CHAPTER THREE
MY DRESS IS THE COLOUR of a fading bruise. A deep mauve, dark and swollen. Dye so expensive I expect I’ll be wearing nothing but shades of purple for the duration of these celebrations.
One of my mother’s servants dresses me – a sign, perhaps, that my marriage is indeed impending, because no one replaced Charis once I got her on a boat to Mycenae.
She’d been assigned my handmaid at twelve, had become my friend by thirteen and my lover at fifteen before swiftly moving back to friend when we realized we weren’t quite as compatible in that regard as we’d hoped.
It had been two more years of gossiping until daybreak, sneaking mead from the kitchens and, of course, conspiring to treason. And now six months without her.
The servant presents me with a golden headpiece my mother has apparently had made – vines pressed in meticulous detail, and clusters of raised bumps so out of place it takes me a moment.
‘Are these grapes?’
‘They are indeed, Princess Ariadne.’
‘And why does my mother wish to dress me like a fruit salad?’
The dress has a slightly grapish hue, actually, now that I consider it.
The servant flushes, and I forget, in that moment, that she is not Charis because I anticipate a wry comment and am met instead with a frantic explanation: ‘It’s a new fashion, Your Highness. From here to the Hellespont everyone is drinking wine.’
Drinking, yes. Not wearing.
But the poor girl looks like another question from me might make her cry so I put it on my head with a sigh. ‘At least the Athenians can go to their deaths laughing.’
The Athenians are met at the docks by a display of Cretan military might, our forces amassed and armed, like fourteen servants and farmers – it’s never the nobility the Athenians choose to send – might think they stand a chance of fighting back.
At the palace, the show is one of Cretan wealth, all our finely crafted ornaments and treasures on show – which includes Phaedra and me, standing behind our parents’ thrones.
A courtier announces their arrival: ‘King Minos and Queen Pasiphae.’
My father looks at us before he takes his seat, and I hold my breath as though he might see the treachery I’m planning.
He’s not a tall man but still, somehow, he towers – aged muscle turned hard and unyielding, a scar stretched across his left cheek reminding everyone just how he won this tribute from Athens.
‘Say nothing,’ he commands. ‘Reveal nothing of yourselves: no feeling or emotion, no opinion or preference – and certainly no sympathy. If they meet your eye, do not look away first. And most importantly: do not embarrass me.’
‘Yes, my king,’ Phaedra and I chorus.
Daedalus shuffles through the crowd, Icarus and Glaucus in tow.
He nods for my brother to join us and, reluctantly, Glaucus moves to climb the dais.
I wonder if he knows what is happening here – or if he has the same sort of cold feeling I had at his age.
When he stands beside me he curls his fingers into tight fists and it takes all my resolve not to bundle my brother into my arms and run from this place.
I settle instead for planting a hand on his shoulder and drawing him a little closer.
I hear the footsteps before I hear the horns, which follow a moment later.
The doors of the hall open, broad soldiers stomping through.
Deucalion – gruff and middle-aged, bearing absolutely no resemblance to any of us and who, despite being my brother, I believe I’ve had a grand total of three conversations with in my entire life – follows, shield and sword aloft like he is returning from battle rather than acting as a glorified messenger.
And then, behind him: the sacrifices.
Seven girls lined up beside seven boys.
It is so immediate I almost break my father’s command. Reveal nothing is very nearly replaced with gape openly and forget to blink.
But I catch myself, and let my gaze drift coolly across the tributes like they mean nothing.
I do not let them settle on the boy at the back, who may be dressed in the same beige chiton as the others but is not so evidently starved.
Muscles draw gentle lines and divots across his skin, his dark hair is thick, practically glossy though it is shorn close, and even the way he holds himself is too bold, like he has never cowered or scurried once in his life.
Maybe one of the sacrifices died too early and had to be hurriedly replaced.
Or the Athenians have begun sending us their ruffians and rogues who would be executed anyway.
Or maybe I’m not the only one who’s planning something.
‘You may be expecting a speech to thank you for your sacrifice,’ my father begins, cruel amusement laced in every word.
‘I’m sure you received some such address from your own king.
But we do not thank you for what is rightfully owed.
Your sacrifice is nothing, your deaths are nothing, your nation is nothing.
And when we feast tonight, know that every morsel that crosses your lips is only to nourish the beast below. ’
He continues on – each barb pettier than the last.
I try to focus on the Athenians – to take each and every one of them in. Every life. Every person, identifying them in a string of features: freckles, button nose, thick brows, tall, hair dark as shadow …
I only get so far. My gaze is continuously drawn to the misplaced boy at the back.
But he doesn’t look at me once – his eyes are locked on my father. No fright, no terror. Only amusement of his own.
Phaedra and I are decidedly not invited to the evening’s feast. Father believes the only women who ought to attend banquets are those paid for their services.
Evidently the exception is the seven women he plans to sacrifice tomorrow, though I imagine he sees their demise as a similar proposition, their bodies purchased and merrily disposed of.
Instead, I move to the next part of my plan – that hatch outside the kitchens, the herbs I have stored and the meat set aside for tomorrow’s feast. Then I head to my room and dig out a dress and veil pilfered from the laundry.
We used to keep cells in the mountains but Father’s tyranny of late has him wanting to keep his enemies close. So he converted a former stable into a prison. Once they’ve finished dining, it’s where I go.
I adjust the tie holding my dress together, allowing myself this last nervous fidget before I turn the corner.
I hold myself to my full height, my arms slightly aloft to show off the richness of the linen weave and the careful stitches to the wrist. A priestess, evidently.
And I hope the guards do not look closer than that.
Peering through the veil, I see them.
The cells are guarded by the best of Crete’s army: strong, brutal – and not that much older than me. Which is my only hope – that they were children when the last tribute happened, so how would they know whether there were attendants of the gods present?
I raise my jug of olive oil for their observation.
‘I’m here to perform rites ahead of the sacrifice.’
They glance at one another. ‘No one told us of rites.’
I swallow – worst case … worst case I claim I was intrigued. I wanted to sneak in and see them. I certainly wasn’t planning on breaking them out, just sating a curiosity I never should have had.
I’d be confined to my room, delivered only oats and water – perhaps even levied with one of those violent punishments Father prefers to save for the servants.
But I’d keep my life. Which is what the Athenians currently risk – and why I must press on.
‘My instructions were quite strict,’ I say, keeping my voice thoroughly delighted. ‘To treat them as we would any other animal slaughtered at our altars.’
The men laugh. ‘True enough. Go on in, then.’
The guards stand at the end of the hall, not quite out of sight.
But perhaps out of hearing.
The wooden doors have been replaced by thick iron bars and all the Athenians have been placed together in a cell.
They quiet at my approaching steps. One sleeps in the corner.
A few are red-faced and swaying on their feet.
Evidently the wine everyone keeps raving about is doing its work – and I can’t say I wouldn’t be heartily draining it the night before my slaughter either.
‘I’m here to anoint you in the name of Poseidon,’ I say.
As one, they turn to that out-of-place boy.
He barks a laugh. ‘Is that so? Well, you can tell Poseidon he’s sure to be very proud of what will happen tomorrow.’
Doubtful – though who can say how a god would react to a thing like that. There’s been no rebuke so far for this weaponization of an intended punishment, but perhaps he is only biding his time. Or maybe he’s impressed, savouring the violence of his creation.
‘If you step to the bars I can cleanse you.’
It should be noted that I have no idea how the priests and priestesses prepare sacrifices. But in my experience, olive oil is Crete’s answer to everything: soap, lights, perfume, cooking.
Anointing the dead.
And the look that boy gives me now implies it’s the use he’s thinking of too.
‘Not bloody likely,’ snarls the girl with the dark hair, kicking at the bar with such force I flinch even as she reels back.
‘Hey!’ a guard bellows, stepping forward.
The boy holds out a hand with such instinctive command the guard stops. ‘I’ll handle her. We don’t want to make this any more difficult than it already is.’ He steps forward and presses his face to the gap between the bars. ‘Work away, priestess.’
I dip my fingers into the jug and step closer, blocking the guards’ view with my body.
‘Oh, great Earthshaker,’ I intone – then panic at how few epithets for Poseidon I can remember, so begin to hum instead.
The boy scowls his confusion – then recognition sparks in his eyes as I press a reel of string into his palm.
‘Tie this to the door of the labyrinth,’ I whisper. ‘It will help you find your way out.’
Maybe the door can hide marks but perhaps it cannot shift a physical tie. And if it can, the string will still guide them to its vague location. It will be easy enough to spot once I’ve opened it.
‘Zosime,’ the boy snaps at the girl clutching her foot. ‘Hum.’
Zosime takes up the tune I had abandoned and our conversation is masked as the boy turns his attention back to me. He offers a small smile that feels decidedly intimate in this dimly lit space. ‘A seed of rebellion in a place like this? That’s either awfully brave or awfully stupid.’
‘Both, I think.’
‘That makes two of us,’ he says, tossing the string into the air. ‘This ought to make it easier to recover our bodies. What’s left of them, at any rate. Do you have garlic too? That might at least make it quick.’
I hesitate. I’d not been expecting such brevity and it unsettles me. He unsettles me. ‘Asteri– The Minotaur won’t be a problem. It’s starving and I just poured a great quantity of drugged meat into its path.’
‘Brave, stupid and clever,’ the boy says, and I raise my finger to his face, smearing olive oil across the blades of his cheeks.
Fine cheekbones, I note. Stubble stretches nearly to their peak, dark and bristling beneath my thumb, and it takes concerted effort to ignore the heat coiling in my stomach and return to the matter at hand.
‘But that door locks tight. You’ll only be delaying the inevitable. ’
‘I’ll free you. I’m not sure when but … they’ll be drinking. Celebrating. If we can get to the forge, I’ve arranged for merchants to smuggle you out with the wares. Everyone will assume the sacrifice worked and …’
‘And we’ll sail off into obscurity,’ the boy finishes.
I scowl at his tone – though he won’t see that through the fine silk covering my face.
‘If the king finds out you live, he’ll hunt you down like it’s sport.’
The boy’s smile becomes a flash of teeth. ‘I’m counting on it.’
‘Who are you?’ I ask – because bravado I could dismiss as the clung-to delusion of a terrified boy. But this isn’t hollow – I can feel the solidity behind it, the certainty. The sort of assurance with which men like my father speak and a confidence no sacrifice should have.
He steps closer to the bars and when he speaks, his amusement rings out, like this entire conversation is a joke between us.
‘You’re no priestess, obviously. Your hands aren’t worn enough to be a servant.
So what is it? The wife of some noble? The daughter of a palace guard?
A relative of the king? Forget who I am, priestess.
Why don’t you lift that veil and let me know exactly who I owe this glimmer of hope to? ’
I tense so suddenly that the jug feels brittle in my hands. The challenge is clear in the boy’s gaze but there’s something beyond the curiosity – a sort of mirroring. Both of us brave and stupid. Both of us hiding something. And altogether it’s palpable …
Zosime’s hum grows, and I startle. I had been so lost in this boy that I’d quite forgotten the others were here.
I move to the next person in line, reaching to draw oil across the girl’s face.
But the boy catches my hand, his thumb finding the groove of an old scar from intercepting a lash meant for Charis.
‘Thank you, priestess,’ he says, those dark eyes boring into mine.
He hesitates a moment, and then his gaze is pleading.
And … perhaps even hopeful. ‘But if you wish to truly save us … to take the brave and clever option. If you wish for us to stand a chance in all this, then you might consider bringing us a blade instead of string.’