FIVE

If Phaeton could have thought of any smart rejoinder, he would have uttered it right then.

But instead he said nothing. He knelt to gather a single gilt-red feather from the ground, remembering Lampetia’s request.

“Phaeton, everyone knows you’re just another wool comber,” continued Epaphus, using the phrase for a housebound man of little adventure. “And the offspring of a peddler, or maybe a wandering goatherd.” At that, the young hunter drew his knife, and cut the griffin’s throat.

The assembly of field hands and house servants fell silent at the insult they had heard. Only Merops’s habitual even temper kept him from striking the young archer – this offense to Clymene and her son was beyond bad manners. Even so, the good-tempered landowner grew stiff and pale.

Show none of your troubled pride, Phaeton cautioned himself. Dignity answers the jeer. It was a line from an old fable, the hard-laboring ant mocked by the lounging grasshopper. It was true that a quiet reserve was admired by man and god alike.

The veteran Aristander shifted the heavy helmet back from his face and offered, in a halting effort to soothe, “Certainly, my friends, both lads may be the sons of one god or another.”

This suggestion merely embittered Phaeton all the more.

Epaphus, alerted by the silence of his former well-wishers, now a disapproving circle of villagers, may have begun to stammer an apology.

But Phaeton did not linger to hear it.

He made his way with a measured tread toward home with Cycnus beside him offering consolation, “That loutish archer will only offend the gods, Phaeton.”

As always Cycnus made good sense, Phaeton knew. He was grateful to his bright-haired cousin, who could recite many legends about the gods and their exploits. But for the moment Phaeton could not be consoled by talk.

Phaeton broke from his loyal cousin and ran.

He took solace, as so often before, in the sound of the wind streaming through his hair.

Once again Phaeton flung open the gate of his stepfather’s villa and quickly entered the courtyard.

Clymene was there, embroidering the hem of a cloth.

The soft-spun, woolen garment belonged to her son. She was sewing green and gold thread along the hem of his favorite tunic, preparing for the celebration of summer, yet weeks away, a festival of dancing and the best reserves of wine.

Clymene paused, her needle glinting in the light reflected off the water of the fountain. She gave a nod and a worried smile, and her servants departed, their soft steps fading to silence.

Phaeton did not speak at once.

He did not want to awaken a hurtful secret from his mother’s past. If anything, a protective instinct for her heart, as well as his own, had silenced Phaeton for many seasons. Even now he weighed his question and silently asked the Mother of Wisdom, gray-eyed Minerva, to guide his speech.

But even with all the consideration he managed to give his words, they came out sounding harsh.

“Promise me before the gods, Mother,” insisted Phaeton, “that I am the son of the lord of daylight.”