She said, “The men of Argolis are like the land from which they spring. Strong, tempered. Powerful, like the bulls of Kaphtor, yet disarmingly passionate. I knew one of you, once. He, too, was armored, and kept his true nature private.”
Harpalycus’s expression of triumph disintegrated into a scowl.
Fearful of the strength of her own half-forgotten memories and desires, Aridela stood. Motioning to Iphiboë, she turned away in time to catch Helice staring at them from across the room.
What a strange expression the queen wore. Aridela hoped she hadn’t roused her mother’s dagger-edged suspicions. Her anxiety increased as Helice beckoned.
“Is it time to go, Mother?” she asked.
Helice drew her daughters away from prying ears. “You were talking to the barbarian prince,” she said. Her voice, low but sharp, demanded truth.
Aridela answered easily. “He was currying favor. He is handsome, though, don’t you think?” She glanced back at Harpalycus. He’d returned to his own table, but continued to watch them. “Do you think so, Iphiboë?”
Iphiboë shrugged and peered longingly at the doorway.
Helice’s speculative frown didn’t diminish. “Where will you go?” she said, turning toward Iphiboë.
“Selene will be with her,” Aridela said. “She won’t be alone.”
Helice grabbed Iphiboë’s forearm. “Are you going to hinder the rite?”
“Has someone accused me of such a thing?” Iphiboë asked, her voice trembling.
“I have heard you intend to hide where no man can find you.”
Aridela stepped in, giving Iphiboë no chance to dissolve into incriminating tears. “This was my idea, and it comes from Goddess Athene’s own direction. I’m convinced Iphiboë must wait in a special place tonight. Three times in the last month I’ve dreamed of her going secretly in the dark to the Cave of Velchanos. Every time, I wake feeling content, as though something wondrous is achieved.”
“It would take half the night to go so far. Is that your purpose, Iphiboë? I well know your fears. Long ago I decreed you need not do this. But you cannot continue declaring your intent to take part then causing an uproar with your refusal at the last moment.”
“She isn’t doing that, Mother,” Aridela said. “Let me explain. When we were hunting in the mountains, I listened and watched for signs, like Themiste taught me. One afternoon, when I foraged ahead of the others, swallows rose in a cloud from the trees. I explored further to see what frightened them, and came to a clearing.” Her mother made an impatient movement; Aridela took her hand. “Mother, listen to me. At the edge of the clearing was a cave. Exactly in the center of the cave’s mouth sat an owl, on a stone. It didn’t fly away but gave voice, as though to make certain I saw it. Then it did fly, but not into the forest. It flew into the cave. Athene has a plan for Iphiboë. It will unfold perfectly if we follow her instruction. All things are magnified in a cave. Iphiboë’s experience will be blessed beyond measure, I’m certain of it.”
Helice paused. When she spoke, her voice was calmer. “Velchanos’s cave is powerful. Only the boldest of men would enter there. Still….” She scanned the crowded chamber. “Go into the corridor. I’ll be there in a moment. There’s something I must do.” She walked away, her stride purposeful.
“I was so afraid, Aridela,” Iphiboë said. “I thought she knew everything and would force me to go without you. Then you told her. But you did it so skillfully you soothed her suspicions. I never knew you to be so accomplished at lying.”
“I didn’t lie. I only left out one detail—that I will be with you.”
“Why were you speaking to the prince of Tiryns that way? You wanted to tell him where we were going, too. Who did you mean, when you said you knew someone from there?”
“Carmanor. Have you forgotten?”
They left the chamber, stepping into the passage beyond. “Oh,” Iphiboë said. “I did forget. He and I barely spoke, after all.”
“So much time has passed. Who knows where he is, or if he’s even still alive?”
“This is the second time you’ve mentioned him today.”
“I hadn’t thought of him in a long time until this morning. Perhaps all these foreigners who’ve come for the Games reminded me. Harpalycus especially. The citadel of Tiryns isn’t far from Mycenae.”
“I can’t even remember what Carmanor looked like.”
“His hair was like a fall of dark water, and his eyes the color of the heavens at the summit of Mount Ida.”
“That sounds like a love song.”
Laughing and blushing, Aridela waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t tease me. Perhaps, in truth, what I mark is the retreat of our childhoods into the past. Tonight, depending on what our Lady has planned, everything may change. Tomorrow could herald a completely new Aridela and Iphiboë.”
“Yes.” Iphiboë’s eyes clouded and her shoulders slumped, the gesture so faint anyone else would miss it.
Their cousins Neoma and twelve-year-old Phanaë, followed by the oracle Themiste, entered the passage from the feasting hall. They all lit torches and began the processional walk. Selene and about twenty priestesses converged with them. Dancing light brought the frescoes along the walls to life; the paintings of women and men seemed to join the line, their eyes brilliant with what could be anticipation. More priestesses, garbed in ceremonial white robes, waited at the north gate. Two held the traditional wine rhyton, as tall as they, its neck set with ivory and agates.
Helice appeared from one of the side corridors, resplendent in her golden diadem and finery. The party moved northward, through Knossos, toward the port of Amnisos.
Deep twilight offered cool air and the soothing hum of cicadas and cricket song. Helice led the procession along a narrow path laid with matched stones.
The queen alone walked with her head uncovered. Her black hair, touched at the temples with fine strands of silver, fell loose to the small of her back. The priestesses who followed carried spindles and doves carved from ivory. One balanced a basket of live serpents on her hip and another led a small white calf.
The procession came to Eleuthia’s Cave and entered the opening behind the ritual stone. Two priestesses lit lamps while the others formed a circle around Helice. The ceiling glistened with wet stalactites and light played between well-formed stalagmites. In Athene’s cave-womb, love of mating and fertility was clear to behold.
The lamps were set into wall niches. All lifted their arms and chanted.
“Alcmene, anathema,
anemotis Cali-cabal Iakchos
Calesienda.”
A priestess led the bull calf to the altar and bound its legs with leather thongs.
The singing, flicker of light, and close walls of stone added to the power of the libations. Aridela imagined their voices saturating the rocks, escaping through fissures, soaring to the heavens and merging with the stars.
Spiritual ecstasy heated her blood, magnified by the fertility of the cave and the alchemy of the concoction.
Iphiboë stepped forward and lifted a long dagger.
“Anathema,” the women chanted as she approached the calf on the pyre.
“Potnia, here is your daughter,” Helice intoned. “Come before you, ready to offer her womb. Fructify her as you do the harvest.”
Nothing broke the silence now but the intermittent trickle of water. Even the calf lay still. Deep in the visionary spell, Aridela thought she could see Athene’s white hand covering Iphiboë’s, guiding the blade to the calf’s throat.
Blood soaked into the hallowed ground.
“Calesienda!” burst from a dozen mouths.
The rite finished, the night prepared, the women returned to Labyrinthos. At the north entrance, they circled Iphiboë.
“Go with Laphria Athene,” Helice said, embracing her. “May Velchanos choose for you a youth pleasant of face and kind of heart.”
Each of the women kissed the princess. Helice sounded the gong that allowed the palace
and city-dwellers to roam freely. Phanaë, being too young to take part, was sent to her chamber with a handmaid; Neoma smugly waved as she ran off with a few of her friends.
“Come, Aridela,” Helice said, clasping her daughter’s forearm. “Inside, with me.”
Aridela risked a brief glance toward Selene before following her mother and Themiste.
“I’ll pray for Iphiboë before I sleep, Mother,” she said.
“I’ll never manage to sleep. I hope this night brings an end to her fear at last.”
“Lock your door, Aridela,” Themiste said.
Aridela kissed her mother then started down the corridor. “Wait,” Themiste said. “I’ll walk with you.” She joined Aridela, adding, “We must post a guard. Better to be safe on a night when men follow instinct rather than good sense.”
Aridela silently cursed but continued on, setting her ingenuity to working out a different way of escape.
What took so long?” Selene helped Aridela up the steep incline.
“Themiste. She’s in my chamber. She wanted to give me her personal protection.”
“How did you get away?” Iphiboë asked.
“I gave her wine and played a long, soothing lullaby. Luckily, she hasn’t been sleeping well and was tired. It was a matter of waiting then climbing over the balcony and using the vines to climb down the wall.”
“Aridela.” Iphiboë gasped. “You could have fallen.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Cover your heads,” Selene said. Pulling hoods close around their faces so anyone who saw them would think them priestesses, the trio descended into the labyrinth, using lamps to guide their way. The meandering corridors beneath the palace were always eerie, but now, yawling black shadows oozed from every angle, and the faint scuffling of rats and echoes of their footsteps made Aridela’s hair stand on end. Forever drawn to the scent of their own blood, the shades of kings watched from the depths. Iphiboë whimpered and kept an icy, pincer-like hold on her sister’s hand.
They crept lower, edging past the enormous support pillars sprinkled with sacrificial blood to keep them strong during the Earth Bull’s angry pitching. From somewhere in the darkness came the soft regular sound of dripping water.
“Are we lost?” Aridela fought off vertigo, both from the effects of the cara mushroom and the leaping shadows.
Selene shook her head. “I marked the path earlier.” She pointed; a crimson thread ran along the floor, stretching away into the dark.
In time they came to a low-ceilinged narrow passage that slanted upward. This led to a chamber lined with clay jars, taller than men and as wide as the palace’s foundation pillars. At the far end they struggled to open a door sealed by dirt, cobwebs and age, and at last emerged into a cave.
“The cart’s outside,” Selene said.
They worked their way through a mere slit of an opening, hidden from the outside by stones and weeds. Cool night winds keened, bringing a sense of endless, refreshing space, welcome after the stuffy, clammy dark and twisting confinement of the underground.
Over a slippery spill of scree and down a grassy slope lay the well-worn road, running north toward Eleuthia’s cave by the sea, and east, to the cave of Velchanos. Iphiboë pulled the cart from its hiding place behind some boulders; Selene untethered the goats and strapped them into the harness.
Dizziness caused the star-spotted bowl above to swoop and spin. In the east, the half-moon smiled and winked.
Befuddled with wine and cara, none could decide at first which direction they needed to travel, and fell into fits of giggles.
Selene finally determined the way by examining the stars. The three climbed into the cart and sent the goats trotting along the road. Selene brought out a pouch of crushed cara and a wineskin she’d stashed in the cart.
Aridela refused. “I wish I hadn’t taken any,” she said. “I came to help you, Iphiboë, yet the cara makes me long for something more. I regret not sharing the secret with Lycus. He could be with us right now.”
“I’ve never longed for a man,” her sister returned.
Selene leaned against Iphiboë’s shoulder. “Chew more cara. You’ll burn for one.”
The goats tried to leave the path in search of grass. Aridela flicked her cane at them, urging them onward. “While you give yourself to the rite, I’ll dream of the god himself, lying with me as he did in my vision on the holy mountain. After him, no mortal man will ever be more than a faded imitation, like a painting of barley. Pretty, but unable to fill the stomach.”
“Tonight, Iphiboë, you’ll know a lover for the first time,” Selene said. “I pray Our Lady chooses well, for it will shape how you feel for your partners throughout your life. No matter what, Aridela and I will be there. You won’t be alone. There’s nothing to fear.”
Her loose pale hair, glimmering earrings, her fluttering white gown and prophetic words combined with night turned Selene into an apparition from the land of shades. Aridela shivered.
They went on awhile in silence then Selene said, “I remember when I came to Kaphtor. My duty was to teach Iphiboë our ways. You weren’t meant to be my student, Aridela.”
“You called me puny.”
Selene laughed. “Are you still angry about that? You were quite small, you must admit. You’re not much bigger now. But you showed me what you could do. You won my respect. You forced me to apologize for that judgment.”
“I hated how you dismissed me. You decided just by looking at me that I would never have any worth. But I’m grateful for all you taught us. Like how a man can be overpowered, even if he’s bigger and stronger. The secret ways.”
Iphiboë repeated Selene’s patient instruction. “‘Our greatest strength lies in our minds. An inventive mind can triumph over any man, even a giant.’”
“It’s true,” Selene said. “Neither of you will ever have the strength of a man, especially you, Aridela. Even a small man could best you, if it came to a battle of physical strength alone. There’s no use being angry about it; it’s the truth.”
At one time such a statement would have sparked a terrible rage. Now, Aridela simply smiled. “I must be smarter.”
“And you are, both of you. Aridela wanted to come with us tonight. She found a way to succeed, even with the Minos in her bedchamber.”
“Surely Athene brought you to us so long ago.” Aridela pulled Selene into a hug, resting her cheek against her friend’s. “Promise we three will always be together, that we’ll remain true to each other.”
“I am yours,” Selene said, “in this life, in death, and in every endless circle hidden from us.”
“Oh, Aridela.” Iphiboë wiped at her eyes. “Your understanding has meant much to me through the years.”
“Can these beasts not go any faster?” Selene plucked a clump of mushroom from her bag and chewed it. “I feel the night growing old.”
Aridela obligingly spurred the goats with a touch of the cane.
In due course, they arrived at the cave plateau and re-tethered the goats so they could graze. It took time to locate the entrance in the dark, hidden as it was by a bushy grove of trees and strewn boulders; they ended up climbing over a ridge of loose stones, having lost the path in the dark. All three giggled when Aridela slipped, slid, and waved madly to catch her balance, but almost immediately after, Iphiboë lost her balance too, and tumbled. A flurry of stones and dust followed in her wake.
“Iphiboë,” Aridela cried.
A moan floated from the darkness below. Selene and Aridela scrambled down to find Iphiboë at the bottom of the knoll, her leg twisted, her spine lodged against a tree trunk. The knee protruded at a sickening angle.
“I can put it back,” Selene said. Aridela cupped her sister’s cheeks and turned her face away while Selene shoved the joint into place. Iphiboë screamed.
Selene and Aridela looked at each other over Iphiboë’s head, knowing the other’s thoughts. She cannot complete the rites.
“It isn’t my fault.”
Iphiboë sobbed.
Aridela rubbed her hand. “Shh, isoke, it’s no matter.” After a moment she rose, motioning to Selene.
“What shall we do?”
Selene shook her head. “We’ll have to get her back to the cart and take her home. The healer should see her. Everyone will know what happened.”
“Complete the rites for me, Aridela,” Iphiboë cried.
Aridela knelt again, taking her sister’s hand.
“You aren’t afraid like I am.” Iphiboë gripped Aridela’s fingers tightly. “As future queen of Kaphtor, I make you my surrogate. Mother’s done it many times when bearing a child wasn’t convenient. I have this right. In my name, you will lie with whatever man Athene sends. It will be the same as though I did it myself.”
Aridela resisted the urge to snatch her hand away. Had Iphiboë fallen deliberately? For her sister, injury might well be easier to bear than lying with a man.
How would the foolish girl ever rule Kaphtor with anything near Helice’s grace and dignity?
She and Selene helped Iphiboë up. They provided the support to get her over the rocks. There was nothing they could use as a stretcher, nothing that would work as a binding. It was a painful journey; Iphiboë sobbed the entire way.
At the high arch of the cave mouth, they paused to catch their breath, inhaling hints of old smoke from pine torches, which lingered long at this holy place.
The Cave of Velchanos contained the prayers, hopes and dreams of women from time immemorial.
Aridela stared into the gaping black entrance, unable to see anything, but sensing her destiny inviting her in. She could almost, if she tried, hear an echo of worshipful song and thud of dancing feet.
Aridela lit one of the clay lamps stored on a shelf inside the cave. Slowly, she and Selene helped Iphiboë over the rocks, off the first ledge, and down more levels. Eventually they came to a circular chamber deep in the cave’s recesses, which contained stacks of dried-grass pallets and other supplies.
The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 24
