Stone Blind(25)

‘No, sir,’ she said, looking straight at him. ‘This is his home. But I am not his wife. He is unmarried.’

‘I heard he had taken a wife. And you are here, by your own admission, in his house.’

Dana? suddenly knew who he was, just as she could see two men in her peripheral vision, climbing the hill from the sea. Dictys and her son would be with her very soon.

‘He will be here shortly, sir. I’m sure you’d rather speak to your brother himself.’

The man’s eyebrows rose sharply. ‘I might tell him to find himself a housekeeper who is more polite to strangers,’ he said. She gazed at him, tracing the echoes of Dictys’s brow and nose and jaw on the king’s face, and wondering how the same features could be so reassuring in one man and so off-putting in another. Now she saw the two silhouetted men hurrying to reach her. Dictys had seen the cluster of guards outside his home, and Perseus had broken into a run.

‘I didn’t intend to be rude,’ she said. He snorted and opened his mouth to reply, before one of the guards noticed the fishermen returning and muttered something to his king.

Dictys’s face was filled with concern when he finally appeared. Perseus ran straight to Dana? and stood in front of her. She remembered in a rush the first time she realized she couldn’t see over his head any more, and then barely over his shoulder either. Her boy had grown so tall and strong, out on the water every day.

‘Brother,’ said Dictys. ‘This is a surprise. What brings you so far from your palace?’

‘I heard you had a family,’ the king replied. ‘A wife and a son, I heard. And I see it is true. Did you really think you could take a wife without asking your king’s permission?’

‘Dana? is not my wife.’

‘I’m not sure that’s something to boast about,’ Polydectes snapped.

‘She is my adopted daughter.’ Dictys continued speaking as though he hadn’t heard the interruption. ‘Did you need this entourage to find that out? You could have sent a messenger.’

‘Could I indeed?’

Dana? understood why Dictys had taken to the sea rather than deal with this brother. She would have been tempted to do the same herself, and she feared the sea like the River Styx.

‘Yes, brother.’ Dictys sounded exhausted. ‘Although I’m delighted you came to visit. Please, come inside.’

Polydectes waved at his men, pointing at the modest house in front of him. ‘You’ll have to wait out here,’ he said.

Dana? stepped back, her hand on Perseus’s arm, so that Dictys could lead his brother into the house, but he smiled and shook his head. It was her home too. So she and her son turned their backs on the men and walked inside. Dana? could feel the tension pulsing from Perseus: he was angry and afraid of this man, she knew. He had grown up with only the fishermen for company, and a show of force like this was alarming.

She poured wine into a mixing bowl and set a jug of water beside it. They had two good cups, which she placed on the table as the men sat on either side. She stood back, nodding to Perseus that he should do the same. The men busied themselves with their drinks and she found herself looking at the king. He resembled his brother so closely one moment and then not at all. He was older, she knew, but she couldn’t see it: years at sea were hard to hide. And – though she knew it must be in her imagination – she kept seeing traces of her father in the face of this stranger. Not in his appearance, exactly. Polydectes looked nothing like her father. But there was something about the irritated downturn of his mouth, as though the world existed only to disappoint. As the king finished preparing his drink, he looked up at her and she flushed, embarrassed to have been caught staring.

‘Your adopted daughter?’ said Polydectes. ‘From whom did you adopt her?’

Dana? felt her whole body stiffen as this man spoke about her as though she could not hear. Dictys took a sip of wine before replying.

‘Her father was sadly afflicted,’ he said. ‘She and her boy needed a home, which I was glad to provide.’

‘The boy is not yours?’

‘He is the grandson I wish I had,’ said Dictys, and Dana? felt her son soften beside her and tried to do the same.

‘Ha!’ The king’s laughter was intended to be unkind. ‘For that to happen, brother, you would have had to desire a woman.’

There was silence. Dictys tilted his cup, watching the light flicker across the surface of the wine. ‘Yes, brother,’ he said. ‘I would. But the Fates brought me a daughter and a grandson regardless.’

‘You are a disgrace,’ said the king. ‘To have a woman like this in your house and take no pleasure from her.’ He shook his head in disgust.

‘I don’t take pleasure from anyone unless they offer it freely,’ said Dictys.

‘You have always been weak.’

‘I have always seemed so to you, certainly.’

‘Where is the boy’s father?’ Polydectes turned to Dana?. ‘Is he alive?’

This was a surprisingly difficult question for her to answer, since she did not want to blaspheme, but was unsure of the truth. Gods weren’t alive, were they? They were something more than, or certainly other than, alive.

‘No.’ She spoke quietly, hoping this would make the king think it was a painful subject and stop pursuing it.