Chapter 19
The eyes of Ithaca were upon us.
We were kneeling in the palace courtyard while Odysseus welcomed us into his home. Beside me, the other Spartan slaves kept their eyes set on our new master, but I met our audience’s shameless curiosity with a glare.
Odysseus stood in front of a towering oak tree as he droned on and on.
It became quickly apparent that the prince of Ithaca loved the sound of his own voice.
Strangely enough, everyone else seemed to love it too; even his slaves listened animatedly as he listed off the importance of duty and respect and loyalty. It was an effort not to roll my eyes.
All I wanted was to be left alone and sleep.
Still, Odysseus blathered on.
“I am delighted to welcome you all into my home,” he said, taking the time to make eye contact with all ten of us as he spoke. “The slaves beneath my roof are not merely workers, they are family, and I wish to welcome you as part of that family.”
When his eyes landed on mine, I felt myself hardening beneath his warmth. I did not trust it. Did not trust him. This whole benevolent master act felt too rehearsed, the sentiments hollow on his tongue. I glanced at the slaves beside me. Was anyone buying it?
“Let us now all join in saying welcome!”
A cheer rose, and the audience threw dried fruits and nuts over us, as was customary when welcoming new slaves into a household.
Once the floor was littered with offerings, we were shepherded to one side of the courtyard beside the other palace slaves.
There was a tangible tension in the air as we joined them.
I did not blame them for their hostile glances.
You would think we would have felt a sense of camaraderie, but there was always wariness when new slaves joined a household.
After all, we were only as valued as the work we offered, so if another slave encroached on that, it could threaten our place.
And a slave without use was always the first to be sold.
“Now, to welcome my bride, my wife, Ithaca’s future queen,” Odysseus announced.
The crowd dutifully parted as a figure glided forward. My jaw clenched at the sight of her, draped in a floaty yellow gown. Her short hair had been pinned back and adorned with a gold diadem, her skin flawless and glowing.
Her beauty infuriated me.
Odysseus took Penelope’s hand, praising her lavishly. I drowned out his saccharine speech. I had no stomach for it.
Penelope bowed to a man who I assumed was King Laertes, for he looked nearly identical to Odysseus, save for a few extra wrinkles and threads of gray hair. Once the king permitted her to rise, Penelope began scanning the crowd, staring at the strangers who were now her people.
Her eyes caught mine, and she did not look away, not immediately. I wondered what she made of me standing before her, bruised and battered, hair matted, clothes dirty and still stinking of our journey. Her face gave nothing away, save for a slight crease between her brows—the beginnings of a frown.
Was she repulsed by my appearance? Did I offend her royal loveliness?
I did not care. In fact, I hoped I did. I hoped I disgusted her just as her pompousness disgusted me.
I let my glare singe from my sockets, and I could practically feel Penelope stiffening beneath it. Something delicate, almost vulnerable, flickered across her face before she looked away.
I raised my chin a little higher. Good.
“To my wife!” Odysseus finished, pouring his wine onto the floor in libation to the gods.
The courtyard erupted, cheers filling the darkened sky as more dried fruit and nuts were tossed over Penelope, catching in her hair and gown.
“They throw the same rubbish on the bride as well?” I muttered.
“Of course. It is tradition for all new possessions,” an Ithacan slave whispered back.
“Penelope is not Odysseus’s possession. She’s his bride.”
The slave chuckled as if I had said something funny. “That’s the same thing, isn’t it? All wives belong to their husbands.”
I frowned. To think of Penelope as a possession, to think of her like me…
I watched her again, the idea settling uncomfortably inside me.
“I’m Hippodamia, by the way.” The slave looked a little younger than I was, a golden ray of a girl, with bronzed skin and rich honey-brown eyes. Most notable of all was her long blond hair shimmering around her shoulders. “What’s your name?”
Something about the slave unsettled me: how widely she smiled, how genuinely warm her eyes seemed.
“Melantho.”
“Nice to meet you, Melantho. Welcome to Ithaca.” She beamed, and I felt myself withdrawing, like shadows chased away by the morning sun. “You come from Sparta, don’t you? Is it true the women there are allowed to exercise like the men?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“How fascinating! Mistress Anticlea told me that Spartan women are fearsome creatures. She was Odysseus’s mother, the late queen.
I served as her handmaid. She passed recently, Hades protect her soul.
Since then, I’ve been put on kitchen duty.
I hate kitchen duty. It makes my hands stink of vegetables.
” She wiggled her fingers at me as if to prove her point.
“But now the princess is here, I’ll be serving as her handmaid. Isn’t that exciting?”
“You’ll be Penelope’s handmaid?”
She nodded. “You know her, don’t you? From Sparta? What’s she like? She looks lovely.”
I watched Penelope smile as Odysseus paraded her around the courtyard. She might have been sixteen, but she looked like a child beside him.
“She’s not,” I said.
Hippodamia seemed to deflate at that. “Oh.”
“What’s up with your face?” another Ithacan slave asked me. A small boy with mousy hair and missing teeth. “Looks like you got beat bad. Did ya? Get beat bad?”
“Shh. You can’t ask that. It’s rude,” Hippodamia scolded.
“You’re right. I did get beaten,” I told the boy. “And do you know whose fault it was?” I pointed at Penelope before turning back to Hippodamia. “You want to know what she’s like? This is what she’s like. So good luck.”
Fear crept into the girl’s pretty face, stealing away her smile.
She did not speak to me again.
***
After the welcoming ceremony, we were given a brisk tour.
The palace seemed as tired as I felt and nowhere near as large or imposing as Tyndareus’s home. Yet there was a certain character to the strange, rambling building.
The woman leading our tour introduced herself as Eurycleia, the household’s head slave.
She was a short, stout woman with a face as cold and coarsened as Ithaca’s mountains.
Her light brown hair was tied back, shot through with shocks of gray.
She looked like a woman whose dedication to her duty had scrubbed her clean of any humor or sense of joy.
I knew immediately we would not get along.
My feet grew heavier with every step as we traipsed through our new prison. Everywhere we went, I could smell the sea, its salty scent painting the air, filling each room with the gentle murmur of hushing waves. It was the only part of the palace I liked.
Once the tour was over, Eurycleia divided the ten of us into our new duties. To my relief, I was to work in the kitchens, a role that would keep me tucked far away from the world and Penelope.
“What do you do?” Eurycleia asked my father, her voice as clipped and precise as freshly sharpened shears.
“My name is Dolios. I am a gardener, have been all my life,” he replied.
“Good. We need one of those.” She nodded before turning to my brother, her expression souring as she studied his black eye. “And you?”
“Stables,” he muttered.
“We have enough stable boys.”
Melanthius stared at her. “I’ve worked the stables since I could walk. It’s all I know.”
“My brother is the best with horses. He—”
“Did I ask you?” the old witch snapped at me. She then observed our matching bruises with a click of her tongue. “Seems you two are the troublemakers then.”
Our father glanced away, shame staining his face.
“We need a goatherd,” Eurycleia continued. “If you can handle horses, you can handle goats. Yes?”
I braced, readying myself for Melanthius to argue, to fight for his place. But he simply nodded. “Fine.”
The utter defeat in his eyes frightened me.
“You.”
I stiffened under Eurycleia’s hawkish glare.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” I said.
She sniffed, then nodded. “Good. Follow me. The rest of you will be shown to the sleeping quarters.”
I glanced warily at the others. “You said I was to work in the kitchens?”
“I’m aware,” Eurycleia snipped. “But tonight, you are needed for another purpose. Can you sing?”
“No.”
She clicked her tongue again. “Well, you will have to try.”
***
Eurycleia led me to Odysseus’s private chambers.
His quarters were situated at the top of the hill, near the front of the palace, and comprised of three large interconnecting chambers with a sweeping terrace jutting out over the sea.
The rooms smelled musty, every visible surface coated in dust and strange items Odysseus must have collected on his travels, and there were more wax tablets than I could count, stacked in teetering piles.
It wasn’t like the disarray of Castor’s room, born from arrogant neglect; this mess felt purposeful in its own chaotic way.
Standing in the center of the space were a handful of other slave girls, all around my age. I recognized Hippodamia, though she avoided my gaze.
“What are we doing here?” I asked Eurycleia.
“I hope you do not speak to your masters with such a bold tongue?” she snapped, her testiness scratching at my nerves. “You are to wait here until the newlywed couple return from the celebrations.”
A cold tendril of panic slithered into my gut. “What? Why?”
Eurycleia’s bushy brows pinched into a scowl. “Do Spartans have no respect for marital traditions?”