Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl (ereader with android txt) 📗

“Mother,” I said, catching at her elbow as she stepped out of her gown. “Mother, tell me, when does the Athenian prince die?”

Mother looked annoyed. “Do not try to save him, Xenodice; you are too tenderhearted. Theseus is his father’s child indeed! He comes to my court and announces that he means to kill yet another of my sons! But do not grieve over him. His death will cancel out Aegeus’s debt. It is just—a son for a son.”

I raised the knuckles of my fist to my forehead in salute. “Your benevolence is great, O Queen,” I said formally. “But I did not seek to save the man Theseus. I only wished to know when he would die.”

She looked up sharply and motioned her women away.

“You wished to know—! Is this my sweet-natured little daughter, she who cannot bear to crush an insect? Why do you wish to know when the young man dies?”

My head drooped; I stared at my feet. Never before had I desired another’s death. But now I was frightened. I did not know the precise nature of the danger, but my forebodings centered around this young Athenian.

“He threatened to kill Asterius,” I said, sounding no older than Father’s boy. “I am afraid for my brother.”

“Oh, if that is all! Do not fear, he cannot escape. And if he could, how could he find your brother, and, having found him, how could he kill him unarmed?”

“Someone—someone could help him,” I suggested.

“No one would dare. Better still, no one would wish to do such a thing. Now, stop worrying this instant. Do you know, I was rather afraid at first that you had fallen in love with the man. You’re growing up so.” She looked at my small pointed breasts. When I blushed, she laughed. “I’m glad to know that’s not so.”

“Oh no, Mother. He’s such an ugly man.”

“Well,” she said, musing, “I wouldn’t call him so. Some women find men like that quite attractive. But evidently you don’t and that’s all to the good. Now go and leave me to my bath.”

“But Mother,” I protested, “you didn’t say when—”

“No, I didn’t and what’s more, I won’t,” she said good-humoredly. “Don’t worry, little one. Asterius is quite safe from the son of Aegeus.”

And with that I had to be content.

Theseus was not executed the next day, or the next. The court in those days after the festival seemed stretched tight, waiting. After having eaten and drunk and danced and sung our fill we ought to have returned to our everyday lives. What, then, were we waiting for?

This tension seemed to center around the queen my mother. She laughed often these days, which was uncommon for her. She teased her little slave girl and gave her presents of sweetmeats and a small gold chain for her ankle. And every morning and every evening she climbed up to the lookout tower, the highest place in the Labyrinth, and stared out over the sea.

Two days after the Festival of the Bulls, our mother summoned Ariadne to her presence in closed conference. When Ariadne came out of the throne room, she was seething and smoking like a pot of oil left overlong on the fire. After that I avoided her whenever I could.

The very next day, however, she demanded that I accompany her to Daedalus’s studio.

“He likes you,” she said in explanation. “He’ll tell you things.”

“What sort of things?” I asked, suspicious.

“Come on, Xenodice,” she said, pulling me ruthlessly along.

Icarus was seated on a windowsill of the untidy room, gilding the horns of a rhyton carved in the shape of a bull’s head.

“Oh, it’s only you,” said Ariadne, disgruntled.

“Yes, my lady, it is only I,” he agreed, standing to salute us and holding the rhyton away from his body so as not to smudge the paint.

“That’s rather nice,” she said, looking at the rhyton, which would one day hold the blood of a sacrificial bull.

“It’s very beautiful,” I amended, because it was.

“Thank you,” he said tranquilly and waited to hear what we wanted. I could tell that he was having one of his dreamy, otherworldly days. Ariadne could tell, too. She looked as though she wanted to shake him.

“Where is your father?”

“I cannot say, Lady. Not here. He left some time ago without telling me his errand.”

Ariadne looked exasperated. “Still,” she muttered to herself, “perhaps he knows.” She whispered urgently in my ear, “Ask him!”

“Ask him what?” I whispered back, bewildered.

“Where Theseus is imprisoned, of course!”

“But—but why—?”

“Never mind why—just ask him!”

“Aii! Ariadne, that hurt! Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because—just ask!”

“I don’t want to, Ariadne. I don’t want to know, and I don’t see why you should, either.”

Icarus put the rhyton down on the window ledge and waited.

Ariadne released me. She pulled herself up to her full height and said, “Icarus, I command you to tell me where the man Theseus is imprisoned.”

“I do not know, my lady.”

Ariadne hissed in frustration.

“But,” Icarus continued, “my father knows.”

“Does he? How do you know?” she asked eagerly.

“Because I heard your royal mother Queen Pasiphae tell him to make sure the prisoner was incarcerated in the deepest, most secure chamber at the very heart of the maze. Which chamber that would be I cannot say, but my father could.”

“He could, but would he, that’s the question,” mused Ariadne aloud.

Icarus’s attention was drifting back toward the rhyton. Apparently forgetting our presence, he held it up to the sunlight, admiring the line of fire reflecting down the golden horns.

“You could work it out yourself I suppose,” Icarus said absently, picking up his paintbrush.

“What do you mean? How?” Ariadne demanded, staying his arm before he could dip the brush into the golden medium.

He laid the brush down again.

“The oldest section would be the deepest, wouldn’t it, my lady?” he said. “They built the present palace on top of the ruins of the first. And then, our queen said that the chamber should be at the very heart of the maze. The Bull Court is at the very heart of the