Chapter 17
Aethiopia
The man does not care that I cling to debris and will not touch him.
He does not care that I am so mad with grief that when he unties me, I steal his sword and try to run myself through several times.
I want the sharp point in my flesh, I want to be in pieces like my mother and follow those that have been taken from me.
I want it to end. But he simply stops me gently, and, when I turn the sword on him, he knocks it easily out of my hands.
He does not care that he has stolen the last thing that was mine.
He does not care that I am on my knees, bowed under the weight of my broken heart.
He cares only that I am the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.
He says it to me over and over again. I ignore him.
I can hear a high, animal keening. It is visceral, shredding the air, and I know it is me.
I long for my earlier dulling grief, the woollen muffling that had descended like clouds.
I scrabble at the fragments of her on the cape and dash them against my skin, press them into me until I am bloody and my throat is chafed and swollen from screaming her name.
Ceto, Ceto, Ceto.
I cannot endure it; it will not be endured. I have lost so much and been so stolen from that I should be hollow, but nothing expands like empty space and I will implode under its force. I wish to die, I wish to shatter into pieces and be rubble with her, I wish to stay with her always, always.
At the end, she was scared.
Here and gone. A heartbeat’s work. It is too much. I think I may drown in it.
He watches me uncertainly a while. His face is not an unkind one, but he is confused; this is not the usual reception of conquering heroes.
It takes a long time for me to tire myself out but eventually I cannot move or scream any more. I have gathered what I can hold of her to my chest and cradle it there, tears turning the grey stone to black.
He decides, after I have sobbed myself raw and am reduced to a low repetitive moaning, that this is all just the fear and shock of nearly dying.
I am screaming about a sea monster, after all.
Women are not made for such things. They become hysterical.
That’s what it is. He scoops me up and declares that I am to be his bride.
I do not even blink at his presumption. It is the most ordinary thing to have happened today.
‘Poseidon will kill you for saving me,’ I mumble through numb lips. My voice is hoarse and my throat stings, but I feel he should know what a curse he brings upon himself.
But he smiles. ‘He won’t. Promise.’
I do not know what to make of a man who makes such easy promises.
Either he will break them, or he has never been given cause to believe anyone capable of reneging.
But I realize then that Poseidon has departed.
The wall of sea fell with Ceto, and the sun, forcing its way through the clouds, is drying the tears on my skin.
He carries me from the rock. I am limp in his arms. He introduces himself to my father and this is how I learn his name.
Perseus. Son of Danae and Zeus.
He looks at me suddenly. ‘Oh. I did not ask your name.’
I begin to laugh, even though it stings my throat. I laugh and laugh and laugh. Perseus is bemused.
‘Is she all right?’
‘She ah – she has had – an ordeal.’ My father makes to stroke my hair, a performance of paternal comfort. I abruptly stop laughing and snarl at him. He takes his hand away. ‘Her name is Andromeda.’
‘Ruler of men?’ Perseus asks, eyebrows raised. ‘Well. How auspicious.’
I laugh again.
When they wash me in my tent, I am a migrating bird, I pluck and clean my feathers in the pink of the lagoon.
When they clean the kohl from my legs and braid my hair, I am at my mother’s knees.
When they leave me alone to weep, I am in the circle of Ceto’s arms, my nose in the waves of her hair, wandering through the caverns of her eyes to find the light at her centre.
Perseus is a man of promises. He promises that he does not want a dowry, only my hand.
He promises that we will send Aethiopia one of our sons as an heir and asks only that we linger not too long here and return swiftly to his home.
My father is only too pleased to oblige.
He is scared of me. He fears the bountiful curses that match my gifts and, besides this, my eyes hold violent retribution.
We feast as though we have not lost our queen, although the poor preparations bear the evidence of her absence.
With no body to bury there is no mourning, no funeral.
In the aftermath of what was done here, those who witnessed do not speak of how their queen did not cry and plead at her end.
Nor do they tell of how she cursed the sea god for his attempt on her daughter’s life while her husband willingly surrendered his only child.
They do not recount Cassiopeia as brave and clever and loyal.
As the one who managed the kingdom, the power behind the throne, seeing to their prosperity.
No, they assure Perseus eagerly, she was a proud, arrogant woman. Your uncle was right to punish her.
‘I doubt it,’ he replies good-naturedly.
‘My uncle is an awful brute. But I’m delighted that I stole his bride.
A second victory, to be sure.’ And they hurry to agree once more.
In time, some will forget they ever had a queen at all, or some will claim she lived on, that she returned to the palace with Cepheus and later crossed the Styx peacefully.
They will deny her memory and the ferocity with which she lived and died.
Such things are ugly and not to be spoken of.
My life is as a stone rolling down a hill, hastily fomenting, picking up speed, rolling me away from the slow lingering days that I have cherished.
I am covered in a makeshift veil and wear the jewellery I wore at Phineus’ funeral.
As I walk in solitary procession, I am struck anew by the lacking, the emptiness around me.
My mother is not at my right, Achiroe is not at my left.
Neither Phineus nor Ceto is at my back. I am alone.
My father’s priest says words that I do not care to listen to and scatters us with fruit and coins for prosperity.
I flinch away from the flicking of his quick fingers, remembering how deftly they knotted me in place.
This marriage is hasty, an almost marriage, blessings and libations so as not to provoke Hera when I am taken from my father’s home by my new husband.
We will have a real wedding when we arrive in Serifos, Perseus tells me later.
I nod and that is enough for him. He turns back to his small crowd and continues his stories.
The fearful prophecy that he will kill his mother’s father.
The fisherman and his wife who took him and his mother in. His slaying of Medusa.
‘—and so I must return with the head so as not to mortally offend the king.’
The gathered nobles murmur, alight with excitement. They have never known such a hero.
‘The king requested the Gorgon head as a wedding present?’
I had expected feasting and festivities this night, but not here. Not still with my father, above ground. Not without Ceto.
‘Yes.’ Perseus nods impressively. ‘He did not think I would manage it. How he will be humbled!’ He crows it and swigs at his wine.
I turn slowly to look at him. He is older than me but young in aspect. ‘You say the king wanted to marry your mother?’
I have only been half listening and speak as if I am there, in the Coral Kingdom, far away at the bottom of the ocean. He starts. It is the first I have addressed him since the rock.
‘Yes. But I don’t like him – he has been known to be cruel to women – and so I prevented it.’ He puffs out his chest slightly. ‘Now he is to marry someone else.’
I stand. I am weary. ‘I do not think he is.’ My voice is low. He was raised by a fisherman and knows little of courts and politics. ‘Kings are much like gods. They do not like obstacles. Your mother is there. And you—’ tears slip down my face, unseen beneath my veil, ‘you are here.’
At the end, she was scared.
Perseus looks stricken. I would feel sorry for him, but I have no sorry left to feel.
I return to my tent. I undress and climb into the bed where I can smell her still.
I wish for sleep so that I can dream of her, so that I may be granted some sort of reprieve, but when I do, she evades me and I wake myself with longing.
It scrapes at the cavity in my chest, so many sharp, scratching places, Phineus scraping against my mother, my mother scraping against Ceto.
I am flayed and pruned, nothing but brittle stem.
I think, maybe it is over now. I am married, almost. I am taken, I am someone’s.
He is a man, he is the son of a princess and the King of the Gods, maybe it will stop now.
I squeeze the two hippos in my hand. I gather the pieces of stone that make up what is left of Ceto and place them all into a small pouch.
This is all I will take when I leave. Everything else is so stained with memory that I wish I could burn it, burn this tent, burn it all to the ground.
I do not sleep the rest of the night. I imagine my mother as Isis once more, now a childish dream.
She was, to me, divine, but I have never known of gods to be less than whole.
To yield. I murmur endless apologies to Ceto.
I wonder where it is she wanders, restless and unburied, her poor, tender soul anxious and alone. I fall to weeping once more.
The light pales through the canvas. I am roused by an attendant, come to tell me that Perseus bids me ready myself for departure.
He wishes to leave as soon as possible in order to hasten our return to Serifos.
It seems my words have had an effect and I hope that, for once, my actions have spared a woman from some danger or misuse.
At least he loves his mother.