‘Do you know exactly why she’s angry?’ she asked. The words ‘this time’ hung in the air between them.
‘I don’t,’ said her father. ‘I know she was frustrated about you and Phineus, but I don’t think she would have locked herself in her rooms over that. Not for this long, anyway.’
‘She would have locked me in her rooms over that,’ Andromeda said.
‘Yes.’ The two sat in silence for a moment.
‘It’s odd she hasn’t done that,’ Andromeda added.
‘Yes.’
This time the silence lasted a while longer, as they both considered what could have happened. Cassiope had been so angry about her daughter’s attitude to marrying Phineus, it was inconceivable that she would have allowed Andromeda her freedom. What if the girl had run away? Cassiope would never have taken such a risk. Even Cepheus couldn’t pretend that she would have trusted him to take care of things without her.
The two of them were still lost in thought when they heard the shouts and the pounding of feet.
Elaia
It’s true we weren’t here at the beginning, but we were here at the end and which is more important? No one wants a beginning without an end. And we were there for the crux. In fact, we are the crux.
It all began when Athene wanted a place of her own. Gods are territorial, in a way we find difficult to understand. You’re probably worrying now, are you, that we’ve insulted her? Don’t be afraid: she would never harm us. And anyway, why would she be insulted? She knows it’s true. We are everywhere, across Hellas and beyond. How could we understand what it means to call one place home?
And yet, if we did call somewhere home, it would be Athens, the city which is now hers. They named it after her: even humans probably know that. But what humans forget is that it wasn’t always hers. She won it, fair and square.
That rustling sound is everyone agreeing with me, by the way.
Because Poseidon had his eye on Athens too, you know. Well, what doesn’t he have his eye on? Oh, stop doing the terrified expressions: he can’t hurt you here. We’re far enough from the sea and you can’t seriously believe he could damage us with an earthquake? Well, I suppose you’re more fragile than we are. But really.
And you know I’m right. He is never happy, that one. Never has enough, not even with all the seas at his command. Not even with his trident and his Nereids and his . . . Whatever he has. Who cares, when it’s all underwater? No wonder he’s so acquisitive. And when he heard that Athene wanted to make Attica her own, he demanded that it instead be given to him. Because, he claimed, he had lost some minuscule part of his kingdom to the Gorgons. What did they do, we asked? Drink it? How could he lose any of his kingdom? The seas are refilled whenever it rains.
Needless to say, Poseidon didn’t see a need to answer us. His status prevented it, no doubt. And it doesn’t really matter that he hadn’t lost anything important: the relevant point is that – as usual – he was managing to feel aggrieved. So he wanted Athens and so did Athene, and Zeus didn’t want to adjudicate between them. （No, don’t worry: we have no comment on the king of the gods. His lightning can strike from anywhere, and even we respect that.） The Olympians would decide, Zeus decreed. Athene and Poseidon could both make their case. And then one god, one vote.
Even then, Poseidon demanded that he should go first. He hadn’t even thought about Attica until Athene wanted it, but now it was such an urgent desire of his that he needed to make his case immediately. Perhaps he’d realized that half the Olympians would be quite happy if he withdrew to some distant underwater cave and was never seen or heard from again. There’s a limit to how much complaining anyone wants to listen to, so whiners have to get their oars in early.
If Athene was annoyed by the way Poseidon shoved his way in front of her, grabbing at what she wanted, she didn’t show it. Which, let’s be quite honest, means she wasn’t all that annoyed, because she doesn’t often hide her feelings from us. Perhaps she knew she just needed to be patient. Again, not always one of her strengths but she can’t bear Poseidon and she loves to win, so she held her temper.
He made exactly the kind of tedious, showy gesture you would expect from a god who demands everything but doesn’t know why. He swept up to the acropolis, stood there for a moment to make sure everyone was looking at him, and slammed his trident into the ground.
The Olympian gods were trying to pay attention because Zeus had only just charged them with the task of deciding who should take Attica. Even Apollo and Artemis weren’t yawning and that takes some effort. But when a new sea bubbled up beneath the trident （quite a long way beneath it, naturally: it takes a sea god to decide he should try and form an ocean at the highest point on a plain. But not everyone can be gifted in the same way）， the archer gods began nudging each other and sniggering. Was that it? A little sea?
We felt much the same way ourselves, truth be told.
Poseidon spread his arms and shook his trident above his head. One of us believes he shouted, ‘Behold!’ but the rest of us are choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, we all beheld his new pond, whether he demanded it or not. It’s just that most of us weren’t wildly impressed.
Athene usually has quite a placid expression: you’ve probably noticed it on her statues, have you? She looks so calm and patient, spear in hand, helmet tilted back at that characteristic angle. You may not know this about her, but that is how she likes to appear no matter what is going on in her heart. How do we know? How do you think we know? She tells us a lot more than she tells her human petitioners and priests. She knows we support her and besides, we are excellent listeners.
Only if you knew Athene as well as we do, and were as well-placed to observe her as we are, only then might you have seen what we saw: a tiny flicker of scorn crossed her face. She had nothing to fear from this opponent.
She watched Poseidon sink into his small waves and she turned her attention to the acropolis where he had been standing moments before. She looked at the bare dry earth, and she saw that it was lonely. She saw the animals who wanted shade, and the humans who yearned for a new crop, one they would treasure above all else. She stared at the retreating sea and she said nothing.
And then she glanced at the other Olympians, who were mildly interested to see what she would do to rival Poseidon’s bid. And all of whom were perplexed when she kneeled down to plant a tree.
How could a tree rival an ocean, they might have thought? But then, how could a god think anything so foolish? Attica was not short of oceans, but it was missing something, and Athene had seen what the land required. It needed the sound of the wind rustling slender green-silver leaves. It needed an elegant pale trunk, and it needed bright green fruit.
In short, it needed us.
Andromeda
Andromeda glanced to her left, and felt the strange sensation of seeing her own hand but not really believing it was hers. Because why would her left hand be bound to a tree? Looking to her right, she saw the same thing. A roped hand which seemed to be connected to her, but couldn’t be hers because two days earlier she had been sitting opposite her father in the palace, discussing what was wrong with her sulking mother. And up until that point she had been a highly favoured princess of a wealthy country, which had never involved being fastened to a pair of dead trees, for any reason.