Bull God

by Roberta Gellis

  Perhaps if she went by the west porch she would be able to sneak up the stairs and get to her chamber. Ariadne grimaced; that would be useless. Sooner or later she'd have to confront Pasiphae, and it would be best to do it sooner and know the worst. Yes, she would enter as was fitting for a god-touched high priestess by the formal north entrance.

  At the foot of the ramp that led to the north portico, she thanked her attendants, told them she would return to the shrine soon, and dismissed them. Turning, she was amazed to see both the guards at the porch entry, weapons grounded, standing stiffly with right arms in the fist-to-forehead salute of a worshiper. For a moment Ariadne was tempted to look behind to see if Dionysus was there, but she knew he wasn't; she would have felt his presence.

  The formality jolted her into a realization of being all alone. She should have kept her attendants. Rightly there should be a procession. Even the bulls being led to the bull-dancing court had a procession, Ariadne thought with a touch of resentment, and then swallowed hard. The bulls were sacrificed after their moment of glory. She wished she hadn't thought of that. Then she reminded herself firmly that there could be no procession because Dionysus himself had ordered his worshipers to disperse. Remembering his promise to protect her, Ariadne drew a deep if somewhat tremulous breath and went forward up the ramp.

  When she reached the saluting guards at the top, she said softly, “I see you,” the response of priest or priestess to a worshiper's appeal.

  The guards dropped their arms. One smiled, and the other, also smiling, told her her father was waiting for her in the king's chamber.

  The fear that had touched her dissipated. Her father would be pleased with her, she was sure, and she went light-footed through the hall of the pillars, down the corridor, and across the bull-dancing court. On the landing of the great staircase, she paused, realizing that her mother would be with her father, but she started down nonetheless and was further reassured when she heard the sound of voices as she came into the corridor. Minos and Pasiphae weren't alone and Minos wouldn't let Pasiphae humiliate or hurt her before the courtiers. Some of them had seen Dionysus and heard him accept her.

  She paused in the doorway and saw that both suppositions were correct. The light-well to her right held a shaft of sunlight that made the wine-red pillars glow and enhanced the brilliant skirts of the women and the flashing armlets and necklets of the men. Across the room, below the rich mural of a crowned male walking with his hands on the manes of two lions, Pasiphae was seated beside Minos on a small chair by his great one on the dais.

  Actually Ariadne couldn't see much of the mural because the room was full of people, fuller than she'd expected. Surprise drew a low exclamation from her. One head turned, then another. Next she heard her name flowing like a wave across the chamber. And with that wave, every right arm went up, left fist to forehead. Ariadne cast one quick glance at her mother. Pasiphae sat rigid, her full lips pressed into a thin line. The courtiers waited, all facing Ariadne, rigid in the posture of worship.

  Ariadne held her breath, afraid to acknowledge the homage done her and also afraid not to. Dionysus wouldn't be pleased if she didn't accept the reverence as his due, and her mother would think she was accepting it for herself and be even more enraged if she responded. But Dionysus was more important to her than Pasiphae.

  “I see you,” Ariadne said clearly, then bowed her head in grave acknowledgment and walked forward.

  The courtiers dropped their arms, but they drew respectfully aside to leave an open aisle and each turned to face her as she moved. When she reached her parents, however, she herself bowed gracefully, hoping Dionysus either wouldn't know or would accept that even a high priestess must bow to a king and queen.

  Pasiphae's lips parted, but Minos tightened his grip on her arm until his fingers whitened and she didn't speak.

  “Where have you been all this time?” he asked gently.

  “Mostly with my god,” Ariadne replied, “and then obeying his demands.”

  “What demands?” Minos asked, more sharply this time.

  “He didn't like what had been done with the priestess's chambers and he wasn't too pleased to see that valuable sacrifices hadn't been offered to him but kept by the high priestess.”

  “They had been placed on the altar,” Minos said quickly. “The god didn't choose to take them, so my mother kept them safe for him.”

  He didn't meet Ariadne's eyes, however, and she suspected that the god would have had to snatch them very fast to get them before they were removed to the old queen's keeping. But her father had had little control over his mother's actions and Ariadne couldn't blame him for her behavior.

  “Perhaps he didn't hear her Call,” she said mildly, and then, wanting to be sure that her father wouldn't simply appropriate what was in the shrine, reminded him, “Lord Dionysus does hear me. He has seen what was kept from him. Now he will take what is his.”

  That didn't seem to trouble Minos and Ariadne wondered if she had suspected him unjustly. She never would have, she thought, before he kept that accursed bull. Perhaps she should tell him of Dionysus' Vision. Perhaps if a second god confirmed what Poseidon's priest had said, Minos would listen. But Minos spoke before she could quite gather her courage.

  “And what else did the god demand?”

  “Nothing,” Ariadne said.

  “He took all that time to ask for nothing?” Pasiphae said spitefully.

  “No.” Ariadne again felt an urge to deliver Dionysus' warning. “He described a Vision to me, of a white bull that came from the sea and that—”

  “Brought us all good fortune,” Pasiphae finished, cutting Ariadne off and diverting attention from Minos, who had paled and drawn in a sharp breath. “I am sure he wished to keep what he said of his Vision private, since he veiled you and himself in a black cloud of silence. You mustn't repeat to us what the god concealed.”

  Ariadne could have said—the truth—that Dionysus had bidden her speak and only retracted the command to save her from possibly being punished. In the face of her mother's flat prohibition and the stony set of her father's expression she wasn't quite brave enough.

  “We are blessed, indeed, in this land that two gods have made manifest their favor to us,” Pasiphae continued, smoothly. “But your skirt is all draggled, child, and your laces very poorly done. I will come with you to your chamber and help you repair the damage to your face and dress.”

  Ariadne cast a single look of appeal at her father, but he was staring past her above his courtiers' heads at the four double doors that separated his inner from his outer chamber. One set of doors was open to admit light and air, pushed back into the hollow of the pillar made to receive it. Ariadne knew another set of doors of the four that closed off the outer chamber from the south and east porches must be open, but what her father sought out there she couldn't guess. The flower around her heart was closed; it opened only for Dionysus, she was sure. And Pasiphae had risen to her feet. Ariadne could only bend her head in acknowledgment of what her mother had said and turn toward the doorway.

  “Wait!” Pasiphae commanded, catching her arm, her voice too low to carry to the courtiers but as intense as a scream. “You haven't yet risen so high that you may precede me.”

  Without a sound, Ariadne stepped aside and let her mother pass. They walked by bowing courtiers, Ariadne grateful that there was no way to tell to whom the bows were addressed, and out into the corridor. Ariadne took a deep breath and braced herself, but her mother didn't stop or turn toward her until they had passed around the corner to the queen's chamber and climbed the small private wooden stair beside it. This left them only a few steps from the rooms Ariadne shared with her younger sister Phaidra.

  Pasiphae sailed into the room, turning about so quickly that she almost slammed the door in Ariadne's face. She jerked it fully open again, yanked Ariadne inside, and then slammed it.

  “What did you do?” she snarled, shaking her daughter.

  “I did exactly w
hat Daidalos taught me,” Ariadne cried. “He said he found the words and the ritual in some old scroll, and told me the words to say and showed me what to do. I did exactly what he taught me. You saw what I did. You heard me.”

  “So why did the god come to you when he never came to Queen Europa?”

  “How would I know?” Ariadne snapped. Pasiphae's grip had relaxed a trifle and Ariadne wrenched herself free and moved away. Her mother stared at her but didn't follow. Feeling safer at a distance, Ariadne added, “Perhaps grandmother didn't follow the ritual exactly, but Dionysus said that some priestesses can Call and some cannot.”

  Pasiphae sniffed contemptuously and shrugged. “I am sure he would hear me.”

  “Mother—” Ariadne's voice emerged high pitched and quavering.

  Pasiphae laughed. “Oh, don't be afraid. I don't want your little godling.”

  Ariadne shook her head, but didn't try to correct her mother's misapprehension. Although fear had stabbed her when Pasiphae said she was sure Dionysus would hear her, it was no longer fear that he would prefer her mother. He had made his choice. Ariadne now knew that to ignore his will or imply a decision he had made was wrong was dangerous. Pasiphae believed herself inviolable and in most circumstances that was true, but Ariadne recalled Dionysus' hard stare, the flickers of madness behind his eyes—a madness fatally contagious to others—when Pasiphae had persisted in trying to draw his attention despite his dismissal. It was an odd feeling to be afraid for her mother instead of being afraid of her.

  “Yes, you can keep your little godling,” Pasiphae continued, looking down her nose. “When I Call, it will be a being that rules over more than vines and wine.”

  Although she still said nothing and dropped her lids over her eyes to hide what she thought, Ariadne had some difficulty in swallowing laughter. If Dionysus came as he had promised and blessed the vines and the wine—if he brought back the sweet, smooth, potent beverage that Crete had once produced—it would be as if gold was fermented in the great pithoi. Not only the farmers and the vintners but the high nobles on whose estates they labored would bless her name. She would have no need to envy any priestess, no matter how powerful her god or goddess. Indifferent to her mother's jibe, Ariadne began to turn away.

  “Where are you going?” Pasiphae snapped. “Take off that skirt. It looks as if you were rolling around the floor in it.”

  That shaft flew right by Ariadne also. She did not recognize it as a sexual jibe because her skirt had been soiled while the priestess's chamber was being cleared; in fact, the remark brought back the pleasant memory of how submissive the priests and priestesses had been when she ordered them to store and move the old priestess's possessions. But when Ariadne had untied the skirt and laid it across her bed, Pasiphae burst out laughing.

  “Why, he didn't even make a woman of you!” she exclaimed.

  Ariadne stiffened. She had forgotten that the blood that should have marked her maiden sacrifice did not stain her thighs, and Pasiphae had noticed she was clean.

  “Have you never heard of washing, mother?” Ariadne turned away sharply and began to look for a clean skirt as if she were embarrassed and trying to cover it with boldness.

  On the one hand, she didn't like to lie; on the other, if Pasiphae believed that she hadn't consummated her role as high priestess, her mother might begin to think again of usurping that role. Dionysus would kill her, Ariadne thought, and tried to cover her shudder with the act of tying her skirt. She mustn't let that happen. She might not love her mother, but she couldn't bear that Dionysus should have Pasiphae's blood on his hands. There would be a blood debt between them that could never be paid. Something squeezed her heart, and she was sure it was those flower petals, and that if Dionysus killed her mother they would never be able to open again.

  “I have heard of washing,” Pasiphae said, and Ariadne heard the smiling contempt in her voice, “but I don't think that's why your thighs are clean. However, I have a larger fish, a much larger fish that I hope to catch. That is why I want to know what you did—exactly what you did.”

  Mixed with Ariadne's relief was a new anxiety. If the god Pasiphae calls doesn't come, she thought, she'll blame me for it. “I'll tell you and show you, mother,” she said slowly, “but don't you think you should learn the words and the ritual as I did from the scroll Daidalos found? What if I've slightly changed a gesture or slurred a word and when you learn them from me you exaggerate my fault until the chant or ritual is spoiled? Dionysus may be willing to overlook what a greater god will not.”

  Pasiphae eyed her coldly. “Perhaps, and perhaps it is your small mistakes that have perfected a chant and ritual that haven't summoned even your little godling since long before you were born. Show me.”

  Having made her excuse beforehand, Ariadne did as her mother commanded, repeating the words and the gestures she had been taught and listening while Pasiphae learned the chant and ritual. She had no bowl and no wine, of course, and when she came to that part she said, “Then you say the name of the god you wish to Call upon and you try to see his or her face inside your head—perhaps looking at the painting in the shrine will help—and then you say 'Come to me' and wish for the god to come. But remember, Dionysus said that not all priestesses can Call, and—”

  Pasiphae's lips pursed and a gesture cut off the rest of what Ariadne intended to say. “If you can Call,” Pasiphae said, “it is not possible that I cannot.” She started toward the door, opened it but did not step out, and turned back. “Another thing. I hope you know that I still expect you to dance the Mother's ritual on Her day.”

  “But, mother—”

  “No buts. There is no one else fitting to dance, and it doesn't require a virgin. Since I must sit on the throne, I cannot dance; your eldest sister, Euryale, has her own dancing floor to fill; Prokris is heavy with child; and Phaidra is too young and too clumsy. So you must dance.”

  “Mother, I love to dance—”

  “Of course you do.” Pasiphae interrupted her with a sneer. “Is it not said by all that in Knossos the dancing place was wrought by Daidalos for Ariadne of the lovely tresses—as if no one else ever danced there.” And she stepped out and slammed the door behind her.

  Ariadne stood looking at the painted wood, feeling as if she were caught between the upper and nether millstones. The upper millstone was the real pleasure she felt in dancing for the Mother. Not, as Pasiphae said, because it brought her praise ... Well, Ariadne thought, sensitive now to the fact that what she truly felt might be perceived by a too-real deity, her love of dancing wasn't entirely because of the admiration. She liked that, she confessed to herself with a little prick of shame, but even more she liked the warmth that enveloped her, the feeling that an enormous but gentle hand lifted her hair and made it fly gracefully about her and with that flight her steps became light as feathers and her gestures fluid as air. And she loved the Mother, who was always to her associated with that gentle, enveloping warmth, a warmth she had never felt from her own mother.

  She wanted to dance, but the lower millstone might rise against the upper and crush her. Would Dionysus permit her to worship another god? Most people did, of course, worship many gods, sacrificing to Poseidon for good fortune in fishing, to Aphrodite for a successful love affair, and to others for other purposes, but they were just people. She was Dionysus' high priestess, and he was a jealous god, easy to anger.

  Within herself the petals of the flower were closed around her heart. Apparently when he wasn't with her, they couldn't help her touch Dionysus' feelings. But couldn't she ask him directly? She could go to the shrine and fill her gold cup with wine and Call him. Her lips curved and the lids dropped over her eyes. He said he would answer if she Called ... and then the smile became tremulous and disappeared. He had said he would come, but he had also warned her not to Call for selfish purposes.

  Was her desire to dance for the Mother selfish? Would Dionysus consider her mother's command trivial? Well, it might be to him, but how could
she refuse? It wasn't only her mother who expected the praise-dance to be performed; the dance was part of a whole ritual that couldn't be completed without it.

  Ariadne stood frowning in doubt, so close to the door that it almost hit her when it popped open. She stepped back sharply, drawing a breath and then let it out in a long sigh when her sister, Phaidra, came in.

  “Are you all right?” Phaidra asked, wide-eyed. “I heard everyone talking about you. That the god really came? Is it true? What did he say? What did he do to you?”

  “I am very well,” Ariadne said, smiling. “Yes, the god really came. He did me no harm. He was kind and promised to come and bless the vines and the wine.” She looked her sister up and down. “Did mother return to the court?”

  “Yes. I ran up when I saw her come in.” She hesitated and then said, “Why are you looking at me so strangely?”

  “I am thinking that you do not look so different from the way I did two years ago, and that was when mother had Prokris teach me the praise-dance for the Mother.”

  “Oh no!” Phaidra cried, backing away and reaching for the door behind her. “The dance is a quarter moon from now. You had moons and moons to learn it.”

  Ariadne grabbed her before she could get out of the door. “I am not saying that you must dance this time, but if my god learns of my worshiping the Mother and forbids me to dance again, then you will have to do it. Come, I will teach you.”

  “I have not even begun my courses yet,” Phaidra protested. “I am not a woman. How can I dance for the Mother?”

  “You're over eleven years old and your moon-times may come any day. Mine did before I was fully twelve. And as you said, it takes some time to learn the dance, so it will do no harm to begin early.”

  “I don't want to learn,” Phaidra said, turning her head away. “If mother makes me a subpriestess—and what other place is there for me?—I will never get away from here. I will live and die at Knossos, under her hand.”