Dark of the Moon

chapter 22

THE MOON grew smaller and thinner and then disappeared altogether. As we priestesses performed the rituals of protection from the darkness and prayed to Goddess to return, I recalled my conversation with Theseus and wondered where She went when She was out of the sky yet not among us on Krete. Twelve other cities were ruled by their own She-Who-Is-Goddess. In Hellas, these were Delphi, Ithaka, and Naxos; in distant Anatolia, the people of the cities of Kolkhis and Ephesos worshiped her; in Aegyptos it was Tel Hazor; in far-off Italia it was Aricia; in Phoenicia, the people of Tyre worshiped her. When I asked my mother the names of the four remaining cities, she always became troubled and refused to answer. I knew better than to press her, as she rarely discussed these secret matters.

I had forgotten many of the Festival's small details over the past year. "No, no!" Damia screeched like a seagull one warm afternoon. "You take thirteen steps from the altar and then turn. Thirteen. Always thirteen." Thirteen for the twelve priestesses plus She-Who-Is-Goddess, thirteen for the cities where Goddess was worshiped, thirteen for the number of moons in the year, culminating in the Planting Festival, after which the year would begin again.

Athis, no longer the junior priestess since I had filled that spot, gave me a quick smile of sympathy. I grimaced at her and rolled my eyes. It had been a long, tedious day, and I was finding it hard to concentrate. "Always thirteen," I repeated, hoping that the yawn I was holding back was inaudible. I think it wasn't, because my mother called me to her. Damia scowled, but She-Who-Is-Goddess was not to be denied. She led the priestesses out.

"Come sit here with me," my mother said, patting the cushion and sliding over. It was getting difficult for her to move; her large belly rubbed against the table in front of her. I felt my forehead pucker; she was so much older than anyone I had ever assisted at a birth. If she could hardly shift her weight to give me a place to sit down, how could she push a child from her body?

My mother noticed where I was looking. "I am healthy and strong," she said, "and it's usually the first baby that causes problems. I had difficulty with my first."

"With Asterion?"

She-Who-Is-Goddess stopped her work. "No, child. Not with your brother. With my first baby."

"But he's your first. Athis is your second, and I'm your third. And then Glaukos." I had never heard of any others.

My mother shook her head. "You're my fifth. Glaukos is my sixth." I must have looked as bewildered as I felt, because she went on. "You didn't know?" I shook my head and swallowed. This meant that she was even older than I had thought. "I had been She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess for less than a year." Her voice trailed off, and I wondered if she was remembering the years that she spent alone, with her mother dead and me not yet born. She had become Goddess after her mother fell ill of an autumn cough that worsened until she died in the winter. "For a day, it looked like the baby would live and would be She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess." I felt a chill at the thought of how close I had come to being only the spare, the extra. My mother sighed and shook her head. "But she lived only until the sun next set." She appeared to have finished her tale.

"You said I'm the fifth," I reminded her. "Asterion was your second?"

She nodded. "Yes, and the god's son. Then another boy, then Athis, then you, and finally Glaukos." She paused before adding, "None of the others were a child of the god." It was no wonder my mother hadn't mentioned the other boy. A boy not the son of the god was of little use to her. That child must have died, as my mother's first baby had done. I barely remembered Glaukos's birth, when I was three. He had immediately gone to live with the Minos. I sobbed when his nursemaid took him away. My mother had been impatient with my tears and reminded me that I could visit him whenever I wanted, but that didn't console me.

"You were too small to help me with them. Now you know more about birthing than other girls your age, even more than some grown women, and you will help me. This time"—she curled the thumb and first finger of each hand into a crescent for good luck—"this time all will go well."

Even She-Who-Is-Goddess was only another woman when giving birth, and whether my mother lived or died was in Goddess's hands. And Goddess was angry with her.

Talking about her children must have reminded her of Asterion, and she asked, "When did you last visit your brother?"

"Just yesterday." This would give me an excuse to leave. I stood. "I'll go see him now."

I stopped long enough to retrieve the small winged man I had picked up in the Minos's room, then slid it and a handful of raisins into my pouch. The store was low, but summer would be here soon and we would have no need of dry fruit.

Lying across the threshold of the door leading to the basement was Theseus's large white dog. I leaned down and stroked her soft head. "Is he down there?" I whispered. Her tail swayed but she didn't move. I stepped over her and felt her eyes on me as I descended the stairs.

I was two turns away from my brother's chambers when I heard a sound. It was a man speaking in a chatty, conversational tone. I paused. I knew who it was, even though the voice was distant. I rounded the final corner and saw Theseus's now familiar stocky form seated on the ground, talking to my brother, who was also seated and was staring at the other boy with his mouth dangling open. I saw to my shame that a string of drool hung from his lower lip.

Asterion saw me before Theseus did, and he scrambled to his feet. "Ah!" he said, and pointed to the Athenian. "Adne!"

"Yes, I know." I hurried past Theseus. I hadn't seen him since the day we had met outside the wall of the Minos's quarters, and the memory of his arm around my waist and of his hard shoulder made me flush. As I crossed the line of white stone that marked the boundary of my brother's chambers, I glanced back and saw, to my secret and confusing pleasure, that Theseus was reaching out to stop me. Asterion took my hand and tried to kiss me, but I wiped his mouth first, and then presented my cheek to him. As he embraced me, he mumbled something, his eyes shining, and his crooked teeth showed in the grin that always melted me.

"Is this your new friend?" I glanced at Theseus, whose eyebrows were drawn together.

"You're not afraid of him?" he asked.

I sat down, motioning to Asterion to do the same. Usually he would have done so eagerly, ready to play whatever game I wanted, but this time he hesitated and glanced at Theseus. "Don't you want to see what I've brought you?" I patted my pouch, and now he turned his full attention on me. I loosened the drawstring and pulled out the little winged man.

"Ooooh!" Asterion reached for it, but I held it back, and he subsided, hands clasped, as I had taught him. When I knew he wouldn't move again, I held the figure up and moved it as though it were flying, then placed it on his lap. He picked it up, his mouth puckered in a perfect circle.

It always delighted me to please him, as I was never sure what he would like and what he would stomp to bits in disappointment. I watched as he turned the little man over, bending the toy's knees, twisting its arms backwards at an impossible angle, cocking its head so the painted face looked over its own back. He rocked and laughed in glee.

Seeing him absorbed, I addressed Theseus. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see the monster."

I was lucky that Asterion was engaged in twisting the limbs of his new toy, or he would have been upset at my indignant gasp. "He's not a—"

"I know, I know," Theseus hastened to assure me. "I know he's not that. Anyone can see it. People call him one, though, don't they? But I don't think he's so bad." He rose to his feet—slowly, I noticed. I was pleased that he had learned so quickly how to keep from startling my brother. "I don't see why they don't let him out. He seems fearfully bored here."

"Oh no!" This time my exclamation penetrated Asterion's awareness, and he paused in his play. I forced myself to smile at him and patted his hand. He went back to what he'd been doing, but now he seemed to be listening. I went on more calmly, as though talking of the weather. "No, he can't be let out. You wouldn't say that if you'd seen—"

"Tomorrow, I'll talk to the Minos about it. I'll see what he has to say."

Before I could answer, my brother burst out in a high-pitched wail. I leaped up and was horrified at the blood dripping from his mouth. "Open!" I commanded. He shook his head. I squeezed his large jaw until it gaped, revealing the broken pieces of a wing of his little toy. I pulled out the ivory splinters from his tongue. When I had finished, he bellowed, throwing his arms around me and drenching me with red-stained slobber. He pulled me down to the floor with his weight, so I sat with his large head on my lap. I sang him one of my mother's lullabies, but he didn't appear to hear me, so I stopped and stroked his hair, feeding him raisins one by one until they were gone. "Hush now," I said again and again. "Hush now."

Theseus watched silently. When Asterion's sobs finally subsided and he lay sniffling, clutching the painted head of the now armless figure, Theseus spoke. "What I want to know is why he wasn't exposed at birth. Would have been the kindest thing for him. For everyone."

"But he's—"

"He's your brother." That wasn't what I had been going to say, but it was true, so I kept silent. Theseus evidently wasn't satisfied, though, and he leaned forward and scrutinized my face. "You were going to say something else, weren't you?"

"Asterion is..." I swallowed. "He's the firstborn of Goddess and Velchanos." Surely Theseus understood by now what that meant, but his face didn't show any enlightenment, so I was forced to go on. "He's the firstborn son of Goddess and Velchanos," I repeated, "and he is Minos-Who-Will-Be. When the Minos dies, Asterion will take his place." Still silence, but I knew what Theseus must be thinking: How could Asterion perform the duties of a high priest? Theseus might be unfamiliar with the ways of Krete, but any priest, anywhere, would have to know how to perform rituals, say prayers, make sacrifices—a whole series of things that were unthinkable to anyone looking at my brother as he sat on the floor popping the head of his toy into his mouth and out again, laughing with delight at the sound it made as it flew from his lips.

"Goddess will take care of it," I said. "She always does. She always will. We must trust in Goddess." I was echoing my mother's words, and like her I curved my thumb and first finger into a crescent to lend force to what I said.

"How do you know he's the son of Velchanos?" Theseus asked. A few days earlier, I would have been shocked, but because I had overheard Damia's doubts about my own parentage, I stopped the indignant reply that sprang to my lips.

"He was born at the right time, at the Festival of Birth of the Sun, nine months after the Planting Festival. And the crops were especially plentiful that year."

Theseus looked dubious. "I know something of this. I was told that I was the son of a god, and as it turns out, I'm not."

A grunt from Asterion made both of us look at him and then back at each other. For the first time since we'd met, Theseus seemed to have lost his self-confidence.

"Your father is king of Athens, though, is he not?"

"He is."

"Well, then..." I didn't know much about kings. I knew that in Aegyptos, the king ruled by right of having married the daughter of the previous king and that frequently a brother and a sister would wed to keep the royal line pure. Mykenae's king ruled by conquest, a barbarian system, I thought. In Athens and some other cities, the oldest son of the king took the throne—sometimes, I'd heard, even killing his own father if he was impatient. "Well, then, someday you will be king as well, will you not?"

He gave a wry smile. "If your brother doesn't eat me first."

"He doesn't hurt people on purpose," I said, but Theseus wasn't listening.

"It was my father and his wife who sent me here." I had heard of stepmothers who killed their husbands' children, but it was more commonly stepfathers who were murderous. I didn't understand that. Exposing a child at birth—yes, this was difficult, and it made everyone sad, but nobody had grown to know and love that child, and it was usually the best for everyone.

Before I could answer, Asterion lifted his head and said, "Huh!" He pointed to the doorway.

"What does he mean?" Theseus asked.

"Someone's coming." This was a rare occurrence, and I felt curious. Theseus scrambled to his feet, almost tripping on the hem of his robe, and clapped his hand to his waist as though looking for a sword.

Asterion always seemed to know who was coming. If this were my mother or the Minos, he would be on his feet making eager barking sounds. If it were someone he was afraid of—almost everyone else—he'd be whimpering. But he was squatting, his enormous knees almost up to his ears, and rolling the little ivory head along the floor. Its painted face, the features blurry now, flashed up and down and up and down before coming to rest with only the smooth, white back of its head visible.

Was it merely by chance that the little man hid his face from me? I later wondered. Or was it an omen, a warning sent by Goddess? If it was a warning, it was a useless one. I didn't recognize it as such, and even if I had, I wouldn't have known how to change everything that was about to happen.