The Maze of Minos: Book Three of the Osteria Chronicles

Available now at most retailers!!!

With the gods as your allies, your life, your world, and your sanity have never been in more danger.

* * *

SAMPLE CHAPTER - Aegeus

My gut lurches at the sound of the bells tolling from the temple. I shake my head, chastising my own nerves, but I can hardly believe this ringing is for me. Getting married. At my age. And to a woman I barely know. I grin and wonder how many of the people who will watch me today think I’m a fool. 

As the bells peal again, Eston, a man from the Califf Lands, puts the final touches on my clothes and indicates for me to face the mirror. The sight turns my nervous smile into an awkward grimace. Even in my dressing chamber with only Eston’s eyes on me, I feel as conspicuous as a Portacean peacock. The silver-trimmed tunic is so white I swear it could serve as a night beacon in the Harbor of Athenos. Eston climbs onto a stool to drape me in the ceremonial Athenian cloak whose back is embroidered with a watchful owl. The pressure of the heavy woolen garment is like a stone pressing down on my shoulders. I shift to settle the weight. Then, since Eston’s fussing has sent my vigile charm askew yet again, I adjust the small silver owl I wear on a leather thong around my neck. Just as I get it centered on my chest where it should be, the slim, perfumed man reaches up to place a gold circlet on my head. I back away.

"It is only for today," Eston says in his strange accent that turns it into eet and is into eez. I look at the object in his hands. The band of the crown is only as wide as my thumb and its circumference is decorated with tiny owls no bigger than the width of a child’s finger. The thing is finely made and I wonder if Hephaestus, god of metalworking, had a hand in crafting it. The thought of the patron god of the Helena polis brings to mind my son, Theseus. I sent him an invitation weeks ago. Why has he not come?

"She will be wearing one too," Eston says and for a moment, misunderstanding the first heavily accented word, I think he means Theseus. The gist of his phrase sinks in as he stares at me with an expression that announces louder than a town crier the utter disappointment my bride will feel if I appear at the temple without this bit of decoration. The thought of upsetting her melts my resolve.

"Fine. Put it on." I tilt my head and he slips the circlet over my dark, silver-streaked curls. I had thought of cropping my hair so I would look like the vigile commander I am, but my love adores my hair long and insisted I leave it uncut for today. I shift awkwardly as the memory of her fingers slipping through my curls the first time we made love sends a surge of heat to my groin.

Dear Athena, what a whirlwind of passion I’ve been caught up in! I haven’t been so taken with a woman since Aethra, Theseus’s mother who still lives only a few days’ ride south in the Helena polis. Unexpectedly, I’m consumed with a sense of nostalgia for her. She never asked for anything whereas my betrothed has been pestering me for weeks about naming the child in her belly heir over my firstborn son, Theseus. I chide myself over this unfair comparison and briefly wonder if it is bad luck to think fondly of your first true love when another woman waits to become your bride.

"Please, sit down, Highness," Eston says. I don’t bother to correct the small man as I "seet" on a bench stool before him. If he hasn’t learned from the first five times I’ve told him that he should address me as "President," not "Highness," he certainly won’t learn to do so on the sixth. Or he could just damn well call me Aegeus. After all, he’s seen me naked; it seems only right we should be on first name terms.

"Am I tickling you, Highness?" he asks, pulling back in response to my snort of laughter.

"No, a funny thought is all."

"Please, your foot, sire. The time is near."

I rest my foot with its newly polished toenails on Eston’s knee as he squats before me. In a smooth motion, he slips a sandal over my foot then braids the golden laces into an intricate pattern around my calf. As his fingers flit over the leather straps I wonder how in Athena’s name I will ever get the damn shoe off without his help. 

With a final flourish, Eston ties off the laces and sets my left foot aside. The right foot is bound up just as quickly. Once he’s done I start to stand, ready to get this fussing over with, but Eston, not rising from his kneeling position, puts his hands up in a signal to halt.

"Sire, if you will wait. I have this."

He holds up a small ring.

"Oh no," I say rising up and stepping around him. "Bad enough I’m as shiny as a new drachar, but I am not wearing a toe ring like a woman."

Eston shrugs. Over the past two hours, he’s won the circlet battle, the pedicure war, and the heated argument over dusting me with gold powder. His look of concession tells me he knows he’s already pushed his fanciful luck far enough for one day and is willing to stop while he’s ahead. This little Califf man would make a wise companion at the gambling tables.

Like so many of the Califf, Eston is small with dark features. When he stands up after tucking the ring back into his box of decorative treasures, the top of his head barely reaches my shoulder. He has such a slight build I feel bulky beside him despite having kept myself trim by sticking to the same daily training any low-ranking vigile would endure even though my presidential status exempts me from these exercises. Perched on a stool to gain some height, Eston brushes my shoulders of whatever mystery dust has settled on them in the past few minutes then straightens the cloak as he watches his work in the mirror. When he sees my owl has gone askew again, his hand moves to the charm, but before I can say anything, he closes his fingers and pulls his hand back as if the owl will snap its beak at him. Apparently I have won another battle today: No one touches my vigile charm.

"Perhaps you’d like to—" he trails off eyeing the owl that has wandered up to the left side of my chest again. I straighten it and he steps back, judging me.

"It is good work." His tone is that of an artist who has been forced to paint on a tattered canvas. "My sister Estia will have done something more elegant with the lady."

As if my bride needs any adornment.

My personal guards—Kyros, Pheres, and Zethros—come to collect me. In truth, they are more friends than protectors and I trust their advice more than any of the people on my privy council. They are the men I trained with and fought beside before I was ever president. I know them better and love them better than my own brothers.

It is only when they see me and laugh so hard they snort, that my nerves truly threaten to take hold. Me, the man who has never been defeated in battle, never met a challenge he didn’t conquer, trembling at the prospect of today’s event.

"You can always back out," Kyros says. Although he says it with a tone of jest and a smile on his full lips, his hazel eyes are serious and I know he would rather take me to the nearest tavern than the temple.

These three have told me more than once not to entwine myself with this woman who arrived so mysteriously bearing a tale more tragic than anything my playwrights could imagine. They have made their arguments that there is more to her than she lets on, that she is pushing for rights she hasn’t earned, that she may not be as innocent as she pretends, and that she could be dangerous. Some of this I have heeded. I have not given in to her in regards to changing Theseus’s status as my heir, but the advice not to marry her, no, that I could not take because I swear I was hers the moment I watched her approach Athenos on a painted horse last winter. From the way she speaks and carries herself, it’s clear that my dark-haired beauty is one of the Osterian nobility, and I have insisted her status requires she be more than just my mistress. My friends have asked her to tell them her full story, but she cunningly avoids saying exactly who she is or where she’s from whenever the conversation steers in that direction. 

Except with me. 

And to me, it didn’t matter. The moment I heard her story of how a servant smothered her babies and laid the blame on her, of how that blame turned into a campaign against her and forced her to run for fear of her life, I promised to keep her identity secret and I felt an overwhelming desire to protect her. My men saw this protection turn to love and, once they realized their efforts to dissuade me were going nowhere, they kept their mouths shut against their objections, except to insist I don’t name her child heir over Theseus—an objection I accept because the people of Athenos would not tolerate it. Once I had eased their worries over this matter, they kept quiet about my sudden fall into love, until today when it is expected that friends will chide a husband-to-be. Still their jests this afternoon have carried an undertone of severity.

"You did say you would wait for Theseus to be here," Pheres says, arching a black eyebrow like a punctuation mark.

"I sent the invitation weeks ago and have received no response. He clearly doesn’t care to see me looking like some gilded fool," I say, my tone a mix of humor and irritation as I indicate my garments. Even though my three companions have donned brilliant white tunics and gleaming ceremonial breastplates embossed with the owl of Athena, next to them I feel ridiculous dressed in this costume and decorated with Eston’s flourishes. "Besides, you know we must wed."

"Yours wouldn’t be the first bastard born in Athenos. By Hades," Zethros slaps me companionably on the back, "it wouldn’t even be the first bastard you’ve made." His deep voice rumbles with amusement at his own joke.

"She wants the child legitimate. It’s important to her," I respond, pushing down once more the memories of Aethra and her lack of concern that Theseus be born in wedlock. I remind myself that Aethra was not highborn. She was elegant, she was skilled in her metalworking, but she was not of the nobility so had no need to concern herself with the legitimacy of her child. 

Nor of making a life with me, apparently. 

I curse myself for my bitter thoughts. I had been on such a high that day when I rode to her and asked her to marry me. With the unprompted backing of my vigiles I had just won the presidency of my polis and wanted her in Athenos by my side. But she did not want to leave her home—Helenians have always been strangely attached to their polis and will rarely leave it unless commanded to. As neither her leader, nor her husband I could not command anything of her. Her refusal crushed me.

"Well then, better not delay,” Pheres says, jarring me back to the moment. “She’s starting to show and may not fit into her wedding gown much longer. When did you say you first bedded her?" he asks, arching his other eyebrow.

"None of your business." The state of her pregnancy is an argument I’ve already had with her, but she swears the babe inside her is mine. She has explained to me the spells that can speed a woman’s pregnancy and that she has used them because she is eager to make a gift of a new son to me. "Now walk with me to the temple so we can be done with this spectacle."

And so they march with me to my fate. I’ve been on campaign in the deserts beyond Bendria, in the snows of the Hooded Mount, and in the marshes at the foot of the Low Mountains, but never before has a walk seemed so long as today’s three-block trek from my home to the temple. Why does the weather have to be so fine? Any other early spring day would carry a threat of rain or bear enough of a chill in the air to keep people indoors. But my wedding day brings clear skies and pleasant temperatures. I swear half the populace of Osteria fills the streets, cheering me and tossing primrose petals to line my route. The road behind is littered with dots of pastel pinks, yellows, and blues while the road ahead threatens to stretch on forever.

In front of the steps that lead up to the temple’s interior, stand six ladies: the head Athenian priestess, her assistant—a gorgeous woman by the name of Medusa who Pheres has been going on about since her recent induction—three of my soon-to-be-wife’s maids, and the bride herself. Athena, the goddess who guides me and protects my polis, would normally preside over a presidential wedding, but she has been absent these past months on some godly business or other and has not even met my new bride yet. When my eyes catch sight of the ceremonial marriage cloth that will bind me to my wife, my throat goes dry and suddenly feels as tight as a reed clogged with river mud.

Even with our baby giving the slightest swell to her belly, the woman before me is seductively beautiful. Her clothes match mine, but Eston is right, his sister has a finer skill than he does; of course, Estia also had a far better canvas to start from. The bright white dress glitters with silver embroidered owls, each of which has tiny rubies for eyes. The owls of Athena traditionally have topaz or emerald eyes, but the rubies were a compromise when my bride first opted for a gown in her favorite color: maroon-red. Even though I indulge my love on most things, I put my foot down on that one. No woman should adorn herself in the color of death and mourning on her wedding day. Surprisingly, my headstrong bride agreed as long as she could wear the color somewhere on her outfit.

I step up to her wanting to be done with all of this, desiring nothing more than to grab the wedding cloth, flip it over our hands, declare my words, and take her into the temple where a bed stands ready for us to complete the marriage ceremony.

"You look beautiful, Med—"

She puts a finger to my lips. I’m not supposed to say the name out loud. Vicious rumors still circulate and she fears retribution if anyone recognizes her. She says she knows ways to disguise herself, ways I don’t understand because I have never seen her wear any mask or veil to hide her beautiful face. Even to me she wouldn’t give her true name until she announced she was pregnant and declared that she wanted no secrets between us. Now, it is the name I call out when we make love. Her name, like her body, is a passionate secret only I have access to, but in public she asks to be known as Aegea so our names can be as well-matched as our hearts.

We turn to face the priestess. Her auburn hair is braided and twisted into a pile on her head in the same manner as all the women who serve in the temple—once they make their vows they must grow their hair to a specific length to achieve the style. As with any of Athena’s servants, she bears a stern beauty and a look in her emerald eyes that hovers somewhere between wanting to protect you and wanting to condemn you. These priestesses are the judges of my polis, and more than one criminal has confessed under their all-knowing gaze.

Aegea and I take hands. I note the ring on her finger. The hinged jewel is too big for her delicate hands. I have offered to buy her a different one, but she insists that this ring has a special meaning to her and she prefers it to all others. I look into my bride’s eyes so deeply I lose myself in the blackness of her pupils. The words of the priestess sound far away as my head spins with the thought of what I’m doing. Marriage. When Aethra refused me I swore I would never let my hand be bound, that I would leave myself free for the day when I could return to the mother of my son. But here I am, my resolve swayed by the clever and passionate woman beside me.

Before I realize it, the priestess is unwinding the cloth from our hands and calling out the final words of the ceremony. When she passes the cloth to her assistant, she turns and leads my wife and I into the temple. Only in the priestess’s company are we allowed into the sacred confines beyond the steps and columns at the front of the structure and only rulers must prove their marriage in this public manner. I think I should look around, take in the sights of this inner sanctum of the goddess Athena, but I can focus on nothing except the bed that has been placed in the deepest part of the temple. I envy the common people who don’t have to be subjected to this embarrassing stunt.

The priestess steps aside. She will stay, but at a respectful distance. When we are done she will lead us out to what I’m sure will be a raucous and ribald crowd of well-wishers. 

I slip off my cloak. My shoulders feel airy after freeing them of the garment’s weight and warmth. I drop my tunic to the marble floor, but have no desire to attempt my sandals’ laces so I leave them on. My wife unfastens her own cloak—a light thing of silk—and I kneel before her to kiss her belly through the dress. As I stand, I pull the dress up and over her head then toss it into the pile with my clothes.

We climb into the tall bed and I lay on my back so she can mount me. I know I should hold back. I know of the superstition that if I don’t give my wife pleasure in this sacred bed our marriage will be troubled, but the idea of where we are, the sight of her breasts, and the sweet scent of her skin when I sit up to suck them is too much. In only a few strokes I am crying out, giving no thought to my words as I groan the secret name only I can use. 

"Medea, oh gods, Medea."

* * *

The Maze of Minos is available now as an ebook and paperback.