Back | Next

CHAPTER 9

Ariadne gasped with horror and ran back to the palace as fast as she could go. But Dionysus hadn't preceded her there to commit murder. She found Asterion just as she had left him, fast asleep, snorting a little with each breath. She collapsed when she saw that the child was safe, sinking to the floor and bowing her head into her hands in a passion of weeping. She knew what she had done. Dionysus was gone and wouldn't return.

Because of her misery, she spent more time caring for Asterion than she had intended. He wasn't a difficult child, aside from demanding frequent and huge feedings. When he was full and clean, however, he slept or lay quietly watching his own hands wave aimlessly about with those bulbous eyes. He was much stronger than any babe any of the maids had ever seen, and he grew at an almost inconceivable rate, but otherwise he was very like an ordinary baby.

Over the moon following his birth, the maids and Phaidra did seem to lose their fear of him and Phaidra even appeared to be growing fond. Pasiphae came once, after the second ten-day, leaning on a maid and still pale from loss of blood. From the shadows to which she had withdrawn, Ariadne watched, but her mother didn't cry out in horror at the bull's head which, free from the compression of birth, was now unmistakable. She was clearly delighted with Asterion's appearance.

She glanced at Ariadne only once, and her lips curved upward in a smile of triumph. "See that no harm comes to the new god," she said, lightly touching the protrusions on the baby's head where, to Ariadne's horror, the sharp points of horns were beginning to show. "Soon I will show how those of Knossos have been honored."

Her heart so heavy it was a burden within her, Ariadne acknowledged what she had pushed from her mind since Dionysus had told her. Her mother intended to display Asterion to the nobles and, possibly, even the commons of Crete and declare him a god. Would that bring upon the island punishment from the other gods? Had she been wrong to save Asterion's life when the price might be so high? Unconsciously, she picked up the child and he rubbed his muzzle confidingly against her shoulder and made a small chuckling noise.

Before the turning of the year to spring, Asterion was so large and so strong that he didn't need to be held to be fed. Nor could he be contented with milk. He cried and reached for whatever Ariadne ate and, seeing he already had teeth, she tried him on little pieces of this and that. Nothing she gave him ever caused him any discomfort, but what he took most eagerly was meat.

Once he could be propped up with cushions and simply handed solid food, Phaidra was willing to feed him and she would even shake a rattle or play at hiding behind her own fingers to see him laugh. Ariadne went back to the shrine. After a ten-day of indecision, on the day before the solstice, she filled her golden bowl with dark wine and Called.

The surface trembled and then Ariadne saw golden hair and blue eyes looking back. She had almost sobbed with relief when she saw the face was not that of Dionysus.

"You are the priestess of Knossos," the man said. "What do you want?"

"By my lord's order, I Call to remind him that tomorrow is the first day of spring when he comes to the altar."

"No god comes to an altar that rejects him."

"But the child lives!" Ariadne cried, tears running down her face. "I don't reject him. And what of his promise to bless the blooming grapes with me?"

"Bless them yourself, as you blessed the vines, you who place conditions on your worship. A god can do no wrong. Once you said that."

Tears splashed into the wine. The image shivered and was gone. Ariadne bent over the bowl, weeping.

On the next day she performed the ritual faultlessly, but though she caught one glimpse of Dionysus in the scrying bowl, the image disappeared almost instantly and no god appeared before his painting behind the altar. Numb with pain and despair, Ariadne removed her clothing and lay down upon the altar. In a few moments, the priestesses, faces long with disappointment, lifted her and clothed her again. Having saluted the painted image of her lord, Ariadne began the closing ritual. It was only then she noticed that no member of her family stood below the dais, in fact, that there were very few people in attendance.

She felt no great surprise, assuming that Dionysus had sent signs of her fall from favor. She didn't care, except for being alone. There was no one to talk with and laugh with, to demand bread and cheese and olives and wrinkle his nose at the wine. She knelt before his chair, laid her head on the seat, and wept.

After a time there were no more tears and her knees grew so painful that she shifted her body to sit by the chair rather than kneel. Dimly she was aware of a duty that must be done. That sense of responsibility noted how the light brightened as the day drew on toward noon and then slowly faded. When the light was gone, she rose as stiffly as one of the automata that Daidalos was forever constructing and removed her gold embroidered vest and her stiffened, huge belled skirt, which she replaced with a simple gown.

With set face and staring eyes, forcing breath into herself against the pain that stabbed her throat and chest, she took the vine hook from the wall and stepped outside. In the courtyard of the shrine she looked up into the star-filled sky. "Help me," she whispered. "Mother, help me."

A gentle warmth flowed around her; a soft, warm breeze stirred her hair. Ariadne touched the vine hook, willed light, and it glowed. Filled with such wonder that her pain became bearable, she left the grounds of the shrine and began to walk and then run through the vineyards in the same pattern she had followed when Dionysus ran beside her.

Ariadne was aware of the power that flowed into her and that she spent in blessing the forming grapes. She was humbly grateful to the Mother for Her support, but there was nothing in it of hand clasping hand and laughter ringing in her ear. She was glad that she could still bring fruitfulness to the vineyards of Knossos, but the deep joy, the contentment of sharing, of loving and being loved was gone.

Although the priestesses had left a tray of carefully selected food on the small table near Dionysus' chair, as they had done at the previous equinoxes and at the solstice, and Ariadne couldn't remember when last she had eaten, she only cast a stasis over the tray. It cost her nothing, for she was tingling with power, but it had neither meaning nor purpose for her now. All she wanted was oblivion.

To her surprise, she found that almost as soon as she lay down in her bed, but she didn't keep it long. Too soon she was dragged back to the leaden realization of what she had lost when Phaidra shook her awake.

"Come!" Phaidra cried. "You must come! Asterion has gone mad. He is screaming and bellowing and striking at anyone who comes near him."

The source of her grief. Ariadne was tempted to turn her back on her sister and tell her she had done all she would for Asterion, but she was so surprised by what Phaidra said—Asterion, except in his demands for food, had been a placid child while she cared for him—that she asked what had caused his rage.

"Mother!" Phaidra said succinctly. "She showed him to a great concourse of people, and of course they shouted and cheered and Asterion was frightened out of his wits. Then, instead of bringing him back to his accustomed crib and his accustomed servants, she brought him to a new apartment near her own, with a great, gilded bed in which, big as he is, he was completely lost and noble attendants who had no idea how to calm him or how or what to feed him. And then she just walked away—as she does—leaving him with those fools."

"Oh, poor Asterion," Ariadne sighed, getting out of bed and reaching for a clean gown, which had been left for her. "But why is he still so upset? Don't tell me that mother tried to display him again."

"As far as I know," Phaidra said through stiff lips, "he never stopped crying. The men mother `honored' with appointments tried to hide that they couldn't calm him. Seemingly they muffled his cries and didn't tell her that Asterion was beyond their management. It was only when they began to fear that he would die that one of them confessed. Then mother had me summoned, but although he didn't strike at me or try to bite me, he wouldn't quiet. So I came for you."

Not until they arrived at the palace did Ariadne realize that when Phaidra had said Asterion was screaming and bellowing, she was speaking the literal truth. The exhausted and frustrated shrieks of a child mingled with an enraged kind of hoarse lowing that made Ariadne's breath catch. She didn't permit herself to think about it, but ran into the room, calling out, "Hush, hush, Asterion. I'm here. I'll make everything better."

On the words she reached out to the thrashing, wailing child, who gulped, reached for her, and let her catch him up in her arms. Ariadne had to brace her knees against the bed because he was almost too heavy for her to lift, but his arms came around her and he clutched her hard, his wailing diminishing as he pressed his muzzle between her shoulder and her neck.

Ariadne had a moment then to look around and her eyes widened in disgusted amazement at her mother's pride and stupidity. The bed, as Phaidra had said, was gilded, which was silly but insignificant compared to the fact it was so large as to allow a child to roll about and grow more and more fearful of falling; the pillows, some of which had been moved to prevent Asterion from falling off the bed, were all brocaded cloth, embroidered with stiff gold thread, beautiful but only for show. The coverlet, which had never been pulled down to expose the sheets, if there were sheets, had also been an embroidered and embellished glory, but was now soaked with urine and spattered with feces. And Asterion's body showed dents and almost healed scratches where the unsuitable bedclothes had gouged him.

"Come, love, come," she crooned, stroking his thick mane, "I'll take you back to your own crib and your own nurses. They'll clean you and feed you, and then—"

"Where are you going with Asterion?" Pasiphae asked from the doorway, the attendant who had fetched her peering over her shoulder.

Ariadne looked at her mother, who was at her haughtiest, but didn't flinch. She stared back, her lips down turned with contempt. "To his accustomed place, madam," she said, walking calmly toward the queen, "where his nurses know how to care for him."

"Put him down in his bed," Pasiphae ordered. "A god must be fittingly housed and have fitting servants—noblemen, not common peasant women."

"Are you mad?" Ariadne cried. "This is no god. This is a three-months-old babe. Has he run or flown through the air, as Hermes is said to have done? Has he spoken divine verse, like Dionysus, or played the lute as Apollo did when he was a ten-day from the womb? Asterion is like any other uncared for babe—covered with filth, which your `fitting' servants didn't deign to clean; he's starving, because doubtless they presented food in a way he couldn't eat it; he's sick with crying." Asterion was hiccuping against her shoulder.

"Be still!" Pasiphae shouted. "You lie. You don't wish to yield your power to the god born out of my body."

She ran forward and seized the child, yanking him free of Ariadne's arms. In that instant, Asterion turned his head and fastened his sharp little teeth in Pasiphae's upper arm, sucking at the blood he drew and striking out wildly with clawed hands that tore her face when one of them came in contact with her cheek. Pasiphae screamed and tried to thrust him away and drop him, but for a moment she couldn't free her arm from his teeth and Ariadne had a chance to catch him before he fell.

He struggled for a moment, lowing hoarsely and straining toward Pasiphae, jaws snapping, but Ariadne knew how to handle him and she pushed by her mother, ran past the door to her mother's apartment, and then up the stair. Filthy as he was, she placed Asterion among the supporting cushions in the chair that had been made for him with a sort of little table attached to the front and set a large bowl of milk before him. His cries stopped at once, and he thrust his muzzle into the bowl and began to drink.

Breathing hard, Ariadne stood staring down, tears streaking her cheeks as she remembered what she'd lost to preserve this creature. But she remembered, too, how he'd held out his arms to her when he was still screaming with rage and hunger, how he'd clung to her, nuzzled against her for comfort. A sob forced itself from her throat; Asterion lifted his dripping muzzle from the bowl, cocked his head, and blinked his eyes. Those eyes were no longer bulbous; they were the large, soft brown, long-lashed, beautiful eyes—of any cow. Ariadne sighed and reached out to stroke the black mane that began in a peak on his low forehead and grew down over his shoulders to the middle of his back. Asterion lowered his muzzle to his bowl to drink again.

"How dare you!" Pasiphae said from the doorway, but her voice was not so loud or so certain as it had been.

Ariadne turned to face her. Pasiphae's arm had been bandaged and the blood washed from the scratches on her cheek, and there was a kind of horror in her eyes as she saw Asterion bent over the bowl sucking up milk like any other calf.

"I've dared more to save this child already," Ariadne said bitterly. "Because to me he is a child. If you want a dead god, I'll leave him in the care of your `suitable' attendants. I don't know how long they will find him godlike after wiping up his pee and his shit or presenting food to a beast with a muzzle. If you want a live son, you'll leave him in the care of Phaidra and the nurses until he can walk and feed himself."

Pasiphae shifted her gaze from her daughter's face to Asterion and bit her lip uneasily. "I suppose it's because he's half human that he's slow to manifest all his power," she muttered, and then looked back at Ariadne. "But look at his size. Look at his strength." She drew a deep breath and cried aloud. "This is the Bull God made flesh."

Asterion raised his head from his bowl and began to bellow, working his jaws as if he would like to bite again.

"Queen Pasiphae," Ariadne said softly, "wouldn't a god welcome the prayers and cheers of his people? Asterion rejected their salutations. Would a god weep or rage each time you named him? Asterion has done just that, refusing your claim. Have mercy on yourself, on this poor creature, on Crete. Take the warning that he, himself, keeps giving—"

"Enough." Pasiphae raised a hand. "Are you speaking as Mouth or as a jealous priestess? I've listened—as I swore to do—respectfully. I've uttered no threat against you, nor will I interfere with your worship of your little godling. Don't you interfere in the worship of a greater god." She looked around at the people crowding the corridor behind her. "Meanwhile, since the god has made clear his preference for a familiar place, he may stay here in Phaidra's care."

She cast a challenging glance at Ariadne, but Ariadne had despaired of dissuading her mother from her madness and watched in silence until she swept away. Then Ariadne turned back to Asterion and, seeing he was lapping at the last thin layer of milk in the bowl, brought him a tray that had been prepared when the maids believed he would be brought back to the nursery. The meat on it was somewhat dried but didn't smell spoiled, and Ariadne presented it. She felt someone close behind her and turned, but it was only Phaidra.

"When he's fed full," she said, "the nurses will be able to clean him. He'll sleep after that. Most likely by the time he wakes he'll have forgotten." She gestured Phaidra to follow her out into the corridor, looked up and down, and finally went into the room they had shared. "I think Pasiphae is mad," she said.

"A little, perhaps," Phaidra replied, plumping herself down on her bed. "She really does want to believe that Asterion is a god." She hesitated and then asked, "Are you so sure he's not? How can the head of a bull and the body of a man be mated, except in a god? Aren't all the gods of Egypt like that? And what ordinary three-months child could sit up and eat cubes of meat with full-grown teeth?"

"Perhaps some of his father's qualities have flowed into his blood. I'm not saying that he isn't Poseidon's get or that he may not develop godlike Gifts. All I'm saying is that for now, Asterion, whatever he may become in the future, is a baby. He needs to be cuddled, to be loved, to be given toys and helped to enjoy his playthings." She hesitated, her eyes resting on Phaidra and then, understanding her sister's character and that the best treatment for Asterion would be obtained through Phaidra's self-interest, added slowly, "If he should be a god, the best way to be sure you will be favored by him in the future is to make him love you now."

Phaidra shuddered slightly but then nodded. "You're right about that. I'll tell mother, too, but I don't think she'll listen to me any more than she did to you, and Asterion really doesn't like her."

Was there the faintest shadow of a smile on Phaidra's lips? Ariadne blinked her eyes, which were tired from too much weeping and too little sleep, and the expression, if there had been one, was gone. "She may listen to you," she said. "She's taken me in despite ever since I was favored by Dionysus' response to my Calling."

"Oh, well, soon she won't care about that. She has her own god now and can make him do and say whatever she wants. Didn't you know that father had sent out criers throughout the whole kingdom bidding everyone to assemble at the great temple near Knossos to worship the Bull God, born into flesh? Yesterday morning, when they should have been at the shrine to see Dionysus, they were all watching mother hold up Asterion and pretend to interpret his bellows."

Ariadne, who had just been about to come forward to sit on what had been her bed in the past, stopped and clasped her hands together in front of her. So Dionysus had been right. Her parents did plan to claim publicly that Asterion was a god. That would bring trouble; she knew it. Even so, she couldn't go all the way with Dionysus. Was her parents' foolishness, perhaps blasphemy, reason enough to end poor Asterion's life? He had done no wrong, poor creature.

She closed her eyes and then reopened them. She had never doubted the truth of what Dionysus said, and doubtless her shrine—no, his shrine—would suffer. That horrible mating of bull and man, which could be displayed at any time, would waken awe and bring offerings. But wouldn't the people tire of sacrificing to a god that had no power?

"I'd better go back to the shrine," she said to Phaidra. "I'm dropping for sleep."

The words reminded her that it wasn't only being wakened unexpectedly and the anxiety of dealing with her mother and Asterion that had exhausted her. She'd been out in the fields nearly all the previous night and she had blessed them so that they would be fruitful. She stopped dead halfway down the long stone stairway that led from the palace to the road up Gypsades Hill.

She had blessed the vines and they would flourish, but the few worshipers who had come to Dionysus' shrine at dawn the previous day—likely younger sons and younger brothers of families that wished to have a presence in both gods' holy precincts—would spread the word far and wide that Dionysus hadn't come. What then would the people think? Wouldn't they believe the fruitfulness of their vines had been bestowed by the Bull God? Ariadne started down the steps again. Now was the time she needed to Call Dionysus. Should she bless the grapes at midsummer? Withhold the blessing? Wither them?

Dionysus had spoken of the death of Asterion in terms of the good of all of Crete. To further that good, she should bless the vines and the grapes no matter to whom the good was accredited. But had he meant that? Would he care for the good of the people of Crete if they no longer brought offerings to his shrines? In the past he'd neglected them even when they had sacrificed, just because he didn't like the priestess. Ariadne began to walk more quickly, hurrying to the shrine so she could stand and look at the painting behind the altar.

The face was beautiful, but it didn't invite confidences. She remembered the rage he had allowed to suffuse him, a rage that could have killed her parents, her dearest brother. She remembered the words "stupid native with your tiny mind" and the curl of his lips when he spoke of "your teeming masses." No, she wasn't sorry she couldn't Call him and ask for advice. She thought she knew what his advice would be. As long as she could help the people of Crete to be well fed and happy through making and selling fine wine, she would do so. If he were angry . . . Well, he couldn't be much more angry than he was already.

One small pinpoint of hope came to light the darkness of Ariadne's mood on the night of the full moon following the spring equinox. She danced for the Mother that night, although Pasiphae had tried to convince Phaidra to do it. Actually, Ariadne had been surprised that Phaidra hadn't seized the opportunity. Phaidra had grown much more assured over the year that had passed, much more sure of her own worth. And Ariadne learned from her sister that she had relinquished the role only reluctantly when she asked why Phaidra didn't wish to dance.

Shrugging, Phaidra said, "Wishing is nothing to do with it. I can't do it. I tried. Daidalos showed me the pattern of the dance and read to me how the steps must be taken, but when I stood up and tried to do it, it was as if a heavy weight pressed me down. I tripped and stumbled, my knees knocked together and were weak." She shrugged again. "I may not be the dancer that you are, but I have never been so clumsy or so exhausted." She sighed and glanced sidelong at Ariadne. "To speak the truth, sister, I don't believe I am welcome to the Mother. Perhaps I'm not very wise, but I'm not stupid enough to try to force myself on Her."

"I'll dance, of course, if you wish it," Ariadne said, keeping her face still although she was suffused with a sensation of warmth and lightness that eased the burden which lay on her chest.

The warm expectation remained with her, intensifying in the afternoon of the day preceding the rising of the full moon. As the sun dipped to the west, Hagne began to dress Ariadne's hair with one of the little girl novices to help while Dido sought out the wine-red, gold stiffened skirt and bodice. When she was ready—the sun was low, but not low enough for the rays to gild the dancing floor—Ariadne set out.

Her timing was good. The procession from the palace had also just arrived at the theatrical area, the "god" and "goddess," standing before their chairs on the sacral dais. But at the top of the stair, the dancers were not in good order. They had closed in on each other and appeared confused and disorganized. Ariadne's lips thinned. Apparently neither Pasiphae nor Phaidra had told them who would lead the dance. Well, that was easily amended. As soon as Ariadne's small procession of priests and priestesses and novices came into view, a soft call of relief came from two or three members of the group and several leaned forward and waved welcome.

One step below, at the edge of the aisle left for the dancers to descend, a tall form with broad shoulders caught Ariadne's eye. Her heartflower flicked open and a lance of joy pierced her. He had come! In the next moment the silver strands that had risen, wilted; the flower folded, and she saw that she didn't know the face. The hair and eyes were dark. How could she have mistaken him for her lord?

Shocked and bemused she pulled her gaze away only to meet her mother's angry eyes. Her father, however, nodded to her, and she responded with a courteous bow. Having gestured to her attendants to find places for themselves, she went past the dais that held the royal seats and through the aisle opened for her by the waiting people to the top of the stair. Calling herself a fool, she still turned her head to see more clearly the man who had waited a step below the dancers. He was not there.

As Ariadne took her place and the dancers sorted themselves out into their proper formation, the dancing floor glowed golden. Arms raised, step by step, Ariadne descended the long stair. The crowd sang; the "god" and "goddess" gave the ritual responses; Ariadne's bare feet almost caressed the smooth polished stones of the dancing floor as she crossed to stand formally before the dais and salute the "deities" who seated themselves between the sacral horns.

At the sound of the sistra and the flutes, Ariadne dropped her arm from the salute, turned, and glided to the center of the floor in the sliding stride of a votary. As she turned back to face her parents, arms lifted to shoulder height, palms up, while the other dancers wove a complex pattern around her, she saw him again, this time just below the dais. But she didn't feel her heartflower respond. It was not Dionysus. It was again the dark-haired, dark-eyed person whom she had earlier mistaken for her god. She closed her eyes, but before grief could pierce her as sharply as joy had when she first thought she saw Dionysus, that strange sensation of the touch of feather-light ribbons drew her thoughts to her dance.

She had no time for conscious thought after that as she danced all life from birth to death. When darkness fell and she sank quietly to the floor to wait for the rising of the moon, the image of that broad-shouldered celebrant returned to her. She deliberately called his face to mind, but only became more and more sure that she didn't know it. But how could that be? She knew every member of the court of Knossos and that big body, so arrogantly held, could be no common man, nor could she confuse it with another.

Vaguely she heard the singers chanting the ritual pleas and first her mother, then her father, singing the replies. The "god" began to woo the "goddess." Ariadne told herself the man she had seen must be a visitor, perhaps a foreign visitor. No, he wasn't foreign; that was impossible. His dress, his looks, his manner, were all Cretan and he wore the cincture around his waist, which had to be worn from youth to achieve the traditional narrowness.

If he couldn't be foreign and he couldn't be Cretan . . . The two together made a paradox, but Ariadne was distracted by the memory of a similar shadowy but magnificent figure when she danced the previous year. Then she had assumed it was Dionysus in disguise. A thrill touched her. Why not now? She "looked" within herself and, yes, the heartflower was open. Deliberately she gathered the silver strands and cast them wide about her in a seeking net.

They snapped back with such speed and force that the thin, wirelike threads would have cut her had they any physical reality. And then the heartflower sprang shut. Ariadne didn't know whether to laugh or weep. No one but Dionysus could affect her heartflower; she was certain now that he had come to watch her dance and that filled her with hope and a tremulous joy. She couldn't help being amused, too, by the irritation at being found out betrayed by the behavior of the threads that connected her with her god, like that of a little boy who had been caught peeping. It was true that Dionysus' irritation wasn't something with which one should trifle, but even so the worst of her burden of grief and loneliness eased. He hadn't turned from her completely. He still cared.

The comfort that thought brought her weakened the shield of self-absorption that had armored her against outside impressions. Now the flaring light of the torches on the dais where the "god" and "goddess" sat exposed the tension of their bodies, the half-turned heads that betrayed conflict. What now? she wondered. This was new. From everything she had seen and heard in the palace since Asterion's birth, her father had come to terms with what Pasiphae had done, even begun to be glad of it. Surely he had done all in his power to support her when she claimed Asterion was the Bull God made flesh.

Ariadne was distressed. To carry enmity to the rites for the Mother was dangerous. She'd always been aware that there were differences between her mother and father, but those had never been allowed to carry over into matters of state or the greater rites. In politics, Pasiphae was a wise counselor and an adamant supporter of her husband; at the rites of the Snake Goddess and the Mother, Minos was a dedicated votary of his priestess-wife.

Eventually the edge of the full moon crept over the horizon and lit the dancing floor. Ariadne rose to dance the awakening. She offered herself, her love, her little bud of hope, and knew from the warmth that enfolded her that her offering was accepted. Nonetheless, a pall hung over her and the other dancers. The Mother wakened, but without joy.

Back | Next
Framed