The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Sixteen

I dart to the door, leaving my slippers behind—these corridors echo, and the slightest tap or scuff would be amplified. Every moment I think she will turn around, but she does not. Instead she moves, surefooted, through the corridors, and it’s clear that she knows this path as well as a person can, that she travels it often. As we walk I’m more and more certain that I was right: these are the turns I could not find before. And finally we round another corner and there it is: the door that leads to the stable-yard. Aletheia disappears through it.

I wait a moment, then proceed on tiptoe and crack open the door. The yard bakes under the sun. Aletheia is in the stables, I can see her shadow in the doorway and hear the horses snorting. Eventually she comes out leading two horses—her thin old frame looks odd next to these tremendous beasts, which seem almost twice her height. She leaves them in the center of the yard, flicking their tails and pricking their ears in anticipation, while she goes back for the other two. Then, finally, she takes out the key and goes to the gate. I hear the great clank of a bolt sliding, the sigh of the gates as they open. I crane my head, but the angle is wrong and the gates open inward: I still can’t see what lands await outside them.

Aletheia comes back into the center of the yard, and leans up to one of the horses, seeming to whisper something in its ear.

“Go!” She smacks it on the rump then, and it shoots through the gate into whatever lies beyond. I stare as it bolts, riderless, into the unknown.

She repeats it for the other horses, and finally for the black stallion with the golden eyes. When they have gone, the yard is strangely quiet. Are they coming back? I suppose she must expect it. I wait for Aletheia to do something, but she just sits down on the rim of a stone trough and pulls a pipe from her pocket. She lights it and begins to smoke, blowing a soft blue ring into the air. After a while—I don’t know how long we sit there, Aletheia watching the gate, and me watching her—there is a pounding of hooves and the horses return, one by one, galloping through the gate and slowing just enough to canter round the yard, then ease at last to a shivering, snorting halt.

Aletheia pats each one, then leads it back into its stable.

This is one of her duties, I suppose—to exercise these great beasts. Does she do it every day? I’ll have to rise early to find out. Once I know the rhythm, I can make use of it. All I need is to get through that gate, and it will be easier to slip past Aletheia’s watch, at any rate, than the demon’s.

For now, I don’t let myself think too hard about what lies outside those gates—what strange land I’ll be in, or how long it may take me to reach anywhere close enough to get a message to Sikyon. I just have to do it.

When Aletheia rises from her sitting-place I start backwards. Hopefully she doesn’t notice the door’s ajar, I have no time to close it. I race back along the corridors, praying I make each turn fast enough before she rounds the bend and sees me.

Back in my room, I breathe fast, pacing up and down in front of the illusion-window, which today shows a mountain ridge covered in thick olive trees. If I get through those gates, it will not be a return to my old life. That life, and the life I thought I was meant to have, are gone forever. But all I know is that I can’t grow old in a gilded cage.

As to Aphrodite…if I let myself think it, the thought of her chills my blood, but how do I know the demon isn’t lying to me? A god’s anger may find a new victim from one day to the next. Perhaps it’s just arrogance to believe she’s still looking for me.

I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

*

Later in the day I practice for myself, to see if I can find the door to the stables again. This time I close my eyes once in the corridor—there is something to be said, after all, for depriving oneself of sight. I have spent a good amount of time without it, these last days, and I believe it has begun to sharpen some other skills. Memory, for one. Now with my eyes closed I can see Aletheia’s bony frame hurrying down these halls, and I follow in my mind’s eye, taking the turns exactly as I remember them, opening my eyes only when I must. And to my surprise it takes no more than five minutes.

I’ve made it. I’m smiling widely as I step outside. The yard is quiet, and I go to the great gate and study it again. Now that I study it more closely, I can see it, disguised almost perfectly by the filigree design: the slot where the key must fit. I reach out, half-expecting it to burn me, but nothing happens.

All well and good—but how to get the key?

I must be patient. Inspiration will come, I tell myself. I sigh and turn, leaning my back against the door to my prison. Over in the stables, the black horse puts its face over the half-door and studies me, unperturbed. Truly, he is a noble creature.

I walk over, but don’t quite dare to stroke his muzzle. Instead, I open the door and peek inside the stable. Four stalls, one for each horse, and here by the door, hanging from a hook on the wall, a quiver of arrows. The poisoned arrows, no doubt. I shiver, and the black horse watches me closely. He stamps a foot and scuffs it backwards, tossing some hay from the floor, and his horse-shoes flash gold.

“Do you hunt with him, then?” I murmur. “Do you see all his dark deeds? It is not right: you are too noble a creature to serve one such as him.”

Then I hear movement from outside. The gates are moving, their great black mass swinging inward. He has returned already!

I want so badly to see what lies beyond those gates, but my fear of being seen is greater. I shrink further back into the stall, the stallion’s black tail flicking softly beside me. I hear the demon’s treat in the yard and know he’s approaching the stables. The horses whinny in anticipation, and he greets them, one by one:

“Good evening, Ajax.” That’s the black horse. Then he moves along the row, further away from me. “Good evening, Velos; Tharros; Anemos.”

I hold my breath. I hear him move toward the palace door, and through the stable’s doorway I glance out, confirming that his back is to me. I wonder if I will see him remove his cloak now: he says he does not like to wear it in his home, and he will think me upstairs, safe from view. But then, with one foot on the step, he pauses.

“Psyche,” he says.

My heart skips a beat. How does he know?

“I suggest you come out of there, and go upstairs. It is evening already.”

My heart has resumed its work, but badly—now it beats twice as hard as before. I feel a wave of boldness run through me. I step forward, out of the stables. Beneath the black hood, I feel him look at me.

“I will not dine with you tonight,” I say. “I will have no more of your demon food.”

He moves his foot back from the doorway and turns fully to face me then. He is quiet for a while.

“I can see you fear what happened last night.” He stops, as though considering his words. “For a mortal to find pleasure in this place—that is neither fearful nor shameful. But if you don’t want it to happen again, it will not.” The hood shifts a little.

“I hope in time you shall accustom yourself to the pleasures of this realm, but in the meantime, if you wish to subsist on bread and water, it shall be so. I have asked Aletheia to prepare some for you tonight.”

I fold my arms. I suppose he means to trick me with that, too.

“And you will not go blindfolded,” he adds then, and I stare.

So he means to show me his face, after all?

“I will keep myself cloaked while you eat.”

This is almost as surprising. Why make such a concession? Why have me sit with him at all? We have surely proved by now that we do not make for good companions.

“Come,” he says, his voice commanding, and opens the door.

I suppose I could refuse. I could dig my heels in and sleep in the stables all night. But for whatever reason, he seems prepared to offer concessions today, and those may prove useful to me. The great generals agree, it is wise to pick one’s battles.

Slowly, I walk toward the door.

*

It is a strange experience, sitting at the table with no blindfold. Seeing everything. Seeing him . I cannot help but flash back to last night, and I hope he does not see me flush. He sits in shadow, and all I see of him are his hands, golden-skinned, folded on the table before him. He looks so calm, so assured. The lord of his kingdom, who believes that everything in this room belongs to him—even Aletheia. Even me. I want to ask him what he does all day. Where he goes. What has earned him the right to return to this table at night with such a self-satisfied air, as though he’s been laboring in the fields all day, when surely he is up to much darker work than that.

The table is set, as before, with a variety of sumptuous food. Platters with crisp-skinned meat, oil-glazed vegetables, soups and ices; fruits and cheeses and fritters that smell of herbs. I try not to move too much. If I stay quite still, maybe I’ll avoid all those exquisite food smells wafting toward me, assaulting me with every turn of my head. Then Aletheia emerges from the doorway with a plate of bread, and drops it brusquely on the table before me.

A few crusts of bread, dry as wafers. I exhale.

“Well? Eat,” he says, once Aletheia has left us again.

Slowly I raise one to my mouth and take a small nibble. The taste is recognizable—better, richer, far more delicious than mere bread-crusts should be, but nothing too ecstatic. Nothing I can’t manage. I breathe more freely, and take a small sip of water. Even the water tastes like sunshine, like the freshest spring from the deepest forest—but it does not disturb my peace too much. It does not leave me breathless.

“Better?” the demon says, and I nod.

I remind myself that he is not solicitous for my well-being, even if he sometimes appears it. I remind myself of the secrets he keeps from me, and the freedom he denies me. I must not let his small courtesies tame me—I may only let him think that they do.

“I think that you are lonely here,” he says.

I drop the crust back on my plate and look at him. The dark hood shimmers; I see his head move to one side, as though waiting for an answer.

I try not to let the tears well behind my eyes. Lonely. I had not realized until he said the word, how true it was.

It occurs to me then that loneliness is the fate of many women in my land. Overnight, they are removed from their families and placed in a new household, expected to be the dutiful and submissive daughter their husband’s parents expect. She must give up her old home, her old friends. She must give herself over to a man she knows only a little, and a family that is not her own.

And yet nobody ever talked—at least not in my hearing—about how painful it all must be. Perhaps the world does not wish for it to be talked of. Perhaps they know that women will be more pliant, more willing to please, when they feel all alone.

Easier to control.

And what happens to them, finally? They survive, I suppose. They grow to like their new worlds, or they don’t. And either way, life goes on.

The demon clears his throat.

“I have been thinking,” he says abruptly. “Although I make no promise of success, I can try to deliver a message to your family as you asked.”

I look up at him. He means it?

“You must not say too much. But they need not think you dead, and grieve you.” He pauses. “You have writing knowledge, I suppose?”

I nod.

“Very good. Aletheia will leave some papyrus in your room.” He glances over. “I cannot guarantee that I can deliver it, but I shall try.”

I sit very still. Images of my family burst into my mind. My father sitting by the fire in winter, telling us stories. Dimitra with her hair flung forward, drying it in the sun.

“You must warn them,” he says quietly, “to keep the knowledge of your true fate to themselves.”“

A lump forms in my throat. At least they will know I am safe. And yet…somehow it seems more like a goodbye than ever.

*

In the morning, I rise early, waiting for the sound of Aletheia’s tread in the great-room. When I crack the door open I see she has the key in hand again. Once more, I follow her down the passageways—I am beginning to find my way with ease, now—and spy on her as she lets the horses out for their run, cantering into the great unknown. I envy them: how I would like to have their freedom!

Although they, too, must come back here after their run is over, to be locked up inside the gates once more. Perhaps we are not so very different after all, the horses and I.

Wife. He calls me that, but I am no wife. I have not the duties of one, nor the freedoms. At home a married woman may be happy or unhappy, she may have many burdens to bear, some worse than others. She must prepare her husband’s meals and please him in the bedroom and bear his children. But for a few hours each day he is gone and she is free: free to walk in town and see her friends; to laugh and move in the open air. This “husband“ treats me elegantly enough—courtly, courteous, he has never laid a hand where he should not, or trespassed upon my body except with those occasional lingering stares I feel from beneath his cloak. But though he gives me finery to wear and a palace to walk in, I cannot roam and chatter in the Agora with others, as even the unhappiest women of Sikyon may do.

I set my jaw and go back to watching Aletheia. I’m looking for signs of distraction. I think perhaps that while she waits for the horses, she may sleep a little, or wander. But she stays where she stayed yesterday, perched on the stone trough, her eyes gazing toward the open gate and whatever lies beyond. It is disheartening. I cannot see how I am to get past her, unless I slip her a sleep-potion or somehow overpower her. But there is bound to be a way.

Back in the great-room, by my bedroom door, I find a scroll of papyrus laid out for me, and ink. It is as he promised—I am to write a letter to my family, and he will deliver it.

I can write well enough, though Father dismissed our tutor when I was ten—Dimitra and I had enough book-learning for two girls, he said, and indeed probably more than Sikyon thought good for us. But when I sit down at the table, my mind goes blank. It seems an impossible feat. What can I say to Father or Dimitra that they will possibly understand? While they know nothing, they can at least hope for the best. Once they see a letter written in my hand, they must face some reality or other—a reality that I decide. If I tell the truth, they will hardly believe me. If I tell them “I am alive but not to see you again,” is that even worse than imagining me dead? If I tell them I am married and living in a distant land, they will wonder how such a thing came to pass—and they will want to visit, they will seek me out...

I am not fool enough to think the demon will not read the letter himself. Which means I cannot comfort them with the truth—that I plan to leave here, and find my way to them again.

Dear Father and Dimitra , I begin, and then sit staring at the page.

Finally I put down the stylus. It is too much. Too many thoughts roaring at me, each one wanting to be heard. Too much weight upon my shoulders. I pace the room a while, then peer out the door, checking if there’s anyone outside. There isn’t, and I let my steps carry me into the corridors again, along the twists and turns until I open a door into fresh air and sunshine. The reprieve I needed, though even now I’m still not quite prepared for the garden’s strikingly perfect beauty. It catches my breath every time.

It’s not yet noon and the trees wave gently in the breeze, casting dappled shadows along the paths. But as my eyes adjust to the brightness I see movement where I did not expect it.

The pond is busy with life, and not fish or birds: creatures, lithe and silver-haired, splashing and laughing together. As I stare, I sense movement beside me and look around to find one of them close by. She is beautiful: taller than me, sharp-chinned, her hair a shimmering mass like a silver sea.

“ Khaire ,” she hails me in the formal way. Her voice matches her skin and hair—it shimmers, yet there is something hard in it.

“You must be the lady Psyche.”