Stone Blind(18)

But Zeus loved her. He was proud of his clever, argumentative daughter, and often took her side in disputes with the other gods. And since Athene would always rather be right than happy, and would rather win than be right, this worked out well for everyone. In return, she tried to help him with his affairs. And on this occasion, that meant noticing something Poseidon should really have seen first. Which was that one of Zeus’s offspring (and one of his lovers) had been set loose on the open sea in what looked – at least from up on the heights of Olympus – like a wooden chest.

‘Which girl?’ Zeus asked lazily. He assumed that Hera was busying herself turning one of his favourite girls into a cow or a weasel or whatever, which meant it may well be too late to intervene and save her. Although there was always the possibility that the world had just gained an attractive new cow, so all was not lost.

‘Dana?,’ Athene said.

‘Which one is that?’ he asked.

‘The one whose father was keeping her in a prison cell so she couldn’t get pregnant,’ Athene replied.

Zeus frowned. ‘Did it work?’

‘No. You turned yourself into golden droplets and rained down on her through the gaps in the roof.’

‘Oh yes!’ He smiled. ‘That was a good one. She was lovely. Young, pretty, desperate for company.’

‘I imagine she was.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘You got her pregnant.’

‘Marvellous. Will I have a new demi-god roaming the earth?’

‘You already do.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘He’s about to drown.’

‘Oh. Let me—’

And in a small whirlwind, Zeus was gone.





Dana?


The chest in which Dana?’s father had shut her and Perseus – another prison cell, smaller and more dangerous than the last – came to rest on the shore of Seriphos. Dana? didn’t know it was an island, nor that it was in the middle of the Aegean, nor that Zeus had asked Poseidon himself to guide her and her baby to safety there. She didn’t even know for a while that she had reached dry land: the swell of the ocean was in her bones now, and she would always feel it.

She had lain quite still in the chest for so many hours, perhaps days. She knew vessels capsized and sank, and she had no idea what provoked or prevented this: she had never even been on a boat. Unable to swim, she did not dare move. So she was lying inside when the chest was cautiously opened. She blinked hard into the dazzling sun, still holding her baby tight. The dark silhouette of a man moved quickly to one side, blocking the light from her eyes so she could see.

‘I didn’t mean to blind you,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t know someone was inside.’

She tried to tell him that it didn’t matter, and of course he couldn’t have known she was inside a chest, and to ask him who he was and where she was and if it was safe, but her throat was too dry and all that came out was a croak.

‘Wait,’ he said, and reached beneath the edge of the chest, where he must have placed his belongings before using both hands to open the lid. He brought a wineskin into view, and offered it to her. She wanted it desperately but could not let go of her son to take it.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Let me help you.’

She flinched as he reached into the chest and his hand brushed her hair. ‘I’m sorry, if we can just get you sitting up, you can drink,’ he said. ‘If I give it to you as you lie there, I’m worried you’ll choke.’

This was such a sensible, normal thing for someone to say that Dana? forgot her fear. This man did not want her dead. He pushed his hand beneath her shoulders, and helped her to sit. She drew her knees up, to protect the baby. The man undid the stopper of the wineskin and held it closer, so she could take it with one hand. She snatched at it and he stepped back. She was relieved to discover that she was drinking water, not wine, and she drank it greedily.

‘You’re safe now,’ the man said. ‘Let me get you some more water?’

‘Yes please,’ she tried to say, but she couldn’t make a sound yet, so she just nodded, and felt herself coming back to life.

The man disappeared for a few moments but returned with a fresh skin of water. She drank again, trying to finish it all before he took it away.

‘You keep that,’ he said. ‘We can refill it at the spring up there, when you are recovered enough to walk.’ She didn’t loosen her grip on it. ‘If you can’t walk up there, I will go and get you some more,’ he continued. ‘There’s no need to worry. You won’t be thirsty now.’

She nodded again. Her throat was still too painful for speech.

‘I’m thinking, given how thirsty you are, that you might be hungry as well,’ he said. ‘When you’ve had time to adjust to not being thirsty, or seasick, or afraid. So this is what I suggest we do: I give you my hand to help you out of your little boat.’ He smiled at her, and she tried to smile back, but her lips cracked and she stopped. ‘You can wait on those rocks while I build a fire and I will cook you some of the fish I caught today. Or we can go to my house – it’s just up there, on the ridge, you can see the roof from here – and then you can have bread with your fish, if you’d like. I also have clean tunics, because you might want one of those as I reckon the one you’re wearing is probably scratching your skin now. Salt water is an itchy thing once it dries, isn’t it?’