A Thousand Ships(51)

If Eris had been another god, she might have enjoyed the moment of camaraderie which came from watching the downfall of two such stuck-up creatures. The gods might all have nudged one another, and toasted Hephaestus for his ingenuity, and praised Athene for her uncharacteristic mercy, and a delightful tableau might have unfolded in which Eris played a central role. But – for reasons which were never quite clear to her – this did not happen when she was present. Instead, Hephaestus began shouting at Athene for interfering. Artemis began cursing Aphrodite for her vulgarity, and Hera began shrieking at Zeus, because Helios was crossing the sky above, and that was all the reason she ever needed. Apollo snarled at Eris that it was all her fault, though she couldn’t imagine why, and the peaceful moment splintered into collective ill-temper. Eris had withdrawn to her cave as she often did, since no one wanted her presence. But after a while spent sitting balefully in the dark (she was not good at measuring time), she had grown bored.

Eris watched a dark feather spiral dolefully from her wing to the ground, and decided she would go to find someone to talk to. Even Athene would be better than nothing. Well, almost better than nothing. Eris could not think who she would most like to see, because the truth was that all the gods irked her in some way or other. But still, she had wearied of her own company, and she would rather be irritated than alone. So she flapped her ungainly way up to the top of the mountain, to the grand palace which Zeus called home.

There was something wrong, but Eris could not immediately identify what it was. It took her a moment to realize it was the sound of birds singing, and only birds. No one was talking at all. She padded through the halls of the gods, but she could see no one and once she was well inside the building even the birdsong retreated and all she could hear was the sound of her own clawed feet scratching the marble floor. Where was everyone? She unfurled her wings and flew through doorways and across corridors, eventually perching up in the rafters. The halls were empty.

She felt a momentary stab of fear, wondering if something terrible had happened which she had somehow missed: another war against the giants, perhaps? But even when she was squatting in her cave (she preferred the calming dankness to the honeysuckle stench in the halls of Zeus and Hera), she would have heard the giants if they had come climbing up the mountain to fight. The one thing you could say about giants was that they were rarely subtle and never quiet. So the gods had all left Mount Olympus of their own accord. Together. Without her. She felt the snake on her left wrist coil itself around her hand and slither between her fingers. And then she remembered someone saying something about a wedding. Who had it been? Hera? Yes, that was it. Eris had been sitting out of everyone’s way, in the rafters as she was now, in the bedroom of Hera and Zeus. Hera had called it spying, but that was because she was a vicious-minded shrew, as Zeus had just told her, and everyone knew it. Besides, Eris had hardly been spying, she had simply been resting her wings.

But when Hera saw the feathers floating down towards her, landing on the edge of her ornately carved couch, first she cursed the crows whose black plumage she thought was defiling her chamber, and then – when she realized her mistake – she cursed Eris. Rounded on her, in fact, and threw her out of the halls altogether. Eris had skulked back to her cave, swearing vengeance. But now she could not even find Hera. Because – the snake’s darting tongue touched her third finger – because they had all gone to a wedding. That was it. Every single god had been invited to a wedding except Eris. Every one of them. Even Athene.

Eris felt a jolt of rage consume her. Whose wedding was it? Who dared overlook her, Eris, queen of strife and discord? Who had been so discourteous, so hurtful, so cruel as to not invite her to their wedding? She patted the snake’s head idly and the name came to her. Thetis, that was who. The jumped-up little sea-nymph with her greenish hair and watery eyes was getting married, though you would have to be blind to think it was what the damp little thing wanted. How dare a sea-nymph – Eris grew taller with each moment of increasing wrath – a sea-nymph think to exclude her from a divine banquet? How dare—

Her thoughts broke off, as her head clattered into the ceiling. No, it was not Thetis who would have decided who to invite and who to refuse. Thetis didn’t want to attend the wedding herself, she was hardly likely to be making lists of desirable attendees. No. Someone else had decided which gods should be present, and they had invited everyone but her. Eris felt a sudden prickling behind her eyes, though she could not identify the cause.

But if she did not know who had scorned her, she knew one thing at least. This was an affront. She had overlooked her eviction from Hera’s bedroom. She had moved past the moment when the gods turned on her and each other as they mocked Ares and Aphrodite. But this, this was an insult too far. Eris was not stupid, she knew that chaos followed her black wings. But that was no excuse. And this time, she would have her revenge.

She stalked through the halls knocking over anything which looked precious or loved: perfume bottles and jars of oil smashed, dented shields bounced on the stone floor, a string of beads split and spread to every corner of the room. She did not know exactly where the gods were but she could see a glow coming from some island below Olympus and she was certain that all, or at least most of them, were there. Laughing at her, having their fun at her expense. What else would anyone do at a wedding?

She would fly down there and sow the discord that made her feared. She would stir god against god and man against man. By the end of this day—