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

he grasps some idea of the way they feel from their expressions. He lifts his massive head, scenting them. And he groans. His groans frighten the envoys, but they break my heart. I think that he suffers when our mother allows strangers to look at him. Once a year she causes him to be displayed before the whole court during the bull dancing ceremonies, and afterward he seems to go almost mad for several days. I wish she would not do it.

Ariadne says that I am a fool. She says that of course our mother wants him to be seen; it helps to prove that the Queen of Kefti is more than mortal. What mortal woman, after all, could have given birth to such a son? Nothing like our brother Asterius has ever been seen before.

All of this is true, of course, but still I think it unkind.

I have heard that the Athenians, those who come here to be his servants, call him the Minotaur. I do not know why. It means “bull of Minos.” King Minos is my father, but he is not the father of my half-brother, Asterius. How, then, is my brother the bull of Minos? It makes no sense.

I think it is because those Athenians believe that men are everything and women are nothing. When they first come here they think that it is my father who rules this land and not my mother, which is remarkably stupid of them. Why would the Lady Who Created All Things allow a man to rule our land? Men have not the gift of creation; they have many talents, but that is not one of them. No wonder the Athenians are poor and ignorant savages who know no better path to glory than to pillage and destroy the civilizations of others.

My brother Asterius stood alone inside a light well, staring up through the five stories of the Labyrinth to the sky. His attendants, those selfsame Athenians of which I spoke, sat a little way off on sacks of grain and bales of straw, playing games of chance and arguing among themselves until they perceived us, whereupon they stood and saluted us. The girls, I noticed, had made chains of flowers and draped them about my brothers head and neck. A flower chain had caught on his left horn and hung crookedly, making him look ridiculous.

I stepped forward, clapping my hands angrily. I pointed to the ring of flowers, which dipped down over his eye. “Take it off,” I ordered.

To my fury, they did not immediately obey but looked to Ariadne for instructions.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Take it off. He looks as though he has drunk too much wine.”

In any event, they did not have to bestir themselves. Hearing our voices, Asterius wheeled about and trotted toward us. Or toward me, rather. He frisked about me for a moment, making those soft grunting sounds of his that expressed pleasure and contentment. Then he held out his cupped hands, begging for the treat he knew I had for him. I dropped one of the fruits into his palm and simultaneously snatched the silly floral decoration off his horn.

Ariadne ignored him, as he ignored her. She was staring at the Athenians, I realized.

There were thirteen of them, too many to serve my brother’s simple needs, so they were often idle, as now. There had been fourteen, seven boys and seven girls, when they sailed into Knossos Harbor a year ago, but one of the girls died of an inflamed stomach during the last rainy season. Their time of service in the Labyrinth was nearly over. They had learned a few words of our language and something of our ways. Soon, perhaps even today or tomorrow, another shipload of Athenians would arrive and our mother would give these as servants to various noble houses that had deserved her thanks over the year. Possessing an Athenian servant from the Queen’s Labyrinth was a matter of considerable prestige, I believe; people fought to deserve the distinction.

Ariadne looked her full on our brother’s servants and then abruptly demanded to know if I would ever be done playing with Asterius. “We are very late for our lessons,” she said severely, as though our tardiness was my fault rather than hers. “Leave off fondling that creature and come along.”

Annoyed, I turned my back on her and gave my brother a leisurely scratch behind the ears. At last I stopped and indicated that I was ready to leave. But I thought about the Athenians and wondered why Ariadne seemed so curious about them.

Our mother received more youths in tribute each year from Athens than I would have thought necessary, although it was true that as Asterius matured he was becoming harder to manage. Ariadne, who knew everything, had explained.

“She demanded one Athenian child for every year of our brother Androgeus’s life at the time he died,” Ariadne said. “She was mad with grief when he was killed. She declared that even if the Athenians had offered each year a mound as high as a man of silver and gold, ebony and ivory, bolts of finest linens and silk, she would not have taken it in payment for his death. She might have been satisfied with the death of the firstborn child of the King of Athens, but Aegeus had no child, either first or last. And so she has received each year seven maidens and seven youths, and those the most beloved of their families.”

“I know that. I was there when it happened,” I protested.

“You were a baby,” said Ariadne. “You don’t remember anything. You don’t even remember Androgeus.”

“I do! I remember him perfectly well. And if I was a baby, then you were a baby too.”

“Oh, no. I am two years older, and I remember.”

“A year and ten months older!”

“A year and ten months makes all the difference in the world,” she said pityingly.

To speak the truth, Androgeus is only a faint memory to me. He lives in