I start to whisper a question, but Ariadne shakes her head as the two lines of women, who have followed us, fill in the benches, six on her right, six on my left. Across from us, the eleven remaining bull baiters sit down too. A twelfth boy, looking both terrified and proud, joins them, evidently to replace Glaukos. I wonder what happened to that small body.
The twenty-six of us sitting at the high table are motionless as all around, people snatch flat slabs of hot bread and pile them high with meats of all descriptions. They drink deeply from the leather flasks that are passed from hand to hand, emptied, refilled, and passed again. Mothers dip their fingers into the grease puddled on the wooden carving boards and stick them in the mouths of the babies on their hips, who suck eagerly.
The Minos stands behind Ariadne as serving men bring out large platters of roasted meat. At the smell of beef, my stomach whines. No wonder the butchers cut the bull into such small pieces—it had to cook quickly to be ready for this feast. The platters and a large bronze pitcher are placed in front of me. Everyone looks at me expectantly. I glance at the Minos.
"Tell them to eat," he prompts.
"Eat the body of your god," I say, hoping that my words are close to what the ritual demands. They must be, because everyone reaches in and takes a handful.
"Now pour for them," the Minos says. The pitcher is heavy, but with so many cups to fill, its load lightens quickly. The meat is rich, but strong in taste and tough, coming from a bull and not a steer. I take a swallow of wine to wash it down. The drink has a metallic taste that I don't think is due to the pitcher. I look up at the Minos with a question in my eyes.
"It is mixed with the blood of Velchanos."
Strange people, I think, to mix their wine with bull's blood and not with water, but although the flavor is odd, it's not strong enough to be unpleasant, and I continue eating and drinking. Soon, I hope, I will undergo my ceremonial bloodletting, the feast will break up, and I can get out from in front of all these eyes. I can't read their expressions. Most people seem happy, but some look at me with what appears to be pity, and I squirm inwardly as I remember the evil-looking instruments that had been used to torment and then kill the bull. Whatever they use on me will certainly be less painful. I'm sure they wouldn't dare to hurt their god, even a temporary one, too badly. Still, I think of the whipping that I've heard sometimes accompanies these rituals, and I wish that Prokris had managed to learn more about it.
The crowd has quieted a great deal. Little girls dance to a flute, and children sprawl all over in sleep, as do many adults. A drunken brawl breaks out, and people part the antagonists.
I notice the Minos looking at Ariadne with concern. I have drunk a fair amount of wine but not enough to dull my senses, and I'm startled by her expression. She winces as she looks down at her arm, seeming surprised at the red streaks on it, and then she huddles her shoulders to bring the two edges of her bodice together over her breasts.
I ask, "Are you cold?" She shakes her head and drops her gaze, but not before I see her lip quivering.
I stand to tell the Minos that she is not well, but he has seen it too. "Don't worry." He helps her to her feet. "It's wearing off. I'd hoped it would last another hour..." He lets his voice trail off as he supports Ariadne and helps her step out from behind the table. They have taken a few paces when the Minos turns around and calls over his shoulder, "Why aren't you coming?" I stumble around my own chair as each face at the table stares at me, and now everyone in the large field is looking in our direction. A man snickers. Someone shushes him with an angry whisper.
"You want me to go with her?" I ask as I hurry to catch up with them. Ariadne is hunched over, cradling her sore arm, her long skirt dragging.
The Minos looks surprised. "Of course. Where else would you go on your wedding night?"
"I'm so sorry," Ariadne says as tears slide down her pale cheeks. Her eyes are red, either from weeping or from the drug her uncle has given her, or both. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
We're in the middle of a huge bedchamber. I put an arm around her shoulders in an attempt to help her stop trembling, taking care not to crush her elaborate bodice. She feels like a bird, with a fluttering heart and tiny bones. She trembles, and I wonder if she's cold or frightened. Someone brings a pad of cloth that has been soaked in sweet-smelling herbs, and I hold it on the angry red streaks on her forearm and kiss the top of her head. What a strange girl, to apologize for making me a god!
"Don't be sorry," I say. "I'm honored. I never thought that you would choose me, a foreigner." I fight back the guilt; it's hard to continue to deceive this trusting little thing with the huge dark eyes that glitter with tears.
I lead my little bride to the ornate and ancient-looking bed, only the second I have ever seen that was raised off the ground, and ease her down onto it. Artemis stays so close to me that I tread on her paw, but she doesn't whine. I sit next to Ariadne, keeping one arm around her shoulders. She whispers something that I can't make out. I bend in closer. "What was that?"
"You are very noble." She leans her head against my chest.
The guilt becomes even more painful. "Perhaps not as noble as you think."
"Oh yes. To give your life for the Kretan people, when you are an outsider, that is a noble thing."
I try to laugh, but my throat has closed. "I don't plan to give my life for anybody."
She pulls back and stares at me. "But that's what you're here for. That's why there's a Chosen One at the Planting Festival. He has to die for the people."
It's like she's speaking a foreign language, one where I understand only one word in three. "What do you mean, 'Die for the people'?" It must be some way of talking that they have here, some ritual where the king's bloodletting is seen as a kind of death.
Ariadne looks down. "The Minos will open the pathway of your blood. Your blood will go on the fields, and the harvest will be good."
"How much of my blood?"
"All of it." Her voice is so low, I can barely hear it, but the words are all too clear.
I'm shaking. I remove my arm from around her shoulders. "You people aren't barbarians. You don't do things like that. You even allowed that monster to live, who would have been exposed at birth anywhere else." The look on her face increases my agitation, and I leap to my feet, preparing to flee.
"Please," she begs. "Please sit down."
"Are you talking about the bloodletting ceremony? Does someone..." I'm too horror struck to go on. Rage heats me. Prokris couldn't have known this; my death would ruin all her plans. She should have learned more about Kretan customs. How dare she be so careless with my life?
"And you ch-chose m-me for this?" Outrage makes me sputter.
"I didn't choose you. Velchanos did. He took your body. He is in you. I saw it—I saw him when you were standing in the crowd. I couldn't choose another. It would have been a great sacrilege. It would have been the second time, and this time would have meant the death of my people." Her tears have dried, and her face is more composed.
I don't know what she means by "the second time," and I don't care. All I know is that I have to get out of here. I don't know where I'll go, but surely there is someone on this island with some sense. I'm strong, and now I have experience on a boat and can work my passage—not to Athens, but to another land where women don't control things and where the king isn't slaughtered by his barbarian subjects.
Ariadne is silent as I run to the door and fling it open only to see two large guards blocking it, with spears crossed over the opening. Artemis growls.
"You require something, my lord?" one of the men asks. I can't see his eyes through the slits in his boar-tusk helmet, but I hear his amusement. I can tell he knows that what I require is escape.
"Wine" is all I can think to say. I close the door and retrace my steps.
ARIADNE
Chapter 39
SOMEONE MURMURED outside the door. It opened, and Prokris entered, carrying a tray with a wine flask and two cups. The
Ariadne part of me, which was growing stronger at every heartbeat, wanted to run to her, but the waning Goddess in me insisted I sit still and not show my weakness to a mortal.
"Prokris," Theseus began, but she interrupted him.
"I know." She put the tray on a low table. "I heard. They plan to do it in three days."
"You seem very calm." His bitterness startled me and allowed Ariadne to push Goddess aside a bit more. "I'll just have to stop them," Theseus continued. "I'll tell them that as a foreigner, I didn't know what it meant to be chosen and I refuse the honor."
"No," I said. They both looked at me. I was weary to the marrow, my arm ached, and thirst raged in my throat, but I forced myself to speak. "It's not something you can accept or refuse. If you're Velchanos, that's who you are. You have no choice."
"But I'm not Velchanos!" he protested.
"You are."
"I would know it if I were."
I shook my head and reached for the wine. There was no point in arguing. I drained the cup and lay back on the pile of cushions, exhausted, my head whirling. I should have done something, I thought miserably. But what? It had not been my choice to be She-Who-Will-Be and then She-Who-Is-Goddess and, finally, Goddess; it had not been my choice that Theseus had come to Knossos so close to the Festival; and it certainly had not been my choice that the god would pick Theseus to host him. I had not chosen him. I might have been momentarily shaken by his kiss, but now I felt nothing more for him than I did for any other man. Pity, certainly; friendship, perhaps; gratitude that from our first meeting, he had treated me as myself and not as She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess; but nothing like what my mother had said about Nikanor: "the one I loved above all others."
No, it had been the will of Velchanos thatTheseus should be his incarnation on earth. Everything important in my life had been willed long before I was born, as was everything that would happen from now on. Theseus would be my consort for three days, and then he would make the fields fertile. The Minos would—
I sat up in a panic.
"What is it?" Theseus asked.
I tried to calm myself and to answer evenly, but my voice caught in my throat. "There is no Minos." My uncle, who had just become Minos-Who-Was, must even now be planning the removal of his belongings from the palace to the cottage, with its orchard that had lain untended since the last Minos-Who-Was reached the end of his earthly days. A new Minos was going to have to open the pathway to Theseus's blood and would have to make me Goddess again at Harvest and then Birth of the Sun. Someday, that same Minos would turn my future daughter into She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess and then She-Who-Is-Goddess.
Asterion could never, never do any of those things, and Knossos would fall.
Every Minos was a mortal man; at his death, he would be richly buried and deeply mourned, but his body would rot, and his spirit would go only where the spirits of all virtuous women and men go, not to the eternal moon. The Minos's business was not my business, and until recently I had never worried about the problem of his succession. Surely he had, though.
Prokris stirred uneasily and stood. "Someone will wonder where I am," she said. "I'm supposed to be feasting with the other wives." I strode to the door and flung it open. The startled guards leaped to attention, crossing their spears again. Prokris ducked under the long shafts and hurried down the hall. "Bring me Minos-Who-Was," I commanded.
"Minos-Who-W-w-w-?" stammered the taller of them.
The shorter guard, evidently cleverer than his colleague, nodded comprehension. "Immediately, mistress." He knocked the back of his hand on his forehead and sped down the corridor. Theseus looked bewildered as I paced, supporting my left wrist with my right hand. I felt more clearheaded than I had in a long time—maybe since the day my mother had gone to join our Mothers.
For only the second time in my memory, my uncle ran into the chamber of She-Who-Is-Goddess, but this time I was She-Who-Is-Goddess, not my mother, and I was alive, not lying drained of blood on the bed. "What is it?" He looked from me to Theseus. "Has it gotten worse? The effect should be almost gone by now."
I held out my wrist for his inspection. "I think it's getting better," I said, and relief spread across his face. He sat down heavily on my mother's stool and rested his face in his hands.
"Uncle." He didn't answer. "Uncle, I need to know—have you been training a new Minos?"
"This is not a matter I can discuss, not even with She-Who-Is-Goddess." His voice was muffled behind his hands, but even so, I could tell that he sounded uncertain, and I pressed my advantage.
"You must tell me. For the next three days, I am not She-Who-Is, but Goddess Herself." He lifted his head and looked at me with respect and a little fear. Love he had always shown; pride, too; but this was new. I went on. "I know that some doubt my parentage, and I will need a strong Minos to defend me."
"My successor has proven himself the chosen of the god," he said. Oh no. Simo. "But I'm afraid the people will never accept him. Not while Asterion lives. I was planning to tell them during this year's Festival. Your mother had approved it. She was going to adopt him as Her son while she was Goddess, and then he would have been as legitimate as Asterion, and when the time came for him to become Minos, it would have been an easy transition. But then..." His voice trailed off. But then she died before she could do it, I knew he was going to say.
"Couldn't you announce it now?" Theseus asked.
"Pasiphaë can no longer adopt him, now that she is with her Mothers." He sighed heavily. "It would have pleased her. The boy was born of her, although he was not the son of Goddess and Velchanos. Still—"
"He what?" His words drove all traces of Goddess from me. Simo? Born of my mother? He must be the boy born before Athis. So he hadn't died, as I'd assumed. Why had she never told me? I tried to absorb this as the Minos continued. I hardly heard his words.
"And I am no longer Minos," he told Theseus. "I stopped being Minos the moment Goddess appeared in front of the people bearing the white ball in her hands."
"But I—" I stopped.
The Minos looked keenly at me. "But you what, child?" I couldn't tell him about the Goddess ball, so I shook my head and poured another sip of wine.
He kept his gaze on me while he addressed Theseus. "We can't make such a change now. You must have your time as Velchanos, and then, before the final ritual"—he delicately avoided saying what that was—"while Ariadne is still Goddess, she will announce the adoption. As Minos-Who-Was, I can continue to counsel and train the boy." He laid a gentle hand on my arm. "I will do what I can to protect Asterion, but afterward..." He shook his head.
Theseus had grown red. Now he broke out, "I know what you mean by 'afterward,' old man, and you're going to have to change your plans. I'm not going to submit to having my throat cut by you or some boy or anyone else. You'll have to find a Kretan who's willing to die for the people of Krete, because it won't be me."
Minos-Who-Was stood. I suddenly saw him as a stooped, tired old man, as Theseus had called him. When his power left him, he seemed to have lost a palm's width in height. He rested his hand on the door handle, and before he opened it, he said, "I'm afraid you have no choice. Not every man chosen by Velchanos has gone willingly to the altar, and over time we have developed ways of making sure that the god's will is done."
He pushed the door open. The guards uncrossed their spears to allow him to pass. Theseus started to bolt after him, but the shorter of the guards shoved him square in the chest and sent him sprawling. As the door closed, we heard them break into raucous laughter.
Artemis laid her head on my lap, and I stroked her soft fur. The marks she had left on my wrist were long gone, but I could almost see them still, ringing the bone in a perfect crescent. I bent over and whispered into the cream-colored ear fringed with long hairs, "You weren't trying to harm me. You were warning me, weren't you? Warning me to keep away from him?" Her tail waved gently, but whether it was an answer or merely a response to my attention, I'll never know.
"You
people are determined to kill me one way or another." Theseus was red with rage. "And when your Minotauros showed no interest in eating me, you hatched this plot."
"That's not how it is," I said helplessly. "I'm sorry." My apology sounded pitiful even to me, and I didn't take offense at his derisive snort. "Why would we want to kill you? I thought you understood—and even if you didn't, there was nothing you could do about it. The god led you to Knossos. He chose you to be the one to take his body. There was nothing you could do about it."
He glared at me. "Do you really believe that? Do you believe that everything happens because it's willed to happen? That nothing we mortals do can change what the gods have ordained?"
I almost said, "I'm not a mortal," but I didn't want to risk his scorn. Instead I said, "But that's what the gods do, what the gods are. Your life is fated to end three days from now, and even if you run, it will end then. You'll drown at sea or be eaten by lions, or you'll be killed by the guards. Your destiny demands it. Surely it's better to end your life in this way, honoring the gods and giving life to the people of Knossos, rather than in some pointless accident." Like Nikanor, I thought, and my heart lay heavy in the hollow of my chest.
"How do you know my life isn't destined to end three years from now? Or thirty years? Or fifty? And if I run, I'll be able to fulfill that destiny."
I touched his arm. He shook me off and flung open the door. The guards must have been expecting this, because they were crouched in the opening with their spears pointing inward. "You can't kill me," Theseus said with a sneer. "I have to live for three more days. Don't you know that? If you kill me now, how will your god fertilize your fields?"
The larger guard, in one swift movement, pinned Theseus's arms behind him while the other whipped a long piece of rope out of the pouch on his belt. Theseus shouted curses at them, their mothers, their grandfathers, their children born and unborn. Silently and expertly, they bent his knees so that they could tie his ankles together with his wrists at his back. They wrapped the end of the rope around his neck in such a way that if he moved his arms more than a hair, it would tighten, strangling him. Even I, who had much expertise with knots, admired their skill.
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