Underworld: Justice

She who brings death.

This is Chapter 5 of the serialised novel ‘Underworld’, a reimagining (not a retelling) of the myth of Persefóni. Use the button below to access the Table of Contents and navigate back a chapter, or begin at the beginning.

CONTENT WARNING
This chapter contains references to domestic abuse.

CHAPTER 5

Summer fades into autumn and, one morning, Dáfni comes to find me. I have washed some clothes and am laying them on the rocks to dry in the sunshine. I greet her, but she doesn’t return the greeting. Instead, she stands in front of me wringing her hands.

“It’s my daughter - my Antigóni,” she says. “She won’t come out of her house for a week at a time. Sometimes, I don’t see her for days - she won’t open the door to anyone but her husband.”

I know Antigόni. She was the baby I had helped deliver on the night of Dioklís and Loukía’s wedding feast - the baby who almost died, but survived. That was fourteen or fifteen mortal years ago. Antigόni grew up to be a pretty girl with laughing eyes and I have always liked her. We dance in the women’s circle at festivals, pick flowers together in spring and olives in autumn. She was married about a year ago, at harvest time, to Yásonas, a local man with his own smallholding. I don’t know Yásonas well, but I have heard that his mother died some years ago, and that her death broke his father’s heart. Afterwards, the older man lived like a shadow in the village - until Yásonas was old enough to provide for himself. Then, his father disappeared. The village women said that he took nothing with him.

“I’ll go and see your daughter,” I tell Dáfni.

“Today?” she asks me, then averts her eyes and apologises.

I lay a hand on her arm. “Today,” I tell her. “Right now.”

I walk back down to the valley with Dáfni. Already, I can see the faint fingerprints of time making an impression on her. She is not yet forty in mortal years, but an almost imperceptible stiffness is beginning to creep into the way she moves. Her skin, once almost as flawless as mine, is freckled and spotted by the sun. At her temples, a few stray hairs are turning from dark brown to white.

I leave her outside her home and walk down the valley to Yásonas’ smallholding, lengthening my stride and quickening my pace now that I am alone. When I arrive, I call out and Antigóni’s voice answers from within, asking who I am and what I want.

I try the door, and find it is bolted from the inside. I tell her that if she doesn’t open it, I will kick it down.

It is not an idle threat, and it works. There are shuffling steps, like those of a much older woman, and the scrape of the bolt being drawn back. The door opens a crack. Inside the house, it is dark. There is only one window in the little mud-brick dwelling, small and high on the wall. Antigóni stands back from the sliver of light shining through between door and frame, behind the door, holding it closed. I put my bare foot in the gap.

“Let me in,” I say. “I want to see you.”

She lets go of the door and it swings inwards, but at the same time, she retreats further into the gloom of the house. She doesn't know how keen my eyes are, how quickly they adjust to the dim light and how well they can see the bruises on her face and arms.

“Antigóni,” I say. “Who -?” But, of course, I already know. “Did your husband do this to you? Was it Yásonas?”

Her face contorts. Her eyes are pleading, Don’t ask me, but her head is nodding, her lips forming the word “yes”. Tears well in her eyes.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispers. “Please, Persefóni, please don’t. My father, he didn’t know, and he needs -”

“Is this the first time?” I demand.

Antigόni shakes her head. “Sometimes, he’s so kind and gentle, but other times…” Her fingers drift to the yellowing bruise on her cheekbone.

“How could you let him do this to you?”

She surprises me then by giving a shout of laughter, false and wild. Her hand drops away from her face, clenching into a fist at her side.

“Let him?” she says, and her voice is high, the unhinged laughter still echoing inside it. “There is a difference between letting someone do something to you and not being able to stop them. Look at my husband. Look at me. We are not all immortal warriors, Persefóni; we do not all have supernatural strength. Some of us are just women.”

She is right to be angry with me - it was a stupid question. I am stronger, faster and better trained in combat than anyone in Arkadía, apart from Ánitos. But that is why I am here - to protect her.

“I can fix this,” I tell her.

She looks wary, but slowly nods her head. “Yes, perhaps. He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that he gets so upset and it’s like he can’t hear me…” She pauses. “But you’re immortal; he’ll listen to you.”

“It’ll be alright,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure Yásonas doesn’t hurt you again.”

Antigόni opens her mouth to speak, but then she decides not to ask questions.

---

Yásonas is usually with the other young men of the village. They work the land, hunt and spend their leisure time together, so it is a good many days before I see him go into the forest alone. I follow him for a time at a distance, but he is going further and further away from the place I wish him to be. I consider my options; I could change the plan, wait for another time, and yet… Yásonas is one of the men who looks at me with that wolfish expression. Even now that he has married Antigóni, he still looks at me that way. Perhaps, I think, I can use that to my advantage.

I don’t really know what I look like. I have only seen my reflection distorted in the blades of my weapons, or shimmering in the surface of a forest pool. But people have told me I am beautiful, and for the first time I see that beauty might be another weapon in my arsenal - something I can use. It feels somehow wrong to do it - as if I am cheating my opponent, or perhaps myself. But I push any uneasiness I feel away and remind myself that I snatched Antigόni from Plútonas’ hands, and I did not do it so that she could live like this.

Yásonas stops some way inside the forest, crouching down and examining the ground. He’s looking for tracks. I circle around and approach him from the other direction. On purpose, I snap a few branches underfoot as I walk, and he raises his head. When he sees me, his face breaks into a smile. I force myself to smile back at him.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Tracking a boar,” he replies.

“Really?” I am dubious. Surely he knows better than to hunt a boar alone. Besides, he has no spear, only a small hunting knife.

“No,” he says, standing and brushing down his clothes. “Not really. I noticed you following me back at the treeline.” He glances at me and holds my gaze. I am a little shaken at the thought that he knew I was there, and that I have underestimated him, but he continues, “I thought maybe you… wanted something?”

His statement, which is more like a question, hangs in the air between us. I realise he isn’t afraid of me in the slightest. I wonder at that, but I see its advantages. He is already looking at me with that hungry expression, so I answer him, trying to mirror the look in his eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “I do want something from you.”

He smiles at me, then reaches up a hand and touches my face. It takes all my self-control not to flinch away from his calloused fingers.

“Not here,” I say. “Follow me.” And he does. He is so sure of himself, so certain that he has pulled me there with his charms, that he does not even hesitate.

I lead him into the trees, further up the slope and back against the face of the mountain, to a place I know where there are many rocks and crevices. I stop walking, leaning against an outcrop of rock just over waist-high. He comes up to me, his face far too close to mine, his hands around my upper arms. We are of a height and his eyes are level with mine.

He doesn’t speak, only slides his hands down my arms and up again, over my shoulders, across my back. Unlike when Níkandros touched me, I feel nothing but revulsion. He is too, too close and I can’t stand the sensation of his skin on mine, but I don’t react. Without breaking eye contact, I slide my own hand up my leg, drawing my robe up over my thigh. His eyes dart to my bare skin and he smirks, but I pull his face back to look at mine with my other hand, my fingers entwined in his hair. It is thick, soft and springy like new-grown grass. He leans even closer until there is almost no space left between our mouths, and his peripheral vision is reduced to almost nothing.

“I saw what you did to Antigόni,” I whisper, and he freezes, finally realising that this isn’t what he thought it was, but by then it is too late. My sharp knife, which I always keep in a leather scabbard secured around my thigh, is against his throat.

I give him no time to react. I could best him in a fight easily even if he were armed and I was not, but I don’t give him the chance to die defending himself. I draw the knife across that particular place on his neck. He makes a small wheezing sound, his face a rictus of horror as he scrabbles uselessly at his open throat. I step away and he staggers forwards against the rocks, then slides down them and falls sideways onto the ground, his legs and fingers twitching, his mouth working.

It takes no time at all for him to die.

I stay back until it is over, and then I heave his body over the rocks and into the crevice behind. It is messy and, when I am done, there is blood on my hands and my chiton. It has spilled out on the ground too, and I kick up the dust around the place to hide it. At least there is none on the rocks to point the way. When Ánitos and I kill raiders, we always bury the bodies, but Yásonas doesn’t deserve even that. Besides, a grave would be obvious, and I don’t want anyone to find him. I want him to disappear without a trace, like his father before him.

I wipe my knife on my already soiled clothes and put it back in its sheath on my thigh, hidden underneath my skirts. There is a flicker at the edge of my vision - Plútonas, come to claim Yásonas’ soul. I watch him reach a hand down into the crevice and haul Yásonas’ shadow from inside it. Then the two of them step into thin air without a backwards glance.

I turn to go home, and I gasp. Ánitos is standing in the trees behind me - how did he know I was here? Did he follow me? He walks slowly over to the rocks and cranes his neck to peer into the crevice, even though it is too dark to see anything down there. Then he fixes me with his gaze.

“An unarmed man?” he asks. “A farmer?” He is trying to keep his tone mild, but I can hear the anger behind it and I jump in to defend myself.

“He hurt Antigóni,” I spit out. “She was his wife. This was no more than he deserved.”

“Who are you to decide what he deserved?” he demands, the anger clearly audible in his voice now.

“Are you defending him?” I counter. “How can you?”

“I am not defending him. I’m saying that it was not your choice to make. You know too little of the world, Persefóni, and you have not listened to me. We kill to eat, we kill to live, and we kill that others might live in freedom. Revenge is not a reason to take a life.”

“I’ve removed a threat -”

“You’re a fool,” he snaps, and his words cut me because his criticism has never taken the form of an insult before. “And what of Antigόni?”

“She’s safe now -”

“Did she ask you to do this?”

“No, but -”

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he says, and he turns his back on me and walks away.

I am seething, but I am also uneasy. Ánitos is right - I don’t know what I have done, why he is angry with me; he, an immortal warrior, who has killed a thousand men. I hang my head and follow him home.

---

They go looking for Yásonas. I hear them in the forest, calling his name in case he has fallen and injured himself, checking the streams and ravines. They ask me to help, and I agree. Strangely, this lie makes me feel worse than killing Yásonas did. That didn’t make me feel anything much, except a grim satisfaction in knowing that Antigόni would now be safe from him. But promising I will do something with no intention of doing it makes me feel unclean somehow. Also, I do not think I am a good liar - I have never really done it before - but the villagers believe me. Still, none of them find him and, eventually, they give up their search.

But Antigόni knows. I was probably the only one who saw what Yásonas had been doing to her - she was so careful to hide it, and Yásonas so charming that even her own mother hadn’t guessed. And therefore I was probably the only one with anything against him apart from herself. She climbs up the slope from the valley a few days later and finds me making arrows in the cave entrance. There are grey half-moons under her eyes and her skin is pale and drawn. She doesn’t greet me, just stands in front of me and demands, “Where is he?”

“It’s alright,” I say. “He’s gone.”

“Did you send him away?” she asks. “Where? When is he coming back?”

I shake my head. “He’s gone and he’s never coming back. Not ever.” I look directly into her face, waiting for her to understand what I have done for her. My voice is comforting, proud even. I have helped her, and I suppose a part of me expects her gratitude, which is why I am so confused by her reaction.

“What?” she asks, her voice shaking. “What did you do?”

But I can see in her eyes that she knows exactly what I did.

“You’re safe now,” I say, waiting for that light of relief in her face - but it never comes.

“Safe?” she shoots back. “How am I safe? My husband is missing and I am with child! We have no one to provide for us. What have you done, Persefóni? What - have - you - done?”

She grinds out the last sentence from between clenched teeth, each word an accusation. Her eyes are wild, and full of hate, and I stare at her in utter confusion.

“Antigóni, I only wanted -”

“You - you were supposed to be my friend,” she interrupts. “I trusted you. I needed you to help me - to help us. But you are nothing but a - a murderer!”

I flinch.

“I knew it!” she cries, pointing her finger accusingly at me. “I hoped maybe you were keeping him here to talk to him, or you’d sent him alone into the mountains for a few days, but you killed him, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

Her voice is too loud, and I don’t understand why she is upset.

“I did it for you,” I say. “To keep you safe from -”

“Stop it!” she shrieks. “What do you know about - about anything? That’s life, Persefóni - that’s what it’s like! How is it that you’ve lived for hundreds of years and you still know nothing about it? You’ll continue to live up here on your mountain in perfect isolation, and it is I who will have to suffer the consequences of your actions. I will carry the weight of this all my days!”

“But it was my decision. It’s my weight to carry -”

“But it’s no weight to you at all, is it?” she snaps. “What’s one mortal life to you? What’s ten? A hundred? We are like flies to you - it is easy to reach out and crush us, isn’t it? It means nothing; easy to do and easy to forget.”

“No!” I protest. I am shocked by her words, but they also make me uncomfortable because, on some level, she is right. Nothing is what I feel when I kill my opponent in a fight. It was what I felt when I killed Yásonas.

But she is also wrong - I care about the mortals in the valley. I care about her, the child I saved from Plútonas’ hands.

“Antigόni -” I reach for her arm, but she snatches it back.

“Don’t come near me again,” she shouts. She is backing away from me, holding her hands protectively over her belly, as if I am a danger to her and her unborn child - as if I might lunge towards her at any moment and cut her throat. “Don’t come near any of us. Don’t. Persefóni.”

She spits out my name and I watch her go, letting the knapping stone in my hand fall to the ground. I feel almost as if Ánitos has landed a punch in my stomach, but this is a different pain - one that I don’t think will fade as quickly. I know what my name means - she who brings death - but I am wondering for the first time why Ánitos gave it to me.

Antigόni’s words haunt me so much that I leave my knapping and go in search of Ánitos. I find him at the treeline, chopping wood for the people of the valley. Neither of us has spoken to the other since he saw me kill Yásonas in the forest three days ago. I don’t mention what happened then, or the silence between us since. I simply ask him outright why he gave me this name. To my surprise, he answers in his deep, level voice as if nothing at all had passed between us.

“When you were a babe in arms,” he tells me, “we passed through Delfí and we saw the Pythía. She told me this name, and I gave it to you. It is a good name for a warrior.”

“Did she say anything else?”

He looks uncomfortable, and doesn’t quite meet my eye when he replies, “Nothing that made any sense.”

Ánitos leans his axe against the pile of wood he has chopped, and sits down on a tree stump with a sigh. I see then that he is not angry about what happened with Yásonas anymore, only disappointed, and that seems somehow worse.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

He gives me an appraising look.

“Are you?” he asks.

Am I? I am sorry he is sad, and I am sorry that Antigόni is angry with me, but am I sorry that Yásonas is dead? I do not think so, but I am not sure anymore. I feel I am missing something, and my own feelings are too intertwined with Ánitos’, my mind in too much turmoil after what Antigόni said.

“Persefóni,” he says, “you know the rules: They attack. We defend.”

“He attacked her,” I say belligerently.

“You know it’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

He sighs again. “Actions have consequences, Persefóni. Not everything is black and white; the world deals in shades of grey.”

I don’t understand.

“He did wrong,” I insist. “He deserved the punishment I gave him.”

“Is that what you believe?” he asks, standing and picking up his axe again. “Persefóni, you cannot scrub out mortal lives as if they were footprints in the dust. Everyday life is not like open warfare - it is a different battlefield and requires different weapons.”

"Do you think what he did should go unpunished then?" I demand, incredulous.

"No, quite the opposite. I would see him pay for his crimes against the mortal girl on her terms. You, in all your self-righteousness, have set him free.”

To be continued …