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As rosy-fingered Dawn appeared over the horizon, wise Penelope rose from her bed.
Instinctively, her fingers reached for the form of her husband, but as usual, as it had been for so, so long, nothing reached out to her. His side of the bed, the bed that he had so lovingly carved out of an olive tree, remained empty. She sat up further, running her fingers through her hair as the aching weight of Odysseus’s absence dawned on her again.
Even the kindest of people had urged her to move on, to merely select the finest of her suitors and concede her authority. In response, she had announced to the suitors that she’d marry when the shroud for King Laertes was complete. This had satisfied them, for a while. She would go to her loom at night and pull some of its slender threads free, promising herself that the shroud would never be completed- because that would mean accepting that her husband was gone.
And she would never accept that.
He was loving, lively, and cunning. She remembered the spark of his eyes when they had first met, and the way his face crinkled when he smiled. His cunning, vulgar jokes and the way he told them. His clever hands carving intricate symbols into the olive tree growing resplendent in the center of their bedroom, and their first night together as a couple.
Idly,Penelope wondered if she would hear his soft voice again. Surely he remained on his voyage on the boundless sea. Surely he yearned for her and missed her as much as she missed him?..
Telemachus had inherited those same eyes, and Penelope’s sharp chin. He looked almost identical to Odysseus, a similarity brought into stark realisation when he stood in front of his father’s portrait in the main hall. The war had torn away his prospects of a normal childhood, and he barely knew his father. Penelope knew that no description, no matter how detailed, could describe him properly. But Telemachus knew that his father was good, a hero. Penelope had whispered these words to him, wrapped tightly in a cloth, and cradled in her arms, as unbidden tears streamed down her face on the day Odysseus set out for Illium.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
She sat, knees together, on a stool in front of her dressing-table as Eurycleia arranged her hair. She was silent as she stared at the reflection in the mirror. The reflection staring back was not the queenly and reputable woman she used to be, but a weak woman clinging to scraps of hope that her husband, missing for twenty years was somehow still alive. But, she said to herself, I shall keep holding on. Until he’s back, even if my hair greys and my face withers, and the palace’s resources are depleted.
Eurycleia stepped back, gathering her skirts from her knees to bow slightly. ‘My queen, it is finished. Shall I provide the maids with their daily duties?’
‘There is no need,’ Penelope said quietly, her voice slightly tremulous. She cleared her throat and drew the shining veil around her face as she turned from the stool. ‘I shall.’
Eurycleia nodded and receded down the stairs. After one more glance back at the mirror,Penelope followed her down, and time ticked on, despite the aching in her heart.