Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 235
March 31, 2019
therkalexander:
The Good Counselor - PrologueFree previews published weekly every Wednesday night...
The Good Counselor - PrologueFree previews published weekly every Wednesday night at Midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give her all that they have dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
“He won’t be long,” she said, pausing at the door.
Persephone grasped the handle and the aged hinges creaked when she opened it. Warmth and incense, the scents of mint and parsley, flooded from the other side. She stood in the door frame, and many pairs of tear-streaked eyes met hers.
“My lady,” a frail voice said from the bed that dominated the center of the room.
“Hello, old friend,” she smiled.
“Gods, it’s good to see you again.”
“And you as well.”
“To think… I am only a child compared to you… a mote of dust, Soteira, yet I grow old while you stay evergreen, no?” He chuckled around the rattle in his throat and managed a smile for her.
“You mean more to me than you give yourself credit.”
The venerable priest squinted at her, and his forehead wrinkled with worry. “My lady, it is two days past. Shouldn’t you be with your honored husband by now?”
“He understands, Eumolpus,” she said, shutting the door and walking to the bed. His students and family cleared a path for her and Persephone sat beside him, stroking thin wisps of white hair away from his liver spotted forehead. “This time you’re coming home with us.”
“I will only be another shade in Asphodel…”
“No,” she soothed. “You’re going to Elysion.”
“I do not deserve it, my lady.”
“Of course you do. With how good you are, with all you’ve done…”
“I served you for seventy years and more. But my youth was not so piously spent. No, not so.” He frowned, every breath harder to draw. “I whipped my servants,” he blurted. “When I was seventeen I plied an unwilling girl with drink until she lay with me, I forgot sacrifices to the gods and—”
“We are, all of us, the sum of our parts, good and bad,” a baritone voice said from the back corner of the room. He removed his helm, becoming visible to all within. Hades watched twenty pairs of eyes widen, then avert. The dark robed mortals knelt and bowed to him, some trembling in fear. Eumolpus’s eyes widened and he stretched a knobby hand out to his lord.
“Eubouleus,” he whispered, using one of Aidoneus’s many epithets.
“Be unafraid,” Persephone said to the cowering Eleusinians. “Plouton is here as a friend.”
They knew Persephone well, many since birth, but even members of her priesthood were wary of the Unseen One. They gave him a wide berth, crowding to the far side of the bed when he strode across the room to join his wife. Aidoneus managed a thin smile. “My queen speaks the truth. Do you suppose anyone who goes to the Elysian Fields is as pure as snow?”
He smiled and coughed again. “Of course not, my lord.”
“Then how do you suppose I would welcome a mortal who has done more for my wife, more for all of Chthonia, in his short life than anyone who has lived before or since?”
A smile spread across the old priest’s face and his breathing gentled.
“We have a question for you, Eumolpus,” Persephone said, blotting sweat from his forehead with the corner of her shawl.
“I might have an answer,” he smiled. Though his eyes were dulled by cataracts, Persephone saw the same sparkle in them from long ago.
She looked to Aidon, who carefully removed a gold foil scroll from his robes. Persephone took it from him, unrolled it and held it out for Eumolpus. “Charon has been finding these in the mouths of the dead. Do you know who would do such a thing? I’ve never seen their like in Eleusis.”
The dying man nodded, squinting at the text. Eumolpus turned to his youngest son. “Keryx, will you read this for me?”
A gray haired man took the scroll and unrolled it. “It’s written in Thracian.”
Eumolpus closed his eyes and shook his head.
“…But on the other side, from the lake of Mnemosyne, you will find water flowing fresh. Say: ‘I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven, but my parentage is heavenly: know this you too. I am dry with thirst and dying. Give me quickly then water from that which flows fresh from the lake of Mnemosyne’.” Keryx looked at his father, confused.
The old priest merely nodded. “I know who writes these. He was my student several years back, practically a boy. The son of a Muse no less; rumor is that Apollon is his father. Came to Eleusis intrigued by the idea of rebirth, then left for the temple on Samothrace. He had his own ideas about what greets those who journey across the Styx.”
“Should we be concerned?” Aidon asked.
Eumolpus shook his head and coughed violently. “No… no. His heart is in the right place. But I believe you should seek him out, regardless.”
“Why?” Persephone asked.
Eumolpus breathed in again, the rattle in his throat growing louder. He waved toward the door. “All of you out,” he commanded, then raised his palm before anyone could protest. “Every soul in this room knows as well as I that death is not the end. I will see each of you again in Elysion. Keryx, you stay.”
They filed out quickly, his eldest granddaughter weeping as others ushered her from the chamber. The door shut behind them.
“My lady,” he said with a smile. “I know you have long desired a child.”
Persephone leaned in. “Yes…”
“The one who wrote that… he is gifted. With his lineage, his intelligence… it’s quite possible. There are rites that his order oversees—”
“Eumolpus,” Aidoneus stopped him quietly. “My wife and I have tried… many methods already. Spells, rituals, traveling throughout the known world…”
“Aidon…”
“Persephone, no. Sweet one, we suffer through this once a decade, to no avail. I won’t let your hopes be crushed yet again.”
“My lord, please,” Eumolpus strained. “It is a fertility rite, yes, but the Samothracians invoke one who is not yet born. An heir to the earth and heavens— a god of life, death and rebirth.”
Hades and Persephone exchanged a long glance.
“It requires sacrifice. A king and his barren queen have already—”
He was cut off by another round of coughing, so violent it bowed his back. His breathing became labored. Persephone looked up at her husband, her eyes pleading.
Aidoneus sighed. “What sort of sacrifice?”
“I know not. But it must encompass…” He took one gasping breath, feeling lighter, euphoric. “…what you are… your most heartfelt desire…”
“What is the man’s name?”
Eumolpus saw the lamplight around him glow more brightly, the incense thicker, like fog, obscuring his last vision. He could feel warmth, like sunlight, and heard the laughter of childhood friends. He closed his eyes, exhaling a last word. “…Orpheus.”
therkalexander:
The Good Counselor - Chapter 1Free previews published weekly every Wednesday night...
The Good Counselor - Chapter 1Free previews published weekly every Wednesday night at Midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
Chapter 1The water was calm, clear and infused with the scent of ash. He knelt down and washed his arms, his legs and torso. It was cold and purifying. He rubbed olive oil across his skin, banishing all miasma from his person.
Orpheus scraped the excess oil off with a metal strigil and dried himself in the sunlight, tussling his short brown hair to shake out the water. He donned his tunic and himation, both unadorned and undyed.
He closed his eyes, trying to escape the distraction of his surroundings, listening. A songbird in the oak tree warbled its tune and he hummed along with it. A song to the Seasons had overtaken his thoughts for the last several days, but still the tune for the heart of the hymn eluded him. He had no instrument to produce a harmony— none, at least, that could do the immortals justice. He borrowed the bird’s notes, slowing them to match the words. “At play you are companions,” he sang softly.
“At play you are companions,” he muttered, repeating the line a few more times, smoothing out the melody while he paced. Orpheus stopped and sang it once again, a little more boldly, then raised the songbird’s tune by five tonic notes, “of holy Persephone, when the Fates—”
He stopped, a shiver rushing over his skin. Had he called upon Karpophoros disrespectfully? No, he thought. Ancient Eumolpus had told him that she was not offended by that name. And the priest knew her: he had walked beside her in his youth and founded the Lower Mysteries with her. Persephone’s rites. Orpheus shrugged off his fears. He wouldn’t be bound by superstition.
He wondered after the old man, whether he was well. It had been years.
“And the Graces in circling dances, come forth to the light,” he sang, then stopped. He felt it again. He was being watched. Orpheus turned to where he felt the presence of… something… a wild aurochs, a man? He sensed somehow that it was more than mortal, but satyrs and nymphs were a rare sight on Samothrace, and wouldn’t willingly approach a man.
Cold seeped into his skin again and a weight gathered in his chest. For all that he was attuned to his surroundings, it was unlike anything he’d experienced before. He wasn’t just being watched, but looked through, body and soul. The woods were silent, as though every creature knew to be still, and Orpheus wondered… He’d rid himself of miasma. He’d called upon a goddess with his song. She was here; she must be. The lump in his throat, the cold, a sense of dread and the fleeting thought of asphodel flowers… He quickly dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Lady of the Flowers and Spring, Mistress of the Lands Beneath the Earth… If it is you… I am your humble servant.”
“It is not she.”
He raised his head, his breath shallow. The voice was male— calm and measured, and its owner invisible to him. “I beg your pardon.”
“No need. I know her well.”
He swallowed. “You do…”
“Is she the one you serve, hymnist?”
He drew in a breath. “I serve all the gods, my lord.”
“That’s quite a task… To curry favor with all the gods.”
“It isn’t favor I seek. I honor them, from the least to the greatest, since they are the highest expression of phanes, the light of life that dwells in all things. My only wish in this life is to displease none of them. For I might find myself parted from Elysion.”
“Ah,” said the voice. “You have gone through the Greater and Lesser Rites, no?”
“I have.”
“Who instructed you?”
“The great priest, Eumolpus.”
“I knew him,” said the voice, the tone changing.
“Knew?”
“Yes. He passed from this earth just before winter came. I was there when his family prepared him for the afterlife and took him to his mausoleum.”
“If I may be so bold to ask,” he said, fearing the answer, “who are you, my lord?”
“One who would not be known to you yet, hymnist.”
Orpheus bowed his head. “F-forgive my presumption.”
“Don’t fear me so. Stand, Orpheus.”
Orpheus cautiously rose, his knee damp from the mossy earth. “What shall I call you, my lord?”
The voice remained silent. But Orpheus could still feel his presence. He was thinking. He heard sandals pacing the ground, and if he listened closely enough, the rhythmic tap of a staff hitting the earth with every third step. “The God of Nysa.”
“Nysa…”
“You know of that place?”
“Only in legend. The fields and groves of the gods. The place where the Receiver of Many took Demeter’s Daughter from the sunlit world to be his Queen beneath the earth.”
“Indeed.”
He suspected enough from that, but wasn’t foolish enough to utter a name. This visitor had made his identity clear enough. Orpheus kept his eyes to the ground. “Then, God of Nysa, why, if I may I ask, did you seek me out?”
“I’ve heard stories of a ceremony that takes place here, on Samothrace. One that invokes a god that is not yet born. One that you are familiar with.”
He nodded. “It… It hasn’t been performed in years.”
“A rare thing, then. When in the year?”
“When the first seeds sprout from the earth, midway between Spring and the Solstice. There are few who are truly prepared to give what it requires.”
“And what is that?”
“Something that represents what you are and will be.”
“I understand. Would anything I could offer aide you now?”
“Not for the rite.”
“But you yearn for something nonetheless. Something only one of my kind can procure for you.”
“I live by ananke. My life is in the hands of the Moirai alone, so my desires are irrelevant.”
“You are the son of Apollo.”
“So my mother said…”
“She was right. You are not immortal yourself then, hemitheoi. Yet you abide by the laws which govern the deathless ones?”
“Aren’t we, all the manifestations of phanes, from the eldest Protogenoi to the lowliest mortal, bound by the will of the Fates?” He swore that he could sense the god smiling. He held his breath, unsure of what to make of the long pause.
“Perhaps.”
Orpheus stood still, and felt himself being gazed upon, a pull at his chest and behind his eyes, as though his thoughts and his heart were being weighed and measured and that nothing could be hidden. He heard footfalls.
“You sing. You honor the immortals with song.”
“Yes.”
“But all of them? Surely your work cannot be completed in your lifetime. There are too many of us.”
“I can try.”
“There is one thing that would help…”
“Gifts like that… come with a heavy price.”
“They do,” the voice said. Orpheus felt the same heavy pull, his very thoughts sifted and gleaned. “But you need a lyre, crafted by the gods, if all your works are to be finished in your lifetime. You desire to bring forth the songs from your heart, and it frustrates you to no end— because for now, they are trapped there. You wish to finish your earthly task, do you not?”
“I cannot ask for such a thing from… one I do not know.”
“Would you rather your life’s work go unfinished? Or that someone else completes it?”
“No.”
“I am willing to consider it your price.”
“For what?”
“For not revealing to your fellow priests or anyone involved in this… rite… that the ones who wish to participate in it are deathless.”
Orpheus said nothing.
“I know you despise lying, Orpheus. I can see it in your heart. I know what I ask for. But it is of great importance that this be only known to you. I would not ask you to betray your own ethos if it were not so very important.”
“Why seek me out? Is what I have to offer so extraordinary?”
“The god you call upon— the one not yet born…” Orpheus could feel the full weight of the god’s gaze upon him. “Name him.”
His heart beat out of his chest. “The Unborn One’s name is only uttered in absolute secrecy and sanctity. My order does not sully it with human speech.”
“Name him,” came the voice in a hoarse whisper.
Orpheus spoke just as low. “Zagreus.”
The god paused again and Orpheus wondered if he had angered him. But he could feel the enveloping coldness grow warmer, could feel a brief flicker of relief and… hope. Happiness, even. Through the wash of emotion, the voice remained staid. “What if I told you that your Zagreus could be conceived by these very rites? That is, if she and I were allowed to attend… unfettered by human fears and superstitions.”
“I would have no choice but to believe you, my lord.”
“Then you understand the reason for my surreptitiousness.”
He shuddered and nodded in acknowledgement. Now he was certain he knew who spoke to him. “My lord, can I think on it?”
“Of course. You have until the first moon of winter. I will return then.”
“When you return, how will I know it is you if I don’t even know your true name?”
“Because at that time, I will reveal how I know you, how you came to my attention, and when I do so, you will know precisely who I am.”
The presence lifted. As Orpheus looked up and puzzled over the god’s words, the birds started to sing again, the beetles hummed in the humid air. Everywhere he turned, narcissus bloomed in the shade of the trees.
therkalexander:
The Good Counselor - Chapter 2Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created,...
The Good Counselor - Chapter 2Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
Chapter 2Thesprotia was warm, even in the early evening. But that warmth didn’t penetrate the caves near the river. Here the chill of winter still clung to the rocks like moss .
In the palm of one hand, Persephone held an herb rooted in loose soil; her other hand trailed along the cool stones and damp roots of the cave walls. She followed the bend of the cave, the echo of a single drum’s steady tattoo joined by a lone piper’s melody. A light flickered from the entrance of a great hall, and the smells of burning pitch and roasted venison wafted from within. Neither scent masked the stink of sex and sour wine. The tittering of dryads and naiads mixed with the braying laughter of satyrs, the pervasive chattering punctuated now and again by loud moans. The court was smaller than it once had been, so many years ago when mortal men and women had made the mistake of trusting its king— when Minthe had made the mistake of trusting her own father.
She reached the door, and the drum stopped, the pipes faltering a moment later, their last notes shrill. Whispers, then silence. Then the shifting and uncoupling of half clothed bodies, and knees dropping to the floor. Persephone didn’t look at the heads bowed to her, her gaze fixed on the dais at the rear of the hall. Her bare feet padded against the tile as she approached. “Kokytos.”
The king descended the dais and bowed low to her before resuming his place on his throne. “Well! An unexpected pleasure, Queen Persephone. When I heard you had been seen about Thesprotia I’d hoped that our paths might cross. Delightful to finally—”
“Leave us.” Persephone said.
With the barest murmur, Kokytos’s court, his musicians, and his servants gathered their instruments, their clothes, and cups. Most shuffled out of the hall; some disappeared in flashes of green— high order nymphs vanishing into the ether— until only the river god and the Queen of the Underworld remained.
Kokytos spied the bright green sprig in her hand. “So it’s true then? What Minthe did?”
“It is. Though not all of what they say.”
“Well, you can’t believe everything that gods and humans say. Gossips, to the last. Everyone worth knowing knows that Aidoneus is faithful to fault. And my sympathies for what befell you and your lord husband at her hand.”
“I was expecting something more akin to an apology. Not sympathy.”
Kokytos scoffed. “I had no part in what Minthe did. She brought her schemes with her, whispered in her ear by your illustrious mother, obviously.”
“Did she?”
“I took her in. That was all.”
“You let the men of your court violate her. They warped her, twisted her mind.”
He held up his hands. “Nothing she didn’t agree to. She knew the price of staying.”
“Your own daughter…”
Kokytos rolled his eyes. “One of many. If she was mine at—”
“She was,” said Persephone. “I know all souls, living and dead, just as my husband does.”
He shifted in his chair.
“You have much to answer for.”
Kokytos threw up his hands. “So I whored my daughter! What of it? Are you going to condemn the father of every hetera in Hellas along with me? Who’s next?”
“No.” Persephone said, with a soft smile. “She is the means by which you and I are unfortunately acquainted, but Minthe is not the reason I am here.”
“Then what?”
“There were human guests in your hall nearly fourscore winters ago…”
Kokytos paled.
“During the Great Famine. Do you remember them?”
“Humans— once, per-perhaps, long ago? H-how could I possibly recall? Decades have passed. And so have they, most likely.”
“Indeed they have. To the last soul.” She took a step forward. “You murdered them. You dined on their flesh. Your servants and guests feasted on them at your behest.”
His voice cracked dry as he choked out a laugh. “What nonsense… who in the world would tell you such a story?”
“The men and women you killed, Kokytos.”
His face fell.
“It took years for me to find them all in Asphodel. Decades, even. At first, there were rumors, nymphs who whispered to other nymphs, until those rumors reached my ears. I, too, doubted their awful tales. But the dead cannot lie.”
“My Queen, please… you know better than anyone that food was dwindling. Those mortals would have died anyway. I would have faced revolt from my men once my stores ran out… My court—” Kokytos coughed, and pulled at his mouth. He withdrew a mint leaf.
“Kokytos, son of Okeanos…”
“I am one of the ageless! Mortals are livestock. Flecks of dust! Only they need live by your father’s petty laws. I am your husband’s vassal! You cannot cond—” He spat out another mint leaf.
Kokytos choked around a sprig of mint clawing at his throat. He yanked it free, then stared at his hands, mint blooming from under his fingernails, the roots twisting through his veins. He stood with a shriek, his throne tipping backwards. Kokytos beat at his arms as though they were aflame, tearing leaves and buds from his skin, but the more he raked from his flesh the more grew in its place.
“Abandon all hope, Kokytos.” He fell and tumbled down the stairs of his dais, his cries choked and muffled, and crashed to the floor of the cavern. Kokytos writhed, flailing as fresh clumps of mint sprung from his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes. “For your part in the murders of your guests and the consumption of mortal flesh you are condemned— not to Tartarus, but to oblivion.” The screams were buried under a wellspring of green along with his twisted features. Mint burst through the fabric of his robes, the still limbs beneath a tangle of roots and soil. Roots wound about his fallen crown. “So say I, Persephone Praxidike Chthonios, Queen of the Underworld, Carrier of Curses cast on those who live, by the dead whom they harmed in life.”
Kokytos’s outline was indistinguishable. Only a sprawling patch of mint remained, pungent leaves overpowering the lingering headiness of the orgy that had raged in the hall only minutes before. Mint crept between the mosaic tiles as Persephone left the chamber, the single sprout still resting in her left hand. Persephone curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist as she walked out the tunnel. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling and dust billowed behind her.
She didn’t travel through the ether. She owed Minthe the walk to the poplar grove where her mother’s tree stood. Mud caked her bare heels. Her green peplos swished in the breeze and she sheltered the mint plant in her hand. The soil in her palm was warm.
“I forgive you,” she whispered to the sprig as she walked. “I hope that you can forgive me, wherever you are.”
The grove loomed ahead, and she slowed her pace, listening to the songbirds and crows. She reached a tree at its center, with great branches towering overhead. This tree had been here far longer than the others, and it didn’t sway in the wind the way the rest did..
“Leuce?” She stared up at the branches. “I come to return your daughter, and to atone.”
Persephone knelt and scooped aside some of the loam near a broad root, and dug into the earth. She gently planted the cupped handful of soil and mint next to the outstretched base of the poplar. The tiny sprig leaned against the tree in a spot of sunlight. As she stood again, she spoke to the outstretched branches above. “Please forgive me. Forgive my husband. Forgive my mother, and Hecate. That’s all I ask.”
Hera sprawled inelegantly on Hestia’s divan, her fingers plaited under her chin. She drew in a long breath, then sighed dramatically. “Why must I entertain that sea witch again?”
Hestia tittered and shook her head, then ladled a boiling cup of water from the cast iron pot sitting on the hearth, carefully weighing and swishing it until it stopped bubbling. “Oh, come now. She isn’t all bad.”
“Isn’t she though? All she talks about is the strumpets that she drags to her marriage bed. If I have to hear her extol their bedsharing one more time—” Hera’s face had grown flushed. “Fates preserve me. She’s worse than that eastern whore who wormed her way into my son’s heart.”
“Than Aphrodite? Surely not,” Hestia laughed. She shook her head, then emptied the ladle over a mix of ambrosia, sideritis, sage, and a bit of hemp flower. “Here. Calm yourself.”
Hera held the clay cup to her face and inhaled deeply. She closed her malachite dusted eyelids and every thought of Amphitrite evaporated. There were only the licking flames of Hestia’s hearth, the shadows dancing on the multitude of carefully arranged alabastron jars on the shelves, and her white-veiled sister tending to the flames. She took a sip of the tisane, and gone was the fury that still brewed over Zeus’s latest conquest, a dark-eyed Theban princess. Here, that harlot didn’t exist. Olympus itself could crumble to its foundations, and she wouldn’t care a whit. “How do you always know the best remedy for my mood?”
“Aeons of practice, dear sister.” Hestia smiled warmly.
Hera sipped. “It doesn’t get dull? Tending to the fire day after day?”
“I prefer it,” Hestia said, pouring herself a cup. “The quiet of the hearth suits me. The mortals offer me the first and last herb and drink of every meal, and I am free to peruse and take what I like. And roam further afield without a man’s permission.” She sipped from her cup, her gaze resting on a jar containing her latest acquisition— a sweet spice from the islands beyond the Valley of the Indus that curled up like a scroll and didn’t resemble any leaf or seed known.
“You could have been a queen, Hestia.”
“I could have. But the intrigue and theatrics of court are not for me. And wedding Poseidon… living at the bottom of the sea would be intolerable. Better he has that sea witch, as you call her, by his side.”
Hera nodded. Her sister had always been drawn to warmth. The ocean would have chilled and rotted everything that made Hestia content. She wondered what life might have been like had she too had decided to take the path of a perpetual virgin. A visit from Zeus, disguised as an injured bird, had ended that possibility…
“Why is Zeus summoning Poseidon to meet in private?” Hestia asked idly.
“He demands another needless report on Ilion’s wall; what else? Fates have mercy, it’s been millennia— aeons— and still my lord husband cannot let bygones be bygones with that man.”
“You know how he loves to stay on top,” Hestia replied. Hera looked over her cup and cocked an eyebrow. Hestia continued without noticing. “Surely he worries that letting them be bygones might precipitate another rebellion.”
“Of course he does.” Hera rolled her eyes. “It feels strange to even say these words, but I wish Zeus and Poseidon could be more like Hades.”
Hestia sputtered, nearly choking on her tea. “What?”
“He stays where he ought, and performs his duties with all the steadfast dullness we’ve come to expect of him. No scheming, no power games… Fates, he never showed his face until he came to claim his bride. He’s been so…” Hera scrunched her face thoughtfully. “Perfectly reasonable.”
“Reasonable? Hera, he plunged the world into famine and darkness over a girl. Courtly intrigues are tiresome, but never so disastrous as that.” She spoke low, as though the words themselves were a grave curse. “This flame nearly went out.”
Hera scoffed. “That was all Demeter’s doing. Had she behaved like a proper mother, not a stalk of wheat would have withered. The Stygian betrothal had been in place since the war. It was her folly not allowing Persephone to marry the husband chosen for her. A king no less…”
“Yes, perhaps if she’d considered what a fine queen her daughter would make. And what a faithful husband Hades would be.” Hestia set down her cup, her eyes sparkling. “You should send a summons.”
“Invite Hades?”
“No, not him… Zeus would feel upstaged. I mean Persephone.”
Hera ground her teeth. “Demeter’s bastard.”
“Did you hear about what she did to that girl who tried to—”
“Yes.” Hera said. “I know. She scared my poor Hephaestus with her theatrics. Nevermind the spectacle she made of herself in Ephyra!”
Hestia winced.
Too sharp, she scolded herself. She set down the cup and stood, brushing her peplos back into place. Hera meandered through the chamber, eyeing the various herb filled pithos as she went, taking in each heady scent. She searched along the wall and found a familiar jar, then glanced at Hestia contritely. She was Queen of Heaven, but this was her sister’s domain.
Hestia nodded and Hera pulled an alabastron of rosewater from the shelf, flecking some into her tea, then rubbing the rest on her wrists.
“Perhaps inviting her would make your afternoon less of a chore.”
“What, tomorrow? To Olympus? She’s not one of us. She’s a byblow—”
“Perhaps not, but neither is Amphitrite an Olympian. Persephone is Queen of the Underworld, and equal in rank to Amphitrite.” Hestia smiled wistfully. “A meeting of queens…”
Hera sighed, but then narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “All I ever heard after the Pomegranate Agreement was Persephone this, Persephone that. Most, if not all of them falsehoods. What do you know of her?”
“Only a little. But you may have more in common with Persephone than you know. You could learn more of her; ask her about this Elysion that she and her lord husband have built. Perhaps you could even strengthen the bonds between the Lands Below and the Heavens.”
Hestia had struck upon something, Hera realized. The rulers of the dead had only grown in influence since their marriage. With Persephone as her friend, the two queens could easily overrule Amphitrite. And if Hera proved her worth in forming a powerful alliance with them, what would Zeus say then?
“If I brought her into my circle, it would only strengthen us. And prove to him once and for all that I can make peace with his baseborn spawn.”
“You remember how he welcomed you back after… that ill-gotten plot with Apollo and Poseidon? It was a very long time before he strayed again”
“Sixscore years.” Hera allowed herself a smile of grim satisfaction. “The longest he’d been faithful since we were newly wed.”
“Less time you have to spend chasing a wandering husband, then.” Hestia ladled another cup of water over her herbs. “Another thing I don’t mind missing out on.”
“Ha! I should be so lucky,” Hera said. “If all goes accordingly, that would mean Hades would be Zeus’s closest example of proper marriage.”
“And we do know how he likes to be on top.” This time, Hestia smirked.
“I know him. He’d try instead to best his brother at the game of fidelity… He’d lose, of course, at first, but that would make him far less brazen about his exploits. Cowed, even. And who knows? Perhaps chasing flesh would lose its lustre one day.” The Queen of Heaven set down her cup and stared at the flames. She laughed softly to herself as the solutions to Amphitrite, that Theban harlot, and any whores that would follow fell into her lap.
Hestia shrugged. “I leave the marital intrigue to you, dear sister. It will be a royal event. The first meeting of the Queens of all three realms.”
“My lord won’t like being upstaged.”
“Oh, don’t hold it in the symposium. Invite them to your villa. If Zeus protests, just remind him that your hospitality is long overdue.” Hestia’s serene face cracked into a sly smile. “And remember, your home is your domain. You would have the last word.”
“I’d hardly have to get his permission. In his mind, nothing would humiliate Poseidon more than coming second to a meeting of goddess queens.” Hera wrinkled her brow and grew solemn. “What if Persephone is more trouble than Amphitrite?”
“I shouldn’t think so. They say she is closer to your temperament. She’s a quiet but strong ruler. I’m sure she has just as low an opinion of Demeter as you, given their circumstances. And she’s practically a paragon of wifely virtue.”
“So I win her over, and the feared Praxidike becomes my loyal pet. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Perish the thought. Finish your tea, and then send her an invitation.”
therkalexander:
The Good Counselor - Chapter 3Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created,...
The Good Counselor - Chapter 3Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
**partial chapter**Please visit The Good Counselor on AO3 to read in full.Chapter 3
The ether rushed around her in a twist of silver and crimson and she emerged in the great atrium of her villa in Thesprotia. It had been abandoned for generations when Persephone had found it, and was said to be filled with the ghosts of the extinguished House of Aeolus.
Persephone knew better.
If any spirits remained, she would have wrenched them from this world already. She herself had sentenced three of that wicked family to Tartarus, Sisyphus chief among them.
Willows overhung the entire house, shielding it from the main road that led to the sea. It was modest, a short ways from the city of Cichyrus. A copse of bedraggled cypresses marked the path leading to the entrance, and thistles grew thick around the door. To the idly passing eyes of the outside world, this place was as uninhabited as it was foreboding.
But inside, it was paradise. Roses climbed the walls of the atrium garden and crocus blanketed the floor, growing through every crack in its deteriorating mosaic. A pomegranate tree— planted by Aidoneus on his first visit to their home in the world above— grew in the very center, shading a large oak stump beneath it. It was here that she found him turning a fruit over in his palm. It hadn’t come from this tree— it was only starting to blossom. This fruit came from the lands below, from their sacred grove at the entrance to Elysion. He set it down and stood.
Persephone picked up her skirts and rushed to him. He gripped her waist and she felt her feet tilt off the ground as he lifted her level with his face. Their lips met, and she sighed, melting into him. His joy and eagerness flooded into her, mellowed by tenderness and spiked with lust, warmed with relief.
And a metallic undertone of trepidation.
She eased back. “Is something troubling you?”
“No. Not yet,” he said, setting her down. “Did you take care of it?”
“He’s gone. His court is dispersed, and Minthe is by her mother’s side.” He scowled at the mention of her name. Placing the remains of the annihilated nymph by her mother’s grave had been Persephone’s idea. Hades had been less forgiving when they’d discussed it. “How is everything back home?”
“Empty as ever when you aren’t there, sweet one. How was this year’s planting?”
“The same as ever.” She hooked her arm into his and leaned in as they walked the walled garden paths. She quivered at the contact. It had been two months since her fingers had been upon his skin. She could feel his pulse and the warmth of his flesh. He smelled of raw earth, of cypress, and the cool waters— everything she missed about Chthonia. The Underworld. Her true home. Persephone glanced up and caught him chewing the inside of his lip. His mind was distant, but she knew he would eventually reveal where. She let him ruminate while she spoke. “A bit less grain to sow this year, though. She was so anxious last harvest, it affected everything.”
“Your mother needs to stop worrying after her paramour.”
“I’ve told her as much. But can you even call Triptolemus that anymore? They share the Telesterion, but more as friends than lovers. They haven’t shared a bed since—”
“I regret mentioning it,” he muttered hastily.
“Ah.” She fidgeted. “Hermes may have picked up Minoan.”
“What?”
“Unless you told him that Bellerophon broke his family’s curse and was granted a place in Elysion.”
Aidoneus gritted his teeth. “Damn him and his meddling…”
“I knew it! I knew he was lying. He denied reading your last letter to me, but how else would he know?”
“I’ll have a word with him.”
“What if that’s not the extent of it? What if he tells them about this place?”
“He won’t. I made him swear on the Styx.”
Persephone turned to him. “If the mortals know that you— that we spend time here, there will be endless interruptions. They’ll stop sowing crops. Some will leave, and the rest will build a gaudy temple. And the favors and quests of the rustic gods and hemitheoi—”
“They’ll do no such thing because Hermes will keep his mouth shut.”
“Will he?”
“He will. He takes Stygian oaths seriously.”
“How will we send letters and parcels to each other now?” A shiver rolled through her as he cupped her face with his hand.
“Perhaps I should hand-deliver them.” Aidon leaned down and gave her the lightest, slowest of kisses. His dark eyes locked onto hers as he pulled back. “Though there’s something else I’m intent on giving you presently.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She threw her arms around his neck and collided with him, kissing him gracelessly in return, their teeth clicking together. He chuckled low and traced her spine with his fingertips.
“Eager, are we?”
“Come,” Persephone whispered. “Let me show you what I’ve been up to this season.”
Aidoneus picked up the half pomegranate and followed her up the stairs. “A full season of sowing and still you found the time?”
“Barely enough. I vanished just after Thesmophoria to spend a few hours here alone, and I think Mother is starting to suspect—”
Aidon kissed away the name. The last person he wanted to think about right now was Demeter. He inhaled Persephone’s scent of roses and lilac, larkspur and irises. “This is my time with you. And no one else. Not Hermes, not your mother…”
Not Orpheus? Her voice rang through his head.
Aidon stopped. Did she knew where he had been? That he had spoken to the hymnist?
“His name was in your mind. Were you thinking about what Eumolpus said? Do you think…”
“I don’t want you to be disappointed again, sweet one,” he interrupted sharply. “I can’t bear it. Not after last time.”
She nodded.
He needed to distract her, or his visit to Samothrace would come pouring out unbidden. And going further down that road would only raise her hopes fruitlessly. Especially if she knew he was motivated enough to speak to Orpheus himself. “I practiced a flower while I waited for you.”
Persephone smiled. “You did?”
Their hieros gamos had not only created Elysion, but— to their mutual delight— had conferred upon each other some of their unique talents. Persephone had even called up iron from the earth seven winters ago. “Watch, sweet one.”
Aidoneus concentrated on the ground before him, and felt the beating warm life rush through him, from his feet upward. Each time he tried it he marveled. This must be what she had felt throughout her lifetime each time she created a new living thing. At first he’d worried that he would taint life itself if he tried to imitate her— that his efforts would result in a blight simply because of who he was. But they were the Gods of the Earth, he remembered, one and the same, infinitely bound and part of each other. He closed his eyes, feeling the telltale pulse in first his abdomen and rising through his chest as a bulb grew, opened, and split the ground. The stalk shot upright, bursting at the tip into a purple iris. He heard clapping and opened his eyes. Persephone exhaled softly, her hand gripping her hips. “My favorite part,” she said, “is feeling it move through you.”
“‘It’?”
“The earth, everything I have ever called up in— it’s hard to give it a name. More of a feeling. But it moves so… differently through you.”
“And you can sense every bit of… it.” He already knew the answer.
Of course I can, her voice rang, stronger this time. She turned and started strolling through the palace, showing him a centuries-old tapestry she’d found in the collapsed storage room, the vibrant ochres and deep blues sealed away and saved from the ravages of sun and wind. She picked up her skirts and climbed the stairs to the gynaikeion, giving him a glimpse of her ankles and mud stained feet. Aidon followed, listening to her describe how she’d made it into a place fit for them to sleep, to make love…
“Aidon?”
He smiled. “I was distracted. Forgive me.”
She bit coyly at her lip. “It’s similar, but just a single room. I thought black fleeces would work, but they’re hard to find in the world above. Used for sacrifices too often to…”
“To me.”
“So they seldom sell them to anyone but priests. It took me a bit of searching, but I eventually found what I needed.”
“How?”
“An agora in Locri. They were guarded at first, especially since I’m a woman. But no one asked questions after the gold came out. I suppose it helps when your husband is the richest being in the cosmos,” she said.
Aidon laughed. He looked up, and instead of the familiar dome patterned with stars, this flat ceiling was covered with tiny jasmine blooms— their growth carefully trained and arranged to reflect the summer sky. One vine wound toward the center, marking the tail of the Scorpion, and another the bow of the Lyre.
The Lyre… had she chosen this grouping of stars for a reason? He pushed it from his wandering mind. Aidon wanted to peel Persephone’s clothes off and press skin to skin, to seat himself as deeply within her as he could. But he also wanted to give her due respect as she showed him the work she’d done since they last met here.
This, he realized, was why he was creating these nervous distractions. But her breath was hitching, and he could feel her skin warming and prickling every time she glanced at him, could feel the flutter in her abdomen as though it were his own, and hear the slight tremble in her voice. His wife was being coy. Stalling. She wanted him to make the first move, the first touch. He would torture her a moment longer.
As Persephone drew closer to the fleece covered divan, his gaze rested on her hips, the pins that held her peplos taut over her skin, and the ornate girdle he had timidly left as a gift in her chamber on the fifth day he’d known her. How different it was now. Her back was turned. He plucked a seed from the pomegranate and held it under his tongue. He was as impatient for her touch as she was for his.
Aidoneus flicked his wrist, and fibulae scattered to all corners of the room. The girdle fell muffled in the heap of fabric, and Persephone gave startled gasp. He chuckled, ambling toward her as the rest of the peplum slinked from her breasts, her only adornment the flowery crown she wore in the spring and summer. Her blue-grey eyes were wide with shock and her hands instinctively covered her breasts and mons.
“It is good to know,” he said, stepping free of his own clothes, “that after all these years I can still surprise you.”
“I-I…” The blush creeping up her neck told him all he needed to know.
One piece of cloth remained, the only one not held by pins. Aidon reached behind and untied his loincloth by hand and let it drop to the floor. He gripped the half pomegranate in one hand and lifted the crown from her head with the other, then casually tossed the woven flowers aside. Aidon could feel the heat of her even through the half a pace between them. Her heels and chin lifted up so she was level with him, her eyes were lidded and her lips neared his. She relished in his guttural groan as she brushed her hand up his hip, his stomach and chest. “You’ll have to put that down.”
“Oh, will I?” He smiled and lifted the ripe fruit between them.
“What else do you plan to do with it?” She took a step back.
“Kiss me, wife, and find out.”
* * * * * *
Author’s Note: Due to site Terms of Service and FOSTA-SESTA, I am no longer able to publish unabridged mature content here. To read the full scene, please continue reading The Good Counselor on AO3.
March 30, 2019
camewiththeframe:
“Do not worry about your contradictions - Persephone is both floral maiden and...
“Do not worry about your contradictions - Persephone is both floral maiden and queen of death. You, too, can be both.”
― Nichole McElhaney, A Sisterhood of Thorns and Vengeance
