The small space outside my brother's chambers was filled with a dozen soldiers, some of them holding blazing torches. Idiots! Hadn't they learned? Some were jabbing their spears through the door, while others shouted and shook their fists. The light from the torches made Asterion's shadow, already distorted, stretch and bob and dance across the wall behind him.
I squeezed between my mother and the Minos, then made my way through the crowd. When I shoved one of the armed men aside, he turned as if to strike me but quickly lowered his eyes at the sight of She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess. Another man noticed me, and then another, and one by one they fell silent.
"Asterion!" I called. He caught sight of me and stretched out one hand in my direction, moaning. His other hand grasped the Athenian maiden's slender wrist. Although she was ashen, no blood was visible. She was even taller than she had appeared from my hiding place above the harbor, although my brother towered over her.
"Go upstairs!" I commanded the soldiers. They hesitated, and a few started to protest. I cut them short. "And take those torches with you! Don't you know he's afraid of fire? Leave me a small lantern." They obeyed. The Minos followed them and then my mother, who shot me a glance that said, "Be careful."
When the small antechamber was empty, I sat down on the floor. "They're gone, brother." He moaned again, and the sound broke my heart. He threw his free arm over his head and roared at the ceiling. I forced myself to sit quietly and wait until his wits, such as they were, returned to him.
My brother had never tried to hurt me. He had not been allowed even to touch me until one day when I toddled away from my dozing nursemaid, Korkyna, and was found, hours later and after a frantic search, asleep on his lap. Asterion had still been a child himself then, though already nearly as tall as a grown man, and he was terribly strong. Korkyna had fainted at the sight of me curled up on my brother's knees, his misshapen head bent over my face. She had thought he was going to eat me, but he nuzzled me and then kissed my forehead.
"What do you have there?" I tried to sound only half interested. Asterion blinked his confusion. I indicated his left arm still stretched behind him, the muscles in his powerful shoulder bulging. The poor girl's wrist would be bruised, if not broken, by that grip.
Asterion looked over his back and seemed surprised to see what he was holding. She opened her mouth. "Don't speak," I said quickly. "Keep still." She started to nod, then clearly thought better of it and sent me a look of comprehension instead. Good. Intelligence as well as beauty. No wonder the Minos was so eager to have me save her.
"That's not yours," I said. Asterion looked from me to the girl and back again. His face, already misshapen with bulging eyes and bony bumps and ridges, grew even uglier as it wrinkled. The girl closed her eyes.
I knew my brother didn't agree. What found its way into his chamber was his, whether it was food or a rat or an Athenian princess. "No, she isn't," I insisted. "She belongs to the Minos. He wants her back."
Asterion pulled the girl around in front of him, where he clutched her tightly, her face to his chest. I started to rise, then forced myself to sit back down, hoping she could breathe. "When you give her to me, I'll go talk to Cook and see what he can send you." I knew better than to say if Asterion re-leased her, which would imply that he had a choice.
He loosened his hold slightly, and the girl tilted her head back to take a breath. "I wonder what you would like." I looked up to the ceiling, pretending to consider. Asterion licked his lips, his gaze fixed on me. "I think I saw some..." I drew it out, and he leaned forward, his eyes shining. "I think I saw a pot of honey." His groan was of delight this time. "Yes, I saw some honey, and I think Cook was saving it for the Minos, but when you give me the girl I'll tell him that he has to let you have it instead." Asterion loosened his grip a little more. The girl swiveled her eyes toward me, her brown hair plastered to her head with her sweat or his, or both.
Our mother hated it when Asterion ate honey. He always wound up covering himself in the stickiness, and as he feared water almost as much as he feared fire, it would take me hours to clean it off him. If I didn't, he'd soon be covered in ants, and his roaring as he tried to pull them off with his clumsy fingers would disturb everyone in the palace. But it would be worth it if I could free that girl before he broke something in her slim body.
I stood up and shook out my skirt. "I hope the Minos hasn't eaten it already. He looked hungry when I came in."
Asterion made an impatient sound.
"No, I won't go look. I have to take the girl with me or he'll say that you can't have her and the honey. One or the other."
In the end it was that simple. Honey or the girl, and he chose the honey. I held my breath while he considered, afraid that another word or move on my part would make him squeeze her again. But then he released her. He watched sadly as she glided toward me, eyes fixed on the ground. I had been afraid that she would break into a run, but she knew better, and my brother made no attempt to grab her again. She continued through the door.
"I'll be back soon," I promised. Asterion nodded and licked his lips.
"Come on." I caught up with the girl and took her arm, leading her down a corridor and then around a corner. We passed the stairway that I had used to descend into my brother's chambers and headed for another. The girl trotted to keep up with me.
"Where are we going?" She spoke with a musical Athenian accent.
"To the kitchen." I hurried up the stairs. "I just hope there's some honey."
Chapter 2
HONEY THERE WAS indeed, in a small stone pot tightly fitted with a lid made even more secure against insects with a layer of wax. I sat with my arms around my knees and watched Asterion as he ate, dipping his clumsy fingers into the golden stickiness and sucking them, his large, wide-set eyes rolling.
When he had finished, he licked the inside of the honey jar until even he could tell that he had scoured it clean. I stood and put out my hand. My brother looked at the round little pot, evidently decided that keeping it wasn't worth an argument, and extended it to me. He couldn't go any farther, so I stepped closer and took it. His fingers closed lightly around mine, and he made a soft sound.
"You want me to stay a little while?" I asked. He nodded eagerly, his long black curls—his only beauty—flopping over his uneven eyes. Of course our mother had ordered his hair cut when he'd turned twelve, but the shearing had had to be done without the ceremony expected when the god's son reached young manhood. I still shuddered when I remembered his screams as the men pinned him to the ground while the barber worked so fast that both he and Asterion wound up smeared with blood. No one had dared approach my brother with shears since then, and his lustrous black hair now hung past his shoulders.
I moved closer so I could reach my brother's face. I stood on tiptoe and pushed his hair back, off his bumpy forehead. He grinned and shook his head so that the shiny curls once more fell forward. I laughed. This was one of his favorite games, to tease me by undoing some small bit of work I had done.
It must have been the lack of sleep, the sight of the pale dead babies and their suddenly blue-lipped mother, or the shock of the encounter with the Athenian girl, for even in the midst of my laughter, tears stung my eyes. I bit my lip and looked away. If Asterion saw me weeping, he would become distressed, and I had noticed no more jars marked with a bee in the storeroom.
To distract him, I revealed the damp cloth that I had concealed behind my back. Better to be angry at a washing than terrified at the sight of his sister weeping. Asterion grunted a protest but allowed me to get the worst of the stickiness off his hands and from around his mouth. When he had clearly had enough, I stopped. I could finish later.
"Good boy," I said, and he grinned again, his crooked teeth showing. He touched one of the gold earrings that dangled almost to my shoulders. "Gentle," I warned, and he lowered his hand.
I stayed only a little longer, and when I left, he didn't try to follow me. A few years earlier, my mother had had him placed he
re below the palace, where his roaring wouldn't frighten people. She'd had to recast her binding spell several times, winding the black yarn into one complex pattern after another. Finally, the spell worked; he couldn't move from the two small chambers at the heart of the underground warren of storerooms and corridors, but he was not held so firmly that he felt and fought against his invisible bonds. Now he moaned and then bellowed his version of my name—"Adne! Adne!"—as I took one turn and then another, his loneliness following me upstairs and nearly to the women's sitting room.
After the near dark of the underground chamber, the daylight coming in between the columns was almost dazzling. I inhaled deeply to clear my lungs. We kept Asterion as clean as we were able, but a full bath was impossible unless we made him so drunk that he lost either his fear or the ability to fight, and the odors of his dank chamber were never pleasant. Here, the early-spring air mingled with the aroma of warm bread, and I suddenly realized that it was a long time since I had eaten.
The morning light was weak, and the shapes on the walls appeared almost real, not mere figures painted by a long-dead artist in the days when my mother's grandmother had been She-Who-Is-Goddess. The dimness hid the artist's brush strokes on the parade of slim-hipped young women and men who bore platters of springtime fruits and greens and who led tiny white lambs so new that their large eyes appeared to look with wonder at the world they were soon to leave. I almost expected to see the celebrants' legs move in the solemn procession, to smell the heavy scent of flowers in the garlands draped over the columns behind them, to hear their voices lifted in song in praise of Goddess. She stood facing them, bare breasted, a smile on Her lips, clutching two writhing snakes whose painted tongues seemed almost to flicker in and out of their painted mouths.
I caught sight of the Athenian woman. She was seated on a bench near the opening between two large columns, eating the flatbread that Cook made by spreading dough directly onto the coals of the huge kitchen fireplace. At the sight of its crusty top and its bottom darkened by ash, my stomach gave a loud gurgle. Cook, who was entering, laughed and patted the bench where the woman destined to be the Minos's newest wife was sitting. I, too, sat down but wished I didn't feel so awkward. I didn't often see strangers, at least not to talk to, and I didn't know how to behave. Cook handed me my own piece of bread wrapped in a white cloth, along with a pot of fig preserves and a wooden spoon, taking care not to touch me. I knocked off the cinders and took a bite.
That pot reminded me of the honey jar, which I pulled from my robe and handed to Cook. Then I spooned preserves into the crescent that my teeth had left in the bread. The sweetness of the figs combined with the bitterness of the slightly blackened crust was one of my favorite treats.
"Sorry," I said around a mouthful as Cook looked into the jar's emptiness.
"A small price to pay if it kept her safe." Cook nodded at the young woman.
"I'm very grateful." She bit off a piece of bread glistening with golden preserves and washed it down with a swallow of what looked like honey water.
Her musical accent made even these conventional words sound lovely. From close up, she was even prettier than I had thought her before, when she had stood motionless in my brother's grip. Her brown hair, so different from the black ringlets of most of the people I knew, looked as soft as rabbit's fur. Her clear eyes were the nameless blue-green-gray of the sea, and her oval face shone with clear brightness. Her small teeth were white and even.
She was looking at me quizzically. I dropped my gaze and asked, "Why did you go down there, anyway?"
Her laugh was merry. "My mother always says that I'm as curious as a mouse. I wanted to see him—the Minotauros."
I choked on the piece of bread that was halfway down my throat. How dare she call my brother by that name? It made him sound like the son of the Minos and a bull. Cook stood behind me as I spluttered.
Before I had become a woman, Cook would have pounded my back to help me, but of course he couldn't strike She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess, so I coughed and wheezed. When at last I could breathe shallowly without my breath catching, I glanced up and saw the warning frown that Cook was shooting over my head at the Athenian woman.
She seemed about to say something more, but then one of the Minos's eunuchs poked his head through the door. "He's asking for the new one." He looked from her to me, and I nodded. My pleasure in the girl's company was spoiled, anyway.
My companion rose and straightened her fine linen gown, which was arranged in narrow pleats in the style of mainland women, a thin belt emphasizing her small waist. I stood too and saw that she was examining my clothes as carefully as I was hers. I looked down at my serviceable robe, the one I always wore to child births. It fit appropriately but was stained from my work. The dark red smear was new, and once again I thought of that dead woman and her dead babies. I looked back at the girl and opened my mouth to speak.
Then an image rose up and floated in front of her face. I couldn't make it out clearly, but I could tell that it was evil, a miasma that stank of treachery and arrogance and murder.
I closed my eyes and ordered the vision to depart. When I opened them again, it was gone, but so was the girl. She was following the Minos's servant down a long corridor open to the rapidly warming sun, her slender form flickering as she passed through the shadows of the columns. I tried to call out, to warn her to beware of whatever it was that I had seen, but my throat clamped shut and I watched her until she disappeared.
Chapter 3
I AROSE after noon, still groggy, and went to find my mother. Iaera stood in her doorway, blocking my way. At my inquiring look, she said, "A messenger from the Pythia—She-Who-Is-Goddess at Delphi—came with the Athenians. She's been in there since midday."
I settled myself on a stool. Every She-Who-Is-Goddess is sister to every other one, although they never meet in person, as crossing the sea would strip them of their divinity and render them mere priestesses. They exchange news and greetings and even spells, I understood. Someday I would be part of that sisterhood as well.
A small woman scurried out. I rose and attempted to greet her, but she hastened away without meeting my gaze.
My mother was seated at a table facing the sun, now low in the sky, with two skeins of yarn in front of her. Instead of joining them together in the complicated series of knots that meant she was casting a spell, she gazed off into the distance, her hands idle. I knew better than to interrupt her reverie, so I stood and waited.
The yarn was of two shades of green and so must have something to do with the Planting Festival. The black ball that kept Asterion confined under the palace lay locked tight in the fragrant cedar chest at the foot of her bed, along with others in which magic was still working. The most precious of them, as large as a baby's head and pure white, lay inside the chest in its own casket made of gleaming dark wood as hard as bronze. It was decorated with very powerful gold symbols whose meaning had been lost to time. More than once I had seen my mother seated at her work table, this box open in front of her as she stared at the white ball. I could tell that she was trying to understand the way it was wound. She did not dare unwind it to find out, of course. It held the power of She-Who-Is-Goddess. Nobody said what would happen if it was destroyed, but it would surely be a catastrophe.
Occasionally, my mother would call me to her and have me hold pieces of yarn as she worked them up, over, and around each other, all the while staring at the white ball as though she would unlock its secret with her gaze.
This white ball was rarely touched. One time in her life, each She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess held it during the ritual in which she became She-Who-Is-Goddess. I had a very hazy notion of what else happened during the ceremony. Only two priestesses remained who had officiated when my mother became She-Who-Is-Goddess. They occasionally dropped hints and seemed to delight in making me nervous.
"Child?" My mother's voice sounded tired. "Have you finally slept enough?" Her tone held no rebuke, but her pale and drained face shamed me.
I saw that she had one of her headaches, so without being asked I moved behind her and pulled the pins out of her hair. It came down in soft waves. She dropped her work, sighed, and leaned back against me, her eyes closed. I gently rubbed her temples, where a few silver strands showed among the black. After some minutes she asked, "What's she like?"
"Who?"
"The new one." Her voice held no emotion. "The Minos's new wife."
"Pleasant." I fumbled for words. My mother didn't usually show much interest in the Minos's wives beyond making sure they were comfortable and had enough to eat. "Pretty."
"I saw that. As did Asterion."
I stopped rubbing her head. "He can't help it, Mother."
"No, he can't."
I ran my fingers under her hair again and pressed where I somehow could tell it hurt. She sighed and relaxed. "She's from Athens." My mother didn't answer, so I tried again. "Athens, Mother!"
She sat up abruptly and tied back her hair. "And so? Athens is a city like any other."
"How do you know?" Of course, my mother had never left the island of Krete. "I hear it has a mountain right in the middle of the city and the people worship Athena and Erechtheus—they must be very strong if they have two gods! The fields of Attika are beautiful, they say, and the beaches are of yellow sand. Think of it, yellow sand instead of black! You could walk on it all day without burning your feet."
She looked at me gravely but did not respond. She didn't have to remind me of the consequences that would attend a sea voyage.
"The trip must not have taken very long, Mother—she looked fresh and well when she stepped off the boat..." I realized I had betrayed myself and stopped. "I mean, I hear she looked fresh," I said lamely as my mother's face clouded over.
"What were you doing down by the docks?" I had no answer. "Daughter, don't you know that that is the one place that's dangerous for us—for you and me? All sorts of people are on the ships that come in. Some are decent folk and respect us, but many do not."
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