Circe Read online

  I touched the paste I had prepared to my lips, hyacinth and honey, ash flowers and aconite crushed with the bark of walnuts. I had cast illusions on animals and plants before, but never upon myself, and I felt a sudden, plunging doubt. I forced the thought away. Fear of failure was the worst thing for any spell. I focused instead on Perses: his lounging, smug face, his puffy muscles and thick neck, his long-fingered, indolent hands. Each of these I summoned in turn, willing them into me.

  When I opened my eyes, Daedalus was staring.

  “Put the steadiest men at the oars,” I said to him. My voice had changed too, it was deep and swollen with divine hauteur. “They must not stop for anything. No matter what.”

  He nodded. He was holding a sword, and I saw that the other men were similarly armed with spears and daggers and crude cudgels.

  “No,” I said. I raised my voice for the whole ship. “She is immortal. Weapons are useless, and you will need free hands to keep the ship moving forward.”

  At once came the rasp of blades being sheathed, the thunk of spears set down. Even Polydamas, in his borrowed tunic, obeyed. I almost wanted to laugh. I had never been given such deference in my life. Is that what it was like to be Perses? But already I could make out the faint outline of the straits on the horizon. I turned to Daedalus. “Listen,” I said. “There is a chance that the spell will not fool her and she will know me. If she does, be sure you are not standing near. Be sure none of the men are.”

  The mist came first. It closed in wet and heavy, obscuring the cliffs, then the sky itself. We could see little, and the sound of the sucking whirlpool filled our ears. That whirlpool was of course the reason Scylla had chosen these straits. To avoid its pull, ships must steer close to the opposite cliff. It brought them right beneath her teeth.

  We pushed on through the thick air. As we entered the straits, the sound grew hollowed, echoing off the stone walls. My skin, the deck, the rail: every surface was slick with spray. The water foamed and an oar scraped the rock-face. A small sound, but the men flinched as if it were a thunderclap. Above us, buried in the fog, was the cave, and Scylla.

  We moved, I thought we did, but in such grayness it was impossible to tell how far, or fast. The oarsmen were trembling with effort and fear, and the oarlocks creaked despite their oil. I counted the moments. Surely we were beneath her now. She would be creeping to the cave’s opening and smelling out the plumpest. The sweat was drenching the men’s tunics, their shoulders hunched. Those not rowing crouched behind coils of rope, the mast base, any cover they could find.

  I strained my eyes upwards, and she came.

  She was gray as the air, as the cliff itself. I had always imagined she would look like something: a snake or an octopus, a shark. But the truth of her was overwhelming, an immensity that my mind fought to take in. Her necks were longer than ship masts. Her six heads gaped, hideously lumpen, like melted lava stone. Black tongues licked her sword-length teeth.

  Her eyes were fixed on the men, oblivious in their sweating fear. She crept closer, slipping over the rocks. A reptilian stench struck me, foul as squirming nests underground. Her necks wove a little in the air, and from one of her mouths I saw a gleaming strand of saliva stretch and fall. Her body was not visible. It was hidden back in the mist with her legs, those hideous, boneless things that Selene had spoken of so long ago. Hermes had told me how they clung inside her cave like the curled ends of hermit crabs when she lowered herself to feed.

  Her necks had begun to ripple and bunch back on themselves. She was gathering to strike.

  “Scylla!” I cried with my god’s voice.

  She screamed. The sound was a piercing chaos, like a thousand dogs howling at once. Some of the rowers dropped their oars to cover their ears. At the edge of my vision I saw Daedalus push one to the side and take his place. I could not worry for him now.

  “Scylla,” I cried again. “It is Perses! I have sailed a year to find you.”

  She stared at me, her eyes dead holes in gray flesh. From one of her throats came a strangled sound. She had no vocal cords anymore.

  “My bitch sister is exiled for what she did to you,” I said, “but she deserved worse. What vengeance do you desire? Tell me. Pasiphaë and I will do it.”

  I was making myself speak slowly. Each moment was another beat of the oars. Those twelve eyes pinned me. I could see the stains of old blood around her mouth, the shreds of flesh still hanging from her teeth. I felt my gorge rise.

  “We have been searching out a cure for you. A powerful drug to turn you back. We miss you as you were.”

  My brother would never have talked so, but it did not seem to matter. She was listening, coiling and uncoiling along the rocks, keeping pace with our ship. How many oar strokes had passed? A dozen? A hundred? I could see her dull mind working. A god? What does a god do here?

  “Scylla,” I said. “Will you have it? Will you have our cure?”

  She hissed. The breath from her gullet was rotten and hot as a fire. But already I had lost her attention. Two of her heads had turned to watch the men at their oars. The others were beginning to follow. I saw her necks bunch again. “Look,” I cried. “Here it is!”

  I lifted the open bottle in the air. Only one neck turned back to see, but that was enough. I hefted the draught and threw it. It hit her in the back of her teeth, and I watched her throat ripple as she swallowed. I spoke the spell to change her back.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then she shrieked, a sound to crack open the world. Her heads whipped, and she dived towards me. I had time only to grab hold of the mast. Run, I thought, at Daedalus.

  She struck the ship’s stern. The deck popped like driftwood, and a length of rail tore away. Splinters flew. Men were tumbling around me, and I would have fallen if I had not been gripping the mast. I heard Daedalus crying orders but could not see him. Already her adder necks were rearing back again and this time, I knew, she would not miss. She would strike the deck itself, crack the ship in half, then pluck us from the water one by one.

  But the blow did not come. Her heads smacked into the waves behind us. She jerked, lunging against the water, snapping those huge jaws like a dog fighting its leash. It took my muddy brain a moment to understand: she had reached the end of her tether. Her legs could stretch no farther from their hold in her cave. We were past.

  She seemed to realize it at the same time I did. She screamed in rage, slamming our wake with her heads, throwing up huge waves. The boat tipped, gulping sea over its low sides and back. Men grappled at the ropes, their legs trailing in the water, but they held on and each moment we were further away.

  She beat the cliff-side, howling her frustration, until the mist closed over her and she was gone.

  I leaned my forehead against the mast. The clothes were slipping off my shoulders. The cloak dragged at my neck, and my skin prickled with heat. The spell had ended. I was myself again.

  “Goddess.”

  Daedalus was kneeling. The other men were ranged on their knees behind. Their faces—thick and haggard, scarred and bearded and burnt—were gray and shaken. They bore scrapes and lumps from being thrown across the deck.

  I scarcely saw them. Before me was Scylla, her ravening mouths and those dead, empty eyes. She had not known me, I thought. Not as Perses or anything. Only the novelty of my being a god had momentarily checked her. Her mind was gone.

  “Lady,” Daedalus said. “We will make sacrifice to you every day of our lives for this. You have saved us. You brought us through the straits alive.” The men echoed him, murmuring prayers, their great hands lifted like platters. A few pressed their foreheads to the deck, in the Eastern style. Such worship was the payment my kind demanded for services rendered.

  The bile rose in my throat.

  “You fools,” I said. “I am the one who made that creature. I did it for pride and vain delusion. And you thank me? Twelve of your men are dead for it, and how many thousands more to come? That drug I gave her is the strongest I have. Do y
ou understand, mortals?”

  The words seared the air. The light from my eyes beat down upon them.

  “I will never be free of her. She cannot be changed back, not now, not ever. What she is, she will remain. She will feast on your kind for all eternity. So get up. Get up and get to your oars, and let me not hear you speak again of your imbecile gratitude or I will make you sorry for it.”

  They cringed and shook like the weak vessels they were, stuttering to their feet and creeping away. Above, the sky was cloudless, and the heat pinned the air to the deck. I yanked off the cloak. I wanted the sun to burn me. I wanted it to scorch me down to bone.

  Chapter Ten

  FOR THREE DAYS I stood at that prow. We did not stay over on an island again. The oarsmen worked in shifts, sleeping on the deck. Daedalus repaired the rail, then took his turn among them. He was unfailingly polite, offering food and wine, a bedroll, but he did not linger. What did I expect? I had loosed my wrath on him as if I were my father. One more thing that I had ruined.

  We reached the island of Crete just before noon on the seventh day. The sun threw off great sheets of light from the water, turning the sail incandescent. Around us ships crowded the bay: Mycenaean barges, Phoenician traders, Egyptian galleys, Hittites and Aethiopians and Hesperians. All the merchants who passed through these waters wanted the rich city of Knossos as their customer, and Minos knew it. He welcomed them with wide, safe moorings and agents to collect for the privilege of using them. The inns and brothels belonged to Minos also, and the gold and jewels flowed like a great river to his hands.

  The captain aimed us squarely at the first mooring, kept open for royal ships. The noise and motion of the docks clattered around me: men running, shouting, heaving boxes onto decks. Polydamas spoke a word to the harbormaster, then turned to us. “You are to come at once. You and the craftsman both.”

  Daedalus gestured that I should go first. We followed Polydamas up the docks. Before us, the huge limestone stairs wavered in the heat. Men streamed past us, servants and nobles alike, their shoulders sun-darkened and bare. Above, the palace of mighty Knossos glowed on its hill like a hive. We climbed. I heard Daedalus’ breaths behind me and Polydamas’ in front. The steps were worn smooth from years of endless hurrying feet.

  At last we reached the top and crossed the threshold into the palace. The blinding light vanished. Cool darkness flowed over my skin. Daedalus and Polydamas hesitated, blinking. My eyes were not mortal and needed no time to adjust. I saw at once the beauty of that place, even greater than the last time I had come. The palace was like a hive indeed, each hall leading to an ornate chamber, and each chamber to another hall. Windows were cut in the walls to let in thick squares of golden sun. Intricate murals unrolled themselves on every side: dolphins and laughing women, boys gathering flowers, and deep-chested bulls tossing their horns. Outside in tiled pavilions silver fountains ran, and servants hurried among columns reddened with hematite. Over every doorway hung a labrys, the double-axe of Minos. I remembered that he had given Pasiphaë a necklace with a labrys pendant at their wedding. She had held it as if it were a worm, and when the ceremony came her neck bore only her own onyx and amber.

  Polydamas guided us through the twisting passages towards the queen’s quarters. There it was more lavish still, the paintings rich with ochre and blue copper, but the windows had been covered over. Instead there were golden torches and leaping braziers. Cunningly recessed skylights let in light but no glimpse of sky; Daedalus’ work, I supposed. Pasiphaë had never liked our father’s prying gaze.

  Polydamas stopped before a door scrolled with flowers and waves. “The queen is within,” he said, and knocked.

  We stood in the still and shadowed air. I could hear nothing beyond that heavy wood, but I became aware of Daedalus’ ragged breath beside me. His voice was low. “Lady,” he said, “I have offended you and I am sorry. But I am sorrier still for what you will find inside. I wish—”

  The door opened. A handmaid stood breathless before us, her hair pinned in the Cretan style at the top of her head. “The queen is in her labors—” she began, but my sister’s voice cut across her. “Is it them?”

  At the room’s center, Pasiphaë lay upon a purple couch. Her skin gleamed with sweat, and her belly was shockingly distended, swollen out like a tumor from her slender frame. I had forgotten how vivid she was, how beautiful. Even in her pain, she commanded the room, drawing all the light to herself, leeching the world around her pale as mushrooms. She had always been the most like our father.

  I stepped through the door. “Twelve dead,” I said. “Twelve men for a joke and your vanity.”

  She smirked, rising up to meet me. “It seemed only fair to let Scylla have her chance at you, don’t you think? Let me guess: you tried to change her back.” She laughed at what she saw in my face. “Oh, I knew you would! You made a monster and all you can think of is how sorry you are. Alas, poor mortals, I have put them in danger!”

  She was as quicksilver cruel as ever. It was a relief of sorts. “It was you who put them in danger,” I said.

  “But you are the one who failed to save them. Tell me, did you weep as you watched them die?”

  I forced my voice to stay even. “You are in error,” I said. “I saw no men die. The twelve were lost on the way out.”

  She did not even pause. “No matter. More will die on every ship that passes.” She tapped a finger to her chin. “How many do you think it will be, in a year? A hundred? A thousand?”

  She was showing her mink teeth, trying to get me to melt like all those naiads in Oceanos’ halls. But there was no wound she could give me that I had not already given myself.

  “This is not the way to get my help, Pasiphaë.”

  “Your help! Please. I am the one who got you off that sand-spit of an island. I hear you sleep with lions and boars for company. But that’s an improvement for you, isn’t it? After Glaucos the squid.”

  “If you don’t need me,” I said, “I will happily go back to my sand-spit.”

  “Oh, come, sister, don’t be so sour, it’s only a jest. And look how grown you are, slipping past Scylla! I knew I was right to call you instead of that braggart Aeëtes. You can stop making that face. I’ve already set aside gold for the families of the men who were lost.”

  “Gold does not give back a life.”

  “I can tell you are not a queen. Believe me, most of the families would rather have the gold. Now, are there any other—”

  But she did not finish. She grunted and dug her nails into the arm of a handmaiden kneeling at her feet. I had not noticed the girl before, but I saw now that the skin of her arm was purple and smeared with blood.

  “Out,” I said to her. “Out, all. This is no place for you.”

  I felt a spurt of satisfaction at how fast the attendants fled.

  I faced my sister. “Well?”

  Her face was still contorted with pain. “What do you think? It’s been days and it hasn’t even moved. It needs to be cut out.”

  She threw back her robes, revealing the swollen skin. A ripple passed across the surface of her belly, from left to right, then back again.

  I knew little of childbirth. I had never attended my mother, nor any of my cousins. A few things I remembered hearing. “Have you tried pushing from your knees?”

  “Of course I’ve tried it!” She screamed as the spasm came again. “I’ve had eight children! Just cut the fucking thing out of me!”

  From my bag I drew out a pain draught.

  “Are you stupid? I’m not going to be put to sleep like some infant. Give me the willow bark.”

  “Willow is for headaches, not surgery.”

  “Give it to me!”

  I gave it, and she drained the bottle. “Daedalus,” she said, “take up the knife.”

  I had forgotten he was there. He stood in the doorway, very still.

  “Pasiphaë,” I said, “do not be perverse. You sent for me, now use me.”

  She laughed
, a savage sound. “You think I trust you with that? You are for after. Anyway, it is fitting that Daedalus should do it, he knows why. Don’t you, craftsman? Will you tell my sister now, or shall we let it be a surprise?”

  “I will do it,” Daedalus said to me. “It is my task.” He stepped to the table and took up the knife. The blade was honed to a hair’s edge.

  She seized his wrist. “Just remember,” she said. “Remember what I will do if you think to go astray.”

  He nodded mildly, though for the first time I saw something like anger in his eyes.

  She drew her nail across the lower portion of her belly, leaving a red slice. “There,” she said.

  The room was hot and close. I felt my hands slicked with sweat. How Daedalus held that knife steady I do not know. The tip bit into my sister’s skin, and blood welled, red and gold mixed. His arms were taut with effort, his jaw set. It took a long time, for my sister’s immortal flesh fought back, but Daedalus cut on with utmost concentration, and at last the glistening muscles parted, and the flesh beneath gave way. The path lay bare to my sister’s womb.

  “Now you,” she said, looking at me. Her voice was hoarse and torn. “Get it out.”

  The couch beneath her was sopping. The room was filled with the overripe stink of her ambrosial blood. Her belly had stopped rippling when Daedalus began to cut. It was tensed now. As if it were waiting, I thought.

  I looked at my sister. “What is in there?”

  Her golden hair was matted. “What do you think? A baby.”

  I put my hands to that gap in her flesh. The blood pulsed hot against me. Slowly, I pressed through the muscles and the wet. My sister made a strangled croak.

  I searched in that slickness, and at last there it was: the soft mass of an arm.

  A relief. I could not even say what I had feared. Just a baby.

  “I have it,” I said. My fingers inched upwards for purchase. I remember telling myself that I must be careful to find its head. I did not want it twisted when I began to pull.