Page 37 of Circe

“That’s it?”

“Now, Minos, you’ll hurt Circe’s feelings. I think it’s a very fine spell, sister. My son’s appetite is a bit unwieldy, isn’t it? He’s gone through most of our prisoners already.”

“I want the creature dead, and that is final!”

“It cannot be killed,” I told Minos. “Not now. It has a destiny far in the future.”

“A destiny!” My sister clapped delightedly. “Oh, tell us what it is! Does it escape and eat someone we know?”

Minos paled, though he tried to hide it. “Be sure,” he said to me. “You and the craftsman, be sure it is secure.”

“Yes,” my sister crooned. “Be sure. I hate to think what would happen if it got out. My husband may be a son of Zeus, but his flesh is thoroughly mortal. The truth is”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“I think he may be afraid of the creature.”

A hundred times I had seen some fool caught between my sister’s claws. Minos took it worse than most. He stabbed a finger through the air at me. “You hear? She threatens me openly. This is your fault, you and your whole lying family. Your father gave her to me as if she were a treasure, but if you knew the things she has done to me—”

“Oh, tell her some of them! I think Circe would appreciate the witchcraft. What about the hundred girls who died while you heaved over them?”

I could feel Ariadne, very still, beside me. I wished she were not there.

The hate in Minos’ eyes was a living thing. “Foul harpy! It was your spell that caused their deaths! All you breed is evil! I should have ripped that beast from your cursed womb before it could be born!”

“But you did not dare, did you? You know how your dear father Zeus dotes on such creatures. How else can all his bastard heroes win their reputations?” She cocked her head. “In fact, shouldn’t you be slavering to take up a sword yourself? Oh, but I forgot. You have no taste for killing unless it is serving girls. Sister, truly, you should learn this spell. You need only—”

Minos had risen from his seat. “I forbid you to speak further!”

My sister laughed, her most silver-fountain sound. It was calculated, like everything she did. Minos raged on, but I was watching her. I had dismissed her coupling with the bull as some perverse whim, but she was not ruled by appetites; she ruled with them instead. When was the last time that I had seen true emotion on her face? I recalled now that moment on her childbed when she had cried out, her face twisted with urgency, that the monster must live. Why? Not love, there was none of that in her. So the creature must somehow serve her ends.

It was my hours with Hermes that helped me to an answer, all the news that he had brought me of the world. When Pasiphaë had married Minos, Crete was the richest and most famous of our kingdoms. Yet since then, every day, more mighty kingdoms were rising up, in Mycenae and Troy, Anatolia and Babylon. Since then too, one of her brothers had learned to raise the dead, the other to tame dragons, and her sister had transformed Scylla. No one spoke of Pasiphaë anymore. Now, at a stroke, she made her fading star shine again. All the world would tell the story of the queen of Crete, maker and mother of the great flesh-eating bull.

And the gods would do nothing. Think of all the prayers they would get.

“It’s just so funny,” Pasiphaë was saying. “It took you so long to understand! Did you think they were dying from the pleasure of your exertions? From the sheer transported bliss? Believe me—”

I turned to Ariadne, standing beside me silent as air.

“Come,” I said. “We are finished here.”

We walked back to her dancing circle. Over us, the laurels and oaks spread their green leaves. “When your spell is cast,” she said, “my brother will not be so monstrous anymore.”

“That is my hope,” I said.

A moment passed. She looked up at me, hands clasped to her chest as if she kept a secret there. “Will you stay a little?”

I watched her dance, arms curving like wings, her strong young legs in love with their own motion. This was how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.

Ariadne’s light feet crossed and recrossed the circle. Every step was perfect, like a gift she gave herself, and she smiled, receiving it. I wanted to seize her by the shoulders. Whatever you do, I wanted to say, do not be too happy. It will bring down fire on your head.

I said nothing, and let her dance.

Chapter Eleven

WHEN THE SUN TOUCHED the distant fields, guards arrived to collect Ariadne. The princess is wanted by her parents. They marched her off, and I was shown to my room. It was small and near the servants’ quarters. This was meant, of course, to be an insult, but I liked the respite of the unpainted walls, the narrow window that showed only a sliver of the relentless sun. It was quiet as well, for all the servants crept past, knowing who lay within. The sister witch. They left food for me while I was gone and took the tray only when I was out again.

I slept, and the next morning Daedalus came for me. He smiled when I opened my door, and I found myself smiling in return. One thing I could thank the creature for: the ease between us had returned. I followed him down a staircase to the twisting corridors that ran beneath the palace. We passed grain cellars, storage rooms lined with rows of pithoi, the great ceramic jars that held the palace’s largesse of oil and wine and barley.

“Whatever became of the white bull, do you know?”

“No. It vanished when Pasiphaë began to swell. The priests said it was the bull’s final blessing. Today I heard someone say that the monster is a gift from the gods to help us prosper.” He shook his head. “They are not naturally fools, it is only that they are caught between two scorpions.”