Day of the Minotaur

Chapter VII INVASION

We beached the lands of the Centaurs shortly before twilight. Moschus and his countrymen were fighters as well as farmers, the strongest of the six tribes of Beast, and their leader Chiron was the uncrowned king of the forest. We were coming to tell them about the treachery of the Thriae. In times of peace, each of the tribes retained and jealously guarded its independence, but in times of danger everyone looked to Chiron: for example, the cold winter when the wolves came down from the mountains to steal our game and children. “Dip your arrows in the juice of the wolf’s-bane root,” suggested Chiron. We routed the wolves with our first charge, and Moschus acquired his sash.

We crossed an irrigation ditch and entered a trellised vineyard where little kernels, green and hard like sea grapes, would sweeten and purple with approaching summer until they lured the bees even from the houses of the Thriae; an olive grove whose silver leaves had tarnished with the dying sun to the fitful sheen of old jewelry; and then a grove of palm trees imported from Libya and nurtured to the date-clustered, full-branched opulence of a desert oasis. Next, we skirted the enclosed compound of the cattle, whose fence of sharpened stakes withheld nocturnal bears and the occasional hardy wolf which still descended from the mountains, and came to the wall-less town of the Centaurs.

I walked to the edge of the moat and peered at the sharpened stakes which bristled from its depths like the teeth of a barracuda. A surer defense than walls, I thought with a shudder. And yet the shrewd Achaeans were not likely to balk at such an obstacle. I knew of their battering rams which, if two were placed end to end, could erect a narrow bridge, and I noticed a clump of olive trees dangerously close to the moat and offering cover to an enemy wishing to cross in the dead of night.

“Chiron,” I boomed, and the tallest and kingliest of all the Centaurs detached himself from his friends and galloped toward us along a path which was strewn with seashells.

“Eunostos,” he neighed, rearing to a halt on the other side of the moat. “We don’t hear that bellow often enough. And I see you’ve brought your new friends, and little Pandia, hungry no doubt.” He entered a low wooden tower with a flat roof, and presently a narrow, railed drawbridge, supported by bronze chains, eased over the moat with the soundlessness of a great eagle descending from the sky (it was one of my own designs). We met on the bridge and I told him about the Thriae.

His face darkened. “I am not surprised. They are capable of any mischief. We will have to take steps.”

We followed him into the town. His mane seemed a drift of snow, newly fallen and not yet hard, and his wide, unblinking eyes held the blue clarity of a lake in the Misty Isles on one of those rare days without mist. His eyes saw everything; they could hold anger but never rancor. They understood and sometimes even judged, but they never condemned. He was not an ascetic, you understand. Those who live close to the soil like the Centaurs, growing crops and raising cattle, always keep something of earth in their veins and in their faces. They are farmers and not philosophers. But earth in Chiron had been purified to the white, finely sifted sand of a coral beach.

The bamboo stalls of the Centaurs were twinkling on their lights. They were long, slender houses built of bamboo, with pointed roofs and open ends, and above each threshold hung a lamp enclosed in an orange parchment and called a “lantern” and a small wicker cage which held a humming cricket, the luck of the house (remember, the Centaurs had traveled to the Land of the Yellow Men). At night the Centaurs slept on their feet, leaning against the wall, which they covered with silken tapestries from the looms of the Dryads to ease their sensitive flanks, and resting their hooves in a carpet of clover, renewed each morning by the diligent females while their husbands worked in the fields.

Some of the males were bathing in terracotta tubs adapted to their long frames and ending with a trough in which they could rest their arms and head. They snorted and flailed their legs and kicked water at friends who happened to pass within their range. The females were building fires in front of the houses or cleaning the hoes and rakes which the males had brought from the fields or feeding the small, plump, and immaculate pigs which they kept for pets as Men keep dogs or monkeys. My good friend Moschus erupted from one of the tubs and, lathered with konia, a cleansing lye with a base of ashes, cantered to greet us. He nodded curtly to Thea, paternally to Icarus, and seized both my hands. Before he could hint for an invitation, Chiron told him our news.

“Blow the conch, will you, Moschus?” he asked. “It is time for a conclave.”

Moschus blew the conch as forcefully as he blew the flute, and an oceanic summons compounded of many sounds —the indrawing tide, the foaming disintegration of waves as they meet the beach, the bodiless wails of drowned mariners-boomed implacably across the land. The Centaurs dropped their tools, forsook their baths, and, accompanied by their pigs, followed us to the theatrical area in the center of town, a round pit open to the sky, circled with flaring torches, and ringed with twelve stone tiers of seats. It was here that they performed their dramas in honor of the Great Mother, whom they call the Corn Goddess, and her son, the Divine Child, and raised their resonant voices in dithyrambs of praise.

After the Centaurs came the other Beasts: the Panisci from their burrows, annoyed at being summoned before they had stolen their supper; the Bears of Artemis, who, roused from their hollow logs, were rubbing their eyes sleepily and combing their fur with combs of tortoise shell; the Dryads, tall and beautiful like their trees and redolent of bark and tender buds of spring. And of course the Thriae, ignorant, it seemed, of Amber’s betrayal. They fluttered out of the sky in three swarms: the drones with busy titterings and quick feminine jerks of their wings; the workers dour, unsmiling, and heavy of movement, as if encased in armor; and last, three of the queens (Amber, the fourth, did not appear) with their dignity somewhat lessened by the heavy gold bracelets jangling on their arms.

Chiron, lord of the Centaurs, descended the twelve stone tiers and entered the pit. No sooner had he raised his noble head then silence enveloped his audience. You could hear the bleat of a sheep in the compound of the animals, and close at hand, the peremptory squeal of a pig, whose master silenced him with a thump to his tail.

Chiron spoke. His words had the ringing urgency of a trumpet blast. “Grave charges have been made. Grave warnings offered. We will hear from Eunostos, our esteemed friend.”

Rustic that I am, gardener and artisan, I have no skill at oratory (though perhaps a modicum as a poet), and the sullen crowd dismayed me. Summoned without explanation, they poised rather than sat and waited to be cajoled and convinced—except for my friends, who stood on the edge of the pit. Thea was smiling encouragement; extending her little hand in a gesture of affection and support. Pandia was trying her best to look attentive and conceal the fact that she would rather eat supper than listen to a speech. Icarus looked —well, worshipful. Whatever I said would sound inspired to him.

I spoke: “Ever since we came to the forest to escape the harassment of Men, we have lived in peace and abundance. Each of us has worked in his own way to make his own contribution. Each of us has done what the Great Mother designed him to do. Our hosts, the Centaurs, have supplied us with produce from their well cultivated farms. The Dryads have woven silk on the looms in their trees. The Thriae, the Bears of Artemis, the Panisci—need I remind you of their skill and their dedication?” (It was also unnecessary, I felt, to remind them that the Thriae had always made good thieves as well as workers). “In the past, we have been content to live to ourselves. Self-completeness has been our aim and our achievement. No longer. One of our tribes has hungered for foreign gold.”

I paused, not for dramatic effect like a Centaur reciting a dithyramb, but to catch my breath and find the words for my peroration. I had caught their interest. Now I must goad them to action.

I pointed my finger at the queens of the Thriae. “There stand the guilty Beasts—traders for gold and traitors to our people. I have it from the mouth of their fourth queen that she and her people have accepted gold to betray my friends into the hands of the Achaeans. To gain this end, they have promised to help the Achaeans invade the forest.”

INVASION! An audible gasp, incredulous, astonished, rippled along the tiers like a wind in the boughs of a palm tree. Such was the fear which our bestial characteristics—horns, hooves, tails—had inspired among Men, such was our isolation among the mountains, that invasion had never threatened us in all the years since the Beasts had come to the forest. Only Aeacus, by our own sufference, had strayed among our fastnesses and returned to Knossos with tales or silences to strengthen our legend. Nevertheless, Chiron and other elderly beasts remembered the time when we had lived near the sea and pirates had landed in Gorgon-prowed ships to burn our farms and capture slaves. Remembered the splintering doors, the red dragons of fire constricting their coils around our reed-built houses, the cries of infant Panisci caught in nets and Dryads dragged by their hair through burning olive groves… the haughty sneer of the Cretan king when those who survived the attack demanded justice: “Protect your own. I am not responsible for the chance attack of pirates.”… the final agonizing decision to retreat to the safety of the forest and forsake the Men with whom we had lived in harmony for many centuries… the angry farmers, reluctant to lose our help in the fields, trying to stop us and Chiron confronting them with a terrible ultimatum: “Prevent our flight and Blue Magic will destroy your crops.”… Centaurs burning the fields at night with a cloud of fertilizer… blackened vines in place of luxuriant vineyards and terrified farmers urging us on our way with gifts of milk and cheese and all the while exalting us into Legend, not Men, not Beasts, but four-legged, cloven-hoofed demons who could blight the crops with their evil, witching eyes…

Chiron advanced to the edge of the pit and leveled a steely gaze at the three queens. “What is your answer to these charges brought by Eunostos?”

One of the queens, the oldest, made her way down the tiers and occupied the pit as if it were a throne. A wizened woman, with mottled skin and huge golden eyes, she had hidden her arms with bracelets which clattered when she walked.

Her voice was honey and salt. “His human friends have bewitched our good Eunostos. Whatever plot is afoot, it is they—the girl and her brother—who have perpetrated it, and we poor Thriae are its victims. I know of no gold from Achaean soldiers, unless it has gone to the witch-child Thea and her big-headed brother.”

“And this?” I asked, pointing to a bracelet strung with miniatures of the death masks worn by Mycenaean kings. “Did you get this from my shop?”

She looked at her wrist. “Where else? Your workers traded it to me for six jars of honey.”

“No Telchin made it,” I said. “In my shop or anywhere else in the forest. They can only copy what they have seen. Death masks belong to Mycenae and Tiryns.”

She shrugged. The Thriae are quick to lie and brazen when they are caught. Her wings unruffled, she said: “Suppose it is true that we accepted a few Achaean bracelets in return for the human children. If we let your Thea and Icarus stay in the forest, they will surely bring evil down on us just as their father did. Need I remind you that their mother, Kora, was burned to death in her tree? My people and I merely wish to see these dangerous intruders driven from our midst. We did not conspire to see the forest invaded. If you do fear invasion, I suggest you deliver the children to us, and we in turn will give them to the Achaeans and remove all threat.”

“She calls us the human children,” protested Icarus. His voice was strong and compelling. “She does us a terrible wrong. By her own admission, our mother was the Dryad Kora. Look at my ears and tell me I am a Man!”

“Keep the children! They belong here as surely as I do.” It was Zoe. I wanted to hug her.

And Moschus: “Keep the children!”

“KEEP THE CHILDREN!”

Welling from a hundred throats, the plea had become a command, sharp, imperious, not to be denied. The old queen fluttered her bulging eyes, but Chiron silenced her before she could speak.

“Keep them we will. Defend them we will against invaders. And you,” he blazed at the queen, “you and your people are no longer welcome at our counsels or in our forest. Go to the men who have bought you with gold. Tell them that they attack us at their risk.”

The queen smiled and her thick lips writhed like a jellyfish. “Have you shields to withstand the bite of their axes?” she asked. “Have you greaves and breastplates and helmets? I think we will soon be returning with the conquerors. Fatten your pigs to feast us when we come.”

The Centaurs closed their hooves protectively around their pigs and shrank from the opening wings of the drones, who, tittering nervously, kicked themselves from the ground with a decorous lilt of their toes. The workers lumbered after them, their customary sullenness darkened to a glowering rage, and the three proud queens ascended the sky as if they were climbing the stairs of a palace and extinguished themselves in the labyrinth of night.