For me, the Dance of the Serpents passed in a haze; I was waiting for Ariadne. As time went by and she did not appear, I became frightened. She must be seen as a dutiful daughter or our mother would be forced to take action against her.
I had determined to go and look for her when suddenly she appeared. To my surprise, she did not look angry but, rather, bemused, as if something unexpected and pleasing had occurred. Her breasts, so much rounder and more womanly than mine, rose and fell rapidly with the stirring of some emotion. Her eyes glittered and her whole body was tense with excitement.
As my mother and the priestesses prepared to leave the court to the bull dancers, someone darted out from the crowd and intercepted them. He bowed deeply and spoke to her. It was Daedalus, Icarus's father.
My mother stiffened. She stood motionless, listening to Daedalus. She seemed to protest, then nodded curtly and strode out of the arena. When she sat down again with the family, I saw that she was now furious. Two little spots of color had appeared high on her cheekbones.
I looked at Ariadne and then back again at my mother, but the moment of disobedience seemed forgotten by both mother and daughter. Apparently they both had other matters to busy their minds.
Once again I found it difficult to concentrate on the events enacted before me. The bull riders came and went. I stared at their brilliantly colored costumes and antic clowning without seeing. Dimly I noticed when a young bull crashed through the ring of spectators and tried to leap the barrier into the audience, but my thoughts kept returning to my mother and my sister. The audience gasped and applauded, but we three sat silent, unmoved and untouched by events in the amphitheater.
But soon the bull riders were done and the most beautiful and most dangerous part of the ritual had begun. A team of bull dancers entered the arena and all thought was banished; I watched with my whole heart and my whole mind. The dancers positioned themselves in front of the chute from which the bull would enter the ring: three to the left, three to the right, and one in the center, farthest from the chute.
The great crowd grew silent, and it seemed possible to hear a muffled heartbeat, as if all of our hearts were beating as one.
The music began. A fresh bull was released into the ring. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. Sensing nothing worse than seven nearly naked women and men arrayed before him, he advanced cautiously.
The bull's little piggy eyes were too shortsighted to see the full extent of the crowd that surrounded him, but he could hear it and smell it. He did not like it. He bellowed deep in his throat, dropped his head, and prepared to impale the dancers on his horns. His tail lashed.
At this signal the dance began. The two dancers closest to the bull ran toward him, towing long red streamers that twirled and fluttered in the breeze. The bull, annoyed, pawed the ground and charged. The paths of the dancers intersected immediately in front of his nose, and the trailing banners lapped his body in scarlet. Bucking and twisting, he pulled free of the linen strips, only to find himself facing the second pair of running dancers, then the third. The bare arms of the last couple nearly brushed his horns, but their streamers wrapped around him and he was too confused to lunge.
Behind the third couple, the last dancer, a girl even younger than myself ran lightly up to the charging bull's head and grasped him firmly by the horns. In one liquid movement she tucked her head down, curled her body upward, and, thrown into the air by the strength of her arms and a furious toss of the bull's head, somersaulted right through his horns. For a brief instant, both bull and bull leaper were suspended in space, he in full stretch leaping forward, she a spinning ball above him.
It was flawlessly executed. One great sigh forced its way from the lungs of three thousand people, like the breath of the Bull in the Earth himself.
Two things then happened at once. Behind the bull, a male dancer caught the bull leaper in his arms, and in front of the bull the remaining dancers ran, madly waving their streamers. Utterly enraged, the bull plunged forward, his hind hooves narrowly missing the leaper and her catcher. He slashed to the right and the left with his horns, and the dancers scattered in all directions. The bull was left alone in the ring, bellowing with fury and deeply confused about what had happened to him.
The crowd went mad with joy.
Each performing team had a different routine, a different method for distracting the bull from the dancers. Most were beautiful, some were comic. When the last group of bull dancers had at last left the arena, my mother stood again and addressed the people.
"I am told that there is one here who wants the opportunity to join in our sport. Although he is a stranger to our land, he has an especial right to do so if he wishes."
The crowd was startled. Foreigners were never allowed to participate in the Festival of the Bulls. And how could an untried and untested stranger hope to survive such an experience?
Daedalus walked out into the amphitheater again, this time accompanied by another man. The man inclined his head slightly and spoke, haltingly, in our language.
"I am Theseus, son of Aegeus, King of Athens. I give you greeting. I claim the right to compete in your games."
I recognized him now. It was the man who had spoken out at the end of the Presentation yesterday. But—how could he be the son of Aegeus? Everyone knew that Aegeus of Athens had no son. I stared at this upstart who claimed to be someone who did not exist, looking at him carefully for the first time.
He was not beautiful, and that was against him, for we Keftiu love beauty. He had none of the lithe grace of a bull dancer but was short and stocky, with thick, knotted muscles. He wore no jewelry or fine attire.
Daedalus bowed deeply before my mother. Theseus did not.
"Hear, O Queen!" said Daedalus. "Before you stands Prince Theseus, son of Aethra of Troezen and Aegeus of Athens. He greets you and asks leave to wipe out his father's blood debt by facing a bull as fierce and wild as the Marathonian Bull that killed your son Androgeus twelve years ago."
"His father seems not to have known of his existence until recently," Mother observed. "Certainly I did not."
"He was reared by his mother in Troezen, without his father's knowledge, my queen," said Daedalus.
Ah! An illegitimate child, then. No doubt his father, lacking any other issue, was now willing to acknowledge him.
The queen considered, and then spoke.
"Your request is reasonable."
The crowd murmured, pleased with her generosity.
"It is fitting that Aegeus's son should pay for his crime. However, the bulls we have here today for our festival are exhausted from their efforts. You will no doubt be willing to remain as a guest in my court until a bull worthy of your strength and courage is located."
As Daedalus translated my mother's words, Theseus's face darkened. He sputtered a bit in his own language and then, stabbing himself in the chest with his forefinger, shouted, "I! I! I do not fight—" He struggled for a moment and then twisted around and demanded the proper words from Daedalus.
"No, do not speak!" said Daedalus. "I will answer for you!"
"I speak!" roared Theseus. "I speak!"
Daedalus shrugged, and after a few moments' consultation Theseus turned back to the queen.
"I do not fight old, tired, tame bulls! I am Theseus of Athens and Troezen, a prince and a hero! The greatest hero of our time!"
The audience looked at him skeptically.
Theseus rumbled, "These animals I see here today are—they have no—they are not manly. They are like cows. I do not fight with cows. I come here to kill the monster and no other do I fight."
The queen lifted her eyebrows.
"The monster?" she inquired.
Daedalus shook his head mournfully. "Ohi, Theseus, ohi. Do not say it."
"The monster! He who has devoured so many of my people! I kill him. I kill the Minotaur!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
My FATHER'S SON
"THAT WAS THE MOST CONTRARY, HEADSTRONG, IDIOTIC
YOUNG man it has ever been my fortune to meet," said Daedalus.
When the Festival of the Bulls was over, Ariadne had, without a word to anyone, run down into the arena. Unhappily, I followed her, Queta riding on my head and complaining shrilly in my ear. Ariadne seemed different. I didn't like it, and I meant to see what she did next.
We wended our way through the hordes of departing worshipers and at length caught up with Daedalus, who was striding along on his way to the artisans' studios. It appeared that Ariadne wished to question Daedalus about the man Theseus.
"Surely not idiotic," objected Ariadne.
"Yes, idiotic, Princess. I explained three times that the Minotaur, as they call Lord Asterius, does not eat flesh at all, let alone human flesh. And even in Athens they must have heard rumors that the 'Minotaur' is the son of the queen, not of Minos. The fool would barely suffer me to address the queen rather than Minos. And why should he think that either ruler would allow him to butcher their son? He has lost not only his liberty but, very shortly, his life. And all because he would not listen!"
"Oh, but have I not heard you say how different it is over there on the mainland?" said Ariadne eagerly. "How could he know? How could he credit a world in which everything is so altered from all that is familiar to him?"
"Because I told him so," snapped Daedalus. Icarus's father was old—nearly fifty—and the combination of his age and his great value to our queen made him less respectful toward persons of consequence than he should have been.
"Look here. Princess," he said, in a more civil tone. "Let us say that you are a young person but lately departed from your mother's hearth, and that you find yourself at the mercy of one of the most powerful rulers in the world.
"Now, let us suppose that you are the legal and rightful possession of this mighty queen, to be disposed of as she sees fit," Daedalus went on. "And let us also suppose that this queen has every cause to hate you and wish you dead. Why then, Princess Ariadne, if you should ever find yourself in this position, I would advise you to listen very carefully and very gratefully to the counsel of a man older and wiser than you, who is also a distinguished member of your own race and nation." He looked at her under fierce brows.
"That is all I have to say. Good day to you." He caught sight of me behind Ariadne and his manner softened. "Princess Xenodice, you have not been to see us of late. You must not abandon your old friends."
I blushed. It was true enough. I had not stopped by the workshop recently, as I had been able to see Icarus several times in other ways.
"I will come soon," I promised. He bowed and walked rapidly away, obviously impatient to get back to work after a day's holiday. Daedalus could never bear to be idle for long.
Ariadne was silent for a moment when Daedalus had left us. Then she said, "Daedalus's self-love is hurt, that is all."
"Well, yes," I said slowly, "I suppose it is, but that does not mean he was wrong in what he said. If Theseus had followed Daedalus's advice, he would have had a chance to wipe out his father's blood debt and return victorious to his own country. Now he has lost everything, for he might have lived long and well as a slave at Knossos."
"He would rather die than live as a slave, especially here at Knossos."
I looked at her curiously. "How do you know that?" I asked, although I suspected that she was right. Along with the ship's captain, I did not envy anyone who received such an argumentative and quarrelsome servant.
"He told me so," she said, and then tried to change the subject. "And what are you doing following me about, Xenodice?"
"Theseus told you?" I demanded. "How could he have told you anything? He arrived only the day before yesterday and he has been under guard the whole time! When did he tell you?"
Ariadne hesitated. She looked at me sideways from under her lashes. I could see that she was longing to tell me but unable to guess at my reaction.
"When I came up from the processional he was waiting to address our mother," she said. A smile flickered across her lips. "He is very muscular. And very hairy."
"Oh, Ariadne, how awful!"
"Not at all. You're a baby. You know nothing about it."
"But how did he come to speak to you?"
"Oh, I spoke to him—I noticed him yesterday. I thought that I would ask Mother to give him to me. She owes me restitution for giving my slave to that imbecile Polyidus."
She fell silent for a moment, her face sullen, clearly meditating the ways in which our mother owed her. Then she said, "I do not believe that I will ever forgive our mother for taking the Dance of the Serpents away from me in front of everyone that way."
Hastily I explained why I thought that Mother had chosen to dance the Dance of the Serpents in place of her daughter.
"She's too old," Ariadne said spitefully. "Her belly wobbled. Everybody was laughing at her; she looked like a fool. If she had let me do it as she ought, I could have given thanks to the Goddess for the preservation of Glaucus. I am the eldest daughter now and it is my right."
"But Ariadne," I said, startled into contradiction, "no one was laughing at her! People were—they were pleased to see her dancing after so many years."
"Oh, shut up, Xenodice!" She was suddenly furious. "Just go away and leave me alone!"
The light in her eye was one I knew all too well. Notwithstanding our elegant attire and the sacredness of the occasion, all that preserved me from assault were the sharp teeth of the monkey perched on my shoulder.
"Very well, Ariadne," I said, backing up a few steps. I reached up and stroked Queta, who had gone rigid at Ariadnes tone and was no doubt making threatening faces. But even my valiant friend Queta might quail before Ariadne, I thought. Ariadne had the spirit of a tigress.
As I left, however, I could not resist asking one last question.
"You spoke with that man before he addressed the assembly. Did you mention that the 'monster' was your brother?"
She looked away without replying.
"Did you?"
"No."
"He knows now," I said, watching her face.
She reddened, and stamped her foot at me. I retreated, thinking. I had always known that Ariadne disliked Asterius, but it had never occurred to me that it was shame that she felt.
Although I never cared to think overmuch upon my brother's begetting, I had never felt any embarrassment about him. Indeed, as Ariadne herself had pointed out, he was an asset, proving our family's close link with the Goddess. And in any case, I loved him; he was my brother.
"Father! Wait!"
A boy of about ten years suddenly shot out of a doorway across my path so that I nearly stumbled and fell. Annoyed, I turned to look and discovered that it was the child who had thrown stones at Asterius on the mountaintop two days ago.
What evil chance had allowed the boy into the palace on this of all days? For one brief moment I glimpsed the figure of a cloaked and hooded man, who dodged around a corner ahead of the boy.
On impulse, I followed them and found myself hurrying down a small, winding corridor that led toward the offices of the scribes, where much of the day-to-day business of Knossos was done. It was quiet here—few were at work on this great holiday.
It seemed queer. There had been thousands of strangers in the Labyrinth today, true, but why should one be lurking in this out-of-the-way place, and why did he not wait for his son? There was something furtive about his movements.
I ought to have called a guard, but I did not know for certain that the man and his boy meant any harm. In truth, my concern was partly for them—they might so easily become lost in this deserted part of the maze.
"Father!" cried the boy again. "Please wait! I cannot run so fast." He turned a sharp corner and, unseen, spoke again.
"Father! Father, is it true? Will that man really kill the monster?"
Indignant, I was about to plunge in after him to inform him that no, that man would not be allowed to kill my brother, when another voice spoke.
"Yes, my son," the ma
n said, and the sound and timbre of his voice halted me like a fist in the chest. "The Athenian will kill the monster for you, though I cannot."
Unbelieving, I stood motionless, listening. My utter stillness warned Queta, who sat mute on my shoulder.
"Why can't you?" the boy demanded petulantly. "Why can't you kill him for me? You are the king!"
The man was my father.
"I am the king, yes," he said, "but the queen is the living flesh of the Goddess here on earth. If I lifted my hand against her son, who is also the son of the Bull in the Earth, not I alone would suffer for it, but you as well, Eumenes."
"It's better to have the Athenian do it then," agreed the brat.
With the blood pulsing in my ears, I turned and walked quickly and silently away. I knew—I had known for years—that my father had had relations with women other than my mother. Ariadne had told me so, though I would have been much happier to remain in ignorance.
This, then, was a child from one of these unions. An image of the boy's face flashed across my mind. I had to admit that his eyes reminded me of the twins, Catreus and Deucalion. The boy who had thrown rocks at Asterius was my half-brother, just as Asterius was my half-brother. How strange!
Father had always hated Asterius, and now he had further reason. The boy had no doubt told his father—our father—about the day on the mountainside, making it seem that he had been viciously attacked. But Theseus was a prisoner, and now doomed by order of my mother the queen to die. How could he possibly do any harm to my brother?
I walked faster. If I told my mother what I had just heard ... No, I could not. It would be dreadful for my family. My brother would be safe, but what would my father's fate be? And after all, perhaps my brother was in no danger.
A persistent odor informed me that Queta badly needed her diaper changed. I returned her to a keeper in the menagerie and then hurried to the royal apartments. I found my mother preparing for her bath, surrounded by her attendants.
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