Stone Blind(55)

‘This is what you asked us to do,’ said the older one. ‘It is hardly our fault if you do not like the answer we bring.’

‘My wife will make the offering then,’ Cepheus said. ‘She will offer her finest jewels and you will sacrifice a hundred oxen.’

There was silence. Andromeda didn’t even know if her father still had a hundred oxen, or if her mother now possessed a single jewel. Everything had been washed away: perhaps Poseidon had already taken by force what her mother was supposed to give him by volition.

‘That is not enough,’ said the younger priest. Andromeda could see how much both men were enjoying this moment, wielding their power so cruelly. She wondered why they hated her mother.

‘Then what?’ asked Cepheus. He sounded so weary that Andromeda worried he might collapse where he stood. ‘What did you say, my love?’ he asked his wife.

Andromeda expected her to scream again, or start shaking, but she did not. Instead, Cassiope rose to her feet and stared at the men who were so enjoying her downfall. Both men tried and failed to meet her gaze. ‘I made a mistake,’ she said.

Andromeda could not recall hearing her mother ever say these words before. Cepheus nodded. Everyone made mistakes. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

‘I told my reflection that I was more beautiful than a Nereid,’ said Cassiope.

Andromeda watched the spasm of fear and sorrow pass over her father’s face.

‘I see,’ he said.

‘I understand what I have done,’ Cassiope continued. ‘I must pay for my hubris, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said the older priest, still unable to look at her.

‘I will give myself to the sea.’ The queen stood tall and proud, and in that moment Andromeda thought she might have been right. She was more beautiful than anyone – goddess or mortal.

Cepheus closed his eyes. He could not save her and he could not look at her.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said the younger man, reassuring words seasoned with the cruellest smile. Her father understood; she saw his shoulders slump.

‘It isn’t you they want,’ said the priest.





Medusa, Sthenno, Euryale


Medusa did not dare leave her cave. She would not unbind her eyes; she only unwound the cloths to sleep and even then she kept them right beside her, wrapped lightly around her hands. No matter what reassurances her sisters offered, she was plagued by one thought: what if she could turn them to stone?

‘It’s impossible,’ said Sthenno. After all these years of being scared for her sister, she could not be scared of her now.

‘We’re immortal,’ added Euryale. ‘Your gaze would have no more impact than a sword thrust or a twisting knife.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Medusa, her head turned to face the wall.

And she was right: they did not know.

So Medusa had a choice which was – to her – no choice at all. Risk harming one of her sisters, or rob herself of sight so there was no danger to them at all. She did not share their confidence that they would be impervious to her lethal stare.

The scale of her loss was undeniable. She missed the sun and the sand and the birds and the sky and the sheep and, above all, the loving faces of her beloved Gorgon kin. She had learned to take some pleasure in the mewing of the gulls and the uneven clattering of hooves on rocks but she felt so isolated in the dark. And she had no one to tell, because if either sister had suspected the depths of her loneliness, they would have refused to allow her to go another day with her eyes covered. As it was, Euryale kept suggesting experiments to test the power of her gaze. Try staring at the wing of a cormorant, she said. We need to know if its eyes have to meet your eyes, or if your look alone is enough.

‘What if I turn one of its wings to stone?’ asked Medusa.

‘Then we’ll know more than we knew before,’ said her sister.

‘What did the cormorant do to deserve a stone wing? And how do we ensure I don’t lay my eyes on anything else?’ Medusa was immovable on the matter: she knew, though she could not say how, that her eyes must meet those of her prey for the petrification to occur. But she didn’t want anything to be her prey. Nor did she want to answer any more questions about how her new power worked. She put off her sister’s suggestions by saying that brightness made her head ache anyway, and she did not want to make it worse by allowing in any more light if she could avoid it. Sthenno put one hand on Euryale’s shoulder and advised her sister that they leave Medusa to do what she thought best.

But it was so hard, when they had taken care of her as carefully as they could, yet she had still come to harm at the hands of Poseidon and now again at the hands of Athene. Euryale, Sthenno knew, wanted Medusa to want this lethal power. It had always been painful to the two of them to see their sister as a fragile creature who needed their protection. And here, Euryale thought, was a chance to make that right.

‘She can turn any living thing to stone!’ Euryale muttered to Sthenno, long after Medusa was asleep one night. She was turning the stone scorpion in her hands, tracing her claws along its segmented body. ‘Anything.’

‘Yes,’ Sthenno said. ‘I think that’s right.’

‘Do you understand what this means?’ said Euryale. ‘It means she has strength that rivals ours. At last.’