The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Fourteen

Aletheia . And she’s speaking to me.

I’m not sure it’s much of an improvement though. I’m certain she made me jump on purpose.

“I—I didn’t know you were there.”

Her eyes travel over me, sharp and quick, and I wonder what information she’s taking in.

“There is much you don’t know,” she says.

I don’t argue. She’s right.

I clear my throat. “Aletheia, I want to apologize. The way I behaved yesterday, it was very wrong. I should never have spoken to you like that.”

She says nothing, just continues looking me over with those birdlike eyes.

“I’ve known worse,” she says finally, and turns from me. “Come this way.”

She has no interest in my apologies, I suppose, no interest in my words at all, and why should she? Disoriented, I follow her—she steps nimbly for an old woman, over tree roots and fallen fruit as if they’re nothing, and she moves fast. After a while, she comes to an abrupt stop, and turns to point out a plant with bright yellow buds. “We harvest this today.”

She’s holding two baskets, and hands me one.

“Flower is delicate,” she says. “If we don’t harvest right, pods will break. If you cut stem too low, plant will die.”

She’s speaking an older Greek than I am used to. The words are the same, more or less, and yet it’s different. But it’s no wonder, if she was born more than three generations ago, that our dialect is no longer quite the same.

She demonstrates to me how the harvesting should be done: where to cut, and how to hold the plant as she makes the incision. Then she drops it gently in her cupped palm and holds it in front of me.

“Later, dry the pod and harvest seeds. I show you.”

There’s nothing friendly in her tone, and yet when she says I show you it occurs to me she does not hate me, perhaps, so much as I had thought.

She hands me a small knife then, to see if I can harvest as she showed me. I take it with some trepidation. I hadn’t planned to be out here at all today, being Aletheia’s garden assistant. I’d planned to be devising some kind of way out of this place. But then it occurs to me that this garden might help me with that, too. It is a garden full of witching-herbs, after all. Surely some of them can be useful to me. So for now I take Aletheia’s hand-knife and try to repeat what she showed me, but she interrupts, shaking her head.

“Stem is too young. Needs more growing. You try this one.”

We continue like this for a while, me attempting and her correcting me. Finally, I seem to be doing a passable enough job and she moves off to another corner and busies herself with the plants there—when I look up I see she’s moving through them at least five times faster than me, wielding her small knife with quiet efficiency, almost like a dance. Her basket fills quickly, though mine only has a thin covering of herbs across the bottom. I take advantage of her intent focus to scan the plants for ones I recognize.

The sun beats down on me but with none of the harshness of Sikyonian sun. I move through rows of strange and beautiful plants—I think I remember some of the names he told me: bettany, herb of Lethe—but not their functions. It’s with surprise then that I stumble on a bed of garden peas beside them. But the demon did say that not everything growing here is magical. The garden supplies the palace and its dining table; demons must eat, too, it appears.

I stare at the rows of pea-pods, inhaling the green scent of them in the sun. They look so delicious. When I run a finger over the pods I can feel the plump peas inside, ready to burst out. The hunger is tormenting me. They are only garden peas, I tell myself: what harm could they do?

I pop a few pods and tip them into my mouth. The taste courses through me like emotion. This is not the way taste used to feel. I move the peas around my mouth, tasting the seasons, tasting spring; honey-water, crisp as dew. I open my eyes, breathing fast. I throw the empty pods on the ground. Taste is not just a sense anymore, it’s something more than that.

Senses become more heightened here, he said.

Having eased the roiling in my belly now, I feel more clear-headed than I have for days. And so I go back to harvesting Aletheia’s plants, working my way back to where she stands. She clearly knows much about this garden. Why not start here, to learn its secrets?

We harvest a little longer in silence before I turn to her.

“What is it this plant does? Once it is dried and prepared.”

She glances at me.

“First we take seeds, crush them, mix with celandine oil. Leave one moon cycle. Then it is poison.”

The basket almost drops from my hands.

“Poison? But…why would we make such a thing?”

“For his arrows.”

Poison-tipped arrows. So the demon is a hunter.

“And what does he hunt?” My voice trembles a little despite myself. “Animals or men?”

“You speak as though men do not kill their own kind,” she scoffs. “He does not hunt men. But as one man may kill another, he may end a life, if it must be done.”

And who decides, I wonder, if such a thing must be done?

“Show me your basket,” Aletheia gestures, already bored with my questions. She inspects what I’ve picked so far.

“You are slow, mortal girl. Not even enough for one arrow. You must work harder. Try that bush, there.” She directs me to a patch of the garden further away from her—too far for more questions. I do as she says, but my mind is turning fast.

There are powerful things in this garden, indeed. And though I do not seek to poison him, surely there are other things in this garden that I can use. I know the gods have often gifted mortals with magic herbs to help achieve superhuman things. What if, even for an hour or for a few minutes, I could acquire the strength of some great hero? Or better yet, a glamor of invisibility. I could creep out to the stables unnoticed, then, and wait for the demon to open the gate himself.

I could follow him when he retires at night. I could see his uncloaked face .

I could—

“Psyche!”

At the sound of my name I whip around. The black cloak moves in the breeze around the shape of a man, cool-looking in the heat, as though shade follows where he goes. How does he manage to sneak up on me like that?

Beneath the cloak I can see he’s looking at me. Then he turns aside.

“Aletheia—you have gathered amply for today. Will you take these inside—the lady Psyche’s basket, too?”

Aletheia gives the merest nod, and takes the basket from me without a word. I watch her spry figure make its way back toward the palace walls. It’s easier than looking at him.

Whatever he’s kept me behind to say, I doubt I want to hear it. More insults? More patronizing rationales for why I should not only accept captivity but be grateful for it?

“Walk with me.”

He moves off down the path, pomegranate trees making a dappled light over him as he goes. I stay rooted where I am, and then I remember I have a goal. A goal that might mean humoring him for a while. Let him think me a tamer creature than I am, if it keeps me the freedom to go where I wish around the palace and its grounds. I follow him down the path.

After a few paces he speaks again. His voice is stiff and oddly formal.

“I wish to apologize. I fear I have not been mindful of just how great a transition this has been for you. What’s worse, I failed to control my temper.” The hood shifts in my direction. “It is a foul temper, I am sorry to say. I have been told that before.” He clears his throat. “I do not wish for you to feel yourself imprisoned here, Psyche. I think perhaps, once you are here a little while, you might see that it is not the prison you imagine.” He slows his pace a little, noticing I’m lagging, and gestures to the vast space around us.

“There is more to these gardens than you’ve seen. Orchards and vineyards and wide open fields. I can bring one of the horses for you if you like; you can learn to ride.”

I don’t tell him that my father taught my sister and me to ride years ago—though on a short-legged old workhorse, not on one of these majestic creatures.

“And you will not be without companions,” the demon goes on. “There are nymphs in these gardens; dryads too. They are merry, social creatures.” He hesitates. “I can understand how my company and Aletheia’s alone might not feel sufficient for a young woman.”

I walk alongside him, silent and confused. His tone is cold, but it seems he wishes me to be persuaded. And yet what need has he to make his case? I’m here whether I wish to be or not. I can’t fathom this. Yesterday he called me a worm; today he courts my favor.

Perhaps he just wants me to see him as my benefactor. He wishes to win my gratitude so that he can boast he rescued me as he rescued Aletheia. He wishes me to overlook that he lied to me, entrapped me, and now refuses to let me leave. I feel his sidelong glance again.

“I do not think it impossible,” he says, his voice as stiff as before, “that you could be happy here.”

I look over. “And do you care, if I am happy or otherwise?”

“I am not indifferent,” he says shortly.

Not indifferent—how flattering. A sharp laugh bubbles up in me, but suddenly I find myself wondering: who exactly has cared whether I was happy or not?

My father wished me to be safe and healthy. He wished me to marry well and make him proud. But did he ever question whether I was happy ?

Perhaps I never questioned whether I was happy.

As for Yiannis, he always liked to see me smile, but not, I think, because he longed for my happiness. If he had, he wouldn’t have commanded my smiles to suit his pleasure.

Without my noticing it, somehow, we have made our way back to the palace door. Now the demon opens it—one broad, bronzed hand against the dark metal—and steps back.

“Come inside,” he says. “There is a room I wish to show you.”