Free Claiming Ariadne by Laura Gill Page B

right words. Why had she come? “I thought—oh, how much longer are you going to go on avoiding me?”
    A thick eyebrow went up. “Who said I was avoiding you?”
    “You’ve hardly spoken to me since yelling at me over that affair of your father’s message.”
    “And you’ve come to apologize?”
    Apologize? He had to nerve to demand that she apologize? “I most certainly haven’t.”
    “Then if you don’t mind.”
    This wasn’t going well at all. Ariadne thrust out her hand just as he started to close the door. “Wait! I thought you might like—that is, if you’re still speaking to me—to go out. I’ll be visiting my great-grandmother in a few days. She lives in Archanes, not far from here. Perhaps you’d like to come with me?”
    At least he didn’t slam the door on her fingers. “Archanes is outside Knossos. I thought I was confined here.”
    “You’ve been out before, with an escort. We’ll travel by chariot, with two men to drive and supervise us. Even a High Priestess can’t travel alone.”
    Taranos made a face. “I can drive my own chariot.”
    Must he always be so difficult? Ariadne would let him argue with the escort when the time came. “You’ll like my great-grandmother. She manages her own farm. She’s seventy-nine now, but she can still shear her own sheep.”
    Opening the door again, he stood aside. “Do you want to come in?”
    She’d never been inside the Sacred King’s apartments. Taranos occupied two windowless rooms lit by oil lamps. In the smoky light, Ariadne saw simple, well-made furniture. A novice of Poseidon came twice daily to clean and air out the place; Ariadne certainly didn’t see Taranos making his own bed or washing his own vessels.
    Taranos’s sitting room was as narrow as hers. A multi-colored curtain screened the sleeping chamber from casual view. Against one wall stood a table on which he had arranged his personal possessions. A boar tusk helmet sat beside a sheathed, silver-studded sword. A wooden figure-of-eight shield covered in cowhide stood almost as tall as she was. A bronze-tipped spear leaned against the wall. “Are these all yours?”
    “Yes, they’re mine.” Pride filled out every word. “I made the helmet and shield myself.”
    These signs of his warlike upbringing intimidated her. “And you’ve…used them?”
    What a stupid question, she realized. Of course he had. Not six weeks earlier she’d watched him kill Pelinos and take his head. Taranos was a man who had killed many times before.
    Gazing curiously at her, Taranos unsheathed the sword and handed it to her. While Ariadne had held the cumbersome sacred labrys , she’d never touched a sword. “How in the world do you fight with anything so heavy?”
    Give the man an excuse to flex his muscles and he would, as Taranos did now. “Battles don’t last very long. We often fight in the summer, and even strong men get tired eventually.” Taking the sword from her, he sheathed it and set it back on the table. “Achaean women have no trouble handling swords or helping their men into their armor. They don’t fight, of course, but when their men leave for battle, they’re right there to tell them to come back with their shields or on them.”
    Taranos next picked up the helmet, circled by five rows of split boar tusks set into a bronze framework; when he turned it over Ariadne saw the inside was padded with layers with soft felt. “I killed the boars whose tusks made this. Do you want to try it on?”
    It looked uncomfortable. Ariadne shook her head. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that your women can wear them?”
    “No, but they insist on a man’s war gear being properly displayed where everyone can see it and he can get to it easily. Now you know that gallery above the Hall of Poseidon, where the shield fresco surrounds the light-well? In our palaces, those would be real shields.” Taranos put down the helmet. “But I have seen women warriors.”
    “There’s no such