CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
It’s not the finest craftsmanship I’ve ever seen but it feels more precious for it, like I can see in each wonky loop of silver and each half-wrought clasp Dionysus’s hand at work.
It’s detailed, a simple frame of twisting metal, twining round chunks of amethyst before twirling on.
It is a half-circlet, seven studs of amethyst with the fifth peculiarly the largest, sticking out a little crookedly.
He tilts it so that it catches the candlelight and then the whole thing glitters, light fracturing back out in shattering rainbow arcs.
‘Dionysus,’ I say softly.
‘This one meets your standards, then?’ he says, smug and mischievous all at once, and I feel my glare crystallize.
I take the diadem from his hands, slipping it on to my head. His hands hover over mine, before he takes over, centring and straightening it.
It sinks into my curls, a comforting weight, and Dionysus regards me with a strange sort of appraisal – fond and admiring, like he never once doubted the look would be anything short of resplendent.
My skin itches under the intensity of it, and so I say: ‘I can’t believe you built a prop version just to annoy me.’
He doesn’t rise to the bait. He is unwaveringly solid. For once, serious. ‘A worthy endeavour. I’d spend years, Ariadne, for the briefest flash of your attention, negative or otherwise.’
‘Well,’ I say, letting my finger brush against the tips of those amethysts once more, ‘my attention you certainly have.’
The woodland spills on to the beach – paths are lined with pine cones and glowing candles, bouquets of dried flowers bound up with twigs and leaves are tied to tables and chairs, and at the edge of the beach where the waves froth on to the shore, scattered pine needles mix with white rose petals, forming our stage.
I emerge from the tent into the golden light of evening – the fluting panpipes, the gathered thiasus chatting and laughing but swaying, too, small swishes to the melodic tune.
And so, I dance as well.
One step after another towards the shore, my arms circling above my head, my hips twirling.
The petals and leaves crunch beneath my feet, and the panpipes grow louder as the players realize what I’m doing, and soon the thiasus are cheering and clapping, and I feel it all – each beat in my heart and each shimmying whirl.
My cheeks dampen – and why? Why? Because I thought I’d marry for a pact between nations or for a hasty escape and here I am, marrying for a scheme, a vendetta – but dancing, looking into smiling happy faces – fun, all those other things but fun more than anything and then, from the crowd steps joy incarnate – and he is beaming right at me.
‘I can’t believe you ever resisted joining us,’ Dionysus teases as I reach the end and, without thinking too much about it, I fall into his arms.
He holds my waist, draws me a little closer and at once my heart forgets the ruse of us and jumps to my throat.
I can’t calm it. Can’t tell where sensible Ariadne ends and please, it might be fun Ariadne begins because every part of me is swept up in the currents flowing between us, this sudden riptide lying in wait.
‘I didn’t know you were here yet,’ I say, reaching a hand out to his chest, a visible sliver against his low-cut chiton. The warmth and softness I expected, braced for. But his heart pulsing beneath my hand, feeling the thrum of it in tune with my own laboured breaths?
Olympus above, save me.
Wait – Olympus? I glance around, expecting to spot unfamiliar faces peppered in the crowd. But I can only see those I know, or else the tell-tale ivy wreaths of the maenads and twisting horns and pointed ears of the satyrs.
When I turn back to Dionysus, he gives a subtle shake of his head.
They’re not here. They didn’t come.
My fingers curl into his chiton, and his hold on me tightens by the slightest degree.
A reassurance beyond hurt feelings and wounded pride.
If the heroes banded together against Dionysus, would any of his family stand with him? Or would they look away, and when he fell claim he was never really one of them at all, so it could hardly be considered an offence to the pantheon?
I think then of what Myrto said, how Hera refers to Dionysus’s cult like he is not part of the collective gods. Hera who is goddess of marriage.
Who will surely not bless this union.
It’s not too late. Sensible Ariadne finally pulls herself together. You don’t have to tie yourself to this doubtful cause.
My gaze falls to his throat, where he has strung a necklace of pine cone teeth, brown petals laced like shells.
His brow quirks pointedly, daring me to comment.
It’s not altogether horrific, actually. And I know that’s his intent – to prove a point, to rile me, to snatch my attention and place it solely on him.
My doubtful cause, a voice answers. I’m not sure who. Which part of me echoes the thought. But it settles as resolve into my bones, a heavy certainty. Mine.
‘Excuse me! Coming through – could you clear a spot, wider – I can’t quite control these things.’ I glance up to the calling man careening through the sky. I catch traces of him as he spins: slight build, reddish-brown skin, sandals with aggressively flapping wings.
He collides with the sand as maenads shriek and run out of the way. The man spits his hair out of his face and it falls in a dark and messy heap.