“No.” Chrysaleon stifled a yawn. It sounded far too similar to the stories about the star that supposedly flew across the sky when he was born. No doubt kings and queens wove these fantastic tales to lend their royal children an air of mystical power, but couldn’t they invent something new? “What do you think it meant?”
The man gulped more wine before answering. “Our people believe her specially favored. In fact, many think her the true offspring of Velchanos, son of the Goddess. She holds the title Shàrihéid, Daughter of the Calesienda. Someday, we believe she’ll save us from unimaginable calamity.”
This local wine, even watered, was much stronger than any he’d ever tasted. Chrysaleon sipped sparingly. “What about the elder?” he asked. “What are her special gifts?”
“She… is shy.”
Chrysaleon and Menoetius exchanged a glance. Why did the man’s voice, so boisterous before, turn suddenly reserved? Before he could probe further, a blind old woman stepped up to the stone ledge on which they sat.
“Our princess has gone away,” she said.
Chrysaleon waited for someone to put her in her place with a kick or two, but no one did. He turned away, annoyed, but Menoetius asked, “Where has she gone?”
The old woman squinted as though trying to see their features. “You are a foreigner?”
“A warrior, yes,” Menoetius said. “From the plains of Argolis.”
“There are others of your kind here.” She grimaced, revealing broken yellowed teeth. “You think to compete for her hand?” Her long fingers searched for, caught and scratched at Menoetius’s arm.
“Not I, old woman,” Menoetius said, removing his arm from her reach. “A warrior is all I ever wish to be, not a bull-king.”
“Many seek glory beyond their station,” she muttered. Louder, she said, “The princess has gone to the mountain of Ida to hunt.”
“Crete has no hunters, that its princess must take on the chore?”
“She wished to escape these men who fawn over her.” The old woman’s laugh made the hair on Chrysaleon’s neck rise. “They oil their skin and curry favor. They think it will serve them when their time comes.” Sneering, she added, “Their scents and bright armor will never sway the Goddess-of-Life-in-Death. They must battle each other in the old way if they wish to bed her and don the eternal robes of Zagreus.”
“I wonder which task will prove more pleasant?” Chrysaleon quipped.
The old woman’s uneven laughter died away. Her sparse white eyebrows lowered. “Who is that?” she asked.
Sending Chrysaleon a warning glance, Menoetius said, “Tell me, old woman. Is your princess as agreeable as I’ve heard?”
“Yes,” she said, but her brows remained knotted. Her voice rose. “She’s no prize for barbarians, men who don’t honor the Lady. Her line is consecrated, extending backward to the beginning of all things.”
Bored and impatient, Chrysaleon toyed with his wine and turned his attention to the goings-on around them. A curtained litter paused at the far edge of the market square. From within, delicate fingers parted the drapery and beckoned to a group of young men. A boy in a short tunic, eyes shadowed with kohl, black hair long and curled, leaned inside then withdrew, holding up a shining seal-bracelet. As the litter moved away he followed, sending a slant-eyed smile back at his friends while they whooped and made obscene noises. Chrysaleon grunted. Here boys played the same role as did many females in Mycenae.
He stood and glanced at Menoetius. “Let’s go.”
“You.” The old woman’s voice whined. “Who are you?” She extended dirty fingers.
“Get away from me.” Chrysaleon struck her hand.
“Gold-maned spawn of Poseidon.” The old woman, though her voice fell almost to a whisper, still attracted curious attention from every corner of the sunny marketplace.
Chrysaleon frowned. His hair was still clubbed, and he’d covered it with a buckskin hunter’s cap. Besides that, the woman was blind. A milky film clouded her pupils, making her look as though she’d crawled from a grave.
“Please, pity my grandmother.” A woman hurried forward and put her arm around the crone’s shoulder. “Her mind wanders these days, but in her youth she served in the mountain shrine with the oracle. She isn’t dangerous. Would you let her touch you, my lord? It would calm her, and she might tell your future.”
It felt as though every eye in the hot open square was turned on them. Chrysaleon, with a disgusted snort, allowed the gnarled fingers to graze his cheek.
“Lion killer….” The old woman’s sightless eyes stared past his. Her fingertips dropped to Chrysaleon’s arm and pinched like talons. “The wolf will distract you while the bull spirits away our treasure.” She jerked her hand from him, curling her fingers into a fist. “Beyond all men, living or dead, you are cursed.” Her filmy eyes squinted. “Are you such a fool, to wage war on she who cannot die? All will suffer for your conceit.” When she spoke again, her voice shook. “Sail home before you go too far. You still have a chance, though it’s as fine as a thread.”
“What talk is this, of bulls, curses and wolves?” Chrysaleon scoffed. “Take your grandmother back to her cave before I cut out her tongue.”
The crone’s granddaughter, giving Chrysaleon a fearful glance, put her arms around the old woman and spoke soothing words.
“Time to go.” Menoetius perused the now quiet throng. His hand hovered a bit closer to his knife.
“Stupid witch,” Chrysaleon growled as they shoved their way toward one of the side lanes. No one tried to stop them.
They exited the marketplace and walked away. “She knew who you were,” Menoetius said.
“She guessed,” Chrysaleon said.
“‘Lion killer?’ That’s a good guess.”
“You think she knew something?” Chrysaleon glared at Menoetius. “If so, what? What did she mean with her oracle-ramblings?”
Menoetius shrugged.
They continued along the crowded road toward Labyrinthos. From a distance they saw people streaming in and out of the palace precincts.
“We should avoid that,” Menoetius said. “Someone else may recognize you.”
“Why not go to Ida?” Chrysaleon grinned as he met Menoetius’s gaze, and gestured toward the immutable high mountain range that somehow dominated the horizon even though it appeared to float as insubstantial as a dream behind a bluish-green haze of wavering heat. “Perhaps there we’ll find quarry worthy of our arrows.”
Hold, beauty.” Selene pulled the bowstring taut. The arrow flew with a soft hiss, stealing the ibex’s life before its horns struck the earth. A fine shot, one her mother might admire.
“Well done.” Neoma ran into the clearing to lift the limp head. “It never knew we were here.” As the others joined her, she added, “Goddess blessed this hunt.” Giving Iphiboë a wide, innocent smile that didn’t fool anyone, she said, “Perhaps she means to bless you as well, like she nearly did Aridela a while back.”
Aridela glared at her cousin. Her fists clenched. Iphiboë blushed and averted her face.
Selene suppressed a sigh. Yesterday, Helice had paid a visit to her chamber. “You’ll go with the princesses tomorrow on their hunt?” the queen asked.
“Of course,” Selene replied.
The queen had moved to the balcony. Peering into the sky, she said quietly, “I want you to convince Iphiboë that leading Kaphtor isn’t something to be feared.” A lark landed on the rail, singing, but Helice seemed not to notice. “She looks up to you, Selene. You can make her see her future differently.”
Selene squinted against the strong hot sunlight as she drew her dagger. How could she accomplish the queen’s request? Iphiboë’s timidity was strange and unreasonable. Two years ago, she’d announced she would accompany the other women to the annual fertility rites. Selene cringed as she recalled the occasion. It was Iphiboë’s fourth attempt since she’d come of age. Most young women were eager to join in the festival—once old enough and with t
he permission of their mothers, the rite ushered them into new status. Not only could they make their own choices of mating and giving birth, but they also earned the right to control their family property. Many left offerings of honey in Eleuthia’s Cave, hoping the Goddess, in her aspect of motherhood and childbirth, would make their wombs fruitful.
True, most who attended the festival had lovers, sometimes husbands, whom they met beneath the oaks, but Iphiboë didn’t. As the day passed, the heir to Kaphtor’s crown grew more despondent. She cowered in her bedchamber, weeping at the thought of a strange man touching her in the most intimate of ways. She worked herself into such a state that finally she vomited. The healer declared her too ill to participate.
Now, again, she had declared her intent to go into the grove and offer her girdle to the god. So adamant was she that a special night, seven days before the bull-king’s sacrifice, was chosen by Minos Themiste and the astrologers. After studying the portents and stars, they determined this particular phase a time of power and change if not exactly auspiciousness. All the fanfare was being arranged. Few believed Iphiboë would actually go through with her plan, but Helice wanted everyone to act as though they did. The queen never gave up hope.
Selene wished Aridela could go along. She had a calming influence on her sister. It was too bad.
In a light, casual voice, Selene asked, “Why do you blush, Iphiboë? Do you think of the joyous night when your new husband will slumber beside you, holding you in his arms?” Without waiting for an answer, she bent over the ibex and slit its throat.
Neoma held a silver cup beneath the flow of blood. When it was half-filled, she extended it to Iphiboë. “Make the offering, cousin.”
Iphiboë hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest. “You think I’m foolish,” she said. “You’re ashamed of me. No doubt Potnia wants nothing from me either.”
Aridela seized the cup with an impatient sigh. “We give thanks, Lady. Thrice have you blessed our hunt.”
The women touched their foreheads as Aridela poured the libation.
Selene contemplated the younger princess.
If only Aridela were the eldest.
Such thoughts changed nothing, and might even offend Athene. Aridela was not heir to the crown. Iphiboë would rule Kaphtor. Iphiboë, this shrinking, blushing girl. Goddess knew the beginning and the end. There was a reason for everything.
Last summer, the king of Pylos visited Kaphtor with one of his sons. Theirs was a powerful kingdom on the northern mainland; those two men were awe-inspiring, tall and proud in their polished armor. Their faces were fierce, strange, too, with their impressive beards. Many a mother used tales of the war-hungry Achaeans to keep wayward children in line. It was said that killing, for them, was as easy as the act of love. The coldness in their eyes suggested this rumor held truth.
Iphiboë hid in a large wooden coffer to avoid being presented. A maidservant found her huddled there. The ensuing uproar was terrible. Helice threatened her with a whipping and ordered her to attend the guests. The poor trembling child dropped the welcoming cup and spilled the wine. Selene hadn’t missed the expression of dismissive amusement on the prince’s face, which he masked when he saw the queen watching.
Here in the cooler air on Mount Ida’s high slopes, mint and wild thyme flourished, saturating the air with scent. Pale sunlight wavered like new-pressed wine; Aridela’s white Egyptian hound rolled joyously on her back, biting at a fly. Selene closed her eyes. She pushed away the disturbing memory and struggled to imbue herself with confidence.
The most accomplished tutors in the world had worked to prepare Helice’s royal children from the moment they uttered their first baby words. Aridela responded well to every challenge, yet Iphiboë grew ever more withdrawn.
The menservants helped Selene skin the carcass. They wrapped the meat in green leaves and bundled it into the hide. The men set out for the palace with it and their earlier kills.
“It’s getting hot,” Aridela said. “Remember that pool we passed in the forest? Let’s go for a swim.”
Selene wiped her bloodstained hands on the grass. “We’ll find it if we follow this stream. But the water will be cold.”
“Refreshing, you mean?” Aridela lifted an eyebrow as though daring her companions to disagree.
If only, oh, if only Aridela were the oldest. How easy the transfer of power would be.
The four raced each other, laughing, clambering over boulders, ducking beneath branches, into golden sunlight then back into green shadows. They found the spot where the stream pooled, shady at the edges with overhanging trees and wild myrtle, sunny in the center, where darting fish could be seen. They stripped off their girdles and tunics, and leaped in, frightening a couple of frogs. The hound, wagging her tail, jumped in with them.
“I look forward to a bath and my bed.” Neoma rolled onto her back, her breasts thrusting from the water like pointy-tipped islands.
“Lazy,” Aridela said. “Why did you come with us, then?”
“Someone has to convince you to give up this madness you’re plotting.” Neoma righted herself and gave her cousin a brow-lifted, challenging stare.
“The hand of Athene directs me,” Aridela said, but she looked wary.
“That’s your answer to everything. Defying Themiste will turn the people against you.”
Aridela shook her head. “No. That won’t happen.”
“You’ll sneak out and mate with any man who finds you, against the command of the Minos. You know, Aridela, once you open your legs for a man it cannot be taken back. You’re only mortal, no matter what you might think.”
“I have no intention of lying with a man.” An unreadable smile played about Aridela’s mouth. “If the Goddess guides one to me, then I’ll know it’s what she wants. If none appear, then Themiste’s order will be satisfied and I’ll know Potnia herself wants me to descend into the cave shrines and shrivel like a walnut.”
“You don’t mean to tell anyone where you’re going?”
Selene noted the furious stare Aridela sent Neoma. Something was going on. Neoma had knowledge of something Aridela didn’t want known. And of course Neoma would use the power ruthlessly.
“Minos Themiste and our mother have forbidden it,” Iphiboë said. “But you’ll do it anyway. You have no fear, not of Minos, not of Athene. I’m grateful, Aridela, but I fear the trouble it will cause. I’ll be blamed.”
“A queen has to be bold, Iphiboë, not fearful,” Aridela said. “That’s why, at the next bull dance, I mean to enter the ring.”
Iphiboë and Neoma gasped in unison.
How neatly she changed the subject from the grove rite. Selene almost laughed.
“Not again, Aridela,” Neoma shrieked. “Have you forgotten what happened last time?”
The water was so clear that Selene saw Aridela press her palm to the crescent-shaped scar beneath her ribs—a permanent reminder of her first and only bull dance.
“I still have the dream,” Aridela said. “I leap over the back of a huge black bull. Everyone cheers. I’m covered with flowers. It’s come even more lately. Potnia is telling me to try again, and I mean to follow her guidance.”
“You aren’t trained,” Selene said, but even as Aridela turned toward her, she knew what the princess would say.
“I’ve been training secretly with Isandros.”
“This is going too far,” Iphiboë cried.
“The only better way to serve Athene would be for you to join the bull dance, as Kaphtor’s next queen.” Aridela no longer tried to disguise her annoyance.
“I would never defy our mother’s commands. She’s forbidden the bullring to both of us.”
No, Iphiboë would never do anything daring or rebellious. Aridela would always be the one to seek magnificence. It was she who possessed a queen’s boldness.
The task Helice laid upon Selene’s shoulders was heavy, yet it occurred to her as she clasped Iphiboë’s arm and drew her away from the
others that Helice never entertained the idea of Aridela and Iphiboë changing places. Helice believed her eldest daughter would overcome her aversion and exceed herself. She and Aridela saw strength within Iphiboë no one else could.
“Blessed Iphiboë, who every woman emulates,” Selene said. “Do you know how they dream of living your life, at least for a day?”
Iphiboë shivered. “If that’s true, they’re fools. Common people marry as they please, yet I must bond with stranger after stranger until I’m dead.”
“Who will be the strongest, swiftest of men, princes all, heroes, in heart if not bloodline.”
“Don’t try to trick me with those children’s tales. I cannot make the smallest decision for myself, even to whom I give my own body, or who fathers my children.”
“That isn’t so.”
“If women truly knew my life, they would thank the Lady they aren’t me.” Iphiboë’s defeated shrug sent water rippling. “Which one will succeed? What will he be like? A dirty potter boy with clay in his hair? A toothless, stinking old man?” She stared into the twined forest, no doubt picturing the ugliest, smelliest men imaginable.
“Iphiboë,” Selene said, “you know an old man cannot win. The Games are demanding and difficult. The winner will be young and strong. He’ll be charming, elegant, and courageous. Just think back to your mother’s consorts. Has any one ever been repulsive?”
Iphiboë didn’t seem to hear Selene’s logic. “They don’t see me—not me. Only what they’ll gain. The jewels, the crown, the fame. They wonder how much pleasure they’ll have off me. They want me to bear their offspring.” She turned her head up and stared blankly into the forest. “If only I could give my life to the rites and worship.”
Selene put her arms around Iphiboë’s shoulders, kissed her on the temple and smoothed the princess’s wet hair off her cheeks. “A man can give as well as get pleasure, you know. Your mother must have felt much the same in the beginning as you do. Since then her confidence has grown; she has loved and enjoyed many royal males.”
The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 21