Ariadne(25)

Theseus smiled again, that easy, careless smile. ‘It will be good for you,’ he said, ‘to have her as a companion.’

I swallowed, not sure what he meant. Would I be alone once we arrived in Athens otherwise? Where did he plan to be?

He moved closer to me and caught a strand of my hair between his thumb and finger. I couldn’t find enough air to breathe; Theseus filled all the space in front of me. ‘You will be glad,’ he continued, ‘to have your sister dance at our wedding.’

He kissed me then. It was a bolt of lightning, a shattering of the sky, a shaking of the earth and everything that stood upon it. And when he drew away and held my face between his hands and fixed me with that steady gaze and the world grew still once more, I knew that despite the chaos and confusion left in its wake, my path was clear.

I would guide Theseus through the Labyrinth. And then he would take my hand and guide me to my future. I would be his wife, this Prince of Athens, and our life would be different to anything I had known within Minos’ marble walls and different to anything that Cyprus could hold.

I handed him the thick ball of twine. I had held it so fast throughout the hours we had talked that it had left deep imprints carved into my palm. ‘When you enter the Labyrinth tomorrow,’ I told him, ‘you must fasten this to the doors once they are bolted behind you. Secure it to you firmly, for without it, you will never find your way back out again. Believe me, for it is truly impossible. It will be dark, so dark you cannot see an inch in front of you. I will leave your club beside the doors, for I can enter tomorrow. No guard will accompany you inside, no Cretan will set foot within that place, so there is no risk it will be found. If any of your fellow hostages should flee through the maze, they will die in there. Tell them to stay where they stand and let you go ahead. Walk straight. Do not turn.’ I swallowed.

I saw him striding through the darkness. The stink of rotten meat and the clattering of bones would not deter him. The pounding of my brother’s hooves would not alarm him. He would not imagine for one moment that he could die. But I could see this living flesh, this pulse that beat so steadily beneath my fingertips, torn and tattered and hanging in strips from my brother’s jaws. In the darkness of the Labyrinth, how would he know from which direction the monster would strike? Asterion’s terrible horns could impale him if he charged at Theseus from the impenetrable gloom, before Theseus could even raise his club.

‘I know that you have faced many battles,’ I said. ‘But you have not seen the Minotaur. You do not know his strength.’ I blinked away the tears that blurred my vision so that I could look at his face and memorise every detail of it to store in my mind. I would not forget one instant of this.

‘I will return to you,’ he said, and the gentle tone of his voice broke me. Until now he had been commanding, strong and powerful. The sudden tenderness in his voice was something I was unprepared for. A storm of sobs rose up in my throat and I wanted to cling to him like barnacles to a rock. ‘You must wait by the doors,’ he said. ‘I will return and when I do, we must move quickly. We cannot delay. With the Minotaur gone, Crete will strike against us. So I must be back in Athens as swiftly as possible to raise my forces whilst it is vulnerable. But most of all, I need to get you away from here before you can be found.’

Our plans were made. I knew I should be wracked with doubt but I knew that I would do this. Betray my father. Send death to my brother, wrapped in a red cord that would bring his killer back to me. Desert my mother. And, of course, leave Crete and never return.

I will not say it was an easy decision but it was the only one I could have made. The world was on fire and Theseus was a shaded, green pool.

‘Will you lock me back up now?’ Theseus asked.

I laughed. ‘I suppose I will have to.’ I don’t know how long we had spent out by the rocks. Too brief a time, but long enough to change everything. I wanted to stay there with him, but to prolong it any further was to risk losing him altogether. After tomorrow night, our future stretched out before us and I would have years ahead of me with him. I would be a part of his story now: the love he won in Crete that gave him his victory.

We crept back to his cell, quiet elation fizzing through my veins. ‘You will not drop the thread?’ I murmured as he pushed the heavy iron door open.

He pulled me inside the dark room. ‘I will hold on to it,’ he promised. ‘I will not let it go, whatever happens.’

He pushed me against the wall and I didn’t care that the harsh stone scraped my skin. His kisses were urgent, not soft like they had been by the rocks. I felt like he was branding me.

‘Tomorrow,’ he mumbled harshly into my hair. ‘Tomorrow, we will be free from here, the waves will carry us away together.’

I longed to be on that ship with him now. I may have been plotting treachery against my family, but it was my body that was betraying me just then. I could not command my legs to carry me out of that miserable cell. ‘Go, Ariadne,’ he was telling me, though his arms were clamped around me like iron bracelets.

Panic was rising within me, my head was filled with a ringing blare; I knew I had to leave but I did not know how to tear myself away from him. It went against every instinct, every nerve in my body that was burning for his touch, but he was releasing me and somehow I was moving away and through the doorway, back into the courtyard. The door closed and I wanted to howl at the wrongness of a barrier between us. But my hand was fitting the key back into the lock and although my palm slipped, slick with sweat, slipped on the metal, the lock thudded into place.