Quick irritation touched Burke. "Damn it, girl, I'm not--"
That line he'd half spoken--the one about him not being Dionysus, not a god; just plain Dion Burke?
After all, in a world as primitive as this, what was a god but a man who knew spectacularly more than his fellows?
So, wasn't Ariadne maybe right? Wasn't the Dionysus of legend maybe just plain Dion Burke, twentieth century man, set down in Bronze Age Crete with his name corrupted to fit the language and the era?
Ariadne squirmed a little and began to smooth his hair again. Her hand trembled, ever so slightly. Her voice, too. She whispered, "My lord, this talk of days to come--would you tell me about--about--"
"About you, you mean? About your own future?"
Ariadne hid her face. Her words came tremulous and muffled. "Yes, yes, my lord!"
Burke couldn't help but smile a little. It was a good thing he practically knew his classical mythology by heart.
And there was nothing quite like time travel to make a man's predictions work out.
Shifting, he brought his good arm up so he could hold Ariadne. Then, very gently, he began: "You needn't fear, my princess. You and I--we'll go to Lemnos, make our home there. Then, we'll have four children--Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, Peparthus...."
It was a good story, even if somewhat foreshortened by the fact that Ariadne stopped it with her lips.
Then, abruptly, she halted the new activity, too, saying, "My lord Dionysus, Lemnos is a far place. We'd better try to find a ship before the sun climbs higher into the sky."
Together, they got up, then, and moved slowly down the beach towards the tiny harbor town.
As for the sun, Burke decided it had never shone on a finer day.