Page 242 of Monsters in Love

“She’s very nice and I’m supremely loveable, so that checks out.” He grinned as she swiped at his chest, capturing her arm easily and pulling her flush against him. “One more week, Dr. Bowman.” His voice was low, barely a whisper, and tears pricked at her eyes at the nearness of the date, an end to the separation once and for all. She hadn’t lied to his co-worker—there had never been any resentment or bad feelings over their separation, but Gwen felt as if she’d woken up one day to mysteriously find herself on the other side of thirty, and the last year had been harder than the entire decade that had preceded it.

“One more week,” she agreed, smiling when he ruffled her hair. “Dr. Bowman.”

“Let me lock up the west entrance and close off the exhibit, and then we’ll start. You enter from there,” he pointed to the doorway behind them, “at that first vitrine, and then move clockwise into the walls. But wait for me!”

She watched his retreating back, heart quivering with fear and excitement and more love than she’d once thought it was possible to feel.One more week. One more week before she left her apartment and the city that had been home for several years; one more week until she settled into life in suburbia, far from a classroom or field office or dig site, far from everything that had been normal for the last ten years. They would be together, but she was still sailing into the unknown, uncertain of how she would adjust to life outside of academia, life with him, side-by-side and not separated by miles and cities and time zones. The whole world felt possible, Gwen thought, but it didn’t change the way her heart trembled. One more week, and everything would change.

The sea was wild and angry the day the bireme left Salamis. It has been that way since we sailed west from Athens, stopping to feast and drink one last time before the princess boarded the ship and we sailed south. Periboea thinks herself better than the rest of us, I can tell, but today she is afraid. Earlier, she held my hand and wept as we stared out at the black waves, crashing against the oars like an omen of what is to come, as if Poseidon himself is following to announce our arrival. We are close to the palace at Knossos, very close the guards tell us. It will only be a few nights more until we arrive at our final destination; until we leave the bireme in chains to be presented before the King. Periboea held my hand and wept, and the tribute from Melos has not stopped sobbing since we left her island behind, but my eyes are dry today.

I will not pretend that I am unafraid. I amveryafraid. The men on the ship have told us stories, whether to warn or frighten us, I do not know. They have accomplished both, and are all the crueler for it.

The beast will devour the men first, they say, leaving us unprotected. He has sharp teeth, they claim, for tearing our flesh and eating us alive, and the body of a man, for raping those he does not immediately kill. I questioned one of the men about how they knew such things, for no survivors had ever escaped, but they only laughed and said I would soon learn. We will arrive soon in Knossos, and learn we will, and the sea god is as cruel as the men with their stories, but today my eyes are still dry. The princess is afraid and I am as well, but I have looked into the oracle fires and have seen the truth that will come to pass. I am Melita of Korinthos, and my name will not be lost to Minos’s maze. We will arrive soon in Knossos and the labyrinth beneath the palace and I am sailing to my death, but today my eyes are dry.

The first vitrine held a single set of manacles. Gwen paused before the glass, the bronze restraints within seeming too small to have bound anything but a child. The walls behind the display cases had been wrapped floor-to-ceiling with a stylized map of the Aegean Sea and all of her islands, red dashes dotting the blue water, marking the path the sacrifices sailed to their final destination at Crete. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for the young men and women—drawn by lots, their fate a simple luck of the draw.

Around the wrist cuffs, the preservation team had done exemplary work revealing the classical labyrinth design, a seven-course block that showed up repeatedly on coins and rings and vases, repeatedly throughout history.Unicursal, she smirked, knowing the misrepresentation in artifacts was one of Madoc’s biggest pet peeves. She tried to imagine the small-statured prisoner these manacles had once held as she rounded the case, examining the restraints from every side. Not a prisoner, she mentally corrected, reminding herself of the exhibit’s theme.

A tribute. A bride.

“They must have been very afraid,” she said suddenly, listening to his tread on the marble flooring crossing back to her, the click of his wide hooves silenced by the silicone gaiters he wore. Seven young men and seven young women, given in tribute to Crete, to the labyrinth. Gwen closed her eyes and let her mind paint a picture of the young people ferried across the sea, far from their homes, traveling into the unknown.The unknown and a minotaur, she thought, her breath catching at how similar her situation was to whoever had worn these manacles.

“I’m sure they were,” Madoc agreed, his huge hands dropping lightly to her shoulders. The overhead light cast his shadow on the ground before her, his horns cutting an impressive silhouette, absorbing her completely, her and the case holding the manacles, and Gwen wondered if the labyrinth minotaur’s silhouette had been nearly as impressive as this diminutive sacrifice stood before him. “But you know what happened to them. They weren’t afraid for long.”

“Pfffttt, says you. You have no idea what it’s like being a sheltered young woman leaving home for the first time. I loved undergrad! I loved my roommates and our quad and all of my friends, I loved my classes. I loved being independent and trying all the things my family kept me from. And Istillwent into the showers and cried every single week because I missed my mom and my room and everything that was familiar. I can promise you, they were fucking terrified, and that doesn’t just turn off like a switch.”

Gwen twisted her head back, eying him defiantly. She didn’t bother reminding him that she had been nearly sick with nerves on that first dig site as well; that she likely never would have fallen into bed with him at all if he hadn’t gone out of his way to make her feel comfortable and lessen the clenching homesickness she’d felt. That initial terror of the unknown had never gone away, following her into adulthood—every new city, new job; each new department and school and field office always felt like entering a black cave where anything might be waiting to swallow her up. Shestillcried in the shower with every terrifying new beginning and knew she would undoubtedly do so again in a week’s time, after her move to Cambric Creek.

“Fine,” he huffed, “they were probably very afraid. These were nobles, so—”

“Priestesses, temple attendants. Keybearers to shrines.”

“Exactly,” he smiled, nodding. “Most of them had never left the cities where they were born, not the women. They were manacled to be presented to the king as a show of Minoan power, but it’s likely that they were not bound on the sea crossing and did not go down to the maze in chains. These and the others like them were discovered at the base of the platform that lowered the tributes in, indicative of them being—”

“Cast off once they left the platform.”

Gwen moved away from the manacles, not liking the way they made her stomach flip, and instead raised a hand to the wall wrap around the room.

"What are all of these different colors meant to denote? You know they only talk about the Athenian sacrifices in school."

Madoc huffed again. "Of course they did, just like they taught you that all of the tributes were eaten. Human schools are so revisionist, it's a wonder you even learned to read." She laughed in outrage but was hard-pressed to see the fault in his words.

“Sleeva said the schools here are really great,” she added, glancing over her shoulder to see his reaction to her words. “So that’s one less thing to worry about, I guess.” He gave her a knowing smile at her words, catching her around the waist, pulling her to his hip.

“You know,” he murmured, “we’re not on anyone’s time timetable. We can settle in, enjoy being newlyweds...no one gets a say about this other than us. And yes, Athens sent the lion's share of the tributes as a part of their agreement with Crete, but...well, once word got out, the other kings wanted their own warriors. Melos, Mycenae, Korinthos, Thebes...they all sent tributes of their own. Now, are you going to keep interrupting and finishing my sentences?"

"You know that I am," she laughed. "That's what makes us such a good team." She didn't quite understand the meaning of his words, but if the years together had taught her anything, she knew her big minotaur loved showmanship. Reconstruction was the discipline in which he excelled, whereas she had specialized in the human element, particularly the role of women in society. One of the most fascinating things about studying ancient cultures and civilizations, she had always thought, was finding the proof that people never really changed. Road rage and warnings against dishonest merchants, property disputes...it was always the same. Regardless of the species, regardless of where they had come from and when they had lived, there would always be evidence of living and loving and dying; of people fighting to get ahead and fighting harder still to keep what they had already gained, of neighbors helping neighbors, and parents loving their children. She knew he would make his point when he was good and ready, in the most dramatic way. The museum collection would have been curated and displayed in such a way to elicit an emotional reaction from the viewers, this she knew from her own work. Knowing her fiancé as she did, Gwen had no doubt that she would be in tears at some point during her tour.

"So they were presented to Minos in chains because he was a real dick, got it. What's next?"

Following the pathway, she came to a long display case of helmets from Minoan and Mycenaean kingdoms, several tablets, coinage, and other bits of bronze age ephemera. Madoc swept his hand over the case, drawing her attention to the tablets first.

“Minoan relics found all over the Aegean. We know from Linear A that these tablets are an accounting of purchases made, with names attached. Once they were presented to Minos, the men were sold. Fighters, rowers —“

“Slaves,” Gwen finished for him. “The men were never sent into the labyrinth?”

“The labyrinth had no need of any men. The palace already had its own slaves and servants. The women were given as brides, and the men were sold away.”

“Mhm...King Minos was a dick and here's the evidence, part two.” She listened as he spoke excitedly over the designs of the helmets, the minuscule detailing of the coins, but her mind wandered to her own upcomingpresentation. She had already met his family, of course, numerous times, but they’d not gotten together with their respective clans since announcing their engagement, and Gwen knew from her own family’s reaction to the news that there was a world of difference between him introducing her as his girlfriend and introducing her as the woman for whom he planned on putting a ring through his nose.They should have seen it coming, right?She had no doubt his grandmother might very well pull out a measuring tape to gauge the width of her hips, determining her ability to carry bullish sons before giving her blessing over their nuptials.

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