He didn’t reply. He offered no smile, nor did he weep or laugh. Instead, he kissed the bull’s-head mark on her wrist, and she watched the shadows leave his eyes.
She held vigil while he slept.
Aridela thought about the oath she’d given Chrysaleon— that no bull-king would ever touch her heart. Less than a day and her words were proven a lie, but she felt no guilt. Her declaration was given too easily, too quickly, without understanding what was to come.
Her lover’s hair lay across his face and shoulders, shadowed oak and obsidian, yet it seemed to reflect light like a dark mirror. Her fingertips discerned the faint twitch of a muscle in his shoulder. Perhaps, in a dream, he ran with one of his lions.
There was little chance of him waking. She’d ordered his wine steeped with enough poppy to bring him to the edge of death. He must have known, but he obediently drank when she offered him the bowl.
His hand crept across the bed until it touched her stomach, but he didn’t wake, only gave an almost imperceptible sigh, as though reassured.
Misery battered her like a storm surge as she thought of Selene and the child. She clenched her hands to keep from shaking him. She wanted the comfort of his arms around her; she wanted him to proclaim that all would be as it was, but this induced repose was for the best. Selene had asked her to make him oblivious, and Aridela, remembering the faces of other bull-kings, had quickly and thankfully agreed.
Selene would suffer as much as she at the close of this night. Together, they would have to find some way to endure, to survive. Could they do it? She wasn’t sure.
Her mind veered away from the present and future, back into the opiate of their earlier lovemaking. She watched him, stifling any sound of weeping, and traced the outline of his face carefully, fearful of disturbing his slumber.
One other thing had he told her before he surrendered to the poppy. He’d held her face in his hands to make certain she was listening, so he could see that she understood.
I have never raped a woman.
She hadn’t set out to lie to Chrysaleon, but there was one other she would take to her heart.
This one. This one who died so she, and his brother, could live.
The lines in his face were smoothed, his lips serene. Aridela traced the scar curving from brow to mouth. With his eyes closed and his face relaxed, it seemed beautiful. “Athene’s mark,” she whispered, and kissed his eyelids. “Carmanor.”
All her life she’d glorified the legendary queen of Kaphtor who had adjusted the twice-yearly sacrifice to give herself more time with a beloved consort. Aridela had always hoped she could leave her own mark upon the history of her people. She’d prayed that somewhere within her lived the same boldness, the same courage.
Lying beside Menoetius, observing him as he slept, she realized she had achieved that hope. She would always be remembered as the queen who dramatically transformed Kaphtor’s most sacred tradition. Yet she didn’t feel bold or courageous. The change had been thrust upon her, much like the monstrous tide of water after the Destruction. It had swept her along in its wake. She’d been no more than a shred of flotsam.
Her handmaid entered. “They’re waiting, my lady,” she said.
She rose. Taking a knife, she bent and sheared off a lock of his hair. She twined it with one of her own and slipped the talisman into an ivory coffer. After one last, lingering kiss, a final instant against his skin, she accompanied her maid from the bedchamber, so stricken by the weight of what was coming that her legs began to shake and she had to accept the woman’s support. While she and the priestesses prepared, Menoetius would be carried back to the field of barley. If he did wake, he would be given more poppy-laced wine. She’d given clear instructions.
Themiste and the priestesses waited in the shrine. Only Selene was missing, Selene, who was somewhere lost and alone, maybe in the labyrinth chamber where the father of her child spent his last days.
Neoma handed her a bowl.
Aridela chewed the leaves, hating their bitter taste, hating more the devastation they would wreak.
With an ancient sickle of bone, more ancient even than the king’s death-labrys, Themiste sacrificed a white calf and poured the blood around the base of the pillar. When it was done, she spoke holy words, made the sign against evil, and handed the sickle to Aridela. “Khalada,” she whispered. Tears coursed over her cheeks.
The shrine seemed to darken, as though Goddess Dictynna had covered the torches with charmed fishing nets. Tremors crept through Aridela’s muscles. It felt difficult, unwieldy, to breathe.
One of the priestesses sobbed. She craned her head backward and scratched viciously at her face, drawing blood.
They left the shrine, emerging into a night lit only by the glow of Iakchos and the thinnest sliver of a new waxing moon. Aridela led the procession, the blackened sickle resting across her palms.
Through the courtyard and the palace precincts, the priestesses chanted, the sound almost a hum. Themiste, the priests, and her serving women knelt, bowing their heads, as the sickle passed.
The people of Knossos lined the path to Menoetius. He lay on his side upon a bed of flattened barley, knees drawn up to his chest.
A dreaming god, cast in ivory.
The priestesses circled him, lighting him with their torches, continuing their chant. Breezes rustled the ripened pasture around them, adding to the paradoxical sound of hushed tranquility.
Stepping into the light, Chrysaleon seemed a natural part of the god’s dream.
He held out his hand.
“Anathema,” Aridela whispered, giving him the sickle. She knelt by Menoetius’s head, stroked his hair, and kissed his cheek.
Could those be tears in Chrysaleon’s eyes, or did the laurel leaves create a fancy she needed to see? He gazed upon Menoetius’s unmoving form for an endless, breathless passage of time. With his foot, he turned his brother onto his back and brought the sickle down with a hiss, ripping flesh from throat to stomach.
The world erupted in horror and blood.
A hand clutched Aridela’s wrist.
Menoetius’s eyes were glazing, yet he held her with desperate strength. “Selene,” he said, his voice hoarse and ragged. “My child….”
The thunder in Aridela’s head faded. The chanting that had hypnotized her mind evaporated, leaving cold, sober sense, burning clarity. She paid no more attention to Chrysaleon, who dropped the sickle and backed away. She cradled Menoetius’s head on her lap and stroked his face. “I will take care of them,” she promised.
“Swans,” Themiste cried. “The Lady sends swans! They will carry his soul to Hesperia on their wings.” She prostrated herself and so did her priestesses as the flock, oddly silent, landed in the clearing and encircled the tableau.
“Not even this can part us,” Aridela whispered. “What seems the end—” Her throat closed. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t finish.
Menoetius’s grip faltered. His hand fell. “Aridela…” he sighed. “Aridela.”
Then he died.
Chrysaleon’s ox-drawn cart was draped with garlands, olive leaves, and purple grapes. A priestess handed him a carved, heavily adorned thyrsus. He gladly abandoned the tombs, following a path created by torches and the citizens of Kaphtor.
At the south palace entrance he left the cart and approached a waiting litter. He opened the draperies and offered his hand.
Aridela and Themiste stepped out. Both wore stiff ceremonial garments. Firelight glowed against their diadems, armbands and earrings.
The three surrounded a freshly dug pit in the center of the road. Priestesses brought a bundle wrapped in white linen. As Chrysaleon accepted it, the wrapping loosened and a bloody lock of his brother’s hair slipped from the folds. He knelt and placed the bundle in the hole, swallowing his disgust.
Poseidon, look what I have done for you. Protect me from vengeance.
A soldier shoveled dirt into the hole and replaced the paving stone, covering over the last he wo
uld ever see of his nemesis. He’d believed this would be his great triumph, but instead he felt strangely empty.
“Menoetius, great warrior, son of High King Idómeneus of Mycenae.” Chrysaleon lifted his face so his voice would carry. “Protect this land. Allow no invasion, drought, or pestilence to harm the faithful.”
There were no cheers. Those who watched remained silent and somber.
He escorted the women into the queen’s hall.
“I missed you,” he said softly, close to Aridela’s ear.
Her gaze remained opaque. “The first king of Kaphtor to thwart his death.”
“In truth, I didn’t want to leave you.”
One of her brows lifted and her eyes narrowed, just for the space of a breath, but before she could speak, her retinue of women closed in around them and swept her away.
“Are the people satisfied?” he asked Themiste. “I cannot tell.”
Her earth-brown eyes stared straight into his without blinking.
“What is it?” He gripped her arm. “I’ve heard nothing but the voices of long dead queens.”
“Did they question your resolve?”
He released her arm and backed away. “What resolve?”
“To betray the will of the Immortals.”
He glanced around, skin prickling, half-expecting the palace guards to march forward and drag him to their underground prisons.
“Happiness fills the people,” she said. “You are the hero who saved them from Harpalycus the Butcher, who brought the queen back from the mountains when all despaired of ever seeing her again. You restored her to the throne. You are fulfillment of old prophecy— the Gold Lion from over the sea. What the people have forgotten are the last lines:
‘Isle of cloud,
Moon’s stronghold,
See your death come
in spears of gold.’”
Chrysaleon fought to remain expressionless, but those eyes of hers penetrated like dagger blades. Against his will, his breath shortened and he felt his face burn.
“Yesterday, while you were at the tombs, the council asked me to become your second wife. They want to strengthen the ties between you and Aridela’s chosen heir, the babe that grows within me. They believe marriage is the way.”
“Do you want this?”
She frowned. “It is only symbolic. Do not think it anything else.”
“I wouldn’t.” But he had, and knew his face betrayed it.
“So many changes,” she said, “in such a short time. It’s puzzling. Have you spared your brother any thought?”
The rage he dared not show made his teeth grind. “I didn’t want to ask.”
“His last words were of Selene and their child.”
A shudder washed over him. He grabbed Themiste’s arm again, this time brutally, knowing he would leave bruises. “Menoetius was a traitor. Selene put Aridela into his care, yet he tried to steal her from me, and from her country. Then he sought to murder me. He had to die. Even so, I should never have applied the sickle of death against my brother. No cleansing can free me of what I’ve done.”
“And yet you chose him. Not only chose him but insisted, and fought to keep him alive so he could meet you as your cabal in the killing field. Did he truly agree to it, or did he simply give you his obedience?” Her gaze turned speculative. “You considered our traditions so carefully. You found a way to alter every phase of the rites to suit your wishes and still appease the people. Lying with me was no more than a piece of that plan, though I haven’t yet seen how it benefits you. Was it meant to seize my power? In that you succeeded. I bow to your cunning. I only wonder where your ambition will take you, and how far we who have become your pawns will be dragged in your wake.”
Yanking her arm free, she turned and walked away.
Look upon what you’ve accomplished, my brother.
Blood flowed from Menoetius’s torso. It ran down his legs and pooled on the floor, yet his voice held no heat or resentment.
Chrysaleon recoiled from the spilling entrails and congealing blood. I didn’t want this.
You’ve wanted this from the day your life began. I’ve always known. And I know what you did that day with the lioness. You cannot hide your lies from me now.
There was no excuse Chrysaleon could make, so he said nothing.
Listen to me, brother. Lady Athene has offered me retribution. Do not think this is the end. I mean to return.
I will return.
Chrysaleon jerked upright. Sweat stung his eyes. His heart drummed against his ribcage. He got up and crossed to the table, light-headed, queasy, trembling like an old man. With every step, he felt the cold gaze of the Erinyes upon him. He poured wine, his hand shaking so hard liquid splattered from the bowl.
I will return.
The pitcher fell from his numbed fingers. The sound of shattered clay reverberated through his head like a bolt of lightning splitting a tree.
Wine, red as blood, spread across the rich blue tiles.
Selene opened her cypress coffer and brought out a bundle swaddled in wool.
Unwrapping and smoothing the fabric, she examined the ruined king-labrys, from the faint old bloodstains on the blades to the place where the handle had snapped in two.
The fracture revealed symmetrical ridges, like those a saw would make. These extended halfway into the wood. Only the break at the very core was jagged and rough. Remnants of dark wax still clung to these ridges, wax that would make the saw marks difficult to spot, and would help the wood remain bonded if no pressure was applied. Next she studied the leather strap. It was thin, fragile. She broke it with a slight tug. It could be rotted, but the holy king-killer had been carefully tended for well over a thousand years. Selene was sure it had been replaced or tampered with.
Someone could have weakened the handle and disguised the interference with wax and worn strapping. If so, who?
“Themiste should have let you die in your prison cell,” she said. “Menoetius would be alive but for you, and all Kaphtor would be better off.”
She leaned over the cradle where Xanthe lay sleeping, her thumb in her mouth. Just two months old, the baby’s breathing was sweet and deep. She was born nine days after Menoetius died, almost a month earlier than she should have been, and it had taken all of Rhené’s skills to keep the infant from dying— her mother too, who contracted a fever during her labor. For many days delirium trapped Selene in a place between death and life where she saw her lover again, and lived in joy. She didn’t even know she’d given birth until the fever finally broke.
“Menoetius,” Selene said. “I wish you could see her.”
She gathered her child in her arms and lay on the bed.
“Aridela won’t listen.” She pressed one finger against Xanthe’s palm, smiling at the way the baby, even while asleep, latched on and gripped. “She is deaf and blind to everything beyond the lion’s growling lies. But I will avenge your father. You won’t grow up the child of a traitor.”
Though Chrysaleon had pardoned him and Menoetius had been given every bounty due a royal consort, there would be those who would remember how he concealed Aridela in the mountains even from Selene. Rumors would linger about how he attacked the bull-king out of his time. For generations, maybe longer, people would believe the gossip that he’d become a savage beast, slaughtering and consuming innocents, and had to be confined in the labyrinth.
“When you’re older you will learn of your queen,” Selene said. “You’ll be taught how Themiste chose her name from holy vision. It means ‘Utterly Clear,’ and has never before been given to any princess. But Themiste’s vision was false. Aridela isn’t utterly clear. If she were, Chrysaleon could not fool her as he does. Aridela is utterly blind.”
Selene wept quietly, not wanting to wake or frighten her daughter.
He means to halt the king-sacrifice, Menoetius had told her. Your people will be his slaves.
Chrysaleon had fulfilled Menoetius’s prediction. They weren’t yet
slaves, but, given time and Aridela’s continued loyalty, Chrysaleon might make that happen as well.
The lamp sputtered out and they lay in shadow and soft moonlight. It seemed the weight of another body slipped into her bed. She started, but moonlight reassured her.
Menoetius’s wounds and scars were gone. He was as beautiful as the first time she’d seen him. He held the baby, smiling, then lay her down and put his arms around them both. Selene felt his breath in her ear.
Children deserve to be loved, he said, no matter what their fathers do or don’t do, whether they are good or evil.
He kissed the beating pulse in her throat.
Don’t be angry with Aridela. She follows the Lady’s design. The Goddess knows what has been and what is to come. It is too much for us to understand.
She made a weak sound of protest and pressed her cheek to his.
Be strong, he said. Search and you will find your proof. It lies within the palace. Cut the lion’s mane, and send him to his reckoning.
In the Moon of Winemaking, one year and two months after the cataclysm that left Kaphtor’s great society doddering like a sick old man, Aridela and her retinue journeyed south to Arhanes, a village on the lower slope of Mount Juktas, for it was here that an abundance of healthy, ripe grapes could be found, more so than anyplace else. The pickers enjoyed their usual competitions as they cut fruit from the vine and dumped it in wooden vats. Girls kilted up their skirts and jumped in, barefoot, to stamp the grapes.
Aridela stood upon a boulder covered in ram’s fleece and blew the painted conch shell in each of the four directions. The gathered people shouted “Alou!” and young girls performed the wild wine-dance to the beat of tambours, flutes, drums, pipes and cymbals. Intoxicating music, shouts of encouragement, and an ever-quickening beat dissolved inhibitions. Gowns rose above grape-stained knees. Men sent streams of wine from goat-belly flasks into the mouths of friends and lovers. Everyone sang the bawdy grape-crushing songs.
In the Moon of Asterion Page 20
