Dark of the Moon

chapter 5

ARIADNE," I said. "My name is Ariadne."

The foreign boy bowed. "A fitting name. 'Most holy.' I am Theseus."

The only people whose names can be pronounced with no threat, who can reveal their real names to others without fear, are either so utterly powerless that they have nothing to risk—like small children or my brother—or so strong that nobody would dare try to harm them. It was brave of this Theseus to trust me, a stranger, with his name. I, of course, had nothing to fear by telling him mine, yet out of respect most people avoided saying it.

"But they address you by another name. She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess?" I nodded. "So ... you will be a goddess one day?" Something in his voice made me squirm. It wasn't quite mockery, but also not the reverence I expected or the fear that would strike most people. I murmured a confirmation.

"And how is that?" The amusement I was certain I heard this time stung. The dog at the boy's side looked up at him and then at me.

"My mother is She-Who-Is-Goddess." I didn't care that my voice was stiff. Let him see that he had offended me. "When she joins our grandmothers, the moon, and becomes Goddess Forever along with them, I will be She-Who-Is-Goddess."

A brief silence, then, "Forgive me. I really am trying to understand. We don't have such goddesses in my country."

"What?" I was astonished. "You have no moon?"

"Of course we have the moon and of course we worship her, but she doesn't walk among us."

How sad, I thought, to know Goddess only as a light in the night sky that comes and goes! Even the smallest children in Krete know about She-Who-Is-Goddess and She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess. They know who we are and what we do. They also have some confused ideas about our power, which is why they fear us. Did this Theseus really not know? Were the homes and customs of foreigners so utterly different? If Goddess did not walk among them, how did babies enter the world, and how did the Athenians ensure that their crops would grow?

I thought of the feasting and the merriment of the Planting Festival, and of sweet Ision. He had smiled and waved to his wife and son as the Minos led him out that final morning of last year's Festival. The woman and the boy had clung to each other, as motionless as the stone streaked with dark stains that stood alone in the field under the mild spring sun. The two didn't move while the Minos's men bound Ision's hands to the bolts driven into the stone's corners. The smile stayed on the blacksmith's face even when the shining knife in the Minos's fist came down and opened the doorway to his life. The Minos caught the blood in the bowls used only once a year and handed them to his priests. They ran, letting it splash and drip over the fields, quickly, before it clotted and refused to bestow its blessing anymore. Only then did the skin of Ision's face go slack and the light leave his eyes, and finally the smile slid down until it disappeared.

The memory fled as Theseus asked, "Are you unwell?" and I saw him standing in front of me, solid and strong, the blood beating in a pulse on his temple, his lips red and full, not blueish and withered like Ision's.

Before I could speak, a manservant approached. He bowed, then said to Theseus, "The Minos is waiting."

Theseus started, as though coming out of a dream, and said, "What? Sundown already?" Together we looked out the window, which was placed high in the wall so that the light wouldn't strike the bull dancers' eyes. We were facing east and could not see how far the sun had sunk, but the wisps of clouds were tinged with pink and the sky behind them was darkening. It was too late for me to continue to the Minos's quarters; my mother would forbid me to visit again soon if I appeared to have spent so much time there.

So I inclined my head when Theseus bowed to me, and watched as the guards escorted him out the north door of the arena, which would lead most directly to the Minos's quarters. When his stocky form had disappeared, I hurried back to my mother's room.

She still sat at her table, but now she was strumming the strings of her small lyre. Good; her headache must be better, and when she played music she never noticed the passage of time. I sat next to her. She came to the end of the tune—a song about decorating their homes with green boughs and dancing and feasting that children sing during the Festival of Birth of the Sun—put down her lyre, stretched, and yawned.

"Did you see the Athenian girl?"

I mumbled, "No." She pushed her stool away from the table and stood up, moving stiffly. If you can keep a secret, I thought, if She-Who-Is-Goddess can hide the reason for Goddess's wrath from She-Who-Will-Be-Goddess, I can keep my own counsel too. So I didn't mention Theseus.

"Come," my mother said. "Let's see what Cook has made for our supper." I reached up to push back the curtain hanging over the doorway, and my sleeve fell back. I saw on my wrist a crescent of red marks, already turning purple, made by the teeth of the dog I had last seen trotting quietly behind her master. We continued toward the sitting room, and through the columns the moon rose and hung huge and yellow over the city of Knossos.