Thomas Swann - The forest of forever

“But there are two heirs. Can’t I take one of them back to their mother? At least for a little while?”

“There are two of them now, but will both grow up to rule? The Great Mother sends death even to laughing Knossos. Pestilence comes with our returning ships; the winter wind blows cold from the north. I myself was stricken as a child. A demon of plague denied me the power to beget children. He might as easily have killed me. No, my son. Both children must remain in Knossos.”

This, then, was the ultimate anguish: that Minos was just. Eunostos knew that in the king’s place he would have delivered the same judgment.

But he could fight that judgment. His allies were hope and courage and, much to his surprise, a wiliness which would have done credit to a Bee queen.

“May I see the children to say good-bye?” How easy it was to lie for Kora’s sake! He did not even feel shame and no one appeared to notice what this hitherto guileless rustic had learned from the Cretans.

Aeacus’s smile darkened. “What good will it do, Eunostos? Icarus cries for you every day, as it is. If he sees you again, he will have to get used to losing you again.”

“At least I can tell their mother if they’re well. She thought they might sicken when taken from their tree.”

“She needn’t have been concerned. Chiron himself assured me that they could live without their tree, though of course he never suspected what I had in mind.”

“Yes, you may see them, Eunostos.” It was the king. It was a command.

Aeacus turned to him with a flush of anger. “My brother-”

Minos was quick to forestall him. “Eunostos has risked his life to bring these children back to their mother. The Great Mother, I think, would wish him a final visit with them. In our household shrine, we worship her son in the form of a bull. Eunostos is closer to divinity than you and I.”

“May I see them in your garden with the pool of silver fish?”

Aeacus forgot to be angry. “You remembered my telling you about it? And that was three years ago!”

“You played there as a boy. It sounded so beautiful that I wanted to see it. And I want to see the children out-of-doors, not under a roof. For a little it will be almost like the forest again.”

He waited beside the pool. The silver fish idled among conch shells and coral. Blue lotuses languished in the bright sun, like maidens weary from the heat who had waded into the pool. Palm trees imported from Libya, and oleanders tapering their long green leaves from clusters of white and pink blossoms, and grapevines climbing trellises against the wall, and a single blue monkey scampering among the flowers with the insolence of possession: here was Kora’s dream, Aeacus’s truth.

Aeacus walked into the garden carrying Icarus and leading Thea by the hand. There were no guards with him. There seemed no need for guards, since the wall was too high to climb. Thea withdrew her hand and boldly approached Eunostos. Out of the forest, she did not seem to fear him. Perhaps, he thought, she remembers that only for a little while I seemed to her a horned demon. Perhaps she remembers me, at the first and at the last, as one who loved her.

She did not hug him but she smiled with a wise little smile and touched his hand.

He patted her hair; by accident, he brushed a curl away from a pointed ear. She carefully rearranged the curl and then returned to her father.

Icarus, meanwhile, seemed to be struggling out of sleep. He blinked his eyes, which were red as if from prolonged weeping. Then he recognized Eunostos. When he yelled, the blue monkey hid among the oleanders and the silver fish scattered among the conch shells.

He lunged from his father’s arms and Eunostos caught him and fell to his knees, laughing, and hugged him with wordless yearning, and loved him for Kora’s sake and as if he were his own son.

“Talk to him, Eunostos. Try to make him understand why he must stay here with me. He loves you best, I know that. But he must stay with me.”

“I don’t think he understands many of my words.”

“You don’t need words. You never did.”

Aeacus turned abruptly and walked into the palace with Thea, and Eunostos called after him. “Wait. Can’t she stay too?” But the mouth of the door was dark and silent. He knew that he had lost her, and the loss was as bitter as aconite, but Thea had never loved the forest. It was only fair, however painful for Kora, that one child should stay with her father and grow to become a queen.

Now he must act to save Icarus. Now there was no time for words, except to allay the suspicion of whatever guards might wait beyond the door.

“There ought to be a turtle,” he said. “Shall we go and look for one among the grapevines?”

Icarus nodded agreement-he would probably have nodded if Eunostos had said, “Shall I throw you into the pool?”-and Eunostos walked quietly to the far wall and prodded among the grapevines with his hoof, lifting, twisting, exposing. Yes, it remained, the old fissure through which Aeacus’s turtle had escaped into an adjacent courtyard opening onto a little-used street, and which Aeacus had never allowed to be filled with rubble or clay. Hastily Eunostos parted the vines to enlarge the opening. Small, small, but just large enough for Icarus, in spite of his hair.

“Zoe,” he whispered.

“Yes, Eunostos. I’m here at the other end. The courtyard’s empty. No one can see me from the street.”

“Thea isn’t coming. Call to Icarus.”

“Icarus, it’s your Aunt Zoe.”

“Go to her, Icarus.” Will you follow me? the child seemed to ask.

“Yes, I’ll follow you.” He kissed him on his green profusion of hair and thrust him as far into the opening as his hands could reach. It was the only lie he had ever told the boy. Even in happy Knossos there must be prisons for those who helped to kidnap a prince’s son. Probably there were executions. Never mind, if Zoe escaped from the city with Icarus.

He had just risen to his feet and walked to the pool when Aeacus returned.

“But you just left him,” Eunostos said calmly. “We were playing hide-and-seek. He’s hidden himself among the oleanders.”

“Call him then. You had best be starting back to the forest. Kora should know as soon as possible how things are. Tell her-tell her that she is still my Maiden.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“But where is Icarus?” Aeacus strode through the garden looking behind the bushes.

“He can’t have gone far, can he? There’s no way out of the garden except through that door. Or you wouldn’t have left me alone with him.”

“Except-” Aeacus stared at the torn vines against the wall. “You remember more than I thought. Guards!”

The garden was suddenly aswarm with lithe young Cretans, faces taut, hands on daggers.

“My son has been stolen by-who was it, Eunostos? Who came with you and waited beyond the wall?”

“I came by myself.”

“I don’t believe you. You love Icarus too much to thrust him out into the city alone. It can’t have been Kora. She couldn’t have made the journey. It was Zoe, wasn’t it? Yes, it must have been. She would have both the courage and the strength.” And he gave a hurried description to the guards. “Rather large. Handsome in a weathered kind of way. Hair probably dyed or concealed. No doubt dressed like a peasant. She will have hidden Icarus under her robe. Alert the garrison. Let no one leave the city.”

But there must be a thousand women in Knossos who fitted such a description, and the city had no walls and a very small garrison. Zoe indeed had courage and strength. And roads, crowded with carts and asses and oxen and peasants, led in many directions.

But then the cry, the beloved and shattering cry. “Zeus-father!”