“The Centaurs destroyed Phlebas’s lodge yesterday,” he said, sharing some news brought to him by Partridge. “They rowed out in a raft and threw torches onto the roof before the Panisci could get out their slingshots. Of course the lodge burned in a few minutes. All the Goat Boys and their Girls escaped, as the Centaurs intended, but they’ll have to find a new place to keep their stolen goods now.”
“It’s high time,” said Kora. “It was the dirtiest place you can imagine.”
“I can imagine. I know Partridge,” said Eunostos, “though,” he hurried to add, “his dirt is honest.”
Aeacus walked onto the porch in noiseless sandals. “I’m going to call on Chiron,” he said without explanation. He was not rude; he was never rude. But there was something a little strained about his smile. Surely he isn’t jealous of me after all this time, Eunostos thought. Perhaps he is just homesick for Knossos.
“Would you like to take Thea with you?” Kora asked.
“You know she’s afraid of the forest.”
“But she wouldn’t be with you. At least not after the first few times. Do you realize she’s never been further than Zoe’s house in two years?”
“She’s safer where she is.” It was not that Aeacus considered her a burden who would spoil his walk. In the house, they were inseparable. It was almost as if he did not want her to know and love the forest.
He lifted her out of the cradle and laid her over his shoulder and patted her. She almost never laughed, but she seized him around the neck and hugged him, and looked displeased when she was returned to the cradle. Eunostos felt a lingering pang. Scarcely a month ago, she had come to him as soon as to her father, but all of a sudden she had begun to seem frightened of him. “Was it something I did?” he asked me. “It’s only a phase,” I reassured him, but I had a hunch that Aeacus, in his smooth Cretan way, had somehow turned her against Eunostos. Perhaps he had told her a story about a demon with horns and a tail and a red mane. At any rate, Icarus hugged Eunostos as often as he had the chance and clearly preferred him to his father. I wondered how soon Aeacus would start to tell him stories.
“Good-bye, little Thea,” Aeacus said. “Rest well while I’m gone.” Then, with a pat to Icarus’s head and a kiss on Thea’s cheek, and no farewell at all for Eunostos, he reentered the house to descend the ladder and waved to Kora from the ground. It’s because he’s so used to me, Eunostos told himself. I’ve become like a piece of furniture to him.
“Kora,” said Eunostos suddenly. “Thea is nearly two, and she’s never seen my house. Do you realize that every time I invited her, Aeacus thought of a reason why she should stay at home? For that matter, you and Icarus have stayed at home too much lately, too. If you aren’t careful, you’ll turn into a loom.”
“I don’t think Aeacus would like me to bring her,” she said hesitantly.
“Well, why not? I’m Zeus-father to both children, and if I don’t have a right to entertain them, I don’t know who does. Remember, I built a special room for them. There are still toys in it-the ones I haven’t brought over here.”
“Aeacus seems to think that something might happen to Thea in the forest. He keeps bringing up the time I was kidnapped by Phlebas and sold to Saffron.”
“Saffron is dead and Phlebas was so frightened by Chiron that I don’t think he’s much of a threat. Besides, there’s some kind of danger everywhere, even here. Your tree might catch on fire.”
“All right, we’ll go!” she said with the sudden enthusiasm of someone about to be slightly mischievous. “We’ll have a real outing. Which baby do you want to carry?”
“Icarus.”
“Shame on you, Eunostos. You’re partial.”
“I love them the same,” he said (and he did-well, almost-except that he was a little frightened of Thea since her estrangement from him). “But Icarus is easier to entertain. I can talk Beast to Beast with him. He understands me, you know, even if he can’t answer. Though he did call me ‘Zeus-father’ yesterday.”
“Eunostos, he was only gurgling! He can’t even say ‘mother’ yet.”
‘Well, he can say ‘Zeus-father.’ I distinctly heard him. Anyway, he’s too heavy for you to carry.”
“Empty the arrows out of Aeacus’s quiver and bring it along. Icarus likes to ride in it.”
They set off together for Eunostos’s house, with Icarus and quiver strapped to Eunostos’s back, and Thea in her mother’s arms. Icarus was so excited by the journey that he almost squirmed out of the quiver; he kept up a constant happy gurgle which Eunostos insisted contained several “Zeus-father’s.” Thea, however, began to look around her apprehensively the moment they left the tree and, when a Bear Girl scampered across their path, she set up a howl which she steadily increased until they reached Eunostos’s stump. You would have thought that she was one of those superfluous girl-babies which the Achaeans abandon to the wolves. Only when she saw the inviting walls of bark, green with ivy and entered by a door like a big smile, did she subside, and once within the walls she managed a faint coo, which Eunostos dared to hope was directed to him. If I could bring her here often enough, he thought, she would stop being afraid of me.
“Oughtn’t you to latch the gate behind us?” Kora asked.
“Oh, no, some of my friends might come to pick vegetables. I give them the run of the garden.”
To roses and columbine he had added forget-me-nots, violets, and hyacinths; and his fruits and vegetables now included carrots, radishes, squashes, gourds, and even a grapevine with several succulent bunches. He had also planted three olive trees which eventually, he hoped, would supply him with oil. He had built an olive press in his workshop.
“One of these days you’ll be completely self-sufficient,” said Kora with admiration. “You’ll grow and make everything you need. Eunostos, I’m proud of you.”
“Three years ago, you said that carpentry wasn’t very poetic,” Eunostos reminded her.
“That was three years ago. Now I can see poetry in a well-made chair.”
“I wish-” he began. But no, he must not express or even entertain such wishes. “Come into the house, Kora.”
Icarus had visited the Zeus-father room on several occasions and he crawled at once to the toy glider, which he had already battered-broken a wing, bent the tail-but which remained his favorite toy. Thea, who could walk for short distances, headed for a doll of terra cotta, a little girl with round painted eyes and smiling mouth, who looked like a happy Thea. The resemblance was no accident; Eunostos had used her for his model. She sat in a corner and cradled the doll in her arms and looked at him for the first time in a month as if his horns were friendly instead of frightening.
With the children thus occupied, Eunostos invited Kora to walk into the garden. It never occurred to him that there might be danger in his own house.
“I want to ask you about one of my rose bushes.” He led her among the flowers and indicated a particularly woebegone bush. “I water it every day and can’t understand what’s wrong.”
“She isn’t eating properly. You can get some potash from the Centaurs. To roses, it’s what bread is to you and me.”
“I knew you’d know. That’s just what I’ll do.”
They strolled from the roses to the workshop and climbed down the ladder to greet Bion, who was polishing a large amethyst. He greeted them with a wave of his feelers but, dedicated worker that he was, never stopped the rapid swish-swish of his forelegs.
“We’d better get back to the children,” said Kora. “Thea might get scared.”
As they emerged from the workshop, they heard a whispering-not the children’s-from the house.
They broke into a run.
“It’s only a Bear Girl,” said Eunostos with relief. “They’re very gentle with children.”
The Girl was cradling Thea in her arms and talking to her. She looked up at them, startled, and then she smiled, no more than a child herself. Her smile was engaging, but her fur was in need of a comb.