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Then Eros tosses the man toward the floor, where he lies for a moment, panting and wheezing. And in that instant Eros has pulled his cloak from where it lies on the ground, and covered himself.
“You are safe now,” he says, his voice low with spent anger, and I realize then that the fury I saw was not really about our host or his insolence. It was about having to live like this; about the curse he carries with him, and having to guard against it, night and day. About having to live a concealed life.
The man climbs slowly to his feet, staring in the half-dark. The woman’s closed eyelids tremble.
“Michalis?” she whispers. “Are you all right?”
“You can open your eyes,” I say. “You will find your husband much as he was.”Just a little shaken up, I add silently, which is no more than he deserves.
“Sir, I—we meant no harm.” The man speaks hoarsely. “I…my wife made me come in here. You would not show your face, and she feared we had a murderer sleeping among us, or a monster. I tried to disabuse her of her foolishness, sir…”
He rattles on, but I am somewhat relieved. Not spies of Aphrodite’s, then—just human nosiness and fear.
“Do not blame your wife for your own actions,” Eros says. “And be thankful you did not see what is under this hood. We mean you no harm, but will take our leave of you now. You may return to your beds.”
But the two seem frozen to the floor.
“I told you,” Eros says, “I mean you no harm. Whatever pain I caused you, believe me, it was to your benefit, rather than achieve what you intended.”
They are unconvinced, still, but nervousness has got the better of them, and the wife backs toward the door.
“We’ll go, then, and ask no questions. Whoever you may be, sir, it’s nothing to us.”
“Wait!”
The word bursts from me suddenly, as unexpected to me as it is to any one of them. Now is the time for us to leave quietly—and any other night, I would. But tonight…call it courage or foolishness. Call it an impulsive streak I thought I’d buried, but suddenly I want justice. Why should my lover hide in the shadows? Whyshouldhe be thought a murderer and a fugitive? Why should he be denied his name as well as his power?
“There is a reason why my husband hid from you,” I say. “But it is not the reason you think.”
Beneath his hood I feel Eros look my way; I can sense his surprise, his wariness, but it seems I’ve shocked him into silence.
I look our hosts in the eye.
“He is no criminal,” I say. “He is a god. That is why he cloaks himself like this from you.”
At that, their eyes truly boggle. What a wild claim they must think this! They stare, jaws agape, and for a moment I wonder if one will laugh. But the moment passes.
“Did you say, miss…”
“Mortals may not look upon his face, for to do so drives them to madness. To spare you such a fate, he shields himself when he walks among mortal folk.”
“Psyche…” Eros murmurs, but it’s too late now.
“Turn around,” I beg him. “Show them your wings.”
He hesitates. Then finally he turns and loosens the robe from his shoulders, spreading two majestic wings. The sable-black expanse of them seems almost to fill the room, and his skin radiates light in this dim place, as if from somewhere in the core of him. Our two hosts stare, mouths agape. The room is silentas a stone. Then the wings retract, and he pulls the cloak back across them. When my husband turns, his face is veiled again.
The man drops to his knees, and pulls his wife down beside him.
“What god are you, Great One?”
“He is the lord Eros,” I say. “Son of Aphrodite, and of Ares the Destroyer.”
“Lord Eros,” our host murmurs. “We have insulted you. Yet you have been merciful.”
I sense Eros’s discomfort.
“Rise, both of you, rise,” he says. All of this has embarrassed him, I think, but it does not embarrass me. Let them see him for who he is. He is a true god, truer than those parasites on Mount Olympus who do nothing for their followers except drink our world dry. And yet his following has been stolen from him, his power shrunken while Aphrodite’s power grows.
