I thought a little, and then said, “Greeting, Father. Crete is rotten-ripe, and five hundred ships can take it. The native Cretans hate their masters. Ask the High King of Mycenae for his ships; there will be great spoil to share. And gather the fleet at Troizen, for the Cretan warships do not call there. When your men come, I will arm the bull-dancers and seize the Labyrinth.”
He learned it soon, being quick-minded; then he said, “Have you some token, sir, I can give the King? He is a careful man.” This was true, but I could think of nothing to send. “If he wants a token, say, ‘Theseus asks you whether the white boarhound still drinks wine.’”
So we parted. I told him when he could watch Helike dance, but said, “Send her no word of it. It would take her mind from the bull. I will tell her after.”
When I had given her the news alone, I called the Cranes together, and swore them all to silence, and told them the plan. “It is the secret of the Cranes,” I said. “It is too soon to tell the others. Someone will talk, out of so many. As for friends and lovers in the Labyrinth, we will spare them when we strike; but till then our oath must bind us. Meantime, we must find a place to hide arms in, when we can get them. We have the girls too to arm.”
I looked about the Bull Court. It seemed barer than a field; we had only our little bundles. Then Melantho said, “In our rooms we could hide them easily. It is an old rambling warren, all holes and corners and loose boards. Only the outer doors are guarded.” I said, “That will do for your own weapons, but not for ours. Ten to one we shall have to break out at night, and force your gate after.” There was a silence. Then Hippon looked at me under his lashes. “Theseus. If we wanted the girls let out at night, I think I could get in there.”
We all stared at him. He turned to Thebe, and whispered to her, and they went off together. He was gone some time and talking we forgot him. Then Thebe appeared, not in her bull dress but her Athenian clothes. “What has she done,” I thought, “to look so pretty? That’s not Thebe at all.” The girl came up, looking under her eyelids, and hugging a shawl about her breast. It was Hippon. He had repaid our patience, after all. Everyone knew he had picked the post of danger. Then Iros said, “But wait, my dears, till you have seen me!”
This promised something. I knew by now that only men were kept from visiting the girls. There were many Palace ladies who came calling after dark, with a bribe for the guard and a gift for the priestess. Our spirits lifted.
I had one great fear, that hope might keep us too much at stretch, and we would dance the worse for it. I felt I could not bear to lose one of my people now, when it might be the last watch before dawn.
If one wore a loose necklace into the ring, one always made a weak link of thread in it, in case it caught on the horn. That was old custom; but now I made the Cranes do the same with their belts, under the clasp. This was after I had seen a Median tossed by his belt and killed. Many dancers copied this device; but, as it happened, I was the first to test it. I had slipped by Herakles very close, and felt him hook me. My belt held a moment, and I thought I was finished; then it gave way. Scrambling off without much grace, but none the worse beyond a nick in my side, I felt my loin-guard about my foot, kicked it away, and stood in the ring stark naked.
All round the stands, the people had been yelling and groaning and screaming, thinking to see me killed at last. Now their tune changed; there came from the men a shout of laughter, from the women flutterings and little squeals. Menesthes and Pylia meanwhile had drawn the bull, and Chryse was leaping him. But the people had seen all that before, and I had all their eyes. If one Cretan was in the stands, there must have been fifteen thousand.
I had given no thought to this beforehand; but now I felt hot all over, trapped in the open till the end of the dance. I even missed the bull turning my way, till Nephele called my name. She drew him off, and Amyntor and I had to look after her, which made me forget myself; but when there was time again, I was angry with the Cretans. Anger is bad in the ring. It showed me my folly.
“What!” I thought. “A slave made my garment; but All-Knowing Zeus made me. Shall I be ashamed before these foolish Earthlings, who think he dies each year; I who am a Hellene?”
So I ran round to face the bull, and danced with him to keep him in doubt of me; when I had fooled him cross-eyed I did the leap with the half-somersault, and vaulted off my hands; the people stopped laughing, and cheered instead. Soon he started sulking, then turned and plodded off; the dance was over, and I went to face the ribald Bull Court. I suppose I only remember this foolish trifle, because of what happened just after.
Next evening a slave brought me a token scribbled on clay, bidding me to a feast with a young lord whom I knew. After dark I bathed and dressed. (There are running conduits everywhere about the Labyrinth; no water needs to be carried in. They even have some to carry night-soil away, so that one need not go out to the midden.) As I passed along a colonnade, a woman slipped out from behind a column, and touched my arm, and said, “Telephos has no feast tonight.”
Her head was covered with a mantle; but I saw she was gray and bowed with age. “He has just bidden me,” I said. “Is he sick, then, or in mourning?” She answered, “He did not send. Follow me; I will show you where to go.”
I drew back from her hand. I had had enough already of such fooleries, which ended all the same way, with a woman one did not want. Sometimes all they wanted themselves was to be even with a rival. The place was sticky with such intrigues. I said, “If he did not send, I will go and sleep. But I will ask him first.”
“Hush!” she said. I peered at her in the dimness. She had not the look nor sound of a bawd; not even of a servant. She had gray Hellene eyes, and the bones of breeding; and when I looked, I saw she was afraid.
It puzzled me. The bookmakers stood to win if the bull should kill me; but bets did not cover a death outside the ring. I could not think of any husbands I had cuckolded who would take it beyond hard looks; in the Labyrinth they were mostly used to it. And I kept clear of jealous women. Yet I had the feel of danger; danger and something more. There were secrets here; I was young; it would have tormented me to go away now unknowing. “What do you want of me,” I said. “Tell me the truth, and I will see.”
“I can tell you nothing,” she said. “But I will take an oath, for myself and for those who sent me, that no harm is meant you, and none will come if you do as you are told.” “A pig in a poke. Is it something against my honor?” She answered with an edge, though quietly still, “No, indeed! More honor than you are worthy of.” And then, turning her face away, “It is no choice of mine that brings me.”
For sure, she was neither bawd nor chambermaid. She sounded more like the head of a great household. “Let us hear this oath,” I said.
She pattered it off, in the old Cretan of the rituals; and then it came to me that she was a priestess. The oath was heavy, so I said, “Lead on.” She took from her arm a cloak she had been carrying, and said, “Wear this. You are too gaudy; you catch the light.”
I put it on, and she made me keep ten paces behind her. She scuttled along like an old rabbit in a warren; presently reaching a little lamp from a bracket, she led me into places I had never seen, through smithies and carpenters’ shops and kitchens and stinking midden-yards. At last we entered a store piled up with firewood, and she let me overtake her. We sidled between the stacks; behind them was a cleared space, and a wooden trapdoor. She pointed to its ring in silence. Certainly, she had never been a servant.