Kora darted across the room and snatched her daughter as if from the jaws of a Hydra. Eunostos was about to defend the Girl, poor thing. The Bears of Artemis were always welcome at his house and free to pick his grapes. Often they came in his absence and left him pails of blackberries.
“It’s one of Phlebas’s Girls,” explained Kora. “She’s spruced herself a bit but I still recognize her after three years. You’d better see if anything is stolen.”
Quick as a rabbit, the Girl shot out of the door. There was nothing in her paws and it seemed pointless to chase her, since she wore no garments in which to conceal any loot.
“Well, she would have stolen if we hadn’t caught her,” Kora said.
Eunostos was not sure. “I have an idea that with the lodge burned down, she just got homesick for her old way of life in the log village. She couldn’t go back there-Phlebas’s Girls are outlawed, you know-so she came here instead and found a baby and felt maternal.”
“If she’s the one I remember, she has a baby of her own, and it’s a horrid little thief.”
“Well, no harm done,” he said. “But I expect we had better head back for your house.”
They had hardly begun their walk, however, when they saw that Thea was not just quiet, she had fallen asleep, and she never slept during the day, least of all when she was being carried through the forest and had an excuse to wail. Furthermore, her face was flushed as if she had lain in the sun or caught a fever.
When they reached Kora’s house, she had not so much as flickered her eyelids.
Aeacus was waiting at the head of the stairs in the trunk. He greeted them with his customary noncommittal smile and Eunostos wished for a scowl. It was what he deserved, he felt, for taking the children into the forest without their father’s permission.
“Thea seems to be sick,” he said quickly, to save Kora from having to make the confession.
Aeacus took Thea out of Kora’s arms and hurried her onto the porch and into the cradle. He fell to his knees and peered anxiously at her face. Then he placed his hand on her forehead.
“She’s not hot. Are you sure she’s sick?” he asked, looking more puzzled than angry. “She seems to be sleeping quite peacefully.” In fact, to judge by her smile, she seemed to be having a euphoric dream.
“We can’t wake her up,” said Kora.
Puzzlement became alarm. “Eunostos, get Zoe.”
Minutes later I too was kneeling beside the bed and since I have acquired certain medical skills through my long friendship with Chiron, I recognized the symptoms. In a way, Aeacus was right. She was not sick, she was drugged.
“Where has she been?” I asked. Eunostos told me about the outing and the Bear of Artemis he had found in his house.
“One of Phlebas’s Girls, you say. Do you know what they do when they want their own babies to stop crying? They drug them. They give them a bit of weed to chew, or else they brew some in hot milk.”
“But why would the Girl drug Thea?” Kora cried. “Was she going to kidnap her?”
“I don’t think so. I think she probably came to steal from Eunostos. She had lost everything when the lodge burned down. She had heard how he leaves his gate unlocked and she just walked in, hoping to find him gone. She probably heard him with Kora and Bion down in the workshop but hoped she could come and loot and go before he came out. In the house, she found Thea, who was about to cry and give her away. So she quieted her with some weed. Then Eunostos and Kora surprised her and she pretended she was just rocking the baby in her arms.”
“Will she be all right?” Aeacus demanded.
“Oh, yes, though she may act a little strange when she wakes up.”
Thea’s strangeness took the form of hilarity. She woke up giggling and giggled for almost an hour. Then she demanded dinner, ate like a hawk instead of a sparrow, and fell into a natural sleep. It had not, after all, been a tragedy, merely a mishap with certain amusing aspects. At least, that was how Eunostos saw the incident, and I had to nudge him when he started to suggest that they give Thea some weed every day. Kora sat on the floor rocking Thea’s cradle and looked up at Aeacus with a smile as if to ask his forgiveness, but-at the same time-to say, It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?
Aeacus did not return her smile.
“Thank you for coming, Zoe,” he said, and then to Eunostos he said some words which were all the more terrible for being spoken with measured politeness and with an impassive face.
“Eunostos, you’re not to come back for awhile.”
Kora jumped to her feet. “But what has he done? He just wanted our children to see their toys. You ought to thank him!”
“For taking my daughter into the forest where she might have been killed?”
“But she’s not even hurt.”
“She might have been, though.”
For once, Kora stood up to him. “Our daughter is a Dryad. She lives in a forest. She needs to get to know her own country. Do you think she can spend five hundred years in this tree?”
“No,” he said. “I do not.”
His words were cruelly prophetic.
CHAPTER XII
“Zoe!”
I muffled my ear with the corner of a wolfskin. It was early morning and I had scarcely fallen asleep after the departure of Moschus; wineskins littered the floor and wine cobwebbed my thoughts.
“Zoe, will you lower the ladder?”
I recognized Kora’s voice. Anyone except Kora or Eunostos I would have ignored. I dragged myself from my womb of coverlets and staggered to the door.
“Yes, dear?” I felt like a Cretan feigning a smile when he wanted to frown.
“May I come up?”
She was laden with both of her children, Thea in her arms, Icarus in the quiver strapped to her back. She wore a russet gown embroidered with green clover leaves, and her smile was as radiant and natural as mine was forced.
I lowered the ladder; what is more, I forced myself to descend, rung after painful rung, and lift Thea from her arms. I felt my years when that little bud of a girl seemed as heavy as Icarus. Inside the house I hastily returned Thea to her mother and sprawled full-length on the couch. For once, Kora would have to guide the conversation. I hardly had energy to listen-until I heard her announcement.
“I’m going to visit Eunostos,” she said as if such visits were a daily occurrence. “Since I can’t carry both children all the way, I wondered if I could leave Thea with you.”
“Do you think it’s wise to call on Eunostos? After what Aeacus said?”
“Aeacus doesn’t know. He’s hunting again. Besides, it’s mainly Thea he doesn’t want carried about the forest.”
“You know very well he doesn’t want you to see Eunostos.”
“I don’t care.” There was bronze in her voice. “Eunostos wants to see me, doesn’t he?”
“Of course he wants to see you.” How could I explain that seeing her and Icarus so rarely and under surreptitious circumstances might hurt him more than seeing them not at all? He was trying his youthful best to build a life without her and his Zeus-children. In the past few weeks he had turned out a three-legged stool to rest my ankles, an olive press for Chiron, a slingshot for Partridge to defend himself against the rough Panisci, and endless other artifacts which he gave to his friends or traded to his acquaintances. Partridge had come to stay with him in the stump; Bion was already staying with him. He was seldom alone, rarely unoccupied, and only cheerless when he thought himself unobserved.
“It’s just that-well, he’s taken to wenching again, and it’s good for him, and the sight of you might make him stop. You know what I say: ‘A celibate Minotaur is a sick Minotaur.’”
“I’m glad,” she said resolutely, though she looked more wistful than glad. “Is he-popular?”
“Sensational. As a stripling, he was always vigorous, but callow and inexperienced. Now my friends tell me he’s become the ideal lover. He’s added grace to vigor; he’s learned how to pleasure a woman with all those sentimental endearments which make us feel loved as well as desired, if only for the evening. They say he’s pleasured every Dryad between twelve and four hundred-except for a few stubbornly faithful wives in Centaur Town.”