Authors: Colleen McCullough
‘As horses and bulls are sacred to him, lady, it seemed proper to offer him what he likes best.’
She stared intently at the altar flame. ‘The time is not auspicious for a sacrifice. I will offer later,’ she said.
‘As you wish, lady.’ I turned to leave.
‘Wait.’
‘Yes, lady?’
‘Who shall I tell the God offers to him?’
‘Peleus, King of Iolkos and High King of Thessalia.’
Her eyes changed rapidly from a clear blue to dark grey. ‘Not an ordinary man. Your father was Aiakos, and his father was Zeus himself. Your brother Telamon is King of Salamis, and you are of the Royal Kindred.’
I smiled. ‘Yes, I am son of Aiakos and brother of Telamon. As to my grandsire – I have no idea. Though I doubt he was the King of the Gods. More likely a bandit who fancied my grandmother.’
‘Impiety, King Peleus,’ she said in measured tones, ‘leads to divine retribution.’
‘I fail to see that I am impious, lady. I worship and offer with complete faith in the Gods.’
‘Yet you disclaim Zeus as your grandsire.’
‘Such tales are told, lady, to enhance a man’s right to a throne, as was certainly true of my father, Aiakos.’
She stroked the white bull calf’s nose absently. ‘You must be staying in the palace. Why did King Lykomedes leave you to come here alone and unheralded?’
‘Because I wished it, lady.’
Having tethered the white bull calf to a ring on the side of a pillar, she turned her back on me.
‘Lady, who accepts my offering?’
Looking at me over her shoulder, she showed me eyes of a cool and neutral grey. ‘I am Thetis, daughter of Nereus.
Not
by mere hearsay, King Peleus. My father is a great God.’
Time to go. I thanked her and left.
But not to go very far. Careful to keep out of sight of any watcher from the sanctuary, I slithered down the snakepath to the cove below, dumped my spear and sword behind a rock and lay down in the warm yellow sand, shielded by an overhanging cliff. Thetis. Thetis. She definitely did have a look of the sea about her. I even found myself wanting to believe that she was the daughter of a God, for I had gazed too deeply into those chameleon eyes, seen all the storms and calms which affected the sea, an echo of some cold fire defying description. And I wanted her for my wife.
She was interested in me too; my years and tally of experience told me so. The crux of the matter was how strong her attraction might be; within myself I felt a warning of defeat. Thetis would no more marry me than she would any of the other eligible suitors who had asked for her. Though I was not a man for men, I had never cared overmuch for women beyond satiation of an urge even the greatest Gods suffer as painfully as men do. Sometimes I took a woman of the house to sleep with me, but until this moment I had never loved. Whether she knew it or not, Thetis belonged to me. And as I upheld the New Religion in all aspects, she would have no rival wives to contend with. I would be hers alone.
The sun beat down on my back with increasing strength. Noon came; I stripped off my hunting suit to let the hot rays of Helios seep into my skin. But I could not lie still, had to sit up and glare at the sea, blaming it for this new trouble. Then I closed my eyes and sank upon my knees.
‘Father Zeus, look favourably upon me! Only in the moments of my greatest abandon and need have I prayed to you as a man might seek the succour of his grandsire. But so I pray now, to that part of you kindest and most beneficient. You have never failed to hear me because I never plague you with trivialities. Help me now, I beg! Give Thetis to me just as you gave me Iolkos and the Myrmidons, just as you delivered the whole of Thessalia into my hands. Give me a fitting queen to sit on the Myrmidon throne, give me mighty sons to take my place when I die!’
Eyes closed, I stayed on my knees for a long time. When I rose I found nothing had changed. But that was to be expected; the Gods do not work miracles to inculcate faith in the hearts of men. Then I saw her standing with the wind blowing her flimsy gown behind her like a banner, her hair crystal in the sun, her face uplifted and rapt. Beside her was the white bull calf, and in her right hand she held a dagger. He walked to his doom tranquilly, even settled himself across her knees when she went down on them in the edge of the lapping waves, and never struggled or cried out when she cut his throat, held him while bright ribbons of scarlet coursed over her thighs and her bare white arms. The water about her became a fainter red as the shifting currents sucked the calf’s blood into their own substance and consumed it.
She had not seen me, did not see me as she slid further out into the waves, dragging the dead calf with her until she was deep enough to sling his body around her neck and strike out. Some distance offshore she shrugged her shoulders to release the calf, which sank at once. A big, flat rock jutted out of the water; she made for it, climbed out of the sea onto its top and stood silhouetted against the pale sky. Then she lay down upon her back, pillowed her head on her arms folded behind her, and seemed to sleep.
An outlandish ritual, not one condoned by the New Religion. Thetis had accepted my offering in the name of Poseidon, then had given it instead to Nereus.
Sacrilege!
And she the high priestess of Poseidon. Oh, Lykomedes, you were right! In her lie the seeds of destruction for Skyros. She is not giving the Lord of the Seas his due, nor does she respect him as Earth Shaker.
The air was milky and calm, the water limpid, but as I walked down to the waves I trembled like a man with the ague. The water had no power to cool me as I swam; Aphrodite had fastened her glossy claws hard enough in me to lacerate my very bones. Thetis was mine, and I would have her. Save poor Lykomedes and his isle.
When I reached the rock I fastened my hands in a ledge on its side and jerked myself upward with an effort that cracked my muscles; I was crouching above her on the stone before she realised I was any nearer than the palace above Skyros Town. But she was not sleeping. Her eyes, a soft, dreamy green, were open. Then she scrambled away and looked at me black-eyed.
‘Don’t you touch me!’ she said, panting. ‘No man dares touch me! I have given myself to the God!’
My hand flashed out, stopped barely short of her ankle. ‘Your vows to the God are not permanent, Thetis. You’re free to marry. And you’ll marry me.’
‘I belong to the God!’
‘If so, which God? Do you pay lip service to one and sacrifice his victims to another? You belong to me, and I dare all. If the God – either God! – requires my death for this, I will accept his judgement.’
Mewing a note of distress and panic, she tried to slide off the rock into the sea. But I was too quick for her, grasped her leg and dragged her back, her fingers clawing at the gritty surface, her nails tearing audibly. When I took hold of her wrist I let go of her ankle and hauled her to her feet.
She fought me like ten wildcats, teeth and nails, kicking and biting silently as I clamped my arms around her. A dozen times she slipped through them, a dozen times I captured her again, both of us smothered in blood. My shoulder was sheared, her mouth split, hanks of our hair blew away in the rising wind. This was no rape, nor did I intend that it be; this was a simple contest of strength, man against woman, the New Religion against the Old. It ended as all such contests must: with man the victor.
We fell to the rock with an impact that knocked the breath out of her. Her body pinned beneath me and her shoulders held down, I looked into her face.
‘You are done fighting. I have conquered you.’
Her lips trembled, she turned her head to one side. ‘You are he. I knew it the moment you came into the sanctuary. When I was sworn to his service, the God told me that a man would come out of the sea, a man of the sky who would dispel the sea from my mind and make me his Queen.’ She sighed. ‘So be it.’
I installed Thetis in Iolkos as my Queen with honour and pomp. Within our first year together she became pregnant, the final joy of our union. We were happy, never more so than during those long moons waiting for our son. Neither of us dreamed of a girl.
My own nurse, Aresune, was appointed chief midwife, so when Thetis began her labour I found myself utterly powerless; the old crone exercised her authority and banished me to the other end of my palace. For one full circuit of Phoibos’s chariot I sat alone, ignoring the servants who begged me to eat or drink, waiting, waiting… Until in the night marches Aresune came to find me. She had not bothered to change out of her birthing robe, its front smeared with blood, just stood huddled within it all withered and bent, her seamed face webbed with pain. So sunken in her head that they were two black sockets, her eyes oozed tears.
‘It was a son, sire, but he never lived long enough to breathe air. The Queen is safe. She has lost blood and is very tired, but her life is not in danger.’ The skinny hands wrung together. ‘Sire, I swear I did nothing wrong! Such a big, fine boy! It is the will of the Goddess.’
I could not bear her to see my face in the lamplight. Too stricken to weep, I turned and walked away.
Several days passed before I could bring myself to see Thetis. When finally I did enter her room, I was amazed to find her sitting up in her big bed looking well and happy. She said all the correct things, toyed with words expressing sorrow, but none of it was
meant.
Thetis was pleased!
‘Our son is dead, wife!’ I burst out. ‘How can you bear it? He will never know the meaning of life! He will never take my place on the throne. For nine moons you carried him – for nothing!’
Her hand came out, patted mine a little patronisingly. ‘Oh, dearest Peleus, do not grieve! Our son has no mortal life, but have you forgotten that I am a Goddess? Because he had not breathed earthly air, I asked my father to grant our son
eternal
life, and my father was delighted to do so. Our son lives on Olympos – he eats and drinks with the other Gods, Peleus! No, he will never rule in Iolkos, but he enjoys what no mortal man ever can. In dying, he will never die.’
My astonishment changed to revulsion, I stared at her and wondered how this God thing had ever been allowed to take such hold of her. She was as mortal as I and her babe was as mortal as both of us. Then I saw how trustingly she gazed up at me, and could not say what I itched to say. If it took the pain out of her loss to believe such nonsense, well and good. Living with Thetis had taught me that she did not think or behave like other women. So I stroked her hair and left her.
Six sons she gave me over the years, all born dead. When Aresune told me of the second boy’s death I went half mad, could not bear to see Thetis for many moons because I knew what she would tell me – that our dead son was a God. But in the end love and hunger always drove me back to her, and we would go through that ghastly cycle all over again.
When the sixth child was stillborn – how
could
he be when he had gone to full term and looked, lying on his tiny funeral car, so strong despite his dark blue skin? – I vowed that I would dower Olympos with no more sons. I sent to the Pythoness at Delphi and the answer came back that it was Poseidon who was angry, that he resented my stealing his priestess. What hypocrisy! What lunacy! First he doesn’t want her, then he does. Truly no man can understand the minds or the doings of the Gods, New or Old.
For two years I did not cohabit with Thetis, who kept begging to conceive more sons for Olympos. Then at the end of the second year I took Poseidon Horse Maker a white man foal and offered it to him before all the Myrmidons, my people.
‘Lift your curse, bless me with a living son!’ I cried.
The earth rumbled deep in its bowels, the sacred snake shot from beneath the altar like a flash of brown lightning, the ground heaved, spasmed. A pillar toppled to earth beside me as I stood unmoving, a crack appeared between my feet and I choked on the reek of sulphur, but I held my position until the tremor died away and the fissure closed. The white man foal lay on the altar drained and pathetically still. Three moons later Thetis told me that she was pregnant with our seventh child.
All through those weary times I had her watched more closely than a hawk watches the ground bird’s chicks; I made Aresune sleep in the same bed every night, I threatened the house women with unspeakable tortures if they left her alone for an instant unless Aresune was there. Thetis bore these ‘whims’, as she called them, with patience and good humour; she never argued or tried to defy my edicts. Once she made my hair stand on end and my flesh prickle when she began to sing a strange, tuneless chant out of the Old Religion. But when I ordered her to cease she obeyed, and never sang so again. Her time grew imminent. I began to hope.
Surely
I had always lived in proper fear of the Gods!
Surely
they owed me one living son!
I had a suit of armour belonged to Minos once; it was my most treasured possession. A wondrous thing, it was sheeted in gold atop four separate layers of bronze and three of tin, inlaid with lapis and amber, coral and crystal depicting a marvellous design. The shield, of similar construction, was as tall as the average man and looked like two round shields joined together one above the other, so that it had a waist. Cuirass and greaves, helmet and kilt and arm guards were made to fit a bigger man than me, so I respected the dead Minos who had worn it as he strode about his Cretan kingdom confident that he would never need it to protect himself, only to show his people how rich he was. And when he did fall it was no use to him, for Poseidon took him and his world and crushed them because they would not subscribe to the New Religion. Mother Kubaba, the Great Godesss of the Old Religion, Queen of Earth and All High, always ruled in Crete and Thera.
With the armour of Minos I had placed a spear of ash from the slopes of Mount Pelion; it had a small head fashioned from a metal called iron, so rare and precious that most men thought it a legend, for few had seen it. Trial had proven that the spear flew unerringly to its target yet felt a feather in my hand, so after I ceased to need to employ it in war I put it with the armour. The spear had a name: Old Pelion.