Ariadne(72)

I clutched my arms reflexively around Tauropolis. I thought of the innocent, smiling faces of my own sons when they were engaged in their simple little delights, running with arms outstretched across the golden sweep of the beach, and the way the wind carried their giggles to me wherever I was. I closed my eyes, trying to banish the image of their faces, silent and still, swallowed by the merciless water.

‘A hungry beast bellowing for blood is an effective source of terror, I know,’ Phaedra reflected. ‘But the mind of Daedalus at your disposal, such a thing makes a king more powerful than any mindless monster imprisoned in the dark.’ She went on, describing how Minos had set out at once to pursue Daedalus.

‘I looked for Minos’ sails on the horizon every day at first,’ I admitted, flinching at the memory. ‘I thought he would be searching the seas for me.’

She laughed again. ‘Ariadne, Minos barely even spoke of you! He had lost his legendary miscreation and he had lost his prodigious inventor. What on earth would he care for the loss of a daughter? You brought him no prestige; you could command no fear on his behalf.’

She made no attempt to soften her words on my account, and I was glad for the sting of the breeze against my burning cheeks. ‘And his death?’ I asked.

She told me of how he met his end, burned alive in the bath in a Sicilian court, so very far from home.

My hand, which had been rhythmically stroking Tauropolis’ back throughout Phaedra’s tale – though whether it was more for his benefit or my own, I could not say – stilled. I could not pretend to feel any grief for Minos, though I could not quite bring myself to relish the image of his undoing. I could hear such an edge in Phaedra’s voice though. I thought of Minos in the Underworld already; those dark, shadowy lands that Dionysus had described to me. Did he wait there for me to descend one day, already enthroned before the great palace of Hades, dispensing his judgement upon each soul brought before him, as Dionysus had foreseen? I felt a chill ripple down my spine to think of that impassive gaze resting upon my spirit one day. ‘With Minos gone on his fruitless quest,’ Phaedra continued evenly, ‘it had fallen to Deucalion to take charge. He knew the rebellious hatred that festered in the breast of every man on Crete, and beyond, against our family. He knew that he could hold that hatred in check through fear, the way that Minos had always done, or he could choose a different path and seek peace with our enemies. Our brother is a gentle soul, Ariadne. You know what he would choose.’

I did know this. The pieces were falling into place now, with a horrifying kind of finality. ‘Your Athenian ship,’ I said. ‘The prince to whom Dionysus told me you were promised—’

She nodded. ‘Though Theseus was already King by then. And it was agreed that I was to be his Queen.’

I had known, deep down, that there could be no other explanation, but the confirmation was sickening nonetheless.

‘But what about me?’ I asked, annoyed at how tremulous and reedy my voice sounded, even to my own ears.

I saw the firm set of her jaw, the imperious toss of her head that I remembered. ‘Of course, we did not know what had truly happened to you, Ariadne!’ She sounded irritated, as though I were a fly she could not swat away. ‘Theseus was ready with the lies that flow so easily from his lips.’ Her tone was scathing as she told me what he had claimed about our time on Naxos.

Of course Theseus had a story ready. He would hardly tell the world of his own ordinary betrayal. ‘So you believed I was dead, all this time?’ I marvelled.

‘For some time, yes,’ she answered thoughtfully. We had walked quite a distance along the winding cliff path by now and she stopped at a stone bench positioned at just the right point to look out at the sweep of the bay and the wide expanse of flat, glittering ocean. ‘I did not know then that lying comes as easily to that man as breathing or walking or drinking wine.’ The flat bitterness in her tone surprised me, though her astute assessment of Theseus’ character did not. I wondered what it had been like for her to escape the prison of Knossos only to come to the court of a man like Theseus.

I had envisaged such happiness for Phaedra when Dionysus told me she had gone to marry a great prince. I would have felt so very differently, had I known that the prince was Theseus. Was that why Dionysus had not told me the full truth? Had he kept it from me to preserve my own peace of mind? What would I have done, I wondered, if he had given me honesty? Would I have wanted to sail across the sea to Athens myself to scoop up my younger sister and bear her away from such a husband?

I could still see her now, enraptured eyes fixed upon him in that circle of rocks where he told us his stories. He had treated me with cold indifference when he no longer needed my help, a callousness that took my breath away to think of it, but that did not mean he must have treated my sister the same. Perhaps her more rebellious nature had served her well; perhaps he had not despised her passive adoration the way he had despised mine. She would surely have presented him with more challenges and been less willing to believe his every crawling untruth than the foolish me of years ago. Something in her voice when she spoke his name, however, suggested otherwise. It did not speak of a contented marriage, and I wondered how painfully she had learned the true nature of the man she had loved, as I had done.

‘I had no choice in marrying him, but at least I did not know how he had truly left you,’ she told me.