He patted her hair; by accident, he brushed a curl away from a pointed ear. She carefully rearranged the curl and then returned to her father.
Icarus, meanwhile, seemed to be struggling out of sleep. He blinked his eyes, which were red as if from prolonged weeping. Then he recognized Eunostos. When he yelled, the blue monkey hid among the oleanders and the silver fish scattered among the conch shells.
He lunged from his father’s arms and Eunostos caught him and fell to his knees, laughing, and hugged him with wordless yearning, and loved him for Kora’s sake and as if he were his own son.
“Talk to him, Eunostos. Try to make him understand why he must stay here with me. He loves you best, I know that. But he must stay with me.”
“I don’t think he understands many of my words.”
“You don’t need words. You never did.”
Aeacus turned abruptly and walked into the palace with Thea, and Eunostos called after him. “Wait. Can’t she stay too?” But the mouth of the door was dark and silent. He knew that he had lost her, and the loss was as bitter as aconite, but Thea had never loved the forest. It was only fair, however painful for Kora, that one child should stay with her father and grow to become a queen.
Now he must act to save Icarus. Now there was no time for words, except to allay the suspicion of whatever guards might wait beyond the door.
“There ought to be a turtle,” he said. “Shall we go and look for one among the grapevines?”
Icarus nodded agreement-he would probably have nodded if Eunostos had said, “Shall I throw you into the pool?”-and Eunostos walked quietly to the far wall and prodded among the grapevines with his hoof, lifting, twisting, exposing. Yes, it remained, the old fissure through which Aeacus’s turtle had escaped into an adjacent courtyard opening onto a little-used street, and which Aeacus had never allowed to be filled with rubble or clay. Hastily Eunostos parted the vines to enlarge the opening. Small, small, but just large enough for Icarus, in spite of his hair.
“Zoe,” he whispered.
“Yes, Eunostos. I’m here at the other end. The courtyard’s empty. No one can see me from the street.”
“Thea isn’t coming. Call to Icarus.”
“Icarus, it’s your Aunt Zoe.”
“Go to her, Icarus.” Will you follow me? the child seemed to ask.
“Yes, I’ll follow you.” He kissed him on his green profusion of hair and thrust him as far into the opening as his hands could reach. It was the only lie he had ever told the boy. Even in happy Knossos there must be prisons for those who helped to kidnap a prince’s son. Probably there were executions. Never mind, if Zoe escaped from the city with Icarus.
He had just risen to his feet and walked to the pool when Aeacus returned.
“But you just left him,” Eunostos said calmly. “We were playing hide-and-seek. He’s hidden himself among the oleanders.”
“Call him then. You had best be starting back to the forest. Kora should know as soon as possible how things are. Tell her-tell her that she is still my Maiden.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“But where is Icarus?” Aeacus strode through the garden looking behind the bushes.
“He can’t have gone far, can he? There’s no way out of the garden except through that door. Or you wouldn’t have left me alone with him.”
“Except-” Aeacus stared at the torn vines against the wall. “You remember more than I thought. Guards!”
The garden was suddenly aswarm with lithe young Cretans, faces taut, hands on daggers.
“My son has been stolen by-who was it, Eunostos? Who came with you and waited beyond the wall?”
“I came by myself.”
“I don’t believe you. You love Icarus too much to thrust him out into the city alone. It can’t have been Kora. She couldn’t have made the journey. It was Zoe, wasn’t it? Yes, it must have been. She would have both the courage and the strength.” And he gave a hurried description to the guards. “Rather large. Handsome in a weathered kind of way. Hair probably dyed or concealed. No doubt dressed like a peasant. She will have hidden Icarus under her robe. Alert the garrison. Let no one leave the city.”
But there must be a thousand women in Knossos who fitted such a description, and the city had no walls and a very small garrison. Zoe indeed had courage and strength. And roads, crowded with carts and asses and oxen and peasants, led in many directions.
But then the cry, the beloved and shattering cry. “Zeus-father!”
Icarus returned through the fissure into the garden, laughing and scrambling toward Eunostos but at the same time inevitably, irrevocably, it seemed, away from him and toward the griffin-flanked throne of Knossos.
CHAPTER XV
We rode in silence, Eunostos and I in the same farmer’s cart which had brought us to Knossos, but flanked now by six Cretan horsemen astride Hittite chargers. It was no longer necessary to conceal Eunostos under the straw. The whole countryside knew of the Minotaur and the Dryad who had come to Knossos to steal Aeacus’s children and how they had been imprisoned for seven days until the king had decreed, against the protests of Aeacus, their return to the forest. We were not criminals, be had said; we had come to reclaim a mother’s children and, according to our own law, come with a just cause. But Cretan justice required that if we ever returned to Knossos, we would face imprisonment and death.
Eunostos had not reproached me for letting Icarus slip from my arms and return through the fissure into the garden.
“I hid him under my robe,” I had shamefacedly explained. “And held him against my side. But before I had even reached the street, he slipped out of my grasp. He was frightened of the dark, I expect, and he wanted you.” I did not explain what I did not wish to believe, that perhaps I had somehow willed him to escape, unconsciously relaxed my hold to keep from having to leave the city without Eunostos. I had hoped, I had dared to hope, that the King would give both of the children to Eunostos-or give him a promise of their later return-and that he would bring them to me in the deserted courtyard and we would return together to Kora. But when Icarus scrambled out of the fissure and Eunostos whispered, “Thea isn’t coming,” I knew that Eunostos would have to stay in the palace and I would gladly, though not deliberately, have exchanged Icarus for my beloved friend. But I did not reproach myself. Icarus had returned for love of Eunostos. Perhaps I had let him return for the same reason. One must make allowances for love.
“You may go now,” said the captain of the horsemen, a little man with the tiniest ears I had ever seen, almost like coquina shells, riding a large and indelicate animal who endured his rider with the same disdain which my ox showed to me. From the distance, you might have mistaken horse and rider for a Centaur. All six horsemen watched while we climbed out of the cart and crossed the last small space of meadow, and the captain called after us.
“Is it happy in the forest? With the Dryads, I mean, and houses in treetops, and workshops under the ground? After seeing you, I think it must be a magic place!”
“I don’t know about the magic,” said Eunostos. “To us, it’s just home. But it certainly used to be happy. I wish you could visit us, but Chiron wouldn’t allow it. Thank you, sir, for bringing us here. You’ll return the ox to his owner, won’t you?”
“I won’t forget. And I wish you had gotten the children!” He reined his horse and gruffly ordered his men to return to Knossos by way of Tychon’s farmhouse.
“Eunostos,” I said. “I’m very tired. I’ve been two weeks away from my tree. Seven days without acorns. I’ll have to rest before we visit Kora.”
He looked at me with concern, his young face a mixture of tiredness and tenderness. He had rarely heard me complain. “Of course, Aunt Zoe.”
“Eunostos, Zoe, where are the children?” It was Partridge. “I’ve come here every day to watch for you.” He dropped his onion grass and threw his arms around Eunostos. “What happened in Knossos?”