Dark of the Moon (18 page)

It's getting difficult to find Prokris alone, as she doesn't want the Minos to become suspicious about her frequent absences. If he thinks she's found a lover, he'll have her put to death, even though he is clearly infatuated with her. She and I are not lovers, but the Minos has no need to prove his wife's infidelity. His decree would be enough.

When we finally manage to find each other outside the women's compound one warm afternoon, Prokris's feathery brows are drawn together. She pulls me aside, away from the wall, in more than usual concern of being overheard.

"Something strange is going on," she says. "The women are leaving."

"What women?"

"The wives of the Minos. Not all of them. Orthia, the one he married when he was a boy and who has turned back into a child, she's still here. But the rest of them, the ones who live nearby—their families keep arriving and taking them away, and the foreign ones are packing, planning to take ship."

Prokris is a wife from a foreign land, and I wonder if she, too, will have to leave. My heart lifts a little at the thought of becoming disentangled from her schemes.

"Nobody tells me what's going on. The old man does nothing but weep and strew ashes in his hair. He hardly eats. He doesn't play with the children."

"He's in mourning for his sister."

"Yes, I know he loved her." She sounds impatient. "But this is more than mourning. He seems frightened."

"Of what?"

"How would I know?" she snaps, and then softens. "I don't know. But I mean to find out."

PROKRIS STAYED away from me, out of delicacy, I assumed. At first I didn't notice, bound as I was in so many hours of study and practice, and nearly sleepless from grief, but when she appeared one afternoon shortly before the dark of the moon, I realized how much I had missed her.

She ran to me from the end of a corridor. I rose and returned her embrace. She pulled back, and her cheeks were wet. I touched a tear. "Why are you sad?"

She shook her head, holding me at arm's length. "I'm sad for
you
—you poor thing, to lose your mother!"

That she who had lost mother, father, brothers, sisters, home, could still spare some pity for me melted the rock of my heart a little. I even managed to look outside my own grief to notice that she wore a gray tunic like a peasant woman, instead of the fine robes of the Minos's prettiest wife. Her hair was knotted into a simple bun instead of being dressed in elaborate plaits and twists in the Athenian style. Still, she made the shapeless garment look graceful, and the plain hairstyle brought out the beauty of her face and the length of her white neck.

She saw me looking at her and made a comical little frown. "I suppose that I'm to mourn the death of the sister-in-faw I hardly knew," she said. My face must have betrayed my surprise, for she added hurriedly, "As of course I do, you know, dear Ariadne. But your customs are different, and I don't know exactly how to behave. Why are the wives leaving? How long will the Minos sit in the hearth and weep? He hardly notices when I'm there. When will he resume his regular life?"

"Why, never." I was too startled to frame my answer more delicately. "He is no longer the Minos. Or, at least, in a short time he will not be."

"He—he's
what?
" One hand flew to her heart.

"But, Prokris, how could he be? The Minos is born of the same body that gave birth to She-Who-Is-Goddess. Soon
I
will become She-Who-Is. Your husband will remain Minos until the Planting Festival concludes, but then he will lose his power."

"His power? You mean his position?"

"No—well, yes, he'll lose that, too."

"What do you mean, 'He'll lose that,
too'?
What other power will he lose?"

"Why, his power as Minos. He won't be able to summon Velchanos. As soon as I become Goddess, he will cease to be Minos and there will be a new one." How could I explain that Asterion, the "monster" she had risked her life to see on her first day in Krete, who lived confined in two tiny rooms and who killed children with his blundering attempts at play—that this damaged man-child would soon be the Minos?

I needn't have worried; her mind had already moved on. "But what about
me,
then?"

"What
about
you?"

She gasped, suddenly realizing something. "Is this why the other wives have left?"

"Why, yes, of course." It was worse than talking to a Ihree-year-old. At least a child would know that once the Minos becomes merely Minos-Who-Was, he can no longer support a large family, even with the charity of his sister-niece. The children would be married off, if possible. Being related to She-Who-Is-Goddess is a valuable asset in a spouse. The few who could not find suitable marriages would be sold as slaves, but not for field work, much less working in the mines. Their refinement and education would make them excellent companions to young nobles. Some of my own childhood friends had been descendants of Minos-Who-Was, a kindly old gentleman who had tended an orchard near the palace and had died in my tenth year.

I started to explain this, but Prokris wasn't listening. "Must I leave too?" she broke in. "And where should I go?" The hand clutching my wrist suddenly felt cold.

"But don't you
want
to go home?"

She shook her head vehemently. I was at a loss. Surely she missed her home—didn't she? Did she want to remain with the Minos, who would soon be stripped of his abilities and his rank? Did he even want her to stay? He seemed enchanted with this pretty young wife, but he would be living in a small house, and Orthia, as first wife, would remain with him. The Minos was fond of the bride of his youth.

"They treated me like a servant back in Athens," she said vehemently. "Old Aegeus and his witch-wife. They made me tend to their brat, and then, when they needed to send someone to marry an old barbarian, they chose me. Oh, I know now that he's not a barbarian!" She stroked my cheek until I felt the frown go away. "But that's how the Athenians think of the Minos, and they didn't care that they were sending me so far away. Besides, to be thirteenth wife isn't much more than being a servant to the other twelve, even with a good husband."

I doubted that the Minos could keep Prokris as his wife. I would, of course, see to his needs and Orthia's. Custom, though, forbade Minos-Who-Was from living in luxury at the expense of She-Who-Is-Goddess (my stomach twisted at the thought of how soon that would be me), and a young Athenian wife was certainly a luxury.

"If I go back to Athens, the witch-queen will find ways to torment me. She hates me because she thinks I'm a threat to her precious child, just because Aegeus is my uncle and I'm Athenian through and through, not like that little half-Kolkhian brat of hers."

"What kind of threat? And who is this witch-queen?"

"Medea of Kolkhis. Aegeus married her after she ran from Iason, and she knows the people don't like the idea of the queen mother being a foreign witch. She killed her brother to get the Golden Fleece for Iason, and then she killed her own children, hers and Iason's, when Iason took his second wife—did you know that?"

"Of course she killed them. She had to."

"She
had
to?" Prokris's mouth gaped again. "Why would anyone have to kill her own children?"

I was astonished that she didn't know. The story of Medea's courage had reached all the way to Krete. "Medea was She-Who-Is-Goddess of Kolkhis," I explained. "There, the god appears—appeared—In the form of a ram, not a bull, as here. Their Minos dressed in a fleece of gold to summon him, just as ours wears a bronze bull's head. Medea rescued the fleece from her brother, who wanted to use it to usurp her power. But when she ran off with Iason, Goddess was surely very angry at the desertion of her shrine. I know something of Goddess's anger." I swallowed. "She would find ways to punish Medea. They say"—I paused; the outrage was so great that I could hardly repeat what I had heard the priestesses whisper in shocked tones—"they say that he was going to elevate the new wife above Medea."

"I don't see—"

"That would have made Medea's children a threat to any borne by the new wife. Even if Goddess didn't kill Medea's son and daughter in some terrible way to punish Medea for deserting her service, the new wife certainly would, to clear the path for her own children. And it wouldn't be an easy death." I thought of my mother writhing for silent hours on her bed and then soaking the blankets with more blood than I would have thought a body could hold. Goddess's punishment was dreadful, and a new wife would certainly be harsh as well. Whichever one of them killed the children, Iason and Medea's little boy and girl would have suffered in ways that I didn't want to imagine. "Medea slit the children's throats. They died quickly, without pain, and with dignity. It was all their mother could do for them, and the sacrifice would please Goddess."

Prokris still stared at me, this time with what looked like disgust. "What about her brother, then?" she challenged me.

That part of the report had disturbed me as well. Medea's brother had been her Minos (he was called by a different name in Kolkhis, but he served that function) and it must have been hard for Medea to kill him, even if he had been plotting to overthrow her and Goddess. It must have been love for Iason that gave her strength, and now that I knew about my mother and what she had done, how she had dishonored Goddess for the love of a mortal man ... I closed my eyes.

I had gone to visit Asterion when news of Medea had reached us, while my mother and the priestesses were discussing her actions. I found him in a gentle and sweet mood. I stayed with him for hours, playing games with pebbles and singing him songs while he grinned at me and then fell asleep with his big head on my lap. I stroked his curls as he snored, knowing that I could never harm him, not even for love.

Prokris still stared at me. Then she looked away.

But not before I had seen the same cloud of death and arrogance and betrayal pass over her face, obscuring her pretty features and changing them into something so horrible that I cried out in terror.

PROKRIS GRABBED my shoulders. "What is it?" she asked, but I was sobbing. The cloud passed by, leaving nothing more than a shimmer in the air and the faintest whiff of something rank. I was in a cold sweat, and my mouth was as dry as the sand of the dancing floor.

"What did you see?" Prokris asked, darting quick glances around the room. "Did someone come in? Was it—did you see your mother's spirit?"

I grunted a negative as the room swam around me. Prokris lowered me onto a sofa before the blackness had a chance to swallow me. Footsteps thudded down the corridor, and someone burst in. I didn't dare raise my head, but out of the edge of my eye, I saw the flash of striped cloaks.

"What happened?" It was Gnipho, and I heard the clean
slish
of a sword being drawn.

"It was my fault," Prokris said before I could answer. "The princess was overcome with grief as we talked about her mother and was taken with a fainting spell."

"Mistress?" Gnipho sounded doubtful. I had never been subject to fainting.

I raised my head and tried to smile. "I'm fine. My brother's wife is seeing to me." Gnipho's concerned face swam in front of my eyes, and I lowered my gaze again. After a moment, I heard the guards leave, but I noticed that their footsteps did not go very far down the corridor.

Prokris asked again, "What did you see?"

The vision gripped me once more, but faintly, and as I tried to examine it, it fled. "You must be careful," I said. "There's something evil near you. I don't know what it is, but it's very powerful. And I think it's threatening Theseus as well."

"Something evil, you say?" She cocked her head, and a smile played around her lips.

"Please," I begged. "Please be careful."

"You don't have to worry," she said. But I did worry. The Athenians didn't take things seriously, and my life had suddenly become very serious.

As if to remind me of this fact, a shadow appeared in the doorway. I knew without looking that it was Thoösa and that she was coming to take me back to my lessons. I sighed and stood. Only two days remained until the Planting Festival, and I had not eaten since the day before. I could have told the priestesses that fasting was not necessary. I had no need to create a space for Goddess; the loss of my mother had left a huge, gaping hole in me. But I had no appetite, so fasting was not causing me distress.

"Come see me when you can," Prokris whispered as I embraced her.

I didn't know how I would find the time, but more than anything, I longed for a few hours' peace with no lessons and no old priestesses screeching at me when I turned to the right instead of the left or when I forgot the ancient words of the prayers, whose meaning was hard to grasp and thus almost impossible to remember. So I whispered back, "Yes," and then followed Thoösa to the room where my mother had died and where the other eleven priestesses were now waiting.

They were still at their midday meal, dining on roasted waterfowl. I wasn't tempted at the sight of the crisp brown skin on the ducks and geese or the sounds of the women sucking morsels off the bones. The smell of the herbs and rich fat sickened me. My mouth didn't water, and my stomach remained silent. Damia glanced at me with what looked like surprised respect.

Don't admire my restraint,
I thought.
It's not due to self-control. I couldn't eat if you forced it down my throat.

After the meal, the next step was for the priestesses to practice dressing me in the robes of She-Who-I s-Goddess. Each had a task, from taking off my everyday slippers to putting on the new hard shoes, from pinning up my hair to tying my sash in the ritual knot. I could not wear the real garments until the actual ceremony. The women stripped off my ordinary clothes and pretended to re-dress me in the stiff l inen-and-wool skirt embroidered with golden thread and encrusted with gems, and the vest that would leave my breasts uncovered in front of all those people.

"Don't worry," Damia said, who was looking at me as I stared down at my chest. "When the time comes, you won't care. You won't really be
you.
Your body will be there, but what makes it move will be Goddess. You will feel what Goddess feels, not what a girl feels." I was unconvinced.