CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
But I force a smile – convincing myself I might be content to pluck grapes and dance in the moonlight as though there were not a yawning chasm inside me, demanding vengeance to fill it.
For now, I fill that void with more wine until the rage mutes.
Somehow, I end up in the centre of a huge circle of maenads and satyrs, looping arms and dancing around me as I perform.
I weave in and out, but always closer and closer to the centre, like I really am tracing the steps of the dance floor my mother once envisioned for me.
I skip, laughing, to the edge of the circle and tap in Calybe, who delightedly switches with me, and I move out, gasping for breath.
I come face to face with Dionysus.
‘New girl, I didn’t know you had it in you.’
‘Olympus above, what are you wearing?’
‘Do you like it?’ he says, as though I were not very clearly aghast. He twirls, slowly, opening his arms to show off the leopard skin draped across his shoulders.
He tosses the staff he holds into the air and catches it, the pine cone topping it nearly falling right off.
The only slightly reasonable thing is the ivy wreath, which he’s twisted his curls around to hold in place.
He really does have very nice hair.
I shake my head, focusing back on the ridiculous ensemble. ‘I had no idea you were the god of hastily assembled crafts.’
‘This wasn’t hastily assembled,’ he says, scowling. ‘It took me an embarrassingly long time, actually.’
‘And that cloak feels highly offensive to Sterope.’
‘Natural causes, I assure you.’
‘I see.’
‘All gods need symbols. The good things were taken so I had to get creative.’
‘Are the symbols not meant to embody power? What does a pine cone achieve?’
‘Hades has a bird-tipped staff so why can’t I have a pine cone?’
‘Hades has a throne and a crown. You have amphorae of wine and delusions of grandeur.’
He snaps his fingers at me. ‘Exactly. You see the vision.’
I take a breath. ‘It’s astonishing to me how many beautiful, brilliant women there are in your thiasus, yet you’re supposedly the man they’re all meant to follow.’
‘Eh, sort of.’ He shrugs. ‘Follow? They’re the brains of the operation; I’m just the brand name to slap on it.
Beautiful and brilliant? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t call that astonishing, Alcinoe, so shame on you.
And man? When it suits me. Gender’s a little like a pine cone – a thing you put on top and hope it makes a point. ’
I blink. ‘That is the worst analogy I’ve ever heard.’
‘Alright, well, if you want me to get into it, I spent a good deal of my childhood disguised as a girl to hide from my evil stepmother. Being a boy again felt much the same: like a thing I slipped on. So by all means, see me as a man, because it’s the costume I’m currently wearing and Fates know I wear it very well.
But I don’t particularly feel like I have a gender, nor am I attached to the labels I’m donning.
They’re just a rather convenient tool with which to navigate this world and, on occasion, they’re fun to play with.
Now, do you want to delve further into my theories regarding the performative nature of gender or do you want to sit down, because you’re swaying on your feet? ’
The world had suddenly become a touch hazy.
‘I tried the wine,’ I admit, taking to the nearest cushion. ‘You’re right. It’s good.’
A smile twitches on his face as he drops down beside me. He takes a cup and I reach for one too, which probably isn’t sensible but, well – where’s the fun in sensible?
‘I’ll make a worshipper out of you yet.’
Oh, right, that’s why sensible Ariadne was supposed to be taking the reins. ‘I’m not worshipping you. But I will consider heading up your publicity team if you ask nicely.’
‘Take that, Helios! Andronika, will you please protect my reputation in the eyes of the public?’
‘Alright, for my first act …’ I rip the pine cone from his staff and hurl it as far as I can – which is a mere handful of feet.
Dionysus gawks. ‘You know, if my analogy was anything to go by, you just threw away the whole concept of gender.’
‘I’ve always been rather indifferent to it anyway.’
‘Well, I’ll drink to that.’ He raises his cup and I lift mine to match.
‘So where have you been all evening?’ I ask. ‘Isn’t the whole point of this to spread word of your worship?’
‘Well, yes. But we come to Cabarnis a lot so I don’t really need to do that here. Which leaves me free to revel away – dance, bash some drums, visit an orgy tent or two. You get the picture.’
My nose creases. ‘Far too vividly.’
‘I’m only joking, Arete,’ he says at my eye-roll, then waits until the moment I take a sip to add: ‘They don’t let me partake any more. Talent like mine makes everyone a little self-conscious and is generally bad for morale.’
I just about manage to keep the wine down – but as I sputter he presses his advantage: ‘So, new girl, are you going to tell me who you truly are? Or how you really ended up on Naxos?’
His eyes are almost emerald in this low light, though no less intense than they ever were. They pin me in place, daring me to even try my fables.
‘I’m a priestess.’
‘Liar.’
The word lingers on his tongue, a slow, echoing accusation.
I’m half tempted to throw the wine over him, but something has me hesitating. I think it’s that I’m tired. And I think it’s also that I’m having a wonderful night, and the memory of Theseus is still intruding. Maybe I’ll regret it in the morning, but right now I just need somewhere to put the hurt.
Or someone to at least acknowledge it exists. ‘I ran away from home to marry a boy,’ I admit. ‘But when he got what he wanted, he abandoned me.’
His eyes widen, and I see the almost instant regret that he pushed me to confess – that whatever secrets he thought I was hiding they amounted to nothing as painful as this.
‘Fuck, Areatha, I’m so–’
A woman screams. Then another.
We startle towards the commotion.
And face the inferno, blazing across the harbour, sending the whole town up in flames.