Page 21 of This Divine Revelry

Well, I’m not reaching Athens.

Perhaps he took me aboard solely because he could ruin me further than by simply leaving me in Crete. What bigger offence to your enemy than taking his daughter’s virginity and not even marrying her after?

I kick against an encroaching wave. What a foolish notion – as though even our bodies cannot exist without somehow being about men, our value marked by their touch. Well, I don’t exactly feel different, Theseus, so maybe your cock’s not as powerful as you thought.

Alright, so perhaps I’m not pushing past the outrage.

In fact, I’m so busy seething I realize I’ve missed actual signs here – campfires along the beach. Old and long burned out, not left by the Athenians last night. I stop at one, finding a sharp-edged rock within its midst.

The sort of thing used to scrape and prepare fur pelts.

I turn to the forest looming above me. The incline steepens, trees running up into the valley between two steep cliff sides.

If there were people here, they would not be by the sea where pirates could raid and plunder them. They’d be up in the hills with towns built to blend into the rockfaces.

The heat has sweat pooling in the small of my back and dripping down my thighs. My mouth aches with dryness. And I’d also quite like to wash last night off me. I need water.

So I pick up that sharpened rock and, steeling myself, I step into the forest.

The sound of the ocean vanishes behind me.

‘Now would be a really convenient time for a ray of sunlight to illuminate a path,’ I murmur, just in case my grandfather is watching.

But I can hardly spot the sun through the trees.

After a few minutes, I stumble upon a thicket of berries, and the thorny bushes trail up a hill. Maybe they’ve been cultivated. If not, at least I won’t starve.

I reach for a handful, tart blackberries that are hard and under-ripe. I trip over something – an arrowhead driven into the dirt – and land next to a small basket-like shrub. In its leaves, I spot clusters of grapes. I reach for them hungrily and they are plump and fresh and burst across my tongue.

They’re so delicious I suck the seeds as I walk, savouring every last drop.

But if I thought the sun was bad, it is nothing to the feeling of it beginning to cool. Of time running out and darkness descending as I still find nowhere to shelter.

All my worst-case imaginings of fleeing my home featured begging for food on the streets of a distant city, scrubbing laundry for coin or hauling cargo for merchants. They all involved people and food and civilization – the sorts of places ships dock, the crowds it might be easy to vanish into. I did not imagine this sort of survival.

Wait – survival? The arrowheads, the pelts and campfires. If there is no one here, those signs might have been left by Artemis and her hunters. If there is no permanent population on this island, then who else would flit in for a hunt and then vanish again?

Like I have summoned it, I break into a clearing.

The trees give way to rolling vineyards which rise beyond a ring of huts. Thirteen of them. Circular bound-wood walls and flat stone roofs, thick heavy doors facing inwards like a court. And in their centre, a well.

I race towards it, not caring who might be around.

I yank so desperately on the ties I fear the bucket might come loose and then it is in my hands, and I am pouring cold, clear water down my throat. There must be some underground spring for all this vegetation, something not dependent on rain or a river or …

I start sputtering on the water and fear I may have downed it too quickly. So I draw away and take in the huts surrounding me.

A few have windows – small high openings to let light in – though there’s no sign of movement within. There are no footprints in the dirt, no noise carrying through.

But they do not appear entirely abandoned either – the hinges well worn, the roofs patched.

Olympus above, how to play this? I’d been so focused on finding people I hadn’t truly considered what to say when I did. Could the priestess ruse work? I could say my boat got into trouble in last night’s storm and I woke up on the shore?

With nothing to lose, I try the first door. Then the next. And the next.

No one.

I have to break the handles off the doors to get them open, smashing them with a big heavy rock – scraping my fingers against the rough wood with every attempt.