Page 5 of Odette's Vow

Alcander shook his head, his stare boring into me. “I am trying to offer you the only final kindness I can, as your husband. Do not fight me on this. My plan is the only thing keeping us from a fate worse than death.” He stepped closer to me. “I won’t let them take you or our son. I won’t let you put us through that on a thread of foolish hope.”

For the first time, I heard it in his voice. Defeat. Said quietly, resignedly, yet there was a crescendo roaring through my ears and a crushing weight on my chest that felt like someone was robbing my lungs of air. This had not been a discussion. There was no room for defiance, no space for hope. The poison I had purchased was not a back-up plan, but our only chance to be spared a brutal life, a brutal death, and die peacefully together as a family.

“Go. Make the tea,” he ordered.

Nodding mechanically, I slowly rose from the fireside and walked as quietly as I could into our tiled kitchen. Above the sink, a rack where I usually kept jars of herbs for cooking and preserving. Behind them, the hemlock I had quietly purchased from one of the women in the village over, now gone. She had been quite clear in her instruction: crush the plant in mymortar and pestle, then add hot water, brew it for no more than five minutes, and serve it as a tea.

I boiled the water and steeped the tea.

The gods would never forgive me for this. They did not like poison. We were their little playthings. Anything that gave us some measure of control was abhorrent to them. Hera, in particular, would curse me for what I was about to do. But she didn’t understand; how could she? Her children were gods. They would never know pain or suffering, so they did not understand the concept of mercy. That’s what separated us and them, the mortals and the gods. True, compassionate mercy.

That’s what I told myself as I poured the tea.

Alcander came in behind me and pressed his body warmth against mine. His attempt at comfort. His thumb stroked the curve of my neck, ran along the length of my bare shoulder, which he pressed a kiss to before he left. I heard him head up the stairs and imagined him going in to check on our son, stroking those curls off his forehead and pressing a kiss to his temple, before quietly moving into our bedroom.

I had already been told how this was to go. I did not agree with his approach, but in the end, I was his wife. I was supposed to follow my husband’s instruction. And he would not – could not – watch his little boy die. As if I wanted this task. As if I had asked for it. As if I hadn’t screamed and pleaded and begged the gods to keep the Greeks from our doorstep.

It had worked, for a time. Until it hadn’t.

I held the cup firmly in my palms, as if spilling any of this poison on the floor would erode the stone beneath my buskins. Up each step, one by one. A light push on the door until it creaked open and there was my son, in his bed, bathed by the moonlight from the window above.

“Mummy?” he murmured drowsily.

Gathering myself, I took the four small steps into his room and sat on the floor beside his bed.

“It’s alright, darling. I just came to say goodnight. Are you thirsty?”

He nodded as he sat up.

“H—Here.” I swallowed hard, willing my voice not to break. This was a kindness, I reminded myself. “Drink this.”

His small pudgy hands clasped either side of the cup. So small, so perfect. How could I think of ending something so precious? I went to snatch the cup out of his hand, but it was too late; he had already taken a giant gulp.

“Mummy, it tastes funny,” he complained, and then took another gulp as if that would change his mind. Like I had frequently told him to do when trying new vegetables at the dinner table. Oh gods, what had I done?

He handed the empty cup back to me. “I don’t think I’d like to drink that again, Mummy.”

A tear fell down my cheek and I couldn’t help but let out a small sob. “No, I don’t think you should.”

Climbing into bed beside him, I stroked his soft arms, forehead, hair, and sang to him. When he complained that he couldn’t feel his legs and that his tummy felt funny, I shushed him and told him it would be alright. When his body trembled as his breaths got shallower and more rapid, I cradled him in my arms and assured him it would be alright. Not much longer, I promised.

And when he was still and the last of my wretched sobs had been torn from my throat, I went back down to prepare the two remaining cups.

I woketo the knowledge that there was someone in the tent. Someone trying to muffle their footsteps in a failed attempt tokeep quiet. Unlike the soldiers who’d made no such attempt when they stormed their way into our homes.

The boar was wrong. Ihadbeen sleeping when they’d come to raid us. I had gone to make the remaining two cups of hemlock. Alcander and I had sat by the fire together and drunk them. It had an acrid, bitter taste and it wasn’t long before I had felt the muscles in my limbs weaken and my breathing become laboured. I remembered my head lolling to the side, as if I was having an out-of-body experience, before my eyes had flickered shut.

I don’t know what happened, why I had awoken to the banging on the door. Or why Alcander was staring wild-eyed at me as the banging seemed to get impossibly louder. Perhaps the gods had spared us for a reason. I ran immediately to Lykas’ room, in case he too was awake, only to crumble in the doorway at the sight of his still, lifeless body.

The gods hadn’t spared us.

They’d ensured there wasn’t enough poison to take us all. I was certain I had measured it out as the witch had said. Had she lied? Had one of the gods interfered? It didn’t matter though, as rough calloused hands yanked my arms behind my back and dragged me from our home.

Now my little Lykas lay dead, my husband killed before my eyes, and my worst fear had come to pass: life without either of them, with me left behind to carry on. I was no longer a desperate mother pleading with the gods to no avail. I was a murderer. And for trying to take control of my fate, the gods were content to make me suffer. Hera certainly knew how to punish those who went against her.

That’s why I had ended up a slave –to him.

I opened the slits of my eyes to try and make out who was walking around, but it was just the boar. He stopped and I triedto breathe evenly to maintain my feigned sleep. Grunting, he found whatever he was looking for and left again.

---