Chapter 1 Aethiopia #2
‘They will tell of it as punishment,’ my grandmother says, ‘but this would be a perversion of justice and Athena is justice.’
I am quiet for a long while then, squinting into the river, trying to see myself. I grimace horrendously at my reflection, tongue waggling, imagining what it would be to bear the face of one who could not be looked upon.
‘I think I’d rather be monstrous than beautiful,’ I say.
My grandmother’s face is grave.
Suddenly she turns and begins to swim downstream.
She moves slower than her usual pace so I know it is not a dismissal, rather an invitation to follow.
We swim for many hours, the furthest I have ever been from home.
When we stop, we are just shy of the mouth, the wide sweeping delta of our Nile, claimed abruptly by the brute force of Poseidon’s domain.
Fear rushes me. I stare out at the expanse, and death stares back.
Those of salt are freshwater’s foe; I feel the lesson in every droplet of water that has made me, definite and inevitable.
It is overwhelming, the way some deep, internal part of me thrashes, the part that belongs to my grandmother, to her father, to rivers and mud and the striding of water across land.
I grip my grandmother’s hand tightly as I watch the waves, rearing and shying, and then galloping towards me.
‘Do not wish for Medusa’s fate, my little queen,’ my grandmother says softly. ‘It took a terrible violence for Athena to bring that about.’
I remember the fish, choking and falling still under my gaze. I shudder.
I think of Athena often after that. The cool grey at the end of the day dyed orange as died the sun.
I feel her eyes upon me, the swinging beam of orange torchlight searching for me and becoming soft shadow as they settle on my face.
I am sure it is in part the influence of my grandmother’s stories, told with all the usual flare of river folk, and my own imagination.
But it is said that when I was born, Athena whispered my name to my parents.
Andromeda. Ruler of men. They took her words for prophecy; the first-born child of King Cepheus should have been a boy, but they had named me as a great ruler anyway.
Perhaps the goddess guards me after all, another pretty face named to rule.
Maybe she will protect me from the same fate as her priestess.
This thought puts a swagger in my step, and as I become ten, I take to strutting round the palace in a somewhat gangly-limbed imitation of my mother.
She and Grandmother call me little queen, a pet-name taken from my fateful name – it is the only thing they have in common – and I play at little queendom.
One evening, not long after my trip to the sea, I careen round a corner into Phineus.
I am so full of my own potential that I do not tolerate his scolding of my carelessness.
‘I am to be a ruler of men, you must not speak to me so!’
He guffaws loudly down into my face. ‘You can’t rule over men. You’re a girl.’
‘I can! My name says so!’
He chuckles, ‘Ah, our little queen! That just means that you’ll be a king’s wife. My wife, probably. You’ll be beautiful and we’ll have strong, beautiful heirs, and the whole world will marvel at the family on Aethiopia’s throne.’
He does not say it unkindly. I do not know why but it is his kindness that enrages me.
I run screaming to my mother and father.
I stand in their throne room and feel my face heat as my stuttering explanation of Phineus’ misunderstanding is met with crows of laughter, first from my father and then from his friends and advisors.
It seems that I am the one who has misunderstood.
My gaze beseeches my mother’s, the only other woman in the room, but her face is a mask of cool neutrality.
‘Compose yourself, Andromeda. Such hysterics are unbecoming.’
I flee, humiliated.
She finds me later, though, while I lie hiccupping among the linen folds of my bed, and brushes my hair until I quieten.
Then she says, ‘I did not name you ruler of men so that you might marry that insipid brother of your father’s and waste your beauty on this scrap of kingdom and its false gods.
I mean for you to have more, my little queen.
I mean for you to have the world. There are many who would fear such a thing.
It is a fine art. You must appear to kiss the feet before you, while keeping them to heel.
You will learn in time.’ I do not understand what she means, so I lie there, confused and wounded.
Phineus comes to find me a few days later, worrying his lip in remorse.
‘I should not have laughed at you and teased you. I am older and should know better. It was wrong of me.’
I turn my head away, intent on ignoring him. People rarely apologize to me, and I am enjoying it.
‘I spoke with Ma. She was very cross with me. She made it clear that she only supports our marriage because I am to take care of you.’ He crouches down to my level. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Being married to me?’
I squint up at him. I do not understand what such a thing means. I think of my mother and father, the strange darting tension that surrounds them, too slippery to name like reeds caught and torn in currents. I cannot imagine it ever being so with Phineus.
I shrug. He shrugs back.
I think and say, ‘When we are married, can I still swim with Grandmama in the river?’
He grins. ‘Of course.’
I think some more. I think of my grandmother instructing that Phineus take care of me. I think of Medusa. ‘The sea is awful,’ I say.
‘I felt the same when Ma took me.’ He tilts his head and smiles at me in a new way, a particular kind of understanding. ‘We are not sea people.’
I like this we. ‘Promise that I never have to go back there.’ I say it suddenly. Panic had surged, flinging the words at his mercy. I have never demanded a promise from anyone before.
Phineus’ long lashes flutter in a swift, searching look. He takes to his knees with my hand in both of his. Here, framed in the doorway of my home, with his rich, deep skin offset by the white of his tunic, the white of the marble, he is to me a new kind of god. Protective, watchful.
He says, ‘I promise,’ so seriously, and I smile.
It becomes a kind of game between us, a game of promises, and as I grow swiftly and surprisingly, I come to think of Phineus less and less as my uncle.
I am fourteen when I feel that first flush of adolescence, the changes beginning all at once.
I am yet to bleed – divinity does not bleed, can give life without such pain and mess, and the women in my mother’s family tend towards a lateness – but I note the sudden swelling at my chest, the soft down blooming between my legs, the shift in the way that my body fits into my kalasiris.
One evening I sneak into the western court, where we dine in company, to scavenge some left-over dessert. I am intent on my task as I walk back through the central court, hands clawing at a pomegranate. My fingers and lips are rouge with my efforts, and I do not notice them until they are upon me.
‘Now, Cepheus, she’s a gift indeed!’
‘You sure you can’t be tempted? We’ll empty our coffers!’
My wrists are suddenly caught. Hands and barley beer and smoky, toasted poppy seeds. I struggle and they laugh. The pomegranate spills down my chest and rolls across the floor, leaving a sanguine stain in its wake. They laugh louder.
‘In a few years she’ll be perfect!’
‘She’ll be like carob and honey, we’ll all want a sip!’
I find my father’s gaze, where he lounges at the centre of the revelry. He is caught between expectations and is not brave enough to fulfil either of them. I feel a sickened curiosity reflecting between us. How much will you permit? What kind of father are you?
He clears his throat and says, ‘She’s a mess. She must go and clean herself up at once.’
But they do not let me go. I feel fingers on my bare knees and on the newly raised marks where my inner thighs have stretched.
They shriek and groan and tell my father they will not spoil me, that it is just a bit of fun.
I feel afraid then, in my home, in the halls I play in every day; a real, sharp, bright pang of fear that there are things men might do to a girl, in front of her father, that would still mean that she is not spoiled.
My father says nothing. He remains motionless, silent, and I am writhing and loud, and I wonder at who he and I will be tomorrow.
I struggle hard, harder. I am stronger than any of us thought and I slip backwards, my feet skidding on the pomegranate juice.
They let me go because they can see what I cannot – the pool adorned with fish, bright as flowers, in the centre of the court.
As soon as I hit the water, I know I am safe.
It is a cool reprieve and I do not want to emerge until they have all left.
But I cannot bear the thought of my father reaching in to pluck me from my sanctuary, like a runty kitten he failed to drown.
I stand, dripping, aware of my near nakedness, the thin linen of my kalasiris transparent in the lamplight. What will my Mother say?
‘What is happening?’
It is Phineus. He stands between the columns that lead from the central court into the throne room.
The men are immediately quiet. He is much their junior but with his broad shoulders and ferocious disgust etched into his handsome features, he dwarfs them.
He strides towards me, eyes never leaving my face, and gathers me in his arms, before turning to my father.
‘Is this how you protect what is yours?’
‘You do not speak to me like that! I am your king!’
‘You are a disgrace.’ He surveys the men, droopy faces agog and delighted by the entertainment. ‘You are all a disgrace.’
He carries me to my room, passing me over to my servants to bathe and warm and gentle. He waits outside my door until I am dressed, solemn and guarding.
When I am sitting in bed he returns and paces my rooms, swearing a bloody vengeance on all who touched me and all who stood and allowed it.
I do not argue with him – I do not need to.
The words are sweet and empty because violence is not in Phineus’ nature.
It is what I like best about him. When his anger has dimmed, he sits across the room from me and begins to tell me stories of our future.
There will be no such men in our court. We will rule Aethiopia together.
We will be kinder than my parents, to each other and our people.
I remember his past promises, the assurance of constant river currents, our land as the whole world, far away from the sea.
‘When we get married will I be in charge of our accounts like Mama?’
‘Of course! You’re quite the best mathematician in the family!’
And so again, our game of promises. He paints a picture with such certainty, it is as though it has already happened, one of known comfort conjured from our shared routines, simple and small and peaceful.
We will have many, many children, and will hear their laughter filling the open, spilling space of my father’s halls.
He means every word he says; every wish is an honest one.
‘Just think of it, Andromeda!’ he says. ‘Just think of them playing in our river!’
I try. I try to think of it. I strain for their smiling faces, but my imagination, so vivid with my present, is a wispy thing with my future and they vanish to vapour beneath my mind’s grasp.
This queen’s life is far off and foreign.
I tell Phineus as much and he reassures me that I will come to feel differently when I am older and can grant myself the freedom to see it all, this land of ours.
‘You will visit the markets, the stalls, speak to the vendors. They will revere you – you will be their queen! Just think of how you will help them, of how they will refuse your coins because they so adore you!’
And I laugh at that image, we two together strolling through the market as we do our gardens, like any other man and wife. ‘Yes, and I shall hide the money under their wares, for their need is greater than mine.’
His chin does something when I say that. Quivers to softness. ‘Of course you shall.’
The cold weight that had abated while Phineus spoke returns, however, as I watch his retreating back.
I fear my father’s punishment. Too often have his eyes gleamed spitefully in his brother’s direction and I spend much of the night dwelling on Cepheus’ malice.
I need not have worried, however. I had forgotten the root of it all; favourites are currency in our family.
And my grandmother’s wrath at hearing of my father’s inaction is so great that for six weeks, Nilus, at a word from his favoured daughter, dries the Nile.
My fifteenth summer is something akin to total anarchy.
It does not take long for word to get out that guests of Cepheus attempted to molest his daughter.
They angered the gods. It does not matter that these are not Hapi and Sobek, the gods that most in our region of Nubia, with Egypt to our north, believe to be guardians of our land’s commanding river; the Nile is dry and a great region is on the precipice of collapse.
The men are grievously punished. Their lands are seized by the crown. And my father’s name echoes with infamy, from the Erythraean Sea to the rolling desert dunes.
Cepheus, so beloved by the Western gods, that even the threat of harm befalling his daughter brings nations to their knees. And I, with a divine seal placed upon my virginity, find my star burning ever brighter.
But for the first time, the weight of so many eyes does not matter to me. I am cosseted away in the palace, and cosseted further still by my grandmother and Phineus. I simply note that my father is not a man who will protect me. And that Phineus is a man who will.