On my way, I passed the palaestra, where wrestling was taught and practiced. Men were hard at work training in the open arena. Every two years, teams of the best wrestlers from the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Houses gathered here to compete. I knew the basic rules of the game, but women weren’t permitted into the palaestra.
I arrived at the fisherman’s booth. Buckets of oysters, clams, and mussels were packed around the lean-to, and silver fish hung from the canopy. The wind slapped the sign against the tent: OCEANUS’S CATCH.
The fish merchant’s face lit up. “Bronte!”
“Close. I’m Althea.”
“With your velo on, you look just like your sister.”
Bronte and I were both tall, but the similarities stopped there. She had hazel eyes; mine were gray. Her hair was blonde; mine was coppery auburn. “It’s good to see you, Proteus.”
“What can I get you?” he asked. “I have fresh octopus, caught this morning.”
I held down my velo as another gust pushed past us. “I was wondering if you know of anyone selling a boat.”
“I’m selling a boat myself. Who’s the buyer?”
“Me.”
Proteus stepped out from behind his booth to whisper, “Women cannot own property. You know that.”
“Then I won’t tell anyone I’m a woman.”
His belly shook with laughter. “A blind man wouldn’t make that mistake.”
“What if he was a very kind man who sold the best fish in all of Thessaly?”
Proteus’s lips spread wide. “For you, I’ll make an exception. I’ll leave your name with the harbormaster. Do you sail?”
“Not yet.” I passed him the pouch of coins. “Two hundred silver pieces.”
“The boat is worth two seventy-five,” he said.
My shoulders drooped. I had nothing else of value except Mother’s arm cuff. Cleora had inherited our mother’s lyre, Bronte her necklace, and me her arm cuff with the lioness heads. They were her most precious possessions, but Mother would never want me to value a bangle above my sisters.
“What’s this worth?” I asked, sliding the cuff down my arm.
Proteus gestured for me to stop. “Keep it. I owe your mother and father a favor for helping my daughter a long time ago.”
People hardly ever mentioned my father, Tassos. He passed away when I was very young. Cleora and Bronte remembered some things about him, but very little. “What did my parents—?”
“Just a moment.” Proteus left to assist an older woman who was grousing about his selection of shellfish.
A gust of wind plucked harder at my velo. I held it down while I waited for Proteus, but the day was growing late, and now I had everything I had come for except the olives. I signaled goodbye to him and started back to the tavern. My whole body hummed, and my steps lightened. I bought a boat. I practically danced down the road and to the courtyard ahead where people surrounded a stage. A group of actors was performing a reenactment of The Fall of Uranus. They were at the part when the Almighty accepts the adamant sickle from Gaea. The painted ceramic sickle the actor held was a mediocre representation of adamantine, a rare, very hard, lusterless metal. The God of Gods’ brothers—Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, and Iapetus—were represented on stage by other actors. Only the sixth brother, Oceanus, who refused to join them in overthrowing their father and was now an outcast because of it, was not depicted.
The actors’ masks reflected each Titan brother well: Coeus, the intellectual, in the likeness of an owl; Crius, the seer, covered in stars; Hyperion, the light of heaven, with the face of the sun; and Iapetus, the spear of mortality, in a warrior’s helmet. To the delight of the audience, the four brothers held down their father, the sky, from the earthly pillars where they dwelled—north, south, east, and west—while the Almighty swung the sickle and castrated Uranus. He sank to the ground in agony, and the Almighty lifted the sickle over his head. The audience cheered.
My insides coiled into a hard knot. This was how our ruler came to power, through treachery and violence and bloodshed. Eons ago, when this dethroning took place, the Almighty was known by another name, a name no longer spoken. Members of the First House staged reenactments year-round, and while this production was decent, the real play took place during the First House Festival when Titans from all over the world gathered in the city to celebrate the Almighty’s triumph. In a fortnight, Othrys would be flooded with visitors come to feast and drink and make merry.
The crowd shifted, and my view of the stage was lost. I pushed past the audience to a white tent I had never seen before, half-hidden in an alley of the ramshackle buildings. The sign out front read, ORACLE. WHAT WILL FATE BRING YOU?
The vestals didn’t believe in oracles. Matron Prosymna said our fate could only be found in giving our lives in service to Gaea. My mother, though, believed that fate itself directed us. At times, the night of her death was muddled and too painful to recall, while other times, I remembered her words with stark plainness: Your destiny is to guide and protect your sisters.
A bearded soldier with long hair ducked out of the oracle’s tent. He carried a basket, looked left and right as if checking to see whether anyone saw him, then lumbered away.
Another gust swept around me, yanking at my clothes and velo. I grabbed my mask as the bands loosened, catching it before it slid off. Unable to undo the knot without removing the mask, I tied another to secure it and walked back to the donkey.
As I packed my goods into the saddlebags, another gust pushed my mask askew again. I dropped the sack to catch it, and the figs fell out, plunking around my feet. I bent down to pick them up with one hand, my other on my velo, but a big fist grabbed the figs first and stuffed them back into the sack.
I glanced up. The soldier from the oracle’s tent rose to his full height, a good deal taller than me. His wide shoulders tapered to a trim waist and strong legs. A short brown beard covered his sculpted jaw and pointed chin, making it difficult to determine his age, though he was definitely older than me. The soft ends of his hair curled around his ears, framing his face and accentuating his amber eyes. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t recall from where.
“Let me help you,” he said, stepping behind me.
He untied my mask without permission. The knife was in the saddlebag on the other side of the donkey, too far out of reach. My heart thundered as he retied the strings and backed away. I lowered my hands, my velo securely in place.
“Divine day,” he said in farewell as he picked up his basket of burgundy olives.
“Wait. Where did you find those? I’ve been looking all over. Every merchant I asked is out of them.”
His eyes tensed at the corners, then he held out the basket. “Take them. They’re yours.”
“You don’t want them?”
“They were given to me.”
“If they were a gift, you should keep them.”
His lips lifted coyly. “I think they were meant for you.”
I didn’t understand what that meant, but if he was giving me the olives, I couldn’t refuse. “I’ll pay you for them.”
“They’re a gift, from me to you.”
Paying him for a gift would be an insult, so I accepted the basket with a murmured thanks and packed it away.