T HE D UNGEONS OF K NOSSOS Aegeus had been right to suppose that the moment the party from Athens made landfall in Crete they would be taken prisoner. On the way over, Theseus had tried to imagine ways in which they could overpower any guards set over them and make a fight of it, but no stratagem suggested itself to. Their ship had been met in open water and steered into harbour by an aggressive Minoan fleet before they had even sighted the island. A small knot of jeering Cretans accompanied them from the docks at Heraklion to the palace dungeon where they were to spend the night. A group of children ran alongside hurling stones and insults as they approached the great gates of Knossos.fn18 ‘The bull man awaits!’ ‘He will grind your bones!’ ‘You’ll wet yourselves! You always do!’ ‘He loves the taste of Athenians …’ ‘He’ll fuck you first, then eat you!’ One of the young men started to whimper. ‘Sh!’ said Theseus. ‘They want to see you afraid. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Let’s sing …’ In a voice more admirable for its strength than its musicality Theseus began to sing. It was the old anthem of Attica, the song that told the story of Cecrops and the founding kings of Athens. How Pallas Athena gave the people olive trees and contested with Poseidon over who should be the city’s guardian. Slowly and with gathering confidence the other thirteen joined in. The jeering children were unsure how to cope with this and fell away disappointed. A guard snarled at them to be quiet, but they only sang louder and more lustily. The gates opened and their voices echoed off the ramparts. Into the palace they trooped, tramping their feet in time to their singing. They were stopped at the head of a stairway that led down to the dungeons, but still they sang. The stairhead was protected by a locked iron gate. As the lead guard took out a large key and fitted it to the lock, a door opened in the gallery above and Theseus glanced up. A girl appeared in the doorway, perhaps drawn by the unexpected sound of singing. She looked down and straight into his eyes. Instantly Theseus felt a surge of heat shoot through his whole body. The girl quickly closed the door. Theseus found he could no longer sing. In a daze he let himself be led along with the others, the ship’s crew included, to a large round cell under the palace. By the light of torches in brackets set around the wall, he saw a long table covered in dishes of the most colourful and appealing food. Some of the Athenians cried out in surprised delight as they fell on the feast, but Theseus felt no such pleasure. Naturally the Minotaur would prefer to gorge on well-fed flesh. The captain of the guard banged his spear on the ground. ‘Stop. Girls on the left, boys on the right. His majesty will inspect you.’ The door to the cell opened and the royal party came in. King Minos entered clutching the hand of a young girl whose eyes were cast down. When she looked up, Theseus saw that it was the same girl he had seen in the doorway. Their eyes met again. ‘I shall examine the young men, Ariadne,’ Minos was saying to her. ‘Why don’t you and your mother inspect the maidens?’ Queen Pasiphae stepped out from the shadows and took her daughter’s arm. So this was the woman who mated with a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. She seemed ordinary and disappointingly domestic to Theseus’s eyes, which were only for her beautiful daughter. Ariadne! What a perfectly delightful name. Theseus lined up with the other six youths. The maidens were ranged opposite so Theseus could only see Ariadne’s back as she walked with her mother down the line, appraising the Athenian girls. ‘Well, they
look like virgins,’ he heard Pasiphae saying in a sceptical voice, ‘but how can one tell?’ Ariadne said nothing. Theseus would have loved to know what her voice sounded like. Meanwhile Minos stalked down the line looking the young men up and down with a critical eye. When he arrived at Theseus he prodded him with his ivory sceptre. Theseus restrained an enraged desire to throw a punch right at his arrogant, smirking face. ‘Red hair, eh?’ Minos said. ‘Well-muscled too. Asterion will like that. Very good. Now this is how it works,’ he raised his voice and turned to address both groups. ‘Over the next two weeks you will be given all the food and drink you require. Starting tomorrow a youth will be selected and taken into the labyrinth. The next day it will be a girl. A youth the day after, and so on until the two weeks are over and the last of you has been taken. The ship’s crew will then be released to sail back to Athens under safe passage with the news that the tribute is paid and your kingdom safe for another year. Understood?’ Silence. Theseus looked towards Ariadne who seemed to be examining the stone flags of the cell floor. ‘No snivelling, no sobbing, I admire that,’ said Minos. ‘Keep your heads high and meet your fate proudly and doubtless you will be rewarded in the afterlife. That is all. Come, Pasiphae, Ariadne.’ At the last minute Ariadne glanced up towards Theseus and again his eyes locked with hers for the briefest instant. The briefest instant that contained an entire lifetime of joy, love and explosive bliss. The door clanged shut and the young people turned expectant faces on Theseus. They were thrilled to see that he was smiling. ‘You have a plan?’ they enquired of him. Theseus was jerked from his trance. ‘Plan? Well now … plan …’ He looked about him. Something would occur to him, surely? After the feelings that had swept over him when he looked into the eyes of Ariadne it was impossible to believe that his life and the lives of his companions were going to end. Surely Eros had been at work with his bow? Surely the tumult in his heart was in her heart too? It couldn’t be for nothing. It had to mean something. ‘You all sleep. By morning I shall have my plan.’ ‘But what will it be?’ ‘Sleep. Just sleep. All will be clear.’ The plenteous good food and strong wine had tired them out and it was not long before Theseus was the only one left awake and standing. Silence descended and Theseus found himself sliding to the floor and nodding off too, but HYPNOS never fully took his mind and he was quickly jerked awake by a sound. Someone was coming along the passageway. He stood upright and stepped over to the door. Two murmuring voices grew louder. He could distinguish an older man, who seemed distressed or anguished in some way and the lower murmur of a female voice. The handle of the cell door turned and through the grille he saw to his unnameable joy the face of Ariadne. She opened the door and came in, followed by an old man who nervously closed the door behind him. Theseus approached her. ‘Why are you here?’ She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘You have to ask?’ It seemed natural to take her face in his hands and cover her in kisses. The kisses were returned. ‘Ariadne!’ he breathed. ‘What is your name?’ she asked. ‘Theseus.’ ‘Theseus?’ Her eyes rounded in wonder. ‘Son of Aegeus?’ ‘The same.’ ‘Of course …’ she fell into his arms. The old man tapped her impatiently on the shoulder. ‘Ariadne!’ he whispered. ‘The guards may come at any moment.’ She broke off. ‘You’re right of course, we must hurry. Come with me, Theseus. We’ll leave the island together.’ Theseus stopped. ‘I do not leave without my companions,’ he said. ‘But …’ ‘I have come not to be spirited away, but to kill the Minotaur and free my people of the burden that has been placed upon them.’ She gazed deep into his eyes again. ‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘We wondered if you might say that.’ She indicated the old man by her side. ‘This is Daedalus. He built the labyrinth where the creature lives.’ The old man nodded at Theseus. ‘Once inside its endless maze of corridors you will never find your way out,’ he said. ‘Is there not a key?’ said Theseus. ‘I have heard that if you take the first right and second left, or some such set sequence, then you can always solve a maze.’ ‘This has no such cheap solution,’ said Daedalus testily. ‘There is one way – Ariadne, tell him.’ ‘The corridors that lead from here through the labyrinth are dark,’ she said. ‘They take you inevitably to the centre. But to escape you will need this ball of thread. From the point where the guard leaves you, attach the end to the doorway and unroll it as you go further in. That way you will always be able to follow it out.’ ‘Suppose I am the last chosen for the Minotaur,’ said Theseus. ‘I cannot let thirteen good young Athenians die. I must be chosen first.’ ‘Don’t you worry about that. I shall bribe the captain of the guard and you will be chosen tomorrow morning, I promise. I can give you no weapon though. You must tackle Asterion on your own.’ ‘I fought his father without weapons and won,’ said Theseus, thinking back to the Marathonian Bull. ‘When you kill him, kill him quickly and mercifully. He is a monstrous mistake, but he is my brother. My half-brother at least.’ Theseus smiled into her eyes. ‘I love you, Ariadne.’ ‘I love you, Theseus.’ ‘When I have killed him, I shall return and release my companions. You will sail with me back to Athens and we shall rule together as king and queen. Now leave, both of you, before we are discovered.’ ‘One last kiss,’ said Ariadne. ‘One last mmmnn …’ said Theseus.