Free Claiming Ariadne by Laura Gill Page A

resumed her task. She hated it that this Sacred King invaded her thoughts so often, to the point that she couldn’t stand it that he was cross. Like a wife trying to placate her man. She wanted to ignore the matter, as she’d so often ignored his predecessors’ requests to see her, but she couldn’t.
    Ariadne shoved her sewing tools aside, went to the door, and called down the light-well for Sopata, whose day it was to run errands.
    The girl came dashing up the stairs in a breathless flutter of flounced skirts. “Yes, Mistress?”
    Mindful how dull-witted the girl was, Ariadne worded her message carefully. “Find the Sacred King and tell him that I would like him to sit with me during the Bull Dance.”
    Sopata, placid and dim as a cow, blinked at her. “But, Mistress, he’ll be sitting with you anyway.”
    Ariadne honestly wondered which wet nurse had dropped the poor girl on her head as a babe. There could be no other explanation for her stupidity when her half-sisters were so bright. “Yes, I know that,” she said patiently, “but it’s important to be polite, especially since Taranos is an Achaean prince. So I want you to say exactly what I told you to say in the kindest, sweetest way you can.”
    “Yes, Mistress.”
    “Good girl. Now what did I tell you to say? Repeat it back to me exactly as you would say it to Taranos.”
    This time, the girl didn’t disappoint her. Ariadne was downstairs when Sopata returned smiling. “Well, what did he say?”
    A woman or older girl would have read her eagerness immediately and smiled knowingly. Sopata, lost in her own bewildering thoughts, didn’t notice. “He says yes, Mistress.”
    That wasn’t enough. “Was he angry?”
    Sopata blinked at the question as though it never occurred to her that he might be. “I don’t think so, Mistress. Well, maybe at first, when he folded his arms like this and asked what did you want now?” She pantomimed the Sacred King’s terse gestures and even managed a gruff parody of his voice. “But I was nice, like you said, and he smiled and said yes, he would sit with you.”
    So he was still angry with her. Ariadne gave the girl a friendly smile, for Sopata had done the best she could, and left the house.
    She found herself walking along the main processional corridor with its fresco of offering bearers. A broad flight of stairs led up to the second level and the apartments of the Sacred King.
    She raised her hand to knock, then froze. Who was to say he was even here? At this time of day, he might be down in the Western Court exercising and showing off to the young men who gathered around him. Or he might have a girl with him. Sacred Kings could select partners from among the palace’s many slaves. Pemo reported that the girls this year sighed over Taranos. They clamored for his attention, and then, having gone to his bed, yearned to have him make love to them again. Even the two or three virgin girls he’d enjoyed had apparently walked away smiling.
    Ariadne didn’t know what to think. Were all Achaeans this insatiable? Was that why the priests had chosen him above all the other candidates?
    She took a breath, then rapped lightly at the door. Too lightly, she thought, but when she started to knock again the door abruptly opened and he stood there, filling the doorway with both hands on his hips. “Well, what is it now? Didn’t that girl of yours give you the message?”
    Bad enough that she, the High Priestess of the Great Mother, had to come to his door, but now he expected her to grovel, too? Well, Ariadne wouldn’t stand for it. Drawing herself up stiffly, she answered, “Of course she told me.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “Am I interrupting something?” Expecting to find a lover within, she peered around him, but to no avail.
    Taranos leaned against the doorjamb. “Yes, you are. I’ve just spent the morning exercising. I’m trying to rest. Is this important?”
    Suddenly tongue-tied, Ariadne tried to find the