Lost in the Labyrinth

by Patrice Kindl

  Thereafter she was attentive to him, trying to engage him in conversation. He had responded as he always did: he was gentle and courteous, but his eyes were remote. I knew the very moment when she began to doubt her power to ensnare him, the moment when she decided that he was beneath her notice because he did not notice her.

  Now Ariadne's unusual interest in my brother's servants gave me an excuse to seek Icarus out and talk to him. He was himself more than half Athenian, though one of us, a Keftiu, by birth and training. His mother, Naucrate, had been an Athenian woman, a slave. Minos, our father, had given her to Daedalus the inventor in recognition of his skill, and Daedalus, half Athenian himself, had loved her and married her. It was therefore natural that Icarus would understand the language and customs of my brother's servants.

  I lay in wait for him by the paint-grinding shed, where he often did work for his father.

  His face lightened when he saw me. If he did not love me as a man loves a woman, he did at least like me.

  "Hello, little mouse," he said, smiling.

  "I am the Princess Xenodice," I said, "You should not address me so."

  "No?"

  "No. And you should stand up and salute me properly. Icarus, why do you suppose that Ariadne is so interested in the Athenians? Not the ones that are coming, but the ones from last year." I told him of Ariadne making us late for dancing class in order to inspect them. "What is she up to, do you think?"

  "Perhaps it is because your mother has promised that Ariadne may choose one as her personal servant when the new lot comes in," Icarus said. He shook several small charred animal bones out of a leather sack onto his worktable.

  "Oh! Has she?"

  "I am not certain, but that is what they believe," he said. "They have been arguing amongst themselves about which one she will pick."

  It was reasonable. Any of them would be pleased to be the trusted servant of the next Queen of the Keftiu. The work of such a one would be light, his bed soft. For the ambitious, there was also the possibility of great political power in the palace.

  "And when do the new ones come? Do you know?"

  "If you run down to the harbor right now you may see their sail approaching," he said, beginning to grind the blackened bones with a stone pestle.

  "Is that true, or are you saying it to be rid of me?"

  "I am grieved that you think I would be so discourteous, Princess."

  "Icarus!"

  He smiled. "To tell true, my lady, I don't know. They will be here soon: today, tomorrow, perhaps in three days' time. I cannot say what day they left, or what winds they've had. There will be plenty of excitement making ready for them down on the wharf. I thought it would amuse you to see it."

  As if I were a spoilt child whining for entertainment! Standing here so close to him as he worked, observing him, and listening to his voice was the only entertainment I could ever want or need. His beautiful, strong fingers were growing smudged with black, I noticed. Making paints for his father meant that yellow, blue, or brown pigment often discolored his nails and stained his hands. I watched for a few moments longer the flexing of the muscles in his arms and back as he worked and then tore my eyes away.

  "Yes, well, if you think that the ship will be here soon, perhaps I shall go and look for it," I said reluctantly. I always left Icarus long before I had drunk my fill of his company. I could not bear for him to wish me gone.

  But he had forgotten me during that brief silence; his mind was far away and only recalled to me by an effort of will.

  "Do, little one," he said absently.

  Then he spoke again; "I dreamt of the Athenians who are coming. I dreamt that they rode toward us on the gales of a great storm. And one in the ship commanded the storm and bade it bear them along."

  "Oh," I said. For want of anything else to say, I asked, "What ... what did she look like, the one who ruled the winds?"

  "It was a man, a young man barely older than myself" (Icarus was sixteen, Ariadne's age). "He seemed—very sure of himself."

  "A man!" I said, surprised. "How should a man use weather magic? Your dream makes no sense, Icarus."

  Icarus smiled at me again, coming out of his abstraction. The sweetness of that smile completely unnerved me; I had to cling to the paint-grinding table for support.

  "You're right, little mouse, little bird. Not all dreams tell true. When I was done dreaming about unnatural male magicians from Athens, I commenced to dream another dream, one even less likely."

  "What dream was that?" I asked uneasily.

  "I dreamt—" he paused a moment, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Princess. Dreams are nothing but colored shadows in the mind. I cannot believe they tell the future, whatever the priestesses may say."

  I frowned and bit my lip. I wanted to know his dream.

  "When the ship does arrive," said Icarus, "you shall question the captain yourself and prove to me that no man has learnt the mastery of the winds."

  "I will," I promised him. I could see that he was humoring me, and also that his dreams weighed more with him than he would admit. I longed to be able to tell him that these were false images. I did not like the look of secret happiness on Icarus's face when he spoke of the second dream. Jealousy bit deep into my heart; I did not think he dreamt of me.

  "Perhaps the captain awaits my interrogation even now," I said, and with a familiar twist of grief in my chest I walked out of the paint-grinding shed. I didn't look back.

  As I walked down toward the harbor I passed the cages of the menagerie, which was almost a second home for me. I spent as much time as I could spare helping Lycia, the chief keeper. I fed the animals, talked to them—I even occasionally did servants work by mucking out kennels and cages. I was happy there; it was my refuge in good times and bad.

  Now my favorite monkey, Queta, spotted me and indicated with an imperious cry that she wished to accompany me. As I opened the door of her cage she shrieked with delight and leapt to my shoulder.

  "Bring her back soon, Princess," said Lycia. "She'll be hungry and thirsty before long." Queta was still a young monkey and needed frequent nourishment, like a human child.

  Icarus was right about the preparations for the ceremonial reception of the new Athenian servants. Carts of potted plants were being wheeled into place and the pier posts decked with wreaths of greenery. Every idler in Knossos Town milled about, pretending to have work to do on the wharves so that they might be present when some sharp-eyed person first spotted the black sail.

  Queta was excited, her hair standing up in a fluff all over her body and her tail stretched out rigid as a poker behind her. I held tight to her leash; monkeys do not like large, noisy crowds. Queta might decide she would prefer to observe the scene from atop a fifty-foot carob tree rather than from my shoulder, and then Lycia would be angry with me.

  We found a spot on top of a wall where we might watch the jostling crowds without being jostled ourselves, and there we perched while the sun slid slowly down her track in the sky. Queta grew bored with the spectacle before us and occupied herself with picking through my hair, pretending to find and eat nonexistent lice. At length, grunting softly to herself she curled up and went to sleep on my shoulder. I sat unmoving, lulled by sunshine, thinking of Icarus.

  I saw my brothers Deucalion and Catreus being carried by on a litter above the crowd. They were twins, born out of my mother within a few moments of eath other. Like many of that kind, they seemed born with but one soul between them: they had little use for anyone outside their charmed circle of two. They had chosen two pairs of twins to bear their litter so that the onlooker was given the uneasy sense of looking at both reality and its reflection. My brothers were as usual talking to each other and did not notice me.

  "Princess Xenodice!"

  Someone else had spotted me, however. It was Graia, the bossy old woman who had tended me from my cradle, with little Phaedra trailing behind her and the baby Molus in her arms. "Get down from that wall and go at once back
to your quarters. Dress yourself properly. You look like a bag of old rags."

  "I do n—" I began protesting, when I looked down and caught sight of my dress. Straw clung to the hem from my visit to Asterius, and a great streak of yellow ocher recalled my visit to the paint-grinding shed. Furthermore, a combined aroma of monkey urine and perspiration from my efforts in dancing class wafted up to my nostrils.

  "And bathe," Graia said. "Come. I will see to it myself."

  She would have taken me by the ankle and dragged me off of the wall by main force had she not a healthy respect for Queta's teeth. Queta did not care for people laying hold of me and forcing me to do things. As my sister Phaedra now began to object to being removed from the scene of so much excitement, Graia resigned herself to not overseeing my ablutions.

  "Very well. I see I must stay here. Tell that worthless girl of yours to stir herself up and do something for a change." She wrinkled her nose. "And make sure she uses some perfumed oils in that bath."

  "But I want to be here when the Athenians arrive," I protested.

  "No doubt," she said. "That event may happen anytime from now until midsummer. There will be plenty of time to make yourself presentable. And, Xenodice, when you return, have yourself carried on a litter. You are growing too old to run wild like this."

  Queta, roused from her nap, was scandalized that Graia should speak to me so. She stood up on my shoulders, gripped my hair by the roots, and began a long, vigorous scold.

  "Aii! Queta, don't pull so!" I clapped a hand to my damaged scalp as I slipped down from the wall and began to trudge up the road to the palace again.

  Having returned Queta to her keeper, I obediently searched out my slave girl, Maira, and directed her to prepare my bath. I had argued with my nurse, fearing to miss the arrival of the Athenians, but in my heart I knew she was right and that they might not come for days. And besides, like all my race, I dearly love a good bath.

  When I encounter people from other nations, either down at the harbor or formally at court, it is difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that foreigners, whatever their station in life, invariably stink. They don't seem to realize it, either. Elegantly dressed ambassadors will smile and bow and lean over me, patting my hand in a kindly way. all the while blasting out such a stench of rotted teeth and unwashed bodies that I must fight the urge to flee.

  Ours is a society much addicted to washing. Our bathing facilities are renowned all over the civilized world. No one has devised a more elegant and ingenious method of cleaning the body and carrying away its wastes, and I do not believe that anyone ever will. The Queen of Egypt has not a bathroom so fine, even though it is said that she bathes in asses' milk and honey for the sake of her complexion.

  I am especially fond of my own bathtub. Well, to be truthful, it is not mine alone but belongs to my sisters as well as myself. Icarus's father, Daedalus, made and decorated it for us, and Icarus helped him, though he was but a child at the time. For this latter reason it is doubly dear to me, but I love it mostly because it is beautiful and clever, like everything that Daedalus makes.

  Since it is the bathing place for a princess who will someday rule an empire, the bathtub is designed to give information to the mind while the body sheds the dirt and odors of the day. It is a perfect model of our world, or as perfect as it can be and yet retain the shape of a bathtub.

  We are the Sea People, or so we are often called. We live at the very center of the world, at the very center of the sea. Painted on the floor and sides of the tub is a map of the sea, with the Island of Kefti in the middle of it and along the rim the lands that border upon the sea. So, after Maira has released rainwater from the catchment reservoir on the roof into the tub, added a basinful of boiling water to make it hot, and poured in the fragrant oils, I climb inside and find myself sitting squarely on my own homeland, on top of a tiny representation of the Palace of Knossos.

  As is fitting, my back is to the ignorant Ligurii in the west. (I have heard that still farther west lies an even greater sea than our own, with lands unimaginable lining its shores, but I care nothing for them; that which is not represented in my bathtub does not interest me.) My left arm lies on the northern shores of the sea, from whence come the Athenians and other Hellenes. My left knee presses upon the land of Anatolia, where the Hittites live. My right arm curls about the southern coast: arid Libya, where my sister Acalle is said to have gone.

  Far, far to the east, above the drain hole and almost entirely out of the tub, lies Babylon, where they understand the secret pathways of the stars. Nearer, underneath my right foot where it rests on the rim, is the ancient land of Egypt. And scattered across the face of the sea, underneath my body where I cannot see them, are the many colonies of the Keftiu: Kamikos, Thera, Naxos, and others.

  Painted dolphins and squid swim in the sea, camels lope across Libya, the inscrutable Sphinx guards the mouth of the ancient Nile—oh, it is a beautiful bathtub!

  I have sat upon my mother's throne often, and once or twice worn my mother's crown. Never have I wished to be queen except, occasionally, in my bath.

  And yet to be Queen of Kefti is to be queen of the world, or nearly so. We the Keftiu have no rival in the world, save Egypt. Alone among the nations of the eastern seas, we pay no tribute to Pharaoh; we are equals. The Keftiu do not begrudge Egypt her wealth. Why should we, when so much of it finds its way into our storehouses by means of trade?

  Our people are makers and merchants. We have small heart for conquest, though we will do what we must to protect ourselves. It is in our best interests that the sea shall be peaceable and free from piracy; therefore, our ships patrol the waters far and wide, punishing those (Athenians, as often as not) who would attack and plunder honest merchants.

  But our greatest joy is the making of things: things of beauty and usefulness, things to amuse and entertain, things of power and wonder. We make so many things that in the end we have not room in our houses and temples and palaces for them all, so we ship some of them to neighboring countries. In return, our neighbors send us lumber and metals and precious stones from which we make yet more things: vases and urns and libation cups, medicines, charms and magic rings, ornaments of gold and silver, finely wrought swords and jeweled ostrich eggs.

  We the Keftiu are very clever and very, very rich.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LOST

  SOMETHING DREADFUL HAS HAPPENED. MY BROTHER GLAUCUS is missing. No one can tell where he has gone.

  Soaking in the bathtub, I heard the beginning of the uproar. I sent Maira to see what was going on while I dried myself off She returned, wailing and keening as though already mourning his death.

  "The poor little boy! He's wandered off by himself. He's surely been eaten by lions!"

  "Don't be stupid, Maira," I snapped. "There are no lions on Kefti." Maira came from Anatolia, where these ferocious beasts are often heard roaring in the waste places.

  "There is the lion in the Queen's Menagerie," she pointed out.

  A chill washed over me in spite of the lingering heat of the day. Glaucus was just such a plump, round little boy who might be expected to appeal to a hungry beast of prey.

  "Go and look, then," I commanded.

  "Oh, but—what if the lion is still loose, prowling around? I must stay and help you dress, Princess."

  "I am perfectly capable of dressing myself. And if," I added meanly, for I was angry with her for giving me a fright, "if you are right and the lion has eaten my brother, he may be too full to think of eating you as well."

  "Oh, my lady!"

  "Go!"

  She went.

  If truth be told, I was not accustomed to dressing myself and it took me some time, fumbling with the fastenings of my clothes. My very haste seemed to render them stiff and uncooperative. Still, after what seemed an eternity, I was attired and ready to help in the search.

  Glaucus had been missing for much of the day. He had not been seen since just after the morning meal, and it was
now late afternoon. His personal servant admitted that he had given the boy leave to go down to the wharves at the harbor to watch the stir and excitement of the preparations there but had not accompanied him. Instead, Bas, the servant, had curled up in a corner and taken a long nap. He awoke just before the midday meal and, when Glaucus did not appear (a most unusual circumstance, for Glaucus was fond of food), began cautiously to inquire about him around the harbor. No one could be found who had seen him, and the servant's fears grew, until at length he was forced to admit that the child was lost and to ask for help in finding him.

  The Labyrinth is not a good place in which to lose something. It was built with the intention to confuse and confound. It is as much a temple as it is a palace, for it is the dwelling of the Goddess, the Lady of the Double Ax. A hundred winding passageways leading to a thousand and half a thousand rooms ensure that no one who has entered may leave without assistance.

  Only a few months before, the feebleminded son of a merchant in Knossos Town had crept into the palace. I do not myself believe that he meant any harm, but who can say? He eluded the vigilance of the guards and penetrated the private portion of the palace for some reason best known to himself Being lost in the Labyrinth is bewildering for those of normal intelligence—what must it have been like for such a one as he?

  I pity him, thinking of his fear mounting as he trod endless featureless corridors that turned and turned upon themselves and finally led to a dead end. I imagine him running down a flight of stairs, believing that at last he was about to break free of the maze, only to be faced with a blank wall and no way out save by the route he had come.