He heard the trapped woman sob. Her anguish tore at his soul. She pulled at the manacle binding her to the oak wall of her prison. Each time he endured this nightmare, Menoetius fell deeper into this woman’s possession. Until she was free, he would suffer and so would the world, in an endless rage of fire.
Scarcely breathing, he strode to the bed, hearing the voice from his dream.
Thou wilt give to her the offering of thy blood.
The command melted into his throat like fresh warm honey.
He uncurled the slave-woman’s hand and placed the apple in it.
It would do.
The training field lay abandoned but for a lone raven pecking in the earth. The sun, just rising, sent beams of light throughout the sky, lending the clouds rosy iridescence. Menoetius spoke soothing words to his Thessalian stallion as he curried it and waited for Chrysaleon. His brother was late. When last he’d noticed, the prince was slumped in his chair, too drunk to keep his eyes open. Disappointment marred Theanô’s lovely patrician face as her hopes for reconciliation and romance faded.
“He won’t come, Argo.” The horse nickered and shook its head as if agreeing. Chrysaleon hadn’t yet learned a warrior’s discipline. Beneath the bragging, talent with a sword and eagerness to confront danger, he remained hardly more than an untried, overprotected boy.
Squinting into the implacable blue of the heavens, Menoetius remembered his time on Crete. The surface image was one of pleasure and spoiled ease, the women absurdly concerned with baubles, face paint, and hairstyles, the lean Cretan men often more lavishly painted than the women. They spent hours oiling their bronze skin, combing their long curls and lounging in the shade with their exotic pets. As a society they seemed to care for nothing so much as beauty in all its forms. From the moment they woke to the moment they fell asleep, they strove to exceed the beauty of the day before.
If any Cretan saw him now, if that child with the black far-seeing eyes, Princess Aridela, saw him, he knew what she would think.
He sensed that, much like the sky above, a mirror disguised what the Cretans displayed to the world and the truth behind it. They were not as shallow and frivolous as they seemed. His instincts told him they could transform swiftly into battle-ready warriors, shrewd judges, cold and pitiless opponents.
Yet the rumors claimed their sharp deadly queen, Helice, had grown dull and lazy in the last six years. Was her island truly ripe for invasion?
At one time he would have prayed to Lady Athene for guidance. But he and Athene parted ways the day the lioness flayed skin from bone. Now Menoetius prayed to no Immortal.
“I dreamed last night,” he said.
The stallion’s ears perked. It lifted its head from grazing. Menoetius saw his face reflected in its liquid brown eye.
“I heard that same voice.”
Thou wilt give to her the offering of thy blood.
Those words left a lingering sense of fear and reluctance, of impending failure.
“The woman was there.”
The steed nuzzled his chest with a velvety nose.
“Manacled in an oak tree. Who is she, Argo?”
By now, her black hair, black eyes and olive-toned skin were as familiar to him as the knuckles on his own hands.
“A phantom.” He snorted. “I search for a dream in every girl I pass, or speak to, or lie with. But none are ever right.”
Argo switched its tail at a fly and blinked to ward off another.
Love words and kisses from the wrong mouth irritated him. The smell never matched what he imagined hers would be. The feel was off. Most nights he spent alone, not always because of his scars.
The voice that whispered in his nightmare didn’t demand blood every time. Once, after he woke and lay shaking, he heard it clearly say, Follow the sacred one, though she travels far and brings grief beyond endurance.
No living person had ever said those words to him. Who was he meant to follow? How would he know her?
The dispassionate promise, grief beyond endurance, left him dreading the future.
Argo stomped one hoof, breaking Menoetius’s reverie. Chrysaleon stumbled across the dirt toward them, head lowered.
“No doubt his night was enjoyable,” Menoetius muttered. “Now he’ll pay the price.” He slapped Argo on the rump, sending him lumbering away. Rubbing his hands, he said, “We agreed on daybreak, and here it is, nearly mid-morning. You’ll suffer an audience to your defeat.” He swept out one arm to indicate the gathered cluster of soldiers.
Chrysaleon’s eyes were red-veined, puffy, his skin pasty. Yet at Menoetius’s words he lifted his chin.
“Babble on, Captain,” he said. “When you lie on your stomach with my knee in your spine, you’ll have a different tone.”
One of the men brought them spiced mead.
Menoetius snorted, remembering something Chrysaleon said a year or so back after a night of hard drinking. You’re the only man who doesn’t lick my boots.
He probably had no memory of making such an incautious speech to the one he loathed more than any other.
In truth, as captain of the king’s guard, Menoetius couldn’t afford to show weakness, not even to his prince. His position and future depended on strength. If he lost the respect of his men, he’d soon be banished, forgotten, no matter how much the king favored him.
Draining his cup and passing it to the soldier, Menoetius began to circle. Chrysaleon moved in the opposite direction.
The prince snatched at Menoetius’s arm. Menoetius twisted, grabbed Chrysaleon’s outstretched arm before he could pull it back and hooked his leg, using the prince’s own momentum to flip him to the ground.
Chrysaleon gasped as he struck the earth. The observing warriors bellowed their pleasure at the swiftness of their captain’s triumph.
Menoetius waited, allowing Chrysaleon to catch his breath and rise, yet that seemed to offend him. With a feral snarl, Chrysaleon barreled headfirst into his brother’s belly. Menoetius fell backward and struck the ground hard. It was his turn to gasp for air.
“You dare coddle me?” Chrysaleon jabbed Menoetius’s groin with his knee.
“Spoiled king’s son.” Exploding pain turned Menoetius’s voice to a hoarse mutter. “You’ll use any means to win.”
Fury butchered Chrysaleon’s usual rough handsomeness and accentuated the ravages of too much drink.
The soldiers shouted and stomped, calling, “Menoetius. Captain. Show him!”
Chrysaleon threw them a squinted glance. His jaw tightened. Anyone but his brother would have missed it.
The old jealousy.
Coiling his legs, Menoetius catapulted the prince off him and sprang to his feet. They circled again, the earlier façade of friendly camaraderie discarded.
“The men look up to me as their captain,” Menoetius said.
“Is that so, bastard?”
“You’re the king’s trueborn son. No one disputes it.”
“Some say Idómeneus wishes you were trueborn.”
“Who says that?”
Chrysaleon lunged. Stepping to the side, Menoetius kicked him behind the knee, causing him to vault awkwardly onto his back. He rolled onto his stomach. Any self-respecting wrestler would now jump on top of the victim and twist his arms into excruciating immobility. A foe could be dispatched in such a vulnerable position with a wrench to the neck.
But as Menoetius straddled his brother for the winning pin, a swoop of dizziness dimmed his eyesight; he lost the ability to know up from down, in from out, east from west.
The lion materialized from a cloud of mist and loped toward him, teeth bared, snout wrinkled. Menoetius froze; he couldn’t even raise his arms in defense. The teeth sank into his stomach as they had many times in nightmare. He felt his body jerk, his flesh rip, his blood gush.
Something changed. The lion blurred, transformed into Chrysaleon, its shaggy mane becoming Chrysaleon’s tawny hair. Wicked teeth merged into a curved sickle. Wielded by his brother, it was
the sickle tearing his stomach.
The dizziness evaporated. Menoetius heard catcalls from the sidelines. Hot sunlight beat against his face. He lay sprawled on the ground, but had no memory of falling.
Chrysaleon stumbled to his feet, scowling at the soldiers. Smears of dirt ran with sweat on his forehead.
Menoetius couldn’t stop shivering. His belly roiled with nausea. Slick sweat covered his face and chest. He felt like a sick old man as he gathered his legs underneath and hoisted himself upright.
He didn’t respond smoothly to Chrysaleon’s lunge, and missed an opportunity to knock him off balance with the heel of a hand to the jaw. Chrysaleon swung his arm wide, fist clenched, toward his brother’s chin, but Menoetius managed to block it with his forearm. Impressively swift, Chrysaleon grabbed Menoetius’s arm with his other hand and stomped on his foot. Menoetius jerked backward, giving Chrysaleon the opening he needed to hook his leg then yank him forward, propelling him facedown to the ground.
Chrysaleon didn’t hesitate. He knelt on his brother’s spine and twisted his arm back. “Here we are,” he muttered. “As I knew we would be.”
Silence fell, stretching outward, encompassing the soldiers, their horses, the sky itself.
Finally, the raven cawed. Time drew breath and moved again.
“Poseidon guides you.” Menoetius sensed the displeasure from the sidelines. A few from his company were there. He felt their anger. They knew him the better wrestler. They didn’t understand. Neither did he.
One of Idómeneus’s generals stood among the group, his expression unreadable.
Chrysaleon panted. Argo neighed. The image of Chrysaleon’s triumphant grin as he ripped out his brother’s intestines hovered on the edge of Menoetius’s awareness.
Increasing the pressure on Menoetius’s arm, Chrysaleon let him know he could break it if he wished.
With a cheerful laugh he jumped off, giving Menoetius a buffet between the shoulder blades. “A decent morning tussle, brother. I feel alive again.”
Menoetius stood.
The sallow tinge was gone, replaced by exultation. Chrysaleon’s eyes sparkled. Menoetius suspected he was now the one who looked as though he’d spent the night drinking.
Throwing an arm around Menoetius’s shoulder, Chrysaleon drew in a deep breath. “It’s early yet.” He turned his head up toward the sun, closing his eyes. “I’ll have Alexiare sneak Theanô away from her father.” Lower, he added, “Cocks need training too—as much as they can get.” He opened his eyes and affected mock sympathy. “That is, when the sight of it doesn’t make a woman puke.”
The warriors crowded around, congratulating Chrysaleon, avoiding Menoetius’s gaze. They pulled the victorious prince away toward the palace, offering their own slave-women if Theanô couldn’t be found.
Soon the field lay quiet. The crimson sun yellowed as it rose higher. Heat wavered among blades of grass. Menoetius sat down, watching the raven peck for insects.
Argo returned and snuffled at his hair.
Rage, so keen it could consume him if he allowed such weakness, crept up his spine, spreading like palsy through his arms and legs.
“He’s heir to the high king’s throne,” he said. “Women fight over him. He’s fathered children and won renown in battle. Yet he is ever jealous of me. The scarred, ugly bastard who can never be any threat. Nothing pleases him as much as my failures.”
Argo made damp, breathy sounds of reply.
“He’ll see me dead one day.”
Menoetius’s throat clenched as the image of Crete came to him again, vividly, as if sent from the gods. He heard weeping. He saw warriors cut down, fire leaping among the olive groves, women shrieking as they tried to escape lust-crazed men soaked in their husbands’ and sons’ blood.
He saw the face of that singular child, Aridela. Heard her giggle when he used the wrong word and said something that made no sense. Recalled the tears pooling in her enormous black eyes the day he sailed for home, tears that glistened and hung like dew on her lashes.
He imagined Chrysaleon yanking her off-balance and dragging her away by the hair.
He realized he was trembling and clenched his fists, trying to regain control.
“Argo,” he said. “What am I to do?”
The stallion made no sound now. It simply gazed, unblinking, at him.
“I wish he’d let the lioness kill me.”
He hated what he owed his brother.
Rising, he led his mount toward the citadel then changed his mind. Such a mood couldn’t tolerate the company of his men. They would avoid the subject of the wrestling, but there would be scorn in the eyes of the youngest, anger or worse, pity, in the eyes of older men who would think he threw the match on purpose to protect his standing.
He stroked Argo’s soft nose. “The vow I made is unbreakable,” he said. “I’m bound to Chrysaleon over any other, by blood and debt. But what if it comes to a choice between him and Aridela, or Selene? Who do I defend?”
The horse watched him, quiet and still, free of any such human concerns, and, in Menoetius’s view, fortunate beyond measure.
Aridela descended the narrow steps on the east side of the palace. The setting sun graced the sky with color and cloud; she would take this as a sign of approval for what she meant to do. But she must hurry. Her nurse would soon start wondering where she’d gone.
Lycus had asked her to meet him. She’d agreed.
Yes, he was a flirt with a reputation as huge as Mount Ida. Every female seemed destined to fall into helpless swoons beneath his invisible power; it didn’t matter if a hundred others had fallen down the same crevasse and met the same fate.
But Aridela possessed a weapon she hoped would save her from complete surrender.
The memory of Velchanos’s promise. Nothing can ever part us.
Those words would guard her. The god wouldn’t allow a mortal to breach their special bond.
She paused at the foot of the stairs. No handsome young man waited for her. She wandered onto the clearing outside the palace precincts.
“Princess.” The voice floated from behind the nearby trellis gate, a stylistic structure formed from the woven branches of grapevines, which framed the entrance to the queen’s arboretum.
She turned, seeing no one. “Lycus?”
“Here, my lady,” the bodiless voice replied.
She was in trouble if the mere sound of his voice caused these surges of excitement.
But, pushing aside fear, she strolled to the gate and offered her gallant a hesitant smile.
He seized her hand. “Walk with me,” he said.
Evening breezes fluttered the leaves overhead, but the sun was sinking too fast. A swallow fluttered, trilling a warning to hurry.
“Halia will raise an alarm,” she said.
He’d clubbed back his long hair, no doubt to better show off his smooth chest and shoulders, strong and hard from years of training, gleaming just now from a light rub of oil. Lycus, his talent unrivaled, stood at the summit of the complex pyramid of bull dancers. Two days past he’d deftly avoided being gored by jumping into a lithesome somersault that took him beneath the bull, in between the deadly stomping hooves. He’d emerged on one side, grinning, while the confused beast peered to the other. The royal bard had already fashioned a song about it.
Lycus wore a simple loincloth and armbands, but the fabric was woven from fine white linen and the bands decorating his wrists were covered with jewels. He was probably as wealthy as the queen, and claimed several beautiful villas, which was quite an achievement for a boy born in the poorest circumstances.
“Then we shouldn’t waste time.” He drew her closer and at the same time maneuvered her against the trunk of a plane tree. “Princess,” he said, putting his face close to hers, twining his fingers in her loose hair. “Long have I wanted to be like this. To touch you, like this.”
Aridela’s heart hadn’t beat so hard since the night of Iphiboë’s moonlit consecration on Mount J
uktas. Her legs weakened; her body seemed to slide like a raindrop down the tree trunk.
He put his hands on her shoulders. She made no protest.
He lowered his face to her throat and offered slow kisses, tasting her with his tongue.
Struggling to keep her breathing even, she murmured, “Unseemly,” but her voice caught and he paid no attention. He traced her flesh with his tongue and somehow, before she could stop him, he’d lifted his mouth to hers.
Something nagged at her. Something she must remember.
“Aridela,” came a shout from the palace steps.
The search was underway.
But she couldn’t find the strength to stop. She only wanted him to hurry, and helped guide his hands.
His pelvis pushed against her tunic; she felt his willingness. All they needed to do was lift the barrier of fabric and they would have what they both wanted.
He buried his face against her neck and bunched the hem of her tunic in his fists.
“Aridela.”
Neoma, her cousin. She sounded annoyed. Shocked.
Lycus stepped away, breathing hard. His expression mirrored how she felt. Why couldn’t Neoma have found them later? Much later?
“Everyone’s looking for you.” A mischievous grin played at the corners of Neoma’s mouth.
One of the lions in the queen’s zoo chose that moment to vent an angry roar.
“Yes, yes,” Aridela said. “As usual.” She stole a glance at her lover. He met it, heavy-eyed. We’ll finish this later, it promised.
“‘Lion of gold from over the sea.
Destroy the black bull,
Shake the earth free.
Curse the god,
Crush the fold,
Pull down the stars
As seers foretold.
Isle of cloud,
Moon’s stronghold,
See your death come
In spears of gold.’”
Old Halia tucked back the draperies at Aridela’s balcony door to encourage the entry of any breeze that might develop, adding, “That is the prophecy, the one you spoke when you were only ten. You used the ancient tongue, which hardly anyone knows, but Themiste understood, as well as one of the council members, who repeated it; others passed it on. By now everyone on Kaphtor knows it as well as we do.” She crossed the room and sat on the bed, giving her charge a benign, partially toothless smile.
The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 19
