Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) (13 page)

When he was a child he could not fathom why anyone would volunteer to become the sacrifice. But now, not quite seventeen years old, widowed, lonely and dispirited, he did understand.

After the two palace messengers delivered the announcement and moved on to the next village, Hades spent the afternoon in thought. While the rest of his wife’s family took their daily nap, he lay awake, making his decision.

He grieved for his wife and child. Her family mourned them too, and made no effort to embrace him as their own son. He felt shunned and alone. Rather than viewing his extraordinary strength as something to be cherished and explored, he felt it a curse that would forever set him apart from others. If the goddess could destroy his body at last, and summon him to the spirit world where he might find his young wife and child, then she was welcome to do so.

When his wife’s parents awoke, he told them he wished to offer himself as the island’s sacrifice.

They showed the shock and fear anyone might upon hearing a person say this, but made only weak efforts to dissuade him. He held firm. They relented. Then he went out to the road and awaited the return of the palace attendants, on their way back to Knossos. When they came, he stepped forward and volunteered.

The two attendants, a man and a woman some fifteen years older than himself, stood and talked to him in concern a long while. Was he sure? Would he not wish to stay, be of use to the village, perhaps marry again and have children?

“No,” he said. “This is the only way I can be of use.”

So he said farewell to his wife’s parents, and accompanied the attendants to the palace.

In Knossos they let him bathe, and brought him fine food, and gave him a private room with rugs on the floors and a deeply soft bed, in which he tried to sleep without much success. He felt as if he had already died, and was numb to the world.

The next day they gave him a feast. Four attendants, two male and two female, wrapped him in linen robes and strings of flowers as if he were a new bridegroom. He was brought to a table full of priestesses and city officials—including the island’s king—all talking and celebrating. The king, a proud middle-aged man, summoned Hades to him. Hades knelt before his chair, eyes turned down and hand upon his own forehead in obeisance. But the king bade him rise, and thanked him in ringing tones for his courage. Smiling, he then waved the surprised Hades off to take a seat along the table.

Hades tasted the roast lamb, the figs and grapes, and the excellent wine, and paid close attention to the sounds of the flutes and lyres, knowing he wouldn’t have full enjoyment of his senses anymore in the afterlife. The religious leaders always had been quite clear on how the afterlife worked. Those who had been good or heroic—which certainly must include his wife and son and himself—went to a beautiful island, bathed in gentle sun and resplendent with gardens and mountains, where they needed do nothing but relax in comfort, feeling forevermore as if they were drifting in a dream. Those who had been wicked went to a dark realm at the bottom of the sea, but Hades didn’t bother worrying about that. One who offered himself as a sacred sacrifice would no doubt end up on the island of cherished souls.

It was a pleasing image. Still, dread of the transition from life to death chilled his entire body, and rendered him mute with terror.

The following day was the sacrifice. The same attendants prepared him at dawn. They bathed him and massaged scented oil into his skin. They combed out the tangles in his hair and sliced off his black curls above his neck, to make it easier for the executioner’s axe. With an adroit touch, the elder of the men shaved Hades’ still-thin beard off his face. They dressed him in a tunic, sleeveless and knee-length like the ones he’d always worn, but of the snowiest white he had ever seen, and tied an embroidered cloth belt around his waist. They slipped clean sandals onto his feet, and fastened a long purple cloak by a slender silver chain around his neck. Then they led him outside for the procession through the open court.

People filled the court and lined the wide steps that rose to the palace, their cries of appreciation drowning out the thumps of the drums. Two shining black bulls, his fellow sacrifices, walked on either side of him, snorting and tossing their horns while the attendants guided their reins.

Young women wept as if Hades were their own doomed sweetheart, and reached out to touch his bare arms as he passed. Children, wives, and grandparents stepped forward and placed their offerings upon him and upon the bulls. They slipped rings onto his fingers and draped necklaces around his neck. Households who couldn’t afford precious metals or jewels brought garlands of poppies, which still bloomed in the meadows despite the drought, and placed them upon his head or around his shoulders. Soon both he and the bulls were ablaze in blossoms with red petals and black hearts.

The procession descended the steps and moved between the rows of desiccated olive trees. The cloak stretched out behind him, dragging along the pavement and growing heavier as he walked, for people tossed their offerings upon it. Plates, knives, silver cups—all were for the temple, the goddess, not for him. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t need riches where he was going. He only felt, through his frigid shock, a whisper of gratitude that so many people finally appreciated him. As the procession turned and began climbing the steps back to the palace, the attendants gathered up the cloak’s corners and helped carry the net of offerings to the high priestess.

Before Hades knew it, he was kneeling on the step before her. He smelled the incense and the bulls, and heard his heart pounding and his ears ringing. The open court, though packed with hundreds or even thousands of people, went silent as the priestess raised her voice in her eerie, supplicating song, of which he understood not a word in his mental haze.

He had seen her only rarely, and always at some distance, even during last night’s feast. He knew her name was Rhea, and that she was tall and frightening. She usually wore a live venomous snake wrapped around her arm, its tongue flicking in chilly interest at anyone who came near. That alone would have made him keep his distance. Today she looked taller than ever in the high cone-shaped headdress she wore, its gold bands and jewels glittering in the sun, making her unearthly and fearsome.

But when she placed a cool hand under his chin and lifted his head to look at her, he found her face was that of a kind young woman, her brown eyes sorrowful. “Don’t fear,” she whispered. “The goddess will carry you home soon.”

The snake looked him in the face and flicked its forked tongue at him. From behind, someone’s hands lifted away the necklaces and garlands, leaving his neck bare.

The masked attendant stepped up beside Rhea, cradling the axe in his muscled arms.

Rhea raised her knife. The snake glided its head back and forth just behind her knuckles. In the moment before she slashed her own arm, Hades noticed how smooth her limbs were, how completely free of scars; and he thought it strange, because she regularly drew her own blood for ceremonies.

Then her blood began to drip upon his forehead, and she swung the reddened knife and plunged it into his heart. The pain took his breath away. As he gasped and stared down at the hilt sunk in his chest, Rhea stepped out of the way to make room for the masked attendant. The axe went flashing. The world tumbled upside-down. Hades’ mouth filled with hot blood, and his consciousness passed from pain into darkness.

H
ADES OPENED HIS
eyes to the starry night sky. Straight walls closed off the horizon on all sides. He seemed to be in a small courtyard open to the air. The taste of blood saturated his mouth. Pain throbbed in his chest and throat with each beat of his heart. He desperately wanted to draw a deep breath, but upon trying to do so, coughed so violently that fresh blood gushed up against the back of his tongue. He rolled over to spit it out, gasping for air, and found he was lying on a raised stone platform, rectangular and just large enough for a body—a slab for cleaning and dressing the dead. He had been stripped of all clothing except a blanket that covered him from navel to knees, as if his body were indeed being prepared for the funeral pyre.

But he wasn’t dead.

“It’s all right,” whispered a female voice. “Lie down. Rest a little longer.” The woman knelt and clinked something metal near the ground. A flame flared into life, and she stood again, holding the oil lamp. It was Rhea, now without her snake or her ceremonial headdress. She wore a simple dark gown and a crescent-shaped pendant on a leather string. Her hair was braided back. She could have been any woman selling grapes at the market.

“Am I dying?” he asked.

“Actually, for someone whose head was cut almost clean off, you’re doing quite well.”

“How…”

“I suspect you are what I am. I heard stories about you, your strength, your power. Your village fears you, yes?”

He nodded. “But…I wanted to die. For the land. To be with my wife.” Tears filled his eyes, stinging and then cleansing.

Rhea touched his neck. “You were very brave. Believe me, what we did should have sent you to the spirit world. But the goddess sent you right back. As I expected, your neck has joined itself together again.” Her fingers moved to his bare chest and traced the line of the wound over his heart. “Yes. You’re healing. That’s what I suspected would happen. That’s why I ordered you to be left alone during the night.”

Blinking away his tears, he examined her warm brown face. Now that he thought about it, she looked too young to be the priestess who had presided as an adult since before Hades was born. “You said you’re this way too?”

“Yes. And there are others like us. Not many, but enough. I’m going to send you to them. Tonight. Can you travel?”

“I…” He coughed again, but found he could breathe more easily now, and lifted his hand to test his ability to wiggle his fingers.

“We’ll let you recover a little longer. But you must be out of the palace before morning, before it’s discovered you aren’t dead. We’ll tell the people you were cremated in the usual way, in a court within the palace. The bulls will be burned anyway, so the smoke will be there to assure them.”

She beckoned to someone near one of the walls. Another young woman, already dressed for travel in a hooded cloak, hurried over with a large cloth bag.

“Put these clothes on,” said Rhea. “Tanis will take you across the sea to Greece. Pretend you’re married and traveling together. I must return to my chambers before the dawn prayers, but you’ll hear from me again, Hades. May the goddess travel with you both.” Rhea kissed his forehead and Tanis’, then handed Tanis the lamp and darted away.

Tanis set the lamp on the slab beside him. She set about cleaning his face with a damp cloth, and giving him water to drink from a goatskin flask. “Truly, it’s amazing how fast you’re healing,” she said. “Do you think you can sit up?”

He planted a hand on the slab and tried to rise, but the pain flared up again in his neck and he winced and fell back down.

“No, all right, we’ll wait a bit,” she apologized. Her hood fell back to show a lovely face in the flickering lamplight. Her skin was paler than that of Rhea, who, rumor said, came from Egypt. Tanis appeared to be paler even than the olive-tan of the islanders. Though her hair was dark, her eyes were light, possibly green—the flame’s warm color made it hard for him to tell.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“The north of Greece. That’s why I’m to be your guide. I know my way around.”

“Are we still in the palace?”

“Yes.” She squeezed out the damp washcloth and poured another splash of water onto it. “You’re lucky. Most citizens never see these courts.”

“I was meant to be dead when they brought me here,” he supposed.

“Indeed.” She stroked the cloth along his hairline and across his ear. He felt the sticky blood get wiped away, a cool trail of water taking its place.

It took a long while, and many sips of water, but he gradually grew strong enough to sit up and put on the tunic, cloak, and sandals she had brought. Leaning heavily on her shoulder, he slid off the slab of the dead, and planted his feet upon the ground.

Tanis extinguished the lamp, wrapped it in a small skin, and tucked it into her bag. “Come.”

With their hoods drawn over their heads, they tiptoed through corridors, beneath ceilings and out again into the open. They moved inside, outside, over and over, making so many twists and turns that Hades would have been totally unable to find his own way back to the court where he’d awoken.

The palace slept around them. Torches burned in sconces to light the way, and as Hades hurried past, supported by Tanis’ arm, his eyes drank in gorgeous murals on the walls: blue dolphins arching over waves, athletes leaping over black bulls, and fanciful creatures he couldn’t put a name to, with bodies like lions, but wings and crests like birds. Like the court they had just left, he supposed these paintings were sights most citizens would never see; they were only for the eyes of the priestesses and their attendants.

At the end of one corridor, Tanis pushed her shoulder against a stone wall, which gave way, rotating and opening to let in a gust of fresh night air. They emerged onto the sandy ground, and Hades helped her shut the hidden door silently. The pain in his throat and chest had dulled to a moderate ache, and he could walk upright on his own now. He followed Tanis up the hill, dry scrub crunching under their feet. Tall trees soon surrounded and hid them.