Ariadne(94)
We found a sort of peace, Dionysus and I and the maenads. We looked resolutely away and navigated the awkward spaces in clumsy silence, not acknowledging what we were avoiding and why. It held. But I breathed more easily when he was gone, when I could reclaim the beaches and the forests and the calm silence under the great, silver moon.
The problem of the Argives still troubled Dionysus, though. He burned still with resentment towards his sanctimonious mortal half-brother, who maintained his stance against the cult of wine.
‘It doesn’t surprise me though,’ I said to him one evening, when he had been complaining afresh of the steadfast defiance of the city of Argos.
The scent of jasmine rolled in, thick and sensuous, from the heart of the island, drifting over the lazy surf. Dionysus did not seem to notice the beauty of our surroundings. He used to revel in it when he returned from dusty desert plains or reeking cities. He would fling his head back and breathe in the fresh, unspoiled air of Naxos and pronounce himself replete and satisfied, drunk on the fragrant breeze itself. Now he kicked at the sand by his feet, trying to dislodge a rock wedged deep beneath. A frown wrinkled the perfection of his forehead.
‘What doesn’t surprise you? His arrogance or his disobedience?’ he grumbled.
‘Either. Both. Any of it.’ I watched his toe strike the rock. A mortal man would have winced, clutched his foot, hopped in a pantomime of anguish. A bruise would have bloomed like a livid green and yellow flower across his skin. Dionysus took aim again and struck. A hairline crack zigzagged across the rough surface of the stone. ‘Any man who brandishes such a shield has no concept of the meaning of respect.’
Whenever Dionysus brought up the subject of Perseus, I thought of Medusa. I could see the hero’s great sword slashing through the air, glinting in the sunlight, whilst he cocked his eye at her reflection in his mirrored shield and aimed for her vulnerable throat. Medusa, whose only crime had been her pathetic pride in her lovely hair. I thought of her transformed face, contorted and monstrous, fixed in a never-ending, soundless scream on that same shield now. Frozen stone statues were reputed to line the walls that surrounded Argos; all caught forever in their grimace of terror as Perseus flashed that mighty disc upon each miserable criminal or sinner or enemy that offended him.
‘The story of the Gorgon displeases you,’ Dionysus remarked. ‘Why does it disgust you so very much?’
When we had talked for the first time about Pasiphae and Semele, he had read my feelings from my face with ease. He had known how I felt, for he felt the same. Why did he not know now?
‘Medusa was made into a monster to pay for Poseidon’s crime,’ I reminded him. ‘Now a man flaunts her head, lurid and grotesque, to punish his enemies. Everyone shrinks from her. But Poseidon’s altars still burn with offerings.’
‘Perseus used Medusa like your father used the Minotaur,’ Dionysus said quietly.
I turned my head, surprised. So he did remember. He took my hand. His palm was warm and dry against mine. I felt the space between us shrink a little.
‘Minos met his punishment in a faraway court, justice doled out to him by strangers. It should not have been thus. I should have meted it out to him myself – to him and Theseus alike – for what they did.’
I had never yearned for revenge; just to be free of them both was enough. I wondered if Medusa’s severed head could still think and feel, affixed forever to her conqueror’s shield, to bring him glory and victory wherever he went. What revenge would sate her thirst? What would be enough to slake the white-hot fury that must consume her every moment if she could see how he displayed her like a trophy and made men quake at his feet, instead of hers?
‘What quarrel did you have with the King of Crete or the Prince of Athens?’ I asked. ‘They did not wrong you. Theseus brought me here and left me for you, so perhaps we should be grateful to him.’ I laughed. It didn’t sound like me. ‘But Perseus . . . Perseus is your younger brother. You are right; he should defer to you. And in whose hands would his punishment be better fitted than yours?’
It was a lie. I didn’t really care that Perseus forbade the worship of Dionysus. May the Argive goats live on unmolested, I thought. But I liked the idea that Dionysus might bring Perseus a little humility. If he could take that repulsive shield away from him, perhaps bring the monster-maiden some respite at last . . .
He twisted his fingers through mine. When he smiled, I felt a shifting of things back into place.
‘What if we go on an Argive adventure?’ he suggested. His eyes brimmed with an old merriment. ‘You said that you wanted to accompany me on my travels, now is the time. Perhaps we can show him what he denies his people by forbidding my rites.’
I didn’t ask him what he meant. But I gave my approval all the same. So how can I deny responsibility for what he did?
That night, storms rolled in over Naxos. The skies filled with looming clouds and Aeolus loosed raging winds across the island, battering the cypress trees and the vineyards, bending even the mightiest oaks on the mountain and bringing them down in great, splintering crashes. Lightning pulsed in vivid sheets of bright white, and thunder growled like a ravenous beast.
I cuddled the boys close and told them stories on the soft cushions that we heaped around ourselves. I told them about the kindly nymphs of Nysa who raised their father. I told them of the Amazon hordes who ran wild and free, who could shoot their arrows with deadly accuracy from the back of a bucking horse and whose skill with the spear was unparalleled. At length, despite the pounding rain that drummed relentlessly against the stone walls, they slept. When I dared to loosen my arms from around their little bodies, I crept over to the window from where I had so many times watched the Dionysian procession lead up the mountains. No maenads walked on Naxos tonight. The clearing would be empty. It would just be the trees and the storm.