Circe(88)

I felt as if I were untethered from the earth. Odysseus was gone, and Penelope was here, and I must make her broth. After all those times I had spoken her name, at last she was summoned. Vengeance, I thought. It must be. What other purpose would bring them?

They reached my door. Our words were cream still, come in, thank you, will you eat, you are too kind. I served the meal: broth indeed, platters of cheese and bread, wine. Telegonus heaped their plates, kept an eye on their cups. His face was still taut with that guilty attendance. My boy who had presided so skillfully over a boatload of sailors now hovered, watching like a dog, hoping for any morsel of forgiveness. It was dark by then, the tapers lit. The flames shook with our breaths. “Lady Penelope,” he said, “do you see that loom I told you of? I am sorry you had to leave yours behind, but you may use this one any time you like. If my mother agrees.”

Under other circumstances, I would have laughed. It was an old saying: weaving at another woman’s loom is like lying with her husband. I watched to see if Penelope would flinch.

“I am glad to see such a wonder. Odysseus told me of it often.”

Odysseus. The name naked in the room. I would not quail if she did not.

“Then perhaps,” I said, “Odysseus told you also that Daedalus himself made it? I have never been a weaver worthy of such a gift, but you are famed for your skill. I hope you will try it.”

“You are too kind,” she said. “I’m afraid whatever you have heard is much exaggerated.”

And so it went. There were no tears, no recriminations, and Telemachus did not lunge across the table. I watched his knife, but he wore it like he did not know it was there. He did not speak, and his mother spoke only rarely. My son labored on, filling up the silence, but with every moment, I saw his grief rising. He grew dull-eyed. A faint convulsive tremor had begun passing over him.

“You are overtaxed,” I said. “I will take you to your beds.”

It was not a question. They rose, Telegonus swaying a little. I showed Penelope and Telemachus their rooms, brought them water to wash with and saw their doors shut. I followed my son and sat beside him on the bed.

“I can give you a draught to sleep,” I said.

He shook his head. “I will sleep.”

In his despair and fatigue, he was pliant. He let me hold his hand and draw his head down onto my shoulder. I could not help finding a little pleasure in it, he so rarely allowed me such closeness. I stroked his hair, a shade lighter than his father’s. I felt the shiver run through him again. “Sleep,” I murmured, but he already did. I lowered him gently onto the pillow, pulling up the blanket and spinning a spell over the room to dull noise, to douse light. Arcturos panted at the bed’s end.

“Where are the rest of your fellows?” I said to her. “I would have them here too.”

She looked at me with pale eyes. I am enough.

I closed the door behind me and walked through the night shadows of my house. I had not sent my lions away after all. It was always instructive to see how people would take them. Penelope and Telemachus had not faltered. My son had warned them, perhaps. Or was it something Odysseus had mentioned? The thought sent an eerie chill through me. I listened, as if I might hear an answer from their rooms. The house was still. They slept, or else kept to their thoughts in silence.

When I stepped into my dining hall, Telemachus was there. He stood in the room’s center, poised as an arrow nocked to its string. The knife gleamed at his waist.

So, I thought. It comes. Well, it would be on my terms. I walked past him to the hearth. I poured a cup of wine and took my chair. All the while, his eyes followed me. Good. My skin felt shot through with power, like the sky before a storm.

“I know you plan to kill my son.”

Nothing moved but the flames in the hearth. He said, “How do you know it?”

“Because you are a prince, and the son of Odysseus. Because you respect the laws of gods and men. Because your father is dead, and my son the cause. Perhaps you think to try your hand at me as well. Or did you just want me to watch?”

My eyes shone and made their own shadows.

He said, “Lady, I bear neither you nor your son ill will.”

“How kind,” I said. “I am completely reassured.”

His muscles were not a warrior’s, bunched and hardened. He had no scars or calluses I could see. But he was a Mycenaean prince, honed and supple, trained to combat from his cradle. Penelope would have been scrupulous in his rearing.

“How may I prove myself to you?” His voice was grave. He mocked me, I thought.

“You cannot. I know a son is bound to avenge his father’s murder.”

“I do not deny that.” His gaze did not waver. “But that only holds if he was murdered.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You say he was not? Yet you bring a blade into my house.”

He looked down as if surprised to see it. “It is for carving,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I imagine so.”

He drew the knife from his belt and slid it down the table. It made a raw, juddering sound.

“I was on the beach when my father died,” he said. “I had heard the shouts and feared a confrontation. Odysseus was not…welcoming in recent years. I came too late, but I saw the end. He had wrested away the spear. It was not by Telegonus’ hand that he died.”