Chapter 6 #2
Pandora ties the herbs in bundles, hanging them from hooks in the ceiling so that their peppery scent infuses the air.
I sit on her table, listening to the rustle of leaves and the melody she hums, and let my gaze fall upon the rest of the room.
A trio of jars is lined neatly against one mud-baked wall, and her eyes keep wandering to the tallest of the three over and over again.
I can see why. It stands apart from everything else in here—the three-legged stool, the wooden table, the other jars are all likely the work of Epimetheus, solid and simple.
This jar, though, bears the unmistakable stamp of Hephaestus.
I recognize the elegance and the subtle intricacy—the narrow foot rounding out to a sweeping curve, a raised pattern looping in relief at the base of the neck, the graceful pair of scrolled handles.
Painted friezes wind around it, alternating ornamental motifs with scenes of animals and people: galloping horses, women gathering water, men bearing shields and spears, children picking fruit, hunters with their dogs running before them, prowling wolves and herds of cattle.
I imagine the Blacksmith God observing all of human life so that he can re-create it in such faithful detail.
It gives me a sense of foreboding, this jar. Another gift of the gods in this simple home. Pandora unhooks a shutter, letting the sunlight stream in, and I hop up to the sill, stretching my wings to soar away from the house.
Beneath me, the hamlet where Pandora and Epimetheus live shrinks away, and I tilt my head to hear the whispers of yearning hearts, the stifled longings and fervent prayers for glorious Aphrodite to reward them with the object of their desires.
As I fly above a house where a newlywed farmer’s wife is brining cheese, she feels suddenly restless, impatient for her husband to hurry home.
Out on the field where he’s harnessing an ox to his plow, he pauses beneath the beat of my wings and glances over to the house, seized in an instant with the same urgency for her.
Under my path, the winding river is shaded by trees, and the surrounds are noisy with boys running and wrestling and hurling blunt wooden spears.
Where my shadow falls over the dappled sunlight, a young man tackles his opponent to the ground and for a second their faces are close, one above the other, a smile shared between just those two, a promise burning in the air of what will happen later when everyone is gone and there’s a chance to steal into the woods alone together.
I fly on, luxuriating in the rising chorus of love in my wake, before I turn my face up toward my home in the heavens, leaving the mortal world behind.
—
“You visited her?”
Zeus calls out from his lazy position by the fountain in the grand courtyard. He looks extremely satisfied with himself, and I notice a leaf stuck in his hair. No doubt he’s been tumbling in the forests again, hidden under the green canopy from his wife’s view. “Sit,” he tells me.
I take a seat on the bench at his side. The fine mist from the water has settled in tiny droplets on his shoulders and his beard. I feel it on my skin like a gentle caress. “Pandora?” I ask. “Yes, I went to see her.”
“And?” he grins. “What did you think?”
I look at him more closely. The twinkle in his eye, the gleeful smirk. It tells me I was right to be suspicious. “What is it?” I ask. “What trap have you set?”
He shrugs, all innocence. “Whatever do you mean?”
I roll my eyes. “Well,” I say, “Pandora. She’s not just a gift for loyal Epimetheus, is she?”
“No,” Zeus agrees. “She isn’t.”
A cool breeze whispers across my arms, raising goosebumps in its wake. “Tell me, then,” I say. “What have you done?”
I’m thankful, not for the first time, that Zeus loves to boast about his misdeeds. The day he learns discretion, he’ll be far more dangerous.
“You were the one to give her desire,” he says. “We made her beautiful and you gave her appetite. Of all the women in the world, she’s the most like you. Can you guess what she’ll do?”
I think back to Pandora humming in her kitchen. “You set a trap,” I say slowly.
Pleasure warms his cheeks. He looks affable, amused.
“The jar,” I say. “I recognized Hephaestus’ work. What’s it doing in their kitchen?”
“It’s full of everything Epimetheus wants to protect humanity from,” he says. “War, disease, starvation.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “How could that even be possible?”
“Oh, it isn’t, really.” He laughs, pleased with himself. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the story will get out. Epimetheus had a foolish wife and she cursed humanity the day she did what she was forbidden to do—opened the jar that Epimetheus was safeguarding.”
I remember the pull she felt toward it, the yearning in her chest that urged her on. “Disease and war and starvation already exist,” I point out, “and kill mortals every day.”
He waves my objection away. “Ah, but once the story is out there, they’ll have a reason for them. And, more importantly, someone to blame.”
“But it’s not her fault,” I protest. “Everyone will think an innocent woman is the cause of all their suffering. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Not just an innocent woman. A wife,” Hera interjects in tones of pure venom as she sweeps past us.
I start, not having noticed she was in the courtyard at all.
She pauses, throwing a disdainful look at the leaf caught above Zeus’ ear.
“Another reason for mortal men to mistreat their wives, as if I don’t hear enough miserable prayers as it is. ”
Of all the women in the world, she’s the most like you. Of course, Zeus didn’t pick some mortal king for this plan of his. He would never choose a human imitation of himself to take the fall.
It’s a woman who will pay the price.
Hera gives him a withering glare before she stalks away.
“What’s actually in the jar?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Nothing.”
This trap he’s set for Pandora is no more than spite. A way to punish humanity for what Prometheus did. Yet another mortal sacrificed to his ego.
“Well,” says Zeus, standing up, “I’ll see you at the feast tonight. I summoned Ares to join us. Are you still angry with him over that fisherman of yours?”
“Why would it matter?” I say. “You don’t think he’ll show up, do you? Ares never comes to our feasts.”
“He holds out as long as he can,” Zeus acknowledges. “But eventually he has to give in. He’ll be here.” His eyes sparkle with enjoyment as he waits for my reaction.
His smugness will be punctured when Ares inevitably fails to materialize. I don’t give it another thought. “You don’t need to worry,” I say. “I won’t start an argument in the throne room.”
He laughs. “Don’t hold back on my account,” he says. “It might liven things up.”
—
At the feast, I sit down next to Hephaestus, Iris leaning over us at the long, polished table to pour more golden nectar into our cups.
“This goblet is lovely,” I say. “Your work?”
Hephaestus ducks his head in acknowledgment.
It’s wrought in silver with a delicate stem and curved handles, an intricate carving around the rim of long-necked cranes taking flight.
Their narrow legs are bent underneath them, wide wings outspread and water rippling below, so real it looks as though it’s in motion, flowing in relief across the metal surface.
“I learn from everything I make,” he says, tracing a finger over the outline of one of the birds.
“For this, it was the feathers—how to make them look soft and distinct, not perfect and uniform. I wanted every one of them to have its own tiny irregularity.” He smiles. “Next time, I’ll do better.”
I’m about to tell him it’s magnificent when the door swings open, ricocheting against the wall. I look up, startled by the rude intrusion of noise, and there is Ares framed in the archway.
Like Athena, he’s armored, but her armor is sleek and crafted around her body so that she resembles a silver stream, fluid and flawless.
He wears a tunic of dark leather, its rough and battered edges visible beneath the bronze plates fastened at his shoulders and around his torso, their livid glow flickering in the firelight.
His helmet is off and his hair is thick, dark and tousled.
His mouth a grim, unsmiling line, just like on the battlefield.
My heart beats a little faster in my chest. Why is he here? At once, I’m fiercely alert, poised for confrontation.
Charis, seated on my other side, reaches for Hephaestus’ cup and strokes a fingertip across the outline of the birds. “It’s so lifelike,” she says, smiling across at him.
She barely seems to notice Ares, who ignores the ripple of surprise at his entrance and takes a chair at the end of our table, sitting without a word of greeting to anyone.
Zeus smiles, a satisfied gleam in his eyes.
My thoughts are racing. Is it simply as Zeus claimed, and Ares has given in to his summons purely because so long has passed since he last showed up here?
Or is it prompted by his victory over me on the battlefield?
I told Zeus I wouldn’t cause a scene, but now I wonder if I should challenge him.
Bring up Phaon in front of all the other gods?
Or would that just mean reliving my humiliation at his hands?
My fists clench underneath the table, but I hold still.
I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking that I notice his presence.
Courses are served, wine is poured, and the chatter flows. Only Ares stays silent. At last, Zeus drains his cup, leans back and addresses him.
“Next time,” he says, “tell us in advance which cities you’ll be attacking.”
Ares looks up, entirely disinterested. “Did I forget to mention it at the last council?”
“You didn’t come to the last council,” says Zeus. “If I’d known, I would have intervened.”
Ares doesn’t deign to answer.
Up and down the table, gods exchange glances. Demeter leans toward me. “His army burned Dodona to ashes,” she whispers conspiratorially.
That’s one of Zeus’ favorite cities. So maybe he’s the one who wants a fight this evening, after all.
“The point of our councils,” he goes on, sounding deceptively benign, “is so that everyone knows what’s happening in each of our realms.”
“War can be unpredictable.” Ares shrugs.
Athena’s brow furrows, and I think she’s about to contradict him when, to my surprise, Hephaestus interjects.
“But surely you should be able to predict it?” he asks.
Surprise flashes across Ares’ face.
“You could order your followers to stop,” Hephaestus ventures. “You can choose which cities burn…or which mortals die.” At this, his eyes flicker to me. The tips of his ears are reddening.
“Which mortals die?” Ares scoffs. From the withering sweep of his gaze, it’s clear that he knows his brother is speaking on my behalf.
Hephaestus shrinks back in the scorching heat of Ares’ contempt.
“You know nothing about war,” Ares goes on, every word distinct and audible in the busy hall. “Don’t make a fool of yourself for Aphrodite.” He stands up, the legs of his chair dragging on the marble tiles with a painful screech, and strides toward the bronze doors.
“Ares,” Zeus calls out, a warning rumble in his voice, but the door slams, and Ares is gone. Zeus turns his displeasure on Hephaestus. “No wonder he talks to you like that when you say nothing back.”
The other gods at the table watch, curious. There’s a stinging truth in his assessment that none of them would ever deny.
Hephaestus won’t retaliate, despite his powerful bulk. Instead, he stares down at the table.
“Ares storms out of every dinner he attends,” I say lightly. “It’s hardly as if we’ll miss his sparkling company, is it?”
There’s a ripple of laughter, and the tension is diffused, Ares quickly forgotten.
I only wish I could banish the image of his face, dismissive and arrogant, from my mind.