A dreadful storm blew up one night and carried Theseus and his compatriots out to sea. It was fifteen days and fifteen nights before he regained the shore again. By that time Ariadne had abandoned herself to despair, believing him to have sailed off to Athens without her, and had laid violent hands upon herself.
Or so they said.
It is also recounted how Theseus, when he had sailed from Athens to our shores, made a promise to his father, Aegeus, that if he were able to return he would raise aloft a white sail. In this manner Aegeus would know, while Theseus was still at sea, that his son lived.
Theseus broke his promise. He sailed into Athens harbor in a ship with black sails, forgetting in the excitement of homecoming to exchange them for the white symbols of hope. Aegeus saw the ship from the Isle of Kefti fully rigged in black, and in his grief he flung himself over the cliffs into the sea.
So Theseus became king of Athens.
It is a matter of some amazement to me how that man strides unscathed through life, leaving a trail of the maimed and the dead.
It is many years now since that time. Much has changed. My father, King Minos, is gone into the Underworld. My mother’s death seemed to stir him from his long torpor and, upon learning that Daedalus had fled across the sea, he sailed in pursuit. He traced Daedalus finally, not to Athens as I had expected but to Kamikos in the western sea—the winds, I suppose, blew him there. My father was greeted with honor by the king of that land, who promised to surrender Daedalus to him. My father slipped in his bath and fell while preparing to appear at a banquet in his honor, breaking his neck.
Or so they said.
I am glad, at any rate, that Daedalus lives still.
Acalle is married and has five children, three girls. Polyidus died, apparently in a fit of mortification at being denied the position of High Priest for which he had schemed so long. Many others, more greatly mourned than he, have followed him into the Underworld: my beloved old Graia, for one.
Athens has grown prosperous under Theseus’s rule. No longer just a pirate state, Athens is beginning to exert power among the nations of the world.
Acalle wishes to marry Phaedra, now grown to womanhood, to Theseus, since his first wife, the Amazon queen, is lately dead. This marriage, which would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, is beginning to seem a likely event. Acalle is a businesslike and efficient queen; she wants favorable trade relations and cares not a fig for revenge.
Theseus is no longer a young man but an experienced ruler of full years. I hope it will be for Phaedra’s happiness—those who love Theseus seem to come to untimely ends. I despair of ever making Acalle listen to my fears about the marriage. I have done what I can to sway her, but she is a stubborn woman, and she is the queen.
And I, Xenodice. Do you wonder what has become of me down the long years?
I lead a quiet life today, respected and, I believe, loved. The love I enjoy is not the love of a man for a woman; I have never had that love and have vowed that I never shall.
I have become Mistress of the Animals, a priestess of influence and power, thereby escaping my elder sister’s marriage schemes. The Mistress of the Animals may not marry, nor may she invite any man to share her bed. She is chaste and pure, and much beloved of the Goddess.
I spend my life now in the mountains among the wild beasts, or in the Queen’s Menagerie, which I have expanded greatly. Little Queta the monkey has become the matriarch of a vast tribe of tricksy, troublesome descendants, and we now possess animals unknown to us only a few years ago. My sister presently owns (though the knowledge does not seem to give her much joy) a hippogriff and a mighty elephant from the wild places far to the south of Libya and Egypt. The hippogriff is sickly and has developed a hollow cough in the night, but the elephant does well. I would like to obtain a mate for him and see what result we have. A baby elephant would please me very much.
My health is excellent, though my wrist never fully healed; it aches sometimes, and I favor that hand. It may seem strange, but when the rainy season comes and I feel the familiar pain in my left arm, I am glad. It is one of the few mementos I have of my brother Asterius.
I think of Icarus often. In my mind he remains young and beautiful, while I grow old and fat. Never mind—I am happy, even though he took my heart with him into the sea that day.
It took Acalle very little time to determine my part in the escape of Daedalus and Icarus. When questioned, the guards told her how I had come to visit the prisoners, bearing feathers, wood, and wax. I confessed as quickly as possible in order to save the lives of the guards. They were beaten nearly to the point of death, but they survived. One lived for a year, dying from a bee sting; the other still lives.
Daedalus and Icarus kept their word. They left three exquisite feather masks there in the tower room; I use mine for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Boats every summer, as does the remaining guard.
As punishment, Acalle
