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

Ariadne stared at the face in the polished oval of brass and could not believe it was hers. The full lips
were dyed a shocking dark red, as if stained with wineтАФor bloodтАФthe dark lines of kohl that outlined
her large, black eyes made them look deep and knowing, and the way her shining black hair was
dressed, in an elaboration of loops and braids and falling ringlets plus the two thick locks curling in front
of her ears, made her look ten years older. Until this morning she had worn it in two thick plaits like any
other child.

"Yes, yes," a sharp voice said. "You are very beautifulтАФas am IтАФbut that's no reason to spend the day
staring at yourself. We must be at the shrine when the sun rises. Stand up so you can be dressed."

Silently Ariadne laid down the brass mirror and turned to face her mother. It was true that Pasiphae was
beautifulтАФand not only in flickering torchlight. Even in bright sun light, no one would believe that Ariadne
was Pasiphae's seventh child or that there was an eighth, Phaidra. Both Pasiphae's face and her body
seemed unmarked by the sons and daughters she had provided her lord, King Minos. Perhaps, Ariadne
thought sadly, it was because she hardly noticed the children she had borne . . . except when they could
be useful.

Like today, when her daughter would be consecrated as high priestess of Dionysus so that Pasiphae
herself, queen and high priestess of Potnia, the Snake Goddess, wouldn't need to be bothered conducting
the rites of a minor godling whose shrine had been built to satisfy common vine growers and winemakers.
Ariadne swallowed hard as she allowed a servant to slip off the loose gown in which she had been
combed and painted and wrap around her the white, many-tiered bell skirt, embroidered elaborately in
the same wine red her lips had been dyed. When it was fastened with the rich gold girdle wound twice
around her waist and tied so the ends fell to about midthigh, Ariadne thrust her arms through the sleeves
of the bodice and stood while the servant laced it up below her bare breasts. Even the tightest lacing and
the firmest boning could do little for them. Barely swelling, they were a child's breasts.

The servanttskd . Pasiphae frowned and said, "Can you do nothing to make her look like a woman?"

"But I'm not a woman," Ariadne said. "No lacing or padding will make me more than a child."

It was a reproach, but it glanced off Pasiphae's perfect armor of self-interest. She said, "Well, it is
unfortunate that your grandmother died sooner than expected, but your moon times have come upon you
so you do qualify. It's most unlikely that you will need to prove yourself a woman."

That, Ariadne had to admit, probably was true. The god of the vine was supposed to mate ritually with
his high priestess at the equinoxes and solstices, but Dionysus had not actually appeared in the shrine in
two or three generations. It was enough for the ritual, apparently, that the priestess be there, on the altar,
ready to accommodate him.

If he had never appeared, Ariadne would have been rather pleased with her appointment. A seventh
child, third daughter, had little enough importance even in a king's household. It would be very nice to
have duties to perform and a special place and purpose that was all her own. But there were records that
the god had appearedтАФquite often when her great-great-aunt was priestessтАФand Ariadne wasn't really
ready to offer her body in public as a symbol of the earth to be ploughed and set with seed so that the
grapes on the hill sides would flourish.

Not that she had any choice. The high priestess must be either the queen herself or a royal virgin
dedicated and married to the god. Since her two older sisters were married and Phaidra was almost two
years younger than she, once her mother refused the office there was no one else. That meant that