‘I see,’ she replied. ‘And you are—？’
‘Zeus,’ he said.
‘Have you come to free me from my prison?’ she asked.
‘I hadn’t,’ he said. ‘But I could.’
In his palace, on his own, Acrisius was steadily falling apart. What was the point in seeing, hearing, tasting anything if there was no one with whom he could share it? The old slaves – the ones he had known since his youth – had all been thrown out; the new ones shunned him because his temper was so unpredictable. Only now did he fully understand the choice he had made: he was alive, but not living. Daily, he thought of asking to have his daughter returned to him. But then the fear of death would rise up again and he would see the father of his future assassin in every man’s face. He wanted to believe in his daughter’s virtue, and he did. But he would not bet his life on it.
Dana? heard of her father’s declining spirits from her maid, but she could not spare a great deal of energy for it. Her affair with Zeus had been briefly pleasurable, and the resulting pregnancy was not unwelcome. She too had missed having someone to talk to. But her loneliness had been assuaged first by Zeus, and then by the baby that she proudly carried. The cell no longer held her: Zeus had made short work of that. But she could not return to her father’s side, nor did she want to. Would he try to imprison her again? Or worse? Would Zeus allow it? She was now visibly expecting a child, which could only make the fearful king more agitated. The slaves who had worked at the palace before his ill-fated trip to Delphi were pleased to help her though, and she found herself living with her maid in a small house nearby, where the women spoke of the king as though he were already dead.
Dana? spent several happy months with these women until the day her son was born. Her maid lived with her mother and her unmarried sisters. The married ones lived nearby and there was always company. In many ways, she preferred life in this bustling little home – always full of women and children and food and laundry spilling outside to bleach in the sun – to the empty life she had known in the palace. The more time she spent away from her father, the more she began to realize that his Delphic trip had only aggravated what had always been true of him. He had always been defensive, had seen every stranger as a potential threat rather than a possible friend. Their beautiful, light-filled palace had always felt cold. Surrounded by these women who understood her pregnancy better than she did herself, she felt nothing but joy when she contemplated the birth of her child. Zeus would not let anything go wrong, she was sure.
And her confidence was rewarded. The women all said it was the easiest birth they had ever witnessed: her son was beautiful and alive, and so was she. In the fuzzy aftermath of it all, as she looked at his tiny closed eyes and fists, she thought she would take him to meet her father, and that he would see he had been mad and wrong to fear this tiny, perfect boy. And then she remembered the darkness in her father’s eyes on the day he had her locked away, crazed with fear of something that would never happen. She didn’t trust him any more, and never would. So in the moments after becoming her son’s mother, she ceased to be her father’s child. Still, she should have guessed that someone would betray her to the king.
Dana? felt nothing through the whole terrifying experience of discovery and retribution. She was numb, as though it were happening to a stranger and she was watching it from far away. She must have spoken to her father, must have pleaded with him, and with the men who grabbed at her and dragged her outside. And somewhere in her memory must be the final words she said to her father, or that he said to her, but they were lost to her for good.
All she was sure of was that she had been cocooned in a haze of love and fatigue, and then there had been shouting and wrenching and glaring sun and an open sea and then darkness. And the only constant through this time was the weight of her soft child in her arms, her chin tucked down to protect his head, the faint smell of sour milk as she inhaled. And then she was lost for ever on the ocean waves.
Athene
‘You need to intervene if you’re going to save that girl you like, Father,’ Athene said. The new goddess no longer felt new. She had settled into life on Mount Olympus with ease. She didn’t like anyone particularly, and none of the other gods seemed fond of her either, except for Zeus. Athene assumed his favour was what caused the others to be so aloof, and it only made her more prickly.
But Olympus was a nest of temporary alliances and rival irritations, so she fitted in perfectly well. Yes, Hera despised her, but Hera despised everyone save Hephaestus. Hephaestus stared at her as though he had carved her himself from gold and marble, but was too afraid to speak to her. Ares was threatened by her, she could tell. Poseidon – when he was there – assessed her and then dismissed her. Aphrodite never noticed her, no matter what she did. Apollo and Artemis always ignored her. Demeter was kind enough but lacked any interest; Hermes feigned interest but couldn’t be bothered to feign kindness.
But Zeus loved her. He was proud of his clever, argumentative daughter, and often took her side in disputes with the other gods. And since Athene would always rather be right than happy, and would rather win than be right, this worked out well for everyone. In return, she tried to help him with his affairs. And on this occasion, that meant noticing something Poseidon should really have seen first. Which was that one of Zeus’s offspring （and one of his lovers） had been set loose on the open sea in what looked – at least from up on the heights of Olympus – like a wooden chest.
‘Which girl?’ Zeus asked lazily. He assumed that Hera was busying herself turning one of his favourite girls into a cow or a weasel or whatever, which meant it may well be too late to intervene and save her. Although there was always the possibility that the world had just gained an attractive new cow, so all was not lost.
‘Dana?,’ Athene said.
‘Which one is that?’ he asked.
‘The one whose father was keeping her in a prison cell so she couldn’t get pregnant,’ Athene replied.
Zeus frowned. ‘Did it work?’
‘No. You turned yourself into golden droplets and rained down on her through the gaps in the roof.’
‘Oh yes!’ He smiled. ‘That was a good one. She was lovely. Young, pretty, desperate for company.’
‘I imagine she was.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘You got her pregnant.’
‘Marvellous. Will I have a new demi-god roaming the earth?’
‘You already do.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
‘He’s about to drown.’
‘Oh. Let me—’
And in a small whirlwind, Zeus was gone.
Dana?
The chest in which Dana?’s father had shut her and Perseus – another prison cell, smaller and more dangerous than the last – came to rest on the shore of Seriphos. Dana? didn’t know it was an island, nor that it was in the middle of the Aegean, nor that Zeus had asked Poseidon himself to guide her and her baby to safety there. She didn’t even know for a while that she had reached dry land: the swell of the ocean was in her bones now, and she would always feel it.
She had lain quite still in the chest for so many hours, perhaps days. She knew vessels capsized and sank, and she had no idea what provoked or prevented this: she had never even been on a boat. Unable to swim, she did not dare move. So she was lying inside when the chest was cautiously opened. She blinked hard into the dazzling sun, still holding her baby tight. The dark silhouette of a man moved quickly to one side, blocking the light from her eyes so she could see.