Chapter 19
Serifos
For as long as there have been stories, there have been margins.
These are neat, precise belts of non-space, designed in the negative.
They are to be ignored, to be left blank.
They do not not exist, they exist to be non-existent.
Those who dwell within bodies of main text rarely spare a glance for the gaps at the edges, for what interest can be held in the space of lacking?
If there is any at all, it is ugly and taboo and wanting.
But as is the case with all things, there will come a time when margins become popular, fashionable, erudite even.
Those who swore only dearth and emptiness will now swear that such marginalia had always delighted them, they knew it had been there all along.
There, though, there was main body. The familiar text, straight lines and consistency.
There was what was expected; formality and ritual.
The bride, the young princess, prepared.
Expected, consistent, uniform, natural. She had no family there and so she was guided by the mother of her betrothed, whose name was Danae.
Danae had very small, delicate hands and feet and, even at her age, bore a cherubic roundness that lent itself to an enduring goodness.
Knowing what it was to be forced, Danae was gentle with the princess and did not urge when she quietly declined to make her own sacrifices.
This was unusual but not unheard of. Most brides relished the opportunity to thank Artemis for her protection or Hera for the gift of marriage, but some were squeamish and did not have the stomach for the hot, spurting blood of the doe, whose rounded eyes always locked on to those of the one who drew the knife.
The princess did not seem made for such things.
She was quiet, passive. Her looks spilled over themselves, every feature full and bursting, and yet there was a feather lightness that dimmed the intensity.
The mother of the prince might have called it melancholy.
But when she asked her son about it, he insisted that she was just modest.
On the second day, the princess bathed. Here the water did not run warm from sacred springs as it did in the princess’s homeland.
It was heated over a fire, never becoming truly hot, and was scented with lavender and laurel, not violet and blue lily.
She was obliging, though. Even when the clay salts, harsher than her native natron, scratched at her skin.
Even when the attendants, foreign to the dense cloud of her hair, tugged and pulled at it in bemusement, until she gently bade them stop.
She tended to it herself while they watched and learned.
They were surprised. A princess doing her own hair was unusual but then this princess was unusual.
Most new brides came crying to their weddings, clinging with bitten nails to the security of their households.
Or they came screaming, cursing, spitting at their husbands, who would laugh and call them spirited.
Or, more rarely still, if the match was a good one or the man was particularly fine, they would come skipping and giggling, eyes shining.
They rarely came like this, walking as if sleeping.
They were impressed by her command of their language; she spoke so rarely that initially they had assumed her solemnity was because she did not understand what was being said.
Then they learned that she was kin of a distant river god and nodded sagely.
They took her silences for divine pondering and attributed everything unexplainable to her naiad blood, watching her with fascination as the tepid water slid over her, osculant against her skin. She closed her eyes.
The princess was dressed in her new clothes.
She was given an opulent necklace and crown made of gold, for the Prince Perseus was the ward of the new king, Dictys.
When the princess had been brought to Serifos, she had watched through vaguely unseeing eyes as the Prince Perseus had murdered the old king, Polydectes.
He had been a vile and lecherous man and had attempted many times to molest Perseus’ mother.
Dictys was the brother of the dead king, a fisherman who had rescued Danae and Perseus when they first came upon those shores.
The bards liked to tell this story too. Perseus, undeterred by the infancy of his past simulacra, would leap to his feet once more and mime along, much to the indulgent delight of the king and his mother.
The King Acrisius of Argos longed for a son, but – alas – his wife had only given him a girl.
Such was his disappointment that he went to seek the counsel of the oracle at Delphi.
The oracle’s pronouncement was terrible and damning.
King Acrisius would never have a son, but his daughter would, and that son would grow up to one day murder his grandfather.
Here, the Prince Perseus would crow cheerfully seemingly unperturbed by how closely his name was twined with violence.
And so the king locked up his daughter in a bronze tower and swore that she would remain a virgin forever. He did not anticipate the mighty Zeus who, out of desire for Acrisius’ sweet daughter, turned to liquid gold and showered her in his lust.
Danae’s face flickered but her smile held, and the princess looked away once more.
King Acrisius, fearful of his daughter’s belly, swelling with divinity, acted like a desperate man.
What could he do? He could not kill them and provoke the wrath of the gods, who do not look kindly upon kin slayers.
But he could not keep them near and risk his own slaughter.
And so he locked Danae and Perseus into a wooden chest and cast them out to sea. Poseidon—
the princess flinched as though she had been struck—
at the behest of Zeus, calmed the seas, and the chest floated along safely, washing—
and the court crowed along with the bard’s next phrase, eager that they too should be part of this great story—
upon the shores of Serifos! They were taken in by a humble fisherman, Dictys—
the king stood and bowed deeply—
who, it was said, was quite the noblest of men.
As well as the jewellery, King Dictys also gifted the princess with a chiton the colour of red poppies to ward off evil, and a veil dyed with saffron to aid fertility and stymie any illness that might occur with her menstruation.
The princess found these customs funny and, when the symbolism was explained, laughed until tears filled her eyes.
She was forgiven, of course. She could not be blamed.
She was foreign and a naiad and nearly a decade too old to be unmarried; her hysteria was to be expected and would soon be righted when her womb was weighted with Zeus’ descendants.
They went to dine and feast. The men and women sat at separate tables, as was the custom in these parts.
Danae sat beside the princess and was patient with her one-word answers.
The new queen, Dictys’ wife Clymene, was a brusque sort of woman.
She saw all emotion that couldn’t be directly understood and articulated as affectation and dismissed the princess as soft and spoiled.
Such a thing befitted a princess who had always been a princess, she supposed, but still.
The girl could eat, couldn’t she? Was their food so very beneath her?
‘I am sure our bread and meat is not half so well flavoured and tender as the famed dishes of Aethiopia, princess,’ she said, trying and failing to keep the sharpness out of her tone. ‘But I am sure a few pomegranate seeds would not be so offensive.’
The princess slowly met her eyes. She looked almost surprised to find herself there, so dressed and surrounded. Danae took pity on her.
‘Here, princess,’ she pushed a plate of cheese and finely sliced figs towards her, ‘you should eat. There is still much to be done today.’
The princess wordlessly nibbled as instructed. Her throat worked as though she could not swallow. When she choked and tears sprang to her eyes, Clymene sighed impatiently, smacked her on the back to dislodge the disagreeable fruit, and did not ask again.
Later, the prince and princess were led in a long procession to the room and bed that they would share while at Serifos.
The court sang and danced ahead of them, revellers delighting in the good fortune of their champion to have such a beautiful and royal bride.
That she did not say much was all the better.
The princess looked upon them all fearfully, worried that they had come to watch her.
But when the doors closed and she was alone with her new husband, she thought that an audience would have been preferable.
She was used to being watched. She was not used to being alone with a man.
Perseus, for his part, seemed utterly unconcerned as he shucked off his ceremonial robes.
He stood before her, tall and proud, the light almond of his skin shining.
His hair was darkly curling gold, so gold that his crown was lost in it.
They looked well suited, she could see, but she was not reassured.
The length of his member sent a spasm of terror through her.
It would not fit, it would gut her inside out.
He beckoned her to him and when she continued to hesitate, he smiled with genuine warmth.
‘Come on. Let’s have a look at you.’
She obliged and he unfastened her chiton with such ease that she immediately knew this was not his first time being with a woman.
She did not know if this was a good or bad thing.
She had never been naked in front of a man before.
No, that wasn’t true, she had, but never like this, alone and unprotected.
She had not seen anything in the last few days to suggest that he was the kind of man that would do her harm.
He had not forced himself on her during the journey as they were unwed and he would not, he explained, compromise the woman who was to be his queen and the mother of his sons.
He took her in, initially in great sweeping stares.
Then he focused more, precise, bade her turn this way and that, reached out a proprietary hand and traced the shape of her hip, lifted the weight of her breast and ran a thumb over the nipple.
She flinched. His touch was gentle but it chafed, moved against her grains; he did not know the directions in which she grew.
‘Aphrodite has blessed you indeed. She will be pleased to call you sister.’ The queen stared at him wordlessly. He knew the goddess differently, or perhaps he did not know her at all.
‘If I hurt you, it is not on purpose.’
He kissed her then. He was so big. He was made from giants and though she was generously formed, everything about him dwarfed her.
His mouth encircled hers, his tongue was thick and claiming.
Again, he was gentle, but he was big, too big.
He sought to cover her breasts with one hand, her buttocks with the other, tried to compress her and succeeded.
She shrank to limp stillness. He guided her hand down to where he, erect, brushed his stomach.
He formed her hand into the precise shape he wanted, tightened it to the right grip and wrapped it around himself.
Her old lessons returned to her and she became compliant, never asserting but moving where instructed.
He led her to the bed and his mouth began to work at her chest, suckling at her like a newborn baby.
The princess wondered if that was the last time he had felt close to a woman.
He stood, beckoning her once more, stroking himself when her breasts swung.
His hands were soft but firm on her hips, and he flipped her, so that she was on all fours, faced away from him.
‘Stay like this, please.’ He paused and then, ‘It will hurt but I will be careful.’
He spat and she jumped as the wetness hit her sex, but she remembered things she had heard in a previous life and knew this was a mercy.
When he pushed at her entrance and she felt the first sharp friction, she wished he would spit again but she said nothing.
Perhaps she believed that she deserved the pain.
When he pushed again, she felt a tear, something falling away and out of reach.
When he drew back, he did it slowly and she muffled her cry in the bed.
He was, indeed, careful. But it was not enough.