Wearing the Lion, page 25
I squint at her, and at Megara. “A major what?”
Except Até is too excited, and her pitch keeps building, like a punchline is coming. “So what I did was pretended to be the lost Oracle of the Amazons. Classic crone-in-a-cloak shit we used to do to send so many pilgrims on adventures. The real oracle is long dead because apparently her foresight sucked and she didn’t see raiders coming. I pretended to have survived this whole huge ordeal, and had them heroically reunite me with my Amazonian sisters, and Hippolyta cried into my hair, and everybody was so elated that they all completely bought the reward I gave them.”
Megara cups the orb in her palms like it’s an offering to the gods. Something parents would sacrifice for their children. For now the stone is foggy, like unloved quartz carved into a sphere. But its cloudy interior shifts, promising to reveal things that Até has set in motion.
I ask, “What is that thing, anyway?”
She brushes a knuckle across her lips as though to prove her smile can’t be killed. “That’s a lump of pig shit from Hippolyta’s own farm. With a little of my influence, all the mortals see it as a conduit of truth. As reward for rescuing the legendary oracle, she bestowed to them a seeing stone that will reveal which god had destroyed their shitty little family.”
I could swipe the stone into the sea. Of course, Heracles would take anything like that as a sign of a god covering up truth, and dive in after it. Options are limited here.
I click my teeth together. “And you’re going to make it reveal that Zeus was the one who sent Granny?”
She holds her arms out to me, clearly expecting a hug. “See? This is why we make a great team.”
I need to tell her to stop. I know better than to let this keep going. But Até is drunk on her narrative, and I need to know how dark she’ll make all of this.
So I gesture for her to go on.
Unhugged, Até mimes her fingers walking over toward Heracles. She points at the bandage on his forehead. “When this little shit gets all pissed about his daddy being the killer? That’s when I’m going to appear as an Amazon belowdecks, and tell all the others that he’s molesting Hippolyta. He’s the son of Zeus. They all know he’s capable. He’s going to have to kill every last one of them to get ashore alive. And better yet, as soon as Amazons start charging, every monster on the shore is going to charge in here. Anybody Heracles doesn’t kill, they will. I don’t know whether the Lion of Nemea or that boar weirdo loves him more, but they’ll sink a fleet for him. It’ll be a massacre.”
I want to say that Heracles doesn’t deserve that. But my tongue goes to the last remnant of his family. It’s where his concern would lie. For some reason, that matters.
“You don’t care that his wife would die in all that, too?”
Finally I get a sour expression out of her, a pout like she’s disappointed in me. “Is this because you’re Goddess of Mothers? Come on, you hate adulterers. Look at Megara basically sitting on that stud nephew’s lap. Do you know how many times she’s fucked him since she’s been apart from Heracles?”
I could know the truth about Megara and Iolaus in an instant. I could read the attachment between them. Get Athena to pour out their whole truth to me. But Até isn’t lying about this, is she? The prospect pricks me, like a cold spear tip in the base of my spine.
Eventually I say, “No. Because I haven’t had my attention on her, either.”
“That’s not surprising. I figured if you were watching, you would’ve showed up sooner. Heracles has been a great distraction. But let’s make up for lost time. Let’s get some revenge on his wife first. Want to set her on fire, pubic hair first? That’s a classic.”
All those labors. All those monsters. Climbing mountains, getting dashed into craters. He said it was to get justice for his sons, but it was always about getting justice for a mother who had motherhood stolen from her. He’s covered in wounds, and right now he’s sadder for her than for himself.
There was a time when I would have wanted to drown her and everyone on this ship to get revenge.
If I told Até, she’d chide me for changing. Where did the old Hera go?
She went nowhere. She’s right here. She’s right here, but she’s wiser.
I say, “Tell me something.”
“Anything! But let’s be quick, because they’re going to ask the pig shit orb for a god soon and I need to set up Zeus.”
“Ares agreed to you fooling Heracles into thinking it was Zeus?” I ask her, because I know the answer.
Her expression shows she knows that I know.
Até bites the tip of her thumb. “Technically, I may have told him that I was going to frame somebody else. Possibly Athena. But what’s he going to do? Declare war on me? Even if he does, it’s worth it to do this for you.”
Ares didn’t say Heracles would go for Athena. He was sure that Heracles would figure out it was me, sooner or later. So maybe he didn’t trust Até’s schemes, either. That hurts, too, like another spear tip against my flesh. Because I want to trust Até.
I let some of that exhausted pain waft into my voice. “Até?”
“Yes?”
“When Ares confronted Heracles, he was actually interrupting me. I was on my way to tell him the truth.”
Her arms tense, like she wants to hug onto me this time. “Well, I’m glad we stopped you.”
“Family is accountable, Até.”
“What does that mean?”
I pull my voice together, like so many loose branches crushed in a strap. “Do not harm a single mortal on this ship. Do not let anyone from the shore harm them, either. This isn’t their fault.”
The tip of her tongue swipes her bottom lip, like she tastes mischief. “You want me to set up another Olympian? Please tell me you’re sending Heracles after Athena. I never liked her.”
“I’ve always loved you. It’s why I kept you close. For ages you were my revenge. My Goddess of Ruin.”
I see the goosebumps flying across her flesh. “Hera? What are we doing?”
“You want to see the Queen of Olympos in her full glory? Then don’t hide me. Don’t shield me from what I did. Be my Goddess of Ruin. Ruin me.”
Alcides 37
I stumble away from them with the heels of both palms digging into my face, rubbing my eyes flat to blot it out. The diadem that was bright as the sun? Robes so long and radiant, and eyes carrying the weight of all mothers?
They may as well have poured boiling tar into my mind. This is a trick. I’m being mocked again, just as when Ares pretended to be the killer. I swing wildly, hip striking the edge of the ship and nearly plunging overboard.
It’s not her. Not family itself. Why would the one who loves children the most take mine? Why would the one who protects babies kill them in a home?
You’d never do such a thing. You couldn’t. My whole life has been for you. They’re all wrong, and I can’t breathe. I keep clawing at my throat, squeezing at it, trying to remember how it opens. How do you forget something like breathing?
When I spill off of the ship, the Amazons pour aboard. They are the wine returning to the bottle, swarming around their queen, and around my wife and nephew. Around that lying stone eye.
The only people anywhere near my part of the shore are the monsters. The Hind nuzzling at the Bull, with Purrseus padding around them and toward me, his head low, sniffing like I must smell heartbroken to him. Somewhere behind them is Logy, asking a hundred questions at once.
It’s Boar who gets to me first, carrying a bone with a wide hunk of pink meat so large he rests it over his shoulder. His other hand reaches for me.
“Come. Eat.”
I used to roast meat with my boys. They were old enough to withhold portions to sacrifice to you. They pretended they were inviting you to dinner.
Take it. Take all the dinners I was ever to have in the rest of my days. Make this not true.
Boar gestures to my mouth with the stripped end of the bone. “You haven’t eaten in too long. You’ve extended yourself too far. Boar took this from the Thracians. They say it’s the most flavorful cut, and it’s full of blood and everything that will restore you. So come. Cook your meat.”
I say, “No.”
“Or you can eat it raw. Boar prefers raw meat.”
Purrseus pads closer, and I see a paw sticking out of a fire. The smell of skin and fur roasting as my son reaches for me. Family in need of a god, too late.
I look to Logy, and I see that all the questions that were in their face have been replaced. They already know the answers. I’m so obvious. Was it always so obvious?
I tell them, “An oracle says it was Hera. But it’s not true. It isn’t true. It can’t be Hera.”
Am I yelling? I can’t hear my voice.
At Hera’s name, the Bull of Crete bolts forward, horns lowering until they gouge the ground between us. His glossy eyes shine darkly into me. His air is stark, nostrils tense, refusing to breathe. It’s like just hearing this thought has stopped his heart.
I can’t fathom what he wants to express. I’m bound there, in his fright.
Boar says, “Of course it’s not her.”
I say, “I said it’s not.”
Boar tilts his head down, so that the dead eyes of his cowl stare me in the face. He steps around the Bull’s great horns, reaching for me. “Yes. The gods deceive all the time. It is how they hunt. But you saw through their deception.”
My legs make some mistake, and I fall to my knees in the sand. Sand mixed with salt from the battlefield and the sea. So much salt that it bites into the creases of my knees.
“What do I do now?”
Boar touches me. That delicate touch, that feels like it should be saved for privacy, on the bondage over my shoulder. As though he would dig the wound out of me. Pull the wound away and leave me whole.
And Boar says, “We’ll find the god who’s truly responsible. We’ll get you the truth you need. First, you eat.”
Part Four
The Peace
Hera 38
All those treacherous gods sent an audience larger than any army in the Aegean Sea to witness Ares conquer Heracles, and to see Ares rise to the throne as King of Olympos. People traveled from all across civilization for this. They aren’t getting that revelation today.
But I’m not going to waste an audience.
Até moves in a thousand forms. She snakes her way through every nook and encampment. She is an old soup cook with a bottomless pot, dishing out spicy goat broth and slander about what an asshole I’ve been. She is a weary crone who always knew Queen Hera despised heroes even when they were slumbering in their cribs. She is a king from an island no one has heard of, who was there in Thebes the day Heracles’s family was struck down, and who has never forgotten seeing my statue’s visage twist into a smile as the children burned.
Her gossiping isn’t halfway done before the crowds take up her work for her. All mortals need is a story, and then they do the work. They ruin me.
In the guise of a gaunt and furious Amazon, Até is about to announce what the titan’s eye showed her aboard Hippolyta’s ship, when she shrieks in unexpected pain. From nowhere, Ares grabs her by the hair and drags her to the divine plane. He tears her from the physical world, shredding her guise and forcing her into our realm, leaving all the mortals who’d turned to look at her wondering what miracle they witnessed. None of them know they just witnessed a tantrum.
Up on Olympos, Ares shakes her like a rattle. Being here unbidden by the monarch means her avatar immediately starts falling apart, her pretty tanned skin flaking away like clay. Olympos will kill anything not allowed here, and she’s banished.
Ares bellows at her, “That wasn’t our deal!”
The blunt sword is still embedded in the flesh of his side, the blood dried and turned to serpents that rise and hiss with his breathing. He always liked snakes.
“Hey! Hey!” Até says, prying at his fingers. Her hands are feeble, especially with Olympos’s curse attacking her. “I didn’t want to screw you over!”
“You know what happens to people who turn on me?”
I’m so done with all their plotting. Am I going to wrestle her free of the God of War?
No.
Instead I dart to his side and grip the tang of the sword. His entire avatar goes rigid with the sting, and before he can resist, I yank the sword out. The red snakes gasp and hiss, more blood flowing from his side. He loses his grip and staggers, but doesn’t fall to a knee.
Even by the standards of gods, this is not what happens when someone is hewn with a sword. I lift the blade up, still murky with char from the forge, a few fibers of bronze sticking to the edges. It wasn’t sharpened. It shouldn’t have needed to be. Hephaistos designed this to cut down any foe. That it didn’t even stop Ares from raging after Até makes me wonder. Did Hephaistos deliberately forge a faulty weapon to screw over all our scheming against each other?
He’s a clever tinkerer. Ares would see that as a betrayal, even if the betrayal meant he survived.
Ares barks at me, “Stop. This is our business.”
Rather than do battle, I hold the sword up, one hand on the tang and the other on the tip. Before their eyes, I slam it down over my knee. It snaps like metal kindling.
I tell him, “You want to know what happens when a goddess betrays you? She gets promoted.”
Até sounds as baffled as Ares. “What?”
“You’re unbanished from Olympos. You’re in my entourage. I need you around.”
“No,” says Ares, standing up straighter, causing his wound to open further. The blood becomes serpents before it can even leave his flesh, and they all hiss at me in that juvenile way of his. “She remains in the mortal world until she fixes this shit. Your scheming is going to rile Heracles up and make him dangerous again. He needs to be put down.”
“Good news, Heaven,” I say without thinking. It bubbles up out of me like fresh bile. I take on the swagger of my dipshit husband, spitting irony at my son. “I invented this new thing called ‘accountability.’ If you want to be King of Olympos someday, you’d better study it. For now, I’m the fucking queen and I say which gods walk the marble halls. You are lucky I don’t kick you out.”
“I’m protecting you. You’ve lost yourself and you need us.”
“I do need you, but not to scheme behind my back.” That sounds more like Zeus than I want to, too. I need to wash my mouth out with lye and seawater after this. “You’re trying to correct the wrong mistakes. I fucked up, and I know I fucked up. I’m unfucking it. Your manipulations didn’t help anything. You hurt a grieving father worse than he was hurt before, and you made me feel even more alone.”
“I . . .” Even the snakes at his side go still. Several slither back inside him. They look nearly as ashamed as his falling brow. “That’s not what we were doing.”
“I don’t blame you for resorting to manipulation. What you didn’t learn from Athena, you picked up from your father and me. But I’m dealing with Heracles now. You and Até are going to help me.”
Até says, “We are?”
With a tone not unlike a sword shattering over a knee, I tell them both, “Not by plotting behind my back, though. You two will do what I tell you, or you’ll stay out of it. This isn’t your story.”
It sounds so righteous that I’m warm for a fraction of a moment. Then the cold chases after it, the realization that it’s not just my story either. I fight not to look across the world for wherever Heracles is lurking and plotting my death. Accountability will come for me, too. I’m ready for it.
It’s Ares who breaks my concentration. I can tell it’s hard for him to meet my gaze. “What do you want me to do?”
Alcides 38
I sit in wet earth and I’m running away. My eyes dash as fast as they can carry my soul, along the shoulders of my friends, along the tops of the firs that turn to silhouettes in dusk, out beyond where my attention can hold. Anything to be distracted. Any thought that requires not thinking. I pray to a goddess who detests me to teach me how to not be, if even for a moment.
Boar pulls a hunk of meat off a bone and sucks it between his lips, slurping so loud that I can’t look away. With his eyes on mine, he tightens his jaw. His jaw’s gaze is more intense than his eyes. I watch it, waiting for him to chew and swallow. That bristly, graying beard remains still, the dimple on his cheek so deep it could be a scar.
Why isn’t he chewing? How long has he held his mouth like that, refusing to taste his own dinner?
I start to fade again, to reach for thoughtlessness, when a cold nose brushes along the naked crease of my spine. Purrseus returns to our clearing, rubbing against my back instead of stretching before the fire. I’m in the way of his warmth. Cool wetness drips from his muzzle, some flesh that isn’t his or mine. It is a white-speckled owl, which he carries by its feet. He lifts it to my mouth, like I’m supposed to try a bite.
That’s when I realize how many times Purrseus has visited and left the camp. On my left stinks a heap of offerings. A goat with its throat gashed open. A lynx in the same state, and a calf that has been torn in half. Purrseus has been trying to feed me for hours.
All the calf’s legs have been stripped and roasted, and I didn’t smell them until now. The bone in Boar’s hand is one of those hanks of meat. The still-unchewed morsel in his mouth is one bite of a feast.
I gesture for Purrseus to have a bite off of the three calf’s legs still roasting above the fire. He’s tall enough to reach any of them without being singed.
