"Oh, they won't catch me." Her voice was confident. "Everyone's asleep. Besides, that eunuch—you know, Karpo-phoros?" I nodded. He was a quiet and kindly man the size of a Titan. "He likes me. He'll keep everyone away."
"Perhaps she's right," Theseus said to Prokris. "There's no reason to take a risk. We can meet another day."
I turned to thank him, but my mouth refused to open as his shadow lengthened and broadened, like a dark liquid pooling at his feet. I glanced up; he was staring at me quizzically. I pointed at the ground, my hand shaking. He looked. So did Prokris. "What?" Theseus asked. "What is it?"
The shadow turned from black to red, glistening, sliding smoothly across the grass. It bathed his feet and turned them crimson. I threw my hands over my face and screamed.
Prokris seized my wrist and dragged me back into the courtyard. As she shoved the door shut behind us, footsteps pounded, and two eunuchs burst into sight from the stand of trees. They slid to a halt in front of me, clutching weapons and looking around. "What is it?" panted Dolops, the one who used to be kind to me. I stared at him, wondering how to answer.
Prokris came to my rescue. "She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess was frightened," she said. "A snake." The eunuchs looked bewildered. They knew that I was perfectly accustomed to snakes.
"No, you misunderstood." I willed my voice to be firm. "It was a scorpion."
"A scorpion?" Dolops's face mirrored the skepticism in his voice. "Here?"
"Why not here?" I snapped. "But the creature slipped through a crack in the wall without stinging me. You may go now." They hesitated, and suddenly I was furious. I let my hand drift toward the pouch on my belt. At the moment, it held nothing but Asterion's olives, but I could tell by their suddenly widened eyes that they imagined it stuffed with all manner of fearful things: a bird's talon, perhaps, or a moon-shaped rock, or worst of all, a ball of thread with which I could bind a man's heart or his liver until he died slowly and painfully. They bowed hastily and backed away, then fled indoors.
"Didn't you see it?" I asked Prokris.
"See what?" She sounded exasperated.
The door opened a crack, then widened. I clutched Prokris, wondering what bloody monster would come through, but it was only Theseus. He peered to the right and to the left and then stepped through, staying within the shadow of the wall. His bare feet were unmarked, and he left no red footprints.
"I must have been dazzled by the sun." I didn't believe my own words, and Theseus looked similarly doubtful. I moved closer to him. "You have to go now," I said urgently. "Now." The effort cost me dearly, though, for my knees bent under me, and I would have slid to the ground if he had not caught me around the waist. I clutched his shoulder until the spots stopped dancing in front of my eyes, and then I pushed him away.
I took a deep breath and turned to Prokris. "Now," I said to her, "I must return to my mother." I forced myself to walk away firmly, my chin held up, and not look back.
Chapter 21
I DON'T KNOW what Theseus wants," I said. "The Minos seems satisfied that he's avenged Androgeos, and Theseus could probably leave, if he asked permission. Prokris says he doesn't want to return to Athens, though, where his stepmother will murder him. He told her he doesn't want to go back to that little town he's from, where everybody hates him and nobody believes he's the son of a king." I know how that feels, I thought, remembering Damia's words.
Asterion stared at me gravely. He didn't understand, but he was always so flattered whenever I came to talk with him that he stayed quiet and appeared to consider my words thoughtfully. At those times, I could pretend he was an older brother like those my friends had—when I had had friends—a brother who would tease me and bully me on occasion, to be sure, but who would also listen and give me advice, and even fight my tormentors and defend me against threats. Artemis had followed me down the stairs and into my brother's chamber, and now she sat next to him, her front legs like columns in front of her. Asterion's arm, wrapped around her cream-colored neck, looked darker and harder than ever as his fingers toyed with the honey-colored fringe edging her ears. The dog, too, kept her brown eyes fixed on me, with her usual calm. My brother was gentle with her, and she had no reason to fear him.
"And I don't know what he feels for Prokris." I was uncomfortably aware of a jealous pang. Jealous of whom—Theseus or Prokris? "That's foolish," I told Asterion, and he nodded as though I had said something wise. "She's the wife of the Minos. Theseus would be a madman to become involved with her. And she with him." Artemis moved her ears forward a little at the sound of her master's name and then let them fall back.
"Ah!" said Asterion, seeming to agree, and despite my unease and confusion, I smiled. I pulled a handful of nuts from my pouch, and he grabbed them. He offered one to Artemis, but after she sniffed at it and rejected it, he put it in his mouth, his strong jaws cracking the shell, which he then spat out on the floor. He looked at me inquiringly, which meant he wondered if I was concealing any more treats, though I chose to misinterpret.
"How do I feel about him, you mean?"
My brother chuckled, amused at our conversation game, and I considered the question. "He's ... different. He isn't afraid of me, which is refreshing, but at times he seems almost insolent. Oh, not really insolent," I said hastily, as though my protective big brother would become indignant at this idea. "He doesn't know our ways and sometimes makes mistakes."
Evidently feeling that something was required of him, Asterion grunted.
"I like him." I didn't know if like was exactly the right word. Something about Theseus made me want to touch him, to feel the hard muscle of his shoulder again, to brush my lips against the calluses on his palm. I remembered the pressure of his arm around my waist, supporting me when I nearly fainted after what I had seen, or imagined I had seen, in the orchard outside the palace walls, and I flushed.
Asterion grabbed my hand. This startled me, and I had to force myself not to snatch it away from him, which would have hurt his feelings.
"What is it?" I tried to withdraw my hand, but he grasped it harder and pulled me close to him.
He stared into my eyes, and when I was about to speak, to ask him again what he wanted, he laid a large finger on my lips. "Ahn," he said forcefully. "Ahn, ahn, ahn."
That was his word for no. No what? No talking? Why not? But he removed his hand from my mouth, so that couldn't have been what he meant.
"What is it?" I asked again. "Does something hurt you?" The shaggy head shook a negative. "Are you afraid of something?" He looked away. "Asterion!" He raised his dark eyes to me again, and something in them shook me to my toes. "Brother! What is it?"
For answer, he threw his arms around me and pulled me close. He was trembling.
I stayed with him until he fell asleep, his body nearly crushing me as he relaxed into slumber. I eased his heavy head off my lap and covered him with one of the blankets that became filthy almost as quickly as the servants replaced them. When I reached the doorway, I kicked a small piece of broken pot. I bent to pick it up and glanced back to make sure I hadn't woken him.
My brother lay on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest, in the manner in which dead bodies are laid out for burial. Don't be silly, I told myself as I watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Don't worry about Asterion. No one would dare to harm him.
But as I turned one corner after another and then climbed the stairs, dread followed me as closely as did Artemis, whose breath I felt, warm on my arm, as I stepped into the darkening upstairs world.
Chapter 22
THE MOON grew smaller and thinner and then disappeared altogether. As we priestesses performed the rituals of protection from the darkness and prayed to Goddess to return, I recalled my conversation with Theseus and wondered where She went when She was out of the sky yet not among us on Krete. Twelve other cities were ruled by their own She-Who-Is-Goddess. In Hellas, these were Delphi, Ithaka, and Naxos; in distant Anatolia, the people of the cities of Kolkhis and Ephesos worshi
ped her; in Aegyptos it was Tel Hazor; in far-off Italia it was Aricia; in Phoenicia, the people of Tyre worshiped her. When I asked my mother the names of the four remaining cities, she always became troubled and refused to answer. I knew better than to press her, as she rarely discussed these secret matters.
I had forgotten many of the Festival's small details over the past year. "No, no!" Damia screeched like a seagull one warm afternoon. "You take thirteen steps from the altar and then turn. Thirteen. Always thirteen." Thirteen for the twelve priestesses plus She-Who-Is-Goddess, thirteen for the cities where Goddess was worshiped, thirteen for the number of moons in the year, culminating in the Planting Festival, after which the year would begin again.
Athis, no longer the junior priestess since I had filled that spot, gave me a quick smile of sympathy. I grimaced at her and rolled my eyes. It had been a long, tedious day, and I was finding it hard to concentrate. "Always thirteen," I repeated, hoping that the yawn I was holding back was inaudible. I think it wasn't, because my mother called me to her. Damia scowled, but She-Who-Is-Goddess was not to be denied. She led the priestesses out.
"Come sit here with me," my mother said, patting the cushion and sliding over. It was getting difficult for her to move; her large belly rubbed against the table in front of her. I felt my forehead pucker; she was so much older than anyone I had ever assisted at a birth. If she could hardly shift her weight to give me a place to sit down, how could she push a child from her body?
My mother noticed where I was looking. "I am healthy and strong," she said, "and it's usually the first baby that causes problems. I had difficulty with my first."
"With Asterion?"
She-Who-Is-Goddess stopped her work. "No, child. Not with your brother. With my first baby."
"But he's your first. Athis is your second, and I'm your third. And then Glaukos." I had never heard of any others.
My mother shook her head. "You're my fifth. Glaukos is my sixth." I must have looked as bewildered as I felt, because she went on. "You didn't know?" I shook my head and swallowed. This meant that she was even older than I had thought. "I had been She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess for less than a year." Her voice trailed off, and I wondered if she was remembering the years that she spent alone, with her mother dead and me not yet born. She had become Goddess after her mother fell ill of an autumn cough that worsened until she died in the winter. "For a day, it looked like the baby would live and would be She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess." I felt a chill at the thought of how close I had come to being only the spare, the extra. My mother sighed and shook her head. "But she lived only until the sun next set." She appeared to have finished her tale.
"You said I'm the fifth," I reminded her. "Asterion was your second?"
She nodded. "Yes, and the god's son. Then another boy, then Athis, then you, and finally Glaukos." She paused before adding, "None of the others were a child of the god." It was no wonder my mother hadn't mentioned the other boy. A boy not the son of the god was of little use to her. That child must have died, as my mother's first baby had done. I barely remembered Glaukos's birth, when I was three. He had immediately gone to live with the Minos. I sobbed when his nursemaid took him away. My mother had been impatient with my tears and reminded me that I could visit him whenever I wanted, but that didn't console me.
"You were too small to help me with them. Now you know more about birthing than other girls your age, even more than some grown women, and you will help me. This time"—she curled the thumb and first finger of each hand into a crescent for good luck—"this time all will go well."
Even She-Who-Is-Goddess was only another woman when giving birth, and whether my mother lived or died was in Goddess's hands. And Goddess was angry with her.
Talking about her children must have reminded her of Asterion, and she asked, "When did you last visit your brother?"
"Just yesterday." This would give me an excuse to leave. I stood. "I'll go see him now."
I stopped long enough to retrieve the small winged man I had picked up in the Minos's room, then slid it and a handful of raisins into my pouch. The store was low, but summer would be here soon and we would have no need of dry fruit.
Lying across the threshold of the door leading to the basement was Theseus's large white dog. I leaned down and stroked her soft head. "Is he down there?" I whispered. Her tail swayed but she didn't move. I stepped over her and felt her eyes on me as I descended the stairs.
I was two turns away from my brother's chambers when I heard a sound. It was a man speaking in a chatty, conversational tone. I paused. I knew who it was, even though the voice was distant. I rounded the final corner and saw Theseus's now familiar stocky form seated on the ground, talking to my brother, who was also seated and was staring at the other boy with his mouth dangling open. I saw to my shame that a string of drool hung from his lower lip.
Asterion saw me before Theseus did, and he scrambled to his feet. "Ah!" he said, and pointed to the Athenian. "Adne!"
"Yes, I know." I hurried past Theseus. I hadn't seen him since the day we had met outside the wall of the Minos's quarters, and the memory of his arm around my waist and of his hard shoulder made me flush. As I crossed the line of white stone that marked the boundary of my brother's chambers, I glanced back and saw, to my secret and confusing pleasure, that Theseus was reaching out to stop me. Asterion took my hand and tried to kiss me, but I wiped his mouth first, and then presented my cheek to him. As he embraced me, he mumbled something, his eyes shining, and his crooked teeth showed in the grin that always melted me.
"Is this your new friend?" I glanced at Theseus, whose eyebrows were drawn together.
"You're not afraid of him?" he asked.
I sat down, motioning to Asterion to do the same. Usually he would have done so eagerly, ready to play whatever game I wanted, but this time he hesitated and glanced at Theseus. "Don't you want to see what I've brought you?" I patted my pouch, and now he turned his full attention on me. I loosened the drawstring and pulled out the little winged man.
"Ooooh!" Asterion reached for it, but I held it back, and he subsided, hands clasped, as I had taught him. When I knew he wouldn't move again, I held the figure up and moved it as though it were flying, then placed it on his lap. He picked it up, his mouth puckered in a perfect circle.
It always delighted me to please him, as I was never sure what he would like and what he would stomp to bits in disappointment. I watched as he turned the little man over, bending the toy's knees, twisting its arms backwards at an impossible angle, cocking its head so the painted face looked over its own back. He rocked and laughed in glee.
Seeing him absorbed, I addressed Theseus. "What are you doing here?"
"Came to see the monster."
I was lucky that Asterion was engaged in twisting the limbs of his new toy, or he would have been upset at my indignant gasp. "He's not a—"
"I know, I know," Theseus hastened to assure me. "I know he's not that. Anyone can see it. People call him one, though, don't they? But I don't think he's so bad." He rose to his feet—slowly, I noticed. I was pleased that he had learned so quickly how to keep from startling my brother. "I don't see why they don't let him out. He seems fearfully bored here."
"Oh no!" This time my exclamation penetrated Asterion's awareness, and he paused in his play. I forced myself to smile at him and patted his hand. He went back to what he'd been doing, but now he seemed to be listening. I went on more calmly, as though talking of the weather. "No, he can't be let out. You wouldn't say that if you'd seen—"
"Tomorrow, I'll talk to the Minos about it. I'll see what he has to say."
Before I could answer, my brother burst out in a high-pitched wail. I leaped up and was horrified at the blood dripping from his mouth. "Open!" I commanded. He shook his head. I squeezed his large jaw until it gaped, revealing the broken pieces of a wing of his little toy. I pulled out the ivory splinters from his tongue. When I had finished, he bellowed, throwing his arms around me and drenching me with red-
stained slobber. He pulled me down to the floor with his weight, so I sat with his large head on my lap. I sang him one of my mother's lullabies, but he didn't appear to hear me, so I stopped and stroked his hair, feeding him raisins one by one until they were gone. "Hush now," I said again and again. "Hush now."
Theseus watched silently. When Asterion's sobs finally subsided and he lay sniffling, clutching the painted head of the now armless figure, Theseus spoke. "What I want to know is why he wasn't exposed at birth. Would have been the kindest thing for him. For everyone."
"But he's—"
"He's your brother." That wasn't what I had been going to say, but it was true, so I kept silent. Theseus evidently wasn't satisfied, though, and he leaned forward and scrutinized my face. "You were going to say something else, weren't you?"
"Asterion is..." I swallowed. "He's the firstborn of Goddess and Velchanos." Surely Theseus understood by now what that meant, but his face didn't show any enlightenment, so I was forced to go on. "He's the firstborn son of Goddess and Velchanos," I repeated, "and he is Minos-Who-Will-Be. When the Minos dies, Asterion will take his place." Still silence, but I knew what Theseus must be thinking: How could Asterion perform the duties of a high priest? Theseus might be unfamiliar with the ways of Krete, but any priest, anywhere, would have to know how to perform rituals, say prayers, make sacrifices—a whole series of things that were unthinkable to anyone looking at my brother as he sat on the floor popping the head of his toy into his mouth and out again, laughing with delight at the sound it made as it flew from his lips.
"Goddess will take care of it," I said. "She always does. She always will. We must trust in Goddess." I was echoing my mother's words, and like her I curved my thumb and first finger into a crescent to lend force to what I said.
"How do you know he's the son of Velchanos?" Theseus asked. A few days earlier, I would have been shocked, but because I had overheard Damia's doubts about my own parentage, I stopped the indignant reply that sprang to my lips.
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