Chapter 30 Claret #2
This must be what Tantalos felt like. I’m sitting on a long bench, in front of a table piled so high with food and drinks that I can hear the wood grain groan, straining under this weight …
yet all I see or smell is ash. A row of skeletons, naked teeth clucking, bare knuckles clutching spoons and knives, devouring ashes.
Black, billowing smoke rises from some platters, bringing to mind the shadow furies, as they call them.
Yet people willingly partake, even Helene, filling their plates with this tenebrous terror.
‘Aren’t you hungry, sister?’ she scolds me from across the table.
My mind flashes to my last meal: that stew the Moirai stirred for us, on the beach that stretched forever.
It can’t have been more than a week ago – yet like that beach, time has unspooled, its past threads drifting further from me despite all my efforts to keep up. By all accounts, I should be ravenous.
By all accounts, I should be dead.
And what’s the old adage about consuming food in Hades’ kingdom?
Maybe the rules are not that different here.
Maybe that’s how Shepherd binds them all to her, keeping them in a state of in-between.
Maybe I’ll also turn skeletal if I eat this.
Yet what is there to fight for, now that both my escape and Anassa have been taken from me?
I allow Helene to serve me, thank her, and dip my hand into my plate, scooping the smallest bite.
‘It helps if you don’t look at it so closely,’ she whispers, reminding me once more that she sees more than I give her credit for. That if she can do this, so can I.
I nod. Closing my eyes, I bring the ashy slop into my mouth. It tastes as foul as I expected; like licking the insides of a bowl of offerings, when all the flesh has burned to high heavens leaving only char behind. I force myself to swallow.
When I open my eyes, the skeletons wear once more their mirage of flesh; the ash dons the mirage of food. Yet the taste of death still lingers, and with it lingers my distrust.
I’m trying to find the strength to take another bite when a blond man approaches.
Tall – and built like the cyclopean walls of my old palace.
What is it with these blond, blue-eyed giants everywhere?
Does Shepherd force them all to dye their manes, to wash away the earthy browns of their eyes?
Does she stretch them in Procrustes’ bed?
This isn’t how the humans in my world looked, of that I’m certain.
The fair-haired oaf sits on the table with such wild abandon, my plate rattles. ‘I hear you’re our new arrival. I’ve come to introduce myself. I’m Hercules; you may have heard of me.’ One hairy calf lands on the bench, close enough to nudge my thigh.
It would be so easy, in that moment, to slice my knife across it; sever tendon or bone. But my sister sees me from across the table. My murderous intent must have been obvious in my movements, because she gives the smallest shake of her head. No slicing. Fine.
‘Hercules …’ I say, dragging out the word, familiar and yet foreign.
Everyone back home knew of Herakles, son of Zeus and Alkmene, famed for his brutish strength and cunning mind.
A wild boar, they called him. A lion dressed in man’s skin.
Agamemnon salivated at the thought of being as renowned as him one day.
Yet this imperious idiot courting me now rather resembles a rhinoceros; bulky but meek, too preoccupied with mud baths to attack first.
‘No,’ I conclude. ‘I haven’t heard of you.’
This cuts him deeper than my knife could ever manage.
Aconite eyes narrow, blond eyebrows knit closer.
He tightens his fist, presumably to woo me with his bulging muscles.
I’ve met wet rugs that held my interest for longer.
Bored by this display of manliness, I allow my eyes to wander – until I catch a mask of gold, its silent stare accusing me.
The Agamemnon-wraith unspools from the wall behind the table, shadows unfurling, crackling with menace.
The wheezing sound is back, too, but very few people seem to notice, to react.
Strangely, my blond companion does, his eyes going from me to the wall. ‘That’s new,’ he chuckles, grabbing a bone from a platter, supposedly wrapped in meat and fat. He chews loudly, mouth open, considering. ‘This shadow fury yours?’
Mine in the truest sense there is, I suppose. Mine in murderer’s brand. Mine in retribution. ‘What makes you ask that?’ I ask, trying not to look at his mouth.
Hercules shakes his impressive shoulders. ‘Just that I’ve noticed these tend to appear near people with whom they have a connection. From before. Most people don’t acknowledge them until it’s too late. Until they croak, choked by shadows – or saved by Seshat.’
‘But you do. Acknowledge them.’ Maybe he’s not as oafish as he looks.
‘Hey, don’t you know? I’m Zeus’ son. My eyes work better. See clearer.’ He gives me such a piercing look I bet he thinks my dress will fall off of its own accord. Between him and the wraith, I’ve had too many eyes on me for my liking, whether divinely descended or not.
I look with longing past this crowded, noisy hall, towards the hallway that leads back to my bedroom.
Helene seems preoccupied with chewing something I don’t want to look at too closely either.
Perhaps I could excuse myself, retire. And if this brute considers it an invitation …
Well, then. He will have forced my knife.
The wraith might even help me. For all his frolicking about, leaving me behind, jealousy was a frequent guest in Agamemnon’s heart – many good men put to the sword for the crime of looking at me too long, in the wrong way.
Perhaps the fragment that is left in him could be of use.
The thought makes me smile as I get up from the bench.
Then – a shimmer in the hallway, like ripples in water. It vanishes again, making me question whether I’ve imagined it, whether my mind is so desperate for news from Anassa that even the prospect of her drowning errant girl fills me with longing.
I get up and approach the shimmer slowly, knowing that if I run, or make a ruckus, the whole dining hall will notice. As it is, only Helene follows me – thankfully without Hercules or the wraith in tow. ‘Sister, what happened?’ she asks once we’ve turned the corner.
But her question is quenched, faster than I could answer it.
Because Ophelia shimmers back into sight, wet and resplendent, like a goddess of retrieval, a helpful river that distributes wealth across its bank.
And this time, she’s brought me something far more precious than a flower.