Hades’ Daughter. Book One of the Troy Game by Sara Douglass

Hades’ Daughter Book One of the Troy Game Sara Douglass

During the late Bronze Age, well over a millennium before the birth of C the Minoan king on Crete held the Athenian king to ransom. Every nine the Athenian king sent as tribute seven male youths and a like numb female virgins, the cream of Athenian society, to Knossos on Crete. On< Crete the Athenian youths were fed into the dark heart of the gigantic rinth, there to die at the hands of the dreaded Minotaur Asterion, unnj son of the Minoan king’s wife and a bull.

One year the Athenian king sent his own son Theseus as part of the sacrifice. Theseus was determined finally to stop the slaughter, and to this it was aided by Ariadne, daughter of the Minoan king, half sister to Ast and Mistress (or High Priestess) of the Labyrinth. Ariadne shared with seus the secrets and mysteries of the labyrinth, and taught him the mea which Asterion might be killed. This she did because she loved Theseus.

Theseus entered the labyrinth and, aided by Ariadne’s secret magic, b the tricks of the labyrinth and killed Asterion in combat. Then, accomp; by Ariadne and her younger sister Phaedre, Theseus departed Crete and shattered labyrinth for his home city of Athens.

THE LATE BRONZE AGE

THE ISLAND OF NAXOS, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Confused, numbed, her mind refusing to accept what Theseus demanded, Ariadne stumbled in the sand, sinking to her knees with a sound that was half sigh, half sob.

‘It is best this way,” Theseus said as he had already said a score of times this morning, bending to offer Ariadne his arm. “It is clear to me that you cannot continue with the fleet.”

Ariadne managed to gain her feet. She placed one hand on her bulging belly, and stared at her lover with eyes stripped of all the romantic delusion that had consumed her for this past year. “This is your child! How can you abandon it? And me?”

Yet even as she asked that question, Ariadne knew the answer. Beyond Theseus lay a stretch of beach, blindingly white in the late morning sun. Where sand met water waited a small boat and its oarsmen. Beyond that small boat, bobbing lazily at anchor in the bay, lay Theseus’ flagship, a great oared war vessel.

And in the prow of that ship, her vermilion robes fluttering and pressing against her sweet, lithe body, stood Ariadne’s younger sister, Phaedre.

Waiting for her lover to return to the ship, and sail her in triumph to Athens.

Theseus carefully masked his face with bland reason. “Your child is due in but a few days. You cannot give birth at sea—”

‘I can! I can!”

‘—and thus it is best I leave you here, where the villagers have midwives to assist. It is my decision, Ariadne.”

‘It is her decision!” Ariadne flung a hand toward the moored ship.

‘When the baby is born, and you and she recovered, then I will return, and bring you home to Athens.”

‘You will not,” Ariadne whispered. “This is as close to Athens as ever I will achieve. I am the Mistress of the Labyrinth, and we only ever bear daughters—what use have we for sons? But you have no use for daughters. So Phaedre shall be your queen, not I. She will give you sons, not I.”

He did not reply, lowering his gaze to the sand, and in his discomfort she could read the truth of her words.

‘What have I done to deserve this, Theseus?” she asked.

Still he did not reply.

She drew herself up as straight as her pregnancy would allow, squared her shoulders, and tossed her head with some of her old easy arrogance. “What has the Mistress of the Labyrinth done to deserve this, my love?”

He lifted his head, and looked her full in the face, and in that movement Ariadne had all the answer she needed.

‘Ah,” she said softly. “To the betrayer comes the betrayal, eh?” A shadow fell over her face as clouds blew across the sun. “I betrayed my father so you could have your victory. I whispered to you the secrets which allowed you to best the labyrinth and to murder my brother. I betrayed everything I stand for as the Mistress. All this I did for you. All this betrayal worked for the blind folly of love.”

The clouds suddenly thickened, blanketing the sun, and the beach at Theseus’ back turned gray and old.

‘The gods told me to abandon you,” Theseus said, and Ariadne blanched at the blatant lie. This had nothing to do with the gods, and everything to do with his lusts. “They came to me in a vision, and

demanded that I set you here on this island. It is their decision, Ariadne. Not mine.”

Ariadne gave a short, bitter laugh. Lie or not, it made no difference to her. “Then I curse the gods along with you, Theseus. If you abandon me at their behest, and that of your new and prettier lover, then they shall share their fate, Theseus. Irrelevance. Decay. Death.” Her mouth twisted in hate. ” Catastrophe

.”

Above them the clouds roiled, thick and black, and lightning arced down to strike in the low hills of the island.

‘What think you, Theseus?” she suddenly yelled, making him flinch. “What think you? No one can afford to betray the Mistress of the Labyrinth !”

‘No?” he said, meeting her furious eyes evenly. “Are you that sure of your power?”

‘Leave me here and you doom your entire world. Throw me aside for my sluttish sister and what you think her womb can give you and you and your kind will—”

He hit her cheek, not hard, but enough to snap off the flow of her words. “And who was it showed Phaedre the art of sluttishness, Ariadne?”

Stricken with such cruelty, Ariadne could find no words to answer.

Theseus nodded. “You have served your purpose,” he said.

He focused on something behind her, and Ariadne turned her head very slightly.

Villagers were walking slowly down the path to the beach, their eyes cast anxiously at the goddamned skies above them.

‘They will care for you and your daughter,” Theseus said, and turned to go.

‘I have served my purpose, Theseus?” Ariadne said. “You have no idea what my purpose is, and whether it is served out… or only just beginning. Here. In this sand. In this betrayal.”

His shoulders stiffened, and his step hesitated, but then Theseus was gone, striding down the beach to the waiting boat.

The sky roared, and the clouds opened, drenching Ariadne as she watched her lover desert her.

She turned her face upward, and shook a fist at the sky and the gods laughing merrily behind it.

‘No one abandons the Mistress of the Labyrinth!” she hissed. “Not you, nor any part of your world!”

She dropped her face. Theseus was in the boat now, standing in its stem, his gaze set toward the ship where awaited Ariadne’s sister.

‘And not you, nor any part of your world, either,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “No one abandons me, and thinks that in so doing they can ignore the Game. You think that the Game will protect you.”

She hissed, demented with love and betrayal.

‘But you forget that it is 7 who controls the Game.”

TWO Death came for Ariadne during the final stages of a labor that had stretched over three grueling, pain-filled days and nights.

She felt the Death Crone’s gentle hand on her shoulder as she squatted on her birthing mat, her sweat-drenched face clenched in agony, the village midwives squabbling in a huddle on the far side of the dim, overheated room.

‘They have decided to cut the child from you,” the Crone said, her voice low and melodious, a comforting counterpoint to her words. “They think that Theseus, not wanting you, will nevertheless be grateful for his child. See, now they hand about knives, trying to decide which would be the sharpest. The fastest.”

‘No!” Ariadne growled, twisting her head to stare at the Crone who now stood so close to her shoulder. “No. I will not.”

‘You must,” said the Crone. “It is your time.”

‘And I say it is not,” Ariadne said, screwing up her face and moaning as another crippling contraction gripped her.

‘You must—” the Crone said again, but stopped as Ariadne half turned and gripped the death’s claw resting on her shoulder.

‘I will make a bargain,” Ariadne said. She glanced at the huddle of mid-wives. They were bent into a close circle, their attention all on the four or five knives they passed between themselves. First this one was held up to catch the flickering light from the single oil lamp in the room, now that, as they assessed each blade’s cutting edge for its worth.

Being simple women, untutored in the mysteries, they were unaware that the Death Crone stood so close among them, nor that Ariadne conversed with her.