Penelope's Daughter by Laurel Corona

Author:Laurel Corona
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

The first stop was the banquet hall, where the queen made an appearance to sit with her guests after everyone had finished eating. I had never before been in the grand megaron when it wasn’t so loud I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but tonight the guests were a different group—not the servants who had made merry a few nights before, but the noblewomen who had remained behind in their rooms. Their faces were solemn, and the room was hushed with anticipation.

Alcippe, Phylo, and I stood as usual behind Helen and the empty seat that had been reserved for Hermione. Helen had recovered completely from the scene in her quarters, and with her usual grace, she poured a libation from the breasts of Orthia, after which the entire table finished whatever wine remained in their goblets.

Silent as an animal stalking its prey, and just as unexpected, Hermione came up and took her seat next to her mother. Her face was impassive to the point of total blankness, as if she had looked into a candle for too long and could see nothing except light swimming in front of her eyes.

Helen stood up. “My daughter, Hermione,” she said in a tone of forced affection. An almost imperceptible change of expression flitted over Hermione’s face as she stood up to be acknowledged. She sat down again with a heaviness devoid of grace, not bothering to glance at the assembled guests.

Helen stepped away from the table and went over to the hearth. Alcippe and I followed her, while Phylo carried a bowl of something that gave off a sweet and spicy fragrance I could not place. Phylo gave it to the queen and, turning to the crowd, announced in a loud voice, “The Jewel of the People! The Priestess of Orthia!”

The room held its breath. Helen turned to face the guests. “Night is upon us, the torches are lit, and we must prepare to leave for the sacred grove.”

And then, without any preliminaries, Helen began to sing, not in a beautiful voice, but in a strange and captivating mix of cries of animals and songs of birds, a blend of amazement and awe, tinged with grief, and pain, and fear. She sang the praises of all the goddesses who protect women, asking them to accept as their newest devotees those who had recently had their first blood. When she had finished, Helen threw the mixture in Phylo’s bowl into the fire, and the entire hearth erupted for a moment in a ball of blue and orange flame.

The only sound was a collective intake of breath, then silence again, dispelled after a moment by the sounds of benches scratching over the floor and the rustling of clothing as women got up from the banquet table and went out into the night.

Most of the guests at the banquet would go to the grove, but only the twenty initiates would be staying until morning, in the company of Helen and a few others. The rest would return to the palace with sentries waiting outside the grove for them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.