Bull God

by Roberta Gellis

  Dionysus shrugged. “It's just what Bacchus has learned while scrying, not a Vision. If you wish to speak of it, you may; if you don't, you can hold your tongue. It's nothing to me.”

  Something in his voice made Ariadne cock her head even though the silvery mist that linked them was untroubled. “But something is making you uneasy, my lord?”

  He shook his head. “No ... Yes ... I'm dreaming, but I can't remember, so the dreams aren't a real Seeing. They don't echo in my mind so that I'm bemused by them. Still, I am uneasy. Something lurks within the dreams.” He turned his head toward the doorway to her bedchamber. “Has She spoken to you?”

  “No. No hint. No feeling. Yet She's there. She hasn't withdrawn Herself. It's as if She's waiting for something. I know there's something I must do, but I don't know what.”

  Dionysus continued to look at the wall behind which, in Her niche, the dark statue stood. “It's something to do with the bull-head,” he said at last. “Perhaps the scryings aren't as harmless as they seem. Perhaps the Egyptians or the Athenians plan war. Won't you come with me to Olympus and be safe?”

  To watch you give to other women what I desire? But even while she was thinking that bitter thought, Ariadne's head lifted and turned so she was also looking at where the goddess's image stood behind the wall.

  “In the end, I shall,” she said, “but not now.”

  Both looked away from the wall toward each other. Ariadne shivered slightly, and laid her head on Dionysus' knee again. He played idly with the curled locks of consecration. After a time, she sat upright and began to speak of the celebration of the year's turning and he said that he hoped to come and watch her dance this year. They talked about the offerings that people made, and she asked as she had before whether she should try to reclaim the honor of the richness of the wines for him. And as he had before, he told her to forget the honor. Then, after a brief pause, he said it would return to him soon enough on its own.

  Startled by the assurance in the casual statement, which implied the end of the worship of the Bull God, Ariadne asked what he meant. Dionysus looked puzzled by the question, then thoughtful, but finally he shook his head.

  “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But I'm sure it's so.”

  Later they ate and played a game Dionysus had brought, giving kisses as forfeits. At first the little pecks on cheeks and nose were delivered with laughter, but then Ariadne suffered a major defeat—perhaps not entirely by chance—and paid her forfeit at Dionysus' lips. He was still at first, almost as if he was startled, and then began to respond, rising from his seat and pulling her tight against him. She felt the readiness of his body, the heat of his lips hungrily responding to hers—and suddenly he pulled free and was gone.

  For some time Ariadne simply stood where she was. Had he known she lost the game apurpose? Was he showing his disgust, his displeasure because she deliberately tempted him? But he must have known she had played stupidly before she began to pay her forfeit. Then was it something in her kiss that disgusted him and drove him away? Was that why he had never fulfilled the god-priestess ritual, even though he said it was for modesty not to couple before witnesses? Was he gone for good this time?

  Slowly Ariadne gathered up the game pieces and put them away. That done, she couldn't imagine what to do with herself. The events of the day replayed themselves in her mind—the Minotaur's ferocity, finding Dionysus waiting, his telling her that Athens called the Minotaur a false god and that the Egyptian priests of Apis wished to have him in their own temple, the pleasure of the game . . . She refused to think beyond that, refused to face the pain of knowing she was repulsive to her god. She seized instead on the fact that her father should know about Athens and the Egyptians.

  Dionysus arrived in the forest-glade atrium of his home still breathing hard. He had almost forgotten that Ariadne was only a child until he was embracing her so hard that her fragility had reminded him. Child? She was very small, but there had been nothing childlike in the kiss she gave him. And she had lost that game so badly ... He suspected now that hadn't been by chance. She'd lost it so she could kiss him. And if that was her intention, she was no longer a child.

  His lips parted to say the spell words that would take him back to the shrine on Gypsades Hill, but he didn't speak them. Why, suddenly, had she maneuvered him into a lustful embrace? Because she'd learned the joys of the body with some local man? So what would she do, now that he had responded to her lust but left her unfulfilled? Find her lover, of course, and satisfy her desire.

  Dionysus stepped out into the corridor that linked his wing of the house with that of Silenos, Bacchus, and the servants and bellowed for Bacchus to bring his scrying bowl.

  “Find Ariadne,” he ordered briefly.

  The picture formed as soon as Bacchus had set the bowl on one of the small tables that surrounded the fountain and filled it with wine. Ariadne appeared, gathering up and storing the game pieces, which had been scattered. She stood for some moments then, perfectly still, looked out of the window, and hurriedly picked up a warm cloak. A few moments later it was clear that she was going to the palace.

  “Going to fondle that monster,” Bacchus said. “Shall I look elsewhere, Dionysus?”

  “No.”

  The sound was quick and hard. Bacchus glanced up at his master's face and then bent with more attention over the scrying bowl. To his surprise, Ariadne didn't walk past her parents' apartments to get to the Minotaur's rooms. She stopped and spoke to the guard outside her father's antechamber. He nodded, bowed, and waved her in. Dionysus' hand closed over the back of the chair Bacchus was using and the wood creaked under the pressure he put on it. Bacchus breathed very softly. That hand could also close on his neck and snap it like a twig—he had seen Dionysus do that. Sweat broke out on his face and trickled down his back.

  In the scrying bowl, Ariadne walked past everyone in the chamber with no more than a nod of acknowledgment for those who greeted her. She spoke to the guard at the door of King Minos' private chamber and he nodded and said a few words that didn't come across clearly.

  “I want to hear what they say,” Dionysus snapped.

  Bacchus fixed his attention more sharply on the scene in the bowl and poured power into the image. A richly dressed man, face set in an angry frown, came out of King Minos' door. The guard bowed slightly to Ariadne and went in. In a moment he stepped out again.

  “He'll see you now,” he said to Ariadne, and held the door open for her to pass.

  The image followed her through the door into a medium sized chamber with a floor of pale green polished tiles in a wave pattern. The doors to the bedchamber beyond were open and a window from a light-well on the other side admitted a golden glow. Between the light sources, King Minos sat at a mottled marble table on a dais. He was alone, no guards, no scribes. The walls of the room were covered with a magnificent fresco of a lush garden in which birds and butterflies played, creating an image of joy.

  Dionysus released a sigh and relaxed his grip on the back of the chair, but he still watched the image in the bowl. Bacchus bit his lip. He was tiring and didn't know how long he could keep the voices coming clearly.

  “Ariadne,” King Minos said gravely.

  She bowed her head slightly. “King Minos. Thank you for receiving me so promptly. I have news I think you should hear.”

  Minos nodded. “I will listen with attention. I promised to honor the Mouth of Dionysus, and I keep my word. I also have long wished to thank you for your efforts to make the Minotaur happy. It's not easy to keep a god on earth satisfied. Whatever his powers, they're still new to him; he's very young, too. He's growing restless and can't understand why he can't go where he likes when he likes.”

  Dionysus tapped Bacchus' shoulder. “Enough,” he said.

  So she wasn't unfaithful, not even burning with lust. She hadn't gone to assuage her need with a lover but, as she had said she would, to tell her father about the threat from the Egyptians and Athenians. He turned away fro
m Bacchus and walked across the atrium, whispering the spell word that opened the door to his apartment. When he'd closed it behind him, he stared across the sitting room toward his bedchamber. In his mind's eye he saw the big bed, saw Ariadne's black hair spread over the white pillow. He swallowed.

  When he had satisfied his body's need and hers, what would be left? There was nothing between him and his other priestesses except the heat of coupling and the bitter exhaustion when sufficient power had been leached out of him to bring fecundity to the vines. Or if the priestess could not even take and transmit power, the putrid excitement of wild couplings spurred by the impulses of lust he used to spawn fertility in the earth. He shuddered slightly. At least he was no longer driving his worshipers to spill blood to empower fruitfulness. But if he lost the peace and delight Ariadne gave him, would that need grow in him again?

  It was to have the joy of her presence more constantly that he urged Ariadne to come and live with him in Olympus. Now he wasn't sure that was wise. If she desired him—and he desired her; he could feel his body stir just with the thought—it would be impossible to lie separately in two bedchambers separated only by a narrow corridor. They would be together on the second night, if not on the first, and if coupling destroyed their easy companionship . . . But would it?

  He thought of Hades and Persephone, bound together by love well laced with lust, which only made their bond closer. They were as much one flesh, one blood, one bone as two beings could be. If he could have that ... He drew a long, quavering breath. But would trying for it be worth losing what he had?

  Ariadne was gratified when her father allowed her to precede the others waiting to see him, but she was puzzled when she saw that Minos was completely alone. Then she had to curb an impulse to grin. He was making sure there would be no witnesses if she delivered another unwelcome Foreseeing from Dionysus. Even as the thought came, however, she looked around uneasily, feeling eyes watching. The room was empty, except for themselves—and then her eyes flicked toward the open door of the bedchamber. Had the king sent his scribes and guards there? she wondered, as conventional greetings were exchanged. Why? The question became unimportant in the next moment when she heard the unwelcome news that the Minotaur was growing restless.

  “The Minotaur wishes to be free?” Ariadne asked, shocked.

  Discontent, even a flicker of rage, showed momentarily in her father's normally bland expression. “Your mother still has hopes of teaching him the responses for the year's turning ritual. She has held out the promise of his attending the ceremonies if he will learn, and that put the idea of going out into his mind.”

  Ariadne drew a sharp breath. “But the Minotaur can't give the responses—a son to a mother. The ritual is of mating and beginning life anew—”

  Minos shrugged. “It isn't worth quarreling about. He'll never learn, but now if he can repeat two words he's demanding to be set loose.”

  Phaidra had not mentioned that to her. Ariadne saw again those lowered horns. The idea of her easily enraged half-brother wandering the palace or, worse, the town and farms struck cold to her soul, but she didn't mention his new aggressiveness. She doubted whether her parents would care if the Minotaur hurt anyone who annoyed him. Besides, she had another reason, one that might be more significant to her father, for keeping the Minotaur confined.

  “I hope you'll be able to keep him from roaming free,” she said. “What I've come to tell you is that the Egyptians—”

  “How do you have news of the Egyptians?”

  “From Lord Dionysus, who told me—”

  “Dionysus? But he's gone. Your mother said he comes no more since the Bull God's worship was established.”

  Ariadne smiled. “The queen mistakes my lord's indifference to who is worshiped in Knossos, and even in all of Crete, for absence.” She looked her father hard in the eyes. “You know as well as I that the Bull God has no power to bless vine, grape, and wine. That is my lord's Gift.”

  “As foreseeing is also Dionysus' Gift?”

  “To his sorrow and discomfort, yes. But this matter of the Egyptians is not any Vision. This is only something he learned—that the priests of the sacred bull Apis desire to have the Minotaur in their temple.”

  Minos stirred in his seat. “I hope Lord Dionysus hasn't sent you to tell me to send him there?”

  “No, not at all. I don't now speak as the Mouth of Dionysus, only as a bearer of news. I didn't know you'd heard of this already, but when you spoke of the Minotaur demanding freedom I could see a clear danger. If he were loose, he might be tempted away, or if he were unwilling to go with them and refused and force were attempted ... I don't think they could succeed in abducting him, but I'm sure it would make trouble with the Pharaoh if any priest of Apis or any ambassador should come to harm.”

  Minos stared back hard. He hadn't challenged her about who brought the wine of Crete to such richness, but her knowledge about the priests of Apis seemed to have shaken him. “Little can be hidden from a god, I see,” he said. “An offer has been made. I thought it was a jest. You say it's not. We'll take the problem under consideration.”

  “There's another reason why the Minotaur should be kept at a distance from his worshipers,” she said. “The less contact strangers have with him, the better. His appearance is awesome, but his conduct and conversation aren't. Lord Dionysus also told me that the Athenians, or some Athenians, are protesting against the treaty you wish them to sign because, they say, you worship a false god.”

  That really disturbed King Minos. He half rose from his chair and snapped, “Who said 'false god'?”

  “If you're asking me which Athenians are making a protest, I have no idea. If you're asking me who used the words 'false god,' Dionysus did—and he must know the truth.”

  Minos sank back into his seat. “That's not a rumor that should be spread from the lips of the priestess of Dionysus. Some might say—”

  “King Minos,” Ariadne said coldly, “no mention is ever made of the Bull God in my shrine. What I know—” she hesitated, glancing toward the bedchamber door, but the feeling of being watched was gone “—is mine and my god's. You surrendered me as a daughter to the Lord Dionysus, so I have no blood bond to honor, but I'm still a Cretan and desire the good of the people of this land. Not as Mouth, but as priestess and Cretan, I warn you. Keep your Bull God close and guard him carefully.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Because Ariadne couldn't bear to consider the situation Dionysus' rejection had exposed, she thought about her father's revelations while she ate her evening meal and made ready for bed. She wasn't much troubled by the desire of priests of Apis for the Minotaur or the accusation of the Athenians. She was certain Minos would find all sorts of pious reasons for warding off the priests, and Athenians were always contentious, one group arguing against another. If the treaty was important, Minos would find a way to have it signed. On the other hand, Pasiphae's attempts to pervert the ritual of the Mother were frightening.

  Pasiphae might be self-centered and selfish, but she had been a good queen and an even better priestess before the Minotaur had been born. She'd had a sure instinct for political possibilities and probabilities and a manner mixing arrogance and charm which, combined with her great beauty, enchanted ambassadors. As priestess, she had always known the meaning of every move of the bull dance and could interpret it faultlessly; moreover, when she sat between the sacral horns, she'd been a true avatar of the Mother.

  Ariadne well knew the difference between her role and that of Pasiphae in the worship of the Mother. She was votary, representing all the people, offering prayer and sacrifice and hoping for favor; when her prayers and offering of dance were accepted, she was warmed and protected by the Mother as were all the people. Pasiphae, singing the warnings and promises in the ritual, responding to the male element, was the Mother, imbued for that time with Her Spirit to assure the regular turning of the seasons. But that had been before the Minotaur was born.

  The queen seemed
to have lost both abilities, even common sense, in her determination to prove the Minotaur a god—an utterly hopeless enterprise. Surely eight years of dealing with the poor creature should have taught her that, far from being a god, the Minotaur would never even be a man.

  Ariadne didn't fault Pasiphae for continuing to encourage worship of the Bull God. The political advantages of a resident deity were obvious, and the Minotaur certainly looked godlike. To show him in his chair or even pacing the exposed areas of his temple could inspire awe. To try to bring him into the ritual for the Mother—aside from the blasphemy of implying that mother and son would couple to renew the year—would merely expose him for what he was: a pathetic and deformed creature, a weak-minded monster. If Pasiphae hadn't yet seen that, Ariadne feared for the queen's mind. Perhaps it was time for Minos to—

  Before the thought was complete there was a chill Ariadne felt despite a burning brazier and warm covers. She lifted herself on an elbow and stared at the blackness in the shadow of the niche in the opposite wall. She could see nothing, but she knew that the shadows had formed an implacable face. For reasons she would never understand, Pasiphae was, indeed, sacred to the Mother, untouchable. Ariadne lay down again and closed her eyes. The Minotaur. Everything came back to the poor Minotaur.

  As the Minotaur was the last idea in her mind before she slept, so he was the first when she woke. She remembered that she'd promised to find some pictures and tell him a story about them. She had little inclination to visit him again, but it was better than thinking about Dionysus, making herself accept the fact that he would never take her as full priestess, and deciding what she must do. She thought of sending for the chorus of dancers to fill her time, but it was too cold. Rehearsal must wait until the day grew warmer in the afternoon.