Stone Blind(20)

‘You have a spear and a helmet,’ Zeus said.

‘Ares has a spear and a helmet!’ she cried. ‘I want something that is just mine!’

‘Does Hephaestus have anything?’ he asked.

‘He has a whole forge,’ she said. ‘And everything in it.’

Zeus nodded slowly. He supposed that was true.

‘Does Aphrodite have something?’

‘Aphrodite has everything she wants,’ Athene snapped. ‘Whenever she wants it.’

Zeus nodded again. That did sound like Aphrodite.

‘What sort of thing would you like?’ he asked. ‘Does Demeter have something?’

‘She has a daughter,’ Athene said. ‘She’s either with her or she’s complaining about not being with her. All the time. So she doesn’t need anything else. And if she did, she could always have some sheaves of corn or something. It’s not about her, anyway. It’s about me.’

‘You could have a loom,’ Zeus said, stroking his beard. ‘You’re very good at weaving.’

‘I can’t carry that around with me, can I?’

‘I suppose Hephaestus can’t carry a forge around with him either,’ said her father.

‘I said it wasn’t about anyone else! It’s about what I want!’

‘Well, dearest, you’re skilful and warlike and wise. You have your spear and helmet, so that’s the warlike bit taken care of. Your weaving skill is less portable, so we’re putting that to one side. So that leaves wisdom. What would convey that?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘An animal? Would you like an animal?’

‘What kind of animal?’

‘Well, I have the eagle, of course. So not an eagle. You could have . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘How about an owl?’

There was silence.

‘The owl is just mine?’ she asked. ‘No one else will get an owl?’

‘The owl will always be your symbol, my dear, and yours alone.’

‘Then yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll have an owl.’





Dana?


Dana? swept the floor, which otherwise became sandy as the wind blew the outside in. Her hair was tied back in a loose knot because even after all these years, she could not tolerate any sense of constriction. She wedged doors and windows open, though it filled the house with sand. Dictys never complained, nor even questioned it. And so every morning she swept. She smiled at what it would look like to a stranger: the daughter of a king doing housework for the brother of a king, while her son – the son of the king of the gods, no less – helped the old man with his fish. But there was no stranger to witness their life, except the other fishermen and their families who lived near the shore, to whom it seemed perfectly normal. And anyway, they never asked questions so had no idea who anyone’s father was. Having grown up in a palace that was always humming with gossip (until her father lost his mind), it had taken Dana? a long time to grow accustomed to the lack of curiosity here.

She looked out of the doorway as she swept, less anxious now her son had been accompanying Dictys for a year or more. He had pleaded and pestered and she could not keep refusing him as he grew older, not when they both knew the old man wanted his company (although he never weighed in on the argument, always telling Perseus that he must wait until Dana? thought he was old enough).

At first, she had said no with such vehemence that her son – who was not prone to outbursts – wept with anger and hurt, and ran out of the house. He never cried, she reminded herself, but then she never shouted. She blamed herself for upsetting him, and also for not foreseeing it. Her son had no memory of any man but Dictys and the other fishermen. Of course he would want to follow them to the sea. Perseus couldn’t remember their terrifying journey to Seriphos, the certainty of death, of sinking, and drowning, being eaten by a whale or some other monster of the deep. He had been only a baby, he had not learned to fear. Dana? would have stepped onto Dictys’s boat if her son’s life had depended on it, but otherwise nothing could have persuaded her. Sometimes when she ran to meet the men as they came in with their catch, the dry sand would shift beneath her feet and she would experience the same terrible lurching sensation she had felt so long ago as she lay in the box on the waves, frantically praying to her lover to save her.

But she could not keep her son away from the sea indefinitely, nor did she want him to fear it as she did. So she swallowed her concern, or tried to, and said yes. The first time, she watched them from the house all the way down to the shore, staring at the two silhouettes, trying to understand how or when Perseus had grown as tall as his adopted grandfather. She sat on the step of the house that whole day, long after the boat was out of sight, long after all the boats were out of sight. She could not concentrate on anything, did not eat or drink, did not notice hunger or thirst. She simply sat resting her hand on a patch of seagrass, twisting the strands between her fingers until they snapped off. When she saw Dictys’s boat coming back to land, she could not allow herself to believe it was them. Even as she strained her eyes against the sun to see two figures tying up the boat and making the nets safe, she could not accept it. When the two dots began to climb the hill towards her, she allowed herself the tiniest scrap of hope that her boy was safe. But she didn’t really feel it until she could make out his distinctive stride and the way he was trying not to run ahead so he could tell her everything. Dictys could cover the ground as quickly as a man half his age, but even he could not keep pace with her excited boy. And yet, as she felt the relief sink through her body she felt something else – pride – that Perseus would not abandon the older man. The sun glimmered off his salt-crusted skin and she wondered how anyone who saw him could fail to guess he was the son of Zeus. Her beautiful, strong boy, carrying the fish he had caught in the ocean he didn’t fear. Unbidden, she had a memory of her father, sitting alone in his echoing halls. She wondered if he was even still alive. He had convinced himself that he would be killed by Perseus, of course, but he would certainly not be the first king to be tricked by an oracle. And his once-devoted daughter realized she did not care if he was alive or dead. She looked back on her childhood as she might a story. Her true home, she felt, must always have been here.