Ariadne(71)

Some of the questions that had competed for supremacy were now separating out in my mind, despite the bellow that Tauropolis was presently building up to. ‘The sails on your ship . . . the cloaks your men wear, Phaedra—’ I began, restlessly pacing the tiles, knowing that if I were to even think about sitting for a moment on one of the cushioned couches, the baby’s howls would rise in an ear-splitting crescendo.

She waved her hand sharply through the air, cutting off the confused flow of words with ease. ‘They are Athenian, yes,’ she answered. ‘I sit on the throne of Athens now, it is true. There is so much to tell you that you do not know, I can see.’ Her eyes cut briefly to the squalling child on my chest.

I felt a tiny smoulder of embarrassment begin to coil in my stomach. Why did I know nothing? Why had I not sought to find anything out, beyond the concerns about my children that occupied me day to day: how fast Oenopion seemed to be growing to manhood, wavering awkwardly between boy and youth; the serious nature of my second-born Latromis’ disposition who always had to be coaxed to smile; how young Staphylus’ bony ankles were poking out always from beneath his robes, however fast I wove more; how their inquisitive little brother Thoas could be kept from the rocky edges of the cliffs and dissuaded from poking the scorpions that he desperately tried to pursue into caves; how Tauropolis could be convinced to sleep more than an hour at a time. My world, which had seemed so rich and full as I stood on the beach that morning, watching the glittering surf and marvelling at my own good fortune, now suddenly struck me as so very small when looked at from the outside.

‘Let us walk,’ I said hastily. ‘The baby will sleep again – he does not like to be still.’

Phaedra’s face softened. ‘I know what that is like,’ she murmured.

I released a breath I had not realised I had been holding. I felt a rush of . . . I don’t know what emotion. Tears squeezed at my eyes and I tried to shake them away, impatiently. ‘You have a child yourself?’ I asked, the bitter-sweet clench of joy and regret intermingling within me.

She waved her hand again, as though it were something of no consequence. ‘Two,’ she answered, but did not elaborate. ‘But that is not where I wish to begin – at the end, in a muddle.’ She sucked in her breath, a hard inhalation of exasperation or uncertainty, I was not sure which.

‘Then tell me from the beginning,’ I suggested.

‘The beginning,’ she said slowly. We had walked through the courtyard, out past the boulder where I watched the sea, down along the path that skirted the edges of the cliff. Although she had never set foot upon this island before, we fell into step rather than me leading her. She still strode forward with the confidence of the girl who had leapt from the rocks in the darkness, brandishing a club nearly the same size as her, ready to take on whatever was coming.

Her lips upturned in a smile that spoke of a private joke. Not one that gave her simple pleasure; there was something of a grimace in the way she twisted her mouth. The baby still fretted, and my hair blew in the wind across my eyes in a way that irritated me, but I did not dare move my hands from where they cupped his little body for fear he would begin to scream once more.

‘Ariadne, do you know that Minos is dead?’

My face must have spoken eloquently enough of my surprise.

‘He has been dead for many years now, ever since . . .’ She breathed out a long, measured breath through pursed lips. ‘But even that, that is not the beginning. I don’t . . .’

I felt the real question forming on my lips now, the one I had longed to ask since the moment I had seen her riding across the waves. ‘Was it terrible? The next day – when he found out?’

She laughed, a sharp bark of laughter that made me jump. Tauropolis squealed in anger and twisted, and I saw the annoyance flash in her eyes as I calmed him again. I had imagined our reunion so many times, but it had not been like this. I had expected recriminations, yes, and grief and sadness, but I had thought that our meeting would flow with ease. I had not expected to navigate these sharp edges, these unexpected irritations. I wondered, with foreboding, just what horrors I really had left behind that night.

‘He hopped and squawked and cursed, yes.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘He looked like a fool, for he had no monster to feast on the flesh of his enemies any more. Thanks to you,’ she added.

‘But even without the Minotaur, surely . . .’ I ventured. It was strange to me to hear her laugh at Minos’ wrath. The picture she sketched of him, choking on empty threats, was not the icy bearing of the tyrant that I remembered.

‘It was not just the Minotaur he lost that night,’ she said. For a moment I assumed that she meant me, but she went on. ‘It was the loss of Daedalus that pained him the most, I think.’

My heart lifted. ‘I had heard that Daedalus escaped. Tell me how he managed it, for I have often wondered!’ The vigorous breeze plastered a hank of hair directly across my eyes and I could not see Phaedra’s face as she spoke, though her voice stayed calm and measured as though describing nothing more to me than the weather as she told me just what had become of the kindly architect of my liberation and his beloved son. I clutched at the pendant I still wore – as brilliant as the day he had given it to me, for none of Daedalus’ creations could ever suffer the ravages of age. I saw Phaedra notice my gesture; the little twist of her mouth as she remembered, too, the days of our childhood.