Chapter Eleven
There’s a long pause.
I hear him swallow more wine, and then the abrupt sound of his seat being pushed back.
“Come,” he says abruptly. “Seeing as you are not hungry, there is no need for us to linger.”
I hesitate, then feel his hand under my arm, and push back my chair. His hands are stronger than Aletheia’s, much stronger, as he helps me to my feet. So close, the scent of him washes over me again: pine and cedar and myrrh; forests under the moonlight.
He leads me across the room, but not in the direction of my bedroom.
“Where are we going?”
“I told you I would take you to the gardens, did I not?”
There’s a rustling, silken sound.
“You may remove the blindfold now,” he says, his voice a shade more muffled than before, and I realize he’s donned his cloak again. But instead of ripping the blindfold from my eyes, I move nervously. To my surprise, the piece of silk unknots with perfect ease, dropping freely into my hand. Was I right to believe it was enchanted?
I blink around at where we are. The torches in the corridor are brighter now, and seem to flicker harder as he passes underneath them. Shadows dance along the walls. His stride is long and he makes no efforts to modify it for me.
“Tell me something,” I pant, keeping pace beside him. “The window in my bedroom. When I woke today it showed a sea— then earlier, a forest. I don’t understand.”
His hood flicks briefly toward me, but his pace doesn’t slow.
“The windows are not real windows. What you see through them is an artifice—like a mural. You can conjure other images, if you wish.”
Illusions. I suppose I should not be surprised.
I follow his fast step down the corridor; his black cape makes me feel I am chasing shadows. As he swings along one turn and then another I try to memorize the way. Are the doors in different places than they were before? I can’t tell, but it seems to me I did not come this way before. Finally we come to the end of a corridor and a great double-door. He unbolts it and swings both panels wide, and a soft twilight floods in, turning the marble walls of the corridor a glowing lilac shade. He steps out, beckoning me to follow.
I do, and my mouth drops open.
It is a garden—but the word garden seems ludicrous to describe this place. For one thing, it’s enormous. The grounds seem to roll out in a lush infinity, and if there are walls at the far end of this exquisite land, I don’t see them. I see trees, pathways, vines and flowerbeds, profusion everywhere, all under a soft evening sky streaked with pink. In the middle-distance a crystalline pond reflects the sky, waterlilies shifting gently on its surface.
“How far does it go?” I say, my eyes still on the horizon.
“Far. But you need not worry—all of it is my domain, shielded from the eyes of the gods. You may wander here at will.”
He makes it sound so exposed, as if in the mortal world, the gods are watching our every move. Can they really care that much about us? Will Aphrodite really be looking for me even now?
“Come.” He leads me along the nearest pathway, and the wonders of the garden only increase as we walk. The leaves on the trees glisten like jewels; on many of them, blossoms and ripe fruit bloom together.
“You like it?” he says. He’s watching me, I can tell. The black cloth shimmers slightly as he moves. I think I am starting to be able to decipher the language of his body, even despite the cloak—I can read the movements in his shoulders, the tilt of his head. And I can tell that he’s looking at me, and that this time, it’s not with mockery. He’s curious, perhaps, to see the effect of this place. He probably doesn’t remember what it felt like to walk these fields for the first time.
“It’s beautiful,” I admit. “I thought only the gods lived like this.”
If I had imagined Mount Olympus in my dreams, it might have looked this way. Perhaps there are plants here that bloom with the nectar of the gods; perhaps there are rivers that flow with ambrosia.
“Aletheia tends it now,” he says. “But she is growing old. Perhaps you can care for it. Would you like that?”
“Does such a garden even need tending?” It seems to me its growth must be enchanted. The plants are too perfect, nothing is amiss or decaying. In my world, it would surely take an army to maintain such a place.
He turns his head.
“I suppose it does not need it, exactly,” he admits. “But it welcomes it. Every living thing responds to every other living thing. The earth will welcome your touch, Psyche.”
I frown.
“And the birds? Does Aletheia feed them too, or are they an enchantment, like the windows?”
He turns my way; I feel his curious glance.
“Aletheia feeds them,” he says. “Though she says she does not much care for winged creatures.”
A joke, perhaps? I remember those terrible dark wings, opening above me like a bird of prey.
Then up ahead something moves in the pond ahead, disrupting the water. Something strange-looking. I almost think…
“What was that?”
“That,” he says, “will be the nymphs.”
Nymphs?
“I should think they are curious about you.”
He leads me past one of the flower-beds, then crouches down beside the plants. I think at first he’s checking them for pests, but then I realize he’s just admiring them. I watch his hands, golden-skinned and dexterous, the nimble fingers turning the leaves gently this way and that. Beautiful hands.
And yet, what is beneath the hood must be hideous.
Even so, I would prefer to see it. To know would still be better than not knowing. At least, I think it would.
He rises to his feet again.
“I do not know what to call you,” I blurt. Demon will not do: not to his face, even if it is what I call him in my private thoughts.
He half-turns; I think he is amused.
“Why, call me syzygos— husband.” He is teasing me, and I flush.
“Have you no name, then?” I say, more sharply.
He straightens beneath the dark robe.
“I have more names than you could imagine,” he says. “But I do not wish you to know me by them.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me; I feel the burn of it even from beneath the cloak. But he does not answer me. He merely moves along to another bed of plants, stoops, and examines them as he examined the ones before.
“Do you recognize these?”
His change of subject is pointed. I’d like to press the point but I’m not a fool: he has great power, and I have none. What he will not tell me, I will not wring from him by force. Maybe if I’m clever, I’ll win what I wish to know some other way.
I look where he’s crouched, next to a plant with small white buds. It is exquisite—and not at all familiar.
“We did not have such flowers in my land,” I say, with a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness.
“Well, perhaps you will recognize some of them by name.” He points: “Orphine. Bettany. Celandine.” He moves to the next furrow, indicating them one by one. “Mandrake. Artemisia. Thousand-seal. Moonflower. And here: wolfsbane, amaranth, and herb of Lethe.”
I stare.
“The garden is all witching-herbs, you mean?”
He laughs a little.
“If that is what you wish to call them.”
The names he speaks are ones that, for the most part, I’ve heard spoken only in whispers: herbs and plants with strange properties, some which I believed to be purely mythical.
He bends down to another plant, and crushes a leaf between his fingers, then holds his hand out for me to smell. I inhale cautiously. There’s the smell of him —that cool, dark forest smell—and something else.
“Rosemary?” I frown. Surely that is not magical.
“Deep magic does not come from any one root, Psyche.” It sounds like an admonishment. “The true potency is in the combinations. Very little is magical on its own.”
“So is this—is this where your powers come from?” The words escape me before I decide to speak them. But he just laughs.
“These herbs? The source of my power? You will ask me next whether it is your little mortal king that powers the sun.”
I hate when he speaks in this mocking, teasing way. For a brief moment, I had forgotten to be on my guard.
“What is it, then?” I say staunchly. “What is the source of your power?” He may call me ignorant and provincial if he wishes, what do I care?
I can feel him regarding me from beneath the cloak.
“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” He plucks the stalk of rosemary, grinds it beneath his fingers.
“Do you think you can find your way back to these gardens?” he says.
I’m reluctant to answer since he refuses to answer my questions, but I nod anyway.
“Good. Perhaps you can help Aletheia gather some herbs tomorrow. Harvest season will soon be upon us.”
And with that he has moved on, his long stride already pacing ahead of me down the path.
*
Back in the palace, our footsteps echo down the corridors. His pace has slowed, and as we walk together, something occurs to me.
“Aletheia…she wears no face covering before you. She may look upon you. Why is that?”
I hear the shrug in his voice.
“Aletheia? She is not an ordinary mortal.”
“Not a mortal?” I frown. “What is she, then?”
“She is a god-child. Her father was mortal. Her mother was not.”
A god-child. Like Heracles and Perseus, and the other great heroes of myth.
“But she is old, like a mortal.”
“There are holes in your knowledge, wife.” When he says the word wife his voice is wry, and my cheeks warm once more.
“God-children are still mortal; all of them age. Aletheia, however, is gifted with more longevity than most.”
I lift my head.
“How old is she, then?”
“She was born before your great-great-grandfather.”
That silences me for a moment. In Sikyon, the elderly are given great respect. But “elderly” does not begin to describe a person of Aletheia’s years. She must be over a hundred years old.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“And how is it that you have a god-child who keeps house for you; is this common practice among your kind?”
I feel his gaze shift; his voice travels more sharply.
“My kind ?” he says. “What kind is that?”
“Demons,” I say.
I hear the irritation he’s trying to tamp down.
“You don’t think much of us, do you?” He pauses. “But I suppose you think mortals are very fine. You should ask Aletheia what she endured among your kind.”
“ Endured? God-children are worshiped in our lands.”
Beneath the cloak, he shakes his head.
“Oh, you like to tell their stories. But if such a creature is born among you, in your own town? It upsets the order of things. Any king would fear such an imbalance of power.”
I had not thought of it that way.
“Aletheia’s mother,” he says, “was a farmer’s wife. And one day she was accosted by the god Pan. You’ve heard tell of him, I suppose?”
He’s being ironic, no doubt. Of course I know of Pan, every girl in Sikyon is taught his name. We are taught to avoid walking the mountain passes alone for fear of him.
“Well, Pan had his way with her, and then, when her husband found out, he took her to trial before the village elders. They agreed the woman was impure—they said she had sought out the god’s advances, and was to be stoned.”
The skin on my neck prickles. I would like to say such injustice belongs to the past, to my great-great-grandfather’s time and not ours. But I know better. Blame is a cursed arrow, burying its target in those who least deserve it.
“Then,” he continues, “when they realized Aletheia’s mother was with child, the village delayed its sentence. Not out of mercy, but because they feared Pan’s wrath if they destroyed his child.” His voice hardens. “So they waited until she had delivered herself of the child, and then put her to death. As for the child—Aletheia—they took her away, and kept her locked up as if she were an animal.”
“Why?” I feel sickened.
“She was a god-child. They feared that she would learn to use her powers and turn against them.” I sit with the terrible story for a while. It makes me ashamed of my own kind, of the things we are capable of.
“That’s…so horrible.”
“It is,” he says simply.
“Is that…” I hesitate. “Is that why she’s mute?”
There’s a surprised silence..
“Mute?” I hear the twist of his mouth. “Aletheia is not mute, Psyche.”
I blink. So she is simply choosing not to speak to me. She really does despise me. Perhaps it’s how she feels about all mortals. I flush, and feel his gaze pouring into me.
“You see? Your kind, Psyche, is as capable of evil as my own. Alone, you wield little power, and yet you band together to do great harm.”
It is true, I know it. And yet I know the opposite to be true, too. There is good, great good, among my kind.
When it’s not being smothered by other, darker things.
I am expecting him to bid me goodnight and disappear down one of the corridors, but it seems he intends to walk me all the way back to the great-room. The table has been cleared now of its half-eaten feast. The room is empty and quiet; only the Hearthstone seems to shimmer in the dim light. We’re halfway to my door, and still he walks with me. I slow my pace, my heart battering in my ribcage. We reach the door of my bedroom. He is still at my side, making no signs to leave. Call me husband , he mocked me earlier. Does he plan to claim his prize tonight, then, after all?
“I shall leave you here.”
I exhale so hard my knees tremble a little. I will sleep alone after all. He must see the relief flooding through me.
“I told you that I would ask nothing of you, other than obedience.” He pauses. “The latter, I’ll grant you, needs some work.” He mocks me again. “But understand, Psyche, I will take nothing from you by force. I have never entered a woman’s bed I was not invited into. I will not enter yours without your invitation.”
I’m almost as breathless now as I was before. My invitation ? Can he really think I’ll ever invite him to share my bed, of my own volition?
He laughs quietly.
“Are you so revolted? I should have thought I was rather pleasing—for a demon.”
His footsteps echo as he moves toward the door, and the wood-scent of him dwindles.
“Good night, Psyche. Rest well.”