The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Seven

I don’t understand at first. I even take a half-step toward him. I’m thinking he’s here to say goodbye, to tell me he loves me and will love me forever.

But of course that’s not why Yiannis is here. Another glance at his face—afraid, unhappy—is enough to tell me that. And besides, where Vasilis goes, trouble follows.

“ Khaire , family of Andreos,” Vasilis says in smirking, formal tones. His eyes rove over me in the usual way, then he turns to my father, who’s breathing hard beside me, heartbreak in each inhale.

“Kirios Andreos,” Vasilis goes on, “you are early. The king bade you bring your daughter to the rock at dawn, and it is more than an hour until then.” He glances smugly at Yiannis.

“He also bade us escort you, just in case you needed any…encouragement.”

“Psyche—” My father’s voice cracks. But he has nothing left to say.

It’s Dimitra who turns and whispers, loud enough for me alone to hear.

“I can hold them off—for a little while, at least. Ada’s waiting in the stable. If you move quickly—”

I place a hand on her arm. Father trained her well; her hand-to-hand combat was always better than mine, and no man of Sikyon would expect a woman to fight them. She would have the advantage—for about thirty seconds.

“It’s done,” I say. “We had our chance.”

But we didn’t. We never had a chance at all.

*

We go on foot. Father walks in the middle, Dimitra on one side and me on the other. The boys follow behind us like wolves following sheep. When the wind turns I can smell the mint pomade Yiannis uses for his hair. I don’t turn to look at him. I think the sight of him now would sicken me.

The path down toward Aphrodite’s Pillow is steep and curving, hugging the windward side of the mountain. The air buffets us as we walk, harder the closer we get. Eventually a smaller path splinters off to the left, leading toward a rocky cliff face that juts out high above the sea.

This part I had not expected: the people.

There are so many of them.

“She is here,” a voice says, and a murmur spreads.

So many faces. I can’t tell by their expressions what they’re thinking, or hoping for. Do they want me to run? Do they want me to die? They are here early.

Perhaps they just wanted a front-row seat.

Some are faces that I know—the Demous; little Hector’s mother; our neighbor, old Lydia; some of the girls I used to play with in the Agora when we were young. And many faces I don’t know, who’ve come to stare, too. It feels familiar, that narrow-eyed stare that so many of them turn on me. I learned it well enough back when I was considered a beauty. Now that I’m a freak, the stare is not so different after all. I tell myself to keep my back straight, my head high. I think if my mother were here that’s what she’d do.

And there’s the king, in his red silk litter, with guards around him. Guards! As if I could harm him . They must really believe I am an unnatural creature.

They are afraid, I realize.

Of course they are afraid. They’re caught between the gods and their own conscience.

“Psycheandra, daughter of Andreos.” It’s the head councilman who speaks. His voice is full of self-importance, trying to disguise any fear or doubt.

“You have come here to fulfill the will of the gods. Aphrodite has summoned you, and you have obeyed.”

It’s Yiannis and Vasilis who obeyed, I’d like to point out. I wanted to run.

I think of Prometheus, the Titan who was punished by the gods. He was chained to a rock where he was doomed to die daily, making his immortality a punishment. At least if I die today, it will only be once.

There is a metal stake driven hard into the rock—the strongest of the men must have done it—and a long chain fastened to the stake. The chain is for me.

I shiver. There will be no king’s executioner today. Instead they will shackle me, and leave me here to the gods’ will. But what that means in practice is that I will most likely starve to death. A king’s man will be stationed here to stand guard.

The crowd leaves a great space around the stake so that the spot where I am to stand looks almost like a stage.

A stage where I am to perform—because what is all this if not a performance? A performance of power. Of strength. Of cruelty.

The auskalos piper has arrived. It’s considered an honor to have the king’s own mourning-piper, but all this theatre of grief feels like a mockery. The way all the onlookers have donned their darkest robes—it doesn’t fool me. Some are here to grieve, yes, but mostly they’re here for their own satisfaction. To thank their lucky stars that they’re not in my shoes, I suppose; or to congratulate each other for being more virtuous than me. It must be comforting to think that all those who are punished deserve it. I suppose they may even think Aphrodite will thank them for their offering.

“Shame on you,” Dimitra mutters. “Shame on all of you.”

I don’t tell her to forgive them. Some among this crowd suffer with us; some do not.

“It is time, Psycheandra,” says the councilman. I look toward him and at the king, who has descended from the palanquin to stand behind him, but the king doesn’t look me in the eyes today.

“Be well, Dimitra,” I say, and squeeze her hand briefly. “We may yet meet again. Do not assume the worst.”

Dimitra’s face closes over. She doesn’t believe it, and I don’t blame her. I don’t exactly believe it myself.

I turn to my father next. He shakes his head, looking at my hands as he clasps them.

“Forgive me, kori mou. Tell your mother to forgive me.”

I see the red rims of his eyes, and the shame written there. In that moment I realize he never really expected his escape plan to work. He knew we’d end up here all along. All his packing and preparing was just something to do; a way to keep the truth from sinking in. A way to distract us all.

“Look after Dimitra,” I say.

“It’s time, girl,” the councilman says again, growing impatient. I hear a faint hiss leave Dimitra’s lips. She loves me in her way, and she loves my father and her own dignity. I can feel the fury in her, the rage at seeing our family treated with contempt.

A thickset guard moves toward me. I stare him down, and turn to the king.

“I will go of my own accord. I have no need for your show of force.”

I walk across the large open space to where the stake and the shackle wait. As I go, a hand reaches out and briefly clasps mine. It’s little Hector’s mother. Her eyes are full of pain for me, and I almost lose my nerve. I can’t allow myself to feel her sorrow now, still less my own.

“Great King.” My father drops to one knee. “I beg you, show mercy to my daughter. She had no intent to offend. She is but young.”

The king wets his lips. I can see the guilty conscience he carries, as surely as if it were a fog around him. But I know what he’ll say before he opens his mouth.

“If it’s mercy you want, Kirios Andreos, pray to the goddess.”

And yet if Aphrodite had wanted to strike me down dead, or cause the earth to cave beneath my feet, she could have. She does not need my countrymen to act for her. She’s just doing what gods do: testing her power, testing how afraid we mortals are. Seeing what that fear will make us do.

Well, she has her answer.

In the east, the darkness is starting to lift. Threads of grey criss-cross the sky. Far on the horizon is a sickly little hint of light. Above us, the ravens are beginning to leave their nests. They fly out from the rock face, single shapes darting out from the shadows. Ravens aren’t like crows. They fly alone—solitary birds.

Wise creatures. A crowd does not protect you.

Your own tribe will not protect you.

The thickset man steps toward me, and fastens the shackle around my ankle. I feel the cold metal; I feel the click that signals no going back. He withdraws, and I try to breathe.

The councilman clears his throat.

“You make this offering, Psycheandra, daughter of Andreos, as penance for the offense to the goddess…”

Suddenly the anger is boiling in me. How dare he?

“It is you who did this,” I say, and hear an intake of breath through the crowd. I let my eyes travel over them one by one.

“People of Sikyon, it is you who praised me, who compared me as no mortal should be compared. You, not I, spoke the foolish words. You made me something for the gods to destroy.”

My flood of accusations surprises me almost as much as it surprises them. Until now I’d been feeling a strange sort of calm, but listening to this smug, spineless councilman has unleashed the rage of injustice.

I never tried to be more than what I was.

I told them not to speak so foolishly.

They made a god of me. And now they make a monster of me.

There is stirring and murmuring; they hear me clearly, despite the wind, and they are affronted. I am supposed to be humiliated, after all. I am supposed to be below them now.

“Disrobe her.”

The councilman speaks, and I whip my head around toward him. Disrobe ? We shear our animals when we offer them to the gods, but…

“A sacrifice must be without covering or adornment.” The councilman’s voice is stony. He wants to humiliate me now. This is a reward for my impertinence.

“Disrobe, unless you want my men to do it for you.”

He’s afraid. They have decided I’m a monster now, and monsters are reviled but also feared.

I think about refusing—I feel strangely bold now, bold enough for anything—but suddenly it doesn’t matter much. What use has modesty now? It is only a custom among mortals. Something I’ll soon have no more need for.

I take off my cloak, unfasten my chiton . A girl scurries up to me at the councilman’s behest, and gathers the garments into a small pile. She looks at me with a wordless stare and backs away.

My breasts sit against my skin, and I look down at my body, the wonder of it. Is this what it takes—the brink of the unknown, the brink of death—to see ourselves this way? Suddenly I understand why the boys and men of Sikyon, and a few of the women, too, have fought like dogs over me. I understand their hunger, their need to put their hands on me. My body is beautiful—as all mortal bodies are.

I never saw it this way before.

I take a breath, and draw my head up. The waves are lashing at the base of the cliff, so very far below. Now the auskalos pipe is reaching a crescendo, its chilly drone seeming to grow with the wind. Or maybe it’s the wind itself that’s getting louder.

“The light,” I hear a voice in the crowd. “See the light, how strange it is!”

They’re right. There’s a greenish tint to the sky, one that does not usually belong to the dawn hour. And the more I watch it, the more it seems to grow.

The wind whips the rock face and the crowd cries out, clutching their cloaks about them, clutching their children as if they might blow away.

“Is there something in the water, Mama?” one of the children is saying.

He could be right. It looks choppier than usual, and right here, below the cliffs, it seems to be turning darker.

I think about what’s coming next for me.

If it’s death, I have lived virtuously, no one can say otherwise. Hades may house me in a good place, and surely I will see my mother again.

The crowd is jittery now, people glancing fearfully around at each other. The piper has abandoned his song. The wind is too high; some of the children look as though they truly could get swept away. And the sky seems darker than before. The green light is still there, but it’s as though the dawn has regressed: instead of rising, the sun has vanished again, as if Helios himself does not want to see what is to happen next.

“There! In the water—did you see something?”

A boy of maybe twelve moves closer to the edge, craning his neck to look down, but as he does a wave smashes against the edge of the rock. The spray hurls upwards in a great torrent, easily the height of five men; the boy’s mother shrieks. Her son is on the ground now, clawing at the wet, slippery rock—just a step from the cliff face.

“Get back! Get back, everyone!”

The wind roars even louder, and people crouch down before it. Some are shouting; some screaming. Their fear breaks in a wave.

“Run!” they call.

“People of Sikyon, repair to your homes.” The head councilman tries to speak, but even I can barely hear his voice, so buffeted it is by the wind. It doesn’t matter. People are running anyway.

“We have honored the gods’ will. We leave our daughter Psycheandra to their mercy.”

No one hears his words; they’re all vying to get off the rock. I feel a strange stillness inside me.

The thought comes to me that soon I will be alone, more alone than I have ever been in my life. I turn around to watch the crowds go.

I look for Father and Dimitra. There they are, being escorted into the king’s own carriage. Bile turns in my stomach. It is not their fault, but the king should be ashamed of this charade—pretending that there is some honor in what has happened today, as though my father were parent to a soldier, or a martyred hero!

“Steady!” I hear someone call. The king’s horses are in a frenzy—the stampeding crowd has managed to get ahead of the carriage.

My father is shaking, they have to lift him in. But even as they lift him, he doesn’t look back. Dimitra does, though.

She is the last to leave, the last to see. Her face turned toward me is white in the dim, her eyes furious and bright, unblinking. Her hair bats and whips in the wind, and it is she who reminds me of a goddess now: a goddess of vengeance.

And then the carriage moves off, and they are gone.

And I am alone.

I throw a prayer up toward the dark skies. They say the shades cannot intercede for the living, but how do any of us know?

Mother, whatever is to happen, let it be quick at least.

The waves smash, the green tinge deepens.

And then a shadow falls across my vision, a shadow darker than the darkness. A figure is walking toward me.

A stranger in a dark cloak.

A man.

Where he came from, I can’t say. He has appeared, somehow, out of the storm. Despite the howling of the wind, the crashing of the waves, all I hear is silence as he moves toward me, the black hood draped over his face, falling all the way to his chin. I can see no part of him; even his sleeves fall over the place where his hands should be.

And I know exactly what he is. What he must be:

My executioner.