Dark of the Moon by Barrett Tracy

Author:Barrett, Tracy [Barrett, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2012-02-14T17:30:37+00:00

THESEUS

Chapter 23

I KNOW from the first moment I see the Minotauros that I have nothing to fear from him. He's very tall and hideously ugly, but really he's nothing more than a child in a misshapen body. He seems painfully lonely and bored. The people who attend him wait until he's asleep to leave his food and to empty the bucket that he uses (badly) for relieving himself. He grins, showing crooked teeth, when I first come down to his dark, smelly chamber. I keep an eye on him, but I soon relax.

His sister, Ariadne, is quite different. She's small, and like all the Kretan women I've seen, she has black hair hanging in waves almost to her waist. She is not merely pale, like the rest of the noblewomen here; she has an unhealthy pallor. Her face looks, I think, like the mushrooms that appear in the deep forest after rain and glow against the dark earth. I understand that she rarely sets foot out of doors.

Her eyes are her most striking features. They're large, and so dark that the pupil is invisible in their depths, and long black lashes form a fringe around them. She is not pretty, but in an odd way she is beautiful.

I haven't admitted it to Prokris, but her plan now makes me uneasy. It was different when we were on the ship, sailing who knew where, with a hideous monster waiting to eat me on the other shore. It seemed logical then that once Prokris was established as queen, we would somehow kill the monster, liberate the Kretan people, and take over the country. She promised that she would marry me in exchange for my help, and I would become the island's ruler.

She never doubted that she would become the king's favorite wife, and indeed, the Minos does seem fond of her. But we were wrong about the rest of it. The Minos is not a king. He is the chief priest and some kind of lawgiver, but he is the subject of his sister, and she is the human incarnation of the moon goddess. Prokris can't make such a claim. She's obviously a mere woman, a mortal.

I have also found out that the people here are not ruled by fear of the Minotauros. They call him "our monster" with an air of pride. Most of them, anyway. Killing him wouldn't cause a great outpouring of gratitude and support. We certainly wouldn't be liberating anybody.

Prokris is very daring and manages to slip out of the women's quarters frequently, mostly because she has charmed the eunuchs who serve as the Minos's guards. One day, we sit in the crook of a tall cypress just outside the wall. Prokris likes being up this high. She can see into the compound where the Minos lives with his wives and children.

"They took all my things," she says. "Those women went through my bags and chests and took away my clothes and everything else I brought. They sneered and said they were fit only for barbarians.

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