Dark of the Moon (17 page)

The body of She-Who-Is-Goddess, washed and dressed in finery, was shown to the people outside the shrine. Damia later told me that I was present when the ancient stone burial chamber in the cleft between two hills was opened and her body was put into it, but I don't remember that. I do remember Theseus telling me that she had returned to her mother, which was true, but I think he meant the earth. Strange people, the Athenians, who think the earth, and not the moon, is our Mother.

For three days, mourners screamed and wailed. Were they frightened because there was only me left, and I was still only She-Who -
Will-Be
until the Festival? Did they fear that I would fail when the time came to lead the ritual?

If they were frightened, they were not half as frightened as I. Thoösa was reinstated as priestess to make the full complement of twelve, and my lessons with Damia changed. No longer was I being reminded how to serve as a priestess—I had to learn how to officiate. I needed to do all this without ever having seen the most secret rituals, without repeating the words after my mother until they were firm in my mind, the way she had learned them, as had her mother before her, since time was time.

"She should have taught the girl." Damia's bitter voice sounded like reeds scraping together in the wind. "It wasn't right that she left it for so long."

I was in the women's sitting room. Cook set bread and preserves in front of me, but I couldn't bear the sight of food. I pushed the plate aside and took a sip of warm honey water. It briefly chased away the bitterness in my mouth. I took another sip and picked up Phaedra, who lay on a large pillow looking at me solemnly. I rocked back and forth. The baby had no need of comfort—she rarely cried—but holding her made the hard feeling in my chest ease.

Thoösa said, "You know how she was. Thought she knew everything. Thought she'd live forever. No need to teach She-Who-Will."

I couldn't bear to hear them blaming my mother for what Goddess had done. But my mother was now Goddess. Would She continue punishing me for being the child of a lovesick woman who had killed a man for no reason, a man who thought his death meant life for the people? "Hush!" I called out, and instantly they fell silent.

Theseus told me about his journey to find his father, when he encountered bandits, murderers, and wild animals. I couldn't help thinking that he was embellishing the tale to amuse me and stop my mind from dwelling on my troubles. It was a kind thought, but it didn't help.

The worst of the splintered memories is of sitting next to my brother in his fetid chamber, which no one had thought to clean since my mother died. He was whimpering with hunger when I arrived carrying bread and cheese and fresh water. He ate and drank, tears and snot running down his face, and when he had devoured everything, I tried to make him understand that our mother would never come to see him again. "Ama?" he asked hopefully over and over, using his word for her. "Ama?" It shredded my heart.

"Ama is no longer here." How could I make him understand? "Ama is in the sky." I pointed upward, and he turned puzzled eyes to the ceiling, where a fat spider had caught a buzzing fly.

"
Ama?
" His astonishment surprised me into laughter, even while tears ran down my face.

Through it all, there were endless lessons about when to hold the white ball of yarn, what to do with it, what to say to the priestesses. How I must fast for three days before the dark of the moon to make a hollow inside me for Goddess to enter, how to acknowledge the people, what words to say at what times. I repeated the chants after Damia and Thoösa, and they seemed pleased, but I had no idea of the meaning of the words.

They told me that the Minos would wear the head of a bull through the ceremony and that when I found Velchanos, the bull's head would be transferred to that man to show that the god's spirit had entered him. "I know that," I said, impatient that they thought I had not been to Planting Festivals every spring of my life. They exchanged glances. "What?" I asked, but they didn't answer. An odd quality to their silence filled me with dread. I wondered if it was something to do with the Ordeal of the Snakes, but of that I heard no mention, and I did not ask.

And night after night I stood between the columns of the Great Hall and looked at the moon as She reached her full roundness and then dwindled, nearing the time when She would disappear and Goddess would come to me. Would I somehow know the moment that my mother and her mother and all our Mothers entered my body? Would I recognize my mother's presence?

I won't fail you,
I thought every night as I watched Her.
When the time comes, I will see the god. I
will.
And no matter whose body he has chosen to inhabit, I will acknowledge him.
"Are you really there?" I whispered, searching the gray spots to try to find something of my mother, but the blank, white eye stared down at me coldly without answering, and I returned to my chamber, where I lay sleepless until dawn.

THE DAYS march past each other in a tedious procession. I could lounge on cushions all day, eating and drinking, and find a different girl in town every night if I chose, but I'm not used to such idleness. Konnidas would show one of his rare smiles if he were to learn that I look for something to do—he used to have to chase me down to make me help him hoe a field or gather firewood.

The palace guards seem bored too. Everyone in the world rightly fears the Kretan navy, so the chances of an enemy slipping past the ferocious-looking warships that circle the island are slim. The Kretans are good swordsmen, and I manage to pass some time learning how to fence. They give me only a wooden practice sword, but it's well balanced and easy to use. I improve rapidly, but compared with the soldiers, I am incompetent. When I feel foolishly inadequate, I offer to wrestle them. My size makes up for my lack of skill—the men here are generally small, and they're quite slender until they reach middle age, when lack of exercise and the excellent Kretan food turn them soft and wide.

Everyone is courteous, but the men seem wary of me. Some of the younger boys are friendlier, and I enjoy giving a fuzzy-headed youngster named Glaukos wrestling lessons. He's talkative and cheerful and would be well-looking if not for one eye that refuses to follow the other one and a bad habit of using his left hand.

One of the boys I saw training to dance with the bulls early in my stay in Knossos has offered to show me the rudiments of this sport. He's named Simo, and he reminds me of Arkas. He's small and quick, like my tormenter back home in Troizena. Even though practicing with a real bull is prohibited—it would be a sacrilege, I think—and Simo holds a board with bull's horns nailed to it, I quickly learn that someone as large and slow moving as I has no business being in the bullring. I trip over my own feet, and Simo grazes my back with the horn tip. On the next pass, I dodge him but accidentally tread on his foot hard enough to make him curse.

"Sorry," I mumble. He hands me the board.

"You take a turn." He limps off to the side of the ring. Despite my misgivings, I run at him. He waits until I'm close enough that I worry I'm going to gore him, and then he trips me. I sprawl in the sand, and he is astride my back. "Ha!" he says, and smacks me between the shoulder blades. I stand up and shake him off, knowing that if I truly were the bull that I am pretending to be, that would have been a sword and now I'd be dead. Simo's scornful smile follows me out the ring, and I don't return.

There are few other amusements. The Minos invites me to a banquet, which is enjoyable, and the women who dance between courses are lovely, but I'm mindful of the warnings of the soldier who escorted me to the palace, and I don't try to touch any of them. No one forbids me to leave the grounds, but on the occasions when I do, I find myself surrounded by men with the cloaks that indicate their military status, and their presence drains the pleasure out of any activity that I find. Also, people treat me oddly. It can't be because I'm a foreigner; Knossos is a port, and ships from all over dock here regularly. They must be avoiding me because I came here to be monster fodder.

One evening, after I show the younger boys some wrestling holds, I see Simo and Enops, one of the friendlier of the young men around my age, leaving the arena together. I pay no attention and am about to pass them, when Enops stops me. "We're going to a tavern in the town. Want to come along?" Simo glares at him, but Enops doesn't appear to notice and talks in a friendly manner about Knossos and Athens (about which I know little) and my voyage here. Winter has made a brief return, and the air is cool. I wrap my cloak around myself tightly.

The tavern is warm and brightly lit. I recognize some of the palace guards. They appear surprised to see me, but they nod a greeting and return to their cups and their conversation. Enops orders wine and the Kretan pastries I've grown fond of. He's friendly, and before I know it, I've told him the story of my parentage and the circumstances of my trip here.

When I finish, he strokes his chin thoughtfully and then raises his cup for more wine. The tavern keeper fills it and stands waiting for payment. I fish a coin from my pouch. "Leave the bottle on the table," I say. The man inspects the coin under a lantern, and what he sees must satisfy him, because he does as I ask.

"So, Athens is ruled by a king," Simo says. I nod. "Yet the people worship Athena, a goddess."

"She's very powerful." I feel stung by the implied insult to the deity of a city I hadn't felt any connection to until a few weeks ago. "She's a warrior."

"Oh, I know she's powerful," he says. "Everyone knows that Athena is to be feared. But—" He takes another gulp of wine. I refill his cup. Fortified, he lowers his voice and inches over on the bench so that we can talk without being overheard in the hubbub of the busy tavern. Enops leans in closer as well, and his serious face appears thoughtful as Simo continues. "Some people here say that being ruled by a woman is old-fashioned." He looks around, but no one is paying attention. The soldiers appear to trust that my companions will keep an eye on me, and are tossing dice. "And then others say that Goddess"—Simo winces as if expecting to be struck by lightning—"Goddess would never consent to a man ruling. Yet Athena allows it. It's most interesting."

"Your goddess must be very powerful," I venture, not knowing if I am being disrespectful.

Enops nods. "Goddess causes the grain to grow and the lambs and kids and calves to be born in the spring."

"But just as a woman cannot bear a child without a man, Goddess cannot feed the people without Velchanos," Simo says. "It all depends on Velchanos, really. Once a year, at the planting season, Goddess leaves the sky and comes to us. She takes the body of She-Who-Is-Goddess. From that moment until she returns to her home in the sky, Goddess walks among us. She uses the body of She-Who-Is, who for those days
is
Goddess."

"And Velchanos takes the body of the Minos?" I ask.

"No!" Enops sounds shocked. "The Minos is the brother of She-Who-Is. We are not like the foul Aegyptians, whose queen marries her own brother."

"No," Simo echoes. "Every spring, Velchanos is born as a bull calf. The priests seek him out after the Planting Festival. We know him by his strength and by certain markings. Our priests bring him back to Knossos, where he is treated as the god and king he is. He lives with us for two years and accepts our worship. And then, at the Planting Festival, we free Velchanos from the bull's body."

I know what that must mean: they slaughter the bull, who for a while has been their god. Well, I've heard of stranger rituals, and whatever they do here must make the gods happy. Everyone I see appears content and well fed and, aside from a few beggars at the port, relatively prosperous.

"Where does he go, your god, once he is freed from the bull?" I ask.

"Velchanos chooses a man," Enops says, "a man whose body the god will inhabit for the length of the Festival. Then She-Who-Is-Goddess is subjected to a test. She must recognize that man from among all the men present."

Some small villages near Troizena have a similar custom, where the king steps down for a day or three days or a week at planting time and another man, usually someone of no importance, takes his place in the palace and in the queen's bed. At the end of that time, the replacement is presented with gifts and is sent back to his regular life. Sometimes he is also given a blow with a green stick or is slapped across the face. I've heard that in one place he's even whipped until he bleeds. I'm not sure why; perhaps this is meant to remind him that he is not really the king and must not boast later of his temporary elevation to that office.

"Any children born to She-Who-Is-Goddess nine moons later, near the next Festival of Birth of the Sun, are the children of Goddess and Velchanos," Enops says.

"And if it's a boy, he'll be your king?" I ask.

Simo sighs, sounding exasperated. "We have no king. She-Who-Is-Goddess is something like what you call a queen. The Minos is the lawgiver, but he must obey his sister in all things. She-Who-Is-Goddess trains the women who attend to childbirth, and she blesses babies by being present at their birth. She decrees when sacrifices are to be made, how to appease a deity who has been offended, what an omen means, when the crops are to be harvested."

So, the Minos is not a ruler, just as Prokris told me, but if Simo is telling the truth, he has even less power than she thinks. I wonder what this will do to Prokris's plans. Her Kretan informant was not very accurate.

Evidently, Simo feels he's said enough. He drains his cup and stands. "I'm going home." He stumbles out the door, followed by Enops. I finish the wine and follow them, the soldiers trailing behind me, obviously annoyed at having to leave their game.

That's the last time one of the other boys offers to go to town with me, and in fact my fencing lessons and bull practice are not repeated. The days are long and dull. My only real pleasure is imagining the ways I'll avenge myself on Aegeus, if I ever return to Athens. In some daydreams, I content myself with blistering him with my tongue. In others, I imprison him in his own palace. In the most satisfying fantasies, I battle him to the death and install myself on his throne.