Claiming Ariadne (27 page)

Obviously Pakowa anticipated arrogance. Taken aback by a simple affirmative, she blinked hard before helping herself to a cake. “Is that a sacred child?” She pointed to Ariadne’s belly.

“Yes, it’s due at the solstice.”

Pakowa munched quietly while Ariadne resumed spinning near the open window. After a few uneasy moments, the priestess edged her stool forward. “I didn’t know priestesses from Knossos spun their own thread. Do you weave and make your own clothes?”

What silly notions the local women seemed to have about life at Knossos! “Of course I do. But, oh, you’re not eating the cakes! Did I add too much honey? Taranos complained just this morning that they were sticky.”

“Taranos is your husband?” Pakowa asked cautiously.

“Yes, he’s that big strapping Achaean working outside. Those pieces of wood he’s cursing over are supposed to be a cradle—or at least that’s what he
says
he’s making. I honestly don’t think he knows what he’s doing. Now ask him to mend a fence or make a shield or boar tusk helmet, and he’s just fine.”

“Are Achaeans…?” Pakowa licked fleshy lips. “Are they good in bed? I’ve heard such things about the size of their swords.”

Ariadne struggled to contain her laughter. What an audacious hussy! Then again, she knew quite a few Achaeans who might just appreciate such a big, bold woman. “Get yourself a nice tame one who doesn’t drink too much, doesn’t stare at your breasts when you’re conducting a ritual, and who knows how to wipe his feet and pour the correct libation when he enters your house. Akuro’s husband is an excellent carpenter and sailor. He behaves himself whenever he sacks a town. He also remembers to hang his sword and shield where her eight-year-old daughter won’t trip over it.”

Pakowa never mentioned the subject again.

Autumn brought the annual slaughter, and Iphame took exception when the men came to supper spattered and reeking of blood. She instantly drove them out the back door into the gathering twilight. “Not until you’re clean. You’ll find jugs of water and clean clothes in the coop. Kuparo, Orestas, how many times have I got to tell you to wash up? Taranos, honestly! So your wife has cravings for salt fish and apples dipped in honey—that doesn’t mean she likes the stench of gore and day-old sweat. Now get out there and wash properly, and
don’t
let me see any dirt under your fingernails when you come back.”

Ariadne balked when, early the next morning, her great-grandmother hustled her out of the house. “They’ll be scraping and boiling those pig carcasses today. By midday, there’ll be flies everywhere. Take your spinning and visit your friend Akuro—unless her man has her gutting and scraping bristle—or go to the market with one of your little unguent jars and barter for something nice. Yes, I know you have plenty of finery. Aside from a few blankets, the baby has nothing.”

Akuro, who was more than happy to escape the house, accompanied her to the marketplace. “Now look at this lovely piece of embroidery. You could have it sewn onto the hem of a little tunic.”

Unfortunately, the woman running the stall decided to be snide. “Don’t priestesses know how to sew?”

“Yes, we do,” snapped Ariadne. Oh, but her back kept her up all night, and her belly ached with what she suspected might be early contractions. Perhaps it was too early. The baby wasn’t due for another three weeks. “And when I’m not as big as a
pithos
, I will put on my finery and you can see for yourself.”

“Stop being hateful, Aja.” Akuro snatched at the embroidery just as the woman tried to whisk it away. “Or maybe you’d like to see your man’s cock wither like a dead twig.”

Aja thrust her nose into the air. “Please! He already can’t get it up, and he doesn’t know the first thing about using his ton—oh, why am I telling
you
this?”

Ariadne eyed the red-and-white band. She
did
want it. “Do you
want
his cock to get big again?”

“Not unless you can teach him what to do with it.”

“There’s no cure for that except a good woman who’s patient enough to coax—” Warm fluid suddenly ran down the inside of her thigh. Pinkish liquid stained her hem and ran into her shoe. “Akuro...” Still staring, she gripped the other woman’s arm. “I think it’s time.”

“Time for what?” Akuro blinked at her. “Oh, you mean…?”

Ariadne forgot about the embroidery and the woman glaring at her as though she’d sprouted horns. Iphame was out back when she got home, but Sera immediately took charge. Between the two women, Ariadne shed her shawl and shoes, and hunched whimpering by the hearth.

A discreet word brought Iphame into the house. “Not a word to the father,” she cautioned the other women. “He’ll just get in the way.”

Keeping the men from the house proved impossible. Tarato was a veritable tattler who scurried off the minute he realized something was amiss among the women. Taranos burst in through the back door reeking of sweat and pig guts. Three outraged females descended on him with curses and shoving hands. “Out, out, out!” Iphame screeched. “Go find something useful to do—and box that meddling boy’s ears while you’re at it.”

Ariadne, pacing back and forth supported by Sera and Akuro, wished Taranos wouldn’t make a scene. “It’s only a baby.”

“You should be in bed!” he called.

Iphame chased him onto the back terrace. “When you can birth a baby, then you can give advice. You—Kuparo! Orestas!—keep Taranos busy. And then go have your supper someplace else. Stay out all night!”

“
All night?
”

“Baby’s not coming that quickly!”

Muttering under her breath about stubborn men, Iphame took a turn pacing with Ariadne while Sera fetched the midwife. Pakowa poked her head through the door not long after. “You will need a priestess.”

Iphame looked duly unimpressed. “I need a woman who can boil water and hold the mother up when she climbs onto the birthing stool.”

Ariadne circled the hearth until her legs ached, until all she wanted to do was collapse and double over. Kujara the midwife timed her contractions, which weren’t yet close enough together for delivery. She would have done this in the sanctuary of Eleuthia, too, paced up and down the length of the outer room on the arms of senior priestesses while Thuriatris supervised. Several women, all having conceived on the night of the Great Marriage, might be in labor alongside her. During her first childbirth, Ariadne had stopped pacing and balked in terror when a mother in the birthing chamber began screaming. A dead baby. Thuriatris had hurried out with the bundled infant and placenta, and priestesses rushed in to remove the mother and purify the room.

Nine hours later, Ariadne had given birth to her daughter in a dark room haunted by memories of pain and blood, and the shades of dead mothers and their dead babies.

Iphame kept the main room warm and brightly lit. She and Kujara encouraged Ariadne to pray to Eleuthia. Akuro tried to make her laugh. “Your man will get so drunk he’ll swear he has chariots coming out of his ears. Pakowa, stop stuffing yourself with honey cakes, or someone might mistake
you
for the new mother.”

“All right,” said Kujara. “Let her sit down.”

Ariadne tried to spin. No use. The twirling spindle whorl made her dizzy. Contractions rippled across her belly so fiercely she swore the baby was trying to kick his way out. She knew he was merely dropping in her womb, getting ready to push through—yes, she reflected, only a boy would be that vigorous for such an early birth.

You’ve done this four times before
.
It’ll be all right
. She took cool water and a bit of wine when Sera offered it, and tried to distract herself by listening to the women gossip around the hearth.

“It’s too bad that mess Taranos put together isn’t fit enough for a cradle,” Kujara observed.

Ariadne thought the result a perfectly serviceable box, which might hold ceramic cups and plates. But no, it wouldn’t do for a nursery. “He tried.”

“Yes, but the trick to building a cradle is getting it to rock back and forth smoothly like a gently bobbing boat. Taranos isn’t a shipwright, is he?”

“Oh, I’m sure the man can build a boat,” said Iphame. “It’s having to build something for your first child that always makes a man piss his loincloth and fumble. Suddenly he can’t remember where he put his tools, or how to peg two pieces of wood together.”

Another contraction passed through her belly. They were closer now. Oh yes, the baby was coming. Seeing her wince, Kujara knelt down and peered between her legs. “You’re not open wide enough yet.”

“How much longer?”

“It’ll be soon.”

Soon
was going to take forever.

Sera brought her shawl and rubbed warmth into her legs as darkness fell. Ariadne couldn’t help but wonder where Taranos would go that night.

Although she dared not suggest it, she wanted him there. At least he could have encircled her with his strong arms and held her warm and safe. Ah, but men were no use when a woman gave birth. Even the priests were frightened by this demonstration of raw female power: the bringing forth of life. “Of all the times he had to panic.”

 
“Men are absolutely useless around a laboring mother,” said Akuro. “All three times, Poros tried to stay and ended up fleeing at the first sight of blood.” Growing thoughtful, perhaps remembering how her husband and sons died, her mouth tightened and she said no more.

Iphame rolled her eyes. “You don’t want Taranos, girl. Believe me—he’d be fretting and complaining and wanting you to get on with it before the first hour was done. That’s the problem with men: they have no patience for women’s things. Maybe he’ll get his son, maybe he won’t, but whichever way the birth goes, he’s going to have to wait.”

* * * *

Once drowsiness took hold, it didn’t want to let her go. Ariadne stirred cautiously under the blanket and winced as her sore muscles protested. A numb ache suffused her belly. Wadded cloth packed between her legs reminded her that she’d just given birth.

Fifteen hours. A short delivery, yet her body recalled every strain and contraction even as her conscious memory began to blur. She remembered Kujara telling her it was time but didn’t remember moving into the room her great-grandmother and Sera had prepared for the delivery, or getting up onto the birthing stool. Bare white walls—she must have said something about the nightmarish dancing priestesses and red wash of the sanctuary at Knossos. Chanting in the background—oh yes, it stopped when she yelled at Pakowa. “If I want Eleuthia,
I’ll
pray to her!”

A boy—oh, it
was
a boy! Somehow she’d gotten from the birthing room into bed, the women had cleaned her up, and her great-grandmother was showing her how to nurse. It was the last thing she clearly remembered. “Now pop that nipple in fully, girl. Men are born wanting a teat, so let him get a good grip and start suckling.”

Kujara had cut the umbilical cord and held up the baby even as Ariadne strained to pass the afterbirth. Still laboring, she counted his fingers, his toes. She inspected every part of him that she could. Her son wasn’t a monster at all, but beautiful and whole and utterly perfect. Tears of relief spilled down her cheeks.

How strange and wonderfully tender it felt to nurse her own child. All her other children had vanished into the arms of wet nurses by the time she woke from the delivery. She wasn’t used to waking beside a swaddled infant.

Autumn daylight streamed through her window; it must be midmorning now, almost noon. How long had she slept? Ariadne lay quietly, too exhausted to move, and afraid to wake the infant. So she stared at the wall till her great-grandmother came in to check on her. “Ah, you’re awake. Little mite is sleeping now, is he? He’ll be hungry again soon. Ah, but look who’s here—yes, yes, you can go in, but mind you stay quiet. They’re both still tired.”

A bleary-eyed Taranos shuffled in and took the stool beside her bed. At first, Ariadne feared he might be drunk, but he didn’t reek of wine, and she knew Iphame wouldn’t have let him anywhere near her or the newborn if he were. Like her, he was simply exhausted. “Your great-grandmother...” He shot Iphame an accusing glance. “She wouldn’t let me see either of you until you woke.”