He’ll stop, Atlas said. One day he’ll just lose interest and give up. And she smiled because she wanted it to be true, and because she wanted Atlas to feel that he was reassuring her. But she already knew what the Titan did not, which was that Poseidon would never give up. How does the sea win any of its battles? By attrition.
And over the days and months and years, Amphitrite felt the sharp edges of her resistance wearing down. Wouldn’t it be easier, the dolphins asked （always so friendly）， to return to the sea? And in the end, of course, it was easier. Easier to give in than to hold out. And Poseidon had been so delighted with her return, so pleased to make her his wife that he never mentioned the time she had kept him waiting, never hinted that it had been anything other than a delightful game of seduction from beginning to end.
And this was the pattern set for their marriage. Poseidon never showed his anger, and almost all traces of its expression were obliterated. If it weren’t for the sudden darting fear she could sometimes sense in the creatures that filled the water around her, she could have believed everything was as he wanted it to appear. And certainly, he was far more careful of her feelings than Zeus was to his wife, Hera. Amphitrite had to make quite an effort to find out who her husband was pursuing, and – with one exception which she now somewhat regretted because her response had not shown her at her best – she rarely bothered. Hera was her inspiration in this: who seemed to be happier? Amphitrite, swimming with her dolphins in the bright blue waters of the sea, her warm skin stroked by the weeds and the fish? Or Hera, consumed with rage, lost in an endless repeating cycle of fruitless revenge?
So Amphitrite usually paid little heed to her husband unless he was in front of her, giving her another beautiful shell containing another glorious pearl. But on this occasion, she could not help knowing where his attentions were focused. He seemed to be idling in the Mediterranean shallows every day, returning to the same stretch of coast over and over again. She had almost swum into him twice, and it was unlike him to be so careless. But he had been watching the strange Gorgon girl for months now. At least, Amphitrite assumed it was the girl he was watching, and not her Gorgon sisters. The other two had been there for a long time, and Poseidon had never dallied in their waters before. It was the new one who had caught his eye. The Gorgons didn’t fit anywhere, Amphitrite thought, except the lonely little beach they had chosen for themselves. But then, where could winged creatures, who were also daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, ever fit? Poor things. And yet, there was her husband spending every spare moment watching the girl who belonged half to the sea and half to the sky.
She didn’t need to ask him where he had been when he returned to her that evening, but she did, for the pleasure of hearing him lie. Admiring the temple of Hera, he said, which had been built by the townspeople high on the promontory. The distance from the Gorgons was not so great as to make this an implausible answer: Amphitrite had seen the temple too. And she agreed, it was impressive even viewed from far away, in the sea. A second temple was being planned, Poseidon said, and he wanted these people to honour him. No, they were not a seafaring people, he admitted. They did not live on an island, their land was fertile, their cattle grew strong. But he wanted them to offer him a temple nonetheless.
Amphitrite nodded sympathetically and made the soothing sounds that had caught his interest so long ago: the waves of the sea breaking gently on soft sand. Of course he wanted a temple. Of course he must persuade them. Of course, of course, of course.
And as she teased her fingers through his damp, salty hair and agreed with his every wish, she wondered if she should warn the Gorgons of the danger their sister was in.
Athene
‘Use the axe,’ Zeus said again. ‘Do it now.’
Hephaestus stepped to one side, transferred his weight to his back foot, and tested the axe in his hand. Everything was right. He swung the blade and then dropped it as a deafening voice bellowed at him to stop. Suddenly the halls were full of noise: every Olympian god had returned at once. It was the god of war, he thought afterwards, who had shouted. But as he looked around him, he saw a wall of faces judging him.
‘I asked him to do it,’ said Zeus. ‘Don’t interrupt him again.’ He squinted a look of pure loathing at Ares.
‘You asked him?’ Apollo said. ‘Have you lost your mind? Has he lost his mind?’ he asked Hera.
She was standing behind Zeus, and she replied with a shrug.
‘I must have lost it,’ Zeus said. ‘To give any credit at all to your half-horse friends and their half-cooked potions. How many poisonous draughts have you sent me? I have drunk the lot and the agony in my head has not eased at all. Now, here is a god who is actually trying to help me, and you all decide to interfere?’
‘If you had said you wanted someone to split your skull with an axe,’ Ares remarked, ‘I could easily have done that for you months ago.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Zeus said. ‘You disappeared, all of you. Skulking in your temples, avoiding Olympus, avoiding me. You cowards. He,’ he waved at Hephaestus, who was standing awkwardly, his axe limp in his strong hands, ‘he stayed behind and offered to help. Now let him do what I ask.’
‘Very well,’ said Apollo, turning to Hephaestus. ‘As you were.’
Again, Hephaestus raised his axe and shifted his weight back. And this time when he swung it down, no one intervened. There was a blinding flash of light and a crashing sound of metal on metal. Every god closed their eyes and covered their ears. Even Hephaestus was paralysed: bent forward, resting his weight on the handle of his axe, his force spent.
And before them all stood a goddess. Fully formed, fully armed, a bright golden helmet glinting in the mountain sun, a long slender spear in her right hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said, more irritated than grateful. ‘I thought no one was ever coming to let me out.’
There was a pause.
‘I can’t pretend I was expecting that to happen,’ Artemis murmured to Apollo.
‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘And I know centaurs.’
Their eyes – like those of every god around them – were trained on their newest addition, who looked back at them without enthusiasm. Her skin was almost translucently pale, so long had she been in the darkness. She had strong, slender limbs （though she wasn’t tall – the helmet added to her height）， and deft hands. Her expression was that of someone lacking patience but trying to hide it. Ares shifted from one foot to the other, uneasy at the sight of this warrior goddess. Artemis wondered if she knew how to use that spear. Hera said nothing, her face a mask.
It was Hephaestus – so accustomed to seeing a dazzling creation before him – who looked behind the new goddess to see what had happened to Zeus. The king of the gods was gazing at his new creation in wonder and rubbing his forehead with relief. There was no trace of a mark to show where Hephaestus had struck.
‘Daughter!’ he said, grandly.
The new goddess turned and looked at him appraisingly. ‘Is that right?’ she said.
Medusa
Euryale liked humans. She knew Sthenno preferred to avoid them, finding their fragility strange and unpleasant. But even before Medusa came to them, Euryale used to fly inland and watch them. She liked the way they were so prone to anxiety and haste. She liked the houses they made for themselves to sleep inside. She liked the huge temples they managed to build. She would return to the coast to tell Sthenno of all she had seen, but she knew her sister was only listening because she was kind.