Chapter 6
Aethiopia
I am called to the hearth room by my parents the following morning.
They wish to breakfast together. This is unusual.
I am the earliest to rise in my family; the sun hits my windows first, Eos’ rosy fingers tickling my chin, tugging gently at my hair, braided for sleep.
I greet the day and enjoy the solitude. I do not feel lonely when I am left to my daydreams, telling myself stories, or dancing to songs only I can hear, my feet matching the beats of imaginary drums. My grandmother is an early riser also and sometimes I join her, stealing out of my window to splash my feet as the Nile heats.
Sometimes Phineus sends for me. We slip covertly into the kitchens, take bread warm from the pans and find our fists stuffed with boiled eggs and fruit by the cooks.
I often bring a basket and we stroll around the palace, appreciating the quiet before the noise, the halls drowsy with shadow.
I enjoy these sometimes, relish their indecisive spontaneity.
I rarely see my mother until after my lessons, in the afternoon.
If I am not swimming or fishing or picking fruit and flowers, she sends for me, gives me her own kinds of lessons.
She will speak to me of my future, of what it is to be a wife and a mother, of what it is to be a queen.
These days are my favourites: assisting in her correspondence, discussing this crop or that yield, seeing the proud half-scrunch of her nose at my swift arithmetic.
On these days, I am her successor. On other days, I am her daughter, her princess, her little queen.
She will show me which colours complement my features, which kalasiris flatters my shape as it warps and changes with womanhood.
She will teach me how to reject a man’s advances without inciting violent ego, how to compliment a woman’s beauty without seeming to condescend, how to judge a friend or foe based on the minutest of details – the angle of a head, the widening of an eye, the sharpening of a smile.
And other days still, she will pull me into the privacy of her apartments, her women with us, closing one of the few doors with surreptitious glances.
There they will murmur things that make my face heat, things I already know but I have not heard spoken of in such detail.
My mother in particular is exact in describing how it will be when I first bleed, the colour and texture and smell.
She does not want me to be afraid, she wants me to be ready.
She is the same when describing what it is to labour and what it will be like when I first lie with a man; how it will hurt; how, if I have time, I might rub myself with oils – gentle ones, coconut or olive – beforehand so that my husband will slide inside more easily; how I shall please him.
How hard to grip, how to use my mouth, how essential it is that, when he is nearly finished, I pull him astride me once more.
‘That is very important, my little queen. He must always finish inside. You will give him many princes that way, many sons. That is how you will keep him.’
My mother once told me that she believes that we die three times.
First when our physical bodies fail us. A second time when the last person who knew us dies.
And a third and final when our names are last spoken.
She, though as preoccupied by immortality as the Hellenics, speaks of motherhood as a fortification against a finite end.
I am reminded again of her old stories of Isis, as I see her now, sitting on her rug-strewn pallet as though it is her throne.
In one tale, after reviving Osiris, Isis lies with him.
Her magic flows into him, bringing him back to life, and somewhere in all this shared breath is desire; they conceive their son, Horus.
An heir and an avenger to ensure their immortality.
And so, a coupling is political, and motherhood is a crafty, cunning force.
Cassiopeia does not, as the nobles’ daughters do, speak of pleasure.
Of beating hearts or whispered promises.
These things are closer to what I bring flickeringly to life, alone in my room, thinking of the jasmine-scented girl.
I know through some unspoken, intuited thing that what she speaks of exists somewhere in the same plane as that swift tightening of my belly, but I cannot see how, when they are so dissimilar and strange.
My mother speaks only of duty and it is of duty she speaks now, as she sits coolly beside my father.
‘Smooth your forehead, Andromeda, it is unbecoming.’ She sips her tea, the tendrils of camomile reaching for me where I sit across from her.
I wonder if they are the same that I picked yesterday.
Was it only yesterday? When I sat and gossiped with my grandmother about Poseidon and his bride?
‘I do not know why you look so worried. There is only abundance in your future. You will marry Phineus and sit on my throne, or you will marry the Lord Poseidon and be Queen of the Sea.’
And my father, somehow, is nodding. ‘Your mother has negotiated you a fine deal, Andromeda. Just think of it – my daughter, my little queen, sat beside Poseidon, skin shining with ichor, bestowing blessings upon her father’s kingdom.’
They seem so far away. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that my father would feel as I did.
He is risk averse, he is not shrewd and calculating like my mother.
He is the great-grandson of a Titan and I had thought that he would see the folly in bargaining with Olympians.
But he sees only immortal grandsons on his throne; the pearls and fine cloth and spices brought to him on calm seas.
I struggle with my sentiment. ‘I feel … I am tied to two terrible things. How can you not see this? I wished to marry Phineus, to rule Aethiopia as you have. Now I cannot wish for it without wishing for my mother’s doom.’
‘Then do not wish for it. Wish to be Queen of the Sea, the Lady Andromeda, Ruler of the Oceans. The greatest fulfilment of your name.’
‘But I do not wish to marry the sea god! I cannot! I have heard brutish things, horrible stories of him—’
‘Gossip only!’ My father drinks from his cup and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Fear-mongering lies! No doubt you heard them from my mother?’ He takes my silence as acquiescence. ‘Exactly! Tales told by river folk who fear and resent the supremacy of the sea.’
My mother says, ‘He will not hurt you when you are his wife.’ I do not believe her.
We both know of what some men do to women, the vows they break and somehow are not punished for.
Horkos, it seems, does not care to uphold all oaths and Hera, it seems, does not care for all wives.
I do not know if she believes it either because she adds, ‘You will be immortal. You will have Olympian allies, you will have power of your own.’
I am drawn up short by this. The thought had not occurred to me, and I cannot picture it.
I try to imagine her, the Bride of the Sea, in a white beaded dress, pearls and shells like Amphitrite, but I see only myself, glancing over a shoulder for a sharp paternal word or a mother’s guidance.
Stumbling, hoping to be caught by Phineus’ large, clever hands.
‘And what if she, the Nereid, does not believe me to be beautiful? Grandmama is right, it is not a thing so easily decided. Not everyone agrees, tastes differ.’
‘Everyone who sees you agrees that you are the most beautiful girl they have ever seen.’
‘They might be lying to please you.’
‘They are not, I know such things.’
‘But she, the Cetus, she is not everyone. She is a Nereid and a shifter and a monster. We do not know that her eyes see the world the same as ours. What if she says no and we … and you …’ I cannot speak it. It is too awful.
But my mother reaches to braid my hair. ‘I will be fine. I am not wrong.’ She is resolved and I cannot hope to sway her. ‘You will thank me, when you are Queen of the Sea.’
I settle between her legs and bow my head. It is easier, always, to do as she says. ‘Yes, Mama. I will be Queen of the Sea. And I will thank you.’
‘Irresponsible, conniving, arrogant in the extreme!’ My grandmother is rarely so animated, but my parents, as is often the case, are the targets of her ire. ‘They have no idea what they have brought upon themselves, upon you!’
‘Mama is sure the Cetus will acquiesce.’
‘So am I!’ The river churns about her. ‘He will make you immortal, my little queen. You will be his forever.’ My grandmother has had other children, Aegyptus and Danaus, old kings of old stories.
She watched them striving to forge a lasting legacy.
She does not wish to do it again. I believe she loves me the most, myself and Phineus, because for us she wants a mortal life, prosperous and peaceful and together.
Only she can comprehend the life I might lead, who the Wife of the Sea might be, how an eternity will grind me into her.
‘I will think of something.’ She turns. ‘I will seek out Athena, plead her counsel. I will speak to my father. I will think of something.’ She vanishes into the water, swimming against the currents.
And now I can feel an arrival. I trail my hand through the river as if wishing to calm it, but it does not work.
It recognizes a new presence, distant but familiar.
I straighten my kalasiris, another my mother picked out, the linen dyed the colour of my future kingdom, I assume, to flatter my future husband.
But all I can see are my grandmother’s lilies, bruising the marble of our entrance hall.