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Once Odysseus falls asleep, he sleeps like the dead. Penelope will hold him in her arms, humming, stroking his hair, and making soothing noises until he’s snoring softly. The noise is a comfort, it reminds her that he’s home and that he’s safe. Sometimes he talks in his sleep, mostly just whispering her name. She finds it a little charming.
His breathing soothes her into a restless sleep a lot of the time. Sometimes she dreams of grubby hands sticky with wine and food, they reach out aggressively, grabbing, always grabbing. They grab her dress, her loom, her hair. The smell of stale wine on the breath makes her stomach quake.
She wakes up silently, her heat pounds in her chest so hard that her ribs hurt. Her hair is sweaty. She looks over to her husband, Odysseus is fast asleep and she sighs in relief. She would feel so guilty if she woke him from his much-deserved sleep.
Penelope stares at the ceiling for a long time. Her eyes track the tree in their room, inspecting every brick.
She isn’t falling asleep again tonight. She detaches herself from Odysseus’s side, feeling guilty when he stirs. Freezing to make sure he doesn’t wake.
She wraps a thick shawl around her shoulders and slips on a pair of woolen slippers, the night air is a little chilly but she makes her way down the hall to the weaving room. Typically the room would be noisy with the sounds of women weaving and chatting about their families. Penelope is pleased to find that it is quiet this late at night. Her latest piece sits on the loom, it’s a chlamys for Telemachus. He’s been traveling to Pylos more often to visit Pisistratus. Of course, the young man also traveled here to visit Telemachus. They two were attached at the hip so much that Penelope has begun to silently wonder if they are more than just friends.
The colors she’s chosen are a brilliant shade of blue, the corners of the piece will be soft waves, it will be a chlamys befitting a prince and future king she has no doubts. But in the dark of the night, the shades of blue are near impossible to tell apart and she hates to light a torch. Instead, she finds a candle and lights it. The softer light helps and she finds herself settling into her work, eyes tracking the movement of her hands, the way her threads pull against each other. She focuses on making each row as tight as possible, the tighter her weave is, the warmer it will keep her son.
Weaving is one of the only activities that allows her to turn off her racing thoughts, it forces her to do so, actually. She is only focused on making sure the order she needs to do things is followed strictly.
Pull right, bring forward the heddle rod, tighten, pull left, bring the heddle rod back, tighten, inspect for narrowing. Pull right, bring forward the heddle rod, tighten, pull left, bring the heddle rod back, tighten, inspect for narrowing.
She doesn’t even realize how focused she is until the room suddenly brightens. She first looks at her own candle, which soldiers on, it’s about halfway gone signaling that she’s been here for several hours.
She looks up in concern. She finds Odysseus staring at her, his hair is everywhere, messy from just waking up, and he looks a little worried.
A familiar pang of guilt rings through her body. She’s felt a lot of guilt since her husband returned.
“I thought I may find you here.” He muses, he sets the torch on the wall and stands in the doorway like he’s waiting for permission to enter.
“You know your wife well.” She says softly, fondly because truly where else would she be. She tugs her eyes away from his gaze and looks back at her weaving. “Do you think Telemachus will like this?”
An invitation; he enters. He stands just behind her, resting his chin on the top of her head. She’s taller than him so he isn’t usually able to do so, but her sitting at the loom allows him to do so.
“It’s lovely. I think he’ll love it.” Odysseus says quickly, not leaving a moment for deliberation.
She tsks. “You’re just saying that.” She pulls the thread through and attaches it to the loom. As she pushes the thread up so it’s tight, Odysseus kisses the crown of her head.
“I don’t lie, I trick.” He retorts.
She does. She lies. She told the suitors that weaving a shroud takes three years, she would have continued to lie if she wasn’t found out. She told infant Telemachus that his father would be back soon. She told her sister and cousin and sister-in-law that she was sure her husband was still alive. She told a teenaged Telemachus that the suitors’ jests didn’t bother her. She tells Odysseus she’s alright.
The last lie is a necessity. If she is honest with Odysseus, she might fall apart and what good is she then? What kind of wife would she be if she couldn’t comfort her husband or if she couldn’t baby her child for just a little while longer?
“My love?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you unthreading it? I told you it looks lovely.”
Her hands still. While she was in her thoughts, muscle memory had kicked in. The thread that was pulled taunt a few minutes ago is now loose and tangling at her feet.
She sighs, the feeling of Odysseus’s head on hers is too much and she tilts her head away from him, he backs off.
“Penelope… you’re exhausted. Come back to bed.”
“I need to finish this.” She insists.
“You’re shaking.” He points out. He’s not wrong, between exhaustion and a panicky feeling that doesn’t leave her chest, her hands are trembling. “You need to–”
“I need to finish this shroud!” She snaps.
The room gets silent, she doesn’t look at Odysseus but she can feel his confusion radiating from his body regardless.
“I mean, this chlamys.” She turns away from him. “I’m fine.”
Odysseus sits at her feet, not unlike how Telemachus did when he was a small child and she was loath to let him out of her sight. He places a hand on her knee.
“Talk to me, my love, my life, my everything.” He whispers. “Don’t suffer in silence.”
“I’m not suffering.” She contends. Her eyes track the thread pulling through the front layer. She carefully moves the heddle rod to bring forward the back layers, then tightens the thread.
Pull right. Odysseus stares at her, concern riddling his face.
Move the heddle rod. She’s terrible for worrying her husband like this.
Tighten . She can almost smell the cheap wine and stink of 108 men in her home.
Pull left. She sees the bruises on Telemachus’s arms. They’re the same ones that she covers with her shawls.
Tighten. Odysseus is dead.
Bring the heddle rod back. No one can help her. She’s powerless.
Inspect for narrowing. She needs to marry one of these men in order to save her son.
“When was the last time you slept for the full night?” His voice breaks through the monotony of her work and her anxious spiraling.
“The night before Palamedes came to Ithaca.” She answers without having to think that hard, and that’s true.
Odysseus looks stricken. “Penelope…”
“Stop pitying me.” She says firmly. “I’ve put up with too much of that.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “It’s not pity, it’s understanding.”
Her hands slow. “You don’t know what it was like.” She asserts quickly. Then, to seem more like a more sympathetic person, she clarifies. “What you went through was worse.”
“I don’t know if it was worse.” He admits, she raises an eyebrow and manages to pull her eyes away from the loom to look at her dear husband’s face. “I never doubted you were alive.”
“I never doubted you.” She murmurs. She sets down her work and cups his face in her hand. “Darling, I never doubted you.” Her voice catches in her throat. It’s important that he knows she never lost faith in him.
“No, no. Sweetheart,” He stands, holding her face in his hands firmly. “Of course you didn’t lose faith in me. But in all my longing, all the days I stared at the sea, from a ship or an island, I never wondered if you were alive. I never wondered if my waiting was in vain.”
She chokes. How many times had she sat on the shores begging Athena and Aphrodite and Hera to bring her husband back to her and even in her desperation wondered if he was even alive to bring home? After the war, when she had been invited to celebration after celebration but her own halls remained notably lonely, how often had she looked to the ocean wondering if her husband was coming back or if the gods kept him away or had him killed to spite her?
Despite her meager efforts, she begins to cry, clinging to his sleep tunic. Her tears dampen the linen but he isn’t bothered by it, he merely runs a hand through her hair like she does for him when he wakes up screaming from nightmares of things she has no frame of reference for.
“I’m here, Penelope. They’re gone. I killed them, pretty gruesomely might I add. Telemachus is alright, he’s off running with Pisistratus being a young man because of your tricks.”
She never told him about the shroud, but someone must have, she’d place money on it being Eurycleia or Telemachus. It felt like a failure in the moment, but Odysseus is right, that shroud held off the suitors for three years.
“Leave the weaving.” He says softly. “Come back to our chambers and tell me the things I missed that you haven’t shared.” He tugs her to a stand. She doesn’t really remember the journey back to their chambers but someone brings them a cup of warmed milk with cinnamon and honey. The drink settles warmly in her stomach and soothes the stress and anxiety.
“Tell me about the shroud?” He asks. She sips and tells him everything. She tells him about her fears of marrying one of the pigs that showed up for her hand, about how much they pushed everyone around from house staff to her and Telemachus. She tells him about how she begged to be allowed to weave Laertes’s shroud, as a last honor to her husband and how they agreed.
She recounts to him the afternoon she realized that once she was finished with her work one of them would win regardless of her best efforts. Her best plan that they fell for her trick for three years. She tells him about having to wake and come to this very room to unthread all the work she’d done, terrified that one of them would find her out. She tells him about the design, the colors, her techniques.
Then she tells him about the day they found out. How Antinous mocked her and dragged her and her work in front of all 108 of those men and denounced her trickery. She had been terrified that one of them would attack her after that, a trick for a trick. She hadn’t left her room much after that, holed away and praying for Odysseus to come back or let her die still loyal to him.
His arms tighten a little more around her, it’s comforting.
By the time she finishes, her face is red from crying, his is red from fury, her drink is gone but the cup still holds some warmth. The sun is creeping up, casting a golden ichor color over their room.
“I’m glad we killed them.” Odysseus hisses. “I’m glad they died in helplessness and pain and horror.”
“Ody…”
“No, I am. Because if I let one of those monsters run free while my wife suffered, if I knew they haunted my wife’s waking and sleeping moments and I let them run free like the wild animals they were.” He takes a deep breath, obviously trying to steel himself. “They would wish they were never born.”
The threat sends a shiver up her spine. This is the husband that grappled with gods and overpowered monsters just to hold her in his arms.
“They are gone.” She reminds him. “They’re gone and I’m here and so are you. What more could I ask for?”
He hums and buries his face in her hair. Her eyes feel heavy and she barely restrains a yawn.
“Sleep, my beloved Penelope. Nothing will haunt you while I’m here.”
“You can’t promise that.” She mumbles, already letting sleep drag her eyes shut.
“I can. If Morpheus allows them to haunt your dreams, he will know violence and he will know horror.”
She sleeps. No gods dare to challenge the King of Ithaca these days.