The Lost Books of the Odyssey - By Zachary Mason Page 0,53
young man, nominally a prisoner and a sacrifice but laughing in his heart and out for blood. He was not yet old enough to believe in death, though he had already killed a dozen men. Watching their lives’ blood stain his spear and hands had only taught him that death is the province of others.
In their white robes of hieratic office King Minos and his golden-haired daughter Ariadne greeted the Athenian offerings as they disembarked in Knossos port. Theseus, the Athenian captain, considered it charming to treat his enemy with great politeness and replied to their official greeting with the utmost courtesy. Minos, a fair-minded man, told them at length why they were going to die. He spoke of Pasiphaë* and monstrous couplings, white cattle flying across the sea and crazed hatred in divine eyes. Theseus barely listened—they were where they were and it didn’t matter much how they got there, and anyway he was distracted by Ariadne, who first avoided but soon returned his gaze. After Minos’s speech the Athenians were led away to the opulent cells where they would be kept for a week before being sent into the labyrinth—the Minotaur preferred victims healthy, well fed and free of disease.
On the second night they were taken to a banquet served in the balconies overlooking an arena; below them, slaves leapt over charging bulls and initiates danced with double-headed axes. The old engineer Daedalus was there, wearing a white, plain, food-stained robe and ignoring both his companions and the ceremonies below, all his interest absorbed by the diagrams he was drawing on the table with the lees of the wine. Beside him, a bare-breasted matron with an ageless face and hard smile made vain and persistent attempts at conversation (which made Theseus smile—her accoutrement was outrageous by Athenian standards but her face and manner reminded him of his mother). Minos made several toasts to Daedalus, who received them with forced good grace—rumor had it he was an unwilling guest in Crete. Minos extolled Daedalus’s many achievements—not only had he designed and built the labyrinth at the heart of the palace but also the palace itself and the city with its harbors, fanes, libraries and universities. He had even laid out the farms, fields and roads around Knossos, not to mention his architectural projects in the outlying provinces, the mainland and even the Lydian and Persian kingdoms far to the east. Theseus thought that he did not look like much for someone who exceeded all men in the scope of his achievements. With his thin neck, long nose and heavy grizzled head, the only remarkable things about him were his abstractedness and the intensity with which he regarded his vinous sketches. Ariadne excused herself to check on her Athenian guests—she stood by Theseus’s chair and he thanked her for her hospitality, touching her hand for emphasis.
The next night Ariadne visited Theseus on the pretext of expounding her father’s justice, the necessity of keeping the sacred monster placated, the reasonable and traditional subjugation of Athens to Knossos. He made every pretense of attentiveness and sat close enough that their legs were touching. Things proceeded. She was not his first lover but the danger, the secrecy and the promise of bloodshed gave the affair a luminous intensity he had known before only in battle. She loved him, loved him completely, more than her parents, her temple or her life, she said in a thick, clotted voice, her white face red with emotion. She left for a while and came back with the wherewithal for victory—a thick ball of twine, a sharp sword and the key to his cell.
When Ariadne had gone, Theseus crouched by his door for some indefinite duration, listening, hearing nothing. When impatience finally overcame caution, he slipped out of his cell and followed Ariadne’s directions through torch-lit corridors and down dark stairs. He padded along barefoot, trading comfort (the floor was very cold) for silence, prepared to bluff then kill anyone he met, but he did not see another soul on his way to the labyrinth’s door. Ariadne had told him that it would not be locked—all who wished to enter were free to do so. He tied one end of his twine to a torch bracket, drew his sword and crept in, his blood singing a war-song.
Within were passages, arcades and high galleries all wrought of the same blank white stone, echoes caroming at random through the interlocking rooms and interlaced corridors, tortuously returning the soft slap of