CHAPTER TWELVE
MYRTO TELLS ME TO FIND her once I’ve washed, so she can help apply the healing salve to my shoulder. But I feel so wrung out that once I’ve washed in the huge baths set up in the tents at the edge of the camp I sneak in without saying a word to anyone.
Come on, Ariadne, what’s wrong with you?
I was abandoned on this island, dreaming of anyone coming along who might take me away from here, and I’ve managed to find a group of people who have welcomed me with open arms. They’ve fed me, given me refuge and told me they’ll take me wherever I want to go.
Or I could join them, which would mean no scrounging for survival on a distant shore.
I have a choice – not just a desperate escape.
It’s all the sort of miracle I didn’t even dare wish for.
But perhaps not one I deserve.
Logical Ariadne tells me I did nothing wrong.
That Theseus was right, and if Asterion had lived my father would have used him to kill, and kill again.
But I can’t hear her in the hollow void within myself, a gaping chasm insisting I reckon with the guilt and loneliness.
I think of the paint-etched halls of Knossos, Charis’s gleeful cackle, Phaedra’s plucked barbitos strings, my mother’s parcelled-out words and Glaucus’s quick stomping as he hurtled through the halls.
It’s a lot to lose. Even more to throw away.
Outside, music begins to play. I tap the beat on my thigh, picturing dainty spins and low sweeping glides. Instead, I bury my face into the pillow and try to shut out the world I was once so desperate to find.
I’m not even sure the sun had set when I fell asleep – exhausted, wrung out and overwhelmed – and it’s not yet risen when I jolt awake.
I’m surrounded by low, heavy breathing but the air feels still and silent as only the very early hours of the morning can.
With sudden restlessness I kick the blankets aside and stumble out of the mound of tents.
‘New girl!’
I nearly throw myself back into the canopy.
Dionysus is sitting cross-legged on a nearby rock, tossing scraps of food into the air as Sterope leaps up to snatch them. The camp is lit by a few dim torches, and her tawny fur glows in the light.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Well, I wanted food and Sterope gave me that look she gives sometimes, like I would be starving her if I didn’t share my bread and cheese, which, I explained, isn’t very good for panthers.
By that point I realized we’d reached a negotiation rather than a refusal so I was honour-bound to provide the snack I’d supposedly agreed to. I am a god of my word, after all.’
He throws another shred of food – the cooked meat from dinner, I think. With his other hand, he tosses a lump of cheese and catches it in his mouth as Sterope’s jaws snap shut around her own.
‘What you are is a drunkard and a fool.’
He splays his arms and beams to the night sky. ‘So you have heard of me!’
I take a breath – but of course that silence is just an opening for him, because he climbs to his feet atop that rock and leaps down in one quick bound. There’s a peculiarity to the way he moves, a sort of graceful restlessness so that even as he jumps it looks equal parts floundering and elegant.
‘But never mind all that. Why are you awake, new girl?’
‘I have a name.’
‘Do you?’ He quirks a brow. ‘Funny, it doesn’t quite seem to fit.’
He looks at me pointedly, though his eyes sparkle with amusement. Like even this, seeing through my lies and declaring the puzzle of me, is little more than a way to pass the time. ‘I’d take it up with my parents but I haven’t seen them in a while.’
He chuckles and by now he has drawn level with me. ‘So what was it that woke you? Frustrating dreams of a certain devastatingly attractive god?’
‘Hmm, do let me know if Apollo calls by.’
He winces. ‘Areatha, do spare some thought for my fragile heart.’
‘I’m more concerned for your liver, my lord.’
He’s certainly been drinking – there’s a double-handled kratos propped against that rock, the wine within catching in the moonlight. But he doesn’t strike me as unduly intoxicated, just a slight … glaze. A headiness. One that has his every action a little bolder than before.
‘My lord would be Father dearest,’ Dionysus says, casting a quick look to the Heavens like Zeus might take this moment to appear. ‘You can call me handsome, gorgeous, the man of your frustrating, tormenting dreams …’
‘Does this work? I can’t imagine this working.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ he says, smiling still. ‘So, if we might return to the matter at hand. All’s well? There are tinctures, somewhere, if you’re having trouble sleeping.’
My throat burns. What is this place, where they cook food for strangers and decorate bedding and care if you cannot sleep?
‘Or a god, with ears, if you’d care to use them,’ he adds, seeming to sober.
But the last person I confided in was Theseus. And what a mistake that was. He left me here and my sister betrayed me and my father ordered my execution and, between all that, I think perhaps I was safer on this island alone. These people are too nice, too friendly, and I don’t trust it any more.
‘I just need some water,’ I say finally. ‘You might want to try drinking some too.’
I manage to fall asleep again and wake in a warm and cosy mound of blankets. The breathing around me reminds me of Charis and all the nights we spent sleeping in the same bed just so we could talk a while longer.
When I emerge it is to the smell of baking bread and someone is already blowing on panpipes, and I wonder if I’ve contracted something on this island that’s made me hallucinate all of this.
Then I see the spread Myrto has organized and decide I do not care – if this is a vision of my half-starved, probably dying brain then it’s how I’d like to leave this world.
She stands by a laden table, helping people load plates.
Loaves of rosemary-studded bread sit in the table’s centre, surrounded by platters of fried eggs seasoned with garlic and chives.
Then, beyond that, bowls filled with any sort of toppings we might want: jugs of oil infused with garlic or rosemary or truffles, creamy dollops of cheese, tureens of honey, olive and caper tapenades, jewel-hued jams and ground nuts sprinkled with cinnamon.
She’s even lined up stalks of asparagus down the table, so that with the bread in the centre and the rest spiralling out, it’s formed a sort of flower, each petal more appetizing than the last.
‘If I stay, can I worship you rather than Dionysus?’ I ask, coming up beside her.
She laughs. ‘Oh, absolutely not. This is very much my preference: all of the control and none of the responsibility. Dionysus is more than welcome to the spotlight.’
I help wash up when we’re done, then wonder what else I should be doing. Surely this sort of community only works if everyone pitches in? And if I am truly a guest then I should be contributing gifts of my own.
‘Hey, Areatha!’ I turn to find a woman waving me over. She looks to be about my age, with silken hair and golden freckles specking every inch of visible skin. ‘What are you up to? Do you want to come harvest grapes with us?’
That could work.
So the woman – Opora – leads me back to the vineyard near my former abode where a handful of satyrs and maenads await.
Together we pluck grapes and fill baskets.
They tell stories and sing and then at one point a woman who looks near identical to Opora pops up from behind a bundle of vines and begins pelting us with grapes.
‘Calybe!’ Opora shrieks. ‘You rat!’
Calybe giggles – and a satyr on her side takes up the fight and throws more grapes our way. Suddenly, war lines are drawn.
Opora drags me behind one of the bushes.
‘My sister is a tyrant who must be taken down,’ she says, very seriously. ‘I think we may have to destroy them.’
‘I agree, but I’m not sure how you win a grape war.’
Apparently by hurling as many of them as possible as quickly as possible until the other side surrenders. At which point Opora hauls me up and spins me around, screeching our victory.
‘Do you think that’s enough for the revelry?’ one of the satyrs asks, wiping his short curling horns free of juice.
‘The wine for that’s already fermented. I just didn’t want to waste ripe grapes,’ Opora says.
‘Is that not what we just did?’ I ask, eyeing the splattered fruit.
‘Joy is never a waste!’ she protests. ‘Besides, the insects and birds will eat those, and that’s never a waste either.’
But it feels like a waste when we return to camp and Dionysus is throwing more logs on the fire blazing at its centre. He straightens up, and takes in my grape-smeared appearance.
‘I knew you’d get into the swing of things,’ he commends.
I don’t even stop, just walk right past him. ‘If you’d led with food fights I might have considered. Now I’m worried this is a kink of yours.’
‘Hey, new girl, no kink shaming in the cult of Dionysus!’ he scolds.
‘Good thing I’m not joining!’
‘We’ll see!’
In the afternoon I lay traps with Myrto, Calybe and a few other maenads.
‘Olympus above, did you do this?’ Myrto asks, examining a patch on one of the nets. When I nod, she throws her arms about my neck. ‘You’re brilliant. It was on my list for our return.’
‘Is that what you do?’ I ask, amused. ‘Try to organize this chaos?’
‘Oh yes,’ she says, removing a wax tablet from an impossibly small pocket of her belt and presumably ticking mend nets off her list. ‘Fun is sort of our thing. And nothing is more fun than a meticulously curated schedule or a light bit of colour-coding.’
‘Have you tried dance? Music? Decapitation? All of which sound rather more fun,’ I tease.
‘Nope.’ She tilts her head to the air. ‘You will not take this from me, new girl –’
‘Oh, do not tell me that’s catching on.’
‘Sorry, it’s just – well, Dionysus has relayed a different name each time a new person asks after you. Areatha, Aratha, Esia, Arachne, Libera … I didn’t want to get it wrong.’
Oh, that bastard – clearly having fun poking at my obvious lie. Well, it’s not as though he knows what truth it’s covering, so I’m not particularly panicked, but right now I find I can’t give that lie again. Not to Myrto. Not after the kindness she’s shown me.
‘Call me new girl, then,’ I say, averting my gaze from her questioning look – knowing if she asks, I’ll tell her.
I doubt anyone here will judge me for the things I’ve done.
But the secret might leak or the people of Cabarnis might overhear, and if my father really has put a bounty on my head, it’s not just my reputation I risk.
‘We all have secrets,’ she says, a little too softly. ‘No one will push you to disclose them. Not here. But you can – when you’re ready. If you want to.’
I can only nod.
‘You two really must stop this,’ Calybe says, appearing behind us and swinging an arm around both our necks – which is actually quite painful because her wrists are stacked with seashell bracelets. ‘I’m fairly certain serious conversations are outlawed by Dionysus.’
‘I’m pretty sure nothing is outlawed by Dionysus,’ I grumble.
‘That’s the spirit!’ she calls, freeing me only so she can skip before me and plant her hands on my shoulders. ‘Now, on to important things. You are coming to tonight’s revelry, aren’t you?’
‘I …’
Cabarnis could be dangerous – my father might somehow have traced me there.
Or someone might recognize me. And if it’s not, do I find work there?
Build a home there? Or stay here, where things are considerably easier and where I am not alone.
But if I do that, am I accepting all their customs?
Am I becoming another follower of another man instead of fighting for something for myself?
‘Please?’ Myrto asks, twisting that fishing net in between her fingers like she truly cares what the answer might be.
And I relent. ‘I suppose I can’t very well stay here alone.’
‘Excellent!’ Calybe cries. ‘Now we just have to find you something incredibly inappropriate to wear.’