against him. On and on he would have gone, if Athena had not intervened.

  And what of me? How long would I have gone on filling my sty, if Odysseus had not come? I remembered the night he had asked me about the pigs. “Tell me,” he had said, “how do you decide which man deserves punishment and which does not? How can you judge for certain, this heart is rotted and this one good? What if you make a mistake?”

  I had been warmed that night by wine and fire, lured by the flush of his regard. “Let us consider,” I said, “a boatload of sailors. Among them, some are undoubtedly worse than others. Some exult in rape and piracy, but others are newly come to it and scarcely have their beards. Some would never imagine robbery, except that their families are starving. Some feel shame after, some do it only because their captain commands it, and because they have the crowd of other men there, to hide among.”

  “And so,” he said, “which do you change, and which do you let go?”

  “I change them all,” I said. “They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?”

  He had smiled and lifted his cup to me. “Lady, you and I are in accord.”

  An owl passed its wings over my head. I heard the sound of scuffling brush, the beak snap. A mouse had died for its carelessness. I was glad Telemachus would not know of those words between me and his father. At the time I had been boasting, showing off my ruthlessness. I had felt untouchable, filled with teeth and power. I scarcely remembered what that was like.

  Odysseus’ favorite pose had been to pretend that he was a man like other men, but there were none like him, and now that he was dead, there were none at all. All heroes are fools, he liked to say. What he meant was, all heroes but me. So who could correct him when he erred? He had stood on the beach looking at Telegonus and believing him a pirate. He had stood in his hall and accused Telemachus of conspiracy. Two
children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

  I was in the cypress grove by then. Their branches showed black in the darkness, and as I passed the needles brushed my face, and I felt the faint sticky catch of their sap. He had liked this place. I remember him running his hand along a trunk. It was one of my favorite things about him, how he admired the world like a jewel, turning its facets to catch the light. A well-made boat, a well-grown tree, a well-told story, these were all pleasures to him.

  There were none like him, yet there was one who had matched him and now she slept in my house. Telemachus was no danger, but what of her? Was she plotting to open my son’s throat even now, to carry out her vengeance? Whatever she tried, my spells would hold. Not even Odysseus could talk his way past witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.

  The dew was gathering on the grass. My feet were cool and silver with its touch. Telemachus would be in his bed, watching this same dark, seeing the faint tattering at its eastern edge. I thought of his face when he had spoken of hanging the slave girls, how he had held the memory to his skin like a burning brand. I should have said more to him, I thought. I could have told him that he was not the first man led to kill for Odysseus’ sake. There had once been a whole army who bent their spears to that task. I scarcely knew Telemachus, but I somehow did not think that would be a comfort. I could see the acid on his face. You will pardon me if I do not rejoice at being one in a long line of villains.

  Of all the sons in the world, he was not the one I would have guessed for Odysseus. He was stiff as a herald, blunt to the point of rudeness. He carried his wounds openly in his hands. When I’d reached for him, there had been an emotion on his face I could not quite name. Surprise, tinged with something like distaste. Well, he did not have to fear. I would not do it again.

  That was the thought that carried me home.

  I watched the sun rise at my loom. I set out bread and cheese and fruit, and when I heard my son stir, I went to his door. I was relieved to see his face was not so dull, but the grief was still there, the heavy knowledge: my father is dead.

  He would wake up with that thought for a long time, I knew.

  “I spoke with Telemachus,” I said. “You are right about him.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. Did he think me incapable of seeing what was before my eyes? Or only of admitting it?

  “I am glad you think so,” he said.

  “Come. I have put breakfast out. And I think Telemachus is waking. Will you leave him alone with the lions?”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I have spells to cast.”

  I did not really. I went back to my room and listened to them talking about the boat, the food, the most recent storm. The tonic of ordinary things. Telegonus suggested they go out and drag the boat back to the cave. Telemachus agreed. Two sets of feet upon the stone, and the door swung closed. Yesterday I would have thought myself mad to send them off together. Today it seemed like a gift to my son. I felt a pang of embarrassment: Telemachus and Telegonus. I knew how it looked to have named my son that, like a dog who scratches outside a door when it cannot come in. I wanted to explain that I had never thought they would know each other, that his name had been intended for me alone. Born far away, it meant. From his father, yes, but also from mine. From my mother and Oceanos, from the Minotaur and Pasiphaë and Aeëtes. Born for me, on my island of Aiaia.

  I would make no excuses for it.

  I had retrieved the spear yesterday and now it leaned against the wall of my room. I lifted the leather sheath. The ray’s tail looked even stranger on land, spectral and ragged. I turned it, catching the light on the infinitesimal beads of venom that crowned each feathered tooth. I must return it, I thought. Not yet.

  From down the hall, another stirring. I thought of all those men and women over the years, spilling their secrets while Penelope carefully gathered them up. I pulled the leather sheath back over the spear and opened my shutters. Outside was a beautiful morning, and on the wind were the first hints of what would soon ripen into spring.

  The knock upon my door came, as I had guessed it would.

  “Open,” I said.

  She was framed in my doorway, wearing a pale cloak over a gray dress, as if she were wrapped in spider-silk.

  “I come to say I am ashamed. I did not speak of my gratitude yesterday as I should have. I do not mean only for your hospitality now. I mean also for your hospitality to my husband.”

  It was impossible to tell, in that mild voice of hers, if the comment was pointed. If it were, I supposed she was entitled.

  She said, “He told me how you helped him on his way. He would not have survived without your advice.”

  “You give me too much credit. He was wise.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. Her eyes were the color of mountain ash. “Do you know that after he left you, he landed with another nymph? Calypso. She fell in love with him and hoped to make him her immortal husband. Seven years, she stayed him on her isle, draping him in divine fabrics, feeding him delicacies.”

  “He did not thank her for it.”

  “No. He refused her and prayed to the gods to free him. At last they forced her to let him go.”

  I did not think I imagined the trace of satisfaction in her voice.

  “When your son came, I thought perhaps he was hers. But then I saw the weave of his cloak. I remembered Daedalus’ loom.”

  It was strange, how much she knew of me. But then, I knew about her too.

  “Calypso fawned over him, and you turned his men to pigs. Yet you were the one he preferred. Do you think that strange?”

  “No,” I said.

  It was nearly a smile. “Just so.”

  “He did not know about the child.”

  “I know,” she said. “He would never have kept that from me.” That was pointed.

  “I spoke with your son last night,” I said.

  “Did you?” I thought I heard a flicker of something in her voice.

  “He explained to me why you had to leave Ithaca. I was sorry to hear it.”

  “Your son was kind to bring us away.” Her eyes had found Trygon’s tail. “Is it like a bee’s venom, that stings only once? Or like a snake?”

  “It could poison a thousand times and more. There is no end to it. It was meant to stop a god.”

  “Telegonus told us that you faced the great lord of sting-rays himself.”

  “I did.”

  She nodded, a private gesture, as if in confirmation. “He told us that you took further precautions for him as well. That you have cast a spell over the island, and no god, not even Olympians, can pass.”

  “Gods of the dead may pass,” I said. “No others.”

  “You are fortunate,” she said, “to be able to summon such protections.” From the beach came faint shouts: our sons moving the boat.

  “I am embarrassed to ask this of you, but I did not bring a black cloak with me when we left. Do you have one I might wear? I would mourn for him.”

  I looked at her, as vivid in my doorway as the moon in the autumn sky. Her eyes held mine, gray and steady. It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

  “No,” I said. “But I have yarn, and a loom. Come.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  HER FINGERS RAN LIGHTLY over the beams, stroked the threads of the weft like a stable master greeting a prize horse. She asked no questions; she seemed to absorb the loom’s workings by touch alone. The light from the window glowed on her hands, as if it wished to illuminate her work. Carefully, she took off my half-finished tapestry and strung the black yarn. Her motions were precise, nothing wasted. She was a swimmer, Odysseus had told me, long limbs cutting effortlessly to her destination.

  Outside the sky had turned. The clouds hung
so low they seemed to graze the windows, and I could hear the first fat drops begin to fall. Telemachus and Telegonus gusted through the door, wet from hauling the boat. When Telegonus saw Penelope at the loom he hurried forward, already exclaiming over the fineness of her work. I watched Telemachus instead. His face went hard and he turned away abruptly to the window.

  I set out lunch, and we ate in near silence. The rain tapered off. I could not bear the thought of being shut up all afternoon and drew my son out for a walk along the shore. The sand was hard and wet, and our footprints looked as though they had been cut with a knife. I linked my arm through his and was surprised when he let it stay. His tremor from yesterday was gone, but I knew it would return.

  It was only a little after midday, yet something in the air felt dusky and obscuring, like a veil across my eyes. My conversation with Penelope was tugging at me. At the time, I had felt clever and swift, but now that I ran it back through my mind, I realized how little she had said. I had meant to question her, and instead I found myself showing her my loom.

  He had talked his way past the witch instead.

  “Whose idea was it to come here?” I said.

  He frowned at the suddenness of my question. “Does it matter?”

  “I am curious.”

  “I can’t remember.” But he did not meet my eyes.

  “Not yours.”

  He hesitated. “No. I suggested Sparta.”

  It was the natural thought. Penelope’s father lived in Sparta. Her cousin was a queen there. A widow would find welcome.

  “So you said nothing of Aiaia.”

  “No. I thought it would be…” He trailed off. Indelicate, of course.

  “So who first mentioned it?”

  “It may have been the queen. I remember she said that she would prefer not to go to Sparta. That she would have a little time.”

  He was choosing his words carefully. I felt a humming beneath my skin.

  “Time for what?”

  “She did not say.”