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the
activities outside her home much less tales from abroad.  She must –and
would—feign disinterest, until her father voiced his opinion and gave her
permission to speak.  But she would listen intently to both her father and his
honored guests like any good daughter would.
    “I find these rumors to be outrageous!” a tall gentleman
with dark brown hair only now beginning to gray shouted.  A second man nodded
in agreement.  “A new god!  They say he surrounds himself with crazy women.”
    “Who entices the women of wherever they are visiting to
abandon their womanly duties,” the second man added.  “We only bring these
rumors to your attention for I understand his followers are making a sojourn on
Naxos, and that is only a day’s sail from your shores at best.”
    “Dionysus, they call him,” her father said after a long
pause.  “I’ve heard these ill stories you recite to me and more: that he drove
the mother of the King of Thebes to rip off his head, that he drives the women
who don’t join his festivities mad for the insult they’ve paid him.  But
stories of his benevolence have reached my ears as well.  Should he and his
followers come to my court, I will welcome him.  We do not need a reminder of
what happens when the gods are insulted.  Athens thinks of it regularly, I
assure you.”  Minos smiled and cast his eyes in her direction.  He came to his
feet, extending his hands towards her as he walked in her direction.  Ariadne
slip her hands onto her father’s and gave him a low curtsey.  “How does the
monster fair?”
    “I can hear his moans at the doors of the Labyrinth,
Majesty,” she told her father.  “I pray Athens will send their next batch of
tributes soon.”
    “A messenger arrived this morning,” the King smiled.  “They
arrive within a fortnight.  Begin your preparations for their arrival.”
    “It will be as you command, Majesty,” she replied as her father
released his grip on her fingers.
    Her father’s household had likely already started to gather
the necessary supplies.  All she would truly need to do was direct her own
servants in their tasks.  But Ariadne would check all the supplies several
times over to ensure only what was needed to take care of her father’s guests
were delivered to the shrine.

Chapter 2
     
    The shrine to the Labyrinth included a dormitory where the
Athenian tributes would reside until they were, one by one, sent to their
dooms.  The building itself stood three stories tall with a common room on the
main floor and two rooms on each of the floors above.  Fourteen youths would
arrive within the hour; their boat had been spotted on the horizon.  Poseidon
had granted them a peaceful journey from Athens.
    Ariadne herself would not be meeting the seven youths and
seven maidens at the dock.  The King always greeted them and gave them a long
speech.  He believed these Athenians needed to hear outright what their fate
was and why they were being sent to it.  Minos could have ordered an underling
to perform this task; rumors suggested that he had even considered it, yet he
had set the thought aside quickly.  He respected King Aegeus of Athens too
deeply to hand the task over to someone else.
    To keep herself busy until the tributes arrived on her
doorstep, she and the servants cleaned the shrine and the dormitory yet again. 
She would make certain her father’s guests were treated as though they were a
part of Mino’s own family.  Her treatment of them would please both her father
and Zeus.  The Athenians would see how hospitable Minos could be.
    When they could dust and mop no more, Ariadne sent the
servants up to the palace kitchens to bring some refreshment to the shrine for
the tributes.  Her father would hand them over to her with little ceremony
before slipping away to oversee the final preparations for the feast he always
held in their honor.  It would give them time to rest and to get to know their
surroundings.  It