Ariadne(17)
‘He looked at me . . .’ I fumbled for the words to explain that moment of connection, those unspoken words I was sure had crackled from him to me. ‘He wants my help; I am convinced of it.’
Daedalus shook his head and smiled sadly. ‘I have no doubt of that, Ariadne,’ he said with kindness. ‘He does not mean to die in that maze tomorrow night and he knows that to enter it means certain death. Even without the Minotaur, he could pace its tunnels for years on end and never again find the light of day. I made sure of that when I imprisoned your brother at its heart.’ I was sure he emphasised the word brother. ‘He knows that he needs your help, Princess of Crete, for there is none but you who could assist him. The rumours have reached Athens; they have swept to the farthest corners of the world. The beast you helped to nurture from infancy, your tender heart – surely you have special knowledge, you must know the secrets and you may be persuaded to give those away. Believe me, Theseus wants your help, but not to spirit him away from the battle. He means to defeat the mighty Minotaur tomorrow. He will leave Crete with its greatest treasure plundered, its Labyrinth left empty and its myth dissolved. It will be Theseus’ courage that is sung of, not your father’s power.’
Behind us, the guard stirred. Daedalus was meticulous, but we were straining credibility on how long a broken tile could take to mend. He pulled a cloth from his robe and pretended to polish the spot where we knelt, as though finishing the task. ‘I will help you, Ariadne,’ he whispered, so low I could barely hear him. He stood and courteously offered me his hand to help me stand. As I took it, I felt a ball of coarse fabric pressed into my palm. ‘I have carried this with me since I caged the monster. I have waited for this chance to put right what I did when I aided its creation. I have waited for a tribute with the strength and the bravery to succeed in this labour.’ His face was sombre, the moonlight shining on the heavy crags that lined it with age too early. ‘But, Princess, I do not want to add your life to the shame I carry. Remember Scylla, Ariadne. If you do this, you must not remain to face your father’s wrath. You must leave Crete and never return.’ With those words, he swept hurriedly past me and returned to his guard, without a backward glance.
I stayed, letting the night air wash around my stinging face. The frogs croaked and the heavy scent of the blooms that wound around the pillars drifted across the courtyard as though nothing had happened and the world was still the same. His words repeated, low and laden with a seriousness I could not dismiss. I let the guard’s footsteps die away a hundred times over before I opened my fingers to see what lay in my hand. When I did, a crack of light spilled out, flooding the darkness, wiping away the future I had dreaded and blazing a triumphant path that I had not known could lie ahead.
In my hand lay a ball of red twine. And at its very centre, a heavy iron key.
6
Later, would I want to claim that I was possessed of a madness, that I didn’t know what I was doing? That I moved through my story as the Fates directed, that I bore no responsibility for it myself?
I cannot say but that I knew exactly where I was headed when I ran from that courtyard, and I had a crystal clarity of purpose that rarely comes. I didn’t pause or even hesitate until I came to a breathless stop at the edge of the great courtyard in the centre of the palace.
Selene’s chariot was high in the sky, bathing the stones in silvery light. I steadied myself against a pillar painted in a deep ochre and forced myself to look at my hand splayed pale against the dark red until my heart returned to normal and my breath was calm. The courtyard was silent. Deeper within the palace I could hear the faint sound of carousing: songs and the low laughter of men. But here, in the very heart of Knossos, it was silent and it was mine.
The cells were situated in the north-west corner, off the courtyard. They were unguarded, for how could our prisoners escape when Daedalus himself had fashioned the locks?
They were separated, the young men from the women, but in his own chamber was the Prince of Athens – not forced, even as a humble prisoner and prey of the Minotaur, to humble himself in a shared cell with the fears and prayers (and no doubt, as the darkness intensified, the cries) of his companions. The single cell sat apart from the others, a cell hewn from the rock in days long past, before Daedalus had ever come to our shores. It was the key to this door that Daedalus had smuggled to me in the scarlet skein of cord which he had pressed into my hand. Here before me was a vast sweep of empty space; just the closed door and me, and only the stars sprinkled across the midnight sky to see what I did next. Did those cold, distant lights watch with any vestige of the humans they had once been, those special, chosen, favoured ones who had brushed too close to the divine? What would they make of my solitary act of defiance, my betrayal, the moment of my becoming? Would they cry out against me? Or did they bathe impassively in the dim bowl of the sky, all traces of who they had been burned out of them years before?
Nothing moved, nothing stirred. The frogs croaked on, the breeze slipped like liquid around me as I slunk from the shadows and scampered across the courtyard – so afraid, like a child who doesn’t dare swing her legs from her bed lest teeth and claws should ravage her in the dark. I felt so exposed in my flit over the slabs, here in this triumphant bravery that I had so commended myself upon, that I cringed like a coward.
But if pressed, I would have to admit that somewhere within me something else was stirring – something akin to fear but electric with vitality. Theseus was behind that door, his tousled hair and silvery eyes and every muscled inch of him, and it wasn’t just the fear of my father catching me that set my skin aflame. I didn’t know much of men; between Minos, the Minotaur and now Cinyras, I hadn’t wanted to learn. Or so I thought, until I caught the gaze of a handsome hostage and on the strength of that glance, let the fire he ignited within me burn down everything I knew.