No one likes to admit a serious blunder or set loose a catastrophe. Ariadne didn't want to tell Dionysus that his Vision had been rejected by her parents, that her mother insisted on bearing what Poseidon had set into her and that her father agreed. She put off Calling him while she sought reasons for him not to punish her family further, but she sought in vain and in the end he appeared beside her bed early one morning without being Called.
He looked terrible, so ashen pale that his skin had a faint greenish tinge, mouth swollen, eyes heavy-lidded and ringed with bruised-looking mauve-colored skin. She'd have been frightened, if she hadn't seen the look before, on her brothers when they'd been making too merry among the wine pots and the women of pleasure. But could a god get wine-sick and drained out by lust?
Pushing that thought into the back of her mind, she sat up and held out her hand. "How can I serve you, my lord?"
He took the hand she had offered in so tight a grip that Ariadne had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. When he saw that, he eased his hold.
"I just wanted to make sure you were here, that I hadn't dreamed of how the vineyards of Crete were blessed." He took a deep breath and forced a small smile. "I'll go now that I've seen you."
"Oh, don't go so soon, my lord." She scrambled out of bed, her eyes widening as she came closer and saw that his clothing and his body, where it was not covered, looked as overworn as his face. "You are soiled and exhausted. Let me draw a bath for you and—" she hesitated, wondering if she dared mention that he was marked with nicks and scratches and trickles of blood. Could gods be injured and bleed like common mortals?
"And?" He was smiling more naturally.
"And find some salve for your hurts?" she finished timidly.
He hesitated, staring at her, and then said, "Yes."
"Lie down then, my lord," she said, steering him toward the bed, "while I make all ready."
She was surprised by an initial stiffening, as if he would resist, but she was already turning away, reaching for the robe that lay over a chair. Before she could face him again and ask what was wrong, he released her hand and lay down with a long sigh. His eyes were closed before she was out of the door, so she didn't hurry, rousing the servants to heat and carry water and telling the priestesses to be sure there was more than enough and of the best quality for breaking the fast.
When they were busy about their tasks, she went quietly to where the medicines were kept and took a pot of the unguent used for wounds. This she hid in the folds of her robe while she returned to the bedchamber. Whatever her own doubts about gods who needed to eat bread and cheese and who could be scratched by brambles and scraped by stones, she didn't want to arouse similar doubts in others.
As she had hoped, Dionysus was soundly asleep, his body huddled in on itself as if he were cold . . . or trying to ward off some ill. She put the unguent pot at the back of a shelf, where it wouldn't be easily seen, and then drew her coverlet over him. He was so beautiful, even sapped out and filthy, that she could have stood staring forever, but a faint movement of his head, as if he were trying to turn away, warned her and she left the room and closed the door.
After standing for a moment, she went to tell the servants to fill the bath with cold water only and keep the hot water on the hob until it was needed. Then, remembering the little frown between Dionysus' brows and the greenish tinge of his skin, she ran as quickly as she could to the kitchens of the palace, where she asked the cook for that remedy he made for her brothers when they had been carousing.
Although he scolded her for running errands—a high priestess, he said, should send servants to do her will—he prepared the draught right there. This time, Ariadne paid close attention so that in the future she could make up the drink herself.
She was breathless, more with anxiety than with the effort of running, when she returned, but all was quiet, and she took the potion to her chamber and set it beside the unguent. She frowned at that. It would do no good to have hidden the salve if Dionysus' body was exposed for any to see, but he was far too large for her to borrow a priest's tunic. Ariadne spent more time contriving a garment from the cloth she kept for herself, but even when that task was accomplished, he slept. Eventually she broke her fast alone and told Hagne, who carried away most of the meal, that a special midday meal should be prepared. She had begun to think that, too, would have to be set aside when Dionysus finally called from the bedchamber.
At first—at least after the cook's remedy had taken effect—Dionysus found Ariadne's preparations, which included fetching the hot water herself so the servants shouldn't see him and anointing his cuts and bruises after the bath, very funny. For a time he seemed utterly contemptuous of what the servants and priests and priestesses saw. Then he began to cast odd glances at her, and by the time he had finished eating and leaned back in his chair with a cup of wine in his hand, he was staring at Ariadne with such intensity that she began to tremble. Seeing that, he crooked a finger at her and she came and knelt at his feet.
"So you're wondering what I am, are you?" he asked.
"You are my lord, my god," Ariadne answered, head bowed.
"No matter whether I am a god or not? Isn't that what you mean?"
"You are my lord, my god," Ariadne repeated stubbornly.
"Because you're afraid of what I will do if you doubt my divinity?"
She lifted her head and met his eyes. "Because I love you. Because you've been kinder to me than any other person in the world has been. Because . . ." her voice slowed and faded, but then she went on more firmly, "bcause you are a person." She dropped her head again. "The Mother is kind to me also. I feel Her warmth. She gives me strength. But . . . but She . . . She's so much beyond my understanding, my reach." She looked up. "You are my god, Dionysus, my own precious god."
She knew he was no god, that was clear enough. Dionysus looked into his wine cup instead of at the fragile, kneeling girl. He knew what Zeus would say, or Athena, or Apollo, that he should kill her before she . . . Before she what? Told anyone? Ridiculous. Hadn't he just been laughing because she had gone to such lengths to be sure that even the consecrated priests and priestesses of his temple shouldn't know he was wine-sick, that he could be wounded?
She was more careful not to cast any doubt on his divinity than he was. And she was aware of his power. She could feel it even when she was spared its effects; she'd begged for mercy for those in the shrine on the day of her consecration. So, for their own sakes, she wouldn't allow anyone to think he could be challenged.
The other side of the coin was even more dangerous. If she knew he was no god, wouldn't she soon guess the other Olympian mages were not divine? They would be less merciful.
"So I'm your god out of love, but what of those you don't love? What of Poseidon?"
Ariadne shuddered. "One doesn't question what the Earth-Shaker is when one lives on Crete. Nor is it safe or sane to ask questions about any of the others. If they aren't like the Mother, they're still able to rule us through Her Gifts and their power."
"That's very wise. It would be wise also not to talk of this to anyone."
Now Ariadne smiled. "To whom do I have to talk? The priestesses are too awed and, to tell the truth, too old to be interested in the things I am; the novices newly sworn to the temple are too young."
"You have a father, a mother, a sister, brothers . . ." His voice faded as he watched her face. He could see that her eyes, no matter they were already downcast, shifted. "So," he said, "your family has been troubling you again, about the vines that were not blessed, no doubt."
"Glaukos came as if he would brazen out a demand, but he yielded quickly. Then my father came." She hesitated. "He has doubled his offerings and swears if I come again to Knossos as your Mouth that I will be listened to respectfully and not threatened. He says that to leave his vines blighted when those of all the rest of Crete are full and rich might shake his rule, the people and nobles thinking that he isn't acceptable to you. He begs humbly that you bless his vines."
Dionysus stared at her for a moment longer, then burst out laughing. "You should've told me this tale when I first came into your bedchamber. Now I'm fed and rested, I hear more than the words. So you've told me the better, now out with the bitter."
Ariadne looked up at him under her long lashes. "If I had told you when you first came to me, you would've roared over to the palace and everyone in it would be dead. That's not what I want, even though I no longer acknowledge parents or siblings. Which takes me back to what you began to say about whom I had as a confidant: remember I have no father and mother; I was consecrated to you. I'll talk to no one but you, of course, about anything we say privately to each other."
"But you will try to protect your family from me—"
"Not from you, my lord. From Poseidon."
He cocked his head. "You want me to stand between your family and Poseidon?"
"No! Mother forfend! I only want you not to do what must offend Poseidon."
"Why should I offend Poseidon? Of all the Olympians, he is the one with whom I have least contact." His lips twisted. "And I don't have much contact with any of them."
Ariadne was silent, head bent. After a moment, Dionysus set his cup on the small table. She looked up. "My father won't part with what Pasiphae carries."
Dionysus shrugged. "He's a fool, but it's nothing to me."
"But I think he plans to use whatever . . . whoever . . . it is to diminish your authority in Crete. Perhaps to drive you out."
The words came out in a rush, after which Ariadne caught her breath. Dionysus burst out laughing. "Who cares? It's the vines of Crete that will suffer and the wines made from them. Perhaps I'm a little sorry for the farmers and the merchants who've suffered my indifference before. Do you think this little island is all my domain? There is Egypt and all the lands of the east and the west. Do you think I care about Crete?" He reached out and took her chin in his hand, lifting her head. "I care for you, Chosen."
She breathed a huge sigh and squirmed forward so she could lay her head on his knee. "Then I don't care either." After a moment, she looked up, her eyes pleading. "Oh, my lord, will you tell me of those other lands?"
He smiled into her eager face. "I'd tell you gladly, but I'm sorry to say there's not much I know." He grinned at her more broadly. "I don't travel for pleasure or to see the sights of the land, after all. All I know is the temples and the vineyards." And then his expression grew thoughtful. "Well, no. Perhaps I've seen more in some places." He stared at her, and then shook his head. "It's only here in Knossos that I stay so close to the temple."
Ariadne grinned in turn. "Because of me?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm doubly glad you go abroad in other places, first because you can tell me about them and second because that means no other priestess is as pleasant for you to be with as I am."
He tapped a finger on her nose. "Don't get above yourself. Perhaps I never thought before of making a friend of a priestess."
Although Ariadne suspected from what he'd said in the past that he had made a friend and lover, too, of the first Ariadne, she had no intention of reminding him of that. She caught at his hand. "Oh, don't, my lord. Don't look for another. I'll not get overproud, I promise. And I'll be whatever you want me to be. You've only to tell me what you desire."
Dionysus shook his head, but when she asked why, he wouldn't answer and asked whether she wanted to hear about foreign lands or not, whereupon she nodded eagerly and settled herself to listen.
Altogether it was a delightful afternoon, most of it spent talking in the chamber but also walking in the temple garden in the early dusk and then—Dionysus invisible again—examining the nearer vineyards. He left when the Hunter hung overhead without even a fare-thee-well; she only knew when his hand released hers. She continued to walk through the rows of grapes, a little sad but vastly content also, somehow knowing that he would come again, and soon.
So he did, sometimes sick as he had been that first time, sometimes raging over something he wouldn't explain, sometimes only weary and hurt. He would appear beside her wherever she happened to be and she would welcome him with delight, her heartflower bursting open and spinning out its silver strands. And whatever his mood, when those enwrapped him, he calmed and smiled.
They never spoke of her family again, except on his second visit, when she told him there was much talk against her father and that she would like to bless what grapes had formed on the vines of Knossos so the curse on him shouldn't seem absolute. To that, utterly indifferent, Dionysus gave permission—and changed the subject. When he came, they lived in their own little world. He taught her magic, to light lamps, torches, and fires with a gesture; to freeze a person where he stood; to fetch articles from other rooms in the temple.
Magic left her tired, although not so drained as it once had, and while she rested, they talked of many things, or rather, Dionysus talked and Ariadne listened. She was fascinated by what he told her and it enlarged her rather narrow view of life. She learned that she was very fortunate to have been born a Cretan. Cretan women were much more free and powerful than women in most other societies. Egypt was next best. But in many places women were accounted for very little, powerless, not permitted to own property or even rights to their own bodies. Ariadne realized that those lands had lost the worship of the Mother, had overlaid her power with that of mostly male deities, and were much given to war.
The city-states of Greece were prime examples. They fought each other constantly, each calling on the patron god of that city, who sometimes helped and sometimes ignored the calls. Ariadne did not need to ask why; that much she knew from her father's dealings with his nobles. To keep them divided among themselves made him stronger. To keep the worshipers in doubt as to the god's favor, induced more generous giving at the temples. Ariadne had some proof of that already. Although the offerings were still adequate, they were not anything near that first outpouring. There would be another outflow, she guessed, when the wine fermented sweet and rich, but if the plenty continued unabated, the offerings would grow fewer, unless they were stimulated in some way.
Sometimes, however, Dionysus spoke of more personal matters. He told her unhappily more than once of the mother who had been seduced by Zeus and then abandoned, except for leaving her covered with a heap of gold. And although Dionysus had never known her, he'd quarreled with Zeus about her and had eventually gone into the Underworld and badgered Hades into allowing him to bring Semele to Olympus. Hades had warned him it was a mistake, but wouldn't say why. And Hades had been right; Semele knew her son no more than he knew her. Like all the others, she was afraid of him. She wouldn't stay with him and had returned to Plutos.
Did he live all alone? Ariadne had asked. That set off another set of tales. He explained about his household in Olympus, describing Bacchus and Silenos who lived with him. Good friends, he called them, but Ariadne realized from what he said that they were given over entirely to the joys of the body and, possibly, weren't too clever. He didn't say it in words, but Ariadne understood that he was lonely.
The tales and explanations were long ones, full of byways, some joy, much anguish, and not to be spun out in an hour. Ten-days passed. At midsummer they ran the vineyards again spreading the Mother's blessing so that the grapes were full and sweet; and in the autumn, they went a third time. That time Dionysus taught Ariadne how to touch a bunch here and there with a certain mold, which would lend a special flavor to the wine. After they had covered the whole island, Ariadne was a trifle anxious, fearing that Dionysus would settle into Olympus for the winter and not come to her, but she was wrong about that.
Since he had become so sure she would welcome him in any and all circumstances and conditions without fear or questions, he was easier and lighter hearted, teasing and joking and clearly taking great joy in the fact that Ariadne also teased him and played childish tricks on him. He abandoned all pretense that he came as a godly duty and began to bring with him games and scrolls full of stories and ancient lore. They played the games but Dionysus found the stories silly and they left the scrolls alone.
On the morning of the winter equinox, the courtyard of the shrine was packed, the people overflowing onto the sides of Gypsades Hill. The wine was already sweet and strong and would be like the nectar of the gods when it had aged. When Ariadne looked into the scrying bowl as the sunlight touched the rim, she thought a wry smile and words that appeared in no ritual: "Sorry, my love, I know it's too early for you, but custom is custom. Will you come?"
Half growling, half laughing, he obediently rose and dressed and came, and the shouts of the people, despite an unusual bitter cold, nearly shivered loose the stones of the shrine. Minos, in the first row, saluted with the others, but his lips didn't part in any hymn of praise. Pasiphae was not present. She was said to be almost too big with child to walk and her delivery was imminent.
It was a shock for Ariadne to remember that, to realize suddenly that if Pasiphae had conceived on the night of Dionysus' Vision, she'd carried the babe more than a month over the normal time. A hope flared in her that her mother had lied, that she hadn't conceived or the god hadn't come and what she carried was Minos'—or some other man's—get.
The hope fled as Dionysus tilted her face up for his kiss. His Visions were always true. Could Pasiphae be carrying her young for the term of a cow's breeding? Ariadne buried that horrible thought and began to wonder whether she would ever be permitted to bear Dionysus' child.
Not that time, in any event. He shrouded them in darkness, but did no more than hug her and explain that he couldn't linger this time. A faint shadow crossed his face but he only said he had been invited to a celebration of the winter equinox that he couldn't fail to attend. Ariadne kissed him again as he dismissed the darkness, and hastened to draw on the robe she'd just removed and to help a shivering Dionysus with his himation. At the god's gesture, the audience departed and they hurried inside, Dionysus shaking his head and wondering aloud who could be so idiotic as to expect god and priestess to couple on a freezing stone altar.
"Surely even a god would have more common sense than that!" he protested indignantly.
Ariadne was still laughing when he disappeared. He would be back as soon as he could come, she was sure.
The next day, however, she was wakened suddenly by the frantic pealing of the bell at the temple gate. Pale light came through the shaft window; it was morning, but much earlier than Ariadne normally left her bed. Still, she sat up at once. The bell pealed again. Although she was no healer nor could she imagine any emergency that a priestess of Dionysus could be expected to amend in the middle of the winter, she rose and hurriedly pulled on a warm gown. There was something in the pealing of that bell that brought her pounding heart right up into her throat.
The voice that called her name was Phaidra's, high and hysterical. Some disaster had struck Knossos. Disaster. Ariadne's mind leapt to her thought of the previous morning, that Pasiphae was due to expel whatever she had carried in her overfull belly. She ran out to meet Phaidra.
"I can't! I can't!" Phaidra wailed, casting herself into Ariadne's arms. "It's too horrible. I can't do it. You must help me."
"Of course I'll help you," Ariadne soothed, "but you have to tell me first what it is you can't do."
"I can't care for it. I can't. Mother had no right to bear a monster and cast its care on me."
Cold washed down Ariadne's back. Through stiff lips, she asked, "The child is born?"
"Child?" Phaidra echoed and shuddered. "I don't know what it is. Come. You must come. She's already very angry with me because it's crying, but I can't touch it. I can't. And the maids fled away. Come. You must come."
There was no "must" about it. Ariadne had warned Pasiphae to clean out her womb; she wasn't responsible for the result of the queen's refusal. She had also forsworn her family and could say with a clear conscience that she was no longer bound to them by blood ties. But it wasn't that simple. The queen had borne what a god had imposed on her. And all Ariadne's life, except these past nine moons, she had cared for Phaidra. Moreover, Phaidra hadn't cast her off. She had come often to the temple to give Ariadne news, to gossip and laugh. If Pasiphae was angry with Phaidra, the child would be made to suffer. Ariadne couldn't abandon Phaidra to her mother's rage.
"Come. You must come," Phaidra insisted.
Ariadne yielded to Phaidra's pull and went with her out of the gate and down the hill. She was so sick with apprehension, that she could feel bile in her throat and she didn't dare ask a question for fear she would spew. Phaidra was silent too, except for one sentence, muttered under her breath, "Oh, why wouldn't it die quietly," which reminded Ariadne that her sister had said "It was crying."
She heard the thin wailing as soon as she came out of the stairwell that led to the second floor, and her heart lurched. The cries were broken, exhausted, as if the child had been unattended for a very long time. Phaidra dropped her hand, but Ariadne knew perfectly well where to go and broke into a run.
She faltered at the doorway. The room stank. Then the cradle lurched and the tired wailing, which had been still for a moment, began again. Ariadne hurried forward, her teeth set, and looked into the cradle. The child was naked and lying on its stomach, and at first sight was not so dreadful, except for the filth. True, a thick mane of black hair grew over the head and halfway down the back, but it had two arms and two legs and the correct number of fingers and toes.
The condition of the cradle was far worse than a little extra hair, and it was far too cold to leave an infant not only wet and soiled but naked. Ariadne snatched up a clean blanket from a pile on a wall shelf, threw it over the child's back and picked it up. As she turned it, a gasping cry was wrung from her, and she had to tighten her arms consciously not to drop the child.
What caught the eye was the black mass that protruded into a broad muzzle and covered almost the whole bottom half of the face. In it were two large holes that quivered as the little creature drew breath; below it a wide slit of a mouth with no lips and almost no chin opened to emit another wail. The eyes were large, bulbous, and set too far apart, but the lids were furnished with long, thick, curling lashes—a travesty of beauty that was almost more horrible than more ugliness would have been. A finger width of brow separated the eyes from the growth of black hair, which continued on down the child's back, and there were two bumps under the hair just above the brow.
Ariadne stared, transfixed, aware that the horror of that little face was not really strange to her, that she had seen it before and not found it horrible at all. And then she remembered where she'd seen it and wavered where she stood, her soul in turmoil. She knew what Poseidon had done, and something inside her screamed and screamed for help while tears of pity and remorse ran down her face.
"Turn it around! Turn it around!" Phaidra cried from the doorway. "How can you bear to look at it?"
Ariadne almost couldn't bear it, but the little creature had stopped screaming now that she held it. At Phaidra's voice, it twitched in her grip and uttered a tiny whimper. Instinctively she rocked it in her arms, and it made a small hiccup. Ariadne drew a fold of the blanket over the child's face.
It was her fault that the poor thing was being shunned, all her fault. She was no seer. She had misunderstood Dionysus' Vision and been too sure that Poseidon's curse would fall on all of Knossos, perhaps all of Crete. She had spoken that conviction aloud for too many to hear. She had set into everyone's mind that what Pasiphae was bearing was a great evil. The babe was a curse—a cruel, cruel revenge that Poseidon had taken, but not a great evil, except to itself. Minos would never forget that he had tried to cheat a god. Every time he looked into his youngest son's face, he would see the head of a bull.
Whipped by her own regret, Ariadne turned furiously on Phaidra. "Come in here and take that mess out of the cradle," she snapped. "What's wrong with you? It's not the child's fault that he's so ugly. You are the monsters, not he. How could you be so cruel as to leave a helpless infant unfed, wallowing in his own dirt. Get those foolish maids back in here at once."
"They won't come," Phaidra said sullenly.
"They'll come or I'll have them torn apart." Ariadne's black eyes showed sparks of red, and Phaidra backed up a step. "If you run, I'll come after you and whip you myself, and what your mother will do to you, I don't like to think. Now, do as I say. You may tell the maids they don't yet need to handle the child, but they must provide me with clean padding for the cradle, warm water for washing, and oil for anointing. I want a wet-nurse—"
"That you won't get," Phaidra said, "no matter what you threaten. That thing almost tore the nipple off the woman who tried to suckle him. The next will last no longer than the first. I won't try to find another."
About to tell Phaidra not to be ridiculous, that the child must eat, Ariadne paused. She wasn't sure the mouth was made for suckling, except the long teat of a cow.
"Then bring me a long-spouted cruet, a small one, and warmed pots of goat's milk, ewe's milk, and cow's milk, and quickly. And don't be such a fool! It's ugly, poor little thing, but it's only a baby."
"It's a curse upon us!"
"No," Ariadne said, tears starting to her eyes again. "Only on itself, and for the rest of his life, a bitter reminder to King Minos of how he tried to cheat the Lord Poseidon."
Under Phaidra's urging, backed by the threat that she would tell Queen Pasiphae if they wouldn't obey her, the maids crept back into the nursery. Their fears were somewhat reduced when they saw Ariadne holding the child as if it were any other baby, rocking it in her arms and murmuring to it. One, shrinkingly, brought the cruet and the pots of milk forward. Another, when Ariadne asked, said it was believed that ewe's milk was the richest and the easiest for a child to take in lieu of mother's milk. So Ariadne bid her pour ewe's milk into the cruet, laid the child on her knees, and lifting its head so it would not choke, dribbled a few drops of milk into the mouth that opened to wail again.
The wail was cut off abruptly to swallow; the mouth opened again eagerly. The contents of the cruet disappeared in an amazingly short time with only a few mishaps when the eager baby tried to reach the spout more quickly and spilled milk or, once, almost knocked the cruet from Ariadne's hand. When the child had had its fill, and had been dandled on her knee and shoulder until it brought up wind, Ariadne washed it and dried it and wrapped it in swaddling cloths—and stared as the cloths virtually burst open under the thrusts of the babe's arms and legs.
Only then did she really look at the child and realize that it was half again larger than any newborn babe she had ever seen, remember how it had lifted its head off her arm, almost lifted its entire body, in an attempt to reach the milk. She blinked back new tears. It was very strong. Poseidon was taking no chance that his revenge would be cut short by a natural failing. Surely that infant had been Gifted with strength. Swallowing, she tried gently to rewrap it, but it wouldn't bear the confinement and it yelled and struck out, hard enough to hurt her a little.
Stroking the furred head until it calmed, she turned the creature on its stomach, adjusted the head so that the protruding muzzle was not in the way, and covered it. She stroked the head a while longer and the bulbous eyes closed, the black nostrils fluttered with little snorts. It slept.
Ariadne ground her teeth together to keep them from chattering. All she wanted to do was to run back to the shrine and forget what she had seen. Her guilt stabbed at her. She knew if the maids and Phaidra guessed she wouldn't return, they would also leave. She turned to confront her sister.
"Now you can see it's only a babe, no great evil—"
"Why did you tend it?" Phaidra asked bitterly. "I thought you would silence it. . . ."
"Phaidra!" Ariadne exclaimed. "It is a poor, helpless babe. How could you think I would harm it? And don't you be such a fool either. There can be no doubt this is the Earth-Shaker's child. Can you imagine what he would do to Knossos, to all of Crete, if deliberate harm were inflicted on his son?"
Phaidra came close and whispered in Ariadne's ear, "But if only one person did the harm and that person was protected by another god, perhaps . . ."
"Oh, no," Ariadne snapped, pushing Phaidra away. "This matter is more serious than taking a whipping for your sake as I have done in the past. I don't think the god Poseidon would trouble himself to distinguish between one common native and another. He would blame us all if any did harm to his get. His get . . . Hasn't the child been named?"
"Oh, yes," Phaidra said, her lips down turned. "Mother did that much. Its name is Asterion."
At the mention of her mother, Ariadne cast a glance over her shoulder at the child. The birthing of such a one could not have been easy, even though Pasiphae had borne eight before. "How is the queen?" she asked. "It must have been a hard bearing."
"She will bear no more children," Phaidra said, eyes downcast, "but she will live."
A thin finger of ice ran down Ariadne's spine. Could Phaidra have wished for her mother's death? But when her sister's eyes lifted again, there was no malice in them. Ariadne let out the breath she had unconsciously caught.
Phaidra burst into tears. "It's not fair. If mother were well, she would attend to this `godling' of hers. I can't!"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. From all I've heard from our elder sisters, the queen never cared for any of her babes. Until she married, it was Euryale's task to oversee the maids who attended to the new babes, and then Prokris watched over the younger ones. Now I am Dionysus' priestess and it's your turn."
"I can't." Phaidra shivered and clutched her arms around herself.
Ariadne went and gave her a hug. "Now, now. I know your monthly courses have begun. You're a woman now. It's only a very ugly baby. You know it did me no harm. Did he act in any way other than any other babe? Think what Poseidon will do if his son does not survive. Do you wish to take the chance if any harm came to Asterion that he would break Crete in pieces as he has done aforetimes?"
"I'm not a woman, courses or not." Phaidra wept. "I'm only one little girl, and the maids won't obey me. You saw how they ran away."
Ariadne looked around at the cowering women. "If you don't run away, neither will they. If they do you need only tell the queen and she will attend to them. After a few are whipped and broken, the others will be obedient." What she had said was true enough, but some of those maids had served her and her sister, and she really didn't want them to be whipped and broken. She sighed. "I'm willing to help care for Asterion for a few days longer, but I must give instruction to my priests and priestesses about what to do with the midwinter offerings and do some other business at the shrine. I'll return as soon as I can. Meanwhile, let Asterion sleep. If he wakes, feed him as you saw me do and clean him if needful."
She went out quickly, aware of the resentful looks cast at her and the contented snuffling of the child. She hoped that by calling it by name she had made it more of a person. It was horrible to think that Phaidra had run to her in the expectation that she would murder a helpless babe. As she fled down the stair and through the corridors that would take her out of the palace, she reconsidered the matter and by the time she was making her way up Gypsades Hill, she was almost smiling.
What a fool I am, Ariadne thought, walking a little slower now that she was no longer trying to escape her own horror. As Phaidra said, despite the start of her womanly courses, she was little more than a babe herself, mostly because, being youngest, she had never had much responsibility thrust upon her. Asterion was probably no more real to her than a doll.
Back in the days before Ariadne understood she would never sit between the sacral horns and judge the bull dancing, she had played at being priestess of the Snake Goddess. She could remember how she, herself, would impale a doll on a toy bull's horn to reenact the horror and excitement of a failure in the dance. She had not hesitated to "sacrifice" a doll. As Asterion grew up in Phaidra's care, he would grow real to her and she would come to love him.
"No one will `come' to love him."
Ariadne's head jerked up and she gasped with shock, losing her balance and starting so violently that she banged her shoulder against the door frame as she entered her chamber. Dionysus stood just beyond the doorway in worse case than she had ever seen him. His face was lined and pallid and streaked with flaking brownish stains; his tunic was blotched, in places soaked, with what she realized was dried blood. More blood covered his hands, blackened his nails, streaked his upper arms and legs.
Deliberately blind, Ariadne cried, "Oh, my lord, have you been waiting long for me? I am so sorry—"
"I haven't been waiting at all," he said. "I've been with you from when you first saw the bull-headed child. You screamed for help. I came."
He was perfectly expressionless, his blue eyes staring at her and at the same time through her. Ariadne braced herself against a shudder. If he saw her fear, he didn't offer comfort; his face might have been carved from rock or painted.
"I screamed for help?" Ariadne whispered, but she remembered the terrible shock, the nearly mindless pleas that had echoed through her and had wiped out all thought for a few moments. "How can you have been there and I not seen you?" she added.
"I can be unseen when I wish. You know that. Why you didn't see me isn't important. You're wrong about the child, Ariadne. He will bring death and bitter grief upon your family, infamy upon your people. You're wrong about Poseidon too. He neither knows nor cares about the child. If it dies, he'll think his spell was not perfect and, likely, having achieved the revenge of cuckolding the king and causing the queen to produce a monster, if no further insult is offered him, forget. If he doesn't forget, the blame will fall upon me."
Until those last words, Ariadne stood silent, staring. "What do you mean, the blame will fall upon you?" she asked, pale with horror.
"The child must die, but you may say it was by my prophecy."
"No!" Ariadne cried, weeping anew. "It's little and helpless. It struggled so hard to live, crying and crying for hours when no one would help it and any other babe would have given up. Why do you say it will bring death and grief? It's strong, but how can a tiny baby do such harm?"
His eyes focused on her. "Chosen, don't be such a fool. A babe doesn't stay a babe. It grows. And this will grow into such a monstrous thing—"
"No, no! It's my fault. I'm not a true seer. I only wished to hold you near me, so I told a tale about the bull with a man's head. This is no bull with a man's head. It's a small baby, a little helpless creature. It's ugly but not harmful."
Dionysus shook his head. "Whether you like it or not, you are a true seer. I know because the pain of the Vision departed when you found the meaning for it."
"It's not true. I know what I did. I put upon that poor malformed little boy all the horror I felt when I realized that my mother was going to betray my father, prostitute herself to Poseidon, just because you had come to my Call. I will do no more hurt to poor Asterion than I have already done by making everyone fear him as a curse."
"Will it be more harm to end his life quickly, without pain or fear, than to let him live to know what he is? To see horror and terror in everyone who looks at him? I'll show you how to put your hand on his body and stop its life. The babe will feel nothing. He'll be at peace."
"No! I comforted him. I held him in my arms. I cleaned him and fed him. I? I stop a babe's life? Never!"
"Listen to me. This . . . this thing must die, as the bull from the sea should have died. If you won't do this for the child's sake, you must do it for the good of all the people. He isn't a monster now—only, as you say, ugly—but he will become a monster. King Minos and Queen Pasiphae won't be content to conceal their shame. They'll call him a godling and use him to drive out the worship of those they'll call lesser gods, and they'll bring disaster upon themselves and the people of Crete."
Ariadne's eyes widened and her face paled further to a ghastly gray. "You would make me a murderer of an innocent babe just so that your worship would continue unabated?" She backed away a step, and then another step. "Compared with my brother's death on my soul, I don't care if no offering is ever made to you again. I don't even care if no grape ever ripens on Crete again. How would I live, Dionysus? How would I live, having murdered a helpless babe?"
Dionysus' lips thinned. "Stupid native with your tiny mind! What's a single life here and there among your teeming masses?" He stared at her, then bellowed, "Look at me! I am near drowned in blood from the feeding of the earth at the turning of the year. Have you always lied to yourself about what I am, about how most vineyards are made fertile? The beast must die, sooner or later. I'm only trying to spare you—and Asterion—pain." He made an angry gesture and his face filled with a disgusted contempt. "Oh, never mind. I'll do it myself. What's a little more blood?"
"No!" Ariadne screamed, spreading her arms across the doorway although she knew he could put her aside with one hand. "I will not worship a god who murders babes to enhance his own power! Make me mad! Turn my hand against myself. Call my servants and priests and priestesses. Make them mad so they will tear me apart. That would be better for me than to live knowing my god had betrayed me, that the being I love had taken a helpless, innocent life for his own profit. No, I could never forget my brother's death at your hands. I won't worship or honor a god who sheds kin-blood."
Dionysus stared at her in silence for one long moment, and then he was gone.
| Title: | Bull God |
| Author: | Roberta Gellis |
| ISBN: | 0-671-57868-5 |
| Copyright: | © 2000 by Roberta Gellis |
| Publisher: | Baen Books |