The Thinara King Read online

  “O Athene,” Themiste was saying, “in the heavens thy face is crowned by eternal stars, and upon this soil thou art robed in the glorious green of life.

  “Thy servant has from birth carried the name Chrysaleon, but now he rises, naked and unarmed, crowned in thy holly, and becomes for the remainder of his days, Zagreus, as he follows in the steps of every hero before him.”

  Chrysaleon’s hand tightened around Aridela’s.

  The bull, bound on a low sacrificial table, struggled. Blood flowed from its sliced throat through a grooved channel into a bowl held by one of the priestesses. Helice took the bowl and poured blood on the ground between the two pillars. She scooped wine from one of three tripods and poured it on the earth over the blood.

  Themiste mixed a few drops of the bull’s blood into wine, and stirred it with a silver ladle. Aridela and Chrysaleon dipped a ceremonial cup, made of purest gold and carved with scenes of the bull rite, into the potion. They drank of it, their arms entwined.

  The priestesses rang bells, which signaled an end to the rite.

  Now, when all should be pleasure and relief, Aridela found a small corner of her mind recoiling over this union with a foreigner, a male of different beliefs and traditions. Chrysaleon had assured the council he would honor Crete’s laws and customs, yet how could he and still fulfill the expectations of his own people? Buried doubts pushed past her fascination. Would he again try to convince her to flee to Mycenae, where she would live as royalty but relinquish her hereditary titles of Goddess-of-Life-in-Death and Goddess-of-Death-in-Life? She couldn’t even imagine the repercussions.

  Thinking Chrysaleon must feel the gravity of the rite as she did, must have heard the same warning revealed to her in the murmur of the sea, she stole a sideways glance at him.

  Triumph gleamed from narrowed eyes and along the uplifted curve of his lips. He spoke the ancient words they had taught him, vowing to uphold the laws and give his life in defense of the people. Without hesitation, he seized a rhyton and poured a libation in appeasement to the shade of the recently dead Zagreus.

  Aridela remained thoughtful as they left the shore and returned to the village. The price she and her lover paid for their year together was great. She relived the night the earth split, the suffocating ash and screams of mothers who lost their children, the gruesome swelling of the burned at Phaistos. Iphiboë’s grave face. You will forge peace among those who worship the Lady and those who follow angry gods.

  Beyond those sorrows, winter would soon descend. Everyone believed it would be severe. Many claimed their losses and suffering had only begun.

  Such memories and concerns might dampen anyone’s merriment. But Aridela was alarmed at the strength of these sudden, unexpected fears. As rain again coursed from dreary clouds, she sensed the full spectrum of foreboding in the words carried to her mind from the sea.

  Thou shalt be pierced, defiled, broken and wounded, even as I have been.

  Before the ceremony, Helice had overseen the sacrifice, prayers, and offerings. Now the dead bulls were roasted for feasting. Aridela had tried to dissuade her mother from this custom now that food was so scarce. It made more sense to nurture the animals for the coming winter, but Helice cited her faith that honoring the old ways would inspire the people and draw Athene’s goodwill. The only concession she made was to drastically reduce the number of bulls she sacrificed from a hundred to fifteen.

  Chrysaleon lounged at the head of the queen’s table, his hair bright and wavy, his brown chest richly oiled. Helice herself served him the finest cuts of meat, the plumpest dates and figs. Aridela held a goblet to his lips when he wished to drink, giggling at the faces he made to amuse her.

  Dancers swayed to beating drums and airy flutes. A Thessalonian harpist, trapped on the island after the Destruction, played the lyre and sang ancient songs of Athene, praising her priceless gifts of weaving and the olive.

  Artisans presented the new consort with a jug the height and breadth of a man, which pictured his battle with Xanthus. The hero in the painting wrestled with a gigantic bull-man, whose tail and horns coiled round and round even into the neck of the container.

  One of the eastern region’s judges beckoned to his men. They carried in a wooden cask filled with black stones. Pitted with sharp edges and holes, they gave off a pungent, scorched odor. Mixed with them were the same white clumps of rock that pummeled Phaistos the night of the Destruction, and which now choked the seas.

  “These fell from the sky the night Elasa was destroyed,” he claimed. “We find them half-buried in the earth. Can you smell the fire that lives still inside them?”

  Chrysaleon rose and came closer. He picked up one of the black ones. “This is like no rock I have ever seen,” he said.

  “Evidence of Our Lady’s anger,” Helice said quietly. “That we may never forget. Take them to the shrine and place them upon the altar with the jars of ash.”

  Bowing, the judge signaled his men to remove the cask.

  Chrysaleon returned to Aridela’s side. “These rocks trouble you.”

  “Athene has never shown such rage in all our history,” she said. “Was it because of the priestess who defiled her vows? Was it the barbarian’s sack of all within the shrine? Or something else? I fear we, too, will be swept from the world and forgotten.” She peered down at the crisscrossed scars on her arms, and shivered.

  “The ways of Immortals are beyond understanding.” Chrysaleon ran a soothing fingertip over the outer rim of her ear and along her jaw. “It is difficult to care about things I can’t change or control.” He shrugged. “Pray, if it eases your mind.” He glanced over the noisy crowd then returned his gaze to her. “Let us walk in the moonlight, my lady. Let me spend time alone with you, before the coupling. I want to see you smile again, like you used to.”

  She clasped his hands as indefinable emotion ran through her like a fierce drumbeat. “Promise nothing will come between us. Promise me, Chrysaleon.”

  “Nothing,” he murmured, with the faintest smile. “I vow it.”

  Until the rise of Iakchos hung between them like the misty veil of rain. Aridela saw his eyes darken, but he turned away to drink from his cup and the words dissipated beneath the chatter and ring of laughter echoing through the feasting hall.

  The clouds thinned, allowing starlight to twinkle through as litters carried the princess and her consort back to the strand by the sea. A host of priestesses spun a dance on the sand, weaving between the boulders, their upraised arms holding banners sewn with silver disks designed to catch and reflect the light from the red-tinted half-moon.

  The sea muttered like a vast, immeasurable beast, black but for starlight sparkling on the countless heaving tips of its rough-hewn back. Mist drifted, a sign of good fortune.

  “Mist is moonlight, drawn to earth by the dancers,” Aridela said.

  “Why must the people watch us mate?” Chrysaleon asked, though he’d asked the same question twice before. “You said it mirrors the sowing of the barley and rebirth of the land, but in my country, these are private matters.”

  Aridela heard his annoyance. It was confusing. She had grown up with the public consummation of queen and consort. Without it, no one would recognize the marriage. Longing for his approval, she tried a new story. “Athene once fell in love with a fisherman who sang to the seals. She appeared to him disguised in the body of a seal, and set fifty of her handmaids to dance for him. After, she showed him her true self, and they lay together in the sacred cave of Eleuthia. Athene loved this mortal. She wanted to do something for him. He had sung to the seals since he was a boy. They were his only friends. To please him, Athene gave these beasts the ability to become human whenever they wished, and she caused Kaphtor to bear the finest crops ever seen for twenty consecutive years. The coupling of consort and queen places the seed of new beginnings in the minds of the people, and shows our recognition of the blessings we’ve received. When a queen joins with her new consort here, at the edge of the sea, we
show the Goddess honor. The people witness this union of earth with the Goddess, and the act is mirrored in the land’s bounty. Tonight holds more importance than ever before. Look how we have suffered. Frost blights the crops, yet Themiste promises rebirth will come, if we show Lady Potnia reverence.”

  “What we do will help?”

  Aridela leaned against him and closed her eyes. “I know it will,” she said. “The cara makes my blood burn. Why did you refuse it? It would have blinded you to those who watch, and heated your lust.”

  He scowled. “I don’t trust those concoctions. I’ll do what I must, under my own power.”

  Themiste approached, followed by two priestesses. The mysterious reddish moonlight made all three seem more wraith than human. “It’s time, Aridela,” Themiste said, bowing.

  The priestesses led Chrysaleon away.

  Aridela followed Themiste down a path to the sand, hushed and awed by the ethereal light. The soft sough of waves made its endless lament, sparking a shiver along the back of her neck. Creeping mist created a diffused, dreamlike stage.

  Themiste draped the traditional sealskin around Aridela’s shoulders, covering her hair with the seal’s head and fastening it at the throat with silver clasps. To complete the preparations, she painted a blue crescent moon on the princess’s forehead.

  “You never saw yourself as a priestess,” she said. “Somehow, I think you always knew you would be queen. But every time I look at you with Chrysaleon, my worry intensifies. I feel a strong urge to help him, yet also this fear I cannot dispel. Promise you will be careful.”

  “I promise,” Aridela said, but her mind and body, livened by cara and the beginning notes from a lyre, carried her from nebulous warnings into the pulsing joy of mist, moon, and love, leaving little room for doubts and suspicion.

  Taking up a banner in each hand, Aridela placed herself in the center of the dancers. The priestesses sang and danced, their pennants reflecting captured moonlight.

  Chrysaleon stepped out of the shadows cast by a boulder. The nearest priestess cried in mock fear and broke away from her place in the dance.

  Priestesses ran in every direction. Chrysaleon leaped among them, clutching one then another. Each slipped away until only one, the one they’d circled, remained.

  Aridela stepped forward to the throb of a drum. She was acutely aware of every grain of sand that caressed the soles of her feet and the night chill pricking at her skin.

  She lifted her arms. “Mother, you who have always been, enter into me, your priestess. Use me as I lay my body upon yours. Plant seeds within me and within your earth. Bring life and growth to your blessed isle, a child from my womb, barley golden and full, grapes upon the vine. Weigh down the olive trees with fruit.”

  Helice and Themiste approached and stood on either side of the new queen.

  Helice held up a rhyton of bull’s blood. “Lower your eyes from the Goddess before you,” she ordered Chrysaleon. “Kneel, Zagreus, and when you rise, stand reborn, worthy of what you are given.” She drew him up from the ground and bowed before him. She and Themiste striped blood on Chrysaleon’s chest and shoulders then backed away.

  The drum continued its soft, patient accent.

  Chrysaleon picked Aridela up in his arms. He gazed into her eyes somberly, and lowered her to the sand.

  The priestesses chanted. Drums vibrated like the underlying beat of many hearts. Aridela remembered her mother performing this duty and drew strength from the memory.

  Moonlight crept over the boulder’s edge, showering them in translucence.

  With the light came the Lady.

  Chrysaleon pressed closer.

  The drumbeat quickened. Aridela was replenished in communion, her thirst quenched. The pitch and sway of her lover’s body brought images of barley and corn, high and ripe, ready to feed her people.

  She ascended in delight and joy, taking her lover with her, until both found the divine release promised by Eleuthia, goddess of love and childbearing.

  She peered through the delicate lace of mist toward Crete’s cheering populace.

  Menoetius stood apart from the rest, his isolation both drawing her attention and making him seem forlorn. Instead of the guilt and resentment she usually experienced at the sight of him, benevolence made her blood tingle. After a priestess wrapped her in a robe, she held out a hand and beckoned, inviting him closer.

  He approached, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze, return her smile, or take her offered hand. His rejection and judgment made her burn with humiliation.

  She would demand that Chrysaleon send him back to Mycenae so the lovers could enjoy their year free of his constant censure.

  She turned away pointedly and took Chrysaleon’s hand, holding it high.

  The people cheered for some time before Aridela motioned for silence. “It is done,” she announced. “We have honored Goddess Athene.”

  Renewed cheering echoed off the cliffs. At last it grew quiet but for the sound of the sea.

  “As your queen,” she said, lifting her head so her voice would carry, “I give my first command.”

  She paused, feeling the earth pause with her.

  “Bring wine for my people!”

  The cheering continued long after she and Chrysaleon left the beach.

  The bedchamber was chilly, though a fire burned in the hearth. Aridela rubbed her arms, noticing how the firelight seemed to make her scars gleam. Some were circular, some straight, as though carved by a vengeful whip. The worst were still raised, red and tender, while others had faded to white. She knew from mirrors that a few laced her upper back, and two, still pinkish, marred her face—one wove snake-like along her hairline above the left ear, and the other followed the line of her jaw. She remembered how curiosity had triumphed over terror the night of the Destruction, prompting her to lift her head and peer out of the makeshift barrier she and Chrysaleon had constructed. At that very instant, an object, glowing with fire, flew in and struck her, bouncing from her jaw to her temple and searing her skin.

  Most of the burns no longer hurt. Rhené promised time would diminish even the worst. But her flesh would never again be without flaw.

  She couldn’t help thinking of Menoetius. Did he rub his scars as she did in a fruitless wish to erase them? Did the ruin of her once-perfect skin soften his resentment toward her or strengthen it? He never gave his thoughts away, except for a constant frown that left her alternately furious and ridden with guilt.

  Movement in the air caused the lamps to flicker, taking her back to the prophetic night in the Cave of Velchanos. Two men, one disguised as a bull and the other a lion, had dropped off the ledge and stalked toward her, outlined in wind-blown lamplight. Her life had been forever changed.

  When would Chrysaleon come? She snuggled deeper into her fox-skin cocoon, not wanting to feel introspective. She wanted her wedding night to begin. She wanted to see her husband’s smile and warm her skin against his, to curl next to him and know it was the first of many nights they would sleep together, their limbs twined.

  Bringing a creeping sense of doom, the divine words of prophecy she’d heard during the wedding ceremony returned.

  I have lived many lives since the beginning, and so shalt thou. I have been given many names and many faces. So shalt thou, and thou wilt follow me from reverence and worship into obscurity. In an unbroken line wilt thou return, my daughter. Thou shalt be called Eamhair of the sea, who brings them closer, and Shashi, sacrificed to deify man. Thy names are Caparina, Lilith and the sorrowful Morrigan, who drives them far apart. Thou wilt step upon the earth seven times, far into the veiled future. Seven labyrinths shalt thou wander, lost, and thou too wilt forget me. Suffering and despair shall be thy nourishment. Misery shall poison thy blood. Thou wilt breathe the air of slavery for as long as thou art blinded. For thou art the earth, blessed and eternal, yet thou shalt be pierced, defiled, broken and wounded, even as I have been. Thou wilt generate inexhaustible adoration and contempt. Until these opposit
es are united, all will strangle within the void.

  What odd names. Eamhair. Shashi. Morrigan. Lilith. Her tongue didn’t feel comfortable forming any of them.

  Menoetius had heard the voice. She was certain of it. She had seen it in his expression. Yet this shared mystical gift from the Goddess changed nothing. He still avoided her, still leveled judgment upon her. She longed to speak to him of the experience, to learn what he’d heard, and what he thought it might mean. But his demeanor wouldn’t allow it. He deliberately kept her at arm’s length. His disdain made her too angry to attempt reconciliation.

  Laughter, singing, and the stutter of footsteps broke off her somber thoughts.

  The door flew open. She laughed, blushing, as men crowded in, bathing the bed with light from the lamps they held.

  Someone cried, “We’ve brought him, Queen Aridela. Be gentle; he’s as shy as an untried boy.”

  Chrysaleon’s attendants betrayed varied stages of intoxication. Two had their arms draped around each other’s shoulders and seemed to be trying to hold each other up. Almost without realizing it, she scanned the group for Menoetius, but he was missing. It was too bad. Chrysaleon should have the support of his blood brother tonight, instead of men he hardly knew.

  The bull-king wore nothing but a white loincloth, and his garland hung askew around his head. Only traces of royal paint remained. He staggered—his shoulder struck the partition set up to make the room easier to heat. He grinned as it crashed to the floor.

  More men shoved through the doorway, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of her.

  “Move. Out of my way.” The sour voice shot over the press of bodies. Old Laodámeia, Themiste’s most trusted handmaid, shoved through the horde. She placed a tray, with two bowls of wine, on the bed.

  “Your health,” she said, “and the health of your womb.” Her bow was perfunctory; Laodámeia scraped to no one.