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

snatched up a lock of my hair. “Do not say so! He is not ugly.”

“He is!” I shrieked recklessly. “And most likely he smells, too! Aii! Aii! Let go!”

To my surprise, she did. “Stupid girl!” she said. “Just because he doesn’t look like your precious Icarus! Icarus looks like a girl.”

Outraged, I opened my mouth to protest, but she rushed on.

“But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I bear Theseus’s child.”

“What! What do you mean? You couldn’t possibly—”

“I do! I know I do! I can feel it, here.” She sank down onto the bed and caressed the region of her stomach.

“But—” I might not have known everything there was to know on this subject, but I was quite certain that a baby didn’t simply appear in a woman’s womb because she wished it. “You’ve barely even spoken to the man!”

She looked away. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“Oh, I have done more than that,” she said.

“Ariadne! You haven’t! You found him then?”

“Yes. Icarus was right. Theseus was under the Bull Court. I followed the servant to his very cell. It was so dark and drear, Xenodice! I was frightened. I could feel the ancient dead pressing up against me, whispering in my ear.” She shuddered. “But then I found him. How glad he was to see me!”

“Well, yes, he would be,” I said. Fighting a sense of dread at the pit of my stomach, I asked, “Is he then at liberty?”

“No,” she said. “I told you he wasn’t!”

“Then how—?”

“Oh, I got into his cell easily enough. It wasn’t even guarded. But one of his arms is manacled to the wall and I have no means to free him. Daedalus holds the only key. Xenodice, you must help me! Our mother will kill him as soon as Acalle returns, and that is at any moment!”

“Acalle! Returning? What do you mean?”

“What I said, of course.”

“She is not dead then? Or—I thought perhaps she was under an enchantment. Was that why she did not come home for so long?”

“Oh, you are so stupid, Xenodice! Of course she wasn’t! She was only pregnant by the King of Libya. She went away to have the baby, and now that it is born, and thankfully not a girl, she is coming home again.”

“Pregnant! But—wait! Why should she not have a girl child? I would like to have a little niece.”

“I could shake you, Xenodice, really I could,” she said, and did so. “Listen! If the baby was a girl, she might someday try to claim the throne, even though she was illegitimate and the product of an inferior alliance. As Acalle’s firstborn she could cause problems for Acalle’s first legitimate daughter. You see? So a girl baby would have to be exposed on the rocks to die as soon as it was born. But as it happens, it was a boy. Acalle has only been waiting until he was old enough to be handed over to a wet nurse to raise, and now she is returning.”

“Oh!” I said. “I see.” I sat down on the bed beside her. “But why couldn’t we be told?”

“Because even the rumor of such a child could someday stir up trouble, that’s why. Apparently absolutely everybody has known all along that Acalle wasn’t dead or gone for good, that she was just off studying with some famous holy woman in the Eastern Isles. No one spoke of it because it was supposed to be some big, secret, religious experience. What only Mother knew was that Acalle was pregnant when she left. But no one“—Ariadne’s face was white and set—“no one thought to tell me anything about anything.”

“Oh, Ariadne,” I said. “I am sorry.”

“Never mind. I was furious when Mother first told me, but now I’m glad, because I’m going to leave here with Theseus.”

“What?” I cried.

“And why not?” she demanded. “Do you suppose I want to stay here with no husband and an illegitimate child and have Acalle made queen over my head?”

“But perhaps you are not pregnant after all. You might be mistaken.”

“I am not mistaken! I tell you, I know it!”

“All right! All right! Perhaps you are right. But you couldn’t want to leave Kefti and go to Athens!”

“I could! I do! At least I would be queen there.”

“If Theseus married you, you mean. But you would not be queen of Athens in the same way that Acalle will be queen of Kefti. They do not honor women there as we do here on Kefti.”

“What do you mean, if Theseus married me? Of course he will marry me. He loves me. He says he cannot live without me!”

“That much is certainly true,” I said.

“Xenodice, how cynical you’ve become! Let me tell you, it’s very unbecoming in a young girl. If you must know, I cannot live without him. And anyway,” she added, more prosaically, “he couldn’t possibly hope for a better match than Princess Ariadne of the Isle of Kefti.”

“Ye-es,” I agreed.

Ariadne’s nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. “Why do you say ‘yes’ like that? Do you suggest that I, I am not worthy to wed the future king of Athens? How dare you, Xenodice!”

“Oh, yes, of course.” I hurried to appease her. “You would be a very great prize indeed if you wedded with our mother’s consent, but as it is—”

“Theseus considers me a great prize with or without our mother’s consent,” Ariadne said coldly.

“Even if—even if your flight leads to warfare between Athens and Kefti?” I asked, trembling before her anger.

“Yes! Yes! Even then.”

“Oh, my sister, I fear for you!” I said. Knowing it would have been better to remain silent but unable to help myself, I added, “And on top of everything else he is so very unattractive!”

“He is not! Stop saying that, Xenodice!”

“But I do not understand! Why would you wish to tie yourself to a slave, and one condemned by our mother to die? It makes no sense.”

She hesitated. I could see that she did not believe me capable of