Perhaps you are becoming confused about my family. I must confess that there are many of us, and we all seem born to lead remarkable lives. My mother raised ten children. Androgeus was first born and best loved. They say that he could charm the birds from the sky and the sun from a cloud. He was a golden child, merry and clever, strong and brave of heart. My parents both doted upon him, my father as much as my mother.
He died by the treachery of the Athenians while a guest in their country, and when my father heard of it he laid waste all of Athens. My mother, Queen Pasiphae, then required that seven sons and seven daughters of Athens be sent as tribute each year. I also know that she blamed my father for taking her beloved son away from her and then leaving him to meet his death at the Athenian court. She never afterward forgave him, although she at length accepted him again as her husband and consort.
I have heard it said that Androgeus died on the horns of a terrible wild bull. The Keftiu are a people much preoccupied with bulls, and to me it seems a fitting death for a son of our royal house.
Ariadne no doubt knows the whole story, but I will not ask her. Once upon a time she would have told me had I wished to know. But now she would only tease me with her knowledge and my lack of it. Someday I will hear the servants speak of it, and then I will know without troubling Ariadne.
After Androgeus, Acalle was the second born. She is twenty-two years old if she still lives. She disappeared half a year ago—some say she ran away with the King of Libya, some say with a god—and we have not seen her since. Everyone was furious, as Acalle was to be queen when our mother died. Now Ariadne will be queen. Still, Acalle may come back someday. I tremble to think how angry Ariadne will be if Acalle returns to claim the crown.
Next in age are my brothers Deucalion and Catreus, who are twins, seventeen years old. Ariadne is sixteen, I am fourteen, my brother Glaucus is seven, little Phaedra is three, and Molus, the baby, is one.
If you have been keeping count you know that is only nine children, not ten. I have not forgotten my brother Asterius—I could not do that. He has just turned twelve years of age. He was born, Ariadne says, nine months to the day after our mother heard about the death of Androgeus. Our father, Minos, was far away, sacking Athens, on the day that Asterius was conceived. He could not be Asterius’s father. Indeed, no one who looks at my brother Asterius could ever believe that his sire was human. Our mother, says Ariadne, was so angry at our father for the death of Androgeus that she swore to make another son who would bring shame and sorrow down upon Minos’s head so long as our father lived.
I do not like to think about it too much, myself.
But I love my brother Asterius. I always have, ever since I first saw him. I was only three and did not understand how odd he was. He was a young thing who needed nurturing, like a puppy or a kitten. Our mother could not feed him; she almost died at his birth. Once they had taught him to suck cow’s milk from a little pottery jar fitted with a sponge, the servants sometimes allowed me to nurse him. He would butt up against me, knocking me down in his eagerness.
“Bad, bad!” I would cry, and the servants would roar with laughter as I pulled myself upright by his tail, holding the jar imperiously out of his reach.
No one laughs anymore; they fear him.
It worries me to see how strong he grows. He is terribly powerful now, and as he grows toward adulthood he is subject to fits of moodiness and intermittent rages. It never happens when I am near, but I cannot always be near. And someday even I might not be able to control him in one of his passions.
I am the only one who loves him. He needs me, you see.
I do not fear him; I fear for him.
“If you do not come away this very moment, Xenodice, our mother will have us both whipped, and I have no intention of letting that fat Graia lay one finger on me,” said Ariadne.
“Oh, very well,” I said, and, bidding our brother good-bye, I followed in Ariadne’s train.
CHAPTER TWO
Icarus
WHEN I WAS A SMALL CHILD I DETERMINED THAT I WOULD never marry if I could not have Icarus, son of Daedalus and Naucrate, as my husband, and so I think to this day.
I have not yet had the courage to inform my mother, or Icarus himself, of this decision. I did tell Ariadne, who laughed.
“You, a royal princess of Knossos, marry the son of a palace workman and an Athenian slave? Our mother will give you in marriage to a wild goat before she lets you marry Icarus.”
I was a fool to speak of my love to Ariadne. I spoke as a child does, a child who still believes that what she wants she must have.
“Daedalus is no common palace workman!” I protested. “He is a distinguished inventor and artist. And Naucrate was a wise woman whose counsel our mother valued.”
“Oh, and what marriage settlements could we expect your husband to make? Of what political use would such a marriage be? Don’t be such a baby, Xenodice. Leave Icarus to the goldsmith’s daughter. She has had her eye upon him for some time.”
Not
