The warrior son, whose name was Alektryon, stepped forward, looking among the dusty shelves and withered parchments like a kingfisher in a dead tree. The dim lamplight glittered on his rose-crystal necklace and his arm-guards of inlaid bronze; his kilt was stitched with those shining green beetles they dry in Egypt and use for jewels, and he smelt of hyacinths. He said that if a chief man of Asterion’s faction were to die, they would all attend his funeral, and we could seize the Labyrinth while they were out of it.
“Well thought of,” I said. “Is someone sick?”
He laughed, showing his white teeth. There is a gum called mastic, which Cretan beauties chew to blanch them. “Yes, Phoitios is, though he doesn’t know it.”
This was the chief of Asterion’s private guard; a big fellow with Hellene bones, and a nose broken from boxing. I raised my brows and asked, “How can it be done?”
“Oh, he takes good care of his health. The only way is openly. I shall make him fight me; I expect he will choose spears.”
It was news to me that mortal insults were still known in Crete; but I was thinking that here was a man we could hardly spare. There was nothing I could say, seeing he was five years my elder, except, “When will it be?”
“I can’t say yet; I must find a likely quarrel, or he will guess at something behind. So have your people ready.”
I said I would, and we parted, he and his father going off to the stair they used, and I up to the sanctuary. We never watched each other go. Even their friends among the courtiers did not know of this meeting place; everything hung on keeping the secret of the vaults.
I went up to the robing room, and told my news. Ariadne said she was glad it was not I who was fighting Phoitios; he would be a hard man to kill; then she asked when the fight was to be, for she must see it. I told her I did not know, and we said no more; with all this business, we were always short of time for love. At parting we would tell each other how, when we were married, we would lie till the sun stood high over the mountain. Next night was the fast before the bull-dance.
But next night, after supper, I heard laughter at the doors of the Bull Court, and the chink of gold. It was not cheap, to buy your way in there after dark. In came Alektryon, swift and glittering, his kilt stitched with plaques of pearl and his hair stuck with jasmine. He had a necklace of striped sardonyx, and a rolled kid belt covered with leaf gold. He strode among the dancers, flirting with this youth or that, talking of the odds and the newest bull, like any young blood who follows the ring. But I saw his seeking eye, and went toward him.
“Theseus!” he said, making eyes at me and tossing back his hair. “I vow you are of all men the most fickle. You have forgotten my feast and eaten in the Bull Court! You have crystal for a heart. Well, I will forgive you still, if you come now for the music. But hurry; the wine is poured out already.”
I begged his pardon and said I would come. “The wine is poured” was a signal agreed on between us, for something that could not wait.
We went but into the Great Court, which, since it was still early, was full of lamplight, and of people with torches passing to and fro. He caught my eye, then leaned upon a column in a Cretan pose. As someone passed he said, “How can you be so cruel?” and fingered my necklace and drew me near. Then he said softly, “Minos has sent for you. The way is marked as before. You must go alone.”
He spoke as if he had learned it off. But I had never had word from the King, except through the Goddess. I stared, trying to read him. His Cretan looks, his finery, his foppish ways, all made him doubtful to me, once I began to doubt. I knew nothing of his standing among the warriors. My eyes met his. He took me by the arm, a grip tender to look at but strong and hard. “I have a token for you. Watch out, and take it like a love gift.” He opened his hand saying, “I was to tell you it has been cleansed with fire,” and then, as someone came past us, “Wear it, my dear, and think of me.”
The ring in his palm was of a pale gold, very old and heavy. The carving was in an antique style, pointed and stiff, but the worn device could still be read: a bull above the shoulders, a man below.
He slipped it on my hand. Under his warning eye I smiled, turning it this way and that. I had seen it once before. So I leaned on his shoulder, as I had seen youths do in Crete, and whispered, “It is enough. What does he want?” He put his arm around my waist and said, “He did not tell. It is something heavy.” Then he looked past my shoulder and murmured swiftly, “One of Asterion’s people. We mustn’t look too well in together. Quick, give me the slip.” I shrugged him coyly off me, and went away. Though I felt a fool, I had no more doubts of him.
Down in the vaults, I found the second thread tied ready, and a clay dark-lantern. I had never been this way alone. It is natural, when with a girl, to expect boldness of oneself; but now I found these ancient warrens eerie and awesome, haunted, it seemed, by the dead who had been crushed there when Earth-Shaker was angry. The bats that came winnowing round the light were like souls kept from the River. When at length I came to the Watchman, looking at me under his moldering helmet with the caves of eyes, it was like meeting a comrade; one knew what he was, and that he belonged to a god. I made the sign of propitiation, and it seemed he said to me, “Pass, friend.”
When I reached the door above; I doused the lantern and stood silent, listening. No one was on the stairway. I shut the door behind me, and saw (for there was a moon this time) how it closed flush with the wall and the painting hid it. There was a little hole to hook one’s finger in, and work the catch. White moonlight fell on the stairs beyond, but the tall throne was in shadow. I trod softly through, and saw faint light under a door. Going up to it I smelled the incense. So I scratched the panel, and his voice bade me enter.
He sat in his high-backed chair, masked as before, his hands laid on his knees. Yet it was not the same. The room was clear of litter. The incense burned before a stand on which stood some symbol or image. And there was some new thing about him; a stillness, and a power.
I touched my breast in greeting and said softly, “Sir, I am here.”
He beckoned me to stand in front of him, where he could see me through the mask. I waited. The air was close and fetid, the smoke stung my eyes. They were heavy for sleep; I remembered that tomorrow was the bull-dance.
“Theseus,” he said. His muffled voice sounded clearer than before, and deeper. “The time is come. Are you ready?”
I was troubled, wondering what had miscarried in our plans. “We are, sir, if need be. But the day of the burial would be better.”
He said, “The day is proper, and the rite. But the beast of sacrifice is not enough. Something is needed of us, Shepherd of Athens; me to suffer it, and you to do it.” He pointed with his bare right hand to the stand behind the smoke. Then I saw the holy thing that stood there. It was a two-headed ax, fixed upright on its shaft in the polished stone.
I stood still. I had not thought of so solemn a thing as this.
“The gods can send a sign,” he said, “when our ear hears them no longer. They sent a child to lead me.”
For a moment I wondered whom he meant. But though Alektryon was three and twenty, he would have known him from his birth.
The curved crystals of the mask were turned toward me. I looked at the ax wreathed in blue smoke. What he asked was seemly, and good every way. Yet my hand hung down. This was not Eleusis, where I had fought a strong man for my life. I felt myself shiver in the close air. I had thought, “He is old enough to be my father.”