Hastily I explained why I thought that Mother had chosen to dance the Dance of the Serpents in place of her daughter.
“She’s too old,” Ariadne said spitefully. “Her belly wobbled. Everybody was laughing at her; she looked like a fool. If she had let me do it as she ought, I could have given thanks to the Goddess for the preservation of Glaucus. I am the eldest daughter now and it is my right.”
“But Ariadne,” I said, startled into contradiction, “no one was laughing at her! People were—they were pleased to see her dancing after so many years.”
“Oh, shut up, Xenodice!” She was suddenly furious. “Just go away and leave me alone!”
The light in her eye was one I knew all too well. Notwithstanding our elegant attire and the sacredness of the occasion, all that preserved me from assault were the sharp teeth of the monkey perched on my shoulder.
“Very well, Ariadne,” I said, backing up a few steps. I reached up and stroked Queta, who had gone rigid at Ariadnes tone and was no doubt making threatening faces. But even my valiant friend Queta might quail before Ariadne, I thought. Ariadne had the spirit of a tigress.
As I left, however, I could not resist asking one last question.
“You spoke with that man before he addressed the assembly. Did you mention that the ‘monster’ was your brother?”
She looked away without replying.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“He knows now,” I said, watching her face.
She reddened, and stamped her foot at me. I retreated, thinking. I had always known that Ariadne disliked Asterius, but it had never occurred to me that it was shame that she felt.
Although I never cared to think overmuch upon my brother’s begetting, I had never felt any embarrassment about him. Indeed, as Ariadne herself had pointed out, he was an asset, proving our family’s close link with the Goddess. And in any case, I loved him; he was my brother.
“Father! Wait!”
A boy of about ten years suddenly shot out of a doorway across my path so that I nearly stumbled and fell. Annoyed, I turned to look and discovered that it was the child who had thrown stones at Asterius on the mountaintop two days ago.
What evil chance had allowed the boy into the palace on this of all days? For one brief moment I glimpsed the figure of a cloaked and hooded man, who dodged around a corner ahead of the boy.
On impulse, I followed them and found myself hurrying down a small, winding corridor that led toward the offices of the scribes, where much of the day-to-day business of Knossos was done. It was quiet here—few were at work on this great holiday.
It seemed queer. There had been thousands of strangers in the Labyrinth today, true, but why should one be lurking in this out-of-the-way place, and why did he not wait for his son? There was something furtive about his movements.
I ought to have called a guard, but I did not know for certain that the man and his boy meant any harm. In truth, my concern was partly for them—they might so easily become lost in this deserted part of the maze.
“Father!” cried the boy again. “Please wait! I cannot run so fast.” He turned a sharp corner and, unseen, spoke again.
“Father! Father, is it true? Will that man really kill the monster?”
Indignant, I was about to plunge in after him to inform him that no, that man would not be allowed to kill my brother, when another voice spoke.
“Yes, my son,” the man said, and the sound and timbre of his voice halted me like a fist in the chest. “The Athenian will kill the monster for you, though I cannot.”
Unbelieving, I stood motionless, listening. My utter stillness warned Queta, who sat mute on my shoulder.
“Why can’t you?” the boy demanded petulantly. “Why can’t you kill him for me? You are the king!”
The man was my father.
“I am the king, yes,” he said, “but the queen is the living flesh of the Goddess here on earth. If I lifted my hand against her son, who is also the son of the Bull in the Earth, not I alone would suffer for it, but you as well, Eumenes.”
“It’s better to have the Athenian do it then,” agreed the brat.
With the blood pulsing in my ears, I turned and walked quickly and silently away. I knew—I had known for years—that my father had had relations with women other than my mother. Ariadne had told me so, though I would have been much happier to remain in ignorance.
This, then, was a child from one of these unions. An image of the boy’s face flashed across my mind. I had to admit that his eyes reminded me of the twins, Catreus and Deucalion. The boy who had thrown rocks at Asterius was my half-brother, just as Asterius was my half-brother. How strange!
Father had always hated Asterius, and now he had further reason. The boy had no doubt told his father—our father—about the day on the mountainside, making it seem that he had been viciously attacked. But Theseus was a prisoner, and now doomed by order of my mother the queen to die. How could he possibly do any harm to my brother?
I walked faster. If I told my mother what I had just heard . . . No, I could not. It would be dreadful for my family. My brother would be safe, but what would my father’s fate be? And after all, perhaps my brother was in no danger.
A persistent odor informed me that Queta badly needed her diaper changed. I returned her to a keeper in the menagerie and then hurried to the royal apartments. I found my mother preparing for her bath, surrounded by her
