“Are you ready to face the gray-eyed goddess?”
“Is anyone?”
“You have seen her before, at least. When she stopped the war between your father and the suitors’ kin.”
“I have seen her many times,” he said. “She used to come to me when I was a child. Never in her own form. I would notice a quality to certain people around me. You know. The stranger with overly detailed advice. The old family friend whose eyes shine in the dark. The air would smell like buttery olives and iron. I would speak her name and the sky would glow bright as polished silver. The dull things of my life, the hangnail on my thumb, the suitors’ taunts, would fade. She made me feel like one of the heroes from songs, ready to tame fire-breathing bulls and sow dragons’ teeth.”
An owl circled on its silent wings. In the quiet, the yearning in his voice rang like a bell.
“After my father returned, I never saw her again. For a long time I waited. I killed ewes in her name. I scrutinized everyone who passed. Did that goatherd linger strangely? Was not that sailor too interested in my thoughts?”
He made a sound in the dark, a half laugh. “You can imagine people didn’t love me for it, always staring at them, then turning away in disappointment.”
“Do you know what she intends for you?”
“Who can say, with a god?”
I felt it like a rebuke. That old uncrossable gulf, between mortal and divinity.
“You will have power certainly, and wealth. You will likely have your chance to be Telemachus the Just.”
His eyes rested on the shadows of the forest. He had scarcely glanced at me since I came. Whatever had been between us was dispersed like smoke on the wind. His mind was with Athena, pointed at his future. I had known it would be so, but it surprised me how much it ached to see it happen so quickly.
I spoke briskly. “You should take the boat, of course. It’s charmed against sea-disaster, as you know. With her help, you shouldn’t need that, but it will let you leave as soon as you are ready. Telegonus will not mind.”
He was quiet so long I thought he had not heard. But at last he said, “That is a kind offer, thank you. Then you will have your island back.”
I heard the crackles in the brush. I heard the sea distant on the shore, the sound of our breaths vanishing into its ceaseless wash.
“Yes,” I said. “I will.”
In the days that followed, I passed him as if he were a table in my hall. Penelope eyed me, but I did not speak to her either. The two of them were often together now, mending what had been broken. I did not care to see it. I took Telegonus down to the sea to show me his swimming. His shoulders, hard with muscle, cut unerring through the sea. He looked older than sixteen, a man grown. Children of gods always came to their strength faster than mortals. He would miss them when they were gone, I knew. But I would find something else for him. I would help him forget. I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.
I set out their evening meals, then took my cloak and walked into the darkness. I sought the highest peaks, the brakes where mortals could not follow me. Even as I did it, I laughed at myself. Which of them do you think is going to chase after you? My mind turned through all those stories I had kept from Odysseus, Aeëtes and Scylla and the rest. I had not wanted my history to be only an amusement, grist for his relentless intelligence. But who else would have tolerated it, with all its ugliness and errors? I had missed my chance to speak, and now it was too late.
I went to bed. I dreamed till dawn of the spear tipped with Trygon’s tail.
The morning of the third day Penelope touched me on the sleeve. She had finished the black cloak. It made her face look thinner, her skin dulled. She said, “I know I ask much, but will you be there when we speak to her?”
“I will. And Telegonus too. I want it finished and clear. I am tired of games.”
All my words felt like that, hard in my teeth. I strode up to the peak. The rocks there were darkened from sixteen years of my draughts. I reached down, rubbed my finger against the pitted stains. So many times I had come here. So many hours spent. I closed my eyes, and felt the spell above me, fragile as glass. I let it fall.
There was the faintest ping, like the snap of an overdrawn bowstring. I waited for the old weight to drop from my shoulders, but instead a gray fatigue rolled through me. I put out my hand for balance and found only air. I staggered, knees wavering. But there was no time for such weakness. We were exposed. Athena was coming, arrowing down upon my island like an eagle in her dive. I made myself start down the mountain. My feet caught on every root, the rocks turned my ankles. My breath came thin and shallow. I opened the door. Three faces startled up to mine. Telegonus rose. “Mother?”
I pushed past him. My sky lay open, and each moment was a danger. The spear, that is what I needed. I seized its crooked shaft from the corner where I kept it and breathed the sweet poison scent. My mind seemed to clear a little. Even Athena would not risk this.
I carried it into the hall and set myself at the hearth. Uncertainly, they followed. There was no time for a warning. Her lightning-bolt limbs struck the room, and the air turned silver. Her breastplate glowed as if it were still half molten. The crest of her helmet bristled over us.
Her eyes fixed on me. Her voice was dark as ore. “I told you that you would be sorry if he lived.”
“You were wrong,” I said.
“You have always been insolent, Titan.” Sharply, as if to wound me with her precision, she turned her gaze to Telemachus. He was kneeling, Penelope beside him. “Son of Odysseus,” she said. Her voice changed, gilding itself. “Zeus has foretold that a new empire will rise in the West. Aeneas is fled there with his remnant Trojans, and I would have Greeks to balance and hold them at bay. The land is fertile and rich, thick with beasts of field and forest, overhung with fruits of every kind. You will found a prosperous city there, you will build stout walls and set down laws to hold back the tide of savagery. You will seed a great people who will rule in ages to come. I have gathered good men from across our lands and set them on a ship. They arrive this day to bear you to your future.”
The room burned with the aureate sparks of her vision. Telemachus burned too. His shoulders seemed broader, his limbs swollen with strength. Even his voice had deepened. “Goddess,” he said, “gray-eyed and wise. I am honored among mortals. No man can deserve such grace.”
She smiled like a temple snake over its bowl of cream. “The ship will come for you at dusk. Be ready.”
It was his cue to stand. To show off that glory she had bestowed on him, lift it like a glittering standard. But he knelt, unmoving. “I fear I am not worthy of your gifts.”
I frowned. Why was he groveling so much? It was not wise. He should thank her and be done, before she found some reason for offense.
Her voice had a tinge of impatience. “I know your weaknesses,” she said. “They will not matter, when I am there to steady your spear-arm. I guided you once to victory against the suitors. I will guide you again.”
“You have watched over me,” he said. “I thank you for it. Yet I cannot accept.”
The air in the room hung utterly still.
“What do you mean?” The words sizzled.
“I have considered,” he said. “For three days I have considered. And I find in myself no taste for fighting Trojans or building empires. I seek different days.”
My throat had gone dry. What was the fool doing? The last man who refused Athena was Paris, prince of Troy. He had preferred the goddess Aphrodite, and now he was dead and his city ash.
Her eyes were augers, boring through the air. “No taste? What is this? Has some other god offered you something better?”