The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  Back in his turret, Ismail was indeed awaiting him. So was the costume. To Papa Schimmelhorn’s astonishment, he saw that it consisted of (a) a magnificently carved and gilded bronze helmet with a nose-piece, (b) a ditto bronze cuirass and greaves, (c) a heavy, straight bronze sword in a silver scabbard, complete with sword belt, (d) a pair of silver-studded sandals made of goatskin, and (e) a curious little skirt fashioned apparently of the same material. All, though obviously of antique design, appeared to be of Renaissance manufacture.

  He regarded the whole assembly dubiously. “Vhere iss der undervear?” he demanded.

  Ismail bowed. “Highness,” he replied respectfully, “in Minoan times, in ancient Crete, they did not have underwear. When you are seated on your throne beside Her Highness, your subjects must be able to look up at you and see you truly are a man!”

  Though he grumbled when Ismail insisted politely that he remove even his polka-dotted shorts, the argument that the Princess would be upset if he did not follow local custom prevailed; and presently he stood before the mirror splendidly arrayed, and surveyed himself. He remembered Grecian amphorae he had seen, decorated with the glorious warriors of the heroic past, and he was forced to admit, in all modesty, that they really couldn’t hold a candle to him, an opinion in which Ismail obviously concurred. Only Gustav-Adolf refused to be impressed. “I’ll be a goddam mouse’s uncle!” he growled to his little calico. “Didja ever see anything to beat that?” Then he turned his striped back, and absolutely refused to be coaxed onto the Schimmelhorn shoulder.

  Ismail threw the door open. He lifted a huge brazen gong, a vast padded hammer. He handed Papa Schimmelhorn a tall spear with a long bronze point. Down the turret stairs he went. He struck the gong a thunderous blow. “Make way! Make way!” he shouted. “Make way for His High Mightiness, our Princess’s royal lover, our beloved Princess’s consort!” He struck the gong thrice more. “Make way! Make way!”

  And Papa Schimmelhorn, getting into the spirit of the thing, followed him with martial tread, striking the bronze haft of his spear against the flagstones of the corridor at every bong and glaring ferociously at the ancestral portraits on the walls as he strode past them.

  Presently, having somehow acquired an entourage of open-mouthed small boys, they emerged into the castle courtyard, now thronged with several hundred islanders, and lighted by myriad torches. Ismail advanced enthusiastically, making his gong resound and his “Make ways!” boom out thrice as dramatically as before, and Papa Schimmelhorn followed him majestically. There was a gasp of awe and wonder from the multitude.

  The Princess, already on her throne, stood up and came toward him, and he saw—a little apprehensively when he recalled that he was wearing only a small goatskin skirt—that she too was in Minoan costume, her richly glowing hair coiled upon her proud head, her open bodice leaving her breasts arrogantly bare. As Mavronides came forward to take his spear, she held her hands out to him. She led him to the second throne, seated him on it with a kiss, resumed her own. Instantly there was music: silver cymbals sang, and harps; pipes trilled; rams’ horns and conchs brayed; strong young voices soared in a paean of rejoicing.

  Then the Princess raised a hand, and abruptly all was still.

  “Now,” she cried out triumphantly, “my people, I give you your true Prince, he who will rule here with me—I give you my love, my hero, Prince August the First, who shall be the father of my sons!”

  As she spoke in Greek, Papa Schimmelhorn did not get the full meaning of what she said until Mavronides whispered a translation in his ear. He gulped. Fathering sons was something he most decidedly had not contemplated. But he looked again at the Princess’s open bodice and quelled the touch of panic that had assailed him. Surely the remark was just part of the ritualistic mumbo jumbo of being a Prince, and nothing to be taken seriously.

  The crowd was cheering now, and Sarpedon Mavronides and his assistants were starting to marshal it toward the dais and the thrones. There were village dignitaries and their wives; there were husbandmen and fishermen, their wives and children, grandfathers and grandmothers; and all of them bore gifts: baskets of lush grapes, huge flagons of sweet wine, sheep and goats, calves, prize specimens of the local handicrafts, intricate mosaics of the Princess and her Prince especially done for the occasion.

  Solemnly they advanced. The men and women knelt before the Princess. They knelt before the Prince, kissing his extended hand in fealty, the younger girls peeking under his little skirt and giggling and nudging each other at what they saw or thought they saw, the young men standing straight and tall and flexing their muscles to impress royalty with their strength and eagerness.

  Papa Schimmelhorn conducted himself with a truly regal dignity and benevolence, murmuring words of praise and bestowing gracious looks of acknowledgment and gratitude. Meanwhile, Mavronides’s staff took charge of all the presents, and the Princess, leaning forward, whispered that almost all of them—all but the portraits and the handicrafts—were to be sacrifices during the festivities of the next few days.

  Slowly, the line passed by, while Prince and Princess did their royal duty. Then, at its very end, to Papa Schimmelhorn’s astonishment, Meister Gaspar Gansfleisch put in his appearance, looking very contrite and woebegone. He dropped to his knees before the thrones; he dabbed at his red eyes with a messy handkerchief. “Great Prince,” he said, “I have a confession, and if you permit it, amends to make. I have served your Princess now for several years, most faithfully, but I am weak and fallible. When it appeared certain that you would accomplish, with your wonderful machine, what we alchemists have so long striven for, I was poisoned with jealousy. I denounced you to Her Highness. While my familiar was still with me, I even conspired against you with the Powers of Darkness, never suspecting that you yourself are the greatest alchemist of all. Now I pray only that you and your noble Princess will forgive me, and that I may be allowed to serve you humbly.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn quickly drew back his right hand, which Meister Gansfleisch was doing his best to seize and kiss, and patted him benignly on the head. “Okay, I forgiff you, Meister Gassi,” he said. “Und because you say you now do nodt haff Tvitchgibbet, if you are goot und vork hard maybe I get Gustav-Adolf sometime to catch for you anoder rat.”

  The Princess, not quite so magnanimous, muttered something threatening about the Labyrinth, and dismissed him with a curt gesture. Bowing and scraping, he backed away, and was immediately replaced by an ancient Greek Orthodox priest who appeared from behind the Throne, blessed the royal couple, then blessed the crowd. Again the Princess whispered in her consort’s ear, “Pay no attention to him, my love! He’s simply here for appearances’ sake—he’s really one of us.”

  Sarpedon Mavronides raised his hand. Once more, music filled the courtyard. Decorously, the joyous crowd dispersed. The Princess waited until all had gone. Then she stood, Papa Schimmelhorn following her example. Mavronides handed him his spear.

  “And now,” she said, “I shall return to our apartments, where Niobe will ready me for bed—and for you, my heart, my love! So go to your turret, divest yourself of your habiliments, and hasten back to me. Tonight there is much that I must teach you, much that you must learn, secrets I can share with you alone!”

  “I vill hurry,” promised Papa Schimmelhorn. “It does nodt take me long to chanche, but shtill I haff to feed mein Gustav-Adolf, und also die lidtle calico—so cute togeder!—und vash my hands vhere I touch Meister Gassi.”

  The Princess wrinkled her delightful nose. “Do wash them carefully, then,” she laughed. “We’ll want no taint of him about our bed.”

  Ismail appeared, complete with gong and mallet. “Make way! Make way!” he shouted.

  Back they paraded through the passageways, but at the turret door Papa Schimmelhorn dismissed him. As quickly as he could, he removed his amior, his goatskin skirt. He took a good hot shower, an
d donned his denims. Gustav-Adolf still wasn’t speaking to him, but the little calico purred and rubbed against his ankles, and both of them accepted the roast lamb they were offered. Then Papa Schimmelhorn took Humphrey out of his retreat, revived him with his honeyed brandy, and gave him a complete report of the evening’s happenings.

  Sadly, Humphrey shook his head. “I like it not, good Master Schimmelhorn,” said he. “There’s dire peril in these pagan doings—peril you wot not of, not merely to your mortal body, for even though now you be a Prince, there’s peril too to your immortal soul! Oh, and place no dependence on the sweet promises of Gaspar Gansfleisch, nor in his repentance. That toad, ugly and venomous, bears no precious jewel in his head, I assure you.” He looked at Papa Schimmelhorn lugubriously. “I shall say nothing more, not now. But hark you! If you feel endangered, if by foul plotting or mischance you on a sudden find you know not where to turn, before you act, I implore you, consult with me. Though I be small, still have I lived, even in this poor shape, a good four hundred years and more.” He sighed. “I have learned much about this unkind world, this vale of tears.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn, thinking vividly about the Princess’s open bodice and how even it, by this time, had quite certainly been taken off, shook off his own vague apprehensions, promised Humphrey that he would indeed consult him before doing anything at all rash, returned him to his jar, and hastened back to the waiting Fräulein.

  Without a word, she kissed him. Without a word, she removed his denims, his polka-dotted shorts. Without a word, she drew him to their bed. There they made love wordlessly, and there Prinz Owgoost forgot all his timorous doubts. Now he felt strong, virile, unconquerable, as a true Prince should feel.

  She stroked him gently. “My love,” she said, “the time has come for me to share our greatest, our most sacred secret. Have you heard of the Minotaur?”

  “Ja!” boomed Papa Schimmelhorn. “I know all aboudt—in der Cifil Var, in der big fight vith der Merrimac.”

  Her laughter rippled. “Darling,” she exclaimed, “it is brave of you to jest—but our Minotaur is no jesting matter. Our Minotaur is no myth, no ancient fresco on a crumbling wall, as he is at Knossos. Here on Little Palaeon, in his Labyrinth, our Minotaur—the only Minotaur—still lives! And we, on Little Palaeon, live in terror of him!”

  IX.

  Minotauromachy

  Papa Schimmelhorn had only the vaguest idea of what a Minotaur might be, and, to tell the truth, at the moment any such creature, alive or not, was quite outside his range of active interest, which extended no further than the bed and its enticing occupant. He decided, however, that it would be unprincely not to answer. “Shveetheart,” he asked, “if he iss alvays inside der vot-you-call-it, der Labyrinth, vhy is eferybody so shcared of him?”

  She drew him close. As though she feared she might be overheard, she lowered her voice. “Because he is terrible in his power. He is a demigod. His mother was a queen, and her own father was a god. She mated with a magnificent white bull, brought miraculously out of the sea—”

  “Ach, so!” said Papa Schimmelhorn. “Chust like die sheepherders in Nefada, only der oder vay around?”

  “It was a dark and dreadful thing she did. And he was born, with a man’s enormous body and a great bull’s head—yes, and in other ways also, which you can best imagine, he is like a bull. But he has great horny fingers instead of hooves, and like any man he walks erect; and he is more than ten feet tall. The kings at Knossos pretended they kept him there in their false labyrinth. They did it so the Athenians would send an annual tribute of youths and maidens to be sacrificed to him, but in truth he never took them; the kings kept them for their own pleasure. But he was always here on Little Palaeon, in the true Labyrinth, and he exercised his awful power much more subtly, for those who dared venture into it he invariably made mad, and those who thought of conquering Little Palaeon he drove away in fear and trembling. Even the Nazis, when they were on Crete during the war, never set foot here. And so we reverence him, and seek to appease his anger with our sacrifices, and hold our great bull-dances and solemn festivals to honor him, just as we have for four thousand and more years. As our Prince, you will also be our Priest, so these are things that you must know. Tomorrow we begin the four days of our most awesome and most joyous rites. They will start in the afternoon with the bull-dancing here in our courtyard, and that, my love, will be followed by a splendid feast, dancing and drinking and making merry. On the second day, our women will make their pilgrimage to the place of the Labyrinth—that great mound at the island’s end, where outsiders think there’s nothing left but ruins and rubble—to pray that he will make them fertile. On the third, our men will go there, so that he may grant them virility and rich harvests. Each evening, too, there will be feasts again. And you, my Hero-Prince, will lead us in all these exercises and devotions, splendid in your armor, and I will show you how.”

  “You mean,” said Papa Schimmelhorn, aghast, “I haff to dance vith bulls?”

  She laughed softly. She kissed him here and there, ardently. “Of course you won’t, my love,” said she. “Nor will you have to dandle serpents when the snake-goddess is being worshipped. All that’s for the common folk. They enjoy themselves tremendously, and they’re really very good at it—they have to be, or they don’t last very long, because it really is quite dangerous. Then, on the fourth day—But no, I’ll not tell you now, because that’s the most important. It is the day when we try to soothe him with song and music, and placate him with our sacrifices. It is the day, too, when you will be at your most glorious. But enough! We’ve more interesting things to do tonight than talk. Let us turn out the light….”

  * * * *

  They were awakened by soft music; then serving maids brought breakfast to their bed. They made love. They took an hour or two off to make a little gold, transmuting a leaden statuette of the Minotaur himself a local craftsman had fashioned for them. Then, after lunch, Papa Schimmelhorn returned once more to his turret to don his martial finery and be ignored again by Gustav-Adolf. When he rejoined his Princess, he was delighted to see that she was wearing her Minoan décolletage, and with great ceremony they descended to the crowded courtyard. The thrones now stood on a platform high above the ground, and during the night a grandstand had been erected, very much like those easily disassembled ones used by traveling circuses. A round, well-sanded area in the very center of the courtyard had been fenced in, its gate facing the great gates of the court itself.

  Cymbals clashed; conchs and rams’ horns roared; gongs boomed. An exultant shout came from the eager crowd. Sarpedon Mavronides raised his baton of office. And from a passage underneath the grandstand ran ten maidens and ten youths, all lithe as panthers, all beautiful, all completely naked.

  The Princess’s eyes burned with excitement. “There they are!” she cried, squeezing her Prince’s knee. “The bull-dancers! Oh, how I wish that I were with them—that you and I together could confront the bulls!” She sighed regretfully. “But pleasures such as these are not for us—that is the price we pay for our powers and privileges.”

  Papa Schimmelhorn thought it a very small and welcome price to pay, but he was wise enough not to say so.

  The bull-dancers came leaping forward, smiling, holding each other’s hands. Below the Thrones, they stopped, raised their arms in salutation, made obeisance. Then they arrayed themselves on either side of the arena’s open gate.

  “Look! Look!” Leaping to her feet, the Princess pointed at the great courtyard gates, now swiftly opening. “Here come the bulls!”

  There were six of them, and they were by far the biggest and most ferocious-looking bulls Papa Schimmelhorn had ever seen, black, mighty-shouldered, red eyed, cruelly horned. They charged in, chivvied on by men with prods. The bull-dancers skipped and danced, leaped and pirouetted, drawing them on, urging them into the arena. The arena gate was closed.
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br />   Then, for the next two hours, except for brief breaks for music and refreshments, he was treated to an absolutely unparalleled exhibition of sacerdotal athleticism. The bull-dancers waited for the bulls to charge them; they vaulted to their backs, they somersaulted from the viciously hooking horns; they decked their bulls with flowers; they formed human pyramids as targets, only to dissolve them in the twinkling of an eye. Only two of them were gored, one not very seriously.

  When it was over, the gates were again opened, and the bulls, now looking just as irritable but much less aggressive, were chased out again.

  The bull-dancers once more came forward to the Thrones. “They are coming to us to be rewarded,” the Princess whispered. “The lads will come to me, the girls to you. Watch me, and do exactly what I do. But”—smiling, she looked down significantly at the front of his small goatskin skirt—“be sure you do not praise any of them too obviously.”

  She stood. Prinz Owgoost stood up with her. The first youth came to her. She placed a hand on either of his cheeks, and kissed his lips. “You have done well,” she said. “You have danced beautifully and bravely.”

  The boy blushed, bowed deeply, turned away.

  In the meantime, Papa Schimmelhorn had followed the very same procedure with the first of the dancing maidens, parroting his Princess’s words as closely as he could.

  By the time all the dancers had been given their accolades, he had come to the conclusion that old Minoan customs had much to recommend them, and he told the Princess as much when, after the ceremony was over and the crowd had helped to dismantle the grandstand and replace it with benches and long tables, he and she repaired to her apartments for cooling wine and dalliance.