An outraged snort made us swing our heads around to see what was amiss with Asterius.
“Asterius? What is it?” I demanded of my brother. I stood and hastened toward him, for I could tell that he was angry.
I heard a giggle behind a nearby tree and my heart leapt up into my mouth. Asterius heard it likewise and lowered his head.
“No! Asterius, no!”
He charged the tree as I ran toward him. A gasp of terror, then I saw bright dark eyes and a pair of naked arms and legs shinning up the tree. Asterius’s left horn missed the child’s right foot by a finger’s breadth.
This was not a child of Glaucus’s age, who knew no better. This was a boy of ten at least, gangling and skinny as a colt. He had attracted my brother’s attention by throwing stones at him and was preparing to do so again.
“Stop!” I shouted, as loudly as I could. “Throw no more stones!”
It was too late. My brother had been hit in the eye. He clapped a hand over the injured area and roared. The child quaked in the tree and tossed another pebble in Asterius’s direction.
His shape rendering him incapable of climbing the tree, Asterius instead began tearing it to shreds with his bare hands. He reared up on his hind legs and wrenched large limbs off the tree, snapping them off at the base. The boy shrank away and tried to crawl higher.
“Go,” I shouted to Icarus. “Go and get his attendants to help me.”
“I cannot leave you in such jeopardy, Princess. Let me try to distract him.”
“He will pay you no heed. Go!”
Sometimes in play I would ride upon my brother’s back, like the athletes in the bull games. He never seemed to mind, though I could tell it seemed a strange sensation to him. Never, however, had I attempted to mount his back when he was in a passion.
I now took a firm grip of his lashing tail and pulled as hard as I could in the direction of a large boulder that could be used as a mounting block. His forefeet dropped to the ground and he turned to see who had him by the tail. I was not fool enough to believe that in this mood Asterius would know me. I scrambled up onto the rock, trying not to think how his horns would feel, cleaving my flesh. Re-leasing his tail, I jumped.
I landed on his broad back with a painful thump that knocked the breath from my lungs. I gripped my arms around his waist and my legs around the barrel of his bull’s body. Asterius forgot the boy in this new, unexpected situation; he bucked and kicked furiously. As the world heaved and lurched beneath me, I caught a glimpse of Icarus, his jaw slack in amazement. Madly, I found myself wanting to laugh.
A sudden plunge caused me to bite my lip, and all urge to hilarity left me.
“Go!” I shouted, but I could see that the Athenians, alerted by our cries, had drawn near of their own accord.
Asterius tore my hands from him and flung them away like the frailest of cobwebs. I slipped perilously to one side, clawing at his flank with my fingers. One shrewd twist and I would go sliding to my death under those plunging hooves. By great good luck he suddenly lurched to a halt, apparently overcome by the need to express his rage. He pounded his chest with his clenched fists and bellowed until the woods echoed.
Grasping handfuls of his hide and squirming, wormlike, upward, I managed to pull and push myself onto his back once more.
“Asterius, my brother!” I called to him. “Do not murder me, I beg of you. It is I, Xenodice!”
He snorted, as if derisively, and began to gallop at tremendous speed around the clearing. He did not attempt to penetrate the dense brush nearby or descend the mountain—the path was steep and rocky. I believe also that the clearing reminded him of his home in the Bull Pen.
The boy, I saw, was still up in the tree, held captive by fear.
Asterius was beginning to tire. He breathed enormously, his sides heaved, his whole body was slick with sweat. His eye was still wild and there was foam on his lips, yet I thought I might tame him. I spoke to him again, my voice firmer this time.
“All is well, Lord Asterius,” I said. “We must be calm so that we may travel down the mountain and seek medical attention for your eye.” He slowed his pace a little; he was listening. “All is well,” I crooned, “all is well.”
Gradually he came to a halt. His head swiveled around and he saw me. He shook himself all over, as if to throw off his angry mood, nearly dislodging me as well. I clung to him, however, and even risked loosening my death clasp around his waist to pat him cautiously.
At this moment, the boy in the tree chose to loose his last stone at my brother.
“I’ll kill the little beast myself ifl ever get the opportunity” was my last coherent thought as we reared into the air and I clamped my arms and legs about Asterius again.
Icarus and the attendants now reappeared—I realized I had not seen them for a time. I later learned that they had withdrawn from sight behind trees, disliking to interfere while I had him under some sort of control. Now there was nothing to be lost by their presence and everything to be gained. They closed in and flung a net—brought along for just such an emergency—over us both.
Asterius fought against the confining net for some time, until every tooth in my head felt as though it had been jarred loose and the muscles of my arms and thighs were on fire and my wrist, which had been damaged in the struggle, became a torment to me.
At last, at last, he groaned
