House of Odysseus by Claire North EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Claire North
- Language: English
- Genre: Ancient Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
They came at sunset to my temple door, torches burning. The fire they
carried was thin against the scarlet west and picked the bronze lines of their
helmets out in gold. The last of the devoted scattered before them as the
shield-hearted men climbed the thin path along the curve of the hill, piling
the scent of jasmine and evening rose with the heaving of their really rather
lovely contoured chests. Such a fanfare of oiled arm and curving leg could
not help but be noticed from a valley away, and so it was that my priestess,
fair Xanthippe, was waiting for them at the top of the three rough steps that
rose to the columned portico.
Her hair was set high above her face, her
gown low about her bosom. She had sent one of the younger girls to grab a
bunch of yellow flowers from the shrine that she might hold in her arms as
a mother could coddle her babe, but alas, the girl was slow on her feet and
did not make it back in time to complete the pleasing image, and instead
had to huddle at the back of the priestly assemblage gripping her petals
between twisting fingers as if there were a scorpion in the bouquet.
“Welcome, fair travellers,” Xanthippe called when the first men of the
approaching column were within reach of her low voice. It is not acceptable
to ask a lady her age, but she had grown well into her beauty, wearing the
lines about her eyes with mirth, a twist about her smile and a flash of her
fragrant wrist as though to say “I may not be young, but what merry tricks
have I learned!” Yet the approaching men did not return her courtesy, but
instead lined up in a half-circle a few paces from where the women stood,
encasing the mouth of the temple as if it might belch snakes. Below, to the
west, the last of the setting day pricked pink and gold off the thin waiting
sea. The town that rested beneath the shadow of my altar was crowned with
gulls, and the bright banners stretched from column to pine about my
temple twitched and strained against their string.
Then, with no word spoken, the men in bronze, helmets upon their
brows and hands upon their swords, moved towards the women. I was
having a bath at the time in my lofty Olympian bower, enjoying the nectar
pooled in my belly button – but the instant their heavy sandals slapped upon
the sacred timbers of my sacred temple below, I raised my eyes from
contemplation of my fairer parts and bade my naiads cease their cavorting,
which they did with some reluctance, and turned my gaze to earth.
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