It appeared that my brother was far from an ideal roommate. I could almost feel that his servants were ill used after all. I soon understood the gratitude with which they greeted my news that they would not be sleeping in the same chamber with him any longer. His snoring was prodigious. One might be excused for thinking his sleeping place the cave of some bloodstained, man-eating monster, with such terrible roars and whistles issuing out of it every night. I pulled the bedclothes down around my ears and snatched such sleep as I might.
In the morning, the captain of my father’s guards, Rhesos, appeared and informed me that the king wished to know why I had chosen to take up residence in my brother’s chambers.
“Tell my father,” I said, “that the Lady Potnia appeared to me in a dream and told me that there is a grave danger to the life of Lord Asterius, and that my presence alone would keep him safe.”
This was not strictly true, of course, but I felt certain that the Goddess would forgive me, as it was surely through her intervention that I had learned about my fathers plot.
Rhesos looked as though he would speak further, but then seemed to think better of it. “Yes, my lady,” he said, and left me.
How my father received this reply I do not know, for Rhesos did not return to demand further particulars of this menace to my brother’s life, and neither did my father.
Chapter Eleven
A Clew of Thread
AND SO I SIT AND STILL I SPIN. MY CLEW OF THREAD GROWS long and longer.
I am so tired of spinning! Yet I seem compelled to spin as long as my weary wrists can hold up my work.
There are no windows here, only the light well, open to the sky. I can watch the clouds go by, but I must bend my neck backward to an uncomfortable angle, and so even this source of entertainment palls after a short time.
I am a prisoner in the Bull Pen; it is my own doing, but I am a prisoner all the same. I do not enjoy anticipating the death of a fellow human being. I wish that it were otherwise—I wish that Theseus could leave this island unharmed. But sometimes I feel that I would willingly see a thousand Theseuses walk to their deaths if it meant that I could once again sleep in my own quiet bed.
I dread the moment when Ariadne comes to demand the key. That she has not already done so is strange. Perhaps she is so busy with other arrangements for their escape that she has no leisure to badger me. I am sorry she is being put to so much trouble for nothing, but at least it keeps her occupied and away from me.
My greatest happiness now is my brother’s. He does not understand why I am spending so much time with him, but he is delighted. He frisks like a young calf in the springtime. He brings me such treasures as he has hidden away in the straw: a gray stone with a round hole in it, a rusty metal bolt, a ravens feather. Often he lies down beside me and rests his horned head in my lap. Then I cease from spinning for a time to comb his hair and sing him nonsense songs.
Acalle is home; Maira told me so. Maira was nearly out of her head with excitement at the news. I merely went on twisting flax into thread, spinning my worries into a fine white linen strand.
“Yes, of course,” I said to Maira.
I was not as pleased as I had expected to be.
“Then you knew where she was?” Maira asked, surprised.
I shrugged. It seemed of little importance now.
I thought of Ariadne, and how she must have felt when she heard. I thought of Theseus, pent up in his stone prison beneath the Bull Court.
I was right—I was right to do nothing. Theseus deserved to die—certainly he deserved it more than Asterius, or Daedalus and Icarus. Theseus was only a slave, anyway.
When would they come for him, I wondered, tonight or tomorrow?
Meanwhile, I refused to stir from my brother’s side. My mother sent to see why I did not come to greet my sister, and I returned the same answer I had given my father.
Tomorrow night there would be a great feast to celebrate Acalle’s arrival. Mother would surely insist upon my attendance, but I could not leave Asterius until assured that Theseus was dead. There would be little joy in such a festivity for me. I would be glad to see Acalle, but we had never been close. As prickly and difficult as Ariadne sometimes was, I could not imagine my life without her. If she were to leave with Theseus there would be a large hole in my life. But I would lose her anyway; Ariadne would not lightly forgive.
The sky above the light well had grown dark, my evening meal was consumed, and still Ariadne had not come. I ought to have been grateful, but it made me uneasy. Maira lit a single lamp—it was dangerous to burn more than one in this room full of hay and straw—and began to play the lyre.
I sang. I do not have a beautiful singing voice. Rather the reverse, in fact, but Maira knew better than to point this out, and singing eased my anxiety. Asterius made some peculiar noises in his throat, which might have been interpreted as an attempt to participate in the music, and in this way we passed the long evening.
At length we prepared for sleep. I instructed Maira and the manservant who guarded the door to move my bed as close as possible to where Asterius
