Shimmering Splendor Read online

  “Can you?” He jumped up, seized her, and kissed her. “You are never tired of helping me, and you should be. By now, I should think you would be glad to be rid of me.”

  “No, love,” Aphrodite said, returning his embrace. “I will never be rid of you. You are a part of me.”

  Eros tilted up Aphrodite’s chin so he could look into her eyes. “If you can do this, if Psyche is what I believe she is, you will be repaid manyfold because you will have two friends, two to laugh with.” Eros’s eyes gleamed with hope and enthusiasm.

  Aphrodite heard the words but shut her mind against the incredibly appealing notion of a woman friend, a woman who would not envy and resent her. Ridiculous. Psyche had hated her even before she had needed to try to protect Eros. One last throw of the bones, Aphrodite thought. Either this ploy would assure Eros of the girl’s devotion and bring him peace—until he realized Psyche was aging and dying—or he would learn she was a light-minded whore and grow indifferent enough to put her aside…or die of his grief.

  Unable to resist Eros’s eager hope, Aphrodite had smiled back at him despite her dark thoughts. If only Psyche were not a short-lived native. If only the girl’s life could be extended… Aphrodite’s lip caught between her teeth as what she was about to say made a new connection in her mind. Psyche had used power to separate the seeds. If she had power, she might live longer… Eros had cocked his head at her extended silence and she pushed the little hope/fear away. It did not matter now. The immediate problem was Eros’s uneasy mind. Aphrodite knew her plan must be tried.

  “Since Psyche must have used magic to complete the task I set her,” Aphrodite said, “I can claim she did not fulfill the bargain and set her another task. I will bid her fetch me wool from the fleece of the burning sheep—”

  “No!” Eros exclaimed, stepping back as if Aphrodite had become loathsome. “That is too dangerous.” His eyes grew hard and his lips thinned. “Are you jealous, Aphrodite? Are you trying to kill my love?”

  “Do not be such a fool!” Aphrodite spat back, both hurt and guilty. “What good would that do me? If she died trying to prove her love of you, would you not hasten to follow her? Would I not lose you entirely? And when have I ever been jealous of any person you took to your bed?” She shuddered delicately. “That is not what I want of you, and you know it.”

  “Then why so dangerous a task?” Eros asked, frowning. “I would not blame her if she refused to go.”

  “Blame her? No,” Aphrodite said thoughtfully. “If she did refuse, of course, you will know the limit of her love—although that does not mean she does not care for you, only that she does not care enough to risk her life. But I do not think she will refuse. As you say, she is very clever. She found a way to separate those seeds and she found a way to get here. I think she will agree.”

  “Clever is as clever does,” Eros said. “But those ‘sheep’ would think nothing of savaging a lion, and the way to their ‘pastures’ is not safe. No, I am not sure I could snatch wool from one of those sheep. I cannot agree that Psyche should try so dangerous a feat alone.”

  Aphrodite uttered a huge, ostentatious sigh. “I hope Psyche is as clever as she seems, because you certainly have lost any fleck of good sense you once had in that beautiful head of yours. I do not intend her to go alone—although it would be better if she thought she was alone. Naturally, you will follow her. You will then be able not only to protect her but to judge how much power she has, how she obtains it, how she uses it, and possibly even why she has kept it secret from you.”

  Eros stood still, biting his lip, and shaking his head in a worried way. “It would still be too dangerous,” he muttered. “If I follow close, she will know I am there, and if I keep my distance, she could be hurt, even killed, before I could reach her.”

  Aphrodite shrugged. “But if you do not go with her, you will learn nothing.”

  For another moment Eros stayed silent, biting his lip. Then his face was lit by a beatific smile. “Oh yes, I will,” he crowed. “Atomos, the suitor who left Psyche rather than cross Aphrodite’s will, will meet her ‘by accident’ by the river, which she must follow to come to where the burning sheep live. So I can protect her, and Atomos can tempt her to abandon Eros—” His voice shook and he stopped speaking abruptly and swallowed.

  “It is a good plan, better than mine,” Aphrodite said sharply. “You will know one way or another what she is. If she will take another man while she believes you are still lying ill from a spell she cast, she is not worthy of your pain.” He stepped back, shaking his head, and she reached out and grasped his arm so hard her fingers grew white and his flesh ridged up between them. “You must know.”

  He stared defiantly, looked away and dropped his head, then raised it. “She will be true,” he said.

  Chapter 19

  In the grip of rising hope, Psyche had eaten the excellent cakes and drunk the wine the children brought. Their compromise had amused her: Chloe carried the silver plate with the cakes, which provided little chance for accident, and Daphnis bore the tray with the beautiful flagon of wine and delicate—but breakable—cup for drinking. She was a little surprised when Daphnis settled onto a comfortable cushion near the door, but only for a moment. Clearly he was there both to provide service and to make sure she was not free to wander about without someone’s knowledge.

  Again the temptation rose to ask about Eros, to ask to be taken to him, and again she subdued it. To occupy her mind, she asked instead, “Have you served Lady Aphrodite long?”

  “Oh, yes,” Daphnis responded. “A long time. I was littler than Chloe when I came.”

  “And did you not miss your mama and papa, because you were so little?”

  The child looked puzzled. “I do not remember.” Then he laughed. “I cried because I was afraid. All the little ones cry, but nurse gave me food and it was warm here.”

  The poorest of the poor, Psyche thought. Of course they are happy—warm and fed and dressed in what they could not dream of—no, they were too young when “sacrificed” to think of clothes. But why so young?

  “And do you do all the work of the house?” It seemed impossible to Psyche that these children could move furniture or cook, yet she had seen no one but the two children. “That seems hard to me.”

  Daphnis laughed. “No, the servants do that. We only open the door and run messages and carry refreshment and suchlike. The servants do not come out of their quarters when Lady Aphrodite and Lord Eros are awake and about.”

  Psyche’s breath caught. “Lord Eros is about?” she asked quickly.

  “I have not seen him,” Daphnis said. “Did you know he was very sick? A bad lady hurt him.” His eyes grew large and round. “He was almost dead—all white and wet and cold, Niki said. Niki was frightened. He cried, and he is too old for crying.” The child shivered. “Bad! It was bad to hurt Lord Eros.”

  Psyche was stricken mute. She could only stare at the child with eyes almost as large as his own. Daphnis nodded. “Bad. If we are bad we are sent away and never come back. We—”

  “You are all great chatterboxes.”

  Although the voice was kind, both Daphnis and Psyche jumped to their feet. Daphnis laughed, seized Aphrodite’s hand, and kissed it, and Psyche sank into a curtsy. Aphrodite bent and kissed the little boy’s head, then freed her hand and patted him firmly on the buttocks.

  “Run away now, love,” she said, “and see that we are not disturbed.” She watched him go, then turned to Psyche, who had come erect.

  “I have completed my task, Lady Aphrodite,” Psyche said very stiffly. “Since I knew you would not expect me to finish so soon, I thought I had better bring the fruits of my labor to you here in Olympus rather than wait at the lodge, perhaps for weeks or months. I was eager, also,” her voice quivered, and she stopped, bit her lip, and then went on, “to hear how Teras was progressing.”

  “You are very sly and very bold,” Aphrodite said. “What magic did you use to get here?”

  “M
agic? None. I came afoot—”

  “In that dress, with your hair so carefully done?”

  “Not in this dress, of course. I carried it, hoping—”

  “Put aside your hopes for now,” Aphrodite interrupted sharply. “Eros is still abed, and I will not allow you to spoil his recovery by causing him any excitement. You little fool! Did you not guess that was one reason why I set you such a task, to keep you from coming here and disturbing him? It is not possible for you to have completed the task by yourself or even with help. You cheated! You used magic.”

  “You did not forbid me to use magic, madam,” Psyche replied. “So I did not cheat. I will not ask to see Teras if that would do him harm, but I think I deserve to know that you will tell him that I have come.”

  She had not really expected that her original request to see Teras would be granted and her disappointment over Aphrodite’s refusal was not very great. In fact, she was surprised and pleased that Aphrodite had said she must put aside her hopes to see Teras “for now”—particularly after Daphnis had innocently confirmed Aphrodite’s accusation that she had injured Teras badly. She hated to admit it, but she felt more relief than pain over escaping the need to face a furious…Eros. All Psyche wanted now was to be sure Teras would be told that she had come. Once he knew that, she did not doubt he would quickly forgive her and return to her.

  “I did not know you had any magic to use,” Aphrodite said indignantly. “And stop using that stupid name! His name is Eros. When you went to Iolkas, you told Eros you could not return to him because you could not power the translocation spell. But you can use magic, so you lied about that—”

  “I did not!” Psyche exclaimed. “I did not have enough power for so great a spell. I drained myself until I fell unconscious. I never lied to Teras, never.” Furious, because she knew what this new accusation meant, she cried out, “I do not know Eros. I do not want to know him. I want my Teras, my monster, not your accursed Eros.”

  “They are the same, you stupid slut,” Aphrodite snapped. “Give me the seed.”

  Psyche had to bite back an even more furious retort, and her teeth ground together as she lifted her bundle to the table and untied the thongs that held the blanket around it. Unaware of the open amazement that flashed over Aphrodite’s face, she laid aside her bow and quiver and the belt that held pouch and knife and opened the pack. She drew out first her soiled traveling garb, then the remaining leather-wrapped strips of broiled rabbit, and finally the leather sack. Having restored the clothing and food to the pack and folded the blanket over her weapons, she opened the sack and laid out the fourteen small bags of grain.

  Before Psyche had finished setting the little cloth bags in a row, Aphrodite had untied the mouths of two of them. The Olympian stared for a moment at the two piles of seed: One was of tiny, black specks in which any other seed would show up like a torch on a dark night. The other was small, round, shiny husked seeds that would also readily expose contamination with another variety.

  “How?” Aphrodite asked. “I will not believe you gathered these up and sorted them in a week’s time. You say you did not use magic—”

  “I said nothing of the sort,” Psyche retorted, expecting this was some new trap. Aphrodite had said she would not allow Psyche to see Eros—for now. That implied she would be allowed to see him sometime…provided Aphrodite could find no new excuse to prohibit her visit. “I said I had not enough power for a translocation spell, but apparently I do have enough for small illusions and other small spells. I saw an ant taking a seed—”

  “An ant?” Aphrodite repeated, completely at a loss.

  “The seeds were myriad, but ants, too, are myriad,” Psyche said, and told how she had beguiled the ants into doing the work and how she had repaid them.

  There was a silence. Aphrodite’s lovely eyes were fixed firmly on the floor and her lips pursed hard. Despite the effort, at last she laughed. Then she shook her head.

  “You are very clever; however, the task I set you was not a test of cleverness but of patience. So you completed the task, but all to no purpose, because you failed the test. Eros is not yet ready to judge you, but I will have to tell him, when he is ready, what you have done.”

  Psyche shrugged. “That will scarcely shock him. Teras…Eros knows that patience is not my greatest virtue.”

  Aphrodite had to struggle again with the impulse to laugh. “Very well,” she said, “I will set you another task. This one will indeed test your cleverness”—Aphrodite’s eyes flicked to the weapons covered by the blanket—“and your courage too.”

  She paused, her brows raised as if she were challenging Psyche to protest, but Psyche said nothing. She simply stared back at Aphrodite with her mouth set hard.

  “There is a river that flows from the southwest to the northeast across the western edge of the valley of Olympus,” Aphrodite continued. “On the north bank of the river, many leagues to the west of the city, there are wild beasts called the sheep of the burning fleece. Bring me back that leather bag full of their wool.”

  Psyche’s heart sank. She had known Aphrodite had intended that she fail to gather the seeds. She had not been surprised when the Olympian had claimed her use of magic was cheating and negated the completion of the task, but she had been beguiled by Aphrodite’s tenderness to the children into believing she would be treated fairly. This, however, she sensed, was no test; it was a trap.

  “No,” she said, “not unless—”

  “You refuse?”

  Psyche saw the flicker in Aphrodite’s eyes and said. “I am willing to fetch the wool, but first I must see Teras.”

  “There is no such being as Teras,” Aphrodite said icily.

  “Very well,” Psyche snapped, “Eros. I wish to be certain he knows I was here—that I came all this way to see him—”

  Psyche’s voice caught as she suddenly wondered why she could not simply walk past Aphrodite, find Teras’s room, and look at him. She would see soon enough whether he was so ill that speaking to her would harm him. Her eyes blazed and she stepped toward Aphrodite, who gave back a step, but laughed.

  “If you intend to knock me down and force your way into Eros’s presence,” she said, “I warn you to think twice. You will do him irreparable harm, and if you make one bruise on me, Eros will never forgive you. He may love you, but he has been my friend for eons.” Then she shrugged. “You are not important enough to lie about, and you are a fool to think I would try. The children have seen you. How could I silence them? I will make no bargains with you. Do as I bid you, or go.”

  “Go where?” Psyche put a hand on the table, fighting to keep from trembling with defeat.

  “Wherever you like. I could not care less.”

  No, Psyche thought, she would not yield so easily. She drew herself up. “Sooner or later, no matter what trials you set me, I will see Ter—Eros. Whatever hurt I did him, he will soon understand that I meant him no harm—as I would understand if he hurt me. He does love you, Lady Aphrodite, but he loves me, too. I do not wish to carry such bitterness and spite in my heart that I will speak ill of you to one who loves you and would be hurt by my words, even if he knew them to be true. Will you not at least promise that you will tell him the truth when I return?” Psyche still stood tall, but her eyes were full of tears. “I will swear not to disturb him if you think it would hurt him to see me. I just want to look at him…”

  “Look at who, Eros?”

  “No!” Psyche exclaimed, and hid her face in her hands.

  “But that is who you would see,” Aphrodite pointed out, her voice softer, almost sympathetic. “He could not wear the cloud of blackness even if he wished. You burned that spell away. Think about it, Psyche. It is Eros you would see. But yes, I will promise even more than you ask. If you return and you still wish it, you will see Eros, and if he is willing, speak to him.”

  “Thank you,” Psyche said, responding more to the kinder voice than to the promise. “Thank you.” She hesitated; then, moved
by an impulse she did not understand but could not restrain, she went on in a rush. “I am torn apart, lady. I love Teras, but I do not know if I could bear it that Teras, whom I love, should wear Eros’s face. I do not even like Eros.”

  Something in her voice or expression apparently struck Aphrodite as exquisitely funny. The Olympian burst out laughing and laughed and laughed. When she had gasped herself into silence, to Psyche’s surprise, there were tears in her eyes, and not tears of laughter.

  “I wish you had been born an Olympian,” she said.

  It was like a slap in the face. Because she was a native, she was not good enough for Eros. Angered, Psyche turned away, about to take up her pack and leave without another word, but common sense prevailed. She turned back and said coldly, “If I am to make another long journey, I must have supplies. Is there a place in Olympus where I will be permitted to wash my traveling clothes and sell this gown to buy some food?”

  Aphrodite shook her head. “This is a test, not a sentence of execution. My servants will see to your clothing and provide any supplies for your journey. I would suggest that you remain here until morning. You may ask the children for anything you need or desire.”

  She went to the open arch and clapped her hands. In a few moments, a young girl, about nine, came in, bowed to Aphrodite, and asked, “How may I serve you, Lady?”

  “For today by serving Lady Psyche, who will be our guest.”

  Aphrodite nodded and walked out. The girl smiled at Psyche and said, “I am Lysis. We do not often have guests—at least, not lady guests—so if I forget something, please just remind me. You will want to see your chamber first, I imagine, and then perhaps you would like a bath?”

  “A bath,” Psyche breathed, “How wonderful.”

  * * *

  Wonderful it had been. When Psyche started off the next morning, just as dawn was tinting the eastern sky with pink, she was still utterly confused. Harsh as Aphrodite’s manner and words had been, the treatment provided by her household had been just the opposite. Not that Psyche had been able to think about it while she was enjoying it. The exhaustion of her journey topped by the violent emotions engendered by reaching her goal and the confrontation with Aphrodite had overwhelmed her as soon as she sank into the hot water of the luxurious bath. She had barely been able to crawl out and stagger to an adjoining chamber, where she fell into the bed and quickly went to sleep.