Dark of the Moon

chapter 2

HONEY THERE WAS indeed, in a small stone pot tightly fitted with a lid made even more secure against insects with a layer of wax. I sat with my arms around my knees and watched Asterion as he ate, dipping his clumsy fingers into the golden stickiness and sucking them, his large, wide-set eyes rolling.

When he had finished, he licked the inside of the honey jar until even he could tell that he had scoured it clean. I stood and put out my hand. My brother looked at the round little pot, evidently decided that keeping it wasn't worth an argument, and extended it to me. He couldn't go any farther, so I stepped closer and took it. His fingers closed lightly around mine, and he made a soft sound.

"You want me to stay a little while?" I asked. He nodded eagerly, his long black curls—his only beauty—flopping over his uneven eyes. Of course our mother had ordered his hair cut when he'd turned twelve, but the shearing had had to be done without the ceremony expected when the god's son reached young manhood. I still shuddered when I remembered his screams as the men pinned him to the ground while the barber worked so fast that both he and Asterion wound up smeared with blood. No one had dared approach my brother with shears since then, and his lustrous black hair now hung past his shoulders.

I moved closer so I could reach my brother's face. I stood on tiptoe and pushed his hair back, off his bumpy forehead. He grinned and shook his head so that the shiny curls once more fell forward. I laughed. This was one of his favorite games, to tease me by undoing some small bit of work I had done.

It must have been the lack of sleep, the sight of the pale dead babies and their suddenly blue-lipped mother, or the shock of the encounter with the Athenian girl, for even in the midst of my laughter, tears stung my eyes. I bit my lip and looked away. If Asterion saw me weeping, he would become distressed, and I had noticed no more jars marked with a bee in the storeroom.

To distract him, I revealed the damp cloth that I had concealed behind my back. Better to be angry at a washing than terrified at the sight of his sister weeping. Asterion grunted a protest but allowed me to get the worst of the stickiness off his hands and from around his mouth. When he had clearly had enough, I stopped. I could finish later.

"Good boy," I said, and he grinned again, his crooked teeth showing. He touched one of the gold earrings that dangled almost to my shoulders. "Gentle," I warned, and he lowered his hand.

I stayed only a little longer, and when I left, he didn't try to follow me. A few years earlier, my mother had had him placed here below the palace, where his roaring wouldn't frighten people. She'd had to recast her binding spell several times, winding the black yarn into one complex pattern after another. Finally, the spell worked; he couldn't move from the two small chambers at the heart of the underground warren of storerooms and corridors, but he was not held so firmly that he felt and fought against his invisible bonds. Now he moaned and then bellowed his version of my name—"Adne! Adne!"—as I took one turn and then another, his loneliness following me upstairs and nearly to the women's sitting room.

After the near dark of the underground chamber, the daylight coming in between the columns was almost dazzling. I inhaled deeply to clear my lungs. We kept Asterion as clean as we were able, but a full bath was impossible unless we made him so drunk that he lost either his fear or the ability to fight, and the odors of his dank chamber were never pleasant. Here, the early-spring air mingled with the aroma of warm bread, and I suddenly realized that it was a long time since I had eaten.

The morning light was weak, and the shapes on the walls appeared almost real, not mere figures painted by a long-dead artist in the days when my mother's grandmother had been She-Who-Is-Goddess. The dimness hid the artist's brush strokes on the parade of slim-hipped young women and men who bore platters of springtime fruits and greens and who led tiny white lambs so new that their large eyes appeared to look with wonder at the world they were soon to leave. I almost expected to see the celebrants' legs move in the solemn procession, to smell the heavy scent of flowers in the garlands draped over the columns behind them, to hear their voices lifted in song in praise of Goddess. She stood facing them, bare breasted, a smile on Her lips, clutching two writhing snakes whose painted tongues seemed almost to flicker in and out of their painted mouths.

I caught sight of the Athenian woman. She was seated on a bench near the opening between two large columns, eating the flatbread that Cook made by spreading dough directly onto the coals of the huge kitchen fireplace. At the sight of its crusty top and its bottom darkened by ash, my stomach gave a loud gurgle. Cook, who was entering, laughed and patted the bench where the woman destined to be the Minos's newest wife was sitting. I, too, sat down but wished I didn't feel so awkward. I didn't often see strangers, at least not to talk to, and I didn't know how to behave. Cook handed me my own piece of bread wrapped in a white cloth, along with a pot of fig preserves and a wooden spoon, taking care not to touch me. I knocked off the cinders and took a bite.

That pot reminded me of the honey jar, which I pulled from my robe and handed to Cook. Then I spooned preserves into the crescent that my teeth had left in the bread. The sweetness of the figs combined with the bitterness of the slightly blackened crust was one of my favorite treats.

"Sorry," I said around a mouthful as Cook looked into the jar's emptiness.

"A small price to pay if it kept her safe." Cook nodded at the young woman.

"I'm very grateful." She bit off a piece of bread glistening with golden preserves and washed it down with a swallow of what looked like honey water.

Her musical accent made even these conventional words sound lovely. From close up, she was even prettier than I had thought her before, when she had stood motionless in my brother's grip. Her brown hair, so different from the black ringlets of most of the people I knew, looked as soft as rabbit's fur. Her clear eyes were the nameless blue-green-gray of the sea, and her oval face shone with clear brightness. Her small teeth were white and even.

She was looking at me quizzically. I dropped my gaze and asked, "Why did you go down there, anyway?"

Her laugh was merry. "My mother always says that I'm as curious as a mouse. I wanted to see him—the Minotauros."

I choked on the piece of bread that was halfway down my throat. How dare she call my brother by that name? It made him sound like the son of the Minos and a bull. Cook stood behind me as I spluttered.

Before I had become a woman, Cook would have pounded my back to help me, but of course he couldn't strike She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess, so I coughed and wheezed. When at last I could breathe shallowly without my breath catching, I glanced up and saw the warning frown that Cook was shooting over my head at the Athenian woman.

She seemed about to say something more, but then one of the Minos's eunuchs poked his head through the door. "He's asking for the new one." He looked from her to me, and I nodded. My pleasure in the girl's company was spoiled, anyway.

My companion rose and straightened her fine linen gown, which was arranged in narrow pleats in the style of mainland women, a thin belt emphasizing her small waist. I stood too and saw that she was examining my clothes as carefully as I was hers. I looked down at my serviceable robe, the one I always wore to child births. It fit appropriately but was stained from my work. The dark red smear was new, and once again I thought of that dead woman and her dead babies. I looked back at the girl and opened my mouth to speak.

Then an image rose up and floated in front of her face. I couldn't make it out clearly, but I could tell that it was evil, a miasma that stank of treachery and arrogance and murder.

I closed my eyes and ordered the vision to depart. When I opened them again, it was gone, but so was the girl. She was following the Minos's servant down a long corridor open to the rapidly warming sun, her slender form flickering as she passed through the shadows of the columns. I tried to call out, to warn her to beware of whatever it was that I had seen, but my throat clamped shut and I watched her until she disappeared.