Circe(35)

Polydamas guided us through the twisting passages towards the queen’s quarters. There it was more lavish still, the paintings rich with ochre and blue copper, but the windows had been covered over. Instead there were golden torches and leaping braziers. Cunningly recessed skylights let in light but no glimpse of sky; Daedalus’ work, I supposed. Pasipha? had never liked our father’s prying gaze.

Polydamas stopped before a door scrolled with flowers and waves. “The queen is within,” he said, and knocked.

We stood in the still and shadowed air. I could hear nothing beyond that heavy wood, but I became aware of Daedalus’ ragged breath beside me. His voice was low. “Lady,” he said, “I have offended you and I am sorry. But I am sorrier still for what you will find inside. I wish—”

The door opened. A handmaid stood breathless before us, her hair pinned in the Cretan style at the top of her head. “The queen is in her labors—” she began, but my sister’s voice cut across her. “Is it them?”

At the room’s center, Pasipha? lay upon a purple couch. Her skin gleamed with sweat, and her belly was shockingly distended, swollen out like a tumor from her slender frame. I had forgotten how vivid she was, how beautiful. Even in her pain, she commanded the room, drawing all the light to herself, leeching the world around her pale as mushrooms. She had always been the most like our father.

I stepped through the door. “Twelve dead,” I said. “Twelve men for a joke and your vanity.”

She smirked, rising up to meet me. “It seemed only fair to let Scylla have her chance at you, don’t you think? Let me guess: you tried to change her back.” She laughed at what she saw in my face. “Oh, I knew you would! You made a monster and all you can think of is how sorry you are. Alas, poor mortals, I have put them in danger!”

She was as quicksilver cruel as ever. It was a relief of sorts. “It was you who put them in danger,” I said.

“But you are the one who failed to save them. Tell me, did you weep as you watched them die?”

I forced my voice to stay even. “You are in error,” I said. “I saw no men die. The twelve were lost on the way out.”

She did not even pause. “No matter. More will die on every ship that passes.” She tapped a finger to her chin. “How many do you think it will be, in a year? A hundred? A thousand?”

She was showing her mink teeth, trying to get me to melt like all those naiads in Oceanos’ halls. But there was no wound she could give me that I had not already given myself.

“This is not the way to get my help, Pasipha?.”

“Your help! Please. I am the one who got you off that sand-spit of an island. I hear you sleep with lions and boars for company. But that’s an improvement for you, isn’t it? After Glaucos the squid.”

“If you don’t need me,” I said, “I will happily go back to my sand-spit.”

“Oh, come, sister, don’t be so sour, it’s only a jest. And look how grown you are, slipping past Scylla! I knew I was right to call you instead of that braggart Ae?tes. You can stop making that face. I’ve already set aside gold for the families of the men who were lost.”

“Gold does not give back a life.”

“I can tell you are not a queen. Believe me, most of the families would rather have the gold. Now, are there any other—”

But she did not finish. She grunted and dug her nails into the arm of a handmaiden kneeling at her feet. I had not noticed the girl before, but I saw now that the skin of her arm was purple and smeared with blood.

“Out,” I said to her. “Out, all. This is no place for you.”

I felt a spurt of satisfaction at how fast the attendants fled.

I faced my sister. “Well?”

Her face was still contorted with pain. “What do you think? It’s been days and it hasn’t even moved. It needs to be cut out.”

She threw back her robes, revealing the swollen skin. A ripple passed across the surface of her belly, from left to right, then back again.

I knew little of childbirth. I had never attended my mother, nor any of my cousins. A few things I remembered hearing. “Have you tried pushing from your knees?”

“Of course I’ve tried it!” She screamed as the spasm came again. “I’ve had eight children! Just cut the fucking thing out of me!”

From my bag I drew out a pain draught.

“Are you stupid? I’m not going to be put to sleep like some infant. Give me the willow bark.”

“Willow is for headaches, not surgery.”

“Give it to me!”

I gave it, and she drained the bottle. “Daedalus,” she said, “take up the knife.”

I had forgotten he was there. He stood in the doorway, very still.

“Pasipha?,” I said, “do not be perverse. You sent for me, now use me.”

She laughed, a savage sound. “You think I trust you with that? You are for after. Anyway, it is fitting that Daedalus should do it, he knows why. Don’t you, craftsman? Will you tell my sister now, or shall we let it be a surprise?”

“I will do it,” Daedalus said to me. “It is my task.” He stepped to the table and took up the knife. The blade was honed to a hair’s edge.

She seized his wrist. “Just remember,” she said. “Remember what I will do if you think to go astray.”