an adaptation of Hecuba & Hecate

If I had been weaving when the ghost came for my daughter, I might have tangled him in my threads and pushed him up into my tapestry of Troy as it was before the fires ruined it and stank up my wool. Wouldn’t that vex him. Me, too, a waste of a good tapestry, but it was a small price for the life of my child. I had two left. The others were knocking among the oars of the warships until they took on enough water to sink.

Odysseus palmed the hilt of a short, ugly sword. He spoke on behalf of his comrade, for the dead lost their speech upon crossing the Styx.

“Polixena,” said Odysseus, in an oily drawl, “was betrothed to Achilles.”

“Princess Polixena.” I measured him against the ghost, who exuded a wintry chill but posed no threat at present. Not like Odysseus. Was it a mockery of my late son, the one called Horsebreaker, when he defeated us by way of the wooden horse? He was wiser than bloodshed, a man of words and guises, esteemed by Pallas herself. If not for the war, he would have liked my Hector. Maybe he did, and that was why he was taking us among his share of slaves.

“Princess,” he echoed. He fixed his granite gaze on Polyxena, who demurred behind the loom. “It is well, Queen Hecuba, that you care for titles. You’ll be grateful that the princess will marry a hero.”

I flew at him. He batted me aside like a cat clawing a pigeon, and I hit the floor. The reflexive hand that broke my fall was overcome with a dull, dizzying pain. I clutched my wrist, suppressing a whine, and rolled to my knees.

Odysseus approached the loom, cornering Polixena. The yarn stretched between soldier and princess, striping each before the other like animals in the brush. He whispered something to her. She lifted her chin and came around to his side. The last words she heard were his.

She stepped past me. Her gown smelled like the crocuses she used to ruin each summer when she would chase her sisters in the garden. She had powerful legs that pounded divots in the ground, but if you saw her run you would think she was floating. Was that what had fixed the swift-footed Achilles on her, why his ghost had climbed up the yawning maw of Hades to kill her?

She accepted the ghost’s arm, and her shape faded like breath on the lip of a goblet. As they made their way out, the groom bled a silver trail from one heel. His limping caused the trail to spot and zag like a broken snake. He leaned on his bride. I watched them sideways from the limestone. It became a familiar vantage once I transformed.

It was common practice for the heartbroken to either kill themselves or transform. I’m unsure why my case was the latter, and why I didn’t turn into a bird. Most transformations were avian. I felt slighted and spared in equal measure. I would have enjoyed the power of flight. Not for the sightseeing, which, as Queen of Troy, before its ruin, I had done in diplomacy across desert and sea. Though I hold that one cannot have enough of travel, what I’d want out of flying would be the elegant melding into air. Migration. I imagined it staved off idleness and its ilk: boredom, mischief, conflict. After a day of flying, you hadn’t the time or care to fight. You had only the sun glazing your wings, your pulse against the sky’s, springtime in verticality as you chased flowers up and down the sprawl of the world. A game of fetch was not so different, but no one would play with a wild dog.

I wasn’t a bad-looking one, or even a queenly one. Had my human rank survived the transformation, I would have gotten a broader face, raised ears, a tail like a spike, and big black paws. From what I could tell, though, I was medium build, a little scruffy, and gray. There was Hecuba. I hoped for a mottle on my back, a shock of white or brown for some excitement, but whom did I mean to impress? I desired no master, though company would have been nice. I was not yet over the adjustment period. There were trappings of human thought—fashion, desire, desirability—that hounded me still.

If I were a hound! But I wasn’t that fast. A fox could outrun me if I barked loudly enough to stir him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t raise his head. At that volume, I tended to slaver. It was unqueenly and therefore a useful reminder to forget the past, which of course made me miss it.

I was still growing used to the language of scenting. The forest steamed with diplomacy. Marking one’s territory was a political affair, for a scent, like a drawn sword, invited challengers. With survival in question, confrontation ensued. Otherwise, nothing happened. Animals didn’t kill for sport, though the blood of a fresh kill tasted better than wine. The ambrosia of the gods must bubble thick and red. But feeding was a short pleasure, and ill guaranteed. Were survival not so deeply compulsory, I would have lied down and let the crows peck me to panpipes. What purpose had I? My children were dead and my arms were now legs. But my den!

It was almost all mine. One must allow for bugs and ne’re-do-wells with such a lucky find. The tree had rotten awhile before it fell. You could tell from the inside of the trunk, soft and crumbling. The entry through the roots was one of the reasons I knew I was a smaller breed. Badgers and wolves would suffer to squeeze through, and they would have my teeth waiting for them. I was learning to fight.

And the robin aired its wings. The trees crackled with ants. The earth exhaled greenness.

Had I these senses in my two-legged life, I might have heard what Odysseus said to Polyxena. I tried to recall the wag of his jaw, the reflection of words in the wide of her eyes, but memories turned like leaves. I began to give in, give up. Then the threefold goddess found me.

She floated like a spider on an unhurried breeze. Her forms—maiden, mother and crone—enjoined at the sides like a cluster of fennel. I was grooming by my den, and upon seeing the goddess of crossroads I scrambled back in. But, with a sweep of her hand, she split the tree open. She greeted me by name.

My ears flattened. I spread my forelegs and raised my back, growling. Fat good she had done in the war. Where was her magic against the Achaean fleet? She smelled of flesh. Warm, watery, unclean. My mouth dripped. I imagined the clean puncture of her thigh, and my bones bunched in advance of the spring.

“There she is,” grinned Hecate.

I lunged.

She caught me behind the neck, and my momentum wheeled me up. My back arched. My nostrils throbbed as the blood rushed toward my skull, and the wind twisted my tail. Maiden, mother and crone condensed in one form and caught me to their chest in a stone grip.

My head was wedged under her arms, my hind legs pumping the air, my forelegs skidding for purchase against her side. My nose felt pierced for pressure as the blood pooled there, and I barked for release. The undergrowth blurred. Hecate crooned and rocked me until I quieted, and by then I didn’t know what else she did.

* * *

She held a rod in one hand and a dead gull in the other. Its neck had the nob of a good wringing and the feathers were bluish white. It was fresh and for me. But I was tied to a stake in the ground.

“Sit,” said Hecate.

I bared my teeth.

The rod ripped downward. I opened my jaws to catch it, but I was not a fast dog, and it cracked over my snout. Hecate readied another blow. “Submit to me,” she said. “You gave up your crown. Sit.”

I had not slaved for Odysseus. I would not for a minor goddess.

The whacking went on, and the seagull grew rank. The blood had gone stiff in the carcass, and flies spotted its feathers. Hunger crumpled me. I wanted to curl up and turn into stone. My hind legs gave.

Hecate dropped the rod. And the gull. I gobbled it up, and she told me a story.

“Zeus was vexed. The fledgling species harried itself, neighbor turning on neighbor and households sinking in blood. They forgot all about him in their self-sufficient chaos, and then what was the point? Zeus decided to scratch the race and start anew. Then he could orchestrate any mischief there was, and they would implore him with flattery and offerings. Other pantheons had done it. The unusual, the impossible, bit was getting mankind right on the first try.

“But Zeus, sentimental or averse to the work, gave mankind a chance to show they were salvageable. He visited Lycaon, the silver-bearded King of Arcadia. Lycaon unwittingly held the fate of the race in his many-ringed fingers.

“Zeus went easy on him. Though the Almighty concealed his true form so as not to blind the whole banquet hall, he summoned thunder and lightning bolts to show that he was no mere man. The banqueters gratified Zeus with platters of smoked meat and words of obeisance. Lycaon offered the god food, wine, and lodging according to Hospitality. But behind his jeweled hand, he sniggered. His subjects’ piety amused him, and while he did not outwardly scorn the god, he plotted a test to humiliate Zeus. While he sleeps in my guest chamber, thought Lycaon, I will plunge my dagger into his heart. Surely he will die.

“And the people would bow to Lycaon.

“Had he attempted the murder, Zeus would have pinched him to dust. But as night darkened the fields of Arcadia, the depraved king decided on another test. He buried his dagger in the heart of a Molossian and chopped the tribesman’s limbs into chips. He boiled some, roasted the rest. He served them to Zeus the following day to see how the god would react.

“Zeus was vexed.

“He rocked the palace with bolts. For killing an innocent, violating Hospitality, and offending a god, Lycaon deserved worse. And Lycaon knew it. He fled Arcadia and wandered without hearth, without rest, without end. At night he would raise his head and howl in madness for all he had lost. He grew hairy, bent, tall-hipped, and feral. He terrorized the flocks and reveled in the slaughter. His kingly vestments matted with blood and fur, his arms lengthened to legs, and he transformed.”

Hecate watched me finish the gull and lick the bones.

“You’re not a wolf,” she decided. “You’re on the threshold of humanity still.” She spread her arms, and her retinue gathered. Snakes, polecats and dogs, so many, streaked through the brush and fawned before their master. “I’ve come for you, Hecuba, lest you forget who you are. You are Queen of Troy. Mother of Hector. Mother of Polixena. Mother of Polymestor.”

A whimper escaped me. I had transformed. I had tried. I should have forgotten, but how could I? His downy head against my breast. His restlessness at the wall. His tears thickening mine as we embraced for the last time. He should have been safe.

Hecate crouched at the center of her pack. “Trust a mother’s grief to make beasts of you,” she said, petting the dogs’ silky heads. Their snouts left wet streaks on her arms.

I barked. I barked over her treacherous words, throwing strings of saliva and breaking my voice. No one marked me. The other dogs had their own sorrows, outrun on the very legs that sorrow grew and furred—not outrun, at all, but compacted and vented in animal existence. How many of us had the war turned?          Hecate stood. She waved her rod, bidding us follow. We had better not tarry, for we faced a long walk with many stops, though we would never settle in one place. The chaos of Arcadia had not gone away. There would be fresh kill to feast on and many beasts to collect. To caress. To comfort.