Andromeda thought about saying that killing the priests was unnecessary, and that she would rather he met her parents straightaway. But on brief reflection she realized she did want the two priests to die, so she nodded in happy agreement. Perseus helped her to a smaller rock so she could sit and recover. He liked the way she accepted everything he said. Finally someone took him seriously. The first time since he had left his mother. And all he had had to do was save her from certain death. Killing two more men would not be hard, he thought. It was perhaps rather crowded here to use the head, but he had his harpē, and that would be enough. They could hardly outrun him when he was wearing the winged sandals.
‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll return shortly.’
Andromeda watched his tunic fluttering as he stepped away from her. She half wanted to disregard him and see the priests meet their premature end. But she didn’t want Perseus to think she would be the kind of wife who ignores her husband. It would be better, wouldn’t it, if he thought she was the kind of woman who needed rescuing, and to be kept away from killing? Perhaps it would even be better to be that woman, rather than merely to be thought so. Her mother had taken an influential role alongside Cepheus, and look where that had got everyone: half the kingdom lost and Andromeda almost dead. Andromeda must be more careful than that. And anyway, she didn’t want to scare the boy.
Panopeia
Now the place where Ethiopia meets Oceanus has changed. The furthest sea reaches further than it once did. But still, Perseus has found his way here. Andromeda is saved, which will not please the raging Nereids, not one bit. They finally persuade Poseidon to act as they demand, and their sacrifice is stolen at the last moment. So what happens now?
The Nereids might ask for another sacrifice, but Poseidon will not heed them a second time. He has his larger sea, which is all he wanted. Even the angriest Nereids – though they may not like it – will have to accept that their chance for retribution is gone, because it is the son of Zeus himself who has taken their prize away. They will not set themselves against the king of the gods and nor will Poseidon, on their behalf. Their grudge may be unsatisfied, but it is over nonetheless.
And what of the sea itself, which has lost one of its mighty guardians? Monster to Perseus, but goddess to us. How do we grieve her, now she is stone beneath the waves? Will no one seek justice for her? Has Phorcys just let his wife die with no retribution?
But who could he make pay? He cannot hope to outwit Zeus, who will surely protect his son no matter what.
He could take his grievance to Poseidon, of course. But it is Poseidon who sent Ceto here in the first place. If Poseidon had not ordered her to the shallows to feast on the Ethiopian princess, Ceto would have been hidden as always in the furthest recesses of the sea. Phorcys might not even know why the sea lord chose Ceto, over all the other creatures, for this task.
I know why, of course. And perhaps you do. Poseidon hurt the Gorgons the first time when he decided to rape Medusa. And perhaps if they had accepted the injury and pretended it was trivial, the matter would have ended there （perhaps not: Athene’s anger was already roused）。 But they fought back. Euryale took his sea and forced it away from her shore. And of course, Poseidon did not consider this fair punishment for what he had done to Medusa. He saw it as an unprovoked insult.
And so he wanted revenge on the Gorgons for their refusal to respect him and to live in fear. But he could hardly rape Medusa again, could he? She was hidden in a cave and he was sulking in the depths of his diminished waves. Instead, he came up with this plan, which was so clever I doubt he can have thought of it unaided.
He sent Ceto precisely because he knew the son of Zeus was nearby, flitting about on his convoluted journey home.
He knew Perseus possessed the head of Medusa, everyone knows that is all that is left of her. We watched her sisters mourn her, lay out her body, weep for her. We saw them fold her wings around her, and build her pyre. We grieved for them as they burned her rather than return her to the ocean. The water would not touch her again, they swore. And they kept their word: Euryale flew days inland to bury her ashes as far from Poseidon’s realm as she could. We listened as she told Sthenno of the trees growing in the oasis she had chosen.
Poseidon saw this as a further insult, naturally. And then the perfect solution presented itself. He would punish the remaining Gorgons by ordering Ceto, their own mother, to ravage the Ethiopian coast and consume their hapless princess. Did he guess that Perseus would be unable to resist a woman in crisis? He is his father’s son, after all.
Whatever the outcome, it was pleasing to Poseidon. Ceto might kill Perseus and destroy the head of Medusa, taking her back to the water after all. Zeus might lose his son, but that was too bad. Poseidon had let him live once before, when he was a baby, placed in that box and put out to sea with his mother. If he died trying to rescue Andromeda, well, Poseidon was merely settling an old debt. Zeus wouldn’t thank him, but Hades would be grateful, and they are all brothers alike.
The second possibility was that Ceto would be killed by Perseus using Medusa’s head. What better way for a malevolent god to take his revenge on the two surviving Gorgons? Their mother is dead; his hands are clean. It wasn’t him: it was Zeus, or the son of Zeus, anyway. Poseidon has lost one of the oldest goddesses of the ocean, it’s true. But he has more goddesses and Nereids than he is comfortable with so he can easily afford to lose one.
I see everything but I don’t know everything.
I don’t know if Ceto knew it was the head of her own cursed child – unrecognisable to most, but surely not to her – that Perseus used to kill her.
Did she look into her eyes deliberately? Because she could not harm the last remaining piece of her daughter’s body?
The sea gods keep their secrets deep; they always have.
Gorgoneion
No.
It cannot be true.
But it is true. I lost her in the very moment I found her. No, not lost. Lost would be the word to use if someone else had killed her. So the Gorgons lost Medusa, lost their beloved, when Perseus took her life and her head.
But I did not lose my mother: I killed her.
Oh, Perseus killed her, that’s what people will say, isn’t it? That’s what he will say, murderous little thug, desperate to impress everyone with his courage and his strength. One man standing alone against a giant sea monster. He would have been dead as soon as she saw him if I hadn’t been there.
He thinks anyone who is not like him is a monster: have you noticed? And any monster needs killing. I wonder if he told himself the priests were monsters too. They were far more monstrous than Ceto, as I see it. But they’re all dead, just the same.
How long did I look at her before I realized she was my mother?
How long did she look at me? No time at all. A heartbeat, if either of us had a heart left to beat.
There is one question that devours me still.
Why didn’t I close my eyes?
Andromeda
The princess walked along the corridor towards the large hall of her father’s palace. The salt marks had been washed from the walls, and the tapestries and couches had all been taken outside to dry. If there was a faint aroma of damp, that was all there was. She hurried to her parents, hoping that Perseus was being well looked after in his rooms. Would he be impressed by her family and her home? He must be, of course.