Bull God Page 35

  The dark face had no features now, bare shadows for eyes and nose that provided no hint of expression. Ariadne bowed her head and turned away. One might importune an Olympian, but the Mother already knew what Her votary wanted and what was truly needed—not always the same. Ariadne knew she could only wait and accept.

  CHAPTER 20

  What Dionysus said to Hekate, or, indeed, if he said anything, Ariadne never knew. She had shared her evening meal with him, but had scarcely been able to eat because she was so exhausted by emotion. Then she had fallen asleep on the sofa right in the middle of a discussion of whether it would be best for her to find a crossroad and pray—there were no temples to Hekate—or best for Dionysus to approach her directly and simply ask for her help.

  She woke with her skin tingling and the hairs trying to rise on her nape, aware that someone had “leapt” into her room. Eyes wide, she sat up. She was still on the couch, covered now with a large shawl against the chill air of the night. Directly before her stood a tall woman illuminated by a mage light that hung between them. Beside her was a huge, a man-sized, black dog with white eyes.

  “Hekate,” Ariadne breathed, for they had met briefly before. Then she bit her lip, stung suddenly by jealousy.

  Hekate might not love Dionysus, but it wasn't at all impossible that Dionysus loved Hekate. She was a beautiful creature, almost as tall as he, with skin as milk-white, and eyes of a strange silver-blue, all framed in dark hair that showed reddish glints where the mage light struck it. And she could never be called a child, which he called Ariadne; Hekate's face and body were those of a woman in the full prime of life, old enough to be well experienced but young enough to enjoy living fully. Must she owe the Minotaur's comfort to this woman who doubtless had what she wanted from Dionysus?

  “Yes, Hekate. And this is my black dog, Kabeiros.”

  Unwilling to look into Hekate's beautiful face, Ariadne looked down at the dog. The white eyes were dead and could show nothing, but there was something strange about the dog's face, some shading in the fur or wrinkling of the skin that shadowed beneath it the face of a man. If the Minotaur was dropping back into a beast, this beast was surely growing into a human. Was it worse to be a beast trapped in a human body and expected to behave as a man or to be a man trapped in the body of a beast?

  “Greetings, Kabeiros,” she said, putting out her hand.

  Then, at last, she lifted her eyes to Hekate's and took a sharp little breath of surprise. Before her was an ancient crone, skin wrinkled like a winter apple, nose hooked, mouth sunken, with thin, straggling white hair. Her bent body made a travesty of the elegant gown that had graced the woman's form. But the eyes were the same, the same bright silver-blue—and, Ariadne's breath again sucked in with surprise, the eyes were those of a child, young as morning, twinkling with mischief, expecting joy.

  “So you've seen what Kabeiros is and know why I've come to help you,” the crone said, smiling. “You're all that Dionysus said you were—” and became a blonde girl, barely nubile, laughing aloud “—except for being so foolish as to be jealous of me. He doesn't desire me and never has.”

  “Nor does he desire me,” Ariadne said, sighing, and rose from the couch and bowed. The black dog came over and nudged her gently. She looked down. “I don't know which is more terrible, your state or my poor brother's. If only I could be sure that the child in him would fade totally into the beast and not know, he wouldn't wring my heart so much, but he has times of human knowing. He desires freedom and wants company, asks to hear stories . . .” She bit her lip. There was no purpose in beginning to weep again.

  “I wish I could tell you,” Hekate said, “but I can't. I don't know what Poseidon did. It only seemed to me that the stasis between the beast's head and the man's body couldn't be maintained forever without reinforcement.”

  Ariadne had looked up when Hekate spoke, and the beautiful woman was there. Ariadne, oddly, felt no surprise and her mind clung to the Minotaur's fate.

  “What will happen to him?” she asked.

  Hekate shook her head. “I don't know that either, but I believe if the spell fails the Minotaur will die.”

  “I don't know what to feel,” Ariadne whispered.

  Hekate raised curved black brows. “No matter what happens you're the kind to feel guilt over it. I can't help your nature.” Then she smiled slightly. “And you are very young, even younger than that fool Dionysus. Still Dionysus is quite correct; you have too tender a heart. I can at least save you from feeling sorry for Kabeiros, who greatly enjoys the attention and sympathy he gets from such innocents as recognize what he is and don't know any more about him.”

  On the words, the black dog nudged Ariadne again and let his tongue loll out of his mouth so that she knew he was laughing. Faintly, Ariadne smiled.

  “Likely you're right and I make most of my grief for myself, but you did say, didn't you, Lady Hekate, that you had come to help my poor brother?”

  She laughed. “Adept at getting your own way, aren't you? But, yes. I said I would help.” For a moment the bright silver eyes misted. “Poseidon shouldn't have done what he did. He is arrogant, and even more careless than Zeus. The Minotaur is innocent—as innocent as my black dog, who has also killed—and should live, as long as he does live, free of torment.”

  “And he's only a little boy, only eight years old,” Ariadne said.

  Hekate nodded. “Tell your magician to build his maze as best he can but to put no magic in it. When it's finished, I'll bespell it, add the illusions, and lock into it the earth-power that stirs your land. The illusions and the seal will hold until the earth shakes enough to bring down Knossos. You and your sister Phaidra will be bound into the spell, and I'll give or send you the words of command.”

  “Oh, thank—” Ariadne began, but before she could finish Hekate and the black dog were gone.

  Ariadne breathed a tremendous sigh of relief and realized she was starving. She started forward to order food and almost overturned the table on which Dionysus' meal had been set. Most was still there but when she reached for the cheese, her fingers would not grip. Surprised, because Dionysus was not usually of a saving or particularly thoughtful nature, she realized he had put a stasis on the platter to keep it fresh. He was learning to care. She murmured Thialuo stasis and began to eat.

  The Minotaur would have his maze, and Ariadne didn't doubt for a moment that if Hekate spun the illusions, they would not only be perfect but pleasant for him. She chewed slowly, thinking that Hekate wasn't so strange. Perhaps she was strange to the Olympians because they were prone to express anything they thought or felt and she didn't. She had a strong sense of what was just also, Ariadne decided; her lips twisted wryly—that would certainly be strange to the Olympians. And just possibly, Ariadne thought, Hekate spoke so sharply about the foolishness of having a tender heart because she was afflicted in the same way.

  A pleasant idea but with nothing much to support it. Ariadne could only hope that Hekate wasn't as careless of her promises as many Olympians were and would, indeed, bespell the maze. But there was nothing she could do about that now; the construction had many ten-days to go before it was complete. She would have to watch that construction; Icarus couldn't always induce Daidalos to do as he had promised, but now that “she” was providing the power, Ariadne would have a right to an opinion. And she must go to Phaidra tomorrow, explain what had happened, make her understand that most of the deaths and injuries were accidents, and the Minotaur was no fiercer than he had been all along.

  To Ariadne's surprise, Phaidra only nodded and shrugged over her explanations of the Minotaur's behavior—and that was, it seemed, an omen. After all the fear and horror, everything was so much easier than Ariadne had even hoped that she grew increasingly anxious, which made Dionysus laugh at her. Surely if something was going to go wrong, he teased, he would have been cursed with a Seeing.

  Ariadne hoped he was right, but it made her uneasy that the Minotaur should be on his best behavi
or, Phaidra should have resumed her duties without any protest, and behind an outer wall that enclosed the precincts of the Bull God's temple and then stretched backward to the base of the palace, Daidalos should be building his maze without problems or interruptions.

  One ten-day passed, a second, a third began. On the tenth day of the end of spring, King Minos made ready the tokens that would confirm his arrangements for the Athenian treaty. He also chose golden necklets and armbands for the king and the prince, ordered pithoi of wine and oil to be prepared, provided a beautifully carved and gilded box for the magnificent robe Phaidra had sewn for Theseus, and gathered an embassy of high-born courtiers to be led by his own eldest son and heir, Androgeos. The finest warship of the Cretan fleet took the embassy aboard and set sail.

  Phaidra was full of the departure, full of hope that after the summer solstice the Athenians would return—perhaps Theseus himself would come—to perform the ritual of marriage and take her back with them to Athens. She fretted over whether her father had offered enough in the way of bride goods, although, of course, the treaty was the primary benefit of the marriage. Ariadne listened with half an ear. The good progress of the maze, the calmness of the Minotaur, and Phaidra's good spirits left her too much time to dwell on her private frustrations and dissatisfactions.

  Although Phaidra's hopes and fears weren't enough to hold her mind—or perhaps too close to her own desires to distract her, she wasn't unwilling to bury her problems in concern about moving the Minotaur. Only there was no need for concern. On the day chosen he changed quarters easily. Daidalos concealed the usual passage with an illusion, and when the Minotaur came out of the back door of the temple, he simply walked into the passage that led to the maze. He did stop and stare ahead, though, when he saw the gate to what he thought was his bedchamber.

  “Oh, there you are, Minotaur,” Ariadne called, opening the gate, “I've come to visit you today.”

  He hurried toward her, but when he entered the room, his broad nostrils spread and fluttered with his breath and his eyes glanced around suspiciously. More beast than man, Ariadne thought; he smells the difference. Fortunately he asked the simplest question.

  “Where stair?”

  “King Minos changed the way to the temple,” Ariadne replied with perfect truth. “Does it matter to you?”

  The brow between the horns furrowed. Ariadne hurried to distract him from a question too complex for him and likely to make him angry. “Come through and see what else King Minos has arranged for you,” she said. “Now you can go out.”

  “Out? Ridne take out?”

  “You don't need Ridne to go out,” she said, taking his hand. “You can go out all by yourself.”

  He hurried through the sitting room and to the open door, where he put his free hand out, expecting to meet resistance. The hand went through.

  “Open!” he exclaimed. “Ridne make open?”

  “No, it will always be open,” Ariadne said gently, and then silently in her mind, Anoikodomo apate.

  Unaware of the illusion closing around him, the Minotaur hurried out into the corridor with Ariadne following behind. After a time his steps slowed when he found nothing but more corridor, but before he could strike the wall or vent his disappointment in any other way, a cross corridor, much more brightly lit—by the open sky, in fact—appeared.

  He turned toward the light, staring up at the sky open-mouthed when he entered the new corridor. After that he walked more slowly, with more patience, looking up every few steps and once even sitting down and just staring up at the clouds that moved over the blue vault. Eventually he came to one of the gardens.

  Ariadne wondered what he would do, but for a time he just stared. Since the maze had been decided upon as his place of confinement, Ariadne had found pictures of gardens and told him about them, about how the flowers grew and could be killed and broken if they were torn up or trampled upon. She had no idea whether he would remember, but it seemed that something had stuck in his mind because he touched the plants quite gently, then sat down again and stared around.

  He spent nearly the whole remainder of the day in the garden looking at it and the sky and going from one spot to another. As the light began to dim, however, he pulled off the head of a flower, put it in his mouth, and chewed. It was spat out more quickly than it went in, and he got to his feet and roared, “Food,” then looked around for a servant with his bowl.

  “Not in the garden,” Ariadne said, walking into his line of sight. “Come with me. We'll go back to your room and your dinner will be brought to you there.”

  To Ariadne's surprise, he hesitated, looking intently at her. “Come out again?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “You can come out any time now. King Minos has arranged this new dwelling for you.”

  “Good. Eat soon. Love Ridne. Not hurt.”

  Metakino apate, Ariadne thought, and noticed that three of the five paths out of the garden disappeared. She put out her hand and the Minotaur took it. This time when he came close, she realized he had grown even larger. Her head barely rose above his waist now.

  “Eat soon,” he said.

  The repetition bothered Ariadne, but the uncomfortable feeling was dissipated by arriving at the outer chamber of the apartment and finding Phaidra waiting there, her expression anxious. The Minotaur rushed to his bowl of meat and began to stuff pieces in his mouth.

  “What in the world happened to you?” Phaidra asked. “I've been waiting since before sunset. I was afraid the maze wouldn't respond to your command and you were lost.”

  “No, no. I'm sure this maze will never fail in any way,” Ariadne assured her sister. “The Minotaur was enchanted by the garden and the clouds in the sky. He watched and watched and I didn't want to spoil his pleasure.”

  “I heard him yell for food. You couldn't have been very far away, but when I set out to find you there were only endless corridors. Then suddenly I looked around to see if I should try to go back—and I was about fifty paces from the door of this chamber. Daidalos has outdone himself with this illusion. But let's leave quickly, before the Minotaur finishes eating and wants stories or me to comb him.”

  Ariadne nodded and the two women slipped out. She dismissed the illusion; that made no immediate change in the passageway, which turned sharply left, then right and left again, blocking any view of its continuation. Naked of illusion, the corridor, after those two turns, led directly to the bronze gate which yielded to Phaidra's touch and opened into the lowest floor of the palace.

  Their ways parted at that point. Before they parted, however, Ariadne touched her sister's arm. “I think,” she said, “that you'd better arrange for the Minotaur to have as much food in the morning as is provided for his afternoon meal. If he goes out into the maze soon after he wakes and loses himself there or in one of the gardens, he might get very hungry before he can find his way back.”

  “If he's hungry he'll come back sooner,” Phaidra said impatiently.

  “Not if he can't find his way,” Ariadne pointed out. “That's one thing we forgot about. He wouldn't harm you or me—and, of course, if you were carrying his food you could just hand it to him—but if he should be very hungry and meet one of his servants wandering in the maze ...”

  Phaidra shuddered. “I'll make sure plenty of meat is provided. And we can leave bowls of bread in the gardens. And I'll warn the servants not to go into the maze.”

  The precautions were taken, but in vain. For one thing, the warning Phaidra gave the servants was ignored. They believed themselves clever, having evaded the normal rules of society for some time, and were convinced that they could defeat the maze even if the feeble-minded Minotaur couldn't.

  Four days later, one of the new men was gone. The others didn't report him missing; they were sure that he'd found a way out and escaped. Thus on the Mother's day, when she danced her thanks for the richness of the summer growth and her hope that the Mother's favor would be continued to a fine harvest, Ariadne
didn't know the Minotaur had killed again.

  Her own offering of dance and music was accepted, she knew that; her hair floated around her, supporting body and spirit, the golden ribbons wrapped her warmly and strengthened her. Nonetheless, Ariadne felt peculiar, as if—chief votary as she was and representative of all the people of Crete—a good part of the Mother's attention was directed elsewhere. If so, she thought, resting after a particularly lively interchange with the chorus, the Mother's attention should be directed to the avatar, Pasiphae, but that hardly seemed possible. In fact, to Ariadne's eyes and perceptions, the Mother had withdrawn herself completely from the queen. Although Pasiphae had sung the part of the goddess faultlessly, as she had for many years, there was no life in her voice and no sense in her eyes.

  Ariadne was frightened at first, thinking that Minos had for some reason confined his wife and set a simulacrum created by Daidalos in her place. Very shortly, however, she realized that whatever had happened, Minos was guiltless. He was as troubled as she, and several times touched Pasiphae surreptitiously, as if trying to recall her to herself.

  All through the dance Ariadne watched the queen and slowly made out that Pasiphae's expression was a sullen rebellious denial of pain. It wasn't the Mother who was withholding Herself, but Pasiphae who wouldn't accept what was offered, seeking within herself for the power, the god-force that she didn't have. Ariadne watched her growing greyer and more frozen, thinking that if she didn't soon open herself, she would die.

  Oddly, the spectators didn't appear to have noticed the gray pallor and frozen expression or that Pasiphae had sung her part in a voice that might have come from the grave. They left the dancing court in the best of spirits, talking lightly of the ceremony, of Ariadne's grace as a dancer, of Sappho's leadership of the chorus, of the favor of the Mother to Crete.

  In another group that passed her, one man said that life had been very good since the coming of the Bull God, another nodded, but a third muttered something about the heavy demand for offerings, and a fourth, who didn't speak, shuddered. She wished at that moment she had Dionysus' ability to make herself invisible. She would have liked to follow the men and hear what they thought, expressed freely in trusted company, but she didn't know the spell, she was tired, and, thinking again, wondered if she really did want to know.