Snakehead (25 page)

Andromeda knew there must be something more. She was colored mist, and so were the Olympians. They were
as real as she, but there was something more, far greater, behind the veils. She and Perseus hadn’t struggled, and suffered, just to heal a quarrel between outsized human beings.

“Will there be cities that
aren’t
built on hills? In valleys and on the shore, the way Papa Dicty says they should be? Will the people ever be fearless?”

“Sometimes,” said the Goddess of Wisdom, and her dazzling, sorrowful smile filled Andromeda’s eyes, blinding her sight. Olympus vanished.

The sea was calm, the waves just washing over the rock of sacrifice. She slipped down from Pegasus’s back and stood ankle deep in seawater to take off the bridle of purple yarn. He blew warmly on her shoulder. She kissed him. He sprang away, and swiftly disappeared into the bright distance.

Perseus was there, waves breaking over his sandals.

“You freed the Medusa?” said Andromeda.

“Yes.” He touched the
kibisis
, which was strung on his belt. “She’s here…. I thought rescuing you was
my
plan. I was going to turn the sea monster to stone, so that you wouldn’t have to die. But it was that fantastic horse. He was born from her, when I struck off her head.
That
was how they meant me to save you. Is the horse yours?”

“He’s called Pegasus. He belongs to himself. But the springs are opened.”

“What springs? What does that mean?” said Perseus.

“I think I know,” said Andromeda. “Only I thought I was dying for justice.”

The churning waves had been contained as if in a large bowl; they hadn’t reached the quayside. The priests of Melqart, having seen the Lord of Earthquake calmed, were hurrying to reclaim the sacrifice. The sacred barge was already on its way out. Perseus and Andromeda shared a look that said
talk about it later
.

The procession returned to the city: Andromeda in the midst of it, still dressed in gold; the priests trying hard to make out that the triumph was theirs. There was a lot of blowing of long horns, and perfuming of Andromeda with incense smoke. She ignored the priests, but she didn’t ignore the people. She gave them her hands, her smiles; she stopped and talked. Everyone seemed to know where we were going; I just went along with the crowd. Finally, we reached a temple precinct, high up in the massive, many-storyed labyrinth of Haifa. “This is the temple of Baal-Melqart,” said Andromeda. “I have something to do here.”

Baal
means “lord,” as I found out later.
Melqart
I can’t translate.

Someone must have sent a runner to the palace while we were on our progress through the streets. Andromeda’s mother was already there, in a great stone court surrounded by huge, strange buildings. She came through the ranks of priestly servants, in her gold and purple. She’d repaired her makeup, but she was still looking
shattered. She held out her hands, almost hesitant. “My daughter?”

The princess and her mother embraced. It was a stately embrace, not a hug. I had the feeling that Cassiopeia, the great queen, did not know
how
to hug. If she’d ever known, she’d taught herself it was a weakness she couldn’t afford. Then Andromeda knelt, kissed her mother’s hands, stood up again and assailed the priests, who were hovering around the royal pair in large numbers.

“You didn’t have to chain me,” she said, in Greek, to the big fat one in the most elaborate robes and the tallest of the gold cone hats. She spoke as if she knew the brute personally, and I suppose she did. “I was willing.”

She strode up the court until she stood in front of a brazier that burned at the feet of a gigantic statue of the God. She stripped off the gold dress, ripping through the soft wires, so that it fell with a chiming of metal on stone. She raised her arms above her head, holding up the bridle she’d made for Pegasus. She spoke in a language I didn’t know, and dropped the purple yarn onto the holy fire. Flame leapt up and flowed around her, without touching a hair of her head.

We don’t sacrifice to the Great Mother, aside from the occasional basket of fruit. But apparently, when this leaping flame happens, it means the God is satisfied.

“Now I am free,” said Andromeda, standing there in her shipwreck rags.

She glanced from side to side, looking like a real, snotty
highborn princess for the first and only time in our aquaintance. “Someone bring me some clothes!”

Someone brought her a gold-bordered mantle, in a hurry.

Then Cassiopeia said her own prayers of thanksgiving, and burned incense while Andromeda and I stood by. There was cheering and singing going on outdoors. I thought we should get out there and have flowers thrown at us, be sprayed with wine,
celebrate
. But we were not yet out of trouble. The priests had been organizing something. A group of them had scurried off into the inner courts as soon as we reached the temple. Suddenly they reappeared, with a gaggle of old women swathed in white, their heads tied up in bindings brow to chin, as if they were corpses. The big fat priest prostrated himself before the queen, which gave his cohorts a chance to form up and block our exit. He heaved himself upright, looking pleased with himself, and began to make a solemn speech, with holy gestures.

“Speak Greek,” snapped Cassiopeia.

“The noble princess Andromeda may not leave our precincts, Great Queen. She is dedicated to Baal-Melqart, who has spared her to spend her life in his service.”

That was a bad moment. Andromeda looked stunned, completely taken aback. I thought they could do it. The priests could keep her here; it was sacred law. And I was helpless. I couldn’t fight our way out. It would be sacrilege.

For a moment the queen felt the same. I literally saw the blood drain from her face, leaving the dark skin gray. Then a light dawned in her beautiful eyes. She smiled, most graciously. “I’m afraid that’s an honor Andromeda is not free to accept.” And she turned to
me
, to my amazement.

“My daughter is betrothed to Perseus, son of Zeus.”

“I
am?”
said Andromeda. “When did that happen?”

“Earlier,” said the queen firmly. “You are promised in marriage to the hero who tamed the earthquake. This is the will of the Gods, and you may not refuse.”

“I’m sorry.” I’d forgotten all about it, but now I remembered, and I was scared. “Andromeda, I can explain, I was in a hurry, I had to, to, you see …”

“Of course, noble Perseus, I accept. A princess has no choice in whom she marries. I shall gladly obey my royal mother.”

The priests saw that they were defeated. I was blushing hard, and Andromeda’s black eyes were gleaming with pure wickedness.

There was a big to-do out in the precinct. Kephus rushed into the sanctuary, hustling along with him a younger man, who was also wearing fancy-dress armor. A bunch of shiny soldiers clattered after them and clashed their swords in salute.

“Andromeda!” cried Kephus, spreading his arms wide. “Thank the God you’re safe! This is wonderful news! We had not dared to hope!”

“It is sometimes the way of the Mighty Ones,” intoned the chief priest. “The willingness is all. Sincere submission to the will of the God, as it is revealed to his priests, is sometimes all that is required. Submission, and of course a very substantial offering, which is yet to be negotiated …”

Cassiopeia gave him a dirty look.

“Yes, yes,” broke in Kephus. “Now, Andromeda, you remember Phineus, don’t you? Your fiancé? Before this thing with the earthquake God blew up?”

“I remember Phineus,” said the princess, with a brief glance at the warrior. “I remember you favored him, Daddy. It didn’t get further than that….”

“Kephus …” The queen tried to shut him up. “This is
not
the moment.”

The king turned on her. “This
is
the moment! Your Majesty, with the greatest respect, right now your daughter’s a rejected sacrifice. She can’t remain unmarried after what’s happened. If you let them, the priests will have her locked in a convent before sundown. We have to take this very good opportunity….”

Phineus, in his flashy armor, was looking ridiculously hopeful. Cassiopeia was looking daggers. Andromeda was plain exasperated. There was a mad rumor, afterward, that said I came to blows with Andromeda’s so-called fiancé. Or else I turned the Medusa Head on him and his pals, and reduced them to garden ornaments. All nonsense.

All I did was stand there. I
may
have set one of my hands on the sheathed
harpe
. They didn’t know about the Medusa, but they all knew (or they thought they knew) that I had the power to still an earthquake.

“Father-in-law,” I said politely. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

We had to let them marry us before we could get away from Haifa. Cassiopeia wanted a huge wedding, but we wanted to make it fast. We compromised. The palace secured us a westward passage on one of the last ships of the season, and we did the full royal wedding, shorter version. The best part was when we rode around the city in a chariot, dispensing coin to the populace. We enjoyed that, especially because, as was the custom, this largesse came out of the priestly coffers. The rest was endless tedious ceremonies: hours of standing around weighed down by gold-crusted robes, and choked by incense.

After the wedding itself we were escorted to our nuptial chamber by about fifty ladies and gentlemen of the court. They stayed the whole night. Everything’s public, for Phoenician royalty. In a way it was a kindly custom. It was supposed to let two people who’d never met before get aquainted, before the bride was taken away to a country she’d never seen, to live among strangers. We all sat up and talked.

* * *

The next morning we stood on the deck of our westbound ship while the rowers pulled out of the harbor. Andromeda stared and stared as the city diminished, her dark face set and still. I knew she was thinking of the injustice and cruelty that would continue, and there was nothing she could do.

“Maybe we’ll come back.”

“No,” she said with finality. “I don’t think so.”

The towers of Haifa grew smaller until the anthill palace was a jagged white smear, and we could no longer see the rock of sacrifice. The sea was all around.

T
he ship was the
Panagia
of the Minoan Line.
Panagia
means “All Holy,” a Greek title for the Great Mother. The sailors called her “Our Holey one.” She wasn’t unseaworthy, in spite of this jibe, but she was a battered old lady, unwieldy under sail; and the rowers were no Argonauts. We had two cabins and a stateroom, as befitted our rank. In fact, we had the ship to ourselves, aside from the captain, his sailors and a few marines; it was very late in the season for passengers. We spent our days sitting under a rather tattered purple awning outside our cabins, wrapped in rugs, talking or just watching crowds of silver drops slither down the tarnished tassels of our canopy. There were no storms, but it rained a lot. I told her that I’d remembered what was really going on when I was with the Gray Sisters. How she’d been left stranded in the wild sea with a quivering, useless hulk,
helpless as a baby.
“How
did you survive that? I just can’t imagine.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she said. “You were telling me what to do. I knew you were in that other world, and you were fighting for our lives too.”

She took my hand, and I turned so that I could look into her face.

“I was going to die, and it was just,” she said. “It was my choice. Then I rode Pegasus and I saw everything differently: I saw the power of the flying marks, and what they might mean to the world. But now it’s as if
nothing
was really mine. I went through all that fear and shame. I was chained to the rock because Athini and Poseidon had quarreled. Everything that happened to me was the way they made up. I know it’s not the whole truth, but it rankles.”

I nodded. I felt the same.

“I thought I had the Supernaturals fooled,” I said. “I didn’t know why they’d given me that horrible task, but I was going to beat them at their own game, and use the Medusa Head to save your life. You
were
saved by what I did, and I should be satisfied. But I keep thinking,
Why couldn’t they just tell me?”

“You saw the Medusa’s face in the shield,” said Andromeda. “I leapt into the sky with Pegasus. It’s like pictures in the fire, pictures that tell eternal truths. Maybe they told us what we were doing, the only way that they can speak to mortals. And we know what we did,
though we can’t put it into words. But we aren’t
there
anymore, in the world where eternal truths are things you can touch.”

“And now everything seems flat and thin.”

“Not everything,” said Andromeda, and grinned at me.

I pulled her close, burrowed my chin into her scented hair and held her tight. I could forgive the Supernaturals for pushing me around, as long as it ended like this.

“What did you do all day, when you were a princess? Was it all ceremonies?”

She laughed. “No! I had my weaving, and my household duties. But mostly I studied: for many hours, every day, with my mother, with my teachers and alone.”