Lost in the Labyrinth, Patrice Kindl [read novel full .txt] 📗

settled on the little boy’s cheek. Startled, my parents drew back, loath to disturb the servant of the Goddess.

Then my mother cried out. “It—it is feeding on the honey.”

My father roared, like an animal, like a wounded bull. He snatched at the bee to crush it between his fingers, but it flew away, up and out of the storage room, down the crowded hallway (all there flinched and muttered charms of protection when its flight swooped near), and into the outer air at last.

When the bee had gone my mother fell to her knees in the little storeroom by my brother’s body. She raised up her voice unto the Goddess, demanding to know why the Great Mother should see fit to take this child.

“Have I not been a fitting representative for you here on earth? Am I not a dutiful daughter?” We of the royal house of Kefti were direct descendents of the Goddess—my mother therefore addressed her remote ancestor. “If I have displeased you in any way,” she said, her voice choked with rage and grief “I had rather you took my life than those of my innocent children.”

The crowd shifted uneasily as their queen railed at the Goddess.

Finally my mother ceased her reproaches. Her head drooped and she began to weep. She wailed aloud in her pain: “Oh, my boy! My little boy!” She bent to embrace Glaucus. She took him up in her arms, but he slipped from her grasp because of the honey. She wailed again, and my father could not look at her but buried his face in his hands.

“My lady! My queen! This must not be!”

It was old Graia, my nurse, pushing through the crowd. Graia was so very old that she had been my mother’s nurse as well, back when Graia was little more than a child herself.

“Move, can’t you?” she demanded, prodding several people in the back with a rather sharp-looking pair of scissors, which she must have carried away with her in this emergency. “Someone help me down this ladder to my lady.”

Graia’s face was very red, I noticed, and she looked angry and loving all at the same time.

“Oh, Graia,” my mother said, “Glaucus is dead.”

“I know, my darling,” said Graia, “And it’s a shame and a pity. But you must come back with me to your apartments to wash away the honey. It isn’t right that you should be here like this. Come with your old nurse and I’ll take care of you, my dear.”

“But Graia, how shall I leave him here alone? I must stay,” said my mother.

“Come, child,” said Graia. “Others will care for the little prince. Come with me now.”

“Graia—”

“Come!”

And my mother came. Never before had I seen anyone make my mother do something she did not wish to do. With only a few backward looks, my mother climbed the ladder and meekly followed her old nurse through the crowd and off to her chambers.

I felt suddenly desolate, watching her walk away. I turned to look at Icarus, longing for reassurance of his concern. But I could see that I was no longer present in his thoughts. He stood with his head to one side, gazing curiously down at my brother’s face, as if he sought to surprise the secrets of death.

My father, who seemed to have hardened to rock during the late exchanges, erupted into life again. He swung himself up the ladder with such energetic ferocity that it creaked and groaned under his weight.

“Polyidus!” he called out in a voice like a great clanging gong.

There was an uncomfortable silence, then: “Ah, yes, Sire? If there is any way I could assist . . . ?” Nervously wringing his hands, Polyidus made himself evident at the edge of the crowd.

“You said, did you not, that we would find Glaucus alive and well?”

“I said—I said that I thought so, your Majesty. Goddess knows I certainly hoped to find him alive and well.”

“Your powers are at fault, seer. You led my wife to believe her son would be returned to her.”

“Well, and so he has,” Polyidus said, gesturing feebly at the dead child. Then, recognizing that this would not be well received, he stammered, “Th-that is, my king—”

“But dead! Drowned!” roared my father with such force that Polyidus staggered backward as though from a physical blow. Terrified, the seer attempted to fall back into the crowd, but my father was upon him in an instant.

Though more than forty years of age, my father was yet a powerful, active man. He seized poor Polyidus as though the man were made of straw and flung him bodily down into the storage room. Before the seer could scramble to his feet again, my father withdrew the ladder.

“As you were so certain of your own ability to produce a living, breathing Glaucus, you shall share the prince’s burial chamber until you have managed to do so.” He turned away.

“But Sire, I pray you,” cried Polyidus. “Give me some water, some light to see by. Of your pity, I beg it!”

“Give him what he asks,” said my father shortly. “Then seal the room and let no one give him aid until my son’s life has been restored.” He strode away, pushing through the crowd, which fell back hastily before his advance.

My father, I thought, was unjust. It was not Polyidus’s fault he was a fool. He had only imagined himself the hero, rescuing the prince and being heaped with treasure by my grateful parents. It would not have occurred to him that events might fall out differently.

I murmured as much to Icarus as we filed out of the hallway and made our way back to more stately apartments of the palace.

Icarus shook his head. “If a fool values his life he should stay quietly at home and not go offering advice to the great and mighty.”

“If he were wise enough to do that, then he would not be a fool,” I pointed out. I sighed. “I suppose Bas, my brother’s slave, is dead by now.