The rolling woods of Kalydon soon gave way to brush-covered highlands of central Elládos. Rugged escarpments and rocky cliffs broke the landscape beneath the cloudless blue sky. The beaten road toward Thebes was a long one, and Pandora and Theseus would need to skirt Mount Parnassus and the Minyan lands before they reached the great city.
Though they had found easy rapport, Pandora noted Theseus had spoken little of himself. Rather, the earnest young man pestered her most of the first day for more tales of Herakles, no matter how much she protested she had not accompanied Herakles on the famed labours that so enthralled the boy. Indeed, Theseus knew more of Herakles’s accomplishments than Pandora, even if she knew better than most the demigod’s reasons for undertaking such impossible tasks. She had set him upon that path, in offering the hope of redemption through heroic deeds.
Around noon, they paused beneath a fig tree, claiming a few of the succulent fruits from the branches. After savouring the juice from one, Pandora looked to her companion. “How did a young man such as yourself become embroiled in King Oeneus’s boar hunt?”
From the way a fool grin spread over his face, Theseus had awaited just such a question. “Want to know my story, then? Ha! Well, I cannot as yet measure up to the deeds of Herakles or legendary Perseus. But give me time, and I swear my name will join theirs when bard songs ring through the marble halls of kings and queens.”
For a moment, Pandora considered mentioning she had known Perseus as well. Theseus knew her as Nike, thinking her a Titan, and thus could have accepted she had known a man who lived a century back. But it pained her to think Perseus gone now, and she found herself little inclined to speak on the topic. It had proved hard enough to accept it when she had learnt Herakles was, in fact, Perseus’s great-grandson.
Regardless, Theseus ploughed on, unaware of her brief melancholy.
“My mother is named Aethra, the daughter of King Pittheus of Troezen. Were you to say to me you had never heard of it, I would not take offence. It’s a small polis upon the Strait of Korinth, founded by my grandfather and named for his fallen brother. It’s home to something like nine grandmothers and a seagull, or so I thought as a young child.
“I was bastard born, you see, and—stories claimed—the son of Poseidon, though I later learnt this was, in fact, a tale spread by my grandfather Pittheus. The rumour that my mother had borne a child to an Olympian somewhat obviated the shame she had for bearing a child out of wedlock. But as is wont to happen, the people of Troezen whispered behind her back. How could it not be her fault, they would say, for having drawn a Titan’s eye to herself in the first place? Such run the thoughts of the masses. My mother was considered oft to blame for each ill turn of the wind or poor catch at sea. The shameful princess who got herself seduced—or raped, which was all the same in their eyes—by an Olympian and had not the good sense to flee from her home as had Europa or Io or any of the others.”
Pandora bit her lip to stop herself from objecting that both women had been abducted and never given the chance to return home. From his bitter tone, Theseus knew all too well the malicious absurdity inherent in blaming the women for plights beyond their choosing.
By unspoken accord, they resumed their trek.
“Well, Pittheus was a descendant of Pelops, the once-great king whose many sons had tamed southern Elládos in days of old.” Pelops? Pandora had known a son of Tantalus by that name, a boy dying of a wasting disease. His father had made sacrifices to the gods, and the boy managed a miraculous recovery. The memory of Tantalus further soured her mood. Knowing what she did now, perhaps Tantalus had, in fact, treated Pelops with Nectar. Not that it absolved Tantalus of all he’d done to Pandora.
“So, I was raised by my grandfather and my mother and rarely saw other children. They fled from me, having heard I was a bastard, and that they would taint themselves by my mere society. I played alone, racing through the halls of Pittheus’s palace, darting between the marble columns and pretending to hunt monsters in the darkened wine cellars beneath our home. Amid encompassing shadows, I would stalk, silent as a ghost, eager to slay the drakon Python struck down by Apollon or the famed chimera brought low by Bellerophon. Or running, swift as my bare feet could carry me, sand squelching betwixt my toes, I would cast myself as Perseus skewering Ketus, ready to rescue Andromeda.”
Rather than look at Theseus, Pandora kept her eyes on the road, the fig dangling from her fingers almost forgotten. It was more than passing odd to hear someone speak of a distant past with such reverence, but regarding events she had witnessed and people she had known. A wistfulness tickled her, and she could feel tears threatening at the reminder of another price of her sojourns through time.
“One day, about a year ago, word came of the return of Herakles, the warrior who had once broken the Minyan king at the head of Thebes’s army. The stories told how he rose from disgrace to slay an invincible lion in Nemea, saving a town from its ravages. I was enraptured, not only at having a new hero to emulate, but at the thought that this man, his name hated and tainted, was earning the respect of the masses across Elládos. Surely, I thought, were I to accomplish such deeds, I would escape the scorn of those who named me bastard.
“My mother, Aethra, saw me on the seashore, testing my limits as a son of Poseidon. Convinced I ought to be able to hold my breath for longer than any Man or swim the whole of the Strait and reach Athenai. Mayhap she feared I would drown myself like the misguided fool I was.
“‘It’s time you had the truth of your birth, Theseus,’ she said and bid me walk alongside her. Up the rocky slope we climbed. Until we came to a flat stone shelf, and upon this she sat, her gaze sweeping across the waters. She was looking to Athenai, I think, and imagining what events must have unfolded there. On a smaller rock, I perched beside her, sensing that she would speak when she was ready.
“Time dragged on. I took to watching distant gulls, her promise of a tale of my past almost forgotten by the time she spoke. ‘It was sixteen years ago when King Aegeus came to call upon my father, an old friend of his. In his cups, he confided that he feared his brother, Pallas, who had fifteen sons, whilst Aegeus remained childless. Both were of the line of great Pandion, and Pallas’s sons had a worthy claim to the throne, should Aegeus fail to produce an heir. So desperate had Aegeus become, he told your grandfather that he believed he must marry again, in secret, unbeknownst to his wife.’
“Mother had my rapt attention then and looked me deep in the eye. I remember … her hazel eyes seemed almost aflame with the orange flecks sometimes found in the Kreiad genos. ‘My father had recently received a prophecy from an Oracle,’ Mother said. ‘The Oracle told him that I would not marry well, at least not before the eyes of Man, but that my son would earn fame enough his name would echo among the immortals.’ You can imagine, of course, Goddess, how much pride swelled at hearing such a prophecy hung over me. ‘So,’ Mother said, ‘my father told me I was to marry Aegeus in secret.’ I imagine that my mother was not overly pleased to learn she could never reveal the truth of her marriage and would thus live in infamy the rest of her life. But if she resented it, she never told me nor let on.
“She fell silent a moment more, then rose from the slab upon which she had rested. ‘After we had spent a few days and nights together, Aegeus brought me to this very spot and told me he must leave, return to Athenai, and see to his throne. With strength I could not fathom, he hefted this stone and beneath laid his burnished sword and his fine sandals, and said to me that, should I bear a strong son, when he is old enough to retrieve these items, I should tell him the truth of his heritage. Aegeus claimed that by this sword alone would he know his heir. So, Theseus, you are not the son of Poseidon but of the king of great Athenai. And if you can prove yourself worthy, perhaps you can save your father and his line. This is the duty he laid upon you before your birth.’
“I cannot say whence came the strength to heft such an enormous slab of rock, but somehow I found it within myself. Heaving, drenched in sweat and muscles protesting, I raised it enough I could slide it over my shoulders, snatch up the items, and get clear before it came crashing down once more. My mother never needed to ask whether I would go to Athenai, for she knew the glory offered there was all I had ever sought.
“Given what she had said of Pallas and his sons, though, I knew I would need more than mere birthright to save my father’s claim to the throne. I would need to arrive having first forged my own legend. Like Herakles, I swore to undertake labours that would spread my fame across Elládos, such that my arrival would forestall any treachery the sons of Pallas might intend.”
The road had dragged on, and Pandora could not quite say when Theseus had fallen silent. His tale had left her entranced, walking whilst scarce realising time passed. Theseus was a son of the king of Athenai. He was thus a descendant of Athene, Pandora’s own granddaughter. After quick calculations in her head, she judged Theseus was probably some twenty or twenty-five generations removed from herself. The Moirai’s frightful Tapestry seemed woven of such hopelessly entangled threads, she could scarce fathom the scope of it.
“Thus, you joined the hunt?” she asked.
“Oh,” Theseus said with a grunt. He cracked his neck. “Not right away. There was more between here and there. I first would imbrue my father’s sword with the blood of murderers and thieves.”
