Hera's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Hera carried her scepter from the council hill straight to her aviary pavilion. The gold dome caught the sun. Inside, her songbirds waited in rows along the perches, each one fat with what it had seen. She shut the doors behind her. "Speak," she said. "Every name. Every bed. Leave none out, or the law I write will crack the moment I lay it down." One by one the birds came forward. A sparrow named a shepherd girl. A swallow named a river nymph. A thrush named a queen in a far city. Hera wrote each name in her own hand on a long scroll of beaten gold. The list grew past her wrist, past her elbow, past her knee. Argus stood beside her, his tail spread, every gold eye fixed on the scroll so no name slipped past unseen. When the last bird had spoken, Hera rolled the scroll and walked to the great bronze docket where divine matters are pinned for every god to read. She climbed the marble steps. She unrolled the gold cloth down the full length of the banner, name after name after name, and drove the pins home herself. Gods stopped on the path below. They read. They whispered. By dusk the whole hill knew. Hera stepped back from the docket and breathed out. She had the full count now. The law she would write could not be voided by a missing name. The harder work began tomorrow — but the secret was finished.