Chapter Five
Bull Rider
“WHEN YOU COME TO CONSIDER IT,” I SAID, THOUGHTFULLY chewing on the stem of a flowering orchid, “Polyidus did little to deserve his present good fortune. It was the bee that found Glaucus and the snake that fetched the herb that brought him back to life. Polyidus lies when he says he brought Glaucus back to life.”
“The serpent brought the herb, yes,” said Icarus. “But it did so to revive the other snake killed by Polyidus’s stone. It was Polyidus who, seeing the effect of the herb, placed it upon your brother’s face. Had Polyidus not been present, your brother would now lie dead in his tomb.”
“But he killed the sacred snake! For that act he ought to have been struck dead on the spot, but instead he is covered with honors. It makes no sense.”
We three, Icarus, Asterius, and I, were seated near the edge of a precipitous cliff looking out over the sea. Or rather, Icarus and I were sitting. Asterius was behind us, galloping around and around in a circle, mad with delight at the sun and the grass and the sweet scented breeze. Now and then he snorted and kicked his hind hooves up into the air in an ecstasy of enjoyment. At intervals he flung himself down onto a mass of vegetation and rolled in it, rising up perfumed with thyme and sage and rosemary. The sea lay spread out before us, like the Lady Potnia’s blue robe sewn with glittering jewels. A kestrel, making use of the current of air rushing up the side of the cliff, soared effortlessly skyward to float high above our heads. Bees buzzed sleepily and goldfinches flashed brilliantly in the brush.
Behind us were Asterius’s Athenian servants. The Festival of the Bull being so close at hand, they were playing at being bull riders and bull dancers, using a large boulder to represent the bull. As I watched, one of the girls, portraying the bull leaper, somersaulted over the rock. She was caught quite neatly by the catcher, but I turned away, wincing. I had no desire to see her fail—I wanted nothing to spoil the day.
Simply to have Icarus close at hand pleased me sufficiently, but today I had his attention as well. Today he did not fly off into strange lands in his mind as he so often did but sat and gossiped like an ordinary person. It was a perfect day, a day beyond praise. My brother lived again and Icarus sat beside me, laughing and talking.
Now he said, “The flower deserves better treatment, Lady,” and took the orchid away from me and tucked it behind my ear. “Don’t forget,” he went on, “the snake lived to sleep in the sun for another day. It was the fate of Polyidus to save the prince and so he did, with the aid of the bee and the snake.”
“But should not great deeds be performed by the great? Should not one deserve one’s fate?” I asked.
“No.” Icarus shook his head. “Most do not deserve their destiny. Look at the palace slaves. What crime did they commit that they should live in bondage? Look at the Athenians. How is it their fault that their king broke the sacred rules of hospitality and sent your brother out to fight the wild bull?”
“But . . . but,” I said, wrestling with this problem, “the monarch and the nation are one and the same being, so her crimes are the crimes of the people. She is the mind and heart of the nation; her people are the limbs. One may lose a finger or a toe or even an arm or a leg and yet live, Icarus, but no one survives the loss of one’s head.”
Icarus smiled and said nothing. I felt a prick of annoyance. How dare he? I had studied statecraft and he had not. “Aegeus of Athens has suffered for his crime,” I went on. “He has no legitimate heir, I am told, and so the throne will go to another house upon his death. There could be no harsher fate for one of royal blood. You would not understand.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he agreed. “My pity is reserved for his unfortunate subjects. They are torn from their parents at a tender age and shipped across the sea to a strange country to be fed to an unnatural monster. That’s what they believe, you know—that they are to be sacrificed to your brother.” He smiled at Asterius, who was at that moment holding a large, angry beetle in his cupped hands and sniffing warily at it.
I smiled also, at the idea of Asterius making a meal of one of his attendants. He ate only fruits and grains; he had never tasted flesh.
Asterius looked very well in this open place with the morning sun on his back; he was still strange, but that strangeness had been transformed into beauty. I wished that others—my father, for instance—could see him as he was at that moment. His interest in the beetle had given his face a nearly human expression, and his carriage was graceful, the sinewy chest and arms carried proudly above his four-legged bull’s body.
“You do not approve of slavery, then?” I said, returning to the argument. “But Athenians also own slaves, do they not?”
“As many as they can get,” admitted Icarus.
“I am sure that their slaves are not treated half so well as ours. And the Athenians who attend Asterius will likely find themselves in positions of much greater power and comfort than they would ever enjoy at home.”
“Perhaps, but it will not be their home. Oh, Princess,” he said, with unusual seriousness, “I know you are right. It is only that I dislike seeing my own people in bondage.”
“But they are not your people, Icarus, not really. Your mother came from Athens and your father’s father also, but you were born and raised here on Kefti. You are one of the Keftiu,” I said jealously,
