Divine Fury
Sweet and
coppery, it filled her senses. The aroma clung around the dimly lit walls of
their chambers. It was a viscous thing, palpable.
Redder than
any wine and even sweeter. She was flushed. Intoxicated at the taste. She
needed more.
Wet
squelches filled the room, her white tunic soiled and stained. The wetness
seeped up the fabric dyeing it that hue of dawn that made sailors tremble with
fear.
Shunk
The dagger,
bejewelled and golden, sunk inside his flesh again and again and again. The
cold metal absorbed his blood, feasting greedily upon it as if parched.
It was not
enough.
No matter
how viscously coated it became with his rotten vitae, it still was not enough to wash away the scarlet tint of her
daughter’s blood. Their daughter’s
blood. With this very dagger he had shed her life without remorse; just so that he and the rest of those filthy,
insolent, barbaric creatures known as ‘men’ could sail out and wage their wars.
Shunk
Shunk
She loathed
this sound. How dare his flayed and
butchered flesh sound the same as when he plunged the knife in her daughter’s
heart.
But she could
not deny the catharsis washing over her every time the knife struck bone. With
every wet thud, every spurt of that ruby liquid, her thirst was lessened. It
would never be quenched, but she grew tranquil at last. For the first time
since she cradled her daughter’s cooling body, the incessant dissonance in her
mind dulled.
He who had
waged war and paraded himself as undefeated champion of the gods, invincible
and distinguished, now learned of both death and defeat. Both brought forth
from a war he had waged in his own court, his own blood, his own matrimony.
He saw them
as weak and meek creatures. Lambs to be groomed, devoured, slaughtered. All for
his pleasure.
Splayed
open, bleeding, his once abled and strong body now mangled and defiled. It was
a sight to behold. Gurgling and pleading in his death throes: what a delectable
sacrifice to the altar of retribution.
And yet he
made for such a meagre offering to the Erinyes – they deserve so much better
that the refused called ‘man’, called ‘king’.
Shunk
Shunk
Shunk
Distant in
her mind, she heard the fast approaching rhythm of footsteps. They alternate
with her knife. They are in tandem with her heartbeat.
She thinks
someone gasps. There might be a howl of anger and pain and betrayal. But she
cannot be certain. Everything feels numb. Rather than feeling it, she
recognises that her body is restrained, the knife wrenched from her death grip.
Lifted and dragged away from the pile of mangled flesh and guts and blood she
was forced to submit to and call ‘husband’.
Someone is
talking to her, demanding answers. She stands accused. She looks up to see him:
he has her eyes, her face, but it is his father’s scowl that mars his features.
There is no understanding, no conceding in that vast expanse of honeysuckle.
Only condemnation and resentment.
‘Murderess’,
he called her. He may have inherited her likeness but still he cannot escape
the failings of his ill ilk. What a pity.
She laughs.
It is strained. Frayed at the edges. Everything begins to unravel.
Murder from
a man’s hand is the gods’ will – a heaven-ordained retribution. But murder from
the hand of a woman – worn and calloused from bearing the weight of life, the
weight of the world – it is a wretched and most sinister thing. Hubris! They say. Tis folly to tread in
the jurisdiction of the gods, in the purview of men.
Countless of
injustices. Countless of rules and constraints placed upon her sex by men.
They who
make the rules to suit them and only
them have no right to place judgement on her fury – on any woman’s fury. Men
who only know of their wars and their insufferable manhood they assume for a
personality.
Why should
the injury of their small, insignificant, fragile egos be seen as worthy of
justice when she is expected to lament in silence, stave her wrath and swallow
her woe. Men know not of a Mother’s
plight. How dare they demand that she
forgo her need for vindication.
No, no. That
would not do.
Her rage is
a fire that shall not be quenched and she would have justice in this life. She
already has.
Whatever
punishment should befall her in this life, or the next, she cares little for
it. She is content. What is there for her to be apologetic about, ask
forgiveness and redemption for? She has done nothing wrong.
***
She barely
felt the cold sting of the blade embedded in her chest. Warm blood oozes out of
the wound, it pools down her chest, the deep-set colour of pomegranates and
suffering. Her bleeding-heart lays splayed open, unchanged, untarnished.
Straight-on
she meets her son’s gaze. She gives him one of her comely, motherly smiles.
Soft at the edges and reassuring, like the long-awaited sun after a dark, misty
morning. He falters as she slides her palm across his cheek, caressing him like
she always did – chasing away the night’s nightmares with a single touch.
Tears fill
his eyes and she is glad to see him suffering, conflicted, tormented.
“I curse
thee, son. I curse thee threefold.” Defiantly, a gloating smile takes its rightful
place on her ruby lips.
“May sleep
never find you. For every time you are weary and craving respite, may memories
of my eyes of the same honeysuckle that yours were painted from, flood your
mind and fill you with dread. May every time that you are parched and find
yourself desperate, that which you drink will be naught but your sister’s
innocent blood, shed upon the altar by your wretched father. The blood you
never avenged. May you fall hopelessly in love with women who will only bear
you daughters, only to have them all murdered, sacrificed, pillaged and stolen
from your arms.”
She lays
cradled in his arms, warmth and life slowly seeping out of her form. Far gone
as she was she still didn’t miss the tremble of his hands, the pallor of his
face. He was both the flickering stars and the pallid moon.
The seed she
had planted within his soul, her last gift to him, took root. A pity she’d
never see it come to bloom. To never witness its petals burst open like a maw,
only to fester and rend his psycheapart.
“We all must
pay our dues, my son. And to the Erinyes you shall pay yours. May they be
unrelenting and unforgiving.”