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CHAPTER 5

The next five days Ariadne was so busy with her duties at Dionysus' shrine and so exhausted that she returned to Knossos only to tumble into bed and sleep. She had discovered that she could use the spell Dionysus had given her even though the flower around her heart was closed. The bright bud clung to the outer part of the petals and she could make it grow and renew itself.

She also managed to find the power to place the spell of stasis on the slaughtered offerings, but the toll on her was terrible. By the end of each day she was chilled and shaking. The day before she was to dance, she Called Dionysus— just before sunset—and he said she must clear the shrine of all but the offerings, staying in her chambers and forbidding the priests and priestesses and the new novices, three boys and three girls offered by their parents, to leave the chambers assigned to them.

In the morning, a round-eyed little boy had come to her bedchamber to tell her that everything had disappeared, the meat, the gutted fowls, the ivory tables and jeweled cups, the casks of cheese and the pithoi of wine and oil. Ariadne sent him back with her approval and with the message that she would not come to the shrine that day. Then she pulled the blanket over her head and tried to go back to sleep, wondering how she would find the strength to dance.

She had the whole day because the praise-dance would begin when the long rays of evening sunlight lay across the dancing floor. She would dance into the dusk and then again as the full moon rose—if she could. Her doubts increased through the day; even a second blanket and a footwarmer couldn't drive out the chill inside her. She was too tired to get out of bed and too weak to eat much, even when Phaidra brought the food to her.

Midafternoon she rose at last, heavy-eyed and unwilling, because she knew how long it would take to dress. Having her hair coiled and combed was torture and she had to cling to the wall and brace her trembling knees when the dancing skirt, its thirty dark red flounces all embroidered in gold and black, was fastened around her waist. The bodice didn't add much weight, but the gold thread apron pulling at her, bowing her forward, almost seemed the last straw.

They let her sit to paint her face. The bronze mirror showed her features so drawn that she didn't need the paint the maids were applying to make her look older. She felt a single prick of surprise that no one remarked on her dull silence. She had always been eager and excited to dance for the Mother. That thought was overridden by the fact that Pasiphae would have a fit, but Ariadne was too tired to care even about that, and when Pasiphae came she said nothing at all beyond, "Are you ready?"

She hardly seemed to see Ariadne. In a way that was nothing new, Pasiphae had never cared what Ariadne felt or thought, but in the past she had always been alert to anything that might spoil an act of worship in which she played the role of the goddess. Now Pasiphae seemed indifferent to Ariadne and her performance but not dull or ill. She looked excited, even feverish, however the intensity was all turned inward toward some purpose of her own.

"It's time, let us go," Pasiphae added.

Ariadne levered herself to her feet, wondering dully whether Dionysus had known this would happen, had wanted her to be unfit for the praise-dance so she would disgrace herself and become unwelcome to the Mother. Tears dimmed her eyes as she followed Pasiphae to the grand stair where Minos and the noble boys and girls of the dance chorus were waiting. She took her place just behind her mother and father, foremost of the dancers. When she looked down the stairs, a wave of dizziness swept over her and she swayed. A hand caught her arm and steadied her.

I love Dionysus, she thought, but I love the Mother too. May I not show that love? A little spurt of anger, a little thrill of resentment, because she could never follow her own heart gave her some strength, and she started down the stair. I will not give in, she thought. I will show that my heart is large enough to hold both. And upheld by a stubborn will to have done her duty to Dionysus and still praise the Mother, she walked steadily behind Pasiphae across the bull court, through the passage, down the ramp, and the few hundred paces to the steps down to the dancing floor.

The steps themselves and the rising ground around the dancing floor were crowded with people, except for the aisle beside the sacral platform which she and the dancers would take down to the dancing floor. The watchers rose to their feet and saluted as the procession of "god" and "goddess" and performers came into sight. Ariadne hesitated, imagining the surprise and scorn on all those now-respectful faces when she staggered and stumbled. If she could have, she would have turned away, but the other dancers were a solid wall behind her. Eyes fixed on nothing, blind with shame and fear, she stepped and stepped again.

The sun was just gilding the tops of the trees to the west. Dionysus shook his head and gestured irritably as a slave proffered a bowl of fruit. The boy drew it back at once and left the room hastily. Dionysus looked down at the polished table. He was mad, and he made everyone near him mad also. When the rage came, he couldn't . . . But before despair could grip him and rage follow despair, he remembered that Ariadne could divert him. Only it was because of Ariadne that he was angry now.

The word made him pause and think and gave him a sense of relief. Yes, he was angry, but not mad. He had no impulse to rend and tear and would not transmit that impulse to any other. He was angry over a real thing, because he wanted to see Ariadne dance, and knew he shouldn't want it.

Why couldn't he just think of her as he thought of the others, if he thought of them at all, as a good priestess, willingly passing all the sacrifices to him? The meat and other offerings Hermes had collected from the shrine had permitted him to pay back a lot of favors. Not that he ever lacked trading points. All the mages liked wine, and that he had from many shrines, but this bounty, not marked with the stamp of his Gift, he had given freely as presents.

Well, he thought, grinning suddenly, perhaps not totally free. A jeweled cup had brought Aphrodite to his bed. Not that he had expected or even hoped that would happen when he gave her the cup. It was meant as a "thank you" for her many kindnesses. Of all the great mages, Aphrodite alone didn't fear him, didn't ask what he wanted as soon as he arrived so she could be rid of him the sooner. Perhaps because there was no violence in her that he could rouse, perhaps because she understood what he did—if not why he did it. She, after all, also used what was within a person to punish and manipulate.

He sighed gently. No, not even Aphrodite, so like him in her ability to use emotion as a weapon or a reward, was able to understand why. Only Ariadne felt what he felt and could soothe him. Aphrodite . . . Ariadne . . . No, Ariadne was only a child. But Aphrodite looked little more than a child herself. He smiled, doubts and fears forgotten for the moment.

That coupling had been a revelation, a warm and laughing joy, as different from the orgiastic rutting of his worshipers with him and each other as beasts were from men. And yet he didn't desire to renew his pleasuring with Aphrodite. Even when he laughed with her and loved her he was a little repulsed. He was a jealous creature; he needed a lover who was his only, and Aphrodite, wonderful as she was, couldn't even comprehend the idea. She was perfectly promiscuous . . . and she couldn't drive Ariadne from his mind. He could dwell on coupling with Aphrodite, but he still wanted to see Ariadne dance.

Why shouldn't he? Dionysus thought. He would harm no one . . . except possibly himself. But that was his own affair. He would do better this time. He wouldn't roam the fields and woods and cities drawing men and women into wild excess to assuage his grief. He knew now the bacchanals couldn't help. And it would be many, many years before this Ariadne died.

He stood abruptly and walked out of the dining chamber of his house into the megaron and then out onto the gleaming marble portico. Here he paused, looking down the street of close-fitted stone to the open square dominated by his father's house, grander than all the others. Why not? He laughed and strode out.

He thought back to his coming to Olympus as he walked. Hekate had brought him there and presented him to Zeus. How she had known or guessed that he was Zeus' son, Dionysus had no idea. He suspected his mother, Semele, had told her when she found herself with child. If she had sought Hekate's protection, either it had failed or Hekate had refused her help. Semele had been buried in a heap of gold only days after Dionysus had been born and had been sacrificed to Hades, god of the Underworld.

Whether Hekate had felt guilt over Semele's fate or was simply curious, Dionysus knew she had kept an eye on him—and Dionysus was very grateful for it. When he reached puberty and the Visions began, he would have gone mad without her steadying assurances and explanations. She could not interpret those dreams and visions or free him from them, as Ariadne could, but she had been able to assure him that he was not mad and make clear what was dream and what was real. Then she had fled her father's malice and Dionysus had been left to struggle with his growing power alone, until one day Hekate was there again, holding out her hand and saying she had found his father, who would welcome him to a new home.

Dionysus grinned as he reached the great hammered bronze doors of Zeus' palace. Doubtless Zeus sadly regretted sending that welcome to Olympus with Hekate—more the fool he for being so eager to spite his wife that he did not more carefully examine what kind of a son he had fathered—but it was too late now.

The double doors were open, as they most often were during the day, and Dionysus walked in. A servant scurried to his side and asked how he could help him.

"I want to see my father," he said.

"Of course," the servant said. "Come with me."

That was what everyone said to him. "Of course," they said, and gave him what he asked for, and waited for him to go. Dionysus felt a flash of heat. The servant cringed.

"Tell him where I am," Dionysus said, and went into the nearest empty chamber.

Zeus came in moments. "What is the matter, Dionysus?" he asked.

"Nothing is the matter," Dionysus said. "I want to be a Cretan for a few hours."

"A transformation?" Zeus asked, the tenseness in his arms and shoulders relaxing. "Just for this once or will you want to use the form again?"

Dionysus looked away. "I shouldn't use it again, but likely I will."

Zeus laughed, relief in the sound. "A woman," he said, and smiled with knowing and pleasure. He went to the door and called out, "Bring me a scrying bowl," and when the servant came with it, he handed it to Dionysus. "Show me what you want to look like," he said, "and give the form a name."

At the sacral platform the procession halted. The crowd raised their voices, invoking the presence of the deities inside the bodies of their avatars. Minos and Pasiphae faced the celebrants and sang the ritual responses. Waiting beyond her father and mother, Ariadne swayed, tried to brace her knees and, feeling them tremble, at last yielded to her weakness. She tried to call out, to say she was unfit to dance, but a burst of ritual chant from the celebrants drowned out her breathless voice. In that moment, the dancers turned and pressed her forward again.

And then, deliverance! As soon as Ariadne's bare feet touched the smooth stones of the sacred place, warmth rose in her, steadying her legs, firming the muscles of her thighs, tightening her belly, pulling breath into her chest, and making her arms strong and lithe. Shock and joy uplifted her; she felt dizzy with reprieve, ready to leap down the steps and begin to whirl about and laugh, but that would have been as shocking to those who came to worship the Mother as to have her stumble and stagger. She had to grit her teeth and bite her lips against a fit of giggling.

Habit held her to the ritual. She stopped at the bottom of the stair and faced the sacral platform, the other dancers behind her. Raising fist to forehead, she saluted, waiting for Pasiphae with Minos at her side to take their places on the seats before the great horns, symbolic both of the horns of the growing moon, which promised the Mother's care and, in the horns of the bull, the virility of the male god.

King and queen, "god" and "goddess," they seated themselves in the full light of the westering sun. From the four corners of the dancing floor, first one priestess and then another raised her sistrum, black flounced skirts embroidered in red and gold, breasts jutting proudly, hair bound high in gold headdresses. Utter silence fell as the bell-toned rattles sounded, coming together into a rhythm that caught the breath and made the heart pound in time. Between the corners of the dancing floor stood the priests. Each raised his flute to his lips, and a lilting melody soon wove in and between the sound of the sistra.

Smiling now, Ariadne dropped her arm from its salute. Slowly she paced to the center of the dancing floor, struggling against the need to march in time with the music and keep to the sliding glide of the votary. Not yet, she told herself, not yet. At the center of the floor she stopped and waited for the other dancers to weave a pattern around her, right and left. When they were placed, she turned, foremost among them again, to face the sacral platform, and slowly raised her arms, palms upward, toward the "god" and "goddess."

In a heartbeat she felt as if her hands were full of feather-light ribbons. She had always felt that, but today she could "see" them, gossamer bands of golden light. She threw them up and stepped forward into the cascade. Now she let the music engulf her. The Goddess caught her hair. She whirled and leapt in the joyous greeting of recognition, the ribbons winding and weaving around her body. Having greeted, she paused, the dancing chorus moving around her in decorous steps of submission and pleading. Returned to their places, the dancers were still, leaving the praise to music alone; then Ariadne began the dance of life. In the rich afternoon light, she bent and swayed, gestured and leapt, miming birth and growth, work and rest.

As the light faded into evening the beat of the sistra slackened, the flute song grew fainter. Ariadne's steps slowed and the ribbons fell more softly but glowed all the brighter as she portrayed also love and death, all that the Mother provides, sinking, as darkness fell, to lie curled on the ground.

The ribbons encased her as a shroud, but their golden touch was warm and soft, not binding. Ariadne did not struggle against the Mother's caress; she simply lay, waiting for the moon to rise. Around her, singers formed a crescent moon, one horn male, the other female, and raised their voices. The men chanted the first plea of the ritual. Pasiphae answered. Then the women sang. Minos, playing the role of the young god, replied to them, turned to the "goddess" and wooed her. She responded. The chorus sang the old, old tale of the slow yearly seasons, of the quicker cycles of death and rebirth of the moon.

Ariadne in her golden shroud smiled. Waiting in joy for when she would dance the welcome to the Mother as the new day began with the moonrise, she felt the golden bands become part of her. The flower around her heart opened, and each petal was edged in golden light. Dionysus? she thought. And back to her, but very faintly, like a murmur meant not to disturb, came his whisper; this was the Mother's time and Ariadne must think of Her. Joy added to joy. Although she didn't move, she felt as if, if she desired, she could will herself to float off the ground and into the sky.

When the moon cast a brilliant, silvery light into the hollow of the dancing place, she unfolded herself from her fetal curl, swayed on her knees, letting her arms and fingers speak of the wonder of hope, of the endless renewal. She danced the welcome, danced in joy, light-footed, light-hearted, for once free of all doubt and fear. And when the ritual was complete, and she stood at the center of the floor again, saluting the figures on the sacral platform, she dared to look for Dionysus.

She couldn't find him. All the celebrants were Cretans, dark, handsome perhaps, but not one burned with the golden brilliance of the sun. She was hardly disappointed. The warning that this was the Mother's time implied that he would not show himself. It was a generosity she hadn't expected and made her glad, even though she was denied his presence. But he had been there; he had seen her dance and approved; she was sure of that.

At the top of the steps, Ariadne saluted the "god" and "goddess" again and she was free. Most of the dancers were swallowed into the crowd as relatives greeted them and praised their performance. Ariadne gladly slipped away. She had no desire to join the celebration that followed. She had celebrated with her whole heart and was replete. She went back to her chamber enwrapped in warmth, secure in the power the Mother had given to her, sated with delight.

The next morning Ariadne woke very early but, knowing her duties at the shrine were few and light, didn't get out of bed and drifted off to sleep again full of contentment. It was her stomach, clapping against her backbone and groaning dismally of her neglect, that finally induced her to rise. Her clothes chest produced only a sigh. The practice skirt was draggled, even stained with blood from some of the offerings on which she had not imposed stasis quickly enough. She would lay it across the chest for one of the slaves to collect and clean. The consecration skirt had been cleaned and stored, but it was crazy to wear so elaborate a white skirt for a common day's work.

Prodded by hunger, Ariadne shrugged and put on a kilt. It might not be dignified enough for her new station in life, but she had nothing else. Good. Today she would have time to tell that to her father and ask for her woman's dowry. She would never have a husband so the dowry could outfit the priestess. Considering whether she should just ask outright or make a more calculated approach and if so what kind, Ariadne went to the toilet, washed, combed her hair, and made her way to the eating hall, which was almost empty.

However, to her surprise, Phaidra was there. Usually their mother had duties for her daughters—like overseeing the household slaves or carrying messages to the craftsmen in the workrooms—when they were not engaged by their tutors in lessons. Ariadne had expected that Phaidra would be twice as busy because of her own work at Dionysus' shrine. She hadn't had a chance to urge her sister to practice the praise-dance, and perhaps it wasn't necessary now, but life was uncertain. What if she fell or was taken ill? If Phaidra had free time, she would go over the movements with her.

Ariadne took her breakfast and went to sit beside her sister. As she approached, however, she realized how dejected Phaidra's posture was and saw that her eyes were red and her lips downturned. Guilt stabbed Ariadne. She hadn't been idling over the last week, but her labor, no matter how exhausting, had been full of a rich satisfaction. Phaidra had been doing double duty for a thankless and ungrateful taskmistress.

"Oh, sister," Ariadne sighed, sinking down beside Phaidra. "I'm sorry to have left you with all the work of the palace. I swear, I hadn't a moment to spare from the god's service. But now the work of the shrine is mostly finished and I can help you."

"I have nothing to do," Phaidra said dully.

Ariadne, prepared to hear a long list of woes, choked on the bite of cheese she had taken. "Nothing?" she gasped, when she had controlled her coughing. "Then why are you weeping? I thought you were overworn."

"I'm afraid," Phaidra whispered.

"Afraid!" Ariadne repeated, also in a whisper, although there was no one close enough to hear. "What's happened?"

"Nothing has happened," Phaidra replied, keeping her voice very low, and shuddering convulsively, "but something will, soon . . . something terrible."

"Oh, Phaidra," Ariadne sighed, shaking her head with exasperation, "you're frightening yourself with boggles again. Why do you take such pleasure in doom and gloom? You nearly frightened me to death. Why do you think something terrible will happen?"

"Because Daidalos is so angry, I think he's ready to bring down the palace. Because mother, who hates Daidalos, has spent all ten-day in his workroom urging him on to some task he is unwilling to perform. Because Daidalos went to father and told him he must curb mother, but though he looks as if his guts are being torn out, father still ordered Daidalos to create what mother demanded. No one is allowed in the workroom but mother and Daidalos—even Icarus has been cast out."

Ariadne shrugged over Phaidra's first sentence and went on eating calmly. Daidalos was always angry. He had come to father's protection because of a blood feud in his own land, one he said was unjust. Minos had agreed to protect him, but at a price—that he would create, by craft and by magic, any artifact Minos desired. Possibly Daidalos had thought he would be treated as a royal exile with nothing to do but live off his host's fat and enjoy himself. Instead, he found his place little above any of the other palace craftsmen, and he resented Minos' demands. In fact, the only task Ariadne remembered him doing with good will was the creation of the dancing floor.

Phaidra's second sentence moved Ariadne little more than the first. She made an indistinct sound of comfort around the olive meats she was chewing and took a swallow of wine. Pasiphae and Daidalos didn't like each other, but both knew on which side of the bread the cheese had been spread. They would work together if necessary. When Phaidra spoke of Minos' behavior, however, Ariadne put down the cheese into which she was preparing to bite and frowned. And what Phaidra said of Icarus drew an exclamation of concern from her. Icarus was Daidalos' son, a fine artificer in his own right, and an eager student of any new craft or magic that Daidalos used.

"I tell you mother is going to do something terrible and father isn't going to stop her." Phaidra shuddered again and sobbed. "When I asked her who was required to pay his duty before seed corn was issued to him, she laughed and said `Give it to all of them. Soon I'll have a stronger rod to make them obey me than issuing corn.' And her face . . ."

"Oh, dear gods," Ariadne whispered. "I think perhaps she tried to Call a god—one of the great ones, like Zeus or Hera or, maybe the Mother Herself—she told me she intended to do that. I think the god would not reply, and now she's making Daidalos do something that she thinks will force the god to answer her." She took Phaidra's hands in hers and sat hold ing them, thinking. Then she said, "But what could Daidalos do to compel a god? If he had that power, surely father would have demanded that he compel Dionysus to come when some years the vines started to die and the wine would not ferment sweet."

"I don't know," Phaidra breathed. "But I'm afraid."

"Where are Androgeos and Glaukos? Perhaps if they spoke to father—"

"He sent them away. Two days ago, he sent them to the west to catch a bull."

"A bull! Oh, this must be to do with that accursed white bull." Ariadne bit her lip. "Father never let mother do anything really bad or dangerous, and he was as just and honest as Hades himself . . . before that bull came to shore." Now she shuddered. "I remember when I came back from the shrine and tried to tell them that Dionysus had warned me that the bull must die, mother stopped me and turned my warning into a sign of the god's favor. And anything to do with the bull means Poseidon. Oh, dear, Dionysus said that one was better off not meddling with Poseidon."

"Can I hide in the shrine with you?" Phaidra asked.

That surprised Ariadne so much that she uttered a choke of laughter. "Silly," she said, "how can the shrine protect us?" Then the sense of her own words came to her and she shivered. "If Poseidon grows angry at mother and decides to shake the earth, perhaps the shrine wouldn't collapse. It's carved of solid rock . . . No, Phaidra, think of all the people that would be hurt and killed or lose all their livelihood. We must try to find out what mother is doing, and—"

"And what?" Phaidra asked bitterly. "If father won't interfere, how can we?" She began to cry again. "Won't your god protect you?"

"I don't think so," Ariadne admitted. "He warned me already not to Call him for my personal troubles and said specially not to meddle with Poseidon. But Daidalos likes me."

"What good is that?" Phaidra's voice grated. "He likes Icarus better and wouldn't tell him what he's doing."

"Yes, but if he feels what he's doing may call down a god's anger, he might send Icarus away to protect him. He wouldn't care that much about me. He might want to complain to me about our mother. I'll try. The worst that can happen is that he'll send me away."

Since her appetite had been killed by the little she had eaten and the anxiety her conversation with Phaidra had generated, Ariadne rose without ado and went down the nearest stair. Passing the veranda that provided the artisans with a place to sit in the shade during their rest times, she went along a short corridor to another set of steps, which led to the lowest level of the palace.

It was cool there, and dark. Few light wells penetrated so deep and what light they gave was muted. The doors nearest the outer wall were Daidalos' and Icarus' private rooms, and Ariadne did not touch either door. She went on and soon the last scrap of light from the stairwell faded; only a few lamps lit the passage to a pair of doors that flanked the end of the corridor. Softly but firmly, she opened the door on the right, then closed it swiftly, taking care not to let the latch click. The room had been dark and silent; it wasn't empty, but no one was working there. Swallowing hard, Ariadne turned to the door on the left.

She opened this door boldly, without the caution she had used on the other, wanting to seem assured, and stepped forward into the room. This was brilliantly lit, mostly by lamps suspended on chains from the ceiling; they glowed with a strange white light, brighter by far than the usual golden flame of burning oil, and without smoking. But Ariadne had seen those before and she spared them no more than a quick glance, sweeping her eyes over the large, cluttered room. Her first reaction was relief; her mother wasn't there. Then her eye was caught by movement. At the far extreme of the chamber in the leftmost corner, Daidalos was turning quickly to face her from behind a large table.

Behind him, Ariadne caught a single glimpse of a shining white hide as he roared, "What are you doing here? Get out!"

"But Daidalos—" Ariadne began.

The hide was gone, as if it had fallen from the strange framework that had supported it. That framework seemed familiar, but it disappeared as swiftly as the white hide—had it also fallen silently to the floor?—and Ariadne had seen it too briefly to identify it firmly. In its place, rising as if she had been bent down behind the table, was Pasiphae.

"Out!" Daidalos bellowed, rounding the table with every sign that he intended to throw Ariadne out physically if she didn't go.

"And don't come back here," Pasiphae added. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in what might have been a threat or a grimace of pain. Her eyes were red-rimmed but open so wide that white showed all around the dark iris. Her hair was a rat's nest, and in the brilliant light Ariadne saw lines on her face that she had never seen before. "I swear," Pasiphae hissed, "that if you try to interfere with me, I'll destroy you, destroy your precious shrine, drive the worship of your puny godling out of Crete altogether."

"Out!"

Ariadne backed out of the doorway and pulled the door shut. Breathing in panting gasps, although not for fear of the threats against her, she leaned against the rough-worked stone between the doors. Pasiphae was mad. She pressed both hands against her lips and closed her eyes. Phaidra was right. Her mother was planning something terrible and desperate . . . but what?

When she had steadied herself, she started back along the passage to the stairwell. She climbed very slowly, still shaky from her reaction to the scene in Daidalos' workshop, thinking about what she had seen. The white hide, the framework—wood? metal? Suddenly Ariadne realized why that framework looked familiar. It was like the skeleton of a horse or a cow or . . . a bull? White hide and a bull's skeleton . . .

Having reached the artisans' veranda, Ariadne sank down on one of the benches protruding from the wall to think. A false bull? Daidalos was constructing a false white bull? But for what purpose? Could Pasiphae intend to substitute it for Poseidon's real bull which she would then sacrifice as the god had demanded and thus draw his attention to her? If that were her purpose, Ariadne would certainly not interfere; there was no need of threats to ensure her cooperation. She agreed heartily that the bull from the sea had to die, no matter how angry that made Minos.

Her mind checked on that thought, however, as she realized that sacrifice of Poseidon's bull could not be her mother's purpose. Minos had been told what Daidalos was doing and had agreed he must continue. Well, Phaidra said he looked as if his guts were being torn out, so perhaps . . . Nonsense. If he had been brought to agree to the death of the bull from the sea, he would sacrifice it himself, not leave the credit to Pasiphae, and there would be no need of the false bull as a substitute.

A substitute? Oh, sweet fields of death, could they intend to sacrifice the false bull to Poseidon? But three white bulls had already been given to the god and he was not appeased. A false bull, a thing of wickerwork and tanned hide, certainly could not fool him. Unless . . . Daidalos could do magic. Could he take some hair from the bull, some saliva, sweat, a nick of flesh, and bespell it so that the aura of the false bull and the real bull were the same, then sacrifice the false bull? No, that was nonsense too. Why build a bull when there were plenty of live ones to which Daidalos might attach the aura of the bull from the sea? Or did the aura of the real bull interfere with that bespelled onto it? She cocked her head to the side. Was that why Glaukos and Androgeos had been sent to catch a bull, so no taint of the palace herds should besmirch it?

Ariadne stared out toward Gypsades Hill, but she didn't really see it and found no comfort there. Her last thought made no more sense than those that came before. The main sticking point was Pasiphae's mad intensity on her purpose. Whether it was the sacrifice of the bull from the sea or one of the simulacra Ariadne had imagined, Ariadne could see no reward large enough to make Pasiphae so desperate nor any reason for Daidalos to be nearly as mad as Pasiphae to keep the secret. Worse still, somehow from the flower around her heart came a sense of sickness in that room, of wrongness, which Ariadne, who had visited Daidalos from time to time for various reasons, had never felt before.

There was one more thing Ariadne could do. She could use her need to talk about clothing as an excuse to visit her father. She went to the end of the artisans' veranda and through an open pillared hall. At the end, which opened onto the south-facing veranda of Minos' chambers, the guard smiled recognition and let her pass. She saw why at once. The veranda was empty. Often Minos sat there to break his fast and even to attend to some business. It was a beautiful spot, pleasant and sheltered. And the doors were closed. Ariadne's heart sank. On a fine day like this, the doors to the outer room should be open.

She entered the corridor that ran along the outer room and opened into the inner chamber. That door was open, but the room was empty, except for a guard. Ariadne asked if he would enquire whether her father was busy. She needed to ask about obtaining garments suitable for her position. The guard—she knew he was a high nobleman's son, but could not call his name to mind—shook his head.

"He will see no one," he said. "I have turned away men on serious business. Those are my orders. No one to be admitted for any purpose, until further orders are given."

"Is my father ill?" Ariadne asked.

"I have not seen the physicians come," the guard said. "Nor do I have permission to admit them if any did."

Realizing she could accomplish no more, Ariadne thanked him and turned away. She walked slowly through the maze of rooms and corridors until she came to the portico that faced on the bull court. There she sat on the balustrade and went over the facts in her mind, but nothing new occurred to her. Eventually she gave up, and went to find Phaidra. She told her sister what she had seen, what she had guessed, mentioned how unlikely it all seemed, and asked Phaidra what she thought of it.

To her surprise Phaidra looked relieved. To sacrifice a false bull or a wild one instead of Poseidon's own bull was certainly dangerous because the god could take offense, she pointed out, but it was unlikely he would take such terrible offense over one bull as to shake the whole island into the sea.

Seeing her sister somewhat happier, Ariadne didn't try to explain the sense of horror she had felt in Daidalos' workshop. Truly, she had no foreboding that their danger was from any massive retaliation Poseidon might visit on them. The horror was personal, something their mother would bring down upon them as a family rather than on Crete as a whole. That was some comfort, and Ariadne left Phaidra to her household chores and went to the shrine. She would have loved to Call Dionysus and ask his advice and for the comfort of his arm around her, but she knew that was forbidden. He had been annoyed when she Called to tell him of the offerings, as if it was her responsibility to solve such problems on her own.

Still, there were little things to do. A few more sacrifices to put in stasis, a more careful examination of some of the old offerings that were piled in the storage room, questions to the priests and priestesses about the progress of the novices. She did what was necessary, ate a meal in lonely splendor in her chamber, and eventually went back to the palace. Nothing had changed there; no disaster had befallen them. Nor did any occur on the next day or the next. Ariadne began to worry about Androgeos and Glaukos, but they came home safe on the fourth day, bringing with them a fine, wide-horned, bellowing prisoner, angry but unharmed, to be penned beyond the house where the bull-dancers in training lived.

The fifth day passed. Androgeos and Glaukos spent most of their time gentling the new bull—not taming it but making it sufficiently accustomed to the presence of humans not to run mad. Phaidra was still anxious, but she always was, and Ariadne found the horror that had gripped her dulling, slipping away. One cannot live on a high pitch for long, be it joy or fear. She might have begun to wonder why she had reacted so strongly to what she had seen in Daidalos' workroom . . . except that her father still remained locked in his chamber and her mother seemed to have disappeared entirely.

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Framed