Ariadne(54)
He dropped his hand from my face. ‘You do not trust me.’
It was true, though somehow I could not name the source of my reluctance. Did I think that he toyed with me, that this was an elaborate pretence put on for his own amusement, when underneath he was as savage as the rest of the gods? I could not say for sure.
‘When I was a child, I trusted the gods,’ I heard myself say. ‘But Poseidon sent us the Minotaur, and my father stood by. When Theseus came, I thought he was not like them. But he was worse – for at least they never pretended to be what they were not.’
His expression darkened, just a little. When he was not smiling, he looked as though he were carved from marble, though the unearthly planes of his face were beyond the art of any sculptor that had ever lived. ‘I do not pretend,’ he told me.
But how could I know? All I knew was that there would be tomorrow, and perhaps he would be here. Or perhaps he would be gone.
To my surprise, I did not awaken to a lonely, bereft dawn. Each morning that followed, in defiance of my expectations, Dionysus was there and the island came alive with his chatter, song and laughter. The vines grew in wild abundance and he showed me how to prune back the thick woody stems to keep them from consuming the villa altogether. Beside them, he planted small beds of vegetables and fruit trees and I found a deep satisfaction in plunging my hands into the dusty earth alongside him and watching, day by day, as green shoots emerged from the ground and pomegranates, lemons and figs slowly ripened on the branches.
And every day I walked with a golden god. I prevailed upon him to show me more of the island, and in his company I penetrated the farthest reaches of the forest. I surprised myself to discover that my legs gained strength all the while, even when he showed me the path through the trees to the base of the great mountain and, together, we scaled its lower slopes. I was proud when we reached a clearing in the trees some way up where a platform of rock gave a view of what lay behind the mountain.
‘What do you make of my home?’ Dionysus asked me mischievously.
I could hardly speak. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I managed. And truly it was. The island of Naxos extended further than I had imagined. It was rich in vegetation, with great swathes of forest sweeping down to the dramatic curves of the bays where golden sand gave way to emerald waters. Other mountains, smaller than the one on whose sides we now perched, rose across its centre in soft peaks and Helios’ light bathed it all in a glorious sheen.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ Dionysus said.
He gradually told me more stories of his life. He painted a picture of an idyllic youth. The sweetness and the love of the nymphs – and Silenus’ jokes and silliness – had made his childhood so unlike that of the other gods, who either sprang fully formed into vicious existence or battled and sliced their way to adulthood.
One twilight, he pointed to a circlet of stars glimmering faintly in the indigo sky and told me, ‘There are my aunts, the nymphs who raised me so tenderly. After they died, Zeus placed them into the sky in gratitude for their service in bringing me up and hiding me from Hera.
‘But she was not done with me,’ he went on. ‘When I was fully grown and my father considered me to be safe, he brought me to the halls of Olympus. She could not strike me down, but she brought upon me instead a madness that drove me from the cloud-cloaked mountain, back on to the earth. I felt a thousand scorpions clawing at the inside of my skull; a frenzied torment beating relentlessly so that I could make no sense of anything. I wandered desperately for months, for years, seeing nothing and feeling nothing but the agony. As I got farther away from her malign influence, and as time passed and she moved on to other grudges and other hatreds, slowly the madness passed. I opened my eyes one morning and could see clearly; my vision no longer tinged red and jagged, my thoughts flowing once more.
‘I was in no hurry to rush back to Mount Olympus. Instead, I walked amongst men. I shared with them the means to crush grapes into wine and I brought them the sweet and welcome ecstasy that it can give. They thanked me profusely and shrines were built to me across the lands. Women would leave their lives of drudgery and obedience; they would cast off their veils and loosen their hair to escape into the mountains for secret rites, away from the eyes of men. The menfolk would tolerate it, as their downtrodden wives returned revived and refreshed, light-hearted and merry once more. Some chose to follow me, and my maenads are ever growing in number. They will come to Naxos when . . . when it is time . . . and you will see.’
Uncharacteristically, he stumbled over his words here and I looked at him quizzically, wondering what that ‘time’ he talked of might be.
‘One day I met a youth named Ampelos, whose beauty rivalled that of any god I had seen throned at Mount Olympus. Loose-limbed, smooth-skinned and always laughing, he seemed to be my mortal half that I believed had been destroyed with my mother. I helped his people learn to plough their fields with oxen rather than by hand. Together, we cultivated great fields of vines that grew so tall and thick they became a forest laden with beautiful, plump grapes. There were endless streams of rich, red wine from the presses, and I believed that I had found the peace and happiness I had not known since my days on Mount Nysa.’
His eyes clouded over as he spoke. I tensed, my fingernails digging hard into my palm, sitting as still and quiet as a cat, intent on what was to come next.
‘But Ampelos was mortal and prone to the frailties of all humans. No vengeful curse of the gods or divine punishment took my Ampelos away from me; only the simple indignity of the twists that the Fates have devised for all mankind. One day, he climbed too high in pursuit of a tempting cluster of grapes and he lost his footing. My lovely youth plunged to the ground and his neck broke against the rocks—’