Ariadne(26)

I rested my head against the wood for a moment, waiting for the black spots to stop dancing in my vision, waiting for the roar in my head to disperse. I wondered if Theseus was pressed against the door as well, this slab of ancient wood and iron separating our bodies.

It would not be long now.





9


I awoke with the first unfurling shoots of dawn across the sky. I don’t know how long had passed but I didn’t feel tired. I was charged with a nervous energy that made me feel more awake than I had ever been.

I dressed quickly in the dim light and stole outside across the courtyard as the sky began to brighten. The world felt poised, suspended in a perfect balance between night and day, and I felt as though I stood on the very cusp of something momentous. The day that this sun heralded would be the end of the life I had led so far. What it would start, I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t pin down the fluttery dreams that wreathed around me. It would be exciting, it would be different, that I knew. But that was all.

The sun rose from the horizon, casting spirals of pink and amber light streaking through the sky above. My grandfather pulled that fiery ball behind his chariot, climbing higher and higher into the darkness that he obliterated as he brought the world to life each morning. I knew his blood pulsed in me for a reason, that I was born to do something special. Pasiphae had changed the world, but thanks to Poseidon’s spite, her power had spread a dark ugliness that had congealed beneath the stones of Crete and befouled us all. Now, I would wipe that out in a sweep of light as though I pulled Helios’ chariot myself.

The world was bathed in gold as I reached my dancing-floor. The stillness of dawn was breaking to the stirring of life, to the high, fluting notes of the songbirds and the ripple of warmth that promised the heat of the day to come. My feet pounded out a fast rhythm across the wood. Anyone who heard it throughout the palace would think it signalled the beat of the drums that would sound the passage of the prisoners into the Labyrinth that night; that I danced in anticipation of the ceremony of death. But interwoven with the sombre core of my steps, I practised a light and skittering pattern that spiralled across my floor like the streaks of light colouring the sky. Today I would seize my destiny for myself. I was a fitting wife for a legendary hero and I would prove it. My story would not be one of death and suffering and sacrifice. I would take my own place in the songs that would be sung about Theseus: the princess who saved him and ended the monstrosity that blighted Crete.

I danced for the end of everything I knew and the beginning of everything I did not. Beyond the palace walls, bulls lowed long and loud as they were led to the gates ready for sacrifice. In the temples incense burned, sending sweet smoke to the heavens in preparation for the blood that would follow, spilled to honour the gods. And far beneath my dancing feet, hooves rumbled impatiently, and as the sun reached its triumphant zenith in the sky above, the Minotaur bellowed in the blackness below.

*

The day passed with agonising slowness. I yearned to speak to Phaedra but privacy was impossible. As I passed her chamber, hoping to find her alone so that we could talk, I was brought up short by the unexpected sight of Pasiphae combing out Phaedra’s long, golden curls and twisting them into braids.

She used to do our hair, I remembered. I could hear her laughter and feel the warmth of her fingers against my neck; the quick deftness of her hands shaping my hair into intricate shapes. It had been so long. But now Phaedra sat patiently and Pasiphae braided quietly.

Athens would weep today and Crete would thrill with its own dark power, and Pasiphae was the source of it all. Did that mean something to her? Enough to draw her from her silent abstraction, to give her some sense of pride that reminded her now of the importance of appearance, that made her want to present her younger daughter to the world today? Phaedra, whole and innocent and pulsing with vitality. Pasiphae’s children: a heroic martyr, a fearsome monster, beautiful daughters, and an heir to the throne. Perhaps she felt she really did have something to be proud of in her brood today, when fourteen other children would die.

My mother saw me hovering in the archway. ‘Come in,’ she invited. Her voice was low but she swung her eyes up to meet mine briefly. I sat on the edge of Phaedra’s couch. ‘So beautiful,’ Pasiphae said. I don’t know if she addressed me, Phaedra – or no one at all.

I watched as she twisted the last braids into a crown around Phaedra’s head. None of us spoke, but the silence felt companionable. I sensed that if Phaedra opened her mouth, anything could spill from it. The excitement crackling from her was palpable. It hardly seemed decorous for a young princess to seem quite so thrilled at the prospect of a human sacrifice taking place that evening.

Phaedra slipped from her seat and Pasiphae turned to me. Her smile was sweet, though her eyes were blank. ‘Now you,’ she said, gesturing for me to sit before her.

She slid a comb through my hair, spilling my curls over her hand. I felt the gentle pressure of her fingers working against my skull. It was so familiar and so almost forgotten that I felt tears brimming immediately. Pasiphae seemed quietly content and so I lost myself in the sensation of my mother plaiting my hair, as though I was a child again, as though I was not planning to help the avowed murderer of her youngest child carry out his crime and rob Crete of its monster and its princesses in one night.

The room was warm, stupefying with the haze of heat striking the stones outside, and I felt myself begin to drift. Lulled by Pasiphae’s quiet attention as she coiled and twisted locks of my hair into what would no doubt be a golden crown like the one adorning Phaedra’s head, my eyes grew heavy and I thought of Theseus’ arms around me. I felt a surge of cool, green water lifting me, bearing me away. Its tides swung me across a vast ocean, borne giddy and light over the breaking crest of the white-tipped foamy waves. The half-wakeful dream took me swooping out to an endless expanse of empty ocean. Somewhere, I knew, Ariadne sat in an ornate and gilded room whilst Pasiphae slid heavy, bejewelled ornaments into her hair, but I was miles away, spinning in currents that tugged me in every direction but home. Until, abruptly, I felt gritty sand beneath me and I knew I was on a beach. But it was not one I knew, and I was alone – so alone that it tore a ragged, gaping wound in my body – and when I looked down I could see only sand.