The Thinara King

by Rebecca Lochlann

  Aridela couldn’t argue with his reason. She needed to think about what she had seen, what she had heard. Already she was half-convinced she’d imagined it, for his face now held no hint of anything but impatience.

  “It was unfair to accuse you.” She twisted her hands free. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

  She ate a morsel of the bread he offered and accepted a sip of water.

  “This is my fault,” he said. “I’ll go to Araden tomorrow and find you clothing. When you have something to wear, you can help me hunt. You’ve been confined in here too long, without anything to do.”

  She gave a lethargic nod.

  Menoetius was already gone when Aridela woke. She drank a little water but couldn’t make herself eat.

  After stirring the fire, she examined the boots Menoetius was fashioning for her. They were like nothing she had ever seen, for nothing like this had ever before been needed on Kaphtor. He’d cut them high, to the knees, and insulated them with fox fur, inside and out. She couldn’t imagine any chill or moisture cunning enough to penetrate them. Picking up the bone needle and tough intestinal cord, she attempted to finish the work but soon gave up, disgusted with her uneven stitches and leery of ruining his handiwork. She couldn’t weave, much less sew. Working a loom had always been unbearable tedium, and she had never managed to produce anything worthy of hanging on a wall.

  She returned to the pallet, pondering the riddle of Menoetius as she watched the flicker of embers in the fire pit.

  The first thing that came to mind was the agonizing day he had sailed away from Kaphtor. Because she had fallen in love as only a ten-year-old female could, his absence left her inconsolable. It was so easy to fall in love with him, for Carmanor was flawless, his skin smooth, unmarred, his blue eyes as reflective as these cave crystals, his nature affectionate and earnest, his devotion real. She remembered weeping that day until nightfall, and waking from sleep only to weep again. Her head throbbed and her eyes were swollen and red for many days. The desolation of her loss strangled her spirit. Helice came to her chamber with bowls of bread soaked in honey, hoping to renew her child’s interest in eating.

  In time, she had recovered. There came a day, though she couldn’t remember it now, when she didn’t think of him. His image grew vague and new adventures took his place. She had been, after all, ten years old.

  He had returned, hidden inside this bearded, forbidding stranger with the disfiguring scars, his hair cropped short and threaded with gray, lines etched around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. Nothing remained of the god-like youth of her memories, not even his name. Carmanor eluded capture like one of these insidious shadows.

  How had Selene recognized him so quickly? But that wasn’t fair. Selene knew him because she hadn’t forgotten. Because he had been important to her, and maybe because she had been older at the time.

  Because they were lovers.

  Aridela relived the day Selene brought Menoetius into the queen’s pavilion. You goose, she’d said. You don’t recognize the boy who saved your life?

  She protested. I would know Carmanor in the blackest cave. I would know him if my eyes were put out.

  Apparently not, Selene replied.

  She remembered staring angrily into that scarred face, searching for a sign, some detail, hoping to prove Selene wrong.

  But the opposite had happened. Horrified with embarrassment and regret, she embraced him, and in some terrible gift of moera from Athene, she felt, for one awful instant, the claws of the lioness sink into her own flesh as they must have done into his.

  Uncontrollable tears had gushed from her eyes, which even now made her cringe. He’d removed her arms from around his neck. Her pity must have hurt more than anything else she’d done or failed to do.

  Waves of self-blame washed over her as she lay on the pallet in the cave. After that day in the pavilion, she hadn’t improved things with her lover’s blood brother. No doubt she’d made her revulsion clear in countless small ways.

  Now Chrysaleon was dead. Menoetius knew Aridela had encouraged his prince to compete in the Games. If Chrysaleon hadn’t become bull-king, the two men would have returned to Mycenae. Chrysaleon might still be alive. Menoetius must blame her for that as well as everything else.

  You asked him to stay and die in your name. You should have left them alone. Because of you, because of you….

  He is dead because of you.

  Be careful, isoke. Helice leveled Aridela with her sternest gaze. When Iakchos rises, Chrysaleon’s truth will emerge.

  He will honor his vows, Aridela said. You will see.

  Helice’s smile was resigned. Chrysaleon’s child would remind you of him. His child would return him to you in some ways. It might even rekindle life in your heart.

  Or Harpalycus could be the father.

  Which man’s child sprouts in your womb?

  Her mother rose from the lustral basin where her life had bled away. She stared at Aridela, her face and lips white, the skin around her eyes sagging. It was Helice, but she spoke to Aridela with Chrysaleon’s voice.

  Why does this lowly bastard dictate to the queen of Kaphtor? You promised you would win back our country, yet you hide in caves. You shame me. You shame the Lady.

  Aridela woke. She was crouched beside the fire pit, smashing one stone against another. She had no memory of rising from her bed. Her forearm ached as though she’d been striking stones for some time. While she was asleep, the cave shadows had crawled so close they were licking at her feet.

  She dropped the rock and covered her face.

  “My mother. Iphiboë. Isandros. Halia. Laodámeia. The priestesses. All dead. Perhaps Neoma, too, by now. I don’t know about her. I don’t know.”

  She could only imagine how many others had perished, slaughtered during Harpalycus’s invasion. Themiste. Was she still a prisoner? Had she managed to escape, or was she dead?

  Chrysaleon. The gossips were wrong. He was alive.

  Why wouldn’t she bleed? Then she would know her womb was empty, wasn’t growing the offspring of a traitor, a murderer. She stuck her fingers inside, tearing, gouging, trying to cause a rupture, reaching toward the baby in hopes of ripping it out.

  Yet if she succeeded, it would also destroy any chance of bearing a child to Chrysaleon.

  Harpalycus had bragged often enough that he left the Cretan dead to rot where they fell, without a proper burial.

  The anguish was so terrible she thought of walking to the back of the cave and letting the shadows swallow her, but the angry frown on her mother’s face sent her instead to the pallet, where she sat cross-legged and watched the shadows stretch, slink closer then retreat.

  “Harpalycus steals Kaphtor’s riches, defiles our women, murders and enslaves my people. How can Athene tolerate such crimes? Why does she not avenge us?” she asked.

  They answered in their usual hiss. She will do nothing until you rise out of the earth and fight for her.

  The embers in the fire pit subsided without any attention. Near darkness had engulfed the chamber by the time she heard a rustling echo against the walls in the adjoining cavern. Menoetius had returned.

  He straightened as he entered. “It’s snowing,” he said, unstrapping his heavy quilted jerkin and dropping it on the rock floor. Rapidly melting snow frost speckled his hair. He squatted near the fire pit and stirred the embers to renewed vigor. “I’ve brought you a boy’s jerkin and woolen leggings.”

  From the edge of her vision, she saw him glance at her. She hardly heard what he was saying. Earlier, as the embers dimmed, the shadows had crawled over her flesh, and she had breathed them in. Now they were inside her, forming the steps to the door.

  She was so tired. It would take more strength than she had to reply.

  “Look,” he said. From his hunter’s satchel he pulled out the limp, white-furred body of a rabbit. “They were by the stream. Three of them. Ice has melted, and water flows freely in the center.”

  She
turned her head like an old, sick woman, and stared without interest at the rabbit then at the man who had caught it.

  Something on his face pricked her attention. He was pleased with this kill, and hoped she would be pleased, too.

  Like a lover, he offers you his gold and jewels.

  What an odd idea. Probably a remnant from long ago when Menoetius called himself Carmanor. The ill-humored warrior named ‘Menoetius’ was as far from a lover as a man could be.

  “Do you think it an omen?” he asked.

  “In what way?” she asked dully.

  “The villagers said snow fell earlier than it ever has before. They say it is deeper in the mountains than even old women can remember, and it’s driven away the game. They blame the Destruction. They say that since that night, Athene has placed her hand between us and the sun and cut off its warmth. But rabbits wouldn’t be here unless there was food. See? Look at its belly. It has found enough.”

  Any caution Aridela might feel was buried beneath abrupt flaming fury. “Why hasn’t Selene come for us? I want to go home, to fight Harpalycus, to find my consort. I want to see for myself if he’s alive or dead. Curse you for speaking to me of rabbits. I would rather die than live another day in this cowardly fashion.”

  His eyelashes lowered. The familiar scowl reappeared and he laid the rabbit at the edge of the fire pit. “I told you Selene doesn’t know where we are. Chrysaleon is dead. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “We have to go to Labyrinthos.” She fought to make herself sound rational and convincing though inside, she heard herself shrieking. “Now, Menoetius. What is worth fighting for, if not love and freedom? Your disloyalty sickens me.”

  “Do you think Harpalycus has stopped searching for you? No. He seems to care more about finding you than holding Crete, and has stretched his men thin. Yesterday, I watched ten of them not half a day from here. They were using a local man to track us. When no one was looking, he wiped away a footprint I had carelessly left in the snow.”

  His warning swept past her, unheeded. The words were muffled as though submerged in a vat of honey. She knew his reason for speaking them. They would be the basis for his insistence that she remain in this cave another day, another month. An eternity.

  “The Erinyes tear the skin from my bones.” Her voice no longer sounded familiar but raspy and old. “They care nothing for your fears and hesitation.” She scratched at her arms; the scars beneath her nails brought back the pain of the burns. “You take revenge by keeping me from my purpose.”

  He looked puzzled. “You think I seek revenge… on you?”

  “Because I didn’t recognize you.” She spoke with cold emphasis. “I know you’ve hated me because I remind you of how much you’ve lost.”

  Betraying color crept over his face and he broke her gaze. He stared at the floor, hands clenching.

  It seemed an admission.

  “Did Harpalycus command you to imprison me here?” she asked, low but clear. “Out of reach of anyone who would help me? You’re his countryman. Has ugliness stretched your hatred so far?”

  He lifted his gaze. She saw fury and shame combined. His lips were tight, his jaw clenched.

  Her words returned to her mind as though through an underwater tunnel, dark and heavy. Her breath shortened. Her heart skipped and speckles blurred her sight. Who had spoken? She hadn’t intended to say such things.

  He grabbed his jerkin and shrugged into it. He picked up his bow, quiver, and the hunter’s satchel. He crossed to the hole and shoved them through.

  “Menoetius,” she cried. Uncontrollable shuddering racked her and her stomach cramped. “When you’re not here, the shadows gnaw upon me. Menoetius!” She gagged, unable to vomit because her stomach held nothing but blackness that refused to be evicted. “Soon I’ll be dead,” she whispered.

  He didn’t turn or pause. He slipped through and was gone.

  For longer than you can imagine… I will be with you… in you… of you. Together, we bring forth a new world, and nothing can ever part us.

  Strange, to hear the god’s words—Chrysaleon’s words—when Menoetius filled her thoughts.

  Aridela hadn’t set out to attack him. In fact, she had never considered the idea that he could be following Harpalycus’s orders until the words left her mouth. Now she’d said them, she couldn’t cut them from her mind. They echoed with terrifying possibility.

  She must seize the opportunity created by her accusations and make her escape. Shrugging out of the soft tiger skin cloak, she donned the boy’s jerkin and leggings. The shadows thickened in her mind, making it difficult to focus, but she saw, again and again, the expression on his face.

  Menoetius. Carmanor. Her first love. She had adored him and hated herself for being too young, beneath the notice of such a strong, virile youth.

  The leggings felt odd, scratchy against her skin. She pulled on the boots. The soles were finished, though the outside of one still needed about twenty stitches; a leftover scrap of fur shoved into the split would postpone any problems.

  She squeezed through the two clefts and exited the outer cave.

  Snow fell in a blinding squall, carried first one direction then another by mercurial winds. Bitter cold stung her face and almost immediately penetrated the jerkin.

  Slinging a bow and quiver of arrows over one shoulder, Aridela brushed snow from the trunk of one of the cypresses until she’d cleared a strip all the way around. Barbs of gale-driven ice lashed her eyes and face as she found what she was looking for, evidence of frozen lichen on what should be the north side. She staggered into the blizzard, hoping she’d successfully determined east, and Knossos.

  I do your bidding, Mother. I follow your will. Please, please—

  The plea died before it formed. Menoetius would never forgive what she had said. There was no use asking.

  Snow fell like a cold white ocean from a darkly overcast sky. All sound was muffled. There was no way to be certain she’d chosen the right direction. If only the sun would come out, just long enough for her to place it.

  Menoetius’s warning returned. What if this reckless escape sent her straight to Harpalycus’s search parties?

  Surely they wouldn’t be looking for her in such a storm.

  Don’t you trust me? She fancied a thrum of laughter under Chrysaleon’s words. Don’t you know I will protect you?

  She closed her eyes. Show me the way, my love.

  But there was only the swish of snow eddying in the wind. Only Menoetius’s face when she called him ugly.

  Then she heard it. The crunch of deliberate steps. She opened her eyes and stared into the face of a large wild goat, its long, arched horns almost invisible under a coating of snow. It stood the length of a half-grown fir tree from her, staring back, perhaps trying to understand the sight of a motionless human transforming into a snow-drenched pillar.

  Its meat would provide food for a month. But something stopped her even as her half-frozen fingers felt for the bow. Athene. Lady of the wild things.

  Losing interest, the ibex turned and lumbered away. Aridela followed, trying to keep a discreet distance.

  It came to a steep hill, dotted with mounds of stunted juniper bushes and a few twisted pine trees. The beast climbed effortlessly, crossing beneath a curious rock formation that rose high and curved into an arch, like a doorway. Aridela craned her neck to see the rough crown, half hidden in storm fog. Forced to use her hands as well as her feet, she scrambled then slipped backward, unable to secure footing in the slick snow. Almost immediately, the animal disappeared. “Wait,” she cried. “I can’t walk as fast as you,” but wind and a wall of snow stuffed her words back into her throat.

  Eventually, she reached the summit. Snow was falling so copiously by now that she couldn’t see past the length of her arm. She stumbled along the ridge, calling, “I’m here. Where are you? Come back.”

  Iphiboë materialized before her, arms extended. “Aridela!”

  Shock drew Aridela up sho
rt. She tried to blink the snow from her lashes, fighting hope and disbelief. “Iphiboë?”

  Before she could begin to accept this miracle, the image disintegrated into the dark, solid form of Menoetius. Snow caked his hair and beard. He squinted. His mouth lay tense and severe.

  “What are you doing?” Without waiting for an answer, he picked her up like a twig and flung her over one shoulder. “Two more steps and you would have been over the edge. How much would that help your people, you lying dead at the bottom of this gorge?”

  Aridela’s will dissolved as suddenly as it had formed. Stricken by futility, the dream-demands silenced, the only thing she felt with any certainty was the howling chill. Melted snow wet her face and mingled with tears as it ran out of her hair.

  He struggled down the hill, spouting coarse mainland curses. At the bottom she slid off his shoulder, insisting she would walk on her own. They fought their way to the cave through snow that in places rose to their knees. Ice-laced wind buffeted them without mercy.

  As soon as she was in the cave, he turned without a word and left again. When he returned he was dragging a log, pulling it with the help of thick straps over his shoulders. It was so heavy and fat it barely fit through the crawlspace. Breathing heavily, sweating, he still didn’t speak as he fetched a wad of leather strapping from his satchel. He bound one end around the log then seized her hands before she understood his intent.

  He meant to truss her as Harpalycus had done.

  Maddened by scarlet cataracts of rage, Aridela kicked him, sank her teeth into his one of his fingers, and fought to twist free, but she would have been no match for him even when she was strong and healthy. One of his hands was big enough and strong enough to confine both her wrists. His other arm circled her waist, restraining her against his body. She couldn’t help but remember the day he had pinned Chrysaleon to the wall outside the villa; Chrysaleon had struggled too, without success.