Knossos

by Laura Gill

  “Let your sister be, Ariadne.”

  Myrna grabbed her as the witch had done, taking her wrist in order to drag her away. Ariadne whirled around and with her free hand struck the old heifer a blow so hard that the imprint of her hand bloomed scarlet on her cheek. Myrna cried out, but by then Ariadne had darted to the double doors closing the main hall off from the corridor, turned the latch, and dragged them open.

  “Bring him!” The corridor, its walls pulsating, yawned beyond. Bereft of warming braziers, the shadows were cold, and the demons inhabiting that darkness were surely walking abroad. Ariadne could practically hear their footsteps. Without Minotauros to guard her footsteps... No, she was a woman, a high priestess, the mortal vessel of Rhaya herself. She could pass without fear through the blackness. After all, if she was to do battle with the sorceress, she would have to face far greater terrors. “You will do as I command, or I will become an owl and fly from the rooftop to find him.”

  Her women, still caught in the enchantment, stared dumbly at her. Myrna stood open-mouthed with a hand clasped to her cheek. Only Phaedra, hateful little Phaedra, had the wherewithal to move.

  “Go on, then, and jump!” Phaedra dashed halfway to the door after her. Her hair was mussed, her face red and sticky from crying. “I hate you!” She shook her diminutive fist. “I hope you crack your head open and die!”

  Ariadne snorted as she plunged into the icy shadows. Her half-sister could wail, whimper, and wish all she liked, but her will would be thwarted. Ariadne knew her own strength. Not for nothing had her mother called her the Most Holy High One, one of the goddess’s most ancient names. With the immortal gods at her back, no sorceress, no enemy, could stand against her.

  *~*~*~*

  By moonrise, Argurios had resigned himself to the fact that almost nothing had gone according to plan that day.

  He knew that Daikantos would dither and dally about dismantling any section of the Labyrinth, because, etched in the worry lines of his face, he lacked the heart to tear down the work of his father Daidalos. Argurios might as well have done away with him, and hired a more biddable architect to reduce the Labyrinth. Only Daikantos’s unconventional talents kept Argurios from issuing those orders, for regardless of what the priest-architect claimed, he was certain that the man had not forgotten a whit of what he had learned all those years ago as a chariot-maker’s apprentice.

  Argurios rubbed his face with both hands. Despite the brazier, his bedchamber was chilly. Aithalos had tucked a sheepskin around his legs before exiting to go downstairs to fetch mulled wine. Argurios grumbled. Sheepskin rugs were the trappings of invalids, women, and old men. He could not inhale the scent of the fleece and the herbs with which the laundresses treated it without reflecting on his late father. Nestianor would have chided him for even giving thought to reducing the size of the Labyrinth. “You were always excessively pious,” Argurios muttered to the embers glowing in the brazier, and to whatever ghosts might be lingering.

  And now, this business with the young Lady of the Labyrinth and the day’s river excursion. Word of Ariadne’s willfulness and disturbing fixation on the youth Keos unsettled him. How had Alaia managed to so thoroughly botch his instructions? All she had had to do was smile, be charming, and behave herself. Who had granted her permission to add her worthless son to the party?

  As their legal guardian, and lacking daughters of his own, he could arrange the lives of Pasiphae’s daughters as he saw fit. Ariadne should have been exposed at birth, or at least smothered when her lunacy manifested itself. As Alektryon had demonstrated decades ago, priestesses were more expendable than livestock. Not Ariadne, though. She was touched by Dionysus, and Argurios knew from anecdotes what happened to those who denied the god his due. Only a generation ago, a king’s wife in Thebes had lost her mind and torn her own young son to shreds after her husband had banned the god’s cult. And recently, another king’s daughters had been driven insane after he refused them permission to dance with the god in the wilderness. Not even the priests of Payawon Apaliunas were able to cure them.

  Argurios was not about to tangle with Dionysus. If he could not eliminate Ariadne and remove the headache of her existence altogether, then he could banish her to some remote peak sanctuary where her tantrums and oddities would not trouble anyone.

  Precocious young Phaedra, on the other hand, was maturing into quite the lady. Provided she remained biddable, and once she flowered, Argurios could install her as high priestess to check Wordeia’s ambitions. Or she might make an advantageous marriage.

  Aithalos returned with the mulled wine. Following him were two retainers escorting a woman in a shawl. The sight of her roused Argurios’s anger anew.

  He growled, “Leave us.” Once the door to his apartment closed, he flung off the sheepskin, seized the woman, and jerked her toward him, dragging away her shawl to clutch a handful of her hair. “What in the name of Hades did you think you were doing, thrusting your son before the young lady? Simple instructions, slut. I gave you simple instructions, and you botched them.”

  Caught off balance by his violent movements, Alaia stumbled. “No, Minos, you misunder—”

  Argurios slapped her hard enough to whip her head to one side. “I have agents everywhere, so do not lie to me.” Alaia winced. “You presumed to include your son among the rowers—young noblemen I personally selected to entertain the ladies—and you promoted your son as the young god.” He tightened his grasp, eliciting a whimper. Tears of pain spilled from Alaia’s eyes. A bruise was forming on her cheek.

  “No,” she groaned. “The sixth oarsmen, he—he never came.” Her breathing became labored as her hair started to split from her scalp. “There was no one else. And I...I never—ah!—never said, never told anyone Keos was a god...” Her fingers clutched haplessly at his wrist, urging release, until with his free hand Argurios thrust them away. He would decide when she had been sufficiently disciplined, and thus far she had not explained herself to his satisfaction.

  “Please!” she cried out. “The lady said he was a god, the young god. I tried to discourage her, but she would not, she...”

  Argurios maintained his hold on her hair as he leaned in to breathe hotly in her ear. “Then why does she demand to have Keos delivered to her, and to see you executed for sorcery?”

  “Sorcery?” Alaia’s voice quavered. She was crying freely now. Argurios had never seen her lose her composure, and almost regretted the necessity of disciplining her thus. A lowborn scribe’s wife could not leave chaos behind her without consequences.

  On the other hand, although that sow Myrna had complained incessantly about the impropriety of a common adulteress attending the sacred daughters of the Labyrinth, the noblemen had not. In fact, after complimenting Argurios on his choice of woman, they unanimously agreed that Alaia and her son had behaved as well as possible under the circumstances.

  So Argurios released her, to allow her to crumple sobbing at his feet. “Stop your blubbering, woman. Did I say I would give you to her? A touch on the wrist and a common sense reprimand is hardly evidence of witchcraft.” When his mistress failed to respond as expected, but continued to sob and clutch her head, he reached down and hauled her upright again. “Did you hear me? I told you to stop wailing.”

  Fear writ large in her eyes, Alaia nodded nonetheless. Argurios guided her to his own chair, sat her down, and tucked the sheepskin around her while she sat frozen. “We are still friends,” he said. The jar of wine and two cups sat on the inlaid table where Aithalos had deposited them. “Come, let us drink wine together and enjoy each other’s company.” Reprimanding her had given him a thirst, and her vulnerability, which reminded him somewhat of their first time together, when she had demurred and cast her eyes to the floor, stirred an unanticipated desire in his loins. Now that she was here, perhaps he would enjoy her before sending her home.

  Mixing wine in the cups, he asked, “So how did you find the little ladies of the Labyrinth?”

  Alaia swallowe
d. “How did I...?” Had Ariadne summoned a demon to steal the woman’s tongue? Argurios wondered. He fought the temptation to shake her. “I did not expect...”

  “Ariadne?” he finished, as he brought the cups over. “You must have found her to be undisciplined and rather unhinged. The priestesses of Dionysus told me that their god has touched her with sacred madness. Why do you think no one has ever beaten her?” He drank deeply, savoring the warmth of the spiced and honeyed wine, while noticing how Alaia did not touch hers.

  “Of course,” he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “you will have done as I commanded and not gossiped about her strange behavior to your neighbors.”

  Although she nodded, Alaia’s unfocused gaze gave the impression that she was not paying attention. Argurios started to raise a hand to slap her, before reconsidering. “In the meantime,” he said, “I have sent Keos to distract her.”

  That, she heard. “What?” Setting her wine clumsily aside, Alaia started to shove away the sheepskin. “But, Minos, she thinks he is the young god, but he is only a scribe’s apprentice. She will—”

  “Not believe anything anyone tells her.” Argurios’s firm hand on Alaia’s shoulder prevented her from rising. Not even Minotauros could have convinced Ariadne to the contrary. “Did I not tell you when you arrived that Ariadne had demanded Keos’s presence? What you saw today was nothing compared with the heights of madness she is capable of reaching, and gods forbid she should harm herself or others during one of her fits. Not to worry, her attendants will school your son in how to behave with a daughter of the Labyrinth before they present him.” Argurios chuckled. “From what I have heard of your son, he will not find the work difficult. He has only to charm her with sweet words and part her legs, I presume, and all well be well.”

  When Alaia did not relax as he wished, Argurios exerted pressure, compelling her to sit down again. The worry lines etched on her face aged her. Wine and sex should cure her fretting. “Drink, woman. Empty your cup, then unfasten your clothes and climb into bed for me. I am not about to send you home in this state.”

  *~*~*~*

  “Gaze into her eyes only when given leave, and speak only when addressed,” the priestesses told him. “Remember always, she is a daughter of the Labyrinth, a child of the goddess. You must not offend.”

  Keos had spent the last hour in a welter of confusion. After the Minos’s men had collected his mother, which was a common enough occurrence that the family ceased commenting on it, two priests from the Labyrinth unexpectedly came for him.

  Wedaneus attempted to question them, then, when that failed, to refuse them his eldest son. “If he has committed an act of blasphemy, then I as his father should know and bring him to you for correction.” Keos marveled at the fact that his father was actually raising his voice, and not standing aside as he always did when the Minos demanded his wife. “But if you will not explain, then you may not have him.”

  The first priest, a bull of a man, tried to intimidate his way through the front door. “And you are a sacrilegious fool. Priests of the Labyrinth answer to no one. Stand aside, unless you want to be charged with blasphemy.”

  Wedaneus refused to budge. Keos might have found the juxtaposition of his gangly father barring the doorway from the big priest funny had he not been so apprehensive. It must have something to do with that morning’s excursion and the imbecile maiden from the Labyrinth, but, wishing himself invisible, he was afraid to open his mouth and ask.

  “There is no blasphemy in a father protecting his son,” Wedaneus stated firmly. “Keos will go nowhere unless you do me the courtesy of explaining what he has done to offend the priesthood, and what you intend to do with him.”

  Finally, the second priest shoved his way forward and said, “Scribe Wedaneus, your firstborn son has committed no crime. Quite the opposite, in fact. He has found favor with the Lady of the Labyrinth. She has summoned him to her chambers.”

  Wedaneus was taken aback. “At this hour?” He expelled a breath, though he did not back down from the doorway. Keos contemplated running. That infernal girl wanted to see him? “Why did you not say so in the beginning? Yes, of course. He will come straightaway.” Glancing aside, he called Keos forward. “Wear a cloak, young man, and remember your manners.”

  Wrapping himself in the mantle Philomena handed him, Keos went into the night with the priests. The first priest said nothing, but the second was more gregarious. “You are a very fortunate youth, Keos.” He sounded almost friendly. “How often is a common scribe’s boy privileged enough to enter the holy places of the Labyrinth?”

  When Ariadne was part of the bargain, the privilege seemed more like a punishment. Moreover, Keos could not see much of the famed Labyrinth in the darkness. He got the impression of a massive complex of wood and plaster and stone, a series of shadows blacker than the blackness of the night, a behemoth swallowing him whole. The priests hustled him along a corridor whose walls were populated with frescoed bulls, priestesses, and offering bearers who, in his fleeting peripheral glance, appeared to move with the flickering play of light and shadow cast by the oil lamps occupying the infrequent wall niches. The air was cold—more so, Keos thought, than outside.

  Only when the priests turned a corner, then another, and led him into a vast, empty courtyard did Keos have a better sense of the Labyrinth. Hanging lamps sputtered along porticoes and in windows two and three stories above. It might have been a comforting sight had there been others abroad at that late hour; the temple complex struck him as desolate as a necropolis.

  High above, silhouetted against a half-moon, he saw a crenellation of horns of consecration, and remembered, shuddering, that the Labyrinth was a place of sacrifice. Did Ariadne in her madness mean to sacrifice him once she was finished with him? The stories all agreed that was what happened to the year-consort after the goddess conceived—he was killed, and his blood and bones were ground up to nourish the fields. Replaying in his mind the route they had taken, Keos thought he remembered the way out, and tried again to calculate how far he could run before being captured.

  “Am I to be sacrificed?” His breath billowed back in his face as white smoke.

  The first priest’s exclamation reverberated around the court. “Did we say you were bound for the altar?” Keos shook his head. Would no one give him a straight answer? “Then stop worrying and asking questions, and set your mind to pleasing the young lady.”

  Had these men ever seen Ariadne? Keos would rather have bedded the wrinkled old nurse.

  Descending from the court, the priests urged him through a squat portico and up a staircase so broad that it could accommodate three men abreast. At the next landing the priests hustled him into a chamber where the air was fragrant and sultry with steam, and, to his astonishment, a dozen bare-breasted women welcomed him.

  So taken aback was he that he failed to notice the priests withdrawing. His gaze alternated from one woman to another, until one, a handsome lady with sloe eyes and lush curves, approached and took his hand. “I am Helike, priestess of Dionysus,” she purred. “You must be Keos.”

  Realizing that he had just been ogling a consecrated priestess, Keos’s surprise turned to shame. In fact, all the women, painted and garbed alike, were priestesses. He averted his eyes, and started to stammer an apology when Helike led him to a terracotta tub full of steaming water.

  “Are you so shy, then?” Helike’s fingers caressed his homespun belt as if she had already loosened his clothes and had him in hand. Her lighthearted question elicited furious blushing from him and soft laughter from the other priestesses. “We were told you had much experience with women.”

  Girls his own age, Keos wanted to say, not with self-assured women like her. She probably knew ten thousand different ways to give and receive pleasure. Keos would not have minded half an hour with her, if only her companions would leave. Then he chided himself for entertaining such thoughts about Dionysus’s priestess, because he had no doubt that in the L
abyrinth the gods could hear every sacrilegious musing. “I-I suppose,” he mumbled.

  They bathed and anointed him, oiled and curled his hair, and dressed him in a kilt embroidered with gold thread. Before he had even left the bath, the novelty of being attended by a dozen good-looking women wore thin, becoming less and less sensuous and more and more humiliating, as though he were a doll to be played with, arranged, and commented over, until it was all he could do not to snap at them to leave him be.

  Helike alone appeared to notice his growing discomfiture. “Would you care for some wine?” While the other priestesses had been dressing him, she had been mixing the amethyst-dark liquid into a cup which she now held out to him. “The gift of Dionysus loosens inhibitions and fosters pleasure. You can be sure that the young lady will partake of this blessing.”

  Keos stared at the proffered cup. A part of him cried out yes, he could not perform without the god’s help, while another, more cautious part warned him against losing his inhibitions and giving voice to his true sentiments. And invoking the wine-fueled aspect of Dionysus might perhaps call forth the god’s other, maddening, sacrificial aspects. “Later, perhaps.”

  When the priestesses at last deemed Keos’s acceptable for presentation, Helike ordered them aside, gave him a quick schooling in the etiquette of the Labyrinth, and then, licking her lips, a final inspection. “A morsel fit for the offering,” she proclaimed. His heart lurched when she said that. She pinched his cheek. “Smile! You look as grim as a victim headed for the altar.” Tsk-tsking him, she retrieved the wine cup. “Take this and drink.”

  “I am not the young god,” he croaked. “If there is a knife waiting—”

  “Hush.” She set a cautionary finger against his lips. “Any man who beds with a daughter of the Labyrinth is the young god. But this is not the season for Dionysus and bloodletting, only for Velchanos and plowing the field.” As she said this, her meticulously plucked eyebrows met in a frown. “It is getting late, Keos. We cannot keep the lady waiting. Finish your wine.”