Stone Blind(21)

Now – many months after Perseus’s first day fishing – as she swept the sand from her floor, she still found herself looking out at the water, keeping one eye on his boat until it was too small to see. But her fear had subsided, and she watched from habit as much as anxiety. Her boy went to sea, unafraid. His mother was unafraid too, until the day the men arrived.





Athene


No one remembered who started the war, but it was definitely one of the giants. Athene had heard it was Porphyrion, trying to rape Hera. But someone else said it had been Eurymedon. And then there was the other claim, that the attack on Hera happened during the war, so couldn’t have caused it. In that case, the war had been started by Alcyoneus pilfering cattle that belonged to Helios, the sun god. Looking at Helios’s perpetually smug expression, Athene thought, you wouldn’t imagine he had it in him to go to war over anything. And who cared about cows enough to start a war? She stroked the wing feathers of her owl jealously.

Whoever was to blame, one of the children of Gaia – whom the gods all knew to be boastful and arrogant – had behaved in such a way that even their mother could not save them, though she tried. The giants were determined to offend Zeus, Athene thought. Hurling rocks at Olympus was one thing, but setting oak trees aflame and sending those heavenwards was a mistake. Zeus was fond of oak trees.

The Olympian gods would descend to Phlegra for a battle Athene relished. The giants were a serious threat: huge, aggressive and with the immense power of their mother on their side. Everyone knew that giants were impervious to attacks from the gods, and could not be killed. But the gods consulted an oracle and found there was an exception they could exploit. If a mortal fought alongside the gods, the giants were vulnerable after all. So the only thing the gods needed was a mortal willing to fight giants: one who was loyal or foolish, or ideally both.

Hera suggested one of Zeus’s sons before any of the others had time to open their mouths. Zeus looked a little put out (Hera had been trying to kill this one since he was a baby, which not everyone considered a fair fight). But they did need someone and he couldn’t protect them all. He sent Athene to ask him herself.

She shimmered into view among the tall pine trees that grew outside the man’s palace, but even if you had been looking straight at them, you wouldn’t have seen her appear. She wasn’t there and then she was, and it seemed as though she always had been. She found him training in his courtyard, his skin painted with oil and coated with red dust to protect against the sun. She paused for a moment to admire his biceps as he raised himself up and down.

‘Zeus needs you,’ she said. The man collapsed to the ground, and Athene tried not to snigger.

‘Are you . . .?’ The man grabbed at his throat as though someone were choking him.

Athene frowned, trying to make out the words. ‘Am I . . .? A goddess? Yes, Athene. Good to meet you. Could you come and help us fight the giants?’

The man nodded vigorously, but still couldn’t speak.

‘You’ll probably die,’ Athene said. It was best to be honest, she felt. ‘But we need a mortal and we chose you, so it will be a very noble death.’

The man’s expression lost some of its enthusiasm.

‘And quick!’ she added. ‘If you get trodden on by a giant or a god – which wouldn’t be intentional on our part, incidentally, but in the heat of battle one of us might step in the wrong place and there you’d be . . . Well, would have been. Anyway, it would be painless. Probably very painful just before it was painless, but not for long.’

The man looked her up and down in confusion.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m actually quite a lot bigger than I look to you. But I didn’t want to scare you so I decided I would appear to you mortal-sized. I can change my appearance at will, you see. We all can. I wonder how Zeus appeared to your mother. Well, we probably don’t have time to get into that, do we? Because there’s a war we need your help with and it can’t start until you and I get there.’

‘Where?’ the man asked. Athene almost squealed with delight.

‘Listen to that!’ she said. ‘You can talk. I thought perhaps you were mute for some reason. But you can talk quite well if it’s just one word at a time. Well done. We fight the giants at Phlegra. I’ll take you. Are you ready? I suppose you are, aren’t you? It’s not like you can really prepare yourself for fighting giants. If you’ve got any weapons you might want to gather those up, I suppose. Hurry, though.’

The man ran to a large wooden chest in the corner of his courtyard and grabbed a spear and a sword, a bow and arrows. He held them with practised confidence, and Athene thought perhaps Hera hadn’t been wrong when she suggested they use this one.

‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Come on. If you do die, I’ll put in a word for you to get a constellation. Promise.’





Gaia


While Athene was recruiting the mortal, Gaia was plotting against the gods. She too had heard about the oracle, about the decisive role that would be played in the upcoming conflict by some human. She scoffed at the very idea she might fear such a man, given that he and all his fellow mortals depended on her for their lives and homes. But she decided her offspring might need help, just to be on the safe side. She knew that somewhere in her green expanse was the herb she needed. She just couldn’t quite remember where. Was it in the mountains? Did it grow under the trees? Near the sea? Among the crops? If only she could think. Gods weren’t used to doing things in a hurry. She needed a little time to look around for it: she could almost smell it – a tangy scent that made her think it must grow deep in the forest among the spores and the fallen pine cones. But did it flower? What colour was it? She began her search, aware that her children’s lives depended on her.