Ithaca (The Songs of Penelope, #1)

by Claire North

Once upon a time, there were three queens in Greece. One was chaste and pure, one a temptress whore, one a murderous hag.

The silence of men is a novel experience, and she is prepared to thoroughly enjoy it.

Athena likes a good bit of poetic drama before a duel, a nice speech about mutual manly respect, but Artemis is a creature of the wolf and the forest. She likes to gets to the point.

I was a queen of women once, before my husband bound me with chains and made me a queen of wives.

if you make enough people believe you are important, one day it may actually be true.

So you do the wailing; I’ll bring the olives.

and I will say this for Artemis – she can hold a fantastic grudge. That at least is something we have in common.

To be patient is to feel burning rage, impotent fury, to rage and rock against the injustice of the world and yet – and yet – to hold one’s tongue.

However the gods move in our lives, good sister, let us not imagine they move for any whims save their own.”

contemplate your womanly woes?” suggests Medon helpfully. “Quietly lie in the pain of your mournful suffering?”

“How do you hide an army?” “Medon,” Penelope tuts, “what a foolish question. You hide them in precisely the same way you hide your success as a merchant, your skill with agriculture, your wisdom at politics and your innate cutting wit. You hide them as women.”

Be strong, my love, I breathe. Be a queen.