Ariadne(3)

‘For you, Ariadne.’ He always spoke to me seriously, which I liked.

I did not feel like an annoying child, a daughter who would never command a fleet of ships or conquer a kingdom and so was of little use or interest to Minos. If Daedalus simply humoured me, I never knew it, for I always felt like we were two equals conversing.

I took the pendant, wonderingly, turning it over in my fingers and marvelling at its beauty. ‘Why bees?’ I asked him.

He turned his palms to the sky and shrugged his shoulders, smiling. ‘Why not bees?’ he asked. ‘Bees are beloved by all the gods. It was bees who fed the infant Zeus on honey in his hidden cave whilst he grew strong enough to overthrow the mighty Titans. Bees produce the honey that Dionysus mixes with his wine to sweeten it and make it irresistible. Indeed, it is said that even the monstrous Cerberus who guards the Underworld can be tamed with a honey cake! If you wear this pendant around your neck, you can soften anyone’s will to yours.’

I did not need to ask whose will might need to be softened. The whole of Crete was in thrall to Minos’ inexorable judgement. I knew it would take more than the mightiest swarm of bees to sway him an inch, but I was still enchanted by the gift and wore it always. It shone proudly on my neck when we attended Daedalus’ wedding, a mighty feast hosted by my father, who was delighted that Daedalus made his alliance with a daughter of Crete. Another tie holding him here, allowing Minos to boast about his exalted inventor. Although his wife died giving birth to their son before they’d been married a year, Daedalus took comfort in the baby Icarus and I loved to see him walking about with the infant dandled in his arms, showing the oblivious child the flowers and the birds and the many wonders of the palace. My younger sister, Phaedra, toddled enraptured in his wake and when I grew tired of steering her away from every danger she could find, I would leave Daedalus with them both and steal back to the wide circle of my dancing-floor.

In the very early days, my mother, Pasiphae, would dance with me; indeed, it was she who had taught me. Not formal, set patterns of steps; rather, she gave me the gift of making fluid, sinuous shapes out of crazy, chaotic movements. I watched how she flung herself into the music and transformed it into a graceful frenzy, and I followed suit. She would make a game of it for me, calling out constellations for me to trace with my feet on the floor, star formations that she would weave stories of, as well as dances. ‘Orion!’ she’d say, and I would hop frantically from space to space, imagining the points of light that made the doomed hunter in the sky. ‘Artemis placed him there so she could look upon him every night,’ she had told me, confidingly, when we’d flopped together to regain our breath.

‘Artemis was a virgin goddess, fervently protective of her chastity,’ Pasiphae had explained. ‘But she favoured Orion, a mortal man, as a hunting companion who could almost rival her skill.’ A precarious position for a human to be in. Gods might enjoy mortal skill in hunting or music or weaving, but they were always alert to hubris – and woe betide a human whose skills came close to those of the divine. Something that immortals could not tolerate was to be inferior to anyone in any respect.

‘Driven to keep up with Artemis’ prodigious skill, Orion became desperate to impress,’ continued my mother. She cast a glance over to where Phaedra and Icarus played at the edge of the wooden floor. They were inseparable most of the time, Phaedra exalting in the thrill of being the elder and being able to give orders to someone smaller than her for once. Seeing they were intent upon their game and not listening to us, Pasiphae took up the story again. ‘Perhaps he hoped he would win over her vow of celibacy if he could slaughter enough living creatures to earn her admiration. So the two came here, to Crete, to engage in a mighty hunt. Day after day, they cut through the animals of the island and piled them high as mountains as testament to their prowess. But Gaia, the mother of all things, was awoken from her quiet dreams by the blood soaking her soil and she was horrified by the carnage that Orion was hell-bent on creating beside his adored goddess. Gaia feared he would indeed annihilate all that was living, as he boasted to Artemis that he would in his intoxicated frenzy. So Gaia reached into her hidden underground chambers and summoned forth one of her creations: the colossal scorpion, which she unleashed upon the boastful Orion. Such a thing had never been seen before. Its armour gleamed like polished obsidian. Its tremendous pincers each stretched the length of a full-grown man and its terrible tail arched into the cloudless skies, blotting out Helios’ light and casting a dark and monstrous shadow before it.’

I would shudder at her description of the legendary beast, squeezing my eyes shut as I saw it rise in front of me, unimaginably hideous and cruel.

‘Orion was not afraid,’ Pasiphae continued. ‘Or he would not show fear. Either way, he was no match and Artemis did not intervene to pluck him from the mighty scorpion’s clutches . . .’ Here she would pause, her silence painting a more vivid picture of Orion’s pitiful struggles than her words ever could. She picked up the tale after a moment in which I saw the life squeezed from him, his human weakness exposed at last as he submitted, exhausted from trying to keep up with the gods for so long in his mortal frame. ‘And Artemis grieved for her companion, so she gathered up the remnants of his body, which were strewn across Crete, and she placed them in the sky where they would burn in the darkness and she could look upon him each night as she set out with her silver bow, alone, her supremacy and her virtue both unchallenged.’