Our story so far: Every year,
Princess Ariadne goes to meet the hostage ship that brings 14 young Athenians
to Crete each year, to be sacrificed to her father's monster, the Minotaur.
Ariadne stood
on the wharf, looking out to sea.
Along the
waterfront, the crowd was already beginning to shout angrily, and the guards
were working to keep them under control.
A Greek ship
was sailing through the entrance to the harbor; that was what had the crowd so
furious. It was clearly the hostage ship, for billowing in the breeze was a set
of black sails, a silent protest from the Athenians whose young people were
aboard.
The open area
around the dockside was thronged with people, pressing up against the line of
guards. The long, straight road from the harbor up the hill to the palace was
lined as well, the crowd ending at the prison where the hostages would be kept
until they were put into the Labyrinth.
Four years ago,
the crowd that met the hostage ship got out of control. Instead of just
shouting insults and spitting on the Athenians, they had begun throwing trash
and rocks, and several of the young people were seriously injured. Ariadne had
seen those wounded hostages carried into the prison and had helped tend their
wounds, cleaning and bandaging them so that, a few days later, they could be
killed by the Minotaur.
Every year
since, she had come to the dockside when the hostage ship arrived, to walk up
to the prison alongside the hostages. The crowd still shouted insults at the
Athenians, but they did not dare throw anything for fear of hitting the
princess.
Perhaps the
hostages were doomed, Ariadne thought, but that was no reason to treat them
badly. Each year, all the young people of Athens who had reached a certain age
had their names put on clay disks and dropped into a jar, one jar for boys and
another for girls. Seven names were drawn from each jar, and those 14 sons and
daughters, rich or poor, powerful or friendless, plain or good-looking,
talented or hopeless, were led onto the ship with the black sails and sent to
Crete and the Labyrinth, to be killed and eaten by the horrible Minotaur.
And each year,
Ariadne was one year older.
This year, the
hostages were only two years older than she was, and she could barely remember
her brother who had died in Athens. They couldn't have had anything to do with
his death. They were little children then, too, just as she had been.
Some people in
Knossos said it didn't matter exactly who did it. And, anyway, the hostages
were just Greeks, after all. They were crude, they didn't have nice cities,
they didn't speak properly. They were a violent, warlike people who did not
treasure life, and so death for them was not such a tragedy as it would be for
Minoans.
Most of the
Minoans who said this did not speak the Greek language themselves, and had
never met any Greeks. Most had never been anywhere but right here on the island
of Crete.
Ariadne would
see few of her friends in the crowd. She and her friends learned Greek in
school, and had met Greek traders who visited Crete on business.
Some, whose
parents were important merchants, had even lived in Greek cities, among the
Greeks. Some of them said that the law made it safer for Minoans who lived
among the Greeks, that, because of the price Athens was paying, the other
Greeks knew better than to harm any of King Minos's people.
But they didn't
talk about it very often, and none of them came to see the hostage ship arrive.
The law said
that these 14 young Athenians had to die, but it didn't say that anyone had to
watch them die, and it didn't say that anybody had to come see their faces and
begin to think of them as people.
It was easier
to stay away, and, though there was always a large crowd that came every year
when the hostage ship arrived, there were many other Minoans who did not.
As the ship
drew closer, its black sails were lowered and the long oars came out to row the
final distance to the pier, where four guards went on board and searched the
Greeks and their ship for weapons.
Satisfied that
the hostages and the ship's crew were unarmed, the guards led the young people
from the ship and lined them up on the pier.
Most of the
girls looked down at their feet and some of them were weeping. Greek women were
different from Minoans, Ariadne knew. They did not grow up boxing and vaulting
over charging bulls in the arena alongside their brothers like Minoan girls
did. They were not allowed to go into business, or even to choose their own
husbands.
They always
seemed more shy and more frightened than the Athenian boys. A tall girl towards
the back of the group looked around for a moment, but as soon as she saw
Ariadne looking at her, she quickly dropped her eyes and pulled the veil on her
head closer to hide her face.
But one of the
Athenian young men stared directly at Ariadne, and, once he caught her eye, she
found herself staring back. He was handsome, very handsome, with broad
shoulders and well-muscled arms, and his dark eyes gazed into hers without
flinching.
He took a step
forward, ignoring the guard who moved to keep him in line. "You are the
Princess Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete," he said, in the Greek
language. He did not wait for an answer. "I am Theseus, the son of King
Aegeus of Athens."
Ariadne did not
know what to say. How do you welcome a prince to the city where he is going to
die?
Next Week: The
Doomed Prince
text c. 2003,
Mike Peterson - illustrations c. 2003, Marina Tay