Lost in the Labyrinth (4 page)

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 live? He may yet be alive. Why do you not do something besides making up lies about Asterius? I know how you hate him, but you shall not deprive me of yet another son through your spite and jealousy. What have the seers to say? What has Polyidus said? He is a great diviner. He found my dragonfly necklace when no one else could. What has he said?"

I gathered up my courage to descend the stairs and speak. However angry it made my father, I must speak up for Asterius. I knew he had not harmed Glaucus.

Before I could move, however, there came an interruption.

"My lady! My queen! I came as quickly as I could!"

There came a sound of labored breathing and the jingling and clanking of many gold ornaments. It sounded as though Polyidus had indeed run all the way.

"My friend, Polyidus!" cried my mother. "You have come to tell me where to find my boy. You have come to return my son to me, safe and sound!"

"I am sure I shall, my lady." said Polyidus, preening himself.

My father's mouth twisted with distaste. He disliked Polyidus, I knew. I did not blame him. Polyidus
was
a great diviner, but I thought him a creeping, crawling slug of a man. So, I believe, did my mother in her heart, but at the moment she would have been gracious to anyone who could give her hope.

"I must go and get my accouterments, my dear queen," Polyidus said. "The tools of my trade, you know. And then I assure you it will be but a few moments until we find the child, quite unharmed. Will you not repair to the throne room and wait for me there?"

"No. Can't you—can't you just make do with what is here?" my mother said, abruptly moving out of the range of my sight. I descended a few steps to see that she had gone out into the courtyard. "Here is sand that you could use, or pebbles, or water," she said, gesturing about her. "I beg of you, hurry."

"Well." This set Polyidus back on his heels. He liked to have a great deal of ritual and formality while he was working. "I don't know—"

"The Goddess abides in me, as her priestess," my mother reminded him. "You may draw on her strength through me."

As there was no help for it, Polyidus gave in. "As my queen commands," he said plaintively, following her outside into the open air.

I crept down the stairs and joined a group of courtiers and servants who had gathered around to witness the divination. My mother and Polyidus stood by a pool of water with scarlet fish swimming in it. Polyidus was looking about himself, at a loss. "Now, I suppose I could—" he began doubtfully.

My mother cried out.

A large, golden honeybee had lighted on the first finger of her right hand.

"It is a sign," Polyidus said quickly, before anyone else could give voice to the obvious. "They are holy creatures."

At this, the bee flew away into the palace.

"Follow her!" commanded Polyidus, as though we needed to be told.

Down many halls we walked. As our queer procession moved forward, we gradually picked up more and more people in our train. Hushed, tense, we followed the honeybee, which paused here and there upon a wall, allowing us to catch up, then flew onward in what appeared to be a purposeful manner.

We were nearing some of the humbler portions of the palace. We walked into a kitchen, shocking the cook nearly senseless. She dropped to her knees, her wooden spoon clattering to the floor beside her, as the queen, leading a parade of great ladies and lords, passed through her lowly domain. "Your Majesty! My lord!" the cook moaned, prostrating herself before us. My mother stepped briskly over her, her eyes fixed on the bee. The rest of the party followed suit. In the hall outside the kitchen, the bee stopped in its flight and landed on the floor. We halted and stared at the tiny animal.

"What does it mean?" my mother whispered.

Then we saw. The bee was crawling on an iron ring. It had landed on a trapdoor leading to one of the storage rooms.

"Oh, quickly, quickly," moaned my mother.

The trapdoor was flung open, and several servants jumped down inside. The bee flew straight to one of the great pithoi, storage jars higher than a tall man's head and broader than his out-flung arms. On the pithos the bee rested.

"In there," said Polyidus triumphantly.

When at length the massive jar was tipped on its side and the contents poured out on the floor, they proved to be three in number: an enormous quantity of honey, a dead mouse, and my brother Glaucus, likewise dead, drowned in a vat of golden sweetness.

I
TURNED MY HEAD AWAY, HALF FAINTING WITH HORROR.

The crush of people pushing forward to see nearly knocked me off my feet—I would surely have fallen if not for a hand that reached out from the crowd and steadied me with a firm grip.

I looked up to see Icarus's anxious eyes on mine.

"Come away, my lady," he said. "You ought not to be here."

I looked back and saw my wild-eyed mother and my stone-faced father standing motionless, staring down at the body of my little brother as it lay in a pool of honey at the bottom of the storage room.

"My parents," I said. "I must—"

"You are better elsewhere, Princess."

I shook my head. "My mother may want me," I said, resisting as he tugged on my hand. "I will not fall," I assured him, and, indeed, I did not believe that I would. There was a sickness at the pit of my stomach, but that was nothing.

He nodded and turned his attention back to my parents, who were now descending the ladder into the lower room. In the lamplight poor Glaucus glistened all over, like a statue washed with liquid gold.

The bee, which had been forgotten, now flew out of a dark corner and 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 princes 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. I am sorry, though he probably did deserve to die. How glad I am that Ariadne is to be queen and not I. I could never order anyone executed." I shuddered.

Icarus smiled. "The Lady Ariadne will have no difficulty there," he said.

"No, she will not, and a good thing too, if she is to be a strong ruler," I said tartly. Ariadne was my sister. Long ago we had played at dolls and dressup, and even though she no longer seemed to value my company, I loved her as best I could. I would not allow anyone to criticize her, not even Icarus.

Besides, I felt a sudden urge to quarrel with him, thinking to blot out my distress with a scalding good fight. But he would not help me. He merely said, "Yes, your sister has the stomach to be queen. You do not." Then, pausing at the entrance to the royal chambers, he said, "How do you suppose the prince came to fall into the honey?"