Page 101 of This Divine Revelry

Maybe I too am caught in whatever race is being fought. Because it’s beginning to feel as though besting them is the only way to be safe from them.

It is hours until the boat appears on the horizon, a whole school of dolphins shuttling us along until their screeching is drowned out by the excited yells of the people above us.

A rope ladder is thrown down, and I am so weak that each rung takes monumental effort. When I near the top a dozen arms reach towards me and haul me over the edge of the ship. I fall down on to the deck, taking great gulping gasps of air.

Heads crowd in above me.

‘Out of the way! Move!’ Myrto hovers over me. She smiles – but I can see the panic beneath. ‘It’s going to be alright, Ariadne.’

‘I’m fine,’ I try to say – because I am. I’m just tired and malnourished – nothing I didn’t suffer on that island – but now, suddenly safe, the fear I’d been suppressing floods and my eyes do too.

‘Get her in!’ Dionysus calls. ‘Get her away from the sky!’

The sky? Why?

Zosime crouches on my other side, sliding an arm under my shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get you some water.’

Myrto shakes her head. ‘I don’t need more people fussing and getting in the way.’

‘I can help.’

‘I appreciate it, I do –’

‘Let me help,’ Zosime insists, and I catch the two of them looking at each other with a clear challenge, stubborn pouts and … oh. For the mercy of Zeus, can they not flirt over my washed-up body?

‘Ariadne, you need to get inside,’ Dionysus insists, slumping on to Silen’s shoulder. He looks as exhausted as I feel – but fervent too. ‘We were safe in the sea. He wouldn’t strike in Poseidon’s domain but this is risky.’

‘Forget fears of Father, you should be wary of me!’ Hermes storms over. ‘Those shoes are leather, little brother! You do not take them in the ocean! Never mind that the damn feathers will –’

‘They didn’t work anyway!’ protests Dionysus. ‘So it hardly matters that –’

Well, I have no interest in their bickering so turn to wherever the water is. Some food. A place to sit in comfort for a little while.

Safe. I’m safe.

And it’s not a place, not even a tent – it’s them.

I’m home.

Zosime and Myrto fix me up as well as they can.

‘I’m fine,’ I insist – though neither seems to believe me. ‘Talk to me about what’s been happening here. How were the revelries? Leaving Crete? The apparent search for me?’

Fun, miserable, frantic.

Zosime made it to the boat just fine – thank you for asking – and Myrto’s tics have subsided for now – but we’ll see – and yes, the Cretans who wished to join the thiasus are settling in well despite all the chaos.

Myrto fetches salves for my rope-burnt wrists and forbids me from eating anything more than a bread roll until we see how that settles. Zosime holds a hand out whenever she determines I’m drinking water too quickly and runs a thumb over the mark at my throat, offering a small smile as she draws back.

‘No cauterization needed this time.’

‘Cauterization!’ Myrto exclaims. ‘That’s been disproved several times over, the risk of infection alone is –’

‘We had few other options; my priority was to stop the bleeding.’

They glower at each other again, so vehemently that I risk reaching across them to a plate of honey cakes, and that seems to jar them both into swatting my hands away.

‘Ariadne!’ they cry in unison – and then they are glaring at each other once more.