Medusa’s gaze held firm. Respectful, but firm.
‘Because, my Goddess, you have seen me. You know what my tongue can do. What my hand can make and weave and bake. You have seen my heart, my will, and my father’s and mother’s and sisters’ too. What words I speak or do not, now, at this moment, will have no bearing on what happens to me. You are a goddess. Had you wished to, you could have overturned our journey a dozen times or more. You did not. A word, a dozen words now. I do not believe that a goddess would strip or salvage a person based on one action when they have a thousand behind them and a hundred thousand yet to come. Your decision was made before I stepped foot into this temple. All that awaits me is to hear it.’
Athena stepped back. On her belt, the dagger glinted, brighter than before. A sliver of green flashed about her ankles as an embroidered serpent looped around the hem of her robe. The knocking in Medusa’s chest quickened as the grey-eyed goddess narrowed her gaze, once again sharpening her features and voice.
‘And you think I have chosen to take you in?’ Her tone was derisive. ‘Of all the girls who appear to me, who line up, their arms laden with gifts, and you believe I will take you?’
‘I do not know that,’ Medusa said, with a calm rationality of one much older. ‘For all I know, you may strike me down and kick me to the cobbles of Athens before the night has fallen. If that is the case, then so be it. I know I cannot change the mind of the mighty Athena. And I know it would be foolish of me even to try.’
Athena walked a path around the girl, another procession that Medusa had been subjected to before. She kept her head forwards, her shoulder’s back.
‘So you have wisdom?’ Athena said.
‘For a child,’ Medusa replied.
The hint of a smile flickered on Athena’s lips.
‘Wisdom is only part of me. Part of my temple. What of the war? What do you know of that?’ She stopped her circling. ‘You have never stood upon a battlefield. You have never held the warm spillage of a man’s belly as his breath fades from his lungs. Your senses have never been filled with the stench of blood, while those around you swing swords and scream for your death. What good would you be to me? You are a child. You are soft and weak.’
The child’s tongue drew a circle across her lips, pink and vibrant against her skin. Her eyes glided upwards, not so far as to meet the Goddess’, but close enough.
‘It is true,’ Medusa said, her child’s voice slow and contemplative. ‘I have not stood on a battlefield. I am no daughter of Sparta, born with the weight of a sword and the knowledge of a swing already coursing through me. I do not know wars, but I know of battles. Battles waged in my family’s name when my first suitor came calling when I was just eight. Battles I waged when I refused to let men’s hands wander where they felt they had a right to, or when I refused to follow them on a walk, down a path or into an olive grove. I know of the battles I have waged as I stood in a marketplace and demanded that men look not at my breasts, or my eyes, or my legs but at the fruit which I was selling. These were not battles of blood, it is true, but they are battles. Battles that I have fought and won.’
Athena stepped back from the girl. Her light had diffused, now softened and muted.
‘And these wars you have waged,’ she said, running her hand against her dagger. ‘You think these will end once you enter my temple? Once you are a priestess of mine?’
For the first time since leaving her family home, it was Medusa’s turn to smile. Her lips turned upwards, the smile rising to her cheeks. But the glimmer that came from her eyes was not one of joy. It was dark and hollow and not earned in her lifetime but in all the thousands of lifetimes that had gone before her. By her aunt, by her aunt’s aunt, and by generations too far back to recall.
‘Those battles,’ she said. ‘They don’t ever end.’
Chapter 3
Helios was laying claim to the sky with a small smudge of purple creasing the horizon. Medusa had risen while there were more stars still and had been sweeping the temple since she dressed. She was to meet with members of the polis that day. She was to stand before these men and women on Athena’s behalf, answer their questions, and bestow the Goddess’ wisdom as best she knew how. This was the third time in as many moons that this responsibility had fallen to her. In the outside world, other women may have been made jealous of this; seen it as favouritism by the Goddess but, in the temple, such thoughts were kept to themselves. There was nothing to be gained from belittling another; their tables would always be laid with the same food. Their beds still covered in the same linen.
Her hands gripped the broom as she swept the temple floor, sending motes of dust spiralling upwards and adding a thousand extra stars to the morning’s dimming constellations. When her footsteps no longer showed imprints on the ground, she picked up her tools and headed downstairs to the chamber beneath the temple. There she cleaned her hands and feet, scrubbed them with sage and oranges, and draped her tunic across her body. She twisted the headband of the Priestess around her forehead and draped the white shawl over her shoulders. Some in her position wore
