I stopped with a gasp. Holding the madness off had been worse than holding a boar upon one’s spear. I heard through a daze the priestess promising to birch the girls if they would not leave romping like trulls with the boys and come away.
They ran off; and the voices of the youths dinned in my ears, shouting questions and asking each other what I had said; for most of them had only heard a single cry. Chryse was gone and the noise tormented me; the warning surged and roared and crashed through my head, or withdrew leaving a dreadful hollow hush filled with the tread of the approaching god. The awe and terror which it is man’s nature to feel before the Immortals goaded and spurred me to fly for my life. And when I held my ground, the madness burned me up, and the warning would not be contained within me. I shook Amyntor off and leaped on the table among broken winecups, and shouted it aloud.
“Poseidon is coming! Poseidon is coming! I Theseus tell you so, I his son. The sacred bull was killed and the Earth Bull has wakened! The House of the Ax will fall! The House will fall!”
Then there began a clamor that went through my head like hot black spears. People ran about calling on their gods or for their lovers, snatching up their jewels or other men’s, trying to run away or to head off the runners, fighting and grappling on the floor. They only felt the fear I told them of. I felt the fear itself. I had drawn a great breath to shout again, when through the tumult a far, clear voice, like a singing bowstring, seemed to say within me, “Know yourself. Do not forget yourself. You are a man, a Hellene.”
I paused, and knew that those who fled in panic without arms would be trapped within the Labyrinth. I took a long bull-leap off the table and hurled myself among them, cursing them and telling them to wait. But even as I spoke, thick shouting sounded along the Court, and in came the two guards from the inner door. They must have been drinking in the guardroom, it being a feast day, and slow to heed; there was always noise in the Bull Court, and their work was only to keep the door. Now they stood bawling and staring, asking if everyone was mad. They were full-armed, with seven-foot spears.
The sight of them almost brought me to myself; but I was giddy still. As I walked forward, I heard Telamon, who was always level-headed, say, “The boys have been drinking; someone gave them some unmixed wine. It’s only horseplay.” One of the guards said to the other, “The trainer can deal with this. Find him; he must be at the dancing.” Then he broke off and said, “What’s that?”
The sound drew nearer; a yelling and screeching like mountain cats in moonlight. A horde of girls rushed in, their arms full of weapons; bows and daggers, quivers and sawn-down spears. In the van, their arms bloodied to the elbows, were Iros in a woman’s skirt and scarf, and Thalestris stark naked, her bow and quiver at her back, her hair like black war-smoke streaming behind her. The girls had stripped to their bull-dress to free their limbs for fighting; I suppose in the scrimmage the weak link of her belt had gone. She took no notice, which among Amazons is the modesty of the field.
They ran up the Bull Court shrieking their war cries; and at one look the door guards flung down shield and spear, and fled. But they might as well have run from the hounds of Artemis. Swift feet outran them; a twisting heap of slender limbs engulfed them; bright-honed bronze flashed up and down. When the girls scrambled up from the prone bodies, not only the Amazons had breasts dabbled with blood.
Now the boys ran at the girls, demanding weapons, snatching and shouting, treading the dead men underfoot. And all of myself that was myself was in a rage with the panic I myself had made. I had meant to plan our breakout like a war, with stealth and coolness, and the time fixed with our friends outside. But it is not for men to see as far as the gods. I stood half crazed before my troop of madmen, knowing nothing clearly but the god’s wrath gathering and brooding, like the dense air before a storm. And yet there was a soul within my soul, free of the madness, which stood apart and whispered, “You are the King. Remember your moira. Do not lose yourself; you are the King.”
I pressed my hands to my brow. With covered eyes I prayed to the Sky Gods, to King Zeus and to Serpent-Slaying Apollo, for wit to save my people. Then I looked about me. I did not feel much better; yet I was answered, for I knew I could do what I must.
I stood before the mob, and shouted for silence, and my voice was like my own again. So they heeded me and stood still, those who were saner calming down the wildest. Then I could hear far off, from the northern terrace, the sound of the flutes and strings; for all this had passed swiftly, since first I had cried aloud.
I went among them, making those with spare arms share with those who had none, and thinking where we should go. I knew all the ways from the Bull Court into the Labyrinth, but those would not serve us now; we must reach the open beyond the walls, and soon, for my head was bursting with its burden of dread. There was only one way: to storm the great outer gates of the Court, which we had never seen opened; they looked to have been locked and barred for a hundred years. There was no knowing if they would be guarded, or even walled up on the other side; there was no key. They must be broken down.
I looked for a ram. The benches and the table were lighter than the doors; there would be long battering, great noise. The time was passing, the god was near. Then I saw the Bull of Daidalos, his oaken platform set on solid wheels, and his horns of bronze.
Among us we pointed him at the door. Then, shouldering and heaving all together, we brought him to a crawl, to a lumbering run. His platform struck the doors; they shook, and gaped, and burst right open. Out we ran, the bull nosing before us, into a pillared portico; flaking frescoes showed in the moonlight. The Bull Court must once have been a hall of state, in another age of the Palace. There was no guard.
We tumbled past the great red king-column, and down the steps. Before us was a tangled garden, with tall black cypresses; beyond, torchlight and music. Now we were out it sounded loud and wild, with cymbals clashing, and I saw why only the guard had heard our noise. As we ran across the garden, and put three or four spear-casts between us and the walls, I heard the Cranes around me cry out with relief. But I was tighter than a lyre-string, for I knew the god was near.
We looked about us, grasping our weapons. Amyntor beside me said, “Where are all the Cretans? There were servants in the Bull Court, when this began.” Someone said, “I saw them run for it. I suppose the rest are watching the women dance.”
I struck my hand against my head. Truly and indeed the god’s madness had possessed me utterly. In all this while since it seized me first, I had not once thought of her.
The ragged garden was sweet with the scents of spring. Behind us the great pile of the Labyrinth, bright with lamplight, stood against a cloud-flecked sky where moon and stars ran like driven ships before the wind. Before us the cypress-tips leaned against a rose-red glow of torches. Hands and drums and cymbals beat, flutes shrilled, a thousand voices were singing. And it was a horror to me; for in the midst of it was Minos’ daughter, the Mistress of the Labyrinth, her little feet striking the angry earth, her ears hearing the pipes and lyres, but deaf to the voice of the warning god. The sky was pressing on my head with its flying moon and all its stars, as heavy as a king’s burial-mound. The ground under my feet sent thrills of fear up through my sandals, shuddering in my belly and my loins.
“Amyntor,” I said, “Thalestris, Kasos. Keep everyone together, there in that grove. Hide in the bushes. Then do not move; it will be soon. I will come back quickly; pray to the god and wait.”