Before evening we were in the harbor, looking up at the hill-slopes rich with olives set in green corn, with orchards and with vines. So well the Mother has loved Dia, no wonder they named it with her name. It is the greatest of the Cyclades, and the richest too. From afar we saw the royal Palace standing among vineyards, a high bright house in the style of Crete. Ariadne smiled and pointed; I was glad the place was homelike for her. Kalliste had quenched her spirits.
Two or three of the bull-dancers had come from here. In the arms of rejoicing kindred they told their tale. We were the first ship straight from Crete, since the fall of the Labyrinth; till now the Naxians had had only wild talk third-hand. They cried out that they had seen dreadful portents; a noise like a thousand thunderbolts, and a shower of ashes, and the night sky lit with fire over Kalliste. It had happened, as we learned, the very day and hour when the House of the Ax was stricken.
Our news filled them with awe and wonder. Time out of mind, Minos had been High King of all the islands; they had traded by his laws and paid him his tribute. From Dia it had been very great, because the land was rich. This year it had been due again; now they would keep for themselves their olives and corn and sheep and honey, and their wine, than which there is none better; and all their boys and girls would dance at home. There was a feast tomorrow, of Dionysos, who himself planted the vine there, when he came sailing from the east as bridegroom of the Mother; and they would keep the day as it had never been kept before.
But it surpassed all the rest for them, when they heard who Ariadne was. The people are mixed in Dia, but Naxos and its royal house are Cretan, the ancient stock without Hellene blood. They have the old religion, and a reigning Queen. So when they saw the Goddess-on-Earth among them, it was a greater thing than if Minos himself had come. They set her in a litter, lest her foot should touch the ground, and bore her up to the Palace. I walked beside her, and the rest followed behind.
At the porch of the Palace they set her down, and the steward brought a greeting cup. They led us off to the bath, and then into the Hall. The Queen sat in her place before the king-column, in a chair of olive-wood inlaid with pearl and silver; her footstool was covered with a sheepskin scarlet-dyed. On a low seat beside her sat a dark young man, with strange shadowed eyes, whom I took to be the King.
She rose and came to meet us; a woman of about thirty years, handsome still, and a true Cretan, with dark crimped hair in serpent tresses, breasts heavy but round and firm, and a little waist tightly cinched in with gold. She held out to Ariadne both her hands, and gave her the kiss of welcome. The Palace women had dressed her richly from the Queen’s own store, in a deep-blue gown that twinkled with silver pendants, and her eyes, new-painted, glowed in the lamplight.
The tables were laid, with food and places for all the dancers, though we were near twoscore. The Queen was gracious, and pressed us to eat and drink before we told our tale. Ariadne sat on her right hand, at the head of all the women. When I had said I was her husband (we were to marry in Athens, but I did not want her to lose standing here) I was put on her left, beside the King.
He was a handsome youth, about sixteen years old, lively and graceful; all made, you would have said, for gaiety and women’s love. He did not look strong enough to have fought for his kingdom, and I wondered how he had been chosen; but I did not care to ask him. There was something about him I could put no name to, a daimon in his eyes; not that they wandered, like men’s eyes whose wits are troubled; rather they were too still. Whatever he fixed his gaze on, it was as if he would drain it dry. When they put his golden cup into his hand, he turned it round till he had seen the whole of the pattern, and for a long time stroked it with his fingers. To me he was very civil; but like a man who from courtesy hides his straying thoughts. Once only I saw him look toward the Queen, with a grief that I could not read, for it seemed mixed with darker things. Though there was no need yet to talk, beyond the civilities of the table, something oppressed me in his silence, and I said only to break it, “You have a god’s feast here tomorrow.”
He raised his eyes to my face, not with any message, but as he had gazed at the winecup, or the women, or the flame of the new-lit lamp. Then he said, “Yes.” That was all; but something woke in my mind, and of a sudden I saw everything. I remembered Pylas saying to me in the mountains above Eleusis, “I know how a man looks who foreknows his end.”
He read it in my face. For a moment our eyes met, seeking to speak together. It was in my mind to say, “Be on my ship before cocklight, and with the dawn we will be away. I too have stood where you stand now; and look, I am free. There is more in a man than the meat and corn and wine that feeds him. How it is called I do not know; but there is some god that knows its name.” But, when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing in them that I could say it to. He was an Earthling, and the ancient snake was dancing already to his soul.
So we drank our wine; and I did not wonder he took plenty. We did not speak much, for I had nothing to say that could be said; whether he knew that I was sorry, whether it comforted or angered him, I do not know.
When we had done eating, the Queen asked for our tale. So Ariadne told how the Labyrinth had fallen, how I had had my warning, and who I was. Speaking of me before people made her blush, and me to wish for the night. But I could see that the Queen pitied her, when she heard the Mistress was going to a Hellene kingdom ruled by men. As for the King, he listened with wide dark eyes and the lamplight shining in them; and I saw that if it had been a tale of Titans or the old loves of the gods, it would have been all one to him, as he looked on night and feasting and the light of torches for the last time.
Ariadne finished her tale, and I spoke too when the Queen invited me. “Alas!” she said when she had heard. “Who can be called fortunate, till he has seen the end? Lady, you have known a change beyond the common lot.” Then she remembered the courtesies, and bowed toward me, saying, “And yet the Fates have relented to you after.” I bowed, and Ariadne smiled along the dais. But I remembered how she had said in Crete, “You are a barbarian; my nurse told me they ate bad children.” And I thought within me, “Will she always see me in her heart a mainland bull-boy, even when I am a king?”
The Queen was speaking still. “Now you must take heart, and forget your griefs. You and your husband and your people must stay for our feast tomorrow, and honor the god who makes men glad.”
When I heard this, I did not look at the youth beside me. All my wish was to be gone with the first of day. I tried to catch Ariadne’s eye with mine; but she was speaking her thanks already. Outside a little wind was getting up, which might keep us in port tomorrow; if after slighting these people we could not get away, it would be a sorry business. The times would be confused now Crete had fallen; one might have need of friends. So I put a good face on it, and looked pleased.