Alcestis by Katharine Beutner Page B

to look only at the meat and bone, tearing bits free with my fingers.
    The guests had turned their attention away from Pelias and talked as they ate, gesturing with their pieces of beef. The tattooed man beside me was telling his other seatmate about a new sort of Egyptian bow. I ripped a chunk of meat from the bone with my teeth. Even if I could have run from the table, could have somehow escaped my father, these men would have swarmed to my scent. They’d track me across the sea, I thought. They’d follow me into the sky if a god swooped down and took me.
    I heard the noise outside the gates while the men were still eating and talking. It sounded like a rattling at first, as if someone were shaking the table, but none of the guests appeared to notice it. I lifted my head, trying to look over the tall men on the opposite side of the table, but succeeded only in collecting a number of lascivious looks. I turned to Phylomache, opening my mouth to say something, when a horse’s whinny cut through the noise of the crowd.
    The men looked around at each other, then stood in one clumsy wave, their legs entangled between bench and table. Cups of wine toppled and sent dark streams across the wood. Partially eaten pieces of meat fell to the ground, where the dogs set upon them at once, snarling and whining in the gloom under the table. I looked from the dogs to the men and back again, then turned to see my father marching toward the gate with his dagger in hand.
    A chariot came through the gate—a chariot I knew, driven by a golden-haired man. Admetus stood beside the charioteer, wearing a fierce expression and more jewelry than Phylomache owned. He swung down from the chariot as it came to a halt and walked toward Pelias in short, angry strides. Pelias had slipped his dagger back into its sheath. He held his arms out as if to welcome Admetus into them.
    “King of Pherae!” he cried. “Welcome. I regret that we have already begun our feast.”
    Admetus stopped a horse-length away from Pelias. “I see that,” he said, and nodded to the men at the table. Some of them returned his greeting. “How strange.”
    “Strange, no. We began at the expected time, to let the sacrifice burn before the sun set. It was a good slaughter,” Pelias said, stroking his beard. “I am sorry that you missed it.”
    “You did not give me adequate warning,” Admetus said through gritted teeth. “You did not give me time. Your messenger arrived only this noon.”
    “Did he?” Pelias said. His Olympian voice was almost light. “He must have gotten lost on the way. Or ill. Or perhaps he stopped in the village near your palace to sample your women.”
    Admetus’s fingers had been creeping toward the hilt of his dagger, but now they halted, his hand falling loose by his side. He looked right at Pelias, smiling. “You will not speak so of my people in front of these men, Uncle.”
    “No, you are right, Nephew,” Pelias said. “I should not. This is a gathering of equals. And you have arrived late.”
    Behind Admetus, the chariot driver leapt down from the vehicle. The men’s eyes turned to him, but immediately they shifted their gazes away, squinting as if his yellow hair were too bright to look on. Admetus waited for their attention as if he had known that his man would cause such a stir. When he spoke, his words were quiet enough that the guests at the table had to lean forward to hear him. “I am here now, Lord Pelias.”
    “That’s true enough,” Pelias said. “But it makes no difference to me whether you are or no. This is a contest, Nephew, and you have already lost. You have forfeited your stake with your disrespectfully late arrival. How can I give my daughter to a man who shows no care for the will of the gods?”
    “I took the quickest route here. I drove my fastest horses.”
    “Indeed you did.” Pelias grinned like a wolf. “But how can I entrust this girl to a man who comes so quickly?”
    The guests roared with