Bull God

by Roberta Gellis

  “You weren't summoned here or invited,” she shrieked. “Get out!”

  For the first time, Ariadne didn't flinch before her mother's rage. “The Mouth of a god needs no invitation,” she replied calmly.

  “Mouth of a god, indeed!” Pasiphae laughed harshly. “A babe swelled up with importance by the notice of a petty godling more like. You are nothing. You will be less than nothing soon.” Her hand went to her abdomen. “I carry here a new god. One who will wipe little Dionysus from the hearts of the people, high lord and low peasant alike.”

  Ariadne felt the color leach from her cheeks. It was too late! She almost turned and fled, but deep within her an older, wiser woman stirred. No matter that the seed was set. A Mouth must speak her god's warning. Perhaps disaster could yet be averted.

  “I am a true god's Mouth and I must speak his Vision. What you carry is no god but a curse set on Knossos by the Lord Poseidon to punish King Minos for violating his oath. The bull from the sea must be sacrificed and you must clean out your womb or great evil will come to Knossos.”

  “Lies!” Pasiphae screamed. “You're envious because I have received a far greater god than you. You wish to deprive me of my honor, my worship, as the mother of a god.”

  “The Mouth of a god cannot lie,” Ariadne said. But a moment later tears sprang to her eyes, and the cold voice in which she had spoken, the voice from within, broke on a childish sob. “Mother, I beg you, don't bring this curse upon us.”

  Pasiphae sprang forward and slapped Ariadne so hard she staggered back. “It's not a lie! I'll bear a god! I will! I will!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Ariadne's first instinct upon being struck was to Call for Dionysus. Not that her mother had never slapped her before, but that she should dare strike her when in full regalia as high priestess was terrible. As swiftly as her anger flared, it died in cold terror. If she Called Dionysus he would come—and her mother would die, likely at the hands of her own maids. She shuddered. Could she ever again nestle trustingly in Dionysus' arms when her mother's blood dyed them?

  She righted herself. “I will not Call my lord, who would shed your blood. You were my mother, and kin-blood stains deep. But the blessing on grape and wine will be withheld from this house alone of all on Crete until you come to my lord's shrine, where I will now live, to make sacrifice and restitution. Remember that, Queen Pasiphae.”

  On the words she swept out of the apartment, barely acknowledging the salute of the guard. She had intended to go back to the chamber she shared with Phaidra, but her feet did not carry her to the stair just outside her mother's bedchamber door, which would have taken her up there. Instead she went directly out through the southern portico, across the grassy area at the back to the road, which took her to Gypsades Hill and her temple. There was nothing she had left behind that she cared about—except Phaidra.

  Ariadne bit her lip, remembering that she was abandoning her poor sister to bear her mother's ill will and to pick up all the tasks that had been hers. But there was no going back. She would have to explain what had happened to Phaidra and, if necessary, offer her a sanctuary in the shrine.

  When she reached the temple, she sent one of the boy to the palace to seek out her sister and bring her to the shrine. Although the child didn't return with Phaidra until near dusk, the interview wasn't as painful as Ariadne expected.

  “I didn't dare come sooner,” Phaidra said, after kissing her sister. “What happened? Mother told me you were dead! If your little acolyte hadn't caught me on my way to answer her summons and told me you were here waiting for me, I would've died of fright myself. Whatever did you say to her?”

  “I told her a truth she didn't want to hear.” Ariadne hesitated and then continued, “Do you remember, Phaidra how frightened you were last ten-day? Do you remember telling me that something dreadful was about to happen?”

  “But nothing did happen.” Phaidra smiled. “You were right when you scolded me for frightening myself with boggles and loving doom and gloom.”

  Ariadne took a deep breath. “Something dreadful has happened. The thing mother and Daidalos were doing together was turning mother into a cow so that the bull from the sea would couple with her.”

  “No,” Phaidra said, revulsion clear in face and voice. “That's impossible. I've seen a bull coupling with a cow. No woman could ...”

  “It wasn't the bull,” Ariadne said. “It was Poseidon. Lord Dionysus Saw that in a Vision. He knows Poseidon. He said it was Poseidon's revenge, that as father had kept his bull to couple with our cows, he would couple with father's cow.”

  “Oh!” Phaidra now looked delighted. “If it was the god, then all's well. It's not as if mother took another man to her bed and shamed father. A god ...”

  Ariadne's lips parted, then closed. She'd spoken her warning to Pasiphae and been rejected. In a moon or two, she would speak the same warning to her father—after Dionysus had blessed the budding vines and Minos could see that his were scanty and weak compared with those on the rest of Crete. Perhaps Minos would finally sacrifice the bull and convince Pasiphae she had made a mistake. But there was no sense in frightening Phaidra. There was nothing the child could do, so why make her miserable?

  “Father didn't like it,” Ariadne then said mildly, “but he and mother must work that out for themselves. It's you I'm worried about. As you know, mother took ill what I said to her and I can't come back to the palace, which means, my love, that all the chores and all mother's demands will fall upon you. What I wanted to tell you was that you can come here and live with me if mother makes you unhappy.”

  “Oh no.” Phaidra smiled and her eyes were bright. “She's been very kind to me, saying I'm now her only daughter and her only support.”

  “Very well,” Ariadne agreed, surprised at her feeling of relief and only then realizing that she didn't want Phaidra there when Dionysus came. Ashamed of herself, she added, “If you're content, then I am also. Just remember that you may come to me for help if you need it.”

  When she made that offer, Ariadne had no idea that her promise would deeply involve her in the disaster she had fled. For a few ten-days she did worry about receiving an hysterical Phaidra and then having to outface her mother to protect her sister, but that didn't happen. Phaidra did make several visits to Dionysus' shrine, but she came only to giggle and gossip, to report that their mother was so busy with some plans of her own that Phaidra could do much as she pleased, and to assure Ariadne that she wasn't at all missed at the palace.

  Had Ariadne not herself been busier and happier than ever before in her life, Phaidra's remarks might have been cruel. As it was, they added another layer of gladness to a life that seemed all delight. The pleasures had begun simply enough the morning after Phaidra's visit when Ariadne got out of bed and realized she had nothing to wear except the far too elaborate consecration gown and that she could no longer hope her father would supply her with a new wardrobe. That drove her first to questioning the priestess who brought her a fast-breaking meal about the possibility of having clothing made from the cloth in the chests and thence to the discovery that all the old priestess's clothing was stored with the extra furniture.

  Examination of this treasure trove proved fruitful. At the end of her life, the old priestess had shrunken so that most of the newer clothing was a reasonably good fit for Ariadne. Moreover, in the last months of her life, she had found the heavy flounced formal skirts too much of a burden and that the bodices, which exposed breasts flabby and flapping with age, were no longer flattering. She had had made several straight gowns, elaborately embroidered and of beautiful cloth—and then had taken to her bed and never left it so the gowns had never been worn.

  Ariadne immediately adopted all of those, directing that they be well shaken and hung in the fresh air. Much of the remainder of the clothing was too rich for Ariadne's taste, but when she considered that she might have to receive those who wished to worship at Dionysus' shrine and make sacrifice, she reexamined the chest co
ntents. There were two garments she selected to be refreshed with the gowns she planned to use for common wear. One had a straight gold underskirt with at least twenty rows of black flounces trimmed and embroidered in gold; the bodice was also black but up the sides and around the breasts it was densely embroidered with vines. The second was the deep red of wine. This skirt wasn't flounced but stiffened into a firm bell shape with bands of gold—real, beaten gold—engraved with bunches of grapes. The bodice looked at first to be solid gold too, but when Ariadne lifted it she realized it was thin leather, embossed with grapes and lightly gilded.

  “She never wore the black one,” the priestess attending Ariadne said. “After she ordered it made, she said the color made her sad. And she wore the red one only once. It was too heavy for her. She was very frail in the end.”

  “She lived a long life,” Ariadne said without much sympathy, thinking of the threadbare robes of the attendants and the wizened grapes and sour wine. As she spoke she had lifted out a skirt that was not only dirty but torn. “What is this?” she asked.

  The priestess shrugged. “She never threw away anything or—” she hesitated and then went on somewhat uncertainly “—or allowed us to use what she no longer wanted.”

  A hint? Ariadne hesitated. Her first impulse was always to give, but young as she was, she had already discovered that generosity, far from breeding gratitude, usually only induced greed and resentment. Nonetheless, this seemed reasonable enough and might also serve as a test.

  “That's not sensible,” she said. “What good are torn, dirty gowns in the bottom of a chest? But I have no more time to spend on this. You may look through all the chests of clothing. Remove what is dirty and torn. Unless it's set with precious stones or gold, you may use what you think will be useful. Lord Dionysus told me to sell the furniture that's been piled in the storeroom and to use that money to have one or more new storerooms carved into the hill. I'm sure that means the more valuable garments that won't befit me must also be sold. He'll come soon to bless the vines and again in the summer to bless the grapes. I suspect that there will be more offerings after each blessing, so we'd better be ready.”

  “Yes, indeed,” the priestess breathed, eyes glowing with fervor, and then, nearly whispering, “When he comes, may we see him?”

  Ariadne smiled. “I don't know when he'll come. I'm only his priestess, and he says no more to me than 'I will come to bless the vines.' But if you wish and you think the other priestess and priests would wish, I can ask Lord Dionysus if I might present you to him.” She hesitated, then added, “Don't be troubled if it isn't this time. He can be a very angry god, and I'll wait until he's calm and pleased before I ask.”

  “Oh, yes!”

  There was no doubt in Ariadne's mind about the sincerity of the priestess's reply. Ariadne suspected that she, her sister priestess and the priests might have been barely touched by an overflow of Dionysus' rage when he thought he had been offered an unfit sacrifice. But she said nothing about that nor made the smallest attempt to reduce the awe the priestess felt. She was sure it was only by virtue of that awe that she was minutely and instantly obeyed. Instead she turned the subject and asked whether among them the priests and priestesses knew who would be likely to buy what the temple had to sell or who could carve the new storerooms into the hill.

  She learned that in the past traders came regularly to the temple to buy those offerings that the old priestess didn't wish to keep for herself. They had come after news of Dionysus' appearance had spread, but the priests had sent them away because Ariadne had said all would be offered to the god and this time the god would accept the sacrifices.

  “Well,” she said, “Lord Dionysus has taken what he wanted and bade me sell the rest, so the traders may be told to come again. Tell me how the old priestess managed her dealings with such men and women.”

  Although Ariadne had no fondness and little respect for the avaricious grandmother who had lost the favor of the god, she wasn't such a fool as to reject her devices for getting a good bargain. She had even an extra lever with which to pry out a good price. Gowned in lavender embroidered in green vines on which were suspended amethyst grapes, she shook her elaborately coiffed head at the ridiculous offers the first traders made to one they thought a gullible child.

  “It's by Lord Dionysus' order that these things are offered for sale. He desires to do good by giving employment to the poor—” she offered a cold smile “—perhaps so that they can afford to buy more wine, in carving out new storerooms in the hillside. Consider then that what you offer for the god's goods must include a sacrifice to him as well as a fair price.”

  Two of the men paled. They'd been in the crowd and seen Dionysus appear, had been touched by the god-induced fury that could have destroyed them all, and had witnessed how the god cut off sound and then sight from them. To cheat a child was one thing; to cheat such a god another. Prices were hurriedly revised upward until Ariadne nodded graciously, accepting what she felt was fair. She was a little nervous, not wanting to use the traders' fear of Dionysus to gouge them, but was satisfied when she saw pleasure and relief on several faces.

  She spent a happy ten-day at this employment, in choosing and having made an entire wardrobe, and in selecting a work gang. Having discussed with the overseer of the gang where she wanted the storerooms and how she wanted them protected from damp and collapse, she had begun to wonder what next to do when she was wakened from sleep by Dionysus' Call.

  “I'll come after midday,” the voice in her head informed her, and then, with a touch of coldness, “I thought you'd Call me.”

  “My lord, I was afraid—”

  “Never mind. Be waiting at the altar for me.”

  And he was gone from her consciousness, but the coldness in his voice had brought back to her her dismal failure as a Mouth. She'd managed to put Pasiphae's rejection of her warning out of her mind while she was successfully performing other duties her god had demanded, but now she'd have to confess.

  Fortunately it wasn't long until dawn because she slept no more that night nor could she eat what the servants brought her in the morning. When they arrived, she sent the workmen away from the shrine and, after the priestesses had helped her to dress her hair and arrange her black gown, she ordered them to keep strictly to their quarters and make sure the novices and priests did also.

  “The Lord Dionysus isn't pleased,” she told them. “I have failed as his Mouth. I spoke as he bade me, but I wasn't able to accomplish his purpose.”

  “We'll keep to our quarters,” the older priestess assured her and then, with tears in her eyes, whispered, “Surely he won't punish you for failing. You're so young and of such good heart—”

  “Enough!” Ariadne said. “Lord Dionysus is my lord and my god. What he does is right and good to me.”

  She was kneeling on the altar when he came, facing the painting before which he always appeared. She jumped when he spoke, for she had been kneeling there for some time and had closed her tired eyes.

  “Holy Mother,” he said. “For what are you dressed?”

  “For confession. I have failed you, my lord.”

  The overlarge blue eyes became even larger and brighter. “Failed me how?”

  Ariadne swallowed. “I spoke as you bade me, but it was too late. As you Saw, my mother had already coupled with the bull that was Poseidon and she said she had conceived. I told her that what she carried was a curse, Poseidon's revenge, and she should be rid of it, but she wouldn't heed me. I have failed as your Mouth.”

  “Oh, that.” Dionysus shrugged. “That's no failure. So long as you gave the warning, if she wouldn't listen the consequences will be on her head. The Vision no longer troubles me, so I'm satisfied.” He smiled suddenly. “Was that why you didn't Call me, because you were afraid I would blame you for not being able to force the queen of Crete to your will?”

  “That and because you told me not to Call you for my own pleasure. It's very hard, my lord, to know when I'm usi
ng a duty only to have you near and give me pleasure.”

  He laughed at that and said, “I promised to bless the vines and I don't like to fail in a promise. I also have a terrible memory and could easily have forgotten you, so you should have Called. If that duty is a pleasure, so much the better for us both.”

  She smiled in response. “I won't fail again—” and then she frowned. “At least, not in Calling you—and I won't Call at daybreak, I promise.”

  “No, because ...” He hesitated, stared into her eyes for a moment, and then looked away. “For now we will bless the vines on a moonless night when there are none to see us.” He reached out and took her chin in his hand. “You are too young now to celebrate the blessing as many priestesses do.” He laughed again when he saw her worried expression. “And you needn't fear. The vines and the wine will not suffer.”

  “Oh, thank you my lord. Thank you. You must be the kindest god in the world.”

  He looked away from her and a slight shiver passed over him. “Not always.”

  She knew that, had felt his rage, but she touched his hand. “You are kind to me ... without failing.”

  He cocked his head as if listening to something she hadn't said aloud, then shook it. “Come down off that stone, child, and tell me why a shadow comes over your face each time you speak of failing.”

  She tried to rise, but found her legs were numb and he shook his head again and scolded her gently for kneeling for so long. Then he picked her up as if she had no weight at all and carried her into her chamber. By the time he set her down, she could stand, but he wouldn't let her kneel again when he sat in his chair and she fetched cushions to sit beside him. Before she sat down, however, she asked if he had eaten and he said he hadn't.

  “I enjoy company when I eat,” he said, “and at home I have none.”

  “I'll very gladly eat with you,” Ariadne replied, grinning, “if it pleases you, my lord. To speak the truth, I'm starving, for I feared you'd be very angry with me and had no stomach for my bread and cheese this morning.”