Claiming Ariadne (19 page)

She had to go on for her child’s sake.

Up, up she went as the road began to climb. Her feet ached, her thighs and calves burned, and at frequent intervals she had to stop to nurse the stitch in her side. She would never make it to the coast, not with the moon hanging so low on the horizon. Predawn twilight cast a blue pall over the land. Turning, she saw distant lights, some fanning out over the countryside like myriad fireflies, while others remained stationary. Knossos was beginning to stir.

All those moving torches meant the search continued for Taranos. Ariadne wondered if he had made it to the Achaean camp. On horseback, it was surely a swift ride to the coast. So why had he not come back for her, or sent someone to find her?

Had he abandoned her?

When she came to the hillcrest, she gazed down upon what must have been scores of campfires twinkling against the moonlit shimmer of the sea. A lump formed in her throat. The Achaeans had come to conquer. They had come to rape and plunder. What respect did they have for the Great Mother or the ancient traditions that protected the priestesses of Crete? Ariadne preferred not to think about fate awaiting her down in the Achaean camp.

As she started to descend, the air cooled. Yet even in the lightening predawn, the path remained dark. She fumbled and wobbled, her footing uncertain.

At last, she came to flatter terrain. Evergreen plane trees lined the path, and salt tang from the sea was stronger than ever. Another half mile, maybe less, and—

A man’s voice broke the stillness to issue a challenge. She halted, glanced around in alarm, yet in the dark saw no one. Again, she heard the Achaean words, then blinked at the torch suddenly thrust into her face. Eyes watering, she made out a face to match that rough voice—darkly bearded, shadowed by a boar tusk helmet. More armored men emerged from the shadows, more leering eyes, and a thicket of spears crowded all around her.

Oh, Goddess, what were the words? Half a dozen men reeking of lust and violence stared at her like a wayward camp follower. Give them another moment and they’d rape her. “
Ije-reja!
” she cried.

“
Ije-reja
,” snorted the torchbearer in derision.

No one believed her. Outrage clouded her exhaustion. Flinging off her cloak, Ariadne reached for her collar, wrenched her blouse open to bare her breasts. “
Ije-reja!
” she shouted. “Knossos! I’m the High Priestess of Knossos, you idiots!
Ije-reja!
Prince Taranos sent me. I demand to see your king.
Wanax!
”

Astonishment filled those hungry eyes. One man reached for her. Instinctively, she slapped his hand away. So they wanted to rape her, did they? She wasn’t giving in without a fight.

Another man, obviously the captain, sharply upbraided her would-be rapist. Then, chuckling, he bent, retrieved the discarded cloak, and to her amazement, gently wrapped it around her shoulders to cover her nakedness. “Idomeneus is this way, Priestess,” he said.

Chapter Nine

Down in the Achaean camp, the first thing Ariadne learned was that Idomeneus had no time for women, even for a High Priestess of Knossos carrying his nephew’s child. She never even secured an audience with him.

Ekhinos, the guard captain who’d covered her and called off his men, led her from Idomeneus’s headquarters—a house commandeered from some unfortunate Cretan family, she guessed—and down a narrow street to a plain, three-story house. “You’re very lucky I understand your language. My men thought you were spouting gibberish.”

“Taranos told me what to say.”

“He had you memorize a mere three words? He’s a fool.”

Dawn colored Katsambas in shades of misty blue and pink, and a moist, seaborne chill clung to the air. Ariadne shivered under her cloak and ruined blouse.

Ekhinos rapped his knuckles against the door. A moment later, it opened a crack, and a woman with graying black hair and a pointy face peered out. “What do you want? Today isn’t my day to wash your smelly loincloth.”

“This woman is a priestess.” Ekhinos presented Ariadne. “The
wanax
says take care of her.”

At that, the woman looked Ariadne up and down, and snorted. “Is that what she is? She looks more like a camp whore to me. Well, never mind. Come in, girl. Nothing wearing a skirt is safe from these Achaean savages.”

Ariadne, smarting at this dubious courtesy, slipped past her and across the threshold. Behind her, the woman slammed the door on Ekhinos. “Sit down on that stool, girl, and let’s have a look at you. Now what happened to your shoes?”

“I left them behind at Knossos.”

A thin eyebrow arched up. “Oh, did you? Why aren’t you dressed like a priestess? Look at you, your blouse torn open, your cloak hem ripped to shreds. I don’t see much that says you’re a priestess from Knossos.”

“I had to show the guards my breasts. They didn’t believe me when I told them what I was. And I only wear my paint and finery on ritual occasions, not every day.”

Nodding, the woman knelt down and began to unravel the frayed and filthy rags. “How did this happen?”

“I walked all night to get here.”

“You don’t own any shoes?”

Would this woman ever stop interrogating her? “I had to leave Knossos very suddenly.” Ariadne gazed down at her bruised, dirty feet with disinterest. She felt no pain, only an overwhelming urge to close her eyes and sleep. “Believe what you like. I just want a safe place to lie down.”

Snorting, the woman turned to someone in the corner. “Kanako, child, bring some water from that jar and a basin. Priestess or not, those stupid Achaeans might at least have offered you some proper shoes—and a new shift and cloak.”

A little girl no more than eight brought over a ceramic basin clearly too heavy for her. Ariadne immediately pictured her own daughter, younger but with the same plump cheeks and soft dark curls. She watched as the girl climbed a stool to dip the ladle. Kanako poured it into a vessel, brought it over, then went to bring more. “Do you live here alone? I saw no Cretan men.”

It was the wrong thing to ask. The woman grew rigid and her face tightened. “What do you think happened when the ships landed? The men and boys are rotting in ditches, and all for nothing. My husband and sons were fishermen. Our neighbors were tradesmen and potters and shipwrights—not a single warrior among them. But that didn’t matter. The Achaeans killed them all.” She spat on the floor, then, gazing at Ariadne’s neck, licked her finger and rubbed the saliva into the wound Elaphos had made. “Did those savages put a knife to your throat? It wouldn’t surprise me. They did that to a few women when they...” She grunted, then changed the subject yet again. “You didn’t say what goddess you served.”

“I serve Mother Rea.”

Genuine delight lit up the bitter face. “Ah, so you know how to purify women and make the medicine!”

Ariadne had no doubt this woman wasn’t the only one who would want her services. “Are you with child?”

Snorting laughter answered her query. “Not me—too old and ugly to rape—but there are women all over Katsambas who have had their bellies stuffed full of Achaean seed. They’ll want the medicine. You
are
a priestess, aren’t you?”

Cool water sluicing her feet felt wonderful, even if the washcloth rasping against her bruised soles did not. “How many are there?”

“Maybe three dozen, most of those left in the town. Once the men had their sport, the younger women were rounded up and taken to the camp. Had Kanako been a little older, they’d have taken her, too.” The woman’s pointy face screwed up in disgust. “Tell me what ingredients you need and I’ll get them.”

Women outside Knossos handed down their own homemade abortifacient recipes, but many preferred remedies prepared by the priestesses. Some traveled days to a sanctuary so Eleuthia could watch over them. “You realize that the medicine is dangerous, don’t you?” Ariadne wasn’t about to meddle with magic this powerful just to placate her sour host. “I must brew each draught individually. Too much will kill a woman. Too little will just make her sick and damage the babe in the womb. I would not give it to any woman unless I was sure she needed it.”

“Many are desperate. They want to be made clean again.”

“There are other ways to purify them. I would rather they showed signs of pregnancy before I gave them the draught.” Ariadne wiggled her toes in the water. Never again would she trudge all night barefoot like a peasant woman. “It’s safer that way.”

The woman, whose name she still did not know, grasped her arm hard. “Do you know the curses to wither an enemy’s manhood?”

Ariadne’s instincts told her to lie. “I don’t know that I do.”

* * * *

By afternoon, the woman Akuro brought up a fresh blouse and skirt, worn but serviceable sandals, and news. “There are four women willing to risk the medicine. I explained how dangerous it was, of course, but they want to be purified. Not just have the Achaean slime flushed from their wombs, but cleansed of their shame of having been violated in the Great Mother’s sight.”

Had Katsambas no priestesses of its own, or had they been among those raped? Ariadne thought it best not to ask. “You need a lustral basin for ritual purification. Is there a sanctuary nearby?”

Akuro scowled. “Nothing the Achaeans haven’t stripped and defiled. They violated the poor girl who tended the altar, and killed the old priestess. Split her head clean open. No, we can’t conduct any rites there.”

Ariadne closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. Where was Taranos? Ekhinos didn’t know, and she dared not ask this woman, whose house resonated with the tension of her bitterness. Ariadne couldn’t conceal her pregnancy, but Akuro didn’t know that she was the High Priestess, or that an Achaean had fathered her child.

“I should have the ingredients for you by tomorrow.”

Once refreshed and dressed in her borrowed clothes, Ariadne realized to her dismay that she could barely walk. Strained muscles in her calves made her wince, and her feet in their cloth wrappings felt thick and clumsy. Fortunately, the little girl Kanako came to help her down the stairs and showed her where she could relieve herself.

“Is it going to be a boy or a girl, Priestess?”

Ariadne smiled at her. Kanako hadn’t spoken more than two words before this. “It will be as the Great Mother and Eleuthia will.”

Women crowded the ground floor, milling around the hearth and adjoining rooms. Those not scheduled to cook or clean that day for the Achaeans took turns gathering at their neighbors’ houses. Bereft of their male protectors, none wished to be alone. Without question, they welcomed Ariadne into their group, shared their meager gossip with her, and gave her wool to spin.

“Ekhinos said something this morning about your working in the camp.” She chose her comments carefully. “Have the Achaeans made slaves of you?”

Akuro shook her head, snorting. “They say they haven’t, that they’ve actually been good to us. Liars. Once they finished raping us and robbing our houses, they made menials of us. Who do you think scrubbed all the blood and mess they made? Oh, some slave women have come over from the mainland to do much of the laundry and cooking, and to service the men. Even some slave men are here to fish and tend the olives and vines. But they still keep our daughters and force us to ask them for grain and oil, and they humiliate us by making us share the labor with those filthy slaves.”

Too old and ugly to rape
. Ariadne recalled what Akuro told her that morning; the Achaeans never touched her or her daughter. But there were other ways to violate a woman. Akuro took refuge in her anger. Kanako huddled in dark corners with her head in her hands whenever she thought no one was looking. Other women stared into space with haunted eyes and wept silently. Ariadne didn’t know what to say or do to comfort them.

“Ekhinos says there will be Cretan men soon,” said a younger woman. A fading bruise mottled her left eye and she spoke through a split lip.

Akuro spat. “Ekhinos can eat dog shit.”

“At least he speaks Cretan, so the others don’t beat us when we don’t understand.”

Ariadne flicked the spindle whorl while wool fibers twisted through her fingers. “Are there others who speak our tongue?”

“A few,” said the young woman. “Ekhinos says the one they call the
wanax
speaks Cretan, but he’s never had anything to do with us.”

While some spun and mended clothes, others baked bread and grilled fish the makeshift fishermen brought that morning. At sunset, the women stopped working to eat. Ariadne, like them, took her fish atop the flat bread, and burned her fingers and tongue.

Everyone stayed late into the night. Many women abandoned their homes to stay with friends, especially after dark when they were most afraid. Even with the influx of camp followers and menials, there was no guarantee that Achaean soldiers wouldn’t get drunk and go looking for Cretan women to rape again.

When the door opened, Ariadne expected more anxious local women with their little girls. Yet when a man’s broad frame filled the doorway, she, like the others, drew back in terrified astonishment. Kanako screamed.

Akuro got up, briskly went to the door, and slapped the newcomer hard across the face. “You!”

A bewildered Taranos clapped his hand to his cheek, which sported a fresh bruise in addition to the one Ariadne had given him days earlier. “What is it,” he asked, gaze lighting on Ariadne, “that makes women want to hit me?”

“It certainly isn’t your good looks.”

At once, Akuro rounded on her. “Do you know this man, Priestess?”

“Taranos is the Sacred King.”

A chorus of outraged protests went up, and Kanako sobbed in an older woman’s arms. Through it all, Ariadne sat quietly. As a High Priestess, it was beneath her dignity to holler over a gaggle of peasant women. Taranos, too, had no intention of shouting these women down. Closing the door, he walked over to the hearth and sat down. “Akuro,” he said quietly, “I want something to eat and drink.”

“I ought to stick a knife in you.”

Taranos stared her down. “Not while I’m a guest at your hearth. I had nothing to do with what happened here. Ariadne will tell you I’ve spent the last several days a prisoner in the storerooms at Knossos.”

When Akuro turned to her, so did eighteen other women. “Did you help him escape?”

It was time to put this insolent woman in her place. Straightening her posture, she answered coolly, “I am the High Priestess.”

Pandemonium erupted again. Nineteen pairs of eyes darted between her and Taranos. Nineteen women had no idea what to think. Taranos, hungry, tired, and visibly impatient, finally bellowed at them to be quiet. “I didn’t spend long hours outwitting my Cretan pursuers and being commandeered by my uncle just to be henpecked to death by a gaggle of screeching women. I told you, I had nothing to do with the ships or the attack. I was at Knossos, carrying out my sacred duties.”