Free Alcestis by Katharine Beutner Page B

Phylomache brushed past me, sobbing, and ran up the stairs. A young servant woman followed, red faced, with Antinoe crying in her arms and Asteropia clutching at her skirt.
    I touched the woman’s arm. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s happened?”
    “The queen tried to tell the king whom he ought to choose as your husband,” the servant said in a whisper. “The king didn’t like it much.” She shifted Antinoe on her hip, looking uncomfortable. I held out my arms and the servant gave me the baby with a grateful smile. “Thank you, lady.”
    I nodded. “I’ll take them up. Come, little one,” I said to Asteropia, stretching my hand down to splay my fingertips on the girl’s head.
    Inside the bedchamber, Phylomache lay crumpled on the bed, taking great quavery breaths. I sat down beside her, holding Antinoe against my shoulder and patting her as she quieted. Phylomache looked up with a shuddery gasp then buried her face in her hands again. Asteropia climbed up onto the bed and attached herself to her mother’s legs, eyes solemn.
    “You were pushing him to accept Admetus, weren’t you?” I said, voice quiet so I wouldn’t startle the baby braced against my chest.
    Phylomache nodded without lifting her head.
    “Oh, Phylomache. I could’ve told you that wouldn’t work.”
    “You saw,” Phylomache said, voice rising. “He never listens to me.”
    “He never listens to anyone,” I said. “Don’t try to talk to him about me. He’s happy with you and the girls. He’ll forget about it in a few days.”
    “I don’t know why he won’t let Admetus court you. It’s not as if the house is full of suitors.” A pause, and then Phylomache lifted her teary face, suddenly aware of what she’d said. “I didn’t mean—”
    I smiled. “They’ve been waiting until you had the baby. Pelias says he’ll have a feast in honor of her and Demeter before the next full moon.”
    “He will?” She sat up, wiping at her face.
    “He’ll want to have the wedding after the harvest. The feast must be soon, and now there’s a birth to celebrate.” I cupped the back of Antinoe’s head, feeling the warm, thin skin stretched over the baby’s soft skull. The child’s eyes had closed, her pink mouth open and slick with saliva. I wiped my thumb across the wet skin beneath her lips and kissed a wisp of feathery hair.
    “Oh,” Phylomache said, a little exhalation of air. “So there will be others.” She held her arms out for her baby.
    I laughed, though it sounded sour in my ears, and gave Phylomache the baby. “I’m sure of it.”
    “And nothing of—”
    “Nothing of Admetus.”

    PELIAS HELD THE feast two weeks later, on a cool night. Fall had settled in slowly, browning the mountainsides and stirring the gray sea into a pitchy froth. The western wind licked at the coast with his great rough tongue, changing its shape little by little, lap by lap. Pelias had burnt two white goats in the courtyard in the hope that his father would hold back the sea storms for the week of the feast, and Poseidon indulged him. On the day of the feast, the sea lay bright and sparkling, deceptively calm.
    I was ordered to wear my finest bodice, the red one with bright yellow stitching, and to let my body servant rub red juice on my cheeks and lips. I didn’t ask what the liquid was; it tasted foul, and that told me enough. The body servant yanked my hair into a tight, intricate braid, binding it with bits of yellow linen until I felt like a cow being prepared for a festival sacrifice. Phylomache was allowed to wear a shawl, and I begged for one, complaining of the cold as if I were as delicate as Pisidice had been, but Pelias ordered the head maid to leave me bare armed to show off the whiteness of my skin.
    The kings began arriving after noon. Princes, warlords with no palaces or lands—I hardly recognized any of them, though I thought a few of them might have been Acastus’s friends as children. Some of them brought entourages