Dark of the Moon

chapter 19

THE ORDEAL of the Snakes?" I asked the Minos. He must have heard the fear in my voice, for he took my chin in his hand and said, "Dearest little sister, has no one told you?"

I shook my head. He clicked his tongue, disapproving.

"I have to go." I stood. "The priestesses are waiting for me, to prepare for the Festival. I still haven't learned—"

He gently pulled me back down next to him. "You don't want to go, do you?"

He took my silence for agreement and beckoned to the eunuch Dolops, a man who had taught me how to whistle and who had once cleaned up after me when I was sickened by a bad oyster. Now he didn't dare to look me in the face.

The Minos told his man to inform She-Who-Is-Goddess that I had been taken ill and would not be able to attend her that afternoon. Then he squeezed my shoulder. "Go into my chamber and rest. I'll have someone bring you refreshment."

The Minos's chamber was opulent, with white marble floors, brightly colored frescoes, and large windows that let in the afternoon sun. It contained very little furniture—a small bed, and a stool by a long, low table that was always crammed with models of the projects that my uncle and his pet architect, Daidalos, were working on. Daidalos had built my brother's dank little chambers, but that was only one of the reasons I hated him. He was so jealous that when his nephew Perdix showed talent in making tools, Daidalos pushed him off a cliff rather than have him cause a stir with some invention. He later claimed that Perdix had turned into a bird and flown away, but nobody believed him. Perdix had been sweet and had made clever little jointed soldiers and horses that Asterion adored. Daidalos's son Ikaros, who swaggered almost as much as his father did, had no interest in "entertaining" my brother, as he put it, and small talent as well.

So I was glad that Daidalos wasn't there, although evidence of his work lay scattered everywhere. I picked up a small, hollow, bronze cow, but its staring eyes made me shudder and I put it down hastily. The model of a mechanism for building what appeared to be a pyramid, such as the Aegyptians are said to bury their dead kings in, stood next to small blocks of stone; elsewhere, metal gears lay locked in complicated patterns, and a waterwheel stood ready to turn when the channel under it was filled with a miniature river. A small figure of a man, carved from ivory and with wonderfully cunning joints that stayed in place except when I moved them, stretched out his arms, to which were attached white doves' feathers, making him look like a winged god. I would borrow this for Asterion, I thought. Nobody would notice it missing in all that clutter, and losing it would serve Daidalos right for killing my brother's toymaker. Besides, I'll return it someday, I thought as I pushed it into my pouch, despite the likelihood that Asterion would break it into tiny pieces.

I was examining a seashell with a hole bored in its tip when a voice behind me, familiar yet strange, exclaimed, "Why, it's my rescuer!" The shell hit the stone floor with a crack. I should have realized that bringing me refreshment was something between an honor and a chore and that the task would have been delegated to the wife-to-be of the Minos.

The young woman I had removed from Asterion's chamber stood in the doorway, a cup in her hand. I could tell from how she held it, with her fingertips around its top edge, that it contained something hot. I turned to clear a spot and also to give myself time to regain my composure. I piled up a wax tablet, a pair of scissors, and a round piece of crystal polished to transparency that made everything under it look big, and motioned to her to place the cup on the table. She did so with the same grace I had noticed the morning before. Her brown hair was now bound up under a white head covering. No longer wife-to-be, but wife. The Minos had not wasted any time.

I wondered if I should tell the Athenian woman about what I had seen pass over her face at our last meeting—the shadow of some horrible destiny. No, best not. It could have been merely the result of my disturbed night and not a real warning, and in any case, a warning of what? How could I tell her to be cautious if I didn't know what was threatening her? So I remained silent.

She straightened, watching as I sipped at the steaming cup. It was a simple herb tea, such as my mother and Korkyna often made, and its familiar taste was soothing.

I expected the girl to leave, but she sat down on a cushion. She fingered her necklace of pearls alternating with beads of deep blue lapis. The Minos must treasure her indeed to give her such an extravagant bride gift.

"When the Minos told me to tend to his sister," the Athenian woman said, "I expected a gray-haired old woman with a walking stick. Instead I find you! You can't be any older than I am." She looked me up and down in much the same way that Theseus had. "Younger, I would say." I felt myself blushing. I was so thin, I knew that in different clothes, I could be mistaken for a boy. "I must have misunderstood him. You are his niece or his sister-in-law, not his sister."

"I am his sister," I said, wishing my voice held the self-confidence that I heard in hers. "And his niece."

Silence. "You're his sister," she finally said, "and his niece?"

"We have the same Mother. Goddess is our Mother."

"I thought your goddess was everyone's mother."

"No, She really is our Mother. We were born of Her, although at different times, and when she was in different bodies. And our father is Velchanos." She didn't say anything for so long that I thought she hadn't understood, so I tried to explain. "You call him Zeus, I think."

"Oh, you are the girl they call—what is it?"

I swallowed. "I am She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess." For only the second time in my life, it sounded strange.

"I didn't know." She looked at me differently now, as I knew she would, but not with fear—with curiosity, it appeared. "Yesterday, I thought you—well, your dress was stained, and your hair was disarranged, and I thought you were one of the servants." I said nothing. I hoped that the fact that I hadn't looked my best wasn't the only reason she had behaved in such a familiar fashion with me. Now that she knew who I was, would she turn cold and silent? She patted the cushion next to hers. Was she really inviting me to sit with her?

I evidently hesitated too long, because now it was her turn to blush. "I'm sorry," she said, rising to her feet. "I don't know how I'm supposed to treat you—as my sister-in-law or as my husband's niece or as a goddess. Is it wrong for me to sit in your presence?" Instead of answering, I sat on the cushion and motioned to her to resume her seat.

"I know it's hard to understand," I said. I took a breath, trying to remember how I had heard Damia explaining it to another one of the Minos's wives, a girl with skin like ebony who had come from Aethiopia far to the south and who had died just a few months later.

"The body that carried my mother and also carried the Minos," I said carefully, "was my grandmother, She-Who-Is-Goddess before my mother." I looked at her, and she nodded in comprehension. "That means he is my uncle, since my grandmother bore him. But at the time that my mother was conceived, and also when the Minos was conceived, that body was being used by Karia, whom we call Goddess out of respect, and the body of their earthly father was being used by Velchanos."

She nodded again but looked a little less certain.

"Karia and Velchanos are brother and sister. Your Artemis and Apollo are the same as Karia and Velchanos, just as this bowl is a bowl, no matter what you call it in Athens."

"We also call it a bowl in Athens," she said, and I laughed.

"Then, when I was conceived," I continued, "Goddess was inhabiting my mother's body, and that spring, Velchanos had chosen to occupy the body of a man named Kilix. So, really, Goddess and Velchanos are my mother and father, just as they are Asterion's, and they are your husband's mother and father, so that means that your husband is my brother and Asterion's, too."

I saw that she was no longer listening and that her pretty face was wrinkled in pain.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing much. Just a bellyache. I always suffer with my monthly flow." So she must be younger than she looked if her flow wasn't yet tuned to the full moon. It wasn't right of the Minos to marry such a young girl; I wondered if my mother knew.

She gave me a brilliant smile. She hugged her knees up to her chest and said, "It will pass soon. Now, tell me all about yourself." At first I was shy, but soon I found myself talking about my life in the palace, about learning the rituals, about how everyone treated me differently since I had become She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess, and how despite my mother's reassur-ances that one day it would all seem natural and I would treasure my privacy, I still missed having friends and companions.

I had been talking without cease for so long that my throat was dry. I gulped the rest of my herb tea, which was now as cold as river water. "And now tell me about you," I said.

"There's not much to tell."

"You're from Athens," I prompted. She nodded. "And what is Athens like?"

"Large. Grand."

"Larger and grander than Knossos?" The city that sprawled around the palace was all I knew, yet I had heard travelers remark on its size and beauty.

"Different." She leaned back on her elbows and looked up at me with a quick smile. "Every place is different from Knossos."

We talked for a long time. Prokris (I found out that the Athenians had no fear of having their names misused) was older than I had thought. In Athens, women's cycles do not always run with the full moon, and she was surprised that they did on Krete. I managed to forget that I was supposed to be meeting with the priestesses, and I even banished the Ordeal of the Snakes from my mind. Whatever it was, it couldn't be so dreadful, or my mother would never let me do it. She did it at the Planting Festival and came out whole, year after year. The Minos was just being overprotective, as always.

As that day stretched into afternoon and evening and my new friend and I sat together and then walked arm in arm through the courtyard in the cooling air, I didn't think about anything except that I had someone to talk to again.

That must be why I still didn't tell her about my vision. I didn't want to frighten her, to give her cause to avoid me. Would it have made any difference if I had? I like to think not, for that way I can sleep at night, comforted by the idea that Fate or Goddess or Moera Krataia had long ago determined what would be the end for me, for Asterion, for my new friend, even for Theseus, and I could do nothing to change it.

But on the nights when I awaken under a full moon and see my mother's cold white eye staring down at me accusingly, I know that I was mistaken. I should have told my mother and the Minos, and then all would have been different.