Hera

The wedding thread broke between Hera’s fingers when Iris said the name of the bridegroom.

Below the terrace, a boy was trying to coax a tune from a reed pipe. The woman kneeling before Hera had come up from the harbour with salt on the hem of her dress and a red cord for the goddess to knot. Now the two ends lay across Hera’s lap.

“Say it again,” Hera said.

Iris glanced at the kneeling woman.

“Zeus. The procession is already gathering at Plataea.”

The woman lowered her head so quickly that her forehead nearly struck the stone.

“And whom is my husband marrying?”

“They call her Plataea. A daughter of the river.”

Hera put the broken ends together. Her hands were steady now. That was worse than their first sharp movement, and Iris stepped back from the terrace rail.

For days the messenger had brought invitations to return. Zeus had sent a necklace, then a promise of a feast, then an account of how empty her chair looked. Hera had sent each thing back. He had not come himself.

Now he had found someone to fill the chair.

The mortal woman began to rise.

“Stay,” Hera said.

“Lady, I can come another—”

“Is the man waiting below the one you want?”

“Yes.”

“Then give me your wrist.”

The woman held it out. Hera joined the broken cord with a knot, then tied it around the narrow wrist. The join was clumsy and visible. She turned it inward with her thumb.

“Go to him.”

The woman fled down the steps. A moment later the reed pipe stopped; someone laughed, and the tune began again, badly, with another voice singing over it.

Hera stood.

“Does he know you have told me?”

Iris did not answer soon enough.

“Of course he does,” Hera said.

The Bride on the Wagon

The oxen would not cross the river.

They had come willingly enough down to the ford, their horns wound with wool, but now they planted their hooves among the wet stones and pulled against the yoke. The driver struck the water with his goad. Behind him the musicians crowded together, pressing their pipes against their chests to keep them dry.

Hera stood on the opposite bank.

She had not touched the animals. They could see her.

On the wagon, beside Zeus, sat a woman completely covered by a bridal cloth. One fold lay over her knees, another concealed her face. Her hands were hidden. Even when the wagon lurched, she did not reach for the rail.

Hera looked first at that still figure, then at her husband.

He was smiling.

“You came.”

She stepped into the ford. Water rose around her ankles; the oxen backed until the pole knocked against the wagon bed.

“Take them out of the harness,” she told the driver.

The man stared at Zeus.

“You heard her,” Zeus said, still smiling, as though they had agreed on the matter before arriving.

The driver fumbled at the straps. People were climbing the bank to see. A woman with a basket of barley pulled her little son behind her skirt, but the boy leaned around it again.

“I was told you had given your blessing,” the woman said.

Nobody answered her.

Hera stopped beside the wagon. Up close she could smell the oxen, the crushed river mint, the oil rubbed into the wooden wheels. From beneath the bride’s cloth came no sound at all.

“Will you not introduce us?” she asked.

Zeus moved his hand from his knee to the wagon rail.

“We could speak somewhere else.”

“Your guests have come a long way.”

She put one foot on the hub of the wheel.

The bride remained still.

For an instant Hera wanted a face. She wanted someone who could look back at her and understand the danger of sitting there. Her fingers closed on the cloth. The watching people drew together, and in their movement she saw how the story would be told: the new bride cowering; Hera descending on her; Zeus somehow absent from the telling though he sat within arm’s reach.

She looked at him.

“You chose to bring her here.”

Then she pulled.

The cloth caught on a splinter at the shoulder. Hera tore it free, and the bride tipped sideways with a hollow knock.

Under the cloth was a block of wood.

Someone had shaped a head and shoulders, little more. A dark knot occupied the place where a mouth should have been. There were no hands.

For a moment Hera could hear only the river pushing against the wheel.

Then Zeus laughed.

The sound came out of him in a great relieved burst. He caught the image before it fell, propped it upright and looked at her as if he had brought her a gift.

“Cithaeron said it would work.”

Hera stared at the wooden mouth.

All that haste. All the words she had brought across the water. This thing had been waiting to receive them.

A laugh escaped her too, abrupt and unwilling. The bride’s head leaned against Zeus’s shoulder, and the sight was too stupid to bear solemnly. She laughed again. He reached for her hand.

She moved it beyond his fingers.

His smile faltered.

The Empty Place

“There,” Zeus said. “No bride.”

The people nearest the wagon had begun to smile. One of the musicians lifted his pipe, waiting for permission.

Hera gathered the torn cloth out of the water.

“Then why are they here?”

“To bring you home.”

“They were told to celebrate a wedding.”

“Hera.”

He said her name quietly, for her alone. Once, that would have been enough to turn her toward him. It still made her want to turn. She disliked him for knowing it.

“You sent necklaces,” she said. “You sent Iris. Now you have borrowed a man’s trick and brought half a town to watch it.”

“Would you have received me?”

“You did not come.”

The oxen were free now. The driver led them toward the shade, leaving the pole balanced on a stone. With no animals to hold it, the wagon settled crookedly in the ford. Zeus braced one foot against the rail. Beside him the wooden bride slid against his arm again.

Hera took her foot off the wheel.

“Wait.”

She waited.

He glanced at the crowd, and she watched him consider the easy ways out. He could cover the ford in cloud. He could frighten every witness home. He could lift her and the wagon and the whole absurd wedding into the sky, leaving nothing behind but a story of thunder.

The little boy by the barley basket sneezed.

Zeus looked down at the image leaning against him.

“What would you have me do with this?”

“You brought her.”

He caught the block beneath its carved shoulders. The bridal cloth had wound around its base; for a moment he had to wrestle it loose while Hera held the other end. The two of them stood tugging at opposite sides of a wedding garment, and the boy laughed before his mother could cover his mouth.

Zeus stopped pulling.

Hera looked up at him.

This time they laughed together.

He let go of the cloth, lifted the image from the wagon and stepped down into the ford. Water soaked the hem of his robe. He carried the false bride to the bank and set her beside the waiting basket of barley.

The place on the wagon was empty.

He came back without climbing into it.

“Hera,” he said.

The musicians had lowered their instruments. He could see them listening. His jaw tightened, and she almost spared him. Almost.

“Will you come with me?”

She looked at the vacant seat. She knew its height, the way the wood warmed beneath the sun. She knew the weight of his arm when he forgot that anybody was watching. Wanting those things had not left her when she crossed to Euboea. She had simply refused to carry that wanting back to him like another offering.

“Where?”

“Home.”

“And this wedding?”

He looked toward the people on the bank.

“If there is to be a bride,” he said, “it is Hera.”

The woman with the barley breathed out. A musician shifted his grip on his pipe, then thought better of it.

Hera went to the wooden image.

Beside the road a marriage torch stood in a jar of sand, its flame dwindling in the breeze. She lifted it and touched the torn cloth to the fire. The wet edge hissed. Higher up, where the fabric was dry, a line of orange ran along the threads.

She laid it around the block’s shoulders.

Zeus came to stand beside her. Neither spoke while the fire found the splinters, while the black knot of the mouth disappeared behind the curling cloth. Smoke slipped between them. He coughed and moved to the other side, and Hera stepped with him, keeping her eyes on the image.

The false bride burned badly at first. Then the base caught, and flame climbed through the hollows left by the carver. The head split with a crack that sent the boy scrambling behind his mother.

Hera handed the torch to the driver.

“Bring back the oxen.”

The Return

Zeus offered his hand at the wagon. Hera took it, but only after she had set her foot on the wheel.

He climbed up beside her. The driver fastened the last strap and passed the reins to Zeus. On the bank, people were gathering the things they had put down: barley, pipes, a dropped wreath. Behind them the wooden bride settled into the fire, sending up a thick drift of sparks.

“Shall we play?” one of the musicians asked.

Hera looked at him until he met her eyes.

“Whose wedding song did you bring?”

The man swallowed.

“Yours, lady. There is no other.”

“Then let me hear it.”

This time the tune began firmly. The woman with the basket joined in, then the driver, then the people standing farther up the bank. Hera heard her own name pass from mouth to mouth.

Zeus shook the reins. The oxen leaned into the yoke, and the wagon jolted free of the river stones.

At the steep place where the ford became a road, Hera reached across and took one rein from his hand.

He loosened his fingers and gave it to her.