Chapter 32
I found Penelope in the courtyard, staring up at the moon.
She said nothing as I came and sat beside her on the stone bench. My gaze traced the large oak tree towering before us, its silver-limned branches murmuring in the midnight breeze.
“Why aren’t you celebrating with the others?” Penelope asked after a time.
“I thought you could use the company…and the wine.”
I held a jug out to her, but she shook her head. I frowned, studying the sharply drawn line of her shoulders.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m afraid I’m finding the news…difficult to celebrate,” she admitted with a smile, though her eyes remained heavy.
“People seem to have forgotten that it was Patroclus’s death that drove Achilles to return to battle.
The prince of the Myrmidons didn’t slay Hector as an act of glory but one of desperation.
Because Hector took what mattered most to him. ”
I stared up at the oak tree, watching the shadows seep into its roughened bark, distorting the ancient trunk into something nightmarish and strange.
In my mind, I turned over Penelope’s words. Achilles had always seemed more myth than man to me, an unreachable ideal, like the gods themselves. I had never thought of him as a person, as someone capable of loss and pain.
“So you think the rumors are true then? That Achilles and Patroclus were lovers?”
Penelope considered the question. “From what people say, they clearly loved each other. Though I don’t presume to know in what capacity.”
My eyes drifted back to hers, drawn by that invisible tide.
“Love can come in many forms.”
We stared at each other for a moment, that familiar, unspoken thing shifting in the darkness between us. That thing I had felt growing inside me for the past nine summers, intensifying with every passing season, driving me slowly insane with its sweet torture.
Sometimes, I convinced myself Penelope could feel it too. It was almost too easy to believe that lie when she looked at me like this, her voice rich with emotion, eyes studded with stars.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said abruptly, severing the foolish thought.
Penelope laughed. “A walk? It’s the middle of the night, Melantho.”
I shrugged. “So?”
Her smile warmed her eyes, chasing away the shadows I had seen skulking there.
She rose. “A walk sounds perfect.”
***
I flung my arms out as I raced down the beach, sand spraying behind me.
The water rushed up in greeting, cold, frothy waves lapping around my calves. Behind me, I heard Penelope’s laugh dancing on the breeze.
Turning, I watched her settle down on the sand, taking a delicate sip of wine. I trudged back up the beach, collapsing beside her.
“What do you think?” I gestured around us with a grin.
Penelope nodded approvingly. “I can see why you like it here.”
Ithaca was full of beautiful, hidden coves, and this was one of my favorites, cut like a pale crescent moon into the island and hugged on all sides by thickly crowded trees. It wasn’t far from the palace, but it promised complete privacy.
“Are you going to share that?”
Penelope smirked. “Share? You drank most of it on the walk here.”
I held out my hand expectantly. “So?”
She passed me the wine jug, and I took two big mouthfuls.
“You might regret it in the morning, you know.”
“Well, it’s a good thing it’s not the morning yet, isn’t it?” The words felt thick on my tongue, stumbling over themselves. “You should learn to enjoy the moment, my queen.”
I handed the wine back to her, and instead of replying, Penelope took a long, slow drink. I grinned and wondered distantly why my cheeks felt like they were buzzing.
“What?” I asked as Penelope chuckled to herself. “What’s so funny?”
She shook her head. “I just like seeing you like this. So…”
“Drunk?”
She laughed again. “Happy. You look happy.”
“I am happy.”
Penelope’s expression softened beneath the moonlight.
“Everyone else is happy, too, I think,” I continued. “Not because of Achilles or anything. I think they’re just…happy.”
“They are.”
Lying down, I marveled at how soft the sand felt beneath me. Splaying my hands, I dug my fingers into those tiny grains, feeling the lingering warmth of the day’s sun baked within them.
“I met Actoris earlier,” Penelope said.
“What did you think of her?”
“She reminds me of you.”
I snorted. “Because she’s small and angry?”
“Because she’s brave,” Penelope corrected, “and has clearly been let down by this world.”
I closed my eyes, swallowing the sudden knot in my throat.
“I saw her laughing tonight,” I whispered. “She’s not even been here a day and already she’s laughing. Do you know what that means?”
Penelope smiled. “What?”
“It means we’ve made something here. Something good.”
Even with mine closed, I could feel Penelope’s eyes on me as she murmured, “We have.”
“I wish everything could stay just like this. Always.”
Penelope said nothing, and the realization hit me a moment too late.
“I’m sorry.” I sat up, the world spinning slightly with the motion. “That was insensitive of me. I didn’t mean I wanted the war to—”
“I understand what you meant, Melantho,” she said quietly.
“It’ll be over soon anyway, what with Hector now dead,” I hastened to add. “That’s what everyone is saying.”
Penelope gazed out across the night-soaked waves, her expression growing distant as it so often did when she was deep in thought. But there was something else lining her face tonight, something delicate and wistful.
“You must be…looking forward to it,” I prompted her. “Odysseus finally returning.”
“Sacker of Cities,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Sacker of Cities—that is what they call him now.” She smiled, though the edges seemed stiff. “It is rather a gruesome title, is it not?”
I could think of nothing to say to that, so instead I watched wordlessly as Penelope brought the wine to her lips again, taking a deep drink.
“Eumaeus asked me earlier tonight if he could court you,” she said suddenly.
I let out a surprised snort. “Eumaeus?”
Penelope turned to study me. “Why do you find that amusing?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t expect you to say that.”
“You must have noticed the way he looks at you.”
“So?”
“So would you want him to court you?”
“I don’t know,” I hedged. “I hadn’t ever given it much thought.”
“Do you…like it?” Penelope murmured, gaze falling to the wine jug in her lap.
“Like what?”
“The way he looks at you.”
“Why, are you jealous?” I laughed as I said it. I had only meant it as a joke, something to ease the tension inside me.
But Penelope did not laugh. Instead, she grew horribly quiet, her silence sucking all the air from my lungs until it felt as if I could not breathe.
“Perhaps I am,” she said.
I wondered then if I was more drunk than I realized. “You…are?”
“You cannot be surprised that I am protective of you, Melantho.”
She lifted her gaze to mine, her eyes filled with a rich swirl of emotion. In so many ways, Penelope was as familiar to me as my own self, like an extension of my body. Yet a simple look like that still raised my pulse as if she were something new and dangerous.
It was frightening, how easily she could unleash all those wild feelings inside me, feelings I had spent so many summers trying to rationalize, to force into the restrictive confines of friendship, even though I knew they would never fit.
I leaped to my feet. “I’m going for a swim.”
Penelope glanced away. “Now?”
“Why not?”
She paused, then chuckled, the sound chasing away that sudden tension.
“Try not to drown, please,” she sighed.
“I make no promises.”
I crashed into the waves fully clothed, the water so cold it made me shriek. Penelope called out something from the shore, her voice tilted with amusement, though I couldn’t hear her over the water rushing around me.
Floating on the moon-brushed waves, my body felt lighter than it ever had. Around me, it was impossible to see where the sky ended and the sea began. I smiled, breathing in the dark, those rich midnight blues, and I swore I could taste the stars themselves crackling on my tongue.
You cannot be surprised that I am protective of you.
I turned Penelope’s words over and over until they became smooth in my mind, their thrilling edges worn down into something dull and unremarkable. She was merely protective because we were friends. That was all.
That had to be all.
After a time, I made my way back to the shore. The shock of the water seemed to have sobered me slightly, the ground feeling steadier beneath my feet.
Penelope smiled as I approached, but then she lowered her eyes, and a strange look tightened across her face. I glanced down at myself, realizing that my drenched gown was now clinging to my body, the soaked material leaving shamefully little to the imagination.
A heated shyness crept over me, words stalling in my throat.
I had been naked around the handmaids countless times, whenever we swam in the sea or changed in our quarters. Nudity never felt strange in their company, but under Penelope’s gaze, it felt…different.
Her eyes dipped over me again, slower this time. The air between us was thick enough to choke on.
Penelope then shook her head as if remembering herself and rose.
“Here.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, taking her offered shawl and wrapping it tightly around my shoulders.
She turned away and stiffly sat back down. I settled beside her, shivering slightly as sand clung to my damp body.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
For a while, neither of us spoke, and I noticed Penelope was avoiding looking at me, her eyes set on the darkness ahead.
“Do you think Achilles and Patroclus were lovers?”
Her question was abrupt enough to make me laugh. “I don’t know. It certainly sounds like they were, doesn’t it?”
Penelope tilted her head upward, staring at the sky with such intensity, as if she were committing each star to memory.
“Do you think they knew if they were?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I just wonder if they were able to be honest with themselves…before it was all over. Did they ever admit their feelings, or did Patroclus die never knowing how Achilles truly felt?”
I stared at her for a long moment, trying to decipher her expression. But Penelope’s face was like a labyrinth, filled with so many twists and turns to lose myself within, never truly knowing what lay at the heart.
“I hope they did,” I finally admitted, every word placed so carefully between us. “For it would seem an awful waste otherwise, to think they had spent nine summers side by side, loving each other but never admitting it.”
“So you think they should have acted on their feelings?”
She turned to look at me then, and something in her gaze made me feel wildly unsteady yet somehow deeply rooted, as if her eyes were the sole anchor tying me to this world.
“Why are you asking me this, Penelope?”
“I suppose the news of the war has made me…reflective,” she admitted. “Made me consider things that have been playing on my mind for a while.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, and within that fragile stillness, I allowed myself to imagine it: the possibility that this same madness had been screaming inside Penelope all this time, fighting to be heard. My hope flared, so sweetly bitter in its terrible desperation.
“What things?” I pressed, daring to stoke those embers between us, willing them to catch light, to engulf her as they had me.
Her eyes flickered to my mouth, and I found myself leaning forward in anticipation of her answer. But instead, she silently reached out a hand and brushed a damp curl from my face. Her touch lingered at my jaw, torturously gentle.
“Penelope,” I breathed.
Her fingers skated along my cheek, then brushed over my mouth.
“Say that again,” she said.
“Penelope,” I whispered, and she traced the movement of my lips, feeling the shape of her name upon them. “Penelope, Penelope, Penelope.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, and I had the vague sensation I was back in the water, floating on those inky waves. Weightless among the stars.
Carefully, Penelope took my trembling hand, unfurling my fingers so she could place them on her own lips.
Her mouth was devastatingly soft as she whispered, “Melantho.”
Nothing in all my life had ever felt as intimate as this, feeling the shape of my name on Penelope’s mouth.
“Again,” I begged.
“Melantho.” It was not a name; it was an ache, a need.
We stared at each other, all those wild, unspoken feelings burning between us, threatening to set us both alight.
Without thinking, I pressed closer, my body melting into hers as I moved my hands to cup her face, my lips searching for the place where my fingers had just been. I could think of nothing but my desperation to feel her mouth on mine, to touch her and taste her and…
“I…I’m sorry,” Penelope gasped just as my mouth brushed her own.
The words were like a blow to the gut, knocking me back into reality. I blinked, frozen as she pulled away from me, guilt weighing in her eyes.
“We should not… I should not have—”
“Don’t,” I said hoarsely. I couldn’t bear to hear her excuses, to watch her try to remedy my embarrassment. “Please, just…don’t.”
Penelope’s throat bobbed, and I could have sworn I saw a flitter of regret steal across her face, but she turned away before I could be certain.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, quieter now.
It felt as if I had been falling, and my body had just hit the ground with sickening force.
What was I thinking?
What have I done?
“You were right. I’ve had too much wine. How foolish,” I said, jumping to my feet, my entire body burning with humiliation. “I should…go lie down.”
Penelope simply nodded.
She could not even bear to look at me as I fled.