“And you’ve accepted his conditions?”
“Yes.” The answer was strangely subdued. He paused. “Till you came with the grapes,” he said, staring at the fountain as it cascaded above the seashell castle, “I didn’t know that Kora had promised to marry you. I thought you were just her friend. Like a younger brother. I wanted you to be my friend too. Since I woke up in the forest and you were there to help me-well, I’ve liked you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why else would I come here now?”
“I believe you then, but I still don’t like you.”
“Of course you don’t. But I hope you will in time. When you understand.”
Why did older people-Men as well as Beasts, it seemed, even dear Zoe-always talk about understanding as if it came with years? He understood well enough at fifteen; he was rough and graceless and Kora had preferred a prince from a glamorous city. He understood but he still hurt.
Helplessly he pointed to the house and the garden. “I made it for her. The house is bamboo, but it’s right in the middle of a hollow oak trunk so she could have left her tree and lived here with me. Dryads can change oaks, you know. Now there’s nobody to share it with.”
But Bion was standing in the door and Eunostos saw that the Telchin had heard him and his feelers had wilted with disappointment.
“I didn’t mean you,” Eunostos cried, jumping to his hooves and leading Bion into the room. “But you have your own workshop and relatives. I meant somebody to stay with me all the time.”
“I think you have a lot of friends,” said Aeacus. “Zoe says you’re the nicest Beast in the country and I had better consider myself lucky if you’ll even speak to me. I think you can have as much company as you want.” He held out a coaxing hand to Bion, but the Telchin scuttled away from his touch and retreated into the garden.
“Not Kora.”
“Kora too. She does love you, Eunostos, but not in the way you want. She can’t help herself. I couldn’t help coming to her, and I can’t help staying now that I know she wants me.”
“You’ve fallen in love with her in just three days? I’ve known her all my life.”
“I’ve always been in love with her. At least, with someone like her I was waiting to meet. The Great Mother arranges these things, and all we mortals can do is accept gracefully if we lose, and graciously if we gain.”
“I’m not very graceful. My hooves are clumsy and I would trip on my own tail if it reached to the ground.”
“Kora says she loves you better than anyone in the whole forest next to me. She says you saved her life and wrote poems to her and made her feel that her beauty was something precious, and not a worthless, empty shell. I wish-I wish-”
Eunostos had not expected to see an eloquent Cretan groping for words. He wanted to hate or at least dislike this Man who had stolen his bride, but he could not stay angry except with a wicked and heartless person like Saffron. It would seem that Aeacus had not intended to wrong him and that he was truly ashamed. Otherwise, why had he left his couch before he was well and walked through the forest to bring his apologies?
“Well,” said Aeacus, straining to his feet. “I must let you get back to your shop. But I warn you, I’m coming again soon, and going to keep on coming until you become my friend!”
He swayed and started to fall. Eunostos caught him and settled him into the chair.
“Now stay there,” he ordered as gruffly as he could. “I’m going to get you some catnip tea. Zoe says it will cure anything.”
In the next room, he kindled the coals on the hearth and sprinkled some dried leaves in a pan of water. “Damn,” he muttered. “Great-Mother-damn.” Here he was taking care of the last person in the world he wanted as a friend, and it was quite impossible to dislike anyone in your care.
When the tea had come to a boil, he poured it into a large clay cup like a turtle shell, sweetened it with honey, tasted it to make sure that it was not too hot, and carried it to Aeacus, who had to hold the cup in both of his hands, they were trembling so much. He seemed to be having a chill.
“You’ll have to spend the night,” said Eunostos decisively. “I’ll leave Bion to look after you, and I’ll go and tell Kora where you are. If you want anything, just ask Bion. But speak slowly and use simple words, and make sure that you have his attention.”
“I have a feeling he doesn’t like me,” said Aeacus with a certain apprehension.
“That’s on my account,” said Eunostos. “Telchins are very loyal friends to the higher races of Beast. It’s only each other they eat.”
“But I’m not a Beast at all, much less higher!”
“No, but you’re close enough. He likes more sinewy meat. Besides, I’ve left him some hazelnuts in the workshop. Now we’ve got to get you into the next room and onto the couch.”
It was surprising how easy it was to lift a grown Man, if the Man was a Cretan and the lifter was a Minotaur. When Aeacus, cup still clutched between his hands, lay on the couch, Eunostos propped his head on a pillow so that he could finish drinking and threw a coverlet over him. He remembered how his mother had looked after him when he had caught hoof and mouth disease from the Centaur colts.
“Is there anything I can get you before I go? Something to eat? A scroll to read? I have Hoofbeats in Babylon, The Indiscretions of a Dryad, Centaur Songs- ”
“Anything you’ve written?”
“I’m not collected yet. I was planning a little scroll of poems for Kora, but they’re still on palm leaves.”
“Not a thing then. I’ll just lie here and enjoy your house. Did you call this drink tea? We don’t have it in Knossos. Beer and wine, but not tea.”
“The Centaurs learned how to make it from the Yellow Men.”
“It’s very good. I feel better already.”
“I had better go now.”
“I saw the turtle in your fountain. I had a turtle till I was fifteen. He lived in a pool with silver fish.”
“What happened to him?”
“He crawled away. An earthquake had made a small fissure in the wall of the courtyard. I never filled it in, hoping he would crawl back. But he didn’t.”
“Well, I expect he knew where he was going.”
“The adjacent courtyard opened onto the street. I always hoped he was rescued by a child. Wagons aren’t allowed in Knossos, so he couldn’t have been run over.”
“You must have missed him a great deal.”
“I did. Eunostos?”
“Yes?”
Aeacus held out his hand in the universal gesture of good fellowship.
“Damn,” muttered Eunostos, but he took the hand, which was cold, shaking, and very tenacious. Reluctantly he returned the pressure. The worst had happened. He had become friends with the Man who had taken his bride. I’ll end up giving them my turtle for a wedding present, he thought.
CHAPTER X
When I heard that Eunostos and Aeacus had become friends, I thought: Well, good for Eunostos. Now he can be reconciled with Kora too and be at peace with himself. Now he can see her without illusions and love her as she really is, with her mortal limitations. For if a person rejects us and we never see him again, we suppose him larger than life, we find the fault in ourselves, and we always think: “If only I had been worthier…” But the married Kora, engaged in her daily domesticities, was a beautiful, kindhearted, but unremarkable young Dryad of flesh and green blood.
Much to his credit, Eunostos did not act like a young calf mooning over his lost love. He was nearly sixteen now; he was definitely a bull and he acted with commendable maturity. Never a worshipful look, never a whispered compliment, but always the open, bluff affection of the brother Kora seemed to want.
Kora reciprocated with a quiet gratitude. She had won a brother as well as a husband. Accompanied by Aeacus, she visited Eunostos’s house and showed him how to deepen the color of his roses or train them to climb his trellis. She brought him roasted acorns and tidied his workshop and wove him a loincloth like the one Aeacus had worn when he came to the forest, green instead of purple, but just as princely, with a belt and a silver clasp in the shape of a turtle.