I have heard Icarus say that in Athens they believe that Daedalus built the Labyrinth, as though one man could ever have conceived of it, let alone laid stone on stone to erect such an edifice. They wish to believe it, of course, because Daedalus is partly of their blood and they may thus lay a sort of claim to the most remarkable building on earth.
It’s laughable, really. Ariadne says that Aegeus, King of Athens, lives in a crude hall of no more than three or four large rooms, a humbler dwelling than we would think proper for one of our impoverished upcountry farmers.
The Labyrinth has been slowly building, rising tier upon tier, colonnade upon colonnade, corridor upon corridor, room upon room, for more than a thousand years. However clever Daedalus may be (and he is very clever indeed), he is only a man, with a man’s normal span of years. He is, however, the overseer of new construction and in charge of redecorating some of the suites of rooms, which may be how the story came to be told in Athens. Icarus claims that his father carries the plan of the whole Labyrinth in his head, which is certainly more than I could do.
I therefore determined to seek further news before extending my search. Perhaps Glaucus had already been found and a feast in celebration was even now being prepared. I hurried away to the public rooms, where I might hope to hear tidings of him.
As I descended the grand staircase in the eastern wing I heard voices on the landing below. They were the voices of the two people most likely to be able to give me the information I craved—my mother and father. The news did not appear to be good.
“Well, Pasiphae, are you satisfied?” said my father. I had been about to call out to them, demanding news, but the tone of my father’s words checked my steps as well as my voice. I dropped to my knees and so caught a glimpse of them through the turn of the stairs.
“How can you torment me so?” said my mother, her voice cracked and broken. “Can you not see that I am desperate?”
The grand staircase lies open to the sky, in one of the light wells that bring daylight into the deepest places in the Labyrinth. It was therefore easy to see that my mother was indeed desperate. Her usually perfectly arranged hair hung in black snakes down her back, and the kohl lining her eyes was smeared. Her dress was dirty and torn at the hem—she had been down on her hands and knees on the stone floor looking for her child under beds, in trunks, and behind wall hangings. To my dismay, she looked old. She was forty years old, I knew, and had borne fifteen children and raised ten. She had ruled a mighty empire for twenty years. At this moment she looked to be an old, old woman.
My father was, to the uninformed eye, more composed. His plumed headdress and painted robes were in no disarray; the thick black lines painted around his eyes were sharp and unstreaked. But yet there was a whiteness around his mouth and nose that frightened me, his daughter.
“Your grief is your own doing,” he said.
“How dare you speak to me so?” My mother drew in a long, shuddering breath. “You who abandoned my Androgeus among the savages, to be butchered by a wild bull! You! You might as well have murdered him yourself.”
I longed to hear what had happened to Glaucus, but my father seemed willing to be distracted by this long-ago grief rather than grappling with the fears of today.
“What should I have done, woman?” he demanded. “Would you have had me take Androgeus to war with me? I am the Lawagetas. Where the navy goes, I must go. You know that I was obliged to go and settle the dispute on Pylos. How should I have known Aegeus would prove the traitor?”
“You ought never to have taken Androgeus with you in the first place.” My mother’s voice had dropped; passion seemed to have drained out of her.
“The boy was of an age to go.” my father said, obviously repeating what had been said before, often and often, over the years since Androgeus’s death. “He wanted to go. He said he would leap into the sea and follow the ship until he drowned if I did not take him.”
“You men,” whispered my mother, venom returning to her voice. “You are all alike, all of you, from the day you first grow hair between your legs. Androgeus must prove himself a man by going into danger and you must take him there. Then he must prove he is a man by fighting a wild bull because that double-crossing Aegeus dared him to and because you left him behind while you sailed off to war. Oh!” she groaned aloud. “Why should a mother love her sons when they are so anxious to seek their own deaths? I cannot bear it.”
There was a silence, save for my mother’s weeping. I prayed to the Lady that my parents would be kind to each other rather than inflict more pain. But no, my mother went on.
“And now my Glaucus! It was the fault of that Bas, whom you chose to care for the child.”
“No, Pasiphae.” My father’s voice was cold. “This time it is you who bears the responsibility. The servant Bas shall be put to death, and the Athenian servants as well. But it was your monster who killed my son, and you cannot tell me otherwise.”
I drew a sharp breath.
“Asterius is not a monster,” said my mother. “He is my son just as Glaucus is my son. And he did not kill Glaucus.”
“Then where is Glaucus?”
“In any of a hundred thousand places. Have you forgotten, Minos, the nature of the palace in which you
