In the Moon of Asterion

by Rebecca Lochlann

  Published by Erinyes Press

  ISBN: 978-0-9838277-5-7

  Copyright © Rebecca Lochlann 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or shared in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, digitally, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Author.

  Also available in paperback. (ISBN-13: 978-0-9838277-4-0)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012956369

  In the Moon of Asterion cover image: ©Giovanni Dall’Orto

  Cover design, images, and Erinyes Press logo by Lance Ganey

  www.freelanceganey.com

  Text design by eFrog Press

  www.efrogpress.com

  For Annia, who knows good from evil, and Lucinda, who made me ponder.

  “Minotauros,” “the bull of Minos,” was not a true name. For the inhabitant of the labyrinth the names “Asterios” and “Asterion” have come down to us, both synonymous with aster, “star.” … No Greek myth attaches to these names. No luminous aspect of the Minotaur was accepted by the Greeks outside of Knossos, but the Knossos coins bear witness to a star in the labyrinth, to the lunar nature of Ariadne” (105-106).

  Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by Carl Kerenyi

  Copyright © 1976 by Princeton University Press

  Used by permission

  Aridela straightened and pulled herself free. “You won’t rest until you’ve destroyed me,” she said. When Selene started to speak, Aridela cut her off. “Say nothing more. I’ve heard all I want to hear from all of you.” She turned her back on Selene and stepped closer to the men, who had drawn their knives and were circling each other warily. “Can you not see?” She lifted her arms in supplication. “You are opposites, yet you are nothing without the other. Menoetius, you are the skin that covers the heart of the apple, the heart that is your brother. You are the spear of lightning after his roar of thunder. You are the ocean battering his cliffs.” She shivered yet felt hot, as though fire was igniting her blood. The Goddess burned within, speaking through her.

  Menoetius glanced at her. Chrysaleon kept his attention focused on his rival.

  Thunder growled again, followed by lightning that branched across the heavens. “Light and dark,” she whispered. “Joined yet separated— for what purpose? I don’t know.”

  Menoetius’s strike was blurringly swift. A chunk of Chrysaleon’s hair floated to the ground and lay like a pool of spilled golden twine.

  On the rocky mainland, a king’s power resided in his hair. Aridela stared at it, remembering her tutor’s bored voice. When coming of age, boys dedicate their first beards to Poseidon and pray for courage in battle. The warriors of the mainland believe their strength, their potency, their very invincibility, has its source in their hair. Only common soldiers shear their hair, so it won’t interfere with their eyesight or give their enemies something to grab.

  This was the worst of omens.

  1st lunation Moon of White Light: sacrifice of king

  2nd lunation Moon of Figs and Acorns

  3rd lunation Moon of Corn Poppies

  4th lunation Moon of Winemaking

  5th lunation Moon of the Olive Harvest

  6th lunation Moon of Flying Swans

  7th lunation Moon of Drenching Rain

  8th lunation Moon of Asphodel and Honeysuckle (Aridela’s birthday)

  9th lunation Moon of Flowering Apples

  10th lunation Moon of Water Ferns

  11th lunation Moon of Fertile Willows

  12th lunation Moon of Laurel Leaves (Menoetius and Chrysaleon’s birthday)

  13th lunation Moon of Meadmaking (Themiste’s birthday)

  Note to Readers: The back of this book contains bonus material consisting of 25 pages (10%) from The Sixth Labyrinth, the next chapter in The Child of the Erinyes series. I hope you enjoy it.

  We are free!

  The Butcher is dead!

  Our queen is restored to her throne!

  Kaphtor thunders with these shouts. The people make merry as we reclaim our island and take stock.

  Though the worst seems to be over, I remain uneasy. I want to return to a time before these barbarians unleashed disaster upon us. I will not draw an easy breath until Chrysaleon’s blood spills beneath the moon of midsummer. On that night, I will drink mead and dance in the light of Iakchos. I fear him. I distrust him. None of us are safe while he lives. Yet, I confess this secret, as I must, to the Oracle Log:

  I am drawn to him as I have never been drawn to any man.

  Every row of benches around Knossos’s bullring groaned under the weight of multitudes. Those who couldn’t fit inside crowded thick as schools of anchovies across the plain. All wanted to partake in this triple-tiered festival— Queen Aridela’s seventeenth birthday, the annual observance of Velchanos’s rebirth, and the feting of their mainland liberators.

  Just over half a month had passed since the glorious victory over Harpalycus, cursed prince of Tiryns, the Usurper and Oppressor of Kaphtor. His head now rotted on the tip of a spear outside the palace of Labyrinthos.

  In underground chambers beneath the ring, Aridela and her friends were nearly ready to begin the victory celebration.

  Neoma gave Aridela a spontaneous hug. “This is the first day I’ve seen color in your cheeks.”

  “You as well,” Aridela said. “Freedom and victory have revived us.”

  Neoma touched the shallow dent in her forehead, a permanent reminder of the night when stones fell like spears from the sky. “I thought this would make things difficult, but the opposite is true. My lovers are so many I cannot choose between them.” She laughed. “I suppose it could be because I am the queen’s cousin.”

  “For some men, that might be a hindrance rather than an advantage.”

  The Phrygian warrior, Selene, a princess in her own right, possessor of sea-colored eyes and cream-colored hair, peered at them from the doorway. “The people are waiting. Are you ready?”

  As Aridela turned, yes on the tip of her tongue, dizziness spiraled through her head, leaving her ears humming, her eyesight spackled, and her balance in jeopardy. She was more annoyed than surprised. Such attacks were frequent since she’d been stabbed. Ending the life of the infant in her womb had made it worse. The royal healer, Rhené, blamed an excessive loss of blood, and was dosing her patient with noxious concoctions of half-raw meat and boiled ox bones in an effort to rebuild her strength.

  This bout of vertigo, though, felt different. Usually she either fainted or vomited, but this time, hallucinations flooded Aridela’s mind— dazzling, terrible flashes from the two months she spent as Harpalycus’s captive and personal plaything. Grabbing Neoma’s shoulder to keep from falling, her heart skipped and raced as she relived his drunken assaults, the cold, the filth of the straw mat in her cell, the cruel eunuch’s daily beatings, the leather thongs biting into her wrists.

  Chilling echoes replaced the lively chattering around her. Deep within, as if dredged from her soul, another voice drowned them out.

  We will make ourselves barren. No more children. No more love. Not until they all lie dead. Then we will begin again.

  The chamber walls melted like wet paint, vanishing into a different scene. One amongst a crowd, Aridela huddled on the side of a hill, soaked by cold rain. Above, on the summit where her voice would carry, a woman with long dark hair shouted these words. Some members of the c
rowd wept. Some were angry. Many cheered and raised their fists.

  If we are barren, Aridela wanted to ask, how can we begin again?

  Neoma brought Aridela back to the present by clasping her chin and gazing somberly into her eyes. “What’s happened? Is it the wound?”

  Selene’s brow furrowed as she crossed the space between them. “Are you strong enough to do this? You’re shaking.”

  Aridela breathed the comforting scents of dust, wood, sweat, and unguents that for centuries had permeated the walls of these chambers. Her hand rose to the healing puncture above her heart. Harpalycus had done his best to end her life, yet through Athene’s divine intercession, she had survived. She had triumphed. In the end, it was Harpalycus who failed, who lost everything, who breathed his last in the blood and muck of battle.

  The strange, otherworldly vision made no sense, and this was not a day for somber thoughts or reflection. “Yes,” she said, gripping her old friend’s hand. “I’m strong enough. I’m ready to begin life at last, to see Kaphtor begin again.” An exhilarating shiver ran up the back of her neck as she pictured her mother. Be happy, isoke, Helice would say if she were here. Iphiboë felt close as well. Her beloved sister, a nervous, shy girl terrified of lying with a man, had willingly sacrificed herself to calm the Lady’s anger and bring mercy to their people. In throwing herself to her death, she’d become Kaphtor’s most cherished treasure.

  Squaring her shoulders and filling her lungs with air, Aridela managed to shake off the nauseating whirl in her head.

  Cheering and the stamp of feet vibrated the ground as Aridela followed Selene into the ring. Leaves and flowers fashioned from feathers and cloth rained over them. Aridela held Selene’s waist, Neoma held Aridela’s, another woman held Neoma’s, and so on. Together they formed a long, winding, triumphal line. In imitation of the divine serpent, they would weave through the opened sections of the labyrinth, leaving behind a fresh, clean skin, and later, when night fell, smoke from reverent offerings would be sent into the heavens from every mountain sanctuary.

  Though the people cheered, Aridela felt a change in mood, a darkened spirit. Who could miss how sunlight bounced off amber and obsidian where once it was gold and lapis? Real flowers remained scarce, so these poor substitutes of cloth were thrown. Hunters searched for meat yet found little. Sickness stole more lives every day. The harbors were bereft of Kaphtor’s famed fleet. Now they were crowded with ships belonging to King Idómeneus, King Eurysthenes, and the defeated Harpalycus.

  She, too, careened between despondency and elation. After many tears and arguments, she had convinced Rhené to put an end to her pregnancy, just six days after the battle. The healer couldn’t manage the task during Harpalycus’s occupation because she had no medicines, and she flatly refused to attempt pricking Aridela’s womb with a sharpened instrument, declaring the queen would surely die.

  Rhené again balked after the battle because of the near-fatal knife wound above Aridela’s heart. She relented only because she couldn’t argue with the fact that the longer they waited, the more risky any method would become.

  After prodding and poking her, Rhené declared the child unlikely to be Chrysaleon’s, claiming a lack of hardness she said would be typical in a woman’s third month, but she was forced to speculate, as Aridela could not recall whether her monthly kaliara had ever flowed after Harpalycus made her his prisoner. The royal augurers had no better luck divining an answer from the portents and entrails.

  Kaphtor’s queen choked down foul-tasting brews and endured a suppository of birthwort. After a day and night of ripping cramps, pain that left her helplessly screaming, and profuse bleeding that Rhené and her attendants all but failed to stop, she lapsed into unconsciousness. While she floated ever closer to the land of the dead, and her moera, her destiny in the mortal world, floundered, the unwanted baby was expelled.

  Had she stopped the life of Harpalycus’s offspring, or Chrysaleon’s? The answer always twined away in a bewildering black maze. One was understandable, even necessary, the other a blistering torment. Only the Immortals would ever know the answer.

  As she and her sisters danced around the arena, Aridela waved and blew kisses to the audience. The crowd returned her effort with deafening cheers. Her task, as queen, was to revive their confidence, no matter what personal grief she suffered. She, Themiste, and Chrysaleon, with the intercession of a mollified Lady Athene, would reinvigorate their island, and they all could start over.

  The women circled the perimeter of the bullring seven times while the spectators made a thundering drumbeat with their feet. Continuing through the wynds of Knossos, the dancers shed layers of their skirts and threw bits of cloth representing snakeskin.

  They crossed the viaduct and glided through the olive groves, accompanied by swarms of boisterous admirers.

  At the palace, they entered the processional corridor and danced their way past newly painted frescoes of smiling youths, their arms filled with rich offerings. On they went, circling columns, spinning across terraces, and marching over balconies draped with banners.

  Their supporters thronged the courtyard as the cavalcade wove down the steps to the underground, where laborers had cleared rubble and hoisted support pillars to create pathways for them.

  Deeper and deeper the women danced, singing songs of purification. They stopped only to put out bowls of milk for the holy snakes.

  Up and out they climbed, back through the courtyard to the north gate, past the charging bull fresco, which still bore cracks across its middle.

  Tomorrow morning, the foreign kings and their armies would depart. They’d enjoyed half a month as Kaphtor’s acclaimed guests while waiting for King Eurysthenes to recover from his wounds. Tonight they would be feasted. Though the meal couldn’t compare to Kaphtor’s feasts of old, even now skilled cooks were roasting ibex, poaching seafood, baking bread from mainland grain, and collecting bowls of dried fruit.

  Chrysaleon had announced his intent to accompany his father back to Mycenae, “To settle old affairs,” he told Aridela. He also wanted to see what damage had been wrought throughout the islands.

  His decision added to Aridela’s despondency. The Zagreus was never supposed to leave Kaphtor. They couldn’t conceive his child if he was gone. And they’d already lost so much time. Now they would lose more. Worse, he’d failed to disguise his eagerness to be away, to engage in a new adventure apart from her.

  When dusk fell, King Idómeneus was lifted onto the royal dais in the feasting hall. Placing his thin, cold hands over Aridela’s and Chrysaleon’s, he blessed them.

  “Our lands are now joined,” he said, his voice quavering. “May your womb be fruitful. May the isle of Kaphtor return to its former glory.”

  Aridela smiled and bowed as courtesy demanded, though she knew his words were a blatant lie. She and many others had overheard the vicious encounter between Chrysaleon, Menoetius, and their father. The very night of Kaphtor’s triumph, with Harpalycus dead, his army in ruins, his surviving warriors hiding in any cranny they could find, Idómeneus had summoned his two sons and proceeded to berate them. The king’s healers had raced past Aridela in the corridor at Labyrinthos, pausing for no more than the briefest salutation.

  They mean to slaughter you like a pig, Idómeneus had raged. Do your vows to me mean nothing? All this for lust of a woman. To Menoetius he shouted, You promised me you would protect your brother.

  At Idómeneus’s peremptory gesture, Aridela leaned closer and allowed him to kiss one cheek, then the other. His watery eyes remained bitter, yet she couldn’t muster any animosity. Only compassion, which she tried her best to hide.

  The scent of death lingered on his flesh. No matter what his healers proclaimed, Aridela felt certain Idómeneus did not have long to live. Chrysaleon had told her of Harpalycus’s boast that he’d had the king poisoned with hellebore. The poor man’s unhealthy color, palsy, and emaciation gave weight to the claim.

  The mainland nobles drummed thei
r cups against the tabletops as she and Chrysaleon stood before them, holding hands.

  Few, she suspected, displayed true feelings.

  Gelanor, Chrysaleon’s younger brother, sat to Aridela’s left at the high table. His gaze leaped from the dancers to the wall hangings to the tables thick with nobles. Being but three months older than she and fascinated with everything of Kaphtor, he had quickly become friend and confidant.

  “My mother named him before she died,” Chrysaleon said. “He lives up to her vision, laughing so often, over anything at all, we suspect his mind is weak.”

  Gelanor sneered and sent his brother a crude gesture.

  “And you have a sister?” Aridela asked.

  “Bateia. She is betrothed to King Eurysthenes’ son.”

  “My lady.” Gelanor leaned in closer. “There’s a story that Goddess Athene buries the moon in your mountains when it vanishes from the heavens. Is this true?”

  The words swept Aridela back to the day she leapt the bull. How long ago it all seemed. Chrysaleon had regaled her with Alexiare’s tales. She told him of her father, and showed him her prized necklace, the charm she’d thought lost forever.

  She touched the silver links at her throat and met Chrysaleon’s warm gaze. Back where it belongs.

  That was the day she asked him to remain, to fight in Kaphtor’s Games and find glory, for one year, as sacred king.

  “I vow it is true,” she said to Gelanor. “Every year hunting parties make their searches, but no mortal has a chance of finding the Lady’s hiding place.”

  Chrysaleon’s faint, intimate smile told Aridela he recalled that distant day as well, when life was simple and pleasant. When she was carefree, happy, newly in love, and quite ignorant of what horrors were about to descend.

  Now that he was clean and richly attired, Gelanor hardly resembled the blood-spattered warrior she’d fought beside on the battlefield. Surrounded by laughter, dancing, and rich food, his innocence and naivety were evident, but earlier, during the formal speeches, his face had worn an ominous frown as he stood next to his father’s litter.