Page 47 of This Divine Revelry

Well, I wanted. I said yes. I agreed to everything he did to me and now I can scarcely breathe when I think of it.

I cannot risk this again.

Revenge, that’s the tangible thing I have to hold. Revenge, which prompts me to wield this marriage like a blade, not cut myself upon it. I do not beat Theseus by losing myself in a marriage, becoming nothing more than the doting wife to Dionysus’s great deeds.

But just as I’m about to reassert that, to remind Dionysus of the rules of this endeavour, he takes a step back and declares: ‘I have a gift.’

‘What? That’s nice, thank – Oh, absolutely not.’

He reveals a crown of pine cones – studded with dried figs and a few cuttings of ivy.

He scowls. ‘I worked very hard on this.’

‘Did you not just say I looked like I’d been swept in on a shell from Aphrodite’s baths?’

‘I don’t think I mentioned a shell.’

‘And you want me to wear that? No.’

‘No? But you’re my wife, Ariadne. My symbols will be yours and you said yourself our destinies are to become entwined.’

‘I also said you’ll take my suggestions seriously. No.’

He sighs, a great, heaving, terribly exaggerated sigh, and tosses the pine cone crown on the table. ‘I guess I’ll have to give you this one instead.’

And from a pouch I hadn’t realized he’d also been clutching, he withdraws a diadem.

It’s not the finest craftsmanship I’ve ever seen but it feels more precious for it, like I can see in each wonky loop of silver and each half-wrought clasp Dionysus’s hand at work. It’s detailed, a simple frame of twisting metal, twining round chunks of amethyst before twirling on. It is a half-circlet, seven studs of amethyst with the fifth peculiarly the largest, sticking out a little crookedly.

He tilts it so that it catches the candlelight and then the whole thing glitters, light fracturing back out in shattering rainbow arcs.

‘Dionysus,’ I say softly.

‘This one meets your standards, then?’ he says, smug and mischievous all at once, and I feel my glare crystallize.

I take the diadem from his hands, slipping it on to my head. His hands hover over mine, before he takes over, centring and straightening it.

It sinks into my curls, a comforting weight, and Dionysus regards me with a strange sort of appraisal – fond and admiring, like he never once doubted the look would be anything short of resplendent.

My skin itches under the intensity of it, and so I say: ‘I can’t believe you built a prop version just to annoy me.’

He doesn’t rise to the bait. He is unwaveringly solid. For once, serious. ‘A worthy endeavour. I’d spend years, Ariadne, for the briefest flash of your attention, negative or otherwise.’

‘Well,’ I say, letting my finger brush against the tips of those amethysts once more, ‘my attention you certainly have.’

The woodland spills on to the beach – paths are lined with pine cones and glowing candles, bouquets of dried flowers bound up with twigs and leaves are tied to tables and chairs, and at the edge of the beach where the waves froth on to the shore, scattered pine needles mix with white rose petals, forming our stage.

I emerge from the tent into the golden light of evening – the fluting panpipes, the gathered thiasus chatting and laughing but swaying, too, small swishes to the melodic tune.

And so, I dance as well.

One step after another towards the shore, my arms circling above my head, my hips twirling. The petals and leaves crunch beneath my feet, and the panpipes grow louder as the players realize what I’m doing, and soon the thiasus are cheering and clapping, and I feel it all – each beat in my heart and each shimmying whirl.

My cheeks dampen – and why? Why? Because I thought I’d marry for a pact between nations or for a hasty escape and here I am, marrying for a scheme, a vendetta – but dancing, looking into smiling happy faces – fun, all those other things but fun more than anything and then, from the crowd steps joy incarnate – and he is beaming right at me.

‘I can’t believe you ever resisted joining us,’ Dionysus teases as I reach the end and, without thinking too much about it, I fall into his arms.

He holds my waist, draws me a little closer and at once my heart forgets the ruse of us and jumps to my throat.