Bull God

by Roberta Gellis

  “Long dark,” he said.

  “No more dark,” Ariadne replied. “I've arranged that the passage be lit. You'll like that.”

  Touchingly, he took her hand as if for reassurance, but he went forward, trusting her as he always had, and when he saw that the passage was, indeed, lit, he rubbed his cheek against her head in his sign of happy affection. Ariadne gave him a little hug although her eyes were filled with tears. Likely they had forced him into the black passage and chivvied him along it with torches. If they'd had the common sense to put the torches on the wall to light the place, he would have gone along without any resistance. A child afraid of the dark, he couldn't understand that they would come into light again.

  At the back entrance to the temple, Ariadne stopped. “You know the way from here,” she said. “Go and sit in your chair, love, and the priests and priestesses will come and dance for you.”

  “Long pro-pro- Many people?”

  She stroked his cheek. “When you're tired of them, just get up and leave. No one will stop you. Come back through the passage that is now light, and I'll be waiting for you in the chamber of the pillars. You can have a bath, if you want one, when you get back to your bedchamber, and I'll tell you a story.”

  “Picture?”

  “Yes. I'll find a picture for the story.”

  An uneasy peace descended for a while, except that in addition to building the stairway, Minos seemed to have decreed a major extension of the palace. Rumor had it that the king was building a whole secondary palace to house the Minotaur. Ariadne, who could see the work from the front gate of Dionysus' shrine thought that might be true, except she thought it more likely he was building a prison than a palace. Certainly Daidalos and a large crew of workmen were very busy measuring and digging foundations for walls from the base of the palace to the back entrance of the temple of the Bull God.

  CHAPTER 18

  The stair was finished first, within a ten-day, the entrance into the Minotaur's bedchamber closed with a heavy iron gate. This locked and unlocked with a magic key when the mage lights that lit the stair as well as the passage were turned off and on. Phaidra controlled them with a word of command.

  At first she refused to enter the Minotaur's room without Ariadne, so Ariadne was also bound into the spell, but a ten-day in which no one had been hurt had reassured Phaidra. In addition, her father's flat statement that he wouldn't propose her as a wife to Theseus, prince of Athens, to seal the treaty if she wouldn't perform that task and bring the Minotaur's meals had bought her obedience.

  But three ten-days later another incident occurred. One of the men under death sentence tried to find a way to freedom down the stairway, which Phaidra left open until the Minotaur returned. The Minotaur heard him coming into the back of the temple and then saw him trying to sneak past the invisible barrier. He watched, mouth open in laughter, as the increasingly frantic man pushed and clawed at the solid nothing blocking off the doorway. Then he rose and came forward to grasp the man, who shrieked with pain and terror.

  “Priest?” he bellowed.

  The crowd of worshipers who had come to gaze on the Bull God sighed and stirred uncertainly. It was rare for the Minotaur to move until he tired of the procession of those with offerings and simply went away. He looked out at the priests, who had stilled at the sound of his voice but now, hearing the man's cries as the Minotaur's fingers dug into his shoulder, desperately resumed their leaping and gyrating in their glittering costumes. He turned his head to look at the priestesses, also garbed in sparkling splendor, who were frantically rattling sistra and blowing pipes, whirling in place.

  “No priest!” he roared, stuck his fingers under the man's chin, and ripped off his face.

  The crowd heaved, some screaming and shrinking back, others shouting with excitement and trying to force their way forward. The priests and priestesses redoubled their efforts, past experience telling them that their motions and the hypnotic shimmer of their garments usually quieted their god when he was restless. The Minotaur looked out at them for a moment and then carried the body of his victim, unable to cry out but still pumping blood, into the back of the temple. What the priests heard drove them to even more frenzied dancing and the priestesses added their voices to the music of sistra and pipes to drown out the sounds.

  To the worshipers and the priests and priestesses, the Bull God's personal defense of the sanctity of his temple left no doubt of his power and awareness. Their worship, half curiosity in the past, gained conviction. News of what had happened spread over Crete like wildfire in a dry summer, met mariners at the docks, and drifted over the seas to foreign lands.

  The Egyptians abandoned any notion of adopting the Bull God; they liked their deities safely immured in a human pharaoh, frozen into statues, or in the more manageable living forms of their sacred beasts. In Athens, seething with internal factions, the news was unimportant, except to one group, bitterly opposed to King Aigeus and his son Theseus, who claimed that Cretans practiced human sacrifice and connected that abomination to the treaty with Knossos. Since the diplomatic mission to make the treaty had already departed they hoped to shake King Aigeus's rule.

  Minos had news of the death within moments of the event, but did nothing. Within him was a mingling of triumph and terror. The Minotaur had placed his own populace more firmly in his hand than ever—but for how long? What would happen when he ran out of condemned criminals? Crete wasn't a violent place; there were few who merited the death penalty and he was known as a just judge. But the Minotaur couldn't care for himself. He needed servants, and only those condemned to death could now serve him. Minos knew that pronouncing death sentences to supply the Minotaur, would turn the people against him, the distant terror of a god's disapproval being less fearful than the near one of an unjust king.

  Gnawing his lips, Minos considered his alternatives, and at last the frown smoothed from his brow. Yes, the Bull God, having confirmed the divine right of Minos and Pasiphae by being born in the flesh, had now matured into his full godhead. Like Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, and others, who had been raised in infancy by mortals, the Minotaur would now go to his own place. He would disappear and show himself only at unexpected and infrequent intervals. Minos congratulated himself on his foresight in the arrangement made with Daidalos. He didn't speak to Pasiphae about his plans; she would have to bow to necessity.

  Phaidra had hysterics when the Minotaur returned covered with clotted blood and with scraps of raw flesh caught in his fur, but he simply picked her up and thrust her out when the guards opened the door in response to her shrieks. That had one good effect. Phaidra was finally convinced that the Minotaur wouldn't hurt her, whatever he did to others. She returned to the chamber calmly and ordered the two women servants to groom the Minotaur's fur. The next day a new condemned criminal took the place of the dead man.

  When Ariadne heard, she wept, but she didn't go to the palace. All her mind's eyes could see was the Minotaur's blood-clotted face, the strip of flesh hanging from his jaw. The Minotaur and his fate were far beyond her now. She would still do what she could for her poor, deformed brother, for the little boy more and more lost in the beast, but she was no longer concerned as a priestess. The Minotaur would never be brought to sit before the sacral horns when she danced for the Mother, not even by any artifice devised by Daidalos and Pasiphae.

  There were, of course, no more attempts to escape through the temple, and ten times the number of worshipers crowded the temple precincts. If they came in the expectation of new horrors, they were disappointed. The Minotaur seemed content to sit in his chair at his regular times of appearance quietly watching the dancing priests and listening to the music of the priestesses.

  Then Ariadne forgot all about the Minotaur because Dionysus returned. He was in a strange mood, mingling exuberance with moments of thoughtful horror mixed with satisfaction. He would not tell her what he had done, other than to say that Hekate had been successful in her purpose, but he had remembered her t
aste for hearing about strange lands and really paid attention while he, Hekate, and Kabeiros had been traveling.

  “We could not leap from place to place after we passed Troja because Hermes had not been to those lands. So we went by ship.” His blue eyes were wide with remembered astonishment. “Mother, that was unsettling. It's very strange to have the floor under your feet move about. Unsettling to the stomach, too.”

  Ariadne laughed heartily. Most Cretans were accustomed to travel by ship, and she had been sailing many times. But the god Dionysus had been seasick. How very ungodlike. How very human. He frowned at her, probably having expected sympathy, but there was no change in the feeling of the tendrils that touched him. Ariadne was surprised and almost disappointed. He wasn't being precipitated into an unreasonable and ungovernable rage by a minor irritation. Did that mean she was less necessary to him?

  “I couldn't eat for three days,” Dionysus said indignantly. “You think that's funny?”

  “Well ...” she temporized, relieved that he had received no hint of her new anxiety. “I know it wasn't funny to you. It's happened to me, too. One does feel as if one were like to die, but island people grow accustomed to the sea. You did grow accustomed, didn't you?”

  “Yes.” He shrugged away her amusement. “And the ports were wonderful. There were goods I've never seen before. Look.”

  He thrust his hand into the bosom of his tunic and drew out a soft leather sack. Within was another, smaller cloth bag that spilled into his hand earrings and a necklet of glowing stones, green with a dark stripe. He leaned forward, thrust his hand into the best light, and turned his wrist. The dark stripe moved as the position of the setting changed.

  “How beautiful,” Ariadne said.

  “Cat's eyes they're called. And these—” Another cloth bag opened to show misty red stones with a bright silver star imprisoned. “For you.”

  He held them out to her and Ariadne, forgetting her doubt and Aphrodite's revelation, leaned forward and kissed him. He drew back and turned his head. Ariadne didn't open her hand to take the gift. He dropped the stones on the table beside his chair.

  “I have more,” he said. “Beautiful cloth and two books I found written in the Trade Tongue that tell of lands beyond where Hekate took me. They're in Olympus. Will you come and look at them?”

  “Not yet,” Ariadne said, swallowing resentment despite the evidence that he had been thinking about her all the time he was away. He would give her anything—except what she really wanted. “When the Mother releases me, I will come.”

  He disappeared then and Ariadne was frightened. She took the jewels and alternately wore the cat's eyes and the star rubies, praying he would return and see that she did appreciate what he had given her. On the third day—she was wearing the cat's eyes—he did come back. He said nothing about her necklet and earrings, but he was cheerful and full of tales of what he had seen and done. Ariadne was careful not to touch him.

  Three more ten-days passed and then a new problem arose, but this one wasn't of the Minotaur's making. Daidalos told King Minos that he could no longer maintain the mage lights in the stairway and passage and the magical seal on the Minotaur's temple. Minos was furious, but even he had to acknowledge that for once Daidalos was not crying before he was hurt. The man was gaunt and gray with the drain on his power.

  Phaidra came running to Ariadne with the news, begging for help. She told Ariadne that the delegation from Athens had come a few days earlier and they had seemed pleased at the suggestion of a blood bond to seal the treaty and even more pleased when Minos presented her as a suitable wife for Theseus. One of them was even painting a portrait of her to take to the prince. If the Minotaur should either not appear or break loose and do something terrible, she wept, the treaty would be set aside and her life would be ruined!

  Because she had achieved the independence and freedom that Phaidra craved, Ariadne couldn't help being sympathetic. She didn't like to trouble Dionysus with her family's problems, but concern for her sister drove Ariadne to mention Phaidra's fears and ask if he knew how to increase Daidalos' power.

  At first he didn't answer, seeming to look out through the shaft window at the lengthening shadows. Ariadne suppressed a sigh, thinking he was ignoring her request, but then she saw his fixed expression, that his eyes were blind, and she realized Dionysus wasn't staring at shadows but into a private place of his own.

  “She will,” he said, “but not yet.”

  The statement as it stood made no sense, but Ariadne's silver mist brought her the awareness that it referred to Phaidra's marriage to Theseus. About to thank Dionysus for the assurance, she was struck dumb as his continuing Vision seized her and she hung above a crowd of battling men.

  They didn't have the lissome form of Cretans, being bulky of body, light-haired, fair of skin. Achaeans then. And fighting each other. She knew at once with that understanding that came to the Mouth of a god, that the treaty was the cause of the strife. Then, with a feeling of time speeding past, several ten-days or even months, the image changed to a broad harbor rapidly filling with ships—and these were Cretan, long, slender, swift, black ships, warships, their sides hung with shields, their oars flashing as the ships drove forward. And behind the oarsmen, brighter pricks of light from the polished bronze blades of swords and javelins held ready in the hands of the soldiers the ships carried.

  “No,” Ariadne breathed.

  Her protest had no effect on the images that filled her mind. She saw the ships drive to shore, the Athenians come down to resist the landing, but in no unified force. Some fought the invaders, others shouted and gestured at each other while they charged, delaying their defense. Nor were they any match for the Cretans in numbers, for most of their strong young men were out on the lands surrounding the city.

  More and more Cretans poured ashore. They drove the armed men before them; they broke open the doors of the houses as they passed and herded out the women and the children, who were sent back to the ships under guard. They broke into well-organized groups, most going beyond the city to capture the men who were farming. Other groups entered the palace and raged through that also, dragging out an old man in rich robes, whom they brought to the wide porch and forced to bid his fighters to lay down their arms.

  Something in the Vision struck Ariadne as false, although Dionysus always Saw the truth. This didn't fit with what she had heard about the Athenians, who were said to be ferocious fighters and most passionate in defense of their land. In this battle they seemed half-hearted, and King Aigeus, known for his pride, seemed ashamed, willing to yield. But she couldn't fully consider what was wrong. An overriding horror drove the images from her mind.

  “Minos will go to war to force the treaty on them,” she said, as sense came back into Dionysus' expression. “But why?” she cried. “Have he and Pasiphae gone mad?” Then, as if physically drawn, her eyes shifted to the wall behind which the Mother's image stood. “No,” she breathed, “no. It was growing in them both from the moment the white bull from the sea answered my father's prayer. And then you came to your shrine for the first time in generations. They saw themselves as specially favored of the gods, singled out to rule. Crete was not large enough to satisfy them. Hubris. It is hubris.” She looked into Dionysus's eyes. “But why? Why does the Mother continue to protect Pasiphae?”

  He shook his head. “She hasn't Shown me that, and for myself ... I'm only a man.” Then he shook himself, like a dog casting water from his fur, ridding himself of the remnants of Seeing. “So the Vision was of King Minos going to war ...”

  His brow furrowed on the words and Ariadne became aware of a deep sadness drifting through the silver mist that joined them. “You don't like war,” she said softly.

  He looked puzzled. “I don't,” he agreed. “Armies trample the vines and use the wine for ugly purposes. But it's not the thought of war that makes me sad. Something else. Something I didn't See or don't remember that made the Athenians hesitate to defend themselves...�
� He shrugged. “If it was withheld from me, it won't haunt my sleep. You are looking beyond what I Saw and fear the Minotaur broke free of Daidalos' binding and the Athenians refused to make the treaty. But my Vision says that nothing will deter King Minos from this war so I suppose it doesn't matter if Daidalos' gate fails—”

  “Dionysus!” Ariadne exclaimed, forgetting in her exasperation the feeling that the Vision was somehow false. “It would certainly matter to the person the Minotaur attacked and tore apart.”

  “Oh.” He had the grace to look a trifle shamefaced. “But there's nothing I can do to increase Daidalos' power. The ability to use power is born into a person and the Mother grants power as She wills.” He pursed his lips. “You have power enough. What I can do is to teach you how to transfer power to a set spell and I think Daidalos must have used one or more set spells for the lights and to block that doorway. You'll find them in the walls for the mage lights, I think, and around the frame of the doorway for the invisible wall.”

  The technique was more difficult to learn than calling forth a spell from among the leaves of her heartflower, and Dionysus, not sure he approved of what she would be doing but not willing to refuse her request for help or set limits on her use of her own power (no Olympian interfered with another in that way), left her to struggle with the problem alone.

  To Ariadne the power to use a spell was intangible and had always come with the spell itself, hidden within the bright silver bubble. Eventually she found it, a dull golden glow that supported the bright bubble, like a drab background against which the colors of a fresco or a ceramic piece sparkled. Having identified the power that drove the spells, Ariadne could get no further because she needed to rehearse the dancers for the ritual of the spring equinox.