Ariadne(48)
My heart leapt. Who knew how long such an invitation from a god would last? Who could say what he would ask next time? If indeed he ever returned. I could not go home, but if I could survive here – even if it were only at the whim of a god, even if he forgot me the moment he left – it was a chance of some sort. ‘I would like to, very much,’ I answered. ‘But may I dare to make a request of you?’
He laughed, and looked pleased. ‘Of course!’
‘On your travels, please could you find news of my sister Phaedra? What has happened to her . . . since I left.’
His face softened. ‘Of course. I will bring you news of her next time I return.’
My fortunes could not have been reversed any more dramatically than this, and the very abruptness of the change made me uneasy. That night, I slept in an airy chamber heaped with finery. I awoke to a rosy dawn and as I gazed out into the amber light, hope wrestled with doubt in my breast. I knew of gods and their demands, the games they played with mortals, and the way they discarded the broken fragments of the humans who adored them. Somehow, it seemed that I had encountered a god who demanded nothing of me and gave generously; a god who smiled and laughed like a boy, full of impish charm and merriment. A god who spoke to me like a friend on this strange island where no normal rules applied. I wanted so much to believe that this could be true. But I had believed Theseus and he had left me on that desolate beach to die, with my home in ruins behind me, forever beyond my reach. I had looked into his clear, green eyes and seen sincerity. So how could I know what was truly behind Dionysus’ smiles?
That morning, he boarded his ship once more with Acoetes. ‘You will make your return home in my company,’ he assured him, slapping him heartily on the back. ‘I will give you many treasures in thanks for your piety and you may tell everyone that you are a worthy friend of Dionysus.’ He turned to me. ‘You will be safe here, Ariadne,’ he assured me. ‘Food will replenish in the pantry, wine and water will flow freely. And it will not be long until I return again.’
And so, I was alone on Naxos again, but I lived now in luxurious comfort beyond anything I had known even in Knossos. The gods lived better than kings.
I would have thought I had dreamed it all, but just as Dionysus said, the pantry brimmed with food and water ran clear and cold and bounteous. I filled every bowl I could find. I could not trust that it would not stop; as he wandered the world wherever he might be, surely he would forget his promise and the fountain would run dry again? Restlessly, I paced the courtyard. Again and again, I found myself scouring the horizon for a ship. Apprehension mounted within me as I wondered what difference it would make in the end if I died in an empty palace rather than a lonely cottage? Whether hunger and thirst took me as the treacherous Princess of Crete or the forgotten Priestess of Naxos?
Whether it was the recklessness created by the prospect of an imminent death, or the odd comfort I took in knowing this was the isle of Dionysus, I dared myself to stride out further into the island. I still shrank from the prospect of wild beasts or treacherous rocks or the dark depths of the forests, but my curiosity grew stronger than my fear. I had never known anywhere but Crete and I had spent most of my life behind its palace walls. I saw Daedalus in my mind’s eye, talking to me of distant lands when I had hung about him in my girlhood. A hunger stirred within me. I walked.
I felt that I knew every inch of the wide golden sweep of the bay and the great pile of rocks that jutted out over it behind the newly made palace. In a matter of days, it had become more real to me than Crete. My childhood home seemed a dusty memory to me now, a world away from where I was. Deeper inland, however, the forests clustered together at the foot of a mighty peak – a mountain that stretched up as though it sought to reach the sky-dwelling Olympians. The forest climbed at its base, but the trees began to thin out further up, their scrubby patches of green becoming increasingly sparse against the brown earth and jutting boulders. I had never ventured there.
At first, I skirted the forest tentatively, unsure of the dark tangled thickets that twisted together, but as I gained courage, I took bolder steps into its interior. I was perpetually braced against the sudden crashing of wild boar or the soft slither of a snake across a branch, but all I heard was the clicking of cicadas and the occasional shriek of a bird wheeling through the canopy above. I longed to reach the mountain, to scale a fraction of its terrain in the hope of seeing the scope of the island beyond it, but caution held me back from going too far and becoming lost amidst the trees. I always turned back.
As the days passed, anxiety gnawed at my insides, growing stronger. I had been a fool to think I could trust a god, of all creatures! I had been a passing diversion, an amusement, a witness to his trick of turning pirates into dolphins, a mortal in whose admiration he could bask before he left again. The solitude and the silence were heavy around me.
‘Damn you, Dionysus!’ I spoke aloud. The sound of my own voice was too loud, too strange as it bounced off the cold marble pillars, reverberating through the empty air.
‘What a way to speak to a deity,’ came the reply.
I spun round, my blood freezing in my veins.
I had not looked for his ship that morning, so convinced was I by now that he would not return. And here he stood, more dazzling than I remembered, his smile more mocking, his eyes aflame with something wicked. Inside, I cringed at my own stupidity in speaking so rashly, but I held myself steady. ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘I did not think—’