“He must learn how to treat his betters,” Lycomedes said. “Since he won’t listen to his tutors or to me, perhaps this will make an impression.”
At that point Chrysaleon lost all patience. “Nevertheless,” he said in his most haughty voice, “I will not take this gift.” He turned his gaze toward Harpalycus. “They aren’t worthy of my father’s stables.”
Lycomedes inclined his head and dropped the argument. Chrysaleon knew he’d made another enemy.
Chrysaleon saw Harpalycus once more before he left Tiryns the next day.
“Prince of Mycenae,” Harpalycus said, speaking low. “Don’t think this is done. One day, you will beg for my mercy, but I never forgive my enemies.”
“If you think you’re a match for me, then let us fetch swords and have it out.”
“My father won’t allow me to strike you down in this place. He would have me killed from the walls. Go in peace today, but know there will come another time when there will be no one to protect you. Then we shall see who is a match for whom.”
Since that moment, Chrysaleon and Harpalycus could barely suffer each other’s presence.
Now they would be brothers-in-law. In some circumstances, it might be amusing. But Chrysaleon didn’t laugh. He could see the betrothal had only intensified Harpalycus’s hatred.
“You bait me in your feasting hall, surrounded by your supporters,” Harpalycus said. “The way of a coward.”
As Chrysaleon clenched his fists to show him his mistake, he saw his father crossing to them swiftly.
Giving a snort of disgust, Harpalycus shoved past him.
“This isn’t the time,” he said. “But the day will come. That I promise.” He stalked away, his lackey and the two guards following close behind.
Proitos glanced back, sneering.
Chrysaleon kept his distance from Theanô; he saw her tightly controlled fury and knew he’d better give her time to recover her equilibrium. Besides, her father wouldn’t stop pawing at her; he kept a hand clamped to her elbow or shoulder every moment. The most she could do was glance his way from time to time. Later, after the man succumbed to sodden sleep, Chrysaleon would tell her he’d known nothing of Idómeneus’s plans.
“Chrysaleon.”
He turned. Menoetius, wearing a garland of grapevines on his head, resisted a woman’s playful tug on his hand. “Now that you’re to be married, you’ll need to know how to defend yourself. Wrestling? At daybreak?”
Without hesitation, Chrysaleon replied, “In the east training field. Be prepared to nurse your wounds, blood brother.”
“Bold words. But words prove nothing.” Menoetius smiled at the woman.
As Chrysaleon returned his gaze to Theanô, he heard and inwardly cursed the contemptuous laugh behind him.
Blood brother. The title recalled the day, six years ago, when he and Menoetius vowed their loyalty and fused the indestructible bond through the mingling their blood. There was plenty of blood to go around that day, after the lioness shredded the bastard’s flesh from his bones and tried to do the same to the prince. If not for Chrysaleon’s prowess and sharp dagger, Menoetius would be moldering in a grave instead of trying to rile him tonight.
The day Chrysaleon killed the lioness and saved Menoetius’s life, he’d earned the title of ‘Lion killer.’ It was a feat still commemorated in bard songs.
Menoetius owed him—it was up to Chrysaleon to determine just how and when to exact whatever payment he deemed worthy.
Heady thoughts. Nothing gave quite the same pleasure as triumph, glory, and dominion over others.
“Come here, my lord.” The girl’s voice slurred. Menoetius chose her because she was drunk. He’d rather tolerate the blurry reactions of a sot than those of sober, well-bred ladies, who were either horrified at the extent of his disfigurements or sickeningly fascinated, as though mere breathing made him something more than mortal.
The girl was a slave and had no right to be sneaking wine when she was supposed to be serving King Idómeneus’s feast-guests. She risked being beaten, even killed, if the wrong person caught her.
Menoetius had observed her stealing sips from the pitcher she carried. When her state deteriorated to the point of giggling and stumbling, he seized her arm and dragged her from the hall to his bedchamber.
He didn’t know her story. She might have once worn a crown and ruled a country for all he knew. He didn’t care.
She lay on his bed, seemingly willing, but she hadn’t yet seen him naked. He stood in the shadows. “Blow out the lamp,” he said.
Her eyes couldn’t quite focus. “You make me afraid. Aren’t you real? Have you the head of a gryphon, or are you a god? If I look upon you, will my eyes blister and my flesh burst into flame?” She slipped the shoulder of her tunic down, baring one breast. She might be drunk and a slave, but her skin was tender and her teeth healthy. She must have been well fed and tended at one time.
“Blow out the lamp,” he repeated, with a note of threat.
She was too drunk to heed. “No, my lord.” She held out her arms. “Let me see my handsome lover.”
Handsome? That word had long been denied him. Her casual assumption ignited his anger. He strode to the bed, watching her eyes lower, widen. He threw himself on top of her and ripped her tunic.
She put her mouth next to his ear. All hint of slurring vanished, she whispered, “The gods will have what they want. Why do you fight it? You cannot win.”
I can never stay angry with you.
Those were Theanô’s last words before she drifted to sleep curled against Chrysaleon’s chest. After venting her wrath in tears and the shattering of every piece of pottery in his bedchamber, she’d soothed his needs with enticing, greedy passion. Perhaps, if this was the end result, he should tell his father to betroth him every fortnight.
A mouse rustled in the corner. Faint shouts and laughter echoed. The dull pounding in Chrysaleon’s head and the way the darkness spun warned him he would suffer tomorrow.
He closed his eyes. Theanô draped an arm across his belly. The bed was comfortable and she smelled of some enticing flower.
The scent intensified as he removed her arm and rose. He left the chamber, hoping to find the source. Soon the floor was covered in mossy earth, and he pushed his way through soft blooms. The lazy buzz of bumblebees filled his ears.
As he rounded a corner not far from the feasting hall, he stopped, startled.
Grapevines, heavy with fruit, cascaded from the walls. Tucked between were sheaves of barley. A young woman barred his way. Her black hair rippled, long, loose and shining, over bare breasts. Delicate cowrie shells hung from threads on her layered skirts. They clicked softly as she approached him.
How had such treasure managed to elude him in his own home?
She lifted one hand to her throat and extended a necklace or charm of some sort. The silver appeared almost liquid bright against the bronze of her skin.
See my trinket?
He stared at the dark blue stone set between a waxing and waning moon. It appeared to pulse, slowly, then faster as she spoke again.
Artisans fashioned it from a vein of ore on Mount Ida, near the sacred cave. Her voice was a seductive whisper.
Some say it comes from a lake of silver on the moon.
She came closer. His hands rose to her breasts. They were smooth, firmly curved. He experienced the odd sense that no man had ever before touched them; that made him want to even more. Her lips felt soft, warm as goose-down. They opened beneath his.
His groin throbbed. The back of his neck shivered. He lifted his face from hers, meaning to push her against the wall, and so caught the swift-moving gleam from the corner of his eye. With an angry shout, he threw up an arm to ward off the blow.
Her heavy-lidded languor vanished. She bared her teeth and struggled, aiming her dagger at his heart.
Your blood renews the land, she cried.
Renew… renew….
Chrysaleon sat upright, breath
ing hard, his muscles tensed.
The high narrow window slit formed pale moonlight into a shaft that sliced across the room. Theanô lay drenched in that light, motionless as an ivory statue.
Only a dream. Yet his hands remembered the firmness of the imaginary woman’s flesh. He still saw his reflection in those enormous eyes, sensed the pulsing of the blue stone in her necklace. She’d had darker skin than a Mycenaean. Dark, like a Cretan.
Foreboding stabbed. Before he could ward it off, the thought cemented, pulling a shiver from his spine.
A portent. The dream was a portent… from Crete.
From Goddess Athene.
The smell of earth and dust tickled Menoetius’s nose. Tawny grass rustled, drowning any other sound. Prickly weeds brushed his cheeks. Holding his breath, he inched forward on his belly, knowing it would do no good. No matter how silently he crept, the lion always knew he was there. Ears peaked, it was always ready, showing its teeth. Waiting.
Behind the lion stood a gnarled oak tree, soaring so high its apex couldn’t be guessed. Inside the massive hollow trunk a manacle was driven deep in the wood, keeping a woman prisoner.
Menoetius had to pass the lion to set her free.
Thou wilt give to her the offering of thy blood.
The voice, a woman’s, woke Menoetius as it dissipated into the layers of night. His sudden jerk roused the slave. She murmured a protest but instantly returned to sodden sleep. It wasn’t she who spoke.
The nightmare.
Menoetius stared into silent green darkness as his heartbeat slowed. Sanity and order returned to his mind. He touched the corner of his left eyebrow, severed by the scar. His fingertip traced the crescent-shaped ridge to his mouth, to the pucker at the edge of his lower lip. Up again, the length of the scar, and down, harder, as though by rubbing it could be obliterated.
After sex, the slave-woman said, “I’ve heard the gods burn those they love. You must be loved beyond imagination.”
He’d turned his back to her, feeling her gaze explore his flesh like pricks from a dagger. He didn’t care to know what emotion, if any, the wheals and marks elicited. Six years had exposed him to every imaginable reaction. Terror from children. Pity from old women. Disgust from finicky beauties. Even lust that seemed directed more toward the old wounds than him. His father claimed scars made women hot and wet, for they proved a man’s courage and women always opened their legs for the strongest, most courageous male. From what he’d experienced, the statement held truth.
Few warriors escaped scarring. Battle wounds were nothing, so long as they didn’t kill you, Idómeneus often remarked. Chrysaleon displayed his proudly, and the king was untroubled by the ugly welt on his thigh left by a lucky spear thrust, though he cursed it when the weather grew damp. He liked to say scars reminded a man of successful battles, and made his fire-stories more interesting.
Menoetius never talked about his battle with the lioness. Even right after it happened, he left it to Chrysaleon to tell the tale, to embellish it however he wished.
The first time he had the dream was the night of the attack, when he lay so close to death he felt it wrap round him, cold, stinking, gelatinous, like rotted fish.
It assailed him every night from then on, the details changing only a little over the passage of six years. Sometimes he saw more—an enormous serpent coiled around the base of the oak, and cascades of poppies spilling over the lower branches. Large black spiders strung sticky white webs, and crawled over the solid gold apples strewn about the ground.
Sometimes he woke before the lion tore out his guts. But most of the time, its huge paws hooked him as he tried to run away, turned him, exposing his stomach. Its curved teeth would rip him open, bringing his lifeblood in a sickening fountain against the beast’s jowls.
There was a man’s face within the lion’s deadly eyes, but Menoetius never received more than a bewildering glimpse, and that obscured by shadow, before the entire ferocious vision would disintegrate, leaving nothing but the memory of a growl evaporating on the air.
He always looked down, expecting to see his organs spilling from his torn flesh, but there never was a wound. He was whole. Renewed for next time.
“Itheus,” said the woman next to him.
Startled, he turned toward her, but she was still asleep. Dreaming.
“Itheus,” she said again, softly, drawn out. Her hand clenched.
Maybe her father, or a lover from better days.
He wasn’t the only one tormented by dreams.
She’d asked for the story. It was a common question, one he’d tired of answering long ago. She assumed he’d received the scars in war, and asked how many men he’d killed.
Thou wilt give to her the offering of thy blood.
Menoetius rose and paced to the far end of the chamber. He struck a flint and lit a lamp. Its light helped him locate a silver casket, once a possession of his mother’s, or so Alexiare claimed. He found what he wanted inside and held it up—an apple carved from red coral, complete with a stem and two leaves, no bigger than the tip of his little finger, but exquisitely formed and polished bright. This souvenir, acquired six years ago on Crete, cost him an engraved cup and tooled leather breastplate. Looking at it brought an image of Princess Aridela to mind; the day he’d breakfasted with her, ripe apples had filled the air with sweetness. His ability to recall her face hadn’t faded in the years since he’d seen her, but he knew she must have changed, as he had, and he often wondered what she now looked like.
As he watched light play across the delicate coral, he remembered one afternoon at Labyrinthos, when he and the beautiful flaxen-haired Selene lay in bed, lust momentarily quenched. She noticed the trinket and picked it up, turning it over in her fingers.
“What makes you smile?” Menoetius asked her.
She turned her mesmerizing turquoise eyes to him as she placed the souvenir on his chest. “Do you know why we call this island Kaphtor?” she asked.
“No. I’ve always known it as Crete.”
“It means Sea of Apples.” Her breath tickled his ear, prompting a shiver. “It unites us with the isle of Hesperia, where our kings go after consenting to their deaths.” She closed her eyes, opening them again slowly, dreamily; lifting one of the braids she’d woven into her hair, she stroked the end of it across Menoetius’s cheek. “Have you heard of Athene’s paradise?”
“No,” he said, hearing his voice catch. He swallowed.
“Some say Hesperia lies in the far north, beyond the land you call Boreas. Some believe its shores drift westward, on the far side of the earth-river Okeanos. Others claim it resides south, near the ancestral homeland of Kaphtor’s people.”
He found his voice had gone as rusty as Alexiare’s, and could only stammer, “What is it like?”
“Hesperia accepts only those heroes willing to dive beneath the torrents of Okeanos without expectation of rising again. It is a fabulous garden, home to wondrous creatures, eternal springtime, and a grove of apple trees that bear fruit of solid gold. Its guardian is Ladon, a serpent larger than any you can imagine. Hesperia’s nymphs welcome our kings and make their lives joyous. Their voices are clear and serene, and the songs they sing to Mother Gaia and Athene Gorgopis will melt a mortal’s heart.” She picked up the apple again and warmed it between her palms. “This is why we give our kings three golden apples on the day of their death—to appease the serpent Ladon and transform them into gods.”
Selene’s voice melted into memory and Menoetius shivered, though his chamber was hot.
Crete and the two females, one a wisp of a girl and the other a woman with whom Menoetius had shared several memorable interludes, led his thoughts to Idómeneus’s war-plans.
An unexpected tremor crawled up his spine. Mycenae’s warriors would attack Crete. He himself would help it happen. It was the way of the world; it made sense to overthrow such a wealthy society before someone else did. Yet the idea made his teeth clench.
One year ago, Mycen
ae made war on Iolkos, in Thessaly. Idómeneus thought this small kingdom would be an easy conquest, but the natives waged a surprising fight and slaughtered many invaders with arrows as they landed from the nearby bay. The screams of dying warriors interspersed with the ominous peal of warning gongs, the way the water turned red with blood, thick with bodies, remained hideous in Menoetius’s mind. But his most vivid recollection was of Chrysaleon. His half brother laughed when he cut down one of the enemy’s finest soldiers, who happened to be the king’s youngest son. He hacked the warrior’s leg halfway off at the knee and left him to bleed to death. Later he’d sliced a woman’s throat from one ear to the other because she refused to stop keening her grief over a dead warrior. After the battle, Chrysaleon and a gang of Mycenaean soldiers raped and sodomized numerous captive women and young girls. Many were killed. Menoetius tried to rein in his brother, but Chrysaleon, drunk on bloodlust, wine and victory, wouldn’t be stopped. They came to blows. Three of Chrysaleon’s cronies overpowered Menoetius from behind, knocking him unconscious with the butt of a sword against his temple. The next day, all Chrysaleon said was, “You brought it on yourself.”
Menoetius’s hand tightened around the coral apple as he imagined the sack of Knossos. He remembered Chrysaleon’s lecherous expression as he’d brought up Crete’s female ruler being forced to bear the offspring of her Mycenaean conqueror. Thank all the gods, all who had ever existed or would exist, that ruler would not be Aridela or Selene.
Even so, they were both at risk for rape and slavery. He didn’t know about Aridela, but Selene would die rather than submit to an attack by any man.
The hair on the nape of his neck lifted. At the edge of his mind, the lion growled; Menoetius relived the terror of crouching in the long grass, knowing he must stand up. He must draw his sword and fight. The woman must be freed.
The lion in the dream stood as tall as an eight-foot spear. Its paws were the size of a king’s pectoral necklace. Its thunderous growls made the ground vibrate; yellow canines curved, as long as a warrior’s dagger. It made the beast that attacked him in real life, large in her own right, seem a kitten.
The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 18