‘Wild boar aren’t monsters either.’
‘And wings.’
‘I’m sure even you don’t think birds are monsters.’
‘I have to fight one and take its head,’ said Perseus. ‘They sound monstrous enough to me.’
‘You won’t be able to fight them,’ said Hermes. ‘I thought we’d established this already. You need to close in on the mortal one while her deathless sisters are elsewhere.’
‘How will I even know which one is the mortal one?’ Perseus asked.
‘She doesn’t have tusks,’ said Athene. ‘Her wings are smaller and her snakes are younger.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Perseus. ‘At least I’m trying to behead the least dangerous one.’
Hermes nodded. Athene allowed her perfect brow to crease just for a moment.
‘There is one more thing,’ she said.
Andromeda
Andromeda had not screamed or struggled when they told her she was the sacrifice Poseidon demanded. She didn’t want the hateful priests to see her afraid. Besides, her mother – once she had broken her silence – had not stopped crying and pleading. She was occupying the role Andromeda might have taken for herself, and in the moments when she was alone, Andromeda resented it. How dare her mother decide that she was the innocent victim in all this, when her stupid thoughtless boasting had cost so many lives already? And when the one life spared by the sea nymphs she had offended was her own?
But she even held her resentment in check. She was losing her mother anyway: what would she gain from raging at her first? She cried quietly when alone, and otherwise she behaved as though this awful end to her young life had been decreed by the Fates, and not incurred by her mother’s foolish pride. She was, if she was completely honest, delighted to discover that her uncle （and unwanted future husband） was nowhere to be seen. Her father had sent messengers in every direction, and no one was able to say where Phineus was or what had happened to him. There was no confirmation of his death, no body had been found, and his home lay inland from the water’s reach. Andromeda took a grim pleasure in the remaining few days of her life having her expectations of the man both met and surpassed. He really was only interested in a young bride and greater proximity to royal power; he really did have no interest in Andromeda herself. Her father expressed concern at first, for his missing brother. But as the hours slipped by, even he could see that Phineus had no intention of supporting his family. Wherever he was, he planned to stay there until there was no danger of being embroiled in their crisis.
Andromeda did not gloat about having been right and her parents having been wrong: there seemed no point when she had so little time to enjoy it. But she did find herself wondering if by some divine intervention she survived whatever punishment was deemed necessary, her parents might allow her to choose her own husband. There would have been so much pleasure to be derived from all this. If only Andromeda had more time.
*
On the morning of the sacrifice, she awoke early and sent away the slave-women who came to help her dress. She picked out a chiton she didn’t much like, but which had survived the flood undamaged. It was creamy-white with a pair of dark dotted lines down the front. Vertical stripes also dropped from under her arm to the hem on each side. She added a necklace of large carnelian beads and earrings made of delicate gold spheres, pressed together into a circle. From each disc hung three gold and carnelian drops. She slipped her feet into the sandals she had been wearing when the water came, because they were the only ones she hadn’t lost.
The women did help her with her headdress, which was ornate and heavy, and had been locked away until today. An undulating pattern of lotus leaves was carved around the outside. Her hair was loose beneath it, covered by a transparent veil, fringed with tiny weighted beads that held it in place.
She knew she looked spectacular, a worthy enough sacrifice for the nymphs her mother had so enraged. When her parents saw her, they both wept. They had imagined seeing their daughter dressed in such finery on a festival day, perhaps her own wedding. Even the younger priest looked downcast when Andromeda stepped out from the palace into the harsh morning light. The older one, if anything, was enjoying himself even more than when they first brought the news to her father. The more her mother wailed – her once-beautiful eyes now swollen and puffy – the more joy seemed to emanate from him. Andromeda gazed at the priest steadily through her veil, noting his anger that she dared to meet his eyes and did not look away.
There was quite a procession, she saw, to accompany her to the place where she would die. Her father had always been a popular king, but his people knew they had been punished by Poseidon himself. They would not forgive the queen for a long time, Andromeda guessed: the priests had made no secret of the cause of Ethiopia’s ruin. The citizens were too bereft and exhausted by their sorrows now to demand vengeance on their queen. But only when there was no one left alive who had been bereaved that day would her mother’s name be spoken without a curse.
Andromeda began her slow walk towards the new shore, following the two priests. She was braced for anger and derision but the gathering people were quiet. Instead of jeering at her, they walked alongside her. She couldn’t tell if it was a gesture of solidarity or a desire to see the princess get what she deserved. But she was grateful not to be alone when the ground fell away ahead of her and she could see the impossible: desert made sea.
How had the priests decided where she should be bound and left to the ocean waters? she wondered. Had they chosen a spot where they were sure she would drown at the earliest possible moment? Or were they hoping she would survive for long enough to watch the water rise in another tidal wave, taking her only when it chose? As she drew closer, she found herself realizing they had picked this place because it had a pair of dead trees standing close together, beside a large boulder. The older priest could barely contain his pleasure as he ordered his younger colleague to tie the princess between the two withered trunks.
Andromeda stared dully ahead as he passed the rope around the point where a dead branch protruded – one, two, three, four times – and tightened it against her right wrist. Her arm was slightly raised, and she could feel it pressing into the thin, splintered bark. She knew his eyes were fixed on her face, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He tied the final knot and she flexed her fingers to see if she still could. The priest stepped behind her to tie her other arm to a branch on the second tree.
In front of her stood the makeshift altar: a wooden box with tendrils and circles carved into it. On top of this was a calathus, woven from willow rods, ready to contain the offerings they would pile into it. Andromeda wondered why they had made an altar from a box and a basket, but she already knew the answer. These men didn’t care about Poseidon, for all that they served in his temple and grew fat on his offerings. They didn’t revere him in celebration, they lived only to punish those who blasphemed.
And the daughter of those who blasphemed. Andromeda could hear her mother behind her, still weeping extravagantly, and she looked out over the sea that would consume her. She half-wished the priest had blindfolded her, so she couldn’t watch death arriving. Sometimes they did that, with animals. She had seen it. Rather than risk a heifer shying away from the shining blade, they bound its eyes so it would meet its destiny calmly. Would Poseidon raise the sea to drown her? She tried to imagine how it would feel to see the water coming ever closer. And then wondered if it would be worse only to hear it, never to be quite sure until it touched her. Or would she just be left here until she died from thirst, or hunger? Shunned by the sea rather than claimed by it. She shivered, in spite of the heat.