Alcestis Read Online Free PDF Page B

my sister from my sight.

2
    THE SHIP FROM Mycenae arrived in the early evening, sails unfurled, skimming in from the horizon with the ease of a dream. Along the rocky shore, watch fires flared bright, sparking as the men threw chunks of salt into the flames. At the window in the women’s quarters, I braced my palms on the cool stone sill and arched my back to let the body servant tighten the laces on my blue maiden’s bodice. My breath came short, stirring the fine hairs that had escaped my braid, and my cheeks felt fever hot.
    I was watching my father marry, surveying the tiny figures on the shore from high above like a god. Pelias was a dark, tall smudge flanked by smaller gray smudges, his bride a white blot surrounded by her brown-robed attendants. The two groups met, shifted in a ripple of bows, moved away again. The dark smudge and the white blot walked to the edge of the gray-green sea and bent down, dipping their hands into the water; I couldn’t see the details of the motion from above, but I imagined the slap of the waves against their wrists, the uncertainty of putting one’s hands into Poseidon’s power and knowing they might be captured in his bronze-hard grip. I couldn’t hear the speeches Pelias made, but I knew the pattern of the ritual from villagers’ weddings my father had blessed. First he would thank his sea-god father for bringing the woman safely ashore, then the local gods for the gift of good weather, and finally he would ask the permission of Artemis and Zeus and Hera, and they would grant it, or not.
    Even Pelias, godlike king, went still as he finished speaking, waiting for an answer from the gods. None of the blots moved. I held my breath, hoping for a lightning strike from the clear sky—but the sea did not stir with snakes, the day remained cloudless, no ravens flew near to croak a warning. The wedding would proceed.
    At the window above, I let out a disappointed sigh. The body servant gave my laces one last yank and went to join the group of servants helping Pisidice dress. I dropped my head for a moment and peered down at my chest, the still-surprising mounds of my breasts pushed up high by the bodice. I was twelve years old and just beginning to grow a woman’s curves and heaviness. I was glad of the body servant’s shy manner; the head maid had a disturbing habit of patting at my chest and telling me I looked just like my mother. I had no memory of my mother, not her breasts or her hair or the tilt of her eyes, and I didn’t care to be compared to the woman who had left me alone with Pelias. But I didn’t care for this wedding either. Pelopia had told me of Pelias’s betrothal and I’d hardly had time to get used to the idea before the woman’s ship had arrived.
    He’d been leaning against the palace wall, talking at me while I worked the spindle and distaff. Our father was going to be married, he’d said, but he didn’t know the woman’s name or age, knew only that she came from the south, from the lands held by Mycenae. He’d scowled over my head as he talked, eyes on the horizon.
    Acastus had gone to Mycenae less than a year before, bearing tribute to Atreus. Perhaps, I thought, he had gone to fetch our father a woman. I hadn’t dared say this to Pelopia; he’d taken a bad fall from his horse in the spring, and the resulting injuries had left him with a tendency to favor his left leg and to snap at comments that would once have amused him. I’d asked instead if the woman Pelias intended to marry was royal.
    Pelopia had shrugged. “Suppose not. But that doesn’t matter. He’s got Acastus.”
    “And you.”
    My brother had laughed. “Yes, he’s got me to visit his distant holdings and collect a few animals from every poor shepherd I see. Important work.”
    “Pelopia.” My fingers had stilled in the tangle of wool. “Anyone could hear you.”
    “Calm down, he’s not here. Not like it’s a secret either.”
    “Not if you complain so loudly, no.”
    He’d