Claiming Ariadne (13 page)

Taranos took his time about getting up. Ariadne paused by his chair, even as her priestesses came to collect her; there were other rituals she must observe this day. “Someone always dies during the Bull Dance,” she said quietly. Somehow she had to break his silence. She couldn’t leave him brooding. With the other Sacred Kings, she hardly cared whether they enjoyed the Bull Dance, or how much they wagered and lost. “It’s a sacrifice.”

Slowly, his gaze turned to her. “A sacrifice goes willingly.”

So they did. “Don’t you see? The dancers weren’t forced to leap. Not all took their turn with the bull. They wait for the god to call them.” Ariadne set a hand on his arm, stroking, soothing, then realized to her horror what she was doing. When had she ever done this with a man? When had she ever demonstrated, even privately, a need to console him? “You wanted to see the Bull Dance. Well, you saw it. And you saw how greatly honored the bull-leapers are. For them to be able to serve Poseidon this way gives them great joy, so much so that many choose to die by the bull or the
labrys
rather than grow too old to continue.”

Taranos noticed her hand on his arm. Shifting so his elbow twined with hers, he escorted her from the porch. Around them, spectators were retreating indoors to rest and refresh themselves for the later entertainments.

“Kitanetos once told me how the bull-leapers train. It’s his duty to look after the god’s most sacred servants. Only slave children who show true devotion to the god are consecrated as bull-leapers. He watches the chosen very carefully to make sure their convictions don’t waver.”

She felt the muscles in Taranos’s arm tighten as he tensed. Still, he kept walking, nodding to the passerby who greeted him. “What happens when they do waver, when those children decide the bull is too much for them?”

“They never do.”

Taranos stopped and, letting go her arm, faced her. “Ariadne, I’ve seen young warriors train for years, confident they would win great glory when they finally faced their first battle, only to shit themselves and flee sobbing in terror once the moment came. I’ve seen them die crying for their mothers.
Don’t
tell me those young girls and boys are never afraid.”

For once, Ariadne truly wished she had an answer to give him. “I didn’t say that. I honestly don’t know, Taranos.” They moved indoors out of the hot sun. “Come see me tonight.”

An eyebrow went up. “You’re inviting me?”

Once the impulse seized her, once she spoke up, Ariadne couldn’t retract the offer. “This afternoon we dine with the Minos in the Great Hall, then I dance with the priestesses to celebrate the solstice. But after that, when the moon rises, we have all night to ourselves. Come to the House of the Great Mother. I’ll wait for you in the courtyard.”

Taranos couldn’t hide his bewilderment. “Won’t the priestesses throw a fit at having a man in their sacred house?”

“I didn’t say we’d stay there.” Good Goddess, was she actually being coquettish? “It’s festival night. Everyone will be up and about. We can easily find somewhere to be alone.”

Now he grinned. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

Saying yes would only make him laugh. Flustered, Ariadne fell back on familiar habits. “Behave yourself and we’ll see.”

She left him at the entrance of the House of the Great Mother. Priestesses and novices gathered in the lowermost rooms of the house to help each other undress and sponge bathe. Ariadne gladly submitted to the hands that undid her tight bodice and wiped off her paint. Mats were brought down and spread over the floor where it was coolest, and after some hushed chatter the women settled in for a midday nap.

Ariadne found a corner and, dressed only in her flounced skirt, lay down to face the wall. Around her, she heard muffled giggling, irritated shushing from the older priestesses, and the settled breathing and snoring of those already asleep. Warmth blanketed the room, for with so many bodies there was no real escape from the heat; it either made one drowsy or restless, or some unmanageable combination of the two.

Ariadne, who hadn’t slept well the night before, wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and doze the afternoon away. Yet once again, she had too many cares. What boldness—or madness—had possessed her to invite Taranos to spend tonight with her? Hardly a true question, as she knew the answer, yet still it nagged at her. She wanted to appease him, to make him forget about the Bull Dance. She wanted to hear his laughter and see the fine lines around his eyes crinkle when he smiled. Those things mattered to her.

The longer she thought about it, the harder her heart beat, as though a thousand anticipatory butterflies fluttered in her breast. Oh, yes, she wanted him. She wanted to hear his voice and feel his body warm against hers. Taranos wasn’t angry with her over the Bull Dance, and he didn’t find her invitation presumptuous. Indeed, he seemed bemused and intrigued. As long as she was willing, he would please her. She had nothing to fear, and yet she trembled where she lay. She wanted night to come, and yet she chided herself for inviting him at all.

All these doubts and ecstasies of waiting—was love always so tortuous? Ariadne moved her hand over her left breast. She cupped its fullness in her palm, weighing it, letting her forefinger and thumb rub against the nipple. It hardened at once. Pregnancy made her sensitive to the slightest touch. Just brushing one finger over the nipple, back and forth, slowly, rhythmically, sent currents of sensation straight to her groin. She closed her eyes and imagined Taranos lying beside her, kneading her, pinching her, licking her while her pussy grew damp just from wanting him.

Wetness moistened her thighs. Oh, to be alone in her room, where she could gather up her skirt and run fingers along her slippery slit, and imagine that he was touching her. Just the thought made her face burn. She’d always known about the little pearl that brought women so much pleasure, but though she’d tried in the past, she’d never liked sex or wanted a man badly enough to make exploring her own body a pleasurable exercise. It might be different now, especially as her pregnancy made her increasingly sensitive.

Frustration made her bite her lip, and she couldn’t sleep for the heaviness of the air and the ache burning in her loins.

In the late afternoon, she saw him again in the Great Hall overlooking the Western Court. No breeze wafted through the open doors; the chamber quickly became stiflingly hot. Ariadne had no appetite for the savory dishes the servants brought to the high table. She nibbled at grilled meat and green beans cooked with coriander and onions, warm flat bread and a morsel of soft white cheese. Wine flowed freely, though she took hers diluted.

Heat blunted the natural conviviality of festival time. Minos Echmedes, seated beside Kitanetos, alternated brief stretches of conversation with long silences. Drowsiness slurred his voice. Kitanetos smiled politely while looking bored. Even the queen, always ready to gossip about the latest fashions from abroad, said little beyond complimenting the High Priestess on her pregnancy. Seated with the women, Ariadne didn’t interact with the Sacred King. She was still anxious and didn’t want him to see her flustered, so she made a point of not watching him.

Potinia left early, sparing Ariadne the grim necessity of talking to her. As company, Ariadne had the High Priestesses of Eleuthia, Hera, and the Mistress of the Animals. Only the first had wit enough to sustain her end of the conversation. “You might quicken soon,” Thuriatris observed. “A shame your mother insists on that dreadful snake ritual.”

Even she, a formidable harpy in the birthing room, dared not order the Snake Priestess to back down. Ariadne didn’t think even Kitanetos would contradict Potinia; the woman did what suited her, when it suited her, and woe to anyone who disagreed. “I’d rather not think about it.”

“The snakes are never wrong, of course, but there’ll come a day when some poor woman miscarries from sheer fright.”

“Mother seems to think knowing the child’s sex beforehand makes a difference.”

Thuriatris pooh-poohed that notion. “Most women don’t care, and the fathers here have nothing to say about what Eleuthia and the Great Mother will. Now it
does
seem to matter to that virile Achaean you have in your bed. I meant to ask you about that, but—ah, not one to gossip about one’s lovers, are you? That’s a shame. One hears from the servant girls what he’s like. Oh, to be twenty years younger! At any rate, anybody can see he wants a son.”

Ariadne took little interest in baby matters; women who did either wanted their babies or had husbands who would be there to help raise the child. Taranos’s child would still be at the breast when he went to his death. Possibly he might live another year, but not long enough for his son or daughter to ever know him. He would never teach his son to hold a sword or drive a chariot. He would never see his daughter grow to womanhood and marry. “This isn’t Tiryns.”

“Ah, yes, but you could send a boy child to his family there. You’ve already dedicated two sons to the priesthood, so Kitanetos and Aktaios would probably allow you to do what you liked with a third.”

Sending a son away made far more sense than keeping him. Kretheus would need to be placated, and material goods wouldn’t do. A legitimate grandson, a Goddess-child, might cool his displeasure. “Yes, you may be right.”

Thuriatris patted her hand. “Ah, here come the novices to fetch us. My joints are simply getting too stiff for all this dancing, but we wouldn’t want to keep Potinia waiting, now would we?”

Sunset touched the Western Court with gold against blue and purple shadows. Heat radiated from the stones. At each solstice, the priestesses danced the year’s waxing and waning. Potinia, bare-breasted and crowned with a red
polos
headdress, stood by the free-standing altar in the courtyard’s center. She lifted arms coiled with black serpents.

Summer meant the Snake Goddess’s messengers lurked everywhere. Tonight, Potinia would release those serpents onto the hillside. At winter, she would take two sluggish serpents from the shrine, twirl with them in the year’s end dance, then send them to the Underworld in the Pillar Crypt. Potinia never revealed whether or not she actually strangled the snakes or symbolically sent them to sleep, and no one dared ask.

Ariadne shuddered to see those snakes writhing over her mother’s arms. Looking away, she twined arms with Nopina and Erika. All the women linked arms as Potinia chanted in a language no one remembered outside the Serpent Sanctuary. Potinia’s harsh voice rose and fell, as she turned the serpents so she faced them, and her sibilant utterances became messages to the sacred world. Ariadne dropped her arms and clapped when the cue came.

Sweat trickled under her arms and breasts. Turn, clap, and begin the second circuit. Chant the refrain to Potinia’s otherworldly appeal. Strange syllables passed her lips, but they held no meaning. Women began taking up serpents and passing them around. Ariadne saw a priestess kiss the snake draped around her neck; watching its head slide between the woman’s chalk-white breasts made her shudder.

Anyone standing on the balcony of the Great Hall above could watch them. Few men cared to intrude in the female sacred domain, even when it played out right before their eyes. As Kitanetos once explained, chanting and dancing was one thing but when the priestesses became possessed during a ritual it sent chills crawling up the hardiest man’s spine. “I’ll admit I peeked once. Seeing those crazed women whirling and passing the snakes around gave me nightmares for months.”

Ariadne’s heart wasn’t in the dance. She wanted to break away from the circle, disappear into the deepening night and find some cool place. She wanted Taranos.

At the conclusion of the rite, her mother stopped her by the West Porch. “I couldn’t stay long at the feast.” Potinia appeared quite lucid. “I had no opportunity to ask you how the Sacred King liked the Bull Dance. It seemed to me he was most restless.”

Why did her mother have to bother her now? “You might ask him yourself tomorrow.”

Potinia’s carmine-stained mouth worked, and the spirals circling her cheeks twitched. “Why would I trade words with an Achaean?”

“Please, I must go.”

Blackened eyebrows went up. “You have an assignation tonight?”

That’s not your concern
. “I have other duties tonight.”

A single lamp burned in the House of the Great Mother. A servant moved about the lower rooms, tidying up the stacked mats and setting out cool water for the returning priestesses and novices. She set aside her work long enough to help Ariadne sponge off her cosmetics and loosen the constricting turquoise bodice.