Dion: His Life and Mine (3 page)

“We could still do it, I could take you away.”

Aster moved slightly.

“It could be just like Andro promised, we could have a new home together.”

“How?” Aster asked.

It was a good question, and as I promised him I would find a way, I naively thought I had the answer. Despite my overwhelming grief, I couldn’t help feeling elated, like I had when I first met Bris. I had a purpose, a way of fulfilling my brothers’ wishes.

Like I said, I was naive. I thought that, somehow, the money Andro had won would save us. No will was made public. If Andro had made one and stated what he wanted, father would have found a way to invalidate it. So father spent the money, on a school for young athletes, in Andro’s honour. However, it did not temper his anger at his son’s death. He blamed Athens and was determined to make the whole city pay. I had other things on my mind, finding a way for Aster and me to escape our respective prisons. His was a physical prison, mine psychological. I’ve never been able to decide which was worse. I often envied Aster his private world where his thoughts could roam free and I’m sure he envied my inconspicuous physicality.

To compensate for the loss of his son, my father came up with a cruel scheme. One day, a servant was sent to him for punishment after dropping a sack and spilling its precious contents on the floor of the cellar. My father, wanting to give the impression of being a fair man, asked the servant, in a terrifying voice, to explain herself before he thought up a suitable punishment (which would have probably involved his bed).

“It was the monster sire, it gave me a fright.”

“The monster? What monster?”

“The monster who lives in the Labyrinth, I, I mean the cellar. I heard it howling and I was so afraid I dropped the sack. I’m so sorry sire, I...”

“Yes, yes of course, accidents happen,” my father told the astonished servant, “tell me more about this monster.” The servant, finding herself seated in a chair with a cup of sugared tea, in her hands, “for the terrible shock”, grew in confidence and elaborated on the ‘monster’. She chatted away about how she’d been warned by the other servants not to go near a certain part of the cellar because, she might not find her way back and a terrifying monster lived down there. Some of the servants had heard it and the noise it made would turn your blood cold.

“And what do you suppose this monster would do if it came across a beautiful young woman like yourself?”

“Well, eat me,” the girl replied, trying to hide the fact that the man who owned her life had asked such a perfectly stupid question.

However, my father wasn’t a stupid man. He knew who was really down in the cellar and he remembered the cruel name the papers had christened his once-beloved son. He sent the astonished girl back down to the kitchens with a few gold coins and told her to tell the rest of the servants to be wary, in case they heard the Minotaur howling for food.

Thanks to my father’s media-advisers, Aster’s distorted reputation travelled further than he ever did. Soon all the world knew, and feared, the man-eating monster which had made its home in the Labyrinth, beneath the King of Crete’s palace. The servants dealt with the domestic propaganda, earning money on the side from newspaper stories:
In Love with a Monster
and
My Beastly Nights of Passion
. Meanwhile, ‘the sexual predator’ who was earning them extra pocket money was not even ten years old and oblivious to the fact that his private domain had suddenly become such a hot spot.

The King of Athens had put Tireas to death, hoping this would appease my father, but it didn’t. My father insisted that this wasn’t enough compensation for his beloved son, who had been a guest in Athens when he had been brutally murdered. Instead, after much threatening, on each anniversary of Andro’s death, Athens had to send seven young men and seven young women to feed the hideous Minotaur. The first year the cruel demands were met, Aster was ten. They lasted until his death.

Upon arrival, the frightened youths from Athens were washed and cleansed and well fed. My father believed in hospitality, even though Athens hadn‘t shown his son any, blaming the whole state for one man’s blunder. At midnight, they would be led, blindfolded, down through the cellar and around its twisted corridors. They would be left in the rooms furthest away from Aster’s quarters, so his night’s sleep wouldn’t be disturbed by their screams. At some point during the night, they would hear a terrible noise, like a bull ready to charge, before being set upon and slaughtered by a chosen few of my father’s men, wearing bull masks. After the young men were slaughtered, the girls enjoyed the added bonus of further discreet tortures by my father’s men before their once-beautiful bodies were bathed in their own blood.

The next day, the Labyrinth would be opened and the bloodied and mangled remains of the young people revealed. The rumour mill turned and soon the populace was convinced that my poor monster of a brother was a cannibal as well, and that these youths were sacrifices for his large appetite. Athens, understandably, was particularly vilifying.

Back in the other part of the cellar, Aster only saw four people during his confinement: my brother, sister (although I never saw her there), Daedalus and me. Daedalus, who had of course originally designed the palace, knew the cellar as well as we did. After Andro died, Daedalus took Aster under his wing, bringing him food and things to occupy the monotony of his days. It was under Daedalus’s teaching that Aster’s talent for sculpture flourished.

On one occasion, when both Daedalus and I were visiting Aster, we hit upon a plan to get us off the island. At first, to fill the void his brother had left, Aster had produced many sculptures in Andro’s image. He then insisted I model for him. Later, relying on memory, he began to make ones of father and mother. I never saw ones of Phaedra, I presume he gave them to her. On this particular visit I noticed, to my horror, that he had branched out even further.

“What’s this?” I demanded, a cruel and stupid question. Aster was a talented craftsman.

“Isn’t it obvious? Body of a man, head of a bull?”

“Oh, Aster!” I tried to comfort him; he would have none of it. My brother was growing into a man before my very eyes and I sometimes forgot it, as if his condition rendered him permanently childlike and vulnerable.

“This isn’t you!” I angrily shook the model in his face. “It looks nothing like you.” And I threw the hateful figure to the other side of the room, hoping it would smash. Instead, Daedalus caught it.

“This really is something. Wonderful proportions and exquisite use of knife strokes,” Daedalus said, to diffuse the situation. “I wonder.” Then he looked at Aster. “You know, a talent like yours shouldn’t be confined in here.”

“What do you mean?” Aster asked him.

“Well, everyone takes their cut from this monster charade. The Minotaur is big business. Souvenir shops are making a mint selling junk to tourists, Minotaur hats, t-shirts, flags, mugs. Why don’t you get in on the action? These would be lapped up.”

“What?” I asked.

“Sell them.”

“Sell them!” Aster and I repeated, expressing different emotions, mine appalled, his intrigued.

“Sure. You’re looking for a way to get off the island. Here’s your chance to do it. None of the stuff I’ve seen is as exquisite as this.”

“Or as authentic,” said Aster with a wry smile. Daedalus and I looked at him, then at each other and laughed. It was the first time we had laughed together since Andro had died. It felt good.

That was the beginning of our business. I saved up my allowance to buy materials for Aster. He made his sculptures and Daedalus sold them to souvenir vendors, who watched excitedly as tourists did, indeed, lap them up.  We took delight in every model that was made and sold, knowing it was getting us closer to escaping and starting the new life we had planned. For Aster it was even more important, as it was his link to the outside world. In thousands of homes, each little sculpture he made would have pride of place, as a reminder of a couple of weeks someone had whiled away on Crete. Even my unsuspecting father bought some to give them to visiting ambassadors. Daedalus joked that if they had known the real Minotaur had made them we could have charged them double!

Then Theo arrived, bringing hope and leaving tragedy.

Although, understandably, the Athenians were horrified with Crete’s demands, they also recognized the ancient rules of hospitality, something the Athenian nature prided itself on. Andro had been killed, whilst he had been their guest, by one of their own citizens. Therefore, my father had the right to make whatever demands he wanted. For the first few years they were resigned to it. To start with, the youths were made up of Athenians who had committed the worst crimes. This suited the fickle populace. The silent words
serves them right, shouldn’t have done what they did
soothed the Athenian conscience to sleep. Everything rubbed along quite nicely for a few years. Father had his required pounds of flesh and Athens reduced the size of its prisons.

Then it was proved that one of the men they had sent was innocent. Human Rights got on to it and the idea of sending unwilling volunteers, in criminal form, was scrapped.

Instead, Athens set up a novel way of finding suitable candidates. Competitions were held and young men and women competed to be allowed the chance of glory, by killing the Minotaur. As candidates were whittled down, Athenians began to pick their favourites and placed bets on their chances of success. Before they left for Crete, the chosen fourteen were invited to parties and premi
è
res, asked to open hospitals and went on game shows. As they boarded the ship to take them to Crete and their inevitable demise, they were seen off at the harbour by thousands of fans waving flags and banners and screaming for the return of their favourite, bearing the head of the Minotaur. None of them were successful, of course, because there was no Minotaur. My father laughed at their endeavours, but then someone arrived on Crete to wipe the smile off his face:
Theseus, the son of King Aegeus of Athens
.

To make the fairytale complete, Theo wasn’t just Aegeus’s only son, he was also his long-lost son. The result of a discreet dalliance Aegeus had had with a maiden, when he was travelling through Troezen. Boys will be boys, especially if their lot in life is to grow up to be respected elderly rulers with long white beards. Some years later, Theo turned up at the palace doorstep, intending to catch up on the time he had lost with his old man. At first, he didn’t get the warm welcome he was expecting. His stepmother had her arms wide open, but used them to signal to the guards to send the visitor packing. Fortunately, Aegeus arrived and asked what all the noise was about. Theo showed him the sword and sandals which Aegeus had thoughtfully given Theo’s mother. They were enough explanation for Aegeus, who immediately acknowledged his son and asked after his former girlfriend, much to his wife’s dismay. I hope my sister has a better relationship with her stepson.
             

Aegeus had seven glorious years of bonding with his boy, during which time he held, in Theo’s honour, those doomed games in which my brother died and all our fates were sealed. Then disaster struck for Aegeus, as Theo decided to prove himself worthy of being the heir of Athens and stamp his mark on the world. How? By challenging my father and putting an end to his monster’s large and unsavoury appetite.

My father was secretly impressed and taken aback by Theo’s loyalty, intelligence and athletic build. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Andro; which, instead of softening my father, rubbed salt into the wound he picked, with his stubbornness. He interviewed Theo in his study, on his arrival, befitting Theo’s status as the son of another king. Theo told me later that my father was nothing if not courteous, approachable and hospitable. After the cordial, civil welcome protocol demanded, Theo got to his point.

“I’ve come to make a proposition, sir.”

A slight nod of my father’s head indicated that Theo should carry on.

“I am this year’s sacrifice.”

“An eye for an eye?”

“If I don’t succeed, yes,” Theo replied slowly.

“Succeed in what?”

“Where others have failed; killing your beast, sir. If I kill it, there will be no need for other sacrifices, and if it kills me, it will be a son for a son…”

“And there will be no need for further sacrifices,” my father finished for him.

“Yes. I think you’ll agree the debt will have been paid. That is my proposition.”

“Do you know what you are up against?”

“I have heard tales, and I believe I can handle it.”

“What are your credentials?”

“A love of my country and my father. Is that not enough?”

“Indeed it is.” And so father accepted Theo’s proposition, but with two provisos. “I normally offer the fourteen candidates a night’s hospitality,” he told Theo. “As this time there is just you, I will accept nothing less than fourteen nights from you.”

“Agreed with gratitude, sir and the second?”

“That you do not enter the labyrinth until it is opened for you in fourteen days’ time.”

It was Daedalus who told me that Theo had arrived. He rushed down to Aster’s rooms to give me warning that father would expect me to don my attire of respectability and the role of dutiful daughter. The time I had spent with Aster, since Andro’s death, had created a strong bond between us. The harder we worked together to make money to fund our plan of leaving, the less dutiful I felt towards my father. I was sick of the way he was using my beloved brother as a pawn for his wicked games. He hadn’t even seen Aster, let alone spoken to him, since ‘the condition’ had been diagnosed and he never referred to him by name, except as ‘my money monster’. It wasn’t even as if Aster was dead; it was as if he had never existed at all. Father had also ruined my mother’s life, driving her mad and making her a laughing stock with the rumour that she had slept with a bull. Now she spent her time secluded, like her poor son, endlessly wandering in the maze of her mind, except when she was required to play the good hostess.

Timing is everything and by the time Theo arrived I was ready to get even with my father. And yes, okay, I admit I was immediately attracted to Theo. Whose head wouldn’t be turned? Isn’t every girl supposed to be looking for a tall, dark, handsome dream? And there he was, dream personified, sitting in my living room, making small talk with my mother and patting the family dog.

“How old is he?” Theo asked, tugging gently on Cerb’s ear.

“Two years,” mother said proudly.

“A pedigree,” Phaedra promptly interjected.

“Of course,” Theo said, looking up and winking at mother and smiling at Phaedra, who carried on telling Theo about the trophies Cerb and his forefathers had won. Nearly as many as Andro.

I just sat, and if I hadn’t been brought up to consider staring rude, I would have. At one point, Theo excused himself and left the room.

“Now Phaedra, don’t bore our guest,” mother warned her.

“Bore him!” Father returned sharply. “I should think he would have been bored if Phaedra wasn’t here. She’s being more hospitable than the two of you put together.” Mother and I exchanged glances. It was the first time father had praised a member of his family since Andro was alive and neither of us could understand why father wanted to impress Theo anyway.

“I don’t know what’s got into you today. I can usually depend on you to make people feel welcome. It’s usually your sister we can’t get a word out of.”

This was true. Andro’s death had hit Phaedra hard too. We had held hands during his funeral and I had hoped we could let bygones be bygones. After all, I had no proof that she’d had anything to do with Bris’s death. Besides, Andro’s demise proved that it wasn’t so much that life was short, but that we don’t know when death will call for us. But the affection we sought from each other at Andro’s funeral had been momentary. The following day, Phaedra refused to speak to any of us. Mother said it was just grief and we should let her be. The years went by and I felt I had a statue rather than a sister, until the night Theo arrived. At dinner, Phaedra positioned herself next to him and, encouraged by our father’s comments and smiles of approval, kept the visitor ‘entertained’ throughout dinner blithering on about star formations.

“I didn’t know Phaedra liked astronomy.”

“Didn’t you?” Aster said, as he painted one of his statues.

“Did you?” I asked him.

“Sure,” he said indicating the ceiling, which was painted a dark blue and had lots of white dots all over it.

“That’s supposed to be the sky?”

“Okay, so art isn’t her strong point, but she is passionate about the constellations. She’s been ordering loads of books from the East on the subject. That’s how I ended up with these boxes.” He gestured towards the shelf where he stored his tools. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed them before, but the containers did have Eastern symbols on them. “Phaedra painted the constellations there, so she could share them with me.”

“It’s amazing what a stranger’s arrival can tell you about your own family.”

“You mean Theo?”

“Yes, since he’s arrived, I’ve learnt more about Phaedra.”

“Maybe you never encouraged her.”

“It’s hard getting speech out of a statue. How often does she visit you? I’ve never seen her.”

“That’s because you’re still in bed - she usually comes first thing in the morning, after she’s been stargazing, so she can give me a report!”

“What do you mean, usually?”

“Well she’s only been once in the last five days.”

“And what did she have to report?”

“She told me about a new star in her sky! A tall, dark, handsome one!”

“Oh.”

“And what’s your report?”

“He’s alright,” I shrugged.

“He’s alright!” Aster mimicked my gesture and smiled. “Phaedra says he’s a bit more than alright. She said he’s the spit of father when he was younger.” It was Aster’s turn to blush. He always found it difficult to mention our parents. Andro and I had always tried to avoid talking about them. I was surprised Phaedra did. But then Theo’s arrival had thrown us all.
             

What did I feel? Crushed, maybe? I certainly was later, when he abandoned me. But up to that point I hadn’t been able to say more than four words to him, “Good morning” and “Good night.” Even if Phaedra hadn’t commandeered him at every opportunity, there would still have been the problem of the lump in my throat and the butterflies, which had taken up residence in my stomach.

“He’s a fine lad,” I heard Daedalus tell Aster when I visited the next day.

“Except for the fact that he’s come here to kill Aster,” I said bitterly. I had summoned up the courage to ask Theo if he wanted to see some of the smaller beaches, but he had apologised and said he was otherwise engaged.

“Your little sister has promised to show me the views of Ierapetra,” he said. The sound of Phaedra’s voice, calling his name, broke up any further conversation. My consolation was the emphasis on ‘little.’

“He hasn’t come here to kill me. He’s come here to kill father’s ‘monster’,” Aster reminded me.

“Exactly,” said Daedalus.

“Except there isn’t a monster to kill!”

“No, but your father’s played Theo’s visit for all it’s worth. Hasn’t he been the perfect host? Inviting him to dine with the Royal Family, allowing him the use of Andro’s training ground?”

“I can’t believe he’s really going to go kill Theo.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” I said, pretending to be busy with boxes of statues. The talk of Theo was making me feel hot.

“Isn’t there?” asked Daedalus.

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. There’s Theo with his ship and crew waiting to set sail for Athens when Theo has killed the Minotaur. Here you are with money, the need to get off this island and the secret that could save Theo’s life.”

“But we know nothing about him!” I said, as the butterflies whizzed around inside me.

“Andro spoke highly of him, remember?”

It seemed my dead brother still held sway and, as far as Aster was concerned, his word was law. It was settled, now I just had to settle those butterflies of mine.

The next day, after Aster, Daedalus and I had formulated a plan, I managed to catch Theo alone without his shadow. While we had been talking about what to do, I had forgotten the deceitful butterflies in my stomach. Luckily, without realising it, Theo instigated the plan, by suggesting the walk we hadn’t been able to take the day before. So I took him on a ramble, him complimenting the island and comparing it with Athens; me responding with “really?”, “yes”, “no” and the imaginative “uh huh.” Until we came to a small beach at the foot of a cliff. With Theo still politely attempting to make conversation, I scrambled around until I found the large rock which Daedalus had marked for me and began pushing it.

“What are you doing?” Theo asked.

“Just help!” I said breathlessly. It took Theo two pushes to move it enough to reveal a small tunnel. I grabbed Theo’s hand and, bending down, pulled him in after me.

“Hey, this is only our first date!” Theo said, sounding like he was enjoying himself. Then he started wheezing. I stopped so he could catch his breath. He took a small bottle from his tunic and took a sip, before secreting it.