"For your brother's sake?"
I nodded.
He was silent for a long moment, thinking. "Perhaps you are wise," he said at last. "Your father has been trying to bribe me to tell him where Theseus is being held. He doesn't like to speak too plainly—it's dangerous for him if his reason for wanting to know is what I think it is—but it's clear enough what he wants. I have so far pretended not to understand him, but I cannot hold off telling him much longer."
"Oh, do not tell him!"
Daedalus eyed me speculatively. "I thought at first he wished to know so that he could kill Theseus himself. He has as much reason to hate him as your mother has. But Androgeus died long ago. I am beginning to think—"
"He wants Theseus to kill my brother," I burst out. "He hates the Lord Asterius."
Daedalus nodded. "That was my idea also," he said. He sat in thought for a moment. "I will help you."
I gaped at him. "You will? Why?"
Then I remembered. Theseus was some sort of relation, Icarus had said. Suddenly it occurred to me that Daedalus and Icarus would be in terrible danger if Theseus escaped. It would seem that Daedalus had deliberately let him go.
"No," I said. I knelt down and put the key back into the golden cup in the safe and began to rock the stone back and forth, easing it back into place. "No, Daedalus."
What a fool I was! I ought to have never listened to Ariadne. Every path led to death; if Theseus did not die, why then Daedalus and Icarus very well might. Let it be Theseus, then; Ariadne would forget about him in time.
I pulled the heavy sacks of feathers back over the floor safe and arranged them to look natural. "It is too dangerous, Daedalus," I said. "They would know it was you who freed him. You must not take such risks."
"Very well, Princess," he said, and I could not read the expression on his face.
I paused in the doorway. "Do you think—?"
"Yes, Princess?"
"Do you think that I might learn to fly someday?"
"Would you not be afraid?"
"Yes, I would. But to fly like a bird, Daedalus! That would be wonderful."
"Yes." he agreed.
"And although I am a princess, I am not an important one. If I died it would not be a serious problem."
He smiled and shook his head. "You are still a princess. If anything should happen to your older sisters, you will be queen."
"I would much rather fly than be queen," I said.
"I am sorry. But I promise that you shall be the first to see a man fly. The first in the world."
"Well, thank you for that, at least," I said sadly.
"You are welcome, my princess." And he bowed deeply, rapping his forehead sharply with his knuckles.
I had been wrong to leave the Bull Pen even for a few hours. That was the only way to keep my brother safe. My father surely would not seek to have my brother slain if he knew that I never left his side. From now on I would eat and sleep in the Bull Pen. I stopped by my rooms to inform my servant, Maira, of my decision. She protested, but I was firm.
"See to it," I said, and hurried back to my brother, fearful that my father had somehow managed to free Theseus while I dallied in the workshop.
I ordered the Athenians to withdraw during the night to a small room down the hall from the Bull Pen. I would have liked to dismiss them altogether, but that was beyond my powers. I wanted an armed soldier to stand guard over my brother's slumbers, but the soldiers were my father's men and loyal to him. In the end, Maira slept on the floor by my couch while a manservant kept watch by the door.
It appeared that my brother was far from an ideal roommate. I could almost feel that his servants were ill used after all. I soon understood the gratitude with which they greeted my news that they would not be sleeping in the same chamber with him any longer. His snoring was prodigious. One might be excused for thinking his sleeping place the cave of some bloodstained, man-eating monster, with such terrible roars and whistles issuing out of it every night. I pulled the bedclothes down around my ears and snatched such sleep as I might.
In the morning, the captain of my father's guards, Rhesos, appeared and informed me that the king wished to know why I had chosen to take up residence in my brother's chambers.
"Tell my father," I said, "that the Lady Potnia appeared to me in a dream and told me that there is a grave danger to the life of Lord Asterius, and that my presence alone would keep him safe."
This was not strictly true, of course, but I felt certain that the Goddess would forgive me, as it was surely through her intervention that I had learned about my fathers plot.
Rhesos looked as though he would speak further, but then seemed to think better of it. "Yes, my lady," he said, and left me.
How my father received this reply I do not know, for Rhesos did not return to demand further particulars of this menace to my brother's life, and neither did my father.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A CLEW OF THREAD
AND SO I SIT AND STILL I SPIN. MY CLEW OF THREAD GROWS long and longer.
I am so tired of spinning! Yet I seem compelled to spin as long as my weary wrists can hold up my work.
There are no windows here, only the light well, open to the sky. I can watch the clouds go by, but I must bend my neck backward to an uncomfortable angle, and so even this source of entertainment palls after a short time.
I am a prisoner in the Bull Pen; it is my own doing, but I am a prisoner all the same. I do not enjoy anticipating the death of a fellow human being. I wish that it were otherwise—I wish that Theseus could leave this island unharmed. But sometimes I feel that I would willingly see a thousand Theseuses walk to their deaths if it meant that I could once again sleep in my own quiet bed.
I dread the moment when Ariadne comes to demand the key. That she has not already done so is strange. Perhaps she is so busy with other arrangements for their escape that she has no leisure to badger me. I am sorry she is being put to so much trouble for nothing, but at least it keeps her occupied and away from me.
My greatest happiness now is my brother's. He does not understand why I am spending so much time with him, but he is delighted. He frisks like a young calf in the springtime. He brings me such treasures as he has hidden away in the straw: a gray stone with a round hole in it, a rusty metal bolt, a ravens feather. Often he lies down beside me and rests his horned head in my lap. Then I cease from spinning for a time to comb his hair and sing him nonsense songs.
Acalle is home; Maira told me so. Maira was nearly out of her head with excitement at the news. I merely went on twisting flax into thread, spinning my worries into a fine white linen strand.
"Yes, of course," I said to Maira.
I was not as pleased as I had expected to be.
"Then you knew where she was?" Maira asked, surprised.
I shrugged. It seemed of little importance now.
I thought of Ariadne, and how she must have felt when she heard. I thought of Theseus, pent up in his stone prison beneath the Bull Court.
I was right—I was right to do nothing. Theseus deserved to die—certainly he deserved it more than Asterius, or Daedalus and Icarus. Theseus was only a slave, anyway.
When would they come for him, I wondered, tonight or tomorrow?
Meanwhile, I refused to stir from my brother's side. My mother sent to see why I did not come to greet my sister, and I returned the same answer I had given my father.
Tomorrow night there would be a great feast to celebrate Acalle's arrival. Mother would surely insist upon my attendance, but I could not leave Asterius until assured that Theseus was dead. There would be little joy in such a festivity for me. I would be glad to see Acalle, but we had never been close. As prickly and difficult as Ariadne sometimes was, I could not imagine my life without her. If she were to leave with Theseus there would be a large hole in my life. But I would lose her anyway; Ariadne would not lightly forgive.
The sky above the light well had grown dark, my evening meal was consumed, an
d still Ariadne had not come. I ought to have been grateful, but it made me uneasy. Maira lit a single lamp—it was dangerous to burn more than one in this room full of hay and straw—and began to play the lyre.
I sang. I do not have a beautiful singing voice. Rather the reverse, in fact, but Maira knew better than to point this out, and singing eased my anxiety. Asterius made some peculiar noises in his throat, which might have been interpreted as an attempt to participate in the music, and in this way we passed the long evening.
At length we prepared for sleep. I instructed Maira and the manservant who guarded the door to move my bed as close as possible to where Asterius slept and resigned myself to a restless night. In fact, I fell asleep almost at once.
I could not tell what it was at first that awakened me. Asterius, for a wonder, was silent. An absolute stillness seemed to have fallen over the Labyrinth. The lamp was out, and I could scarcely see my hand held up before my face.
As I lay there, wondering why I was awake, I heard it again: a soft, stealthy bumping against the leg of the couch I slept on. I peered over the edge but could see nothing. I disliked feeling for the source of the noise. It might so easily be a rat—but it didn't sound quite like an animal. Finally, hesitantly, I ran my hand down the side of the bed. Just above the floor I encountered something I did not understand: a fine wire or string, tautly stretched.
It moved under my fingers.
I snatched my hand back. For a moment I lay motionless, utterly perplexed. Then I understood. The great ball of linen thread I had spun lay on the floor. The end of that thread passed through a narrow gap between the bed and a heavy grain bin. The noise I heard was the clew of thread slowly unraveling, rolling this way and that, trapped behind the bed and the grain bin.
I leapt out of bed. My foot struck Maira where she lay sleeping on the floor.
"Get up!" I whispered harshly, bending down to shake the girl by the shoulder. "Get up now!"
She did not respond. I slapped her face and she mumbled faintly, then subsided into sleep again.
Terrified, I hurried to my brother's side. He lay as still and unresponsive as Maira, but my groping fingers could find no wound. He still breathed. I disturbed his slumber only enough so that he twisted into another position and began to snore.
Already guessing what I would find, I crept over to the doorway and found the servant who was supposed to be keeping watch slumped over, deep in sleep.
The wine. Maira and the servant had had at least two glasses each, while I had only tasted mine, not liking the flavor. Asterius did not drink wine, but perhaps—yes, it could have been concealed in the little grain cake prepared especially for him.
I thought of Ariadne drugging her servant's wine. Now I knew why she had not come to demand the key. In some way she had learned that I did not have it, that I had decided not to help. And now—
There was a faint noise here in the doorway, barely perceptible over Asterius's snores. I bent down, feeling along the opening.
The thread stretched from my bedside out through the door. The noise I had heard was the slight scraping of thread against stone. Ariadne had entered the Bull Pen while we slept, picked up the end of the thread, and walked away holding it, the ball unwinding behind.
Why? That I could guess easily enough. She would descend to Theseus's cell and give him the free end. Then, while she crept out to the harbor to secure the ship and supplies she must have waiting there, Theseus would be able to find his way to the Bull Pen.
I was furious. Perhaps I did not think as clearly as I should have, but I was too angry to think, to ask myself the motive for doing such a thing.
It was reasonable that Ariadne would wish to free her lover, even that she would wish to escape with him. But the only reason for the clew of thread that occurred to me was to allow Theseus to travel in the dark, through unknown passageways, to where my brother and his protectors lay in a drugged sleep.
Oh. it was cruel, it was hard! Any regret I felt for leaving Theseus to his fate and any affection I felt for Ariadne dropped away from me now. "Why should she revenge herself on Asterius? I could understand and accept anger directed at me, but of all the actors in this tragedy, Asterius at least was wholly innocent.
I thought for a brief moment of feeling around in the dark until I found the lamp. There might be hot coals in a fire pit somewhere along the way, and light would be most welcome. But I dared not spare the time. I didn't know how close Ariadne was to reaching Theseus or whether or not she had possession of the key.
After all, what did the darkness matter to me? I too had the clew of thread for a guide. I circled my index finger and thumb around it and walked forward, letting it slide unhindered through my fingers. I had no desire to signal to Ariadne that someone else walked the Labyrinth behind her.
I soon adjusted my pace so that it matched hers; the thread lay unmoving in my hand. At first I traveled well-known territory; even in the blackness I knew where I was. Soon, however, I descended a staircase I did not recognize, and then another, plunging deeper into the earth than I had ever known that the maze descended. At last I walked down a hall so narrow my shoulders nearly brushed the wall on each side. The floors under my naked feet were earthen, not stone, and crumbs of broken masonry underfoot made my progress painful and uncertain.
I remembered what Ariadne had said about how she could sense the ancient dead there underneath the Labyrinth, and the hairs stood up on the nape of my neck. It was true; I also felt them, I also heard them. Surely, for instance, there was something looming off to the side just ahead. I could see nothing, but I paused, so certain was I that something waited there in the pitchy black.
Yet while I stood motionless, Ariadne walked closer and closer to the enemy. I sighed and stepped forward.
Powerful arms wrapped around me and a hand clamped over my mouth before I could scream. In my shock I dropped the thread and was dragged roughly through an opening into what I dimly sensed was a small room, a cell, perhaps, like the one that imprisoned Theseus. Something hard and sharp pressed against my neck.
"Who goes there?" demanded a hoarse whisper. "Speak and identify yourself or I'll cut your throat."
The hand over my mouth loosened slightly.
I swallowed, trying to conquer a quaver of terror.
"It is—"
"Keep your voice down!" commanded the man. "Whisper!"
I lowered my voice, but not by much. "It is I, Princess Xenodice of Knossos, daughter of Queen Pasiphae. I descend in an uninterrupted line from the Goddess Potnia, whose dwelling place and temple this is," I said. "If you do me any harm whatsoever, you will suffer greatly."
"Pah!" There was someone else in the room, and that someone did not like my answer.
Nor did the man who held me.
"I swear they slept," he said, and I thought that he addressed not me but the other person. "They should all of them have slept like the dead." He turned his attention back to me. "You shall not be hurt, Princess, unless you speak. If you make one more sound, you will die."
I went still. I had thought that it was Theseus who had captured me, but now I was not sure. Who, then, was the second person? Ariadne? No, there was no point in bringing him the clew of thread if she then remained to guide him. She would be waiting in the ship until he joined her with his comrades.
Besides, intuition told me it was a man. It seemed to me that the man in the corner commanded and the man with the knife obeyed.
I felt cold bronze on my throat. The knife had been turned so that the flat lay against my skin.
"Sssh," came a warning from the darkness.
I too waited, listening. Footsteps in the hallway approached the chamber in which we stood. They passed, and continued on in the direction whence I had come. We waited, then followed after.
It had been a long journey down into the earth. Returning to the Bull Pen with a knife to my throat seemed a voyage without an end. I was forced to walk crammed up against this strange man, who c
lutched my arm with one hand and the knife with the other. I could smell his nervous sweat, hear his ragged breath in my ear. If he was Theseus, he was at least as frightened as I was.
The other man walked noiselessly behind us.
Gradually, the halls through which we passed lost their absolute darkness and tomblike chill. The prevailing odor became less earthy; I smelled lamp oil and last night's dinner. The floors were smooth and cool under my bruised feet. I began to believe that I knew where I was.
The knife was still pressed into my flesh. It had not slipped or faltered in our long walk. If I cried out, if I tried to pull away, it could be turned on me in an instant. We were approaching the Bull Pen now, I was certain—the scent of hay and straw now intermingled with the other odors. I did not know what I was going to do.
I began to hear the rumbling, reverberating snores of my brother, so like the growls of a wild animal in its den.
I saw a light ahead, one that flickered and wavered as though carried in the hand of someone walking ahead of us. We were overtaking the person whose footsteps had passed our door in the deep maze. Suddenly the man who held me stopped. His hand came up and covered my mouth again. Other hands came and took me from him. After a moment of confusion, I realized that I was now held prisoner by the man who had followed us through the darkness.
The little scuffle occasioned by this transfer alerted the one who held the lamp. The light ahead of us paused, remained stationary in the entrance to the Bull Pen.
"Theseus!" The cry came from the man ahead, the one who had held me until a moment ago. No longer hushed, his voice rang out clearly. "A gift from the gods of your fathers!"
There came a clang and a clatter, as something metallic hit the floor and skittered down the hall toward the light. Now I could dimly see that a man held the lamp. He hesitated, then bent and picked the object up, examining it in the lamplight.
It was the knife.
Under the smothering hand I opened my jaws wide and bit down as hard as I could. The hand dropped, the man who held me uttered a smothered oath, and I screamed.
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