Chapter 4
The market down by the harbor at Paphos is bustling.
The narrow streets ring with the shouts of vendors and the rattling wheels of carts over rutted roads.
A donkey brays and gulls squawk as nets glistening with fish are hauled up from the sea.
A mother shouts as her child darts away from her, enticed by the ripe fruit a seller sets out on a table, bright and tempting.
I swoop lower, my white wings spread, watching.
I notice the stall of figurines, sweet little clay women, and hover for a moment as a customer picks one up, examining her from every angle.
I linger, looking at the exaggerated, gorgeous shape of the clay—the luscious curves of breasts and stomach and the deep etching between the thighs.
A charm that promises fertility and safety in childbirth.
I’m not the goddess to guarantee such a thing.
That’s up to Hera’s daughter Eileithyia, or even Artemis—who, when she isn’t hunting down prey in the forests, attends to laboring women.
By that stage, I’ve already played my part.
Like any other god, even Zeus himself, I’d ask one of them if I want safe passage for a mortal mother.
We all have our realms; we all exercise dominion over them.
It’s why cooperation on Olympus is so crucial—making alliances and keeping score.
I notice a girl with a wistful expression leaning out of an upstairs window, and, when I follow the direction of her gaze, I see him.
Phaon making his way through the crowds, shouldering a heavy basket of fish.
No one is deterred by the sharp stink of his cargo.
Eyes follow him wherever he goes, captivated by his shining hair and his broad shoulders.
I flutter away, soaring back toward the ship, where I land on the deck. Eros stands there, a solicitous arm around the nervous-looking young woman who clasps the wooden rail and scans the busy port.
“Almost there,” he tells her, and she nods.
There’s nothing remarkable about her, not if you’re seeing her for the first time.
She’s ordinary, plain even, now that we’ve smoothed away the lines on her face and restored her hair from gray to its original darkness.
Her skin is young and soft once more, her back straight and her eyes no longer clouded, though in them I can still see the toll the years have taken: her youth sold to a stranger and her later years precarious as she lived out her widowhood in a place that never felt like home.
The ship docks, and Eros leads her ashore. His wings are concealed and I’m disguised, perching on the branch of an olive tree to watch as he shades his eyes from the sun and looks around.
Phaon emerges from the crush of the market, coming back to the boats to collect another load. I stretch my neck forwards, craning to see the moment when he recognizes her.
He’s stunned, too stunned to move for a moment.
Then a grin of pure joy spreads across his face, his eyes bright with happy tears.
A moment ago, I thought her plain, but all at once she is radiant; suffused with love, she is more beautiful than anyone else in Paphos.
Eros melts away as though he were never there.
I stay, my heart thrilling as Phaon clasps her in his arms and they kiss, all the years they’ve been apart dissolving into nothing.
—
“Well, that’s quite a story,” Demeter says.
“Isn’t it?” I sigh.
In the heavens, it seems that Phaon’s reunion with his beloved was a mere blink of an eye ago.
But, in the mortal world, that summer has given way to autumn, then winter and now the world awakens with another spring.
In Cyprus, her womb swells with life. The baby they never thought they would have is now imminent.
“They married at last,” I say, remembering the quiet simplicity of the wedding. I watched it as a dove, perched on a tree branch nearby.
“I didn’t think you approved of marriage,” she laughs.
“Ordinarily that’s true,” I agree. “But in this case, I made an exception.”
Her arm linked through mine, we take a turn around the courtyard, with its tinkling fountains, painted marble statues and clusters of chattering nymphs.
“A second chance,” she muses. “A new season in their lives; the springtime of their youth restored and the opportunity to let her choose the husband she always wanted.” She looks at me with warm approval. Admiration even.
A glow radiates in my chest. Demeter can be so serious, always concerned about the harvest, or drying rivers and the quality of seeds, or the proliferation of buzzing insects.
The ranks of mortals are ever-swelling, and it weighs on her: the responsibility of feeding them all and nourishing the earth.
I wonder sometimes if she thinks the love affairs of gods and humans to be little more than a superficial diversion.
It shouldn’t matter if she does, but I value her opinion. I’m glad she likes this story. I’m glad she understands it.
Ahead, I notice a cluster of gods at the Olympian gates, leaning over the low wall.
Zeus is at the center, pointing down toward something, while Apollo leans back against the wall, glancing disdainfully in the direction of Zeus’ finger. Athena is poised and watchful, standing rigid with her spear clasped at her side.
Demeter and I exchange a curious glance, and without a word we walk over. Apollo nods in greeting. The other gods are too preoccupied to notice us at all.
“What is it?” I ask. “What are you looking at?”
Apollo rolls his eyes, beckoning us over. “Come and see.”
I peer over the edge. A wisp of cloud drifts past. Beyond the grand majesty of the steps, far beneath us, there’s a stream of movement across the distant plains. A charge of mortals, the faint sunlight glinting off the metal tips of their spears.
“It’s just a war,” Apollo says.
“Come on,” says Zeus in jubilant tones, nudging his son’s side. “It’s set to be quite a show.”
Apollo sighs. “Nothing’s started yet—the army is moving, but the battles haven’t begun.” His whole posture radiates a haughty boredom.
“They’re setting up camp,” Athena tells him, her face impassive as she studies the scene below. “There’ll be no fighting until morning.”
I lean further over. We’re so high up, the mortals are an indistinguishable mass. They could be a stream of ants.
Demeter shakes her head. “I don’t need to see it,” she says, stepping back from the wall. “Come inside with me,” she adds, taking my arm.
Amusement sparks in Zeus’ eyes. “Is the very prospect of fighting too much for you?” he asks.
“Hardly,” I retort. It isn’t squeamishness that makes me want to avert my eyes; it’s the sympathy I feel for them not knowing whether they’ll survive the battle ahead. Zeus could never understand.
“Let’s go and drink wine,” Demeter says, the press of her hand on my arm warm and insistent, steering me away.
“A good idea.” Apollo claps his hands together. “I’ll join you. Leave these two to wait for the carnage to begin.”
Zeus laughs. “You’re right,” he says. “I’ll come back tomorrow when it’s more interesting.”
Demeter purses her lips. “I’ll hear the prayers of the mothers,” she mutters to me. “These three won’t be troubled by any of that.”
She’s kind, and besides that I know she’ll abhor the churning up of the soil, the fire and devastation that the battle inflicts on the land. Mortals die all the time and in numbers we couldn’t ever count or grieve, but it doesn’t mean we have to celebrate it.
She’d be wiser not to let the others know that it bothers her. Better not to give them anything to exploit.
“It’s just such a waste,” I reply, loud enough for the others to hear. “All those healthy young men consigned to Hades, when they could be worshipping me instead.” It’s a deliberately callous joke, and I know that Demeter will understand it’s not for her.
Apollo gives an approving chuckle. The other gods stir themselves to accompany us inside.
I look back once, as the sun slides out from behind the soft white clouds. Golden rays fall across the surge of warriors.
And then something catches my eye. In the swarm of humanity, one figure stands out, his tiny shape haloed in a faint glow. A mortal who has been touched by a god.
And, with a sickening lurch, I realize who it is.
—
Drinking with the gods is forgotten. Instead, I swiftly make my way down to where the army has stopped for the night.
The smell of smoke hangs in the air, tendrils snaking from circles of ash where small fires have burned out, but more powerful than that is the sour reek of hundreds of men gathered under the makeshift tents they’ve erected.
Tension simmers in the air: a pent-up mixture of apprehension and dark excitement.
I find him by the embers of his own fire, his face turned up to the starlit sky. I sit down opposite, letting the mist around me dissipate so that he can see my outline in the shadows.
He draws in his breath. “Are you—are you real?”
“I am. I saw you in the crowd of warriors. Are you going to tell me why I find you here of all places?” My voice is hard.
He dips his head. “We left Cyprus,” he says. “We went back home, to the village where we grew up. And then we heard.”
“Heard what?”
“That war was coming.”
“Then you should have fled,” I tell him. “Come back to Cyprus, where I can grant you sanctuary. I didn’t restore your youth so that you could waste it on battle. I gave it to you so that you would find love. I gave you the woman you always wanted, and years to spend with her. A new lifetime.”
He hesitates. “But I knew that I could help, with the strength you granted me. And, when it’s over, when we’ve won, I can go home to her a hero.”
“If you survive.”
“I’ve been blessed by Aphrodite,” he ventures. “With your favor—”
“I can’t protect you in war,” I tell him flatly. “I didn’t give her back to you so that you could leave her.”
“After this, I never will.”