"Roberta Gellis - Bull God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gellis Roberta)

Ariadne would have no human husband, but that had its good side as well as its bad. Her older sisters
had had the best of the men of sufficient status and wealth. She would have had to take a man of lesser
family or an older man. And even among the best, one sister at least had been bitterly disappointed in her
marriage. The god would make few demands, if he ever made any, and she would have a household of
her own in the shrine. . . .

Buried in her thoughts, Ariadne hadn't been aware of the final touches made to her toilette until her
mother turned her toward the door and gave her a push. Obedient to her duty, she went forward down
the long corridor to the colonnaded chamber that opened on the wide, formal stairway. As she started
down, voices rose in a hymn from the youths and maidens gathered in the open court below. They would
never leap the bulls for her, Ariadne thought; that was for the Snake Goddess, not for a godling of the
vine growers.

The voices rose to a crescendo as she reached the foot of the stair and the singers, her eldest brother
Androgeos in the forefront, parted before her and then fell in behind as she started across. It was not all
bad to be deprived of presiding over the bull dancing either, Ariadne thought. Oh, it was a high honor, a
symbol of power, to be seated before the great golden horns while the bull dancers performed, but it was
horrible when one slipped and was gored or trampled and the evil omen had to be explained. She would
have no more to do than to lie on an altar four times a year to provide the hope of a good crop of grapes.

Greatly cheered by that thought, Ariadne walked the last painted corridor and went out the northwestern
entrance of the palace. Torchbearers had been waiting at the doorway and now they marched to either
side, torches held high. More torches flanked the ranks of singers who followed her. In fact the torches
weren't altogether necessary; every window in every house on the Royal Road was open, torchlit, and
full of watchers and the sky was already paling.

Not that Ariadne had need of torches or sunlight to find her way. The Royal Road was as familiar as the
corridor between the toilet and her bedchamber. She even knew exactly how far it was to the great
highway. Before she had quite completed the two hundred paces, Ariadne's confident stride faltered.
Ahead were more torches, some of these waving so that the flames guttered and roared, and voices,
louder, coarser voices, also singing. A hand flat on her back prodded her.

"Go on," Pasiphae's voice urged. "Those are your worshipers. Don't disappoint them."

To save herself from falling under the pressure on her back, Ariadne stepped forward and then stepped
forward again. Her mouth was dry. Don't disappoint them! But what if she did? Would they tear her
apart as worshipers of Dionysus were known to do? And then she chided herself for being so silly.
Certainly they wouldn't harm her now, before she was even consecrated. And very few, if any, would be
able to get into the shrine grounds, so they would know only what her mother and father chose to tell
them. And they had never harmed her grandmother, even though the god never came to her call and
sometimes the wine was bad or the harvest failed.

She turned into the great road and, despite all her reasoning, shuddered slightly. She had just
remembered that her grandmother had been queen as well as priestess, doubly protected. As far as she
could see, all the way up Gypsades Hill, there were torches. This "godling" that her mother scorned was
either loved or feared by many more worshipers than ever attended the rites of the Snake Goddess. Of
course, these were common folk and of no great account. . . . And then she heard her mother's voice
again, low and sharp.

"I had no idea—"