Ariadne(10)

‘Imagine it, Ariadne,’ she said, turning her face towards me. ‘To board a ship and sail away. To live in a marble palace over the seas, with every kind of riches.’

‘We live in a rich palace now,’ I protested. ‘What luxuries can you imagine that we don’t already have?’

She cast her eyes briefly downward. I knew what she meant. The luxury of living in a palace where below the floors were only grain stores and wine cellars. The luxury of sleeping knowing you would never be awoken by a frenzied, hungry bellow echoing far beneath your feet. Where the ground would never rumble and shake with the fury of the caged beast imprisoned within its bowels.

‘I would like to get away from all the staring eyes,’ she said impatiently. ‘All the tawdry gossip and prattling fools. I would be a queen, respected by my inferiors – not straining my ears to hear what tittering nonsense they come out with whenever I leave a room.’ Her face was hard, her jaw set as she looked away again.

As a baby she had been quick to scream her indignation at the slightest discomfort, kicking her tiny limbs free of the swaddling that so enraged her. She had not wanted to stay still, determined to follow me as soon as she could drag herself along the floor in an awkward shuffle. When she learned to speak, her high, shrill voice piped imperiously along the corridors, lisping her demands. Pasiphae had laughed good-naturedly at the vigour and vitality of her youngest, until Poseidon sent his bull in Phaedra’s fifth year and her childhood died an abrupt death.

I put my arm around her, feeling the thin bones of her shoulders, delicate like a bird. She was still so very young. I felt her tense at my touch, then breathe in a long and measured inhalation.

She softened. ‘I only hope that wherever we might go, as far away from here as it can be, that we go there together.’ She plaited her slender fingers with mine where they rested on her arm. ‘I cannot imagine it if you left me here.’

But it was Minos’ decree that mattered, not our hopes. So when he summoned me to court on one overcast afternoon, I had a suspicion that he had at last selected an alliance he considered favourable. I was not entirely surprised when I entered the great hall to see an unfamiliar man standing there before Minos’ crimson throne.

Only a thin, grey light seeped into the hall through the pillars of the adjoining courtyard and the man stood in the shadows. I hesitated at the entrance, straining to see more through the veil that fluttered over my face.

‘My daughter Ariadne.’ Minos’ voice was cold.

I looked at the floor. Beneath my feet, a bull cavorted in mosaic tiles, tossing its horns and fixing its mad black eyes upon the leaping man that twisted through the air in front of it.

‘In her veins flows the blood of the sun, from her mother’s side, the blood of Zeus from mine.’

‘Very impressive,’ the man replied. He did not speak like a native of Crete but my untrained ears could not identify where his accent might be from. ‘But it is not her blood that interests me.’ He stepped across the tiles, towards me. ‘May I see your face, Princess?’

I raised my eyes to Minos. He inclined his head. My heart was pounding. My fingers felt thick and awkward as I reached to loosen my veil, but I was too slow. Already, the man who wanted something other than my blood had unhooked it himself. I recoiled sharply from the brush of his palm on my temple, expecting my father to rebuke him for his impertinence, but Minos only smiled.

‘Ariadne, this is Cinyras of Cyprus,’ he said.

Cinyras of Cyprus was so close to me I could feel his breath on my face. Resolutely, I turned my eyes away but he took my chin between his fingers and angled my face back towards him. In the dim room, his eyes flashed black. Dark curls clustered over his head. His lips shone wetly, inches from mine.

‘I am so pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he murmured.

I fought the urge to step away from the reek of his breath in my mouth, to lift up my skirts and run from the room. Whilst Minos smiled approvingly, I had to stand still, so I rooted my feet to the floor and gazed ahead. To my relief, he retreated a couple of paces.

‘She is as lovely as you said,’ he commented.

His words rolled like oil, clinging to my skin. I could feel his eyes lingering everywhere upon my body. Hear the moist sound of his mouth as he swallowed. My stomach heaved.

‘Of course.’ Minos’ voice was clipped. ‘You may go now, Ariadne.’

I tried not to hurry indecorously, but I urgently yearned for the clean, salty air outside and in my eagerness to get there, I stumbled a little on the edge where the mosaic gave way to smooth stone. As I emerged into the blessed cool of the courtyard, I could hear the laughter of the two men ringing through the hall.

Blindly, dazedly, I hurried to my mother’s chamber, where I had not ventured since that frightful scene I had interrupted. I wavered for a moment. What would I see? Thankfully, her door was open and I could see the light flooding in as I hurried through the twisting corridors. Would she know anything? Would she care if she did?

‘Mother, that man with Father now – Cinyras, a man of Cyprus,’ I blurted.

‘A king of Cyprus,’ she answered. Her voice drifted in the air, no interest in her tone. ‘He rules over Paphos. All their kings are priests of Aphrodite.’

Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who back in the distant mists of time had emerged from the waters of Paphos Bay, naked, perfect and shining, stepping prettily from the bubbling foam on to the rocks. Whilst her mighty siblings ruled the heavens, the sky and the Underworld, Aphrodite’s dominion was the hearts of humankind and immortals alike.