mate,” was his sole explanation.
“No,” he said. “Perdix was a child’s pet. I am now a man.” He used the word in the sense of a full-grown adult and not as a member of the human, as opposed to the bestial, race. We sat down on a stone bench in the shade of the parasol; splinters of sunlight jabbed through crevices in the reeds and pricked our shoulders. “Aren’t I?”
“A man is strong,” I said, “and strength makes him kind instead of tyrannical. A man is courageous, not because he lacks fear but because he conquers fear. Yes, Icarus, you are certainly a man, and one I am proud to call my brother.”
“But that’s not enough,” he said impatiently. “Even if I were those things, which I doubt, I am still not manly in other ways. With women.” His voice fell to a whisper, as if he ascribed to women the power and the mystery attributed to them in the days of stone implements, before it was known that the husband as well as the wife helped to produce a child. “I am—inexperienced.”
I studied him carefully and saw that his body had hardened since he came to the forest; he was tanned and firm, with a down of hair on his cheeks, and I understood why Zoe had looked at him with desire as well as affection. Manliness mingled with innocence and cried to be awakened to knowledge of its own power.
“And you think I can help you?”
“I know you can. You and Zoe used to be more than friends, didn’t you?”
I nodded, with perhaps a hint of a smirk.
“And other women too,” he continued. “You must have had hundreds. You’re just what they like. A regular bull of a man!”
Almost of itself, my chest expanded to its full dimensions, my tail twitched, my flanks felt the urge to strut. “It’s true that one kind likes me. Free-living women.”
“One kind admits she likes you. Secretly, all of them do. Look at Thea.”
The subject intrigued me. “Thea, you say?”
“Can’t take her eyes off you. But frankly, the other, non-sisterly kind interests me more. I don’t feel up to a long, exhausting courtship. I’m not as young as I was. That’s why I want you to take me wenching.”
“Wenching,” I repeated, possibilities flickering through my brain like a covey of quail. “Suppose we call on Zoe and ask her to fetch you a young friend from the next tree.”
“I don’t like them young,” he said with finality. “Experience, that’s what I want. You see—” He paused in acute embarrassment. “I am not very practiced. The palace at Vathypetro limited my education. What does one talk about at such a time?”
“Compliments,” I said. “One after another like pearls on a necklace. Give them something to wear—a bauble or an intimate garment such as a breast band—and then elaborate on how it becomes them. With my shop and workers, that’s no problem. Jewels, sandals, whatever they like I’ve got.”
“But you can’t talk all the time,” he said darkly. “Thea tried talking to Ajax when we were captives, but Ajax got tired of listening. He pushed her against the wall, and she had to use her pin. He wasn’t a conversationalist, and neither am I.”
“You’d be surprised how naturally the rest comes after the right gift and compliment. With the right woman, that is.”
“The right woman. That’s what I want you to help me find. And another thing. When I just think about wenching, I feel—well, a kind of fire creeping over my body. Arms. Chest. Stomach. Like a lizard with hot feet, if you know what I mean.”
“The problem,” I said, “is to find another lizard. We’ll visit Zoe tomorrow. We’ll ask her—”
“Eunostos! Icarus!” Thea called from the stairs.
“Later,” I whispered in the conspiratorial tone of men discussing their favorite subject under grave risk of detection. “Here comes the watchdog.”
“Eunostos, look at the intaglio I’ve cut!” she said, coruscating into the garden. She blazed in a lemon tunic which vied with the sun and gave her the look of a lithe young huntress; she had caught her hair in a knot behind her head and left her ears in piquant, pointed nakedness. I half expected a bow in her hand and a quiver at her back. Proudly she flaunted a large agate incised with the figure of a lion-haunched, eagle-headed griffin, the awesome but docile beast which the early Cretans had kept as pets in their palaces. “Where is Icarus? I wanted to show him too.”
Icarus had left the garden. “I have no idea,” I said, as convincingly as a bad liar can manage, though I had an idea of Icarus blithely making for a certain tree and a certain lady. The sly calf! He had wanted a woman of years and experience and no young friend from the next tree. I hoped that Zoe had told him the way.
“He shouldn’t walk in the forest alone. If Pandia did see a warrior—”
“You can’t keep him under foot all day. He isn’t domestic, you know.”
“No, I suppose not. He
“Thea,” I called after her. “Your ears—”
“Yes?” She smiled.
“Are very charming.”
Icarus, as he later explained, had gone to visit Zoe. Not knowing the way, he looked for Pandia to guide him. When he failed to attract her with calls and whistles, he hit on the plan of picking some blackberries which he ate or spilled as he walked. Pandia was not long in appearing to share the berries. No, she could not tell him the exact location of Zoe’s tree—there were dozens of Dryads, after all—but she knew that it was close to some large beehives where she often gathered honey. She would lead him to the hives and perhaps they would meet someone who could give them further directions. She took his hand in case there were bears on the prowl.
“Your hand is sticky,” he remarked.
“Oh,” she said, “I missed some,” licked her fingers to the last adhering seed, and reclaimed his hand. “You know,” she resumed, “you ought to wear a loincloth.”
“You think so?” said Icarus, flushing. In his hurry to leave the house, he had quite forgotten to dress.
“To hide your lack of a tail. It makes the back of you look lonesome.” She moved to weightier subjects. “Are you going to have beer with Zoe?”
“Possibly,” said Icarus. The thought occurred to him that the warm stimulus of beer might loosen his tongue and inspire him to dazzling compliments. Having come without a gift, he felt at a disadvantage.
“I wonder if she will have some cakes in the house.”
“No,” he said with authority. “She never keeps honey cakes. There is no need for you to go in with me. Or even wait.” Secretly, he hoped to linger with Zoe for several days, exploring the hidden tunnels and leafy porches and learning the harder steps in the Dance of the Python. He felt an unaccustomed and wholly exhilarating freedom. The voluptuous foretaste of manhood wetted his appetite like a roasted almond. He pictured Thea and Eunostos coming to Zoe’s tree, and himself ensconced in a bark parapet and calling down to them: “Don’t wait up for me. I’m spending the night.”
They slithered through a thicket of bamboo, the slender, jointed canes as tall as their heads, the light green leaves rustling about their bodies like papyrus. Those consummate farmers, the Centaurs, said Pandia, in their ancient wanderings, had imported the seeds from the Land of the Yellow Men.
Emerging from the thicket, they met a young man who seemed to be waiting for them. “You must be looking for my sister,” he said. Icarus noticed the sickly softness of his flesh; he was not fat but he seemed without muscle, and his skin looked as if it would yield to the touch like the soft meat of a blowfish’s belly. Otherwise, he was not unattractive: a golden down covered his arms and cheeks as if they had been dusted with pollen; his eyes were round and extraordinarily gold; and his tall wings were as black and pointed as the fin of a shark.
“Icarus, don’t listen to him,” hissed Pandia in a very audible whisper. “He is one of the Thriae. He may be planning to rob us.”
“And what would I steal, your belt of rabbit’s fur?” He smiled scornfully. “I am not stealing today, I am giving. Would you like to know what?”
Icarus did not intend to ask him. He resented the fellow’s remark about Pandia’s belt.
“What?” asked Pandia.
“Sisters,” he said. “Or rather, one sister. Isn’t that what you are looking for, Icarus? A man can recognize the
