CHAPTER FOURTEEN #3
I allow myself one last revelry before I speak to Dionysus.
The day begins with Opora diving for oysters while Calybe and I string shells for her latest bracelet – one for every place she visits – and Myrto takes inventory of our supplies.
By evening, we are feasting on the spoils of that afternoon’s hunt and Dionysus has evidently pushed the fig agenda as every dish is garnished with the fruit, which frankly seems a bit much when he’s already successfully claimed grapes for himself.
If I were truly advising on his strategy, I might suggest diversifying his iconography.
Even when we finish, we gather around campfires, listening to the music and supping on salt-roasted chickpeas and oysters topped with fig seeds.
Apparently the latest consideration is myrrh, dropped into the fires so the smoke around us is tinged with a warm, earthy scent.
Myrrh I will allow him, I decide, in his great quest for symbols.
If I were staying.
And like Dionysus is sensing that I’m not going to, he’s come to join our circle, casting looks my way with every other word.
‘I met an oceanid while diving for these,’ Opora says, gesturing to the oysters. ‘She’d come from the mainland. You know how every decade the Cretans sacrifice people to the monster trapped beneath their palace?’
Despite the fire, goosebumps prickle my skin.
Every nine years, actually.
And he’s not a monster …
And even though I know no one is watching me, that they are all locked on to Opora and the gossip she brings, I force my taut limbs to relax, like one misstep could reveal me – and ruin me.
‘Crete isn’t the mainland,’ Calybe corrects.
‘Athens is. Now be quiet,’ Opora says – and I think she’s on the cusp of poking her tongue out at her sister before remembering the rest of her audience.
‘Well, apparently this year the prince of Athens snuck in with the tributes, killed the Minotaur and ran off with the king’s daughter, Princess Ariadne, who helped him escape. ’
‘Ohh,’ Myrto squeals. ‘I love a romance.’
‘No, a tragedy,’ Opora corrects – though she doesn’t sound particularly put out about that. ‘King Minos ordered his soldiers to stop them and one shot an arrow into the princess’s shoulder. They got away but she died of her injuries later, right in Theseus’s arms.’
‘There are certainly worse ways to go,’ Calybe says coyly. ‘I hear those are particularly well-sculpted arms.’
Gently, I put my cup down, worried I’m going to knock it over with my trembling hands. The movement brings Dionysus’s gaze to me, and I reflexively offer a quick nothing wrong at all smile. I turn back to Opora like I can force his gaze there too.
‘Theseus was so distraught he forgot that he’d promised his father he’d hang white sails if he lived. So his father, King Aegeus, saw the black sails approaching and assumed it meant his son was dead and … and jumped to his death.’
My gasp is entirely real – and so is my horror, because I land on what that means a split second before everyone else does.
‘So wait, Theseus is king now?’ Myrto asks. She looks to Dionysus. ‘Is that bad for you?’
Dionysus shrugs, but his pine cone staff has slipped from his fingers and he’s toying instead with the edge of one of those fig garlands draped about him.
‘He slayed the Minotaur and lost the woman he loved – if Heracles is any indication, the gods love heroic deeds paired with misery. Him becoming king doesn’t make much difference to the fact this is already rather bad for me. ’
Opora winces. ‘I’m not done, I’m afraid.’
And whatever jubilant tone she once had relaying this turn of events has vanished.
‘The people of Crete weren’t particularly happy their unbeatable monster was defeated and their own soldiers killed their princess.
Minos wasn’t wholly sure they’d follow him into battle so instead of fighting Athens, he’s brokering an alliance instead.
Theseus is returning to Crete to negotiate the other princess’s hand in marriage. ’
Phaedra.
I jump to my feet and practically run. But there’s nowhere private, not here, except for the storage huts which are too far to navigate to in the dark and the boat which makes my panic surge quite enough on its own.
There is only Dionysus’s tent – but at least I know where he is. I can calm down for a few moments, alone in his palace of linen.
I slip inside, crossing quickly to the table so I might have something to lean against, no longer certain I can stand.
My breaths are catching – not sure what the worst part of all this is: that I have become Theseus’s tragic little anecdote, that he blamed me for his own father’s death – a calculated one, I imagine, knowing the throne would become his – or that he is now racing back to Crete to snatch up my sister instead.
No, it’s definitely that last one.
Phaedra betrayed me, as responsible for the arrow that tore through me as my father.
She knew what would happen to me. And she sold me out anyway, cast me to the tyrant’s mercy for what?
Leverage in her own marriage talks? I should leave her to it.
Let her marry Theseus. She’ll think she’s won a grand prize and instead …
My fingers curl into the wood – because I know very well that I won’t be doing that. I can’t.
Behind me, fabric flutters in the breeze.
I whirl, seeing Dionysus just like I did that first day, when I thought him either a mirage or my salvation. Framed by firelight rather than the setting sun, but his gaze equally scorching.
‘Something to tell me, Ariadne?’