Chapter 5
Aethiopia
I know the giant is Poseidon, as I know that water means wet and shelter means dry.
The stories have not done him justice, but how could they?
I can speak to the otherworldly beauty of my grandmother, but she is a nymph – she is the stars, not the sun.
Even Nilus, ancient and reaching with his skin that shines darkly as the beginning of all things might once have shone, seems withered and pale in comparison.
I cannot articulate the vastness of the Olympian.
The raw, brute force of the sea cannot be contained by words.
I do not dare look into his face, his eyes.
I do not dare breathe in his direction. I cower beneath Phineus and behind my grandmother.
The palace trembles around the sea god and I know that he could crush it if he so wished, could grind us into mud as a child shatters a snail’s shell and watches it ooze from beneath their toes.
Two figures, much smaller and slighter, stand behind him.
I note the one to his left first. I have never seen a Nereid before but there is no mistaking her.
Her skin glows silver as if lit by the moon.
Her hair is a startling shade, the vivid hue of coral reefs, stark against her face, and wildly curling in the wind.
She is unfathomably pale and the room is so lit by their presence that I, at first, think she is naked.
Then I see that she is draped in something like my beaded overlay, but with no linen dress beneath, a robe of connected shells and pearls, as white as she is.
It hugs her form, clustering at her breasts and the meeting of her thighs but revealing the ample curvature of her body beneath.
She is so beautiful that she outshines even my mother and I know at once that she is the reason they are here.
The only face I have ever heard of being as lovely as hers is my own.
It takes me a few moments to contemplate the second sea nymph, standing to Poseidon’s right.
My eyes are so drawn by her lovely sister, and she is partly obscured behind the enormous trident the Master of the Sea wields.
They do not resemble each other at all. If it were not for their shared luminescence, I would not have believed them to be related.
Where her sister is full figured, soft bellied, luscious cream, she is slighter and firmer, harder, muscled like a warrior.
Her black hair hangs in a waving sheet down her back.
She is not beautiful – but her face is a force and I am struck by it.
She looks to be about my age, maybe a couple of years older, but younger than her sister.
Nymphs age strangely, their lives and looks affected by the passions and caprices that drive them.
Indeed, some say nymphs age alongside each lover – Achiroe certainly does not look to have passed the five decades that my grandfather reached when he died.
‘I have been insulted.’
The rain and winds die down, as though they too wish to hear how Poseidon’s words crash around us. There are pants and muffled whimpers from where our guests flatten themselves to the floor.
‘We meant no offence—’
‘Hold your tongue, daughter of Nilus. My quarrel is not with you.’ My grandmother presses closer to Phineus and me.
The silence beats like a war drum. ‘Why bow and make yourself small, Queen of Aethiopia, when you speak such big words?’
My head snaps around. Between Phineus’ arm and knee, I see my mother. She does not rise but speaks into the marble of the dais. ‘I meant you no offence, oh great Master of the Sea.’
He scoffs. ‘Enough of this performed piety. Stand. You do not fool me.’
My mother rises slowly to her feet. Her face is a mask. She does not tremble.
‘You think I do not hear you praying to your hippo god? She does not answer you.’
‘Does she not? Did she not give me my daughter? Whose name rings with prophecy and whose face will be known throughout the ages for its beauty.’
The cool neutrality of her voice terrifies me. This is not how one addresses an Olympian.
‘Your womb is dry and empty now. You shall bleed for your hubris.’
‘Is it hubris, to be a mother who knows the worth of her child?’
The coral-haired Nereid hisses. ‘You dare?’
‘You are Amphitrite.’ My grandmother does not ask it. Her voice is careful, but I know it well enough to hear the contempt there.
Amphitrite’s piercing eyes flash towards my grandmother. ‘Cousin,’ she spits the word like a curse, ‘has our Uncle Nilus’ power so waned that his mortal relations do not know their place?’
I feel my grandmother tense before me. ‘Has my aunt Doris sold you so thoroughly that the great sea god must be called to defend your vanity?’
Phineus inhales sharply and raises himself slightly to place a hand on his mother’s back.
‘Careful, daughter of Nilus,’ Poseidon warns. ‘My respect for your father is not boundless. I am not here on account of a nymph’s honour.’
‘Then why are you here?’ demands my mother. I do not know how she can be so bold. I carry hubris so you don’t have to. Amphitrite hisses again.
‘Your declaration interrupted our wedding,’ drawls Poseidon.
‘It is my right to lay claim to the best. And I thought I had.’ I see his enormous hand descend, its span the length of the Nereid’s entire arm as his fingers brush against her pale skin.
His silver is darker than hers, the heavy grey of a storm.
I once more take in the white beading of her dress.
Something curls my stomach. The whisper of an augury, perhaps the flick of faraway grey eyes in my direction.
‘Let me see her.’
Nobody moves. Phineus grows still above me, so still, he is the stone that breaks the surf.
‘Come on.’ An order snapped like the gnashing of gleaming teeth.
‘Why?’ My grandmother speaks. ‘Why do you wish to see her?’
‘The Lord Poseidon charges the Queen of Aethiopia with hubris. The Queen of Aethiopia replies that it is not hubris if it is true. Therefore, the Lord Poseidon must see if it is true.’ A new voice.
Husky and low. I flinch from it but note a sharp stinging, a kind of shredding internal pressure, insisting on release.
‘Andromeda.’ I turn to face my mother. Her eyes meet mine.
‘Present yourself.’ She does not look afraid; she is certain of this.
I drink her face a moment more, thirsty for her courage.
Then I touch Phineus’ shoulder. He moves aside immediately but his brow is creased and when I stand, he shadows me, a silent, comforting guard.
What he would do should the sea god act, I hope I do not learn.
We step around Achiroe and I finally look into Poseidon’s face.
It is hard to say if he is made of storms or if the raging pelagic tempests are made of him.
I note the broad, shining shields that are his limbs, the inky deluge of his hair.
His eyes are smaller than I imagined, too small for his face, clear, focused beams that wall out the chaos they have caused.
The eye of the storm. The very much-ness of him, the bounty and surplus, overwhelm me.
I do not breathe. I do not look too long; I cannot.
I feel once again as though I am whipped by rain and winds.
I look instead at the flanking nymphs. Amphitrite is even paler up close.
Her gaze is piercing lapis lazuli and beneath her skin shines the refracted glint of salt crystals.
Beneath that, a scratching and a scraping, the nails of the river pulling sediment from rock and casting it into the sea.
The other Nereid is closer to me. I take her in more fully now.
To be so made up of sharp lines and narrow angles, too many to be considered anything other than rugged, lacks apology; my dress and jewellery are suddenly foolish.
Dark strips, almost as thick as leather but strangely textured, cross and cover to protect her body but show enough of her skin that I run my eyes over it, glowing gold, almost green in the flicker of the candles.
I realize that it is snakeskin she wears, broad black slices of scale that can only have come from something giant, something monstrous.
Her eyes are shards of coal-black, pupils indistinguishable from the irises, the fathomless burning black of heat, banked and cooled.
I am swallowed by their void. I know who she is.
The sea god speaks again. ‘She is lovely. I cannot deny it.’ He appraises me, weighs me, counts me out in pieces and weighs each of them too. ‘Has she bled yet?’
The question catches me off guard and my face heats. But my mother replies, ‘Not yet. Her godhood delays her, and women bleed late in my family.’
‘Hmmm.’ A sentence suspended and then, ‘I might want her instead.’ He pronounces it so simply, a man at a table deciding on beef or lamb, and I hear the words the way my tongue tastes bread after it has been burned by hot stew: distant and raw.
‘My lord?’ My mother and Amphitrite speak in unison, but identical words have never sounded so different. The sea god does not look at either of them. The glare of his gaze is still focused on me, but I turn to face my mother instead. Her breathing is shallow now, her hands clasped as if in prayer.