When I was young, I believed that the gods were our perfect caretakers. They blessed us with bountiful food, the greatness of Sparta, and powerful mystics to give us direction in life. But those powerful mystics were the very same who robbed me of true life, true freedom, and those gods were the same gods who let me rot in my husband's cold prison of a palace.
We went to see the mystics when we had tried and failed to make an heir for the throne. We had travelled many days to see them, for them to set us straight on the path that was willed by our wise caretakers, and yet they had given my husband all that he needed to justify my suffering.
They told us that though I was barren, my womb would ripen in three years time and I would be instilled with four lives in that summer. I still remember how his face lit up when they said that mine was a divine fate, that my children would change the world. Then, as if to mock his hope and pride, they had told him that his children would not spring forth from my loins. That one of the mighty gods would descend from Olympus and fill me with seed on that summer night, so that I might bear the fruit of the gods.
Ever since that day, my husband saw me as nothing more than a precious possession of which he was in constant fear of being robbed. He locked me here in this very palace, banned me from seeing any men when not in his company, and swore that the gods would not rob him of his rightful progeny...
Though the gods had no need to interfere with that, for the many wars which our country faced kept my husband away for what felt like years at a time. When he was present, his thoughts were too focused on his anger toward the gods to allow true sight of me. I willingly spread my thighs for him as a loyal wife and queen, but felt no passion, even as his seed wasted itself in my barren soil.
By the time the third year's summer finally came, I had accepted that Tyndareus was no longer my king or my husband; he was my jailer.
At the beginning of summer, my husband returned, as usual, for the festival of Hyacinthia. It was an important time for us, and it would be inexcusable for the king to be absent.
When he arrived at the palace, I was standing in the entrance hall wearing my finest robes. Even as he walked up to me, I could feel him looking through me.
"Ah, you look well my queen" said my husband, "have you been safe these past months?"
I nodded.
"Yes, my King. Safe is the one thing I have been."