Chapter Text
“My son is dead.”
Poseidon delivers this news with no apparent grief.
Odysseus and Penelope are now alone in the shrine. The servants who slaughtered the ox fled in terror when the Earth Shaker climbed from its puddling blood to tower above those who had come to offer their thanks for the last few weeks of good weather and gentle seas.
“Unhappy news, my lord,” says Odysseus, because he is a king once more and responsible for all who live upon his island. (Were it otherwise, he would say: “Good. I hope it hurt.”)
Penelope, on her knees beside him, murmurs, “We are sorry for your loss, almighty Poseidon. But – if I may – why have you come in person to inform us? I would not have thought we were worthy of your attention in such a time of grief.”
The God of Tides tosses back his hair, and thick sticky redness splatters over the shrine’s walls. “Ordinarily, no. You would not be. However, I am given to understand that the King of Ithaca fancies himself an archer of some skill.”
“In my youth,” says Odysseus, quickly, cursing whichever man or god or sea monster gave Poseidon one more reason to view him as an inordinately prideful mortal. “These days, I am mediocre, at best. I can name a thousand men more skilled with the bow than I.”
Please, please go bother them instead. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. I wanted to have a nice day with my wife.
“No, you’ll do,” says Poseidon, with a certain mean-spiritedness that suggests he knows exactly how thoroughly he has ruined Odysseus’s morning and mood. “There are to be funeral games. You shall attend. Both of you. Go dress yourselves appropriately, then come down to the beach in an hour.”
***
Poseidon’s chariot is a marvellous thing and the six pure white horses tethered to it are heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Do I look angry?” Penelope asks him out the corner of her mouth as they cross the sand together.
Odysseus checks her face. “No. Do I look scared?”
“No. Ody, I understand that the memories are painful to revisit, but I need to know everything I can if we’re to survive this. How do I please him? How do I avoid incurring his wrath?”
“My love, if I knew, I would tell you. I worshipped him dutifully for forty years and he killed over five hundred of my men. I prostrated myself before him and it only made him angrier. I begged for his mercy and he would not give it. I stabbed him with his own trident and now he bothers us every other week. He is the sea; one simply cannot predict the sea.”
A woman stands beside Poseidon in the chariot, too tall and too striking to be anything but a goddess. Her hair is the colour of squid ink and she is clothed only in limpets. She’s staring at the sky and doesn’t acknowledge their arrival at all.
“Queen Amphitrite does not like strangers,” Poseidon grunts, gripping reins of seaweed. “Or humans. Don’t talk to her. She’ll bite you.”
For the entirety of the two-hour journey across the sea, Odysseus and Penelope stay as far from Amphitrite as the limited space within the chariot allows. For the goddess’s part, she passes the time cawing at the seagulls overhead.